History of Shelburne New Hampshire

HISTORY
OF
SHELBURNE,
NEW HAMPSHIRE,

BY
MRS. R. P. PEABODY

GORHAM, N. H.
MOUNTAINEER PRINT
1882

Part I

• CHAPTER I
  • Topography 1
• CHAPTER II
  • The First Settlers 3
  • Hope Austin 4
  • Daniel Ingalls 5
  • Fletcher Ingalls 7
  • Stephen Messer 9
  • Thomas Hubbard 12
  • Thomas Green 13
  • Samuel Wheeler 17
  • Evans and Clemens 19
  • Jonathan Peabody 23
  • Jonathan Lary 25
  • Dearborn Lary 25
  • Nathaniel Porter 25
• CHAPTER III
  • Industries 27
  • Saw Mills 35The Winthrop House 36
  • The St. Charles 36
  • The Philbrook House 37
  • The Lead Mine 37
  • The Stock Farm 42
• CHAPTER IV
  • Travelling Facilities 42
• CHAPTER V
  • Churches 52
  • Schools 60
• CHAPTER VI
  • Amusements 67
• CHAPTER VII
  • The Indians 78
  • Shelburne’s Soldiers 82
• CHAPTER VIII
  • Burying Grounds 89

Part II

• History of The Shelburne Lead Mine 96
• The White Mountain Stock Farm 105
• APPENDIX 120

PART I

CHAPTER I

HISTORY OF SHELBURNE
BY MRS. R. P. PEABODY

TOPOGRAPHY

The town of Shelburne is situated in Northern New Hampshire, eighty-six miles from Portland, Me., and twelve miles from the foot of Mt. Washington. The Androseoggin river divides it nearly in the centre, receiving the waters off two parallel ranges mountains. Rattle river is the largest tributary on the southern side, and Lead Mine brook on the northern.

The town is only six miles square, bounded north by Success, east by Gilead, Me., south by Bean’s Purchase and west by Gorham, formerly Shelburne Addition. The intervales vary from a few rods to half a mile in width, and were formerly covered, as the encircling mountains are now, by a mixed growth of spruce, hemlock, pine and hard wood. Mt. Moriah is the highest elevation, 4771 feet in height. A signal station was established there in 1879 with a telephonic communication with Gorham.

All the smaller wild animals abound, while bears, fishercats and deer are occasionally seen. The scenery is varied and lovely to those artistic enough to appriciate it. We heard a lady artist say that nowhere had she seen such rich autumnal coloring as in Shelburne. Several picturesque spots may be found on Lead Mine brook, and the little flat called the Garden is used as a camping ground by tourists. On the north side of Mt. Winthrop is Moses rock so called, sixty feet high, and rising at an angle of fifty degrees. In the winter water trickles over it, forming a beautiful ice cascade. Near by was the Granny Starbird rock, where the old doctress held her horse by the bridle through a stormy night. It has since been split up for railroad bridges and underpinnings. On Peabody brook, between Red Hill and Baldrap are Shelburne Falls. In the spring they can be seen two thirds the length of the town, appearing like a great drift of snow. A party of gentlemen who stopped at the Sr. Charles House cut a path along the bank of the brook, and the Falls are one of the objects of interest to summer visitors.

Baldrap, as the name implies, is a bare ledge at the top, and in height ranks next to Moriah. It is easy to ascend

and affords a delightful view. A little pond of clear, cool water near the summit was christened Dream Lake by some romantic visitor. In a good season blueberries are plenty on all the mountains on the north side of the river, furnishing food for the bears, and enough to spare for anyone who chooses to carry them off the hills.

The town was granted in 1770 by George III to Mark Wentworth and six others, and was surveyed by Theodore Atkinson the same year. In 1820 when it was incorporated, the population was 230. In 1859 it was 480, but after the building of the G. T. R. and the establishment of the machine shops and lumber mills at Gorham the younger people kept moving away, till by the last census the population is only 259.

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST SETTLERS

To avoid repetition and confusion, we shall only in this chapter give a brief notice of some of the older families, tracing them down to the present generation, and reserve an account of their industries, convenience for travel, churches, schools &e… for subsequent chapters. The same spirit of unrest that drove our forefathers from England to the forbidding shores of Massachusetts, urged their descendants to leave their growing towns and cultivated farms of that prosperous State, and seek a home in the gloomy forests of northern New Hampshire. Among the first to leave the comforts of civilized society for the dangers and privations of the wilderness was Hope Austin.

HOPE AUSTIN

Hope Austin who came to Shelburne more than a hundred years ago, and began a clearing on the north side of the river, near the Main line. The snow was five feet deep when his wife walked up from Bethel carrying one child in her arms while two others clung to her skirts. With reckless improvidence hardly excusable, Mr. Austin had neglected to provide even temporary shelter for his little family. But spruce boughs were handy, and in a short time a roof was thrown over the log cabin, some rough boards nailed together for a door, the snow shoveled out and a fire built between stones or green logs. here they lived making occasional improvements until prosperity enabled him to build a more convenient frame house.

Of the family of five, Mary and Judith remained single. Lydia and Hannah married Samuel Wheeler, James married Sally, daughter of Joseph Lary, Jr., of Gilead, and built a handsome two-story house a little below his father’s. Of his children, John and Caverno died, and Dearborn married Rose, daughter of Rev. Ezekiel Coffin, and lived at home till after the death of his father, when he moved to Gilead, and the name of Shelburne’s first resident was dropped from her annals.

Mr. Hope Austin is remembered by elderly people of today as a pleasant spoken old gentleman, very much bent, walking back and forth from his house to the mill with his hands clasped behind him; and the Austins, as a family, were pleasant, hospitable and industrious.

DANIEL INGALLS

Daniel Ingalls lived just across the river, and was Mr. Austin’s nearest neighbor. He was much esteemed for his high moral character. Religion was part of his daily life, but he was cheerful and could even make a dry joke now and then. One spring he killed a moose and according to custom, invited his neighbors to go out and haul in what they wanted. For some reason Mr. Austin failed to go, but the next day he happened in just as the deacon’s family were sitting down to dinner.

” Won’t you have a piece of roast moose meat, Mr. Austin? ” inquired Mr. Ingalls pleasantly.

” I don’t care if I do” sniffing the savory steam and putting up his hand to remove a quid of tobacco.

“Well” was the unexpected response, “you can have all you want by going out after it.”
Moses oldest son, was a sailor; energetic, resolute, and rather rough. It is said his prospective mother-in-law said to him, jocosely: ” Nancy will hold your nose to the grindstone, Mr. Ingalls.”

“I’ll give you leave to turn, ma’am, when she does.” was his defiant answer.

He married Nancy Barker, and lived near where C. J. Lary now does. Daniel, his son, married Mary Barker, and cleared a farm on Ingalls’ brook, where his widow now lives with her son Henry and his family. Fredrick, second son of Moses, married Susan Heath, died in his prime, and his descendants moved away.

Robert, third son of Moses, married Rowena Hills, and bought the farm on Clemens brook, cleared by the Evanses. He was one of the most prominent men in the place, filling many offices with honor and ability. It is remarked of him, as of the late J. R. Hitchcock, ” He always recognized an acquaintance, rich or poor, high or low, with the same readiness and courtesy.” It is a trait of character well worth cultivating by many. His daughter Caroline, a most estimable lady, died in Gorham in 1870, when the typhoid fever was such a contagious and fatal disease. Rufus married Emeline, great-grandaughter of Capt. Joseph Lary of Gilead. She also died during the epidemic, and several years after Mr. Ingalls married Hattie McKenty. His son, Fredrick, only fifteen years old, edits a small paper, called the Little Messenger.

FLETCHER INGALLS

Fletcher Ingalls, the younger son of Deacon Daniel, like his father, was of a very high moral nature. Every birth-day he religiously kept as a day of fasting and prayer. At a time when intoxicating liquors were free, almost as water, he was a firm advocate of temperance. The Cold Water Army, an organization designed to embrace the youth of both sexes, was his conception, and the first temperance lecture given here was by his appointment. He married Mercy Lary, who died shortly after the birth of her child. For many years her sister kept house for Mr. Ingalls, and cared for his little daughter Polly, who married Barker Burbank, son of Capt. Eliphalet Burbank of Gilead. Mr. Burbank was a practical farmer, a successful merchant, and a lawyer of considerable ability. He built a large, handsome house a short distance from his father-in-law, acquired a comfortable fortune, and reared a family of fourteen children. Only two remain in town. Payson married Mary Smith, and has six sons, enough to perpetuate the family name, and Martin, who married Mary, grandaughter of Capt. Joseph Pinkham, one of the first Settlers of Jackson.

Judge Robert Burbank, of Boston, now owns the homestead, and has added to it till his is estate is the largest in town. A more extended description of the house and grounds will be given in a chapter devoted to the stock farm. The Ingalls’ have always borne a stainless name, and in wealth a social position, in age and rank, as one of the first families of Shelburne.

STEPHEN MESSER

Fortune, as well as Justice, is blind and fickle, and her gifts are bestowed more by chance than merit. Although as worthy as his neighbors, Stephen Messer was very poor, and often sorely troubled to provide food for his little ones. Fortunately, they had a cow, and her milk gave a relish to potatoes, and hasty pudding when nothing else, not even salt could be obtained. Once not a potato nor bit of meal remained. The only article of food in the house was a little pat of unsalted butter. Samuel, three or four years old, went up to the shelf and running his fore finger through it, put some in his mouth. When one of the older children directed Mrs. Messer’s attention to him, the poor, discouraged mother burst into tears, exclaiming: ” Do let the poor little dear eat it if he can. “

But their scanty allowance did not seem to shorten the lives or weaken the constitution of the family. Perhaps, Like Dr. Tanner, when they got something to eat they made up lost time.

John, one of the sons, married Sally Peabody, and always worked out, dying at a good old age as poor as in his childhood. Luck, good or bad, runs in the blood, like consumption or scrofula, and a man is no more to blame for being poor than he is for being bald headed or near sighted. Uncle John, as he was familiarly called, was a great hunter, or rather was fond of hunting, for one of his old acquaintences says he was so cowardly he’d climb an alder bush with his snowshoes on if he saw so much as a flock of wild ducks. One spring he went out deer-hunting in company with Enoch and Allan Peabody. They went as far as Success, and Allan, who was suffering with sick headache, wanted to stop over night at Ben Bean’s; but Mr. Messer insisted on returning. It was growing dark; the crust was like glare ice, and presently Uncle John’s snow-shoes went out from under him, and away he went down the hill, shouting at the top of his voice, ” I’m gone, I’m gone, sartin as creation!” Sticking their axe in the snow, the young men let themselves carefully down the steep incline. Directed by his loud lamentations they soon found the clumsy old gentleman hung up in a spruce tree. With difficulty he was set to rights, and then the axe was lost, and Allan was too sick and cold to care if the whole party had been lost. Evidently they could not go on till day light, and Enoch started a fire and tended it all night with such fuel as he could find and break up.

Nancy Messer, a daughter of Stephen, married Amos Peabody, and after living in Gilead and Randolph came to Shelburne and settled on Peabody brook, where three of their children, Aaro, Nancy and Allan, still reside. Four others, Hannah, esther, Bathsheba and Elmira, died of consumption while in youth. Stephen married Hepzibeth Evans and cleared the adjoining farm. He was intimately connected with the town business, and also with the affairs of the church. He was never very strong but lived to the age of fifty when he died with that scourge of his family, consumption. His widow lived on the home farm with her son Roswell till her death last December. Enoch, another son of Amos Peabody, married Judith Wheeler and lived several years next farm to his brother Stephen. Then he moved to Berlin and subsequently to Stark. In the cellar over which his house stood is growing a white birch tree, four feet in circumference.

Betsy Messer, daughter of Stephen Messer, went to Andover to live with an aunt, where she met and married Thomas Hubbard.

THOMAS HUBBARD

They lived at Andover, Dracut and Bradford before they came to Shelburne. Mrs. Hubbard rode from Massachusetts on horse-back, and the rough log on the hillside must have looked very uninviting. They reared a large family of children, experiencing all the discomforts that usually fall to the lot of people with limited means and a growing family. Afterwards they lived on the farm now owned by John Head, and finally settled near the top of what is now known as the Great Hill. Of their children, Erastus and Rufus married daughters of Abraham Wilson and removed to Whitefield. Enoch and Leonard married daughters of Amos Peabody. Jefferson married a daughter of George Green and for twenty-five years was station agent of the G. T. R. at Shelburne. No other proof is need of his honesty and fidelity. Maria Hubbard married Joshua Kendall, and her daughter Pamela is the wife of Dr. Green of Portland.

We were shown a looking-glass and a warming-pan that formed part of the household goods of Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Hubbard, and were brought from Massachusetts nearly three quarters of a century ago. The names of Messer, Peabody and Hubbard are closely entwined, and their descendants comprise a large proportion of our present population.

THOMAS GREEN

Some people have a faculty for making money under the most adverse circumstances, while in others this faculty is wholly lacking. Although Mr. Green began a home in the heart of the forest, by good calculation and economy he not only made a living, but laid up considerable property. In his old age his mind became feeble and disordered, and though worth enough to buy half the town, he was haunted by a fear of starvation. One evening in early spring he came out of his room with slippers on, and went out at the back door. He was never seen again. His footsteps were followed across the intervale on to the river. The dark swift-flowing water told the rest. Whether he meditated suicide or wandered aimlessly on, unthinking of the open channel, will never be known.

Edward, a son of Thomas, married Nacy Birdin. Twenty-one of his family reside in town. Three children, Lyman, Darins and Mason, ten grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.

George, another son of Thomas, when he became of age, received one hundred dolloars in cash, and a piece of land on the Magalloway. Not liking to settle so far from his friends, George sold this land and bought a lot just across the river from home. Unlike some young men who begin at the top and tumble down, Mr. Green began at the bottom and climbed up. He built a tiny house containing only a kitchen and bedroom, took a boy by the name of Able Walker, and set up housekeeping for himself. Three or four years after he married Hannah Lary, a young sister of James Austin’s wife. As fast as his means allowed he built additions till in 1817 it was a long, two-story house, with large square rooms above and below. It was now furnished for a tavern, and for more than fifty years afforded accommodation for the traveling public. People from Lancaster ( Upper Coos ) on their way to Portland, frequently fifteen or twenty double teams at once, stopped here to bait their horses and take something to comfort themselves. Of course it was dreadful wrong, (taking something, we mean, not baiting the horse ) but why was it any worse to step up to the bar before a whole roomful, toss down a glass of sweetend water, or anything else, than it is now to wink to ones bosom friend, go around A’s barn, drink the same stuff, only nastier, from a little black bottle, and come back with such an absurd look of innocence and unconciousness? Let us be consistent, and not hold up our hands in holy horror at the motes in our ancestors eyes while the beam remains our own.

When the Grand Trunk railroad was built, the glory of Green’s tavern departed. Mr. Green was an honest, plain-spoken man. It is said of him knowingly, he would not defraud a person of a single cent. His two daughters married and lived near, and his widow died in 1879, at the advanced age of eighty-two years.

Jonas, youngest son of Thomas was a hard-working, stern, and rather unsocial man, but his life’s history is invested with a romance worthy the skillful pen of an accomplished novelist. His first choice for a wife was Rachel Lary. The day was set for the wedding and part of her things had been carried to the new home, but Death suddenly appeared and claimed the bride for his own. After a suitable time, Mr. Green transferred his affections to her sister Mercy, and married her. She died in a few years, and their only child, a little daughter, was also taken, leaving Mr. Green again alone. He afterwards married the youngest sister, Susannah, who survives him. His eldest son, Thomas, married Colossia Coffin, and was killed in Naples, Me., by a falling chimney. Last summer, Oliver, the youngest son of Jonas, bought the Green tavern stand and remodeled it for a summer boarding house. He is an experienced hotel proprietor, and reported wealthy.

Mr. Jonas Green lived on the home place till the death of his parents, then on the farm now owned by Charles Philbrook, and finally on the Jewett farm. His last sickness was rather distressing, but he bore it as he did the many disappointments and perplexities of his life, with patience and fortitude, feeling assured of unbroken rest and happiness in eternity.

Eunice Pratt was a sister of Thomas Green’s wife, and came with them from Massachusetts. During the twenty years that Mrs. Green suffered with consumption Aunt Eunice faithfully cared for her and attended to the housework. She lived to see two generations grow up around her and the forest give place to fertile farms. She died on the home place, of cancer, nearly thirty years ago.

SAMUEL WHEELER

Samuel Wheeler was an old revolutionary soldier, and dearly loved to recount the dangers he had passed and the privations he had endured. One of his stories was this: A squad of about forty Continentals were fired upon by a party of Tories lying in ambush. With ready presence of mind the commanding officer ordered one hundred to keep the road, and the rest to scour the woods. Thinking they had more than met their match, the Tories fled in confusion, firing their guns in the air. ” I did hate ” said the old man, ” to see them waste their powder so.” When we remember what difficulty the Continental army had to get ammunition, the force of his remark will be appreciated. Mr. Wheeler’s clearing was on the Ingalls brook close to the base of the mountain, where the sun lay warmly till past noon, and the cold north-west winds could not strike. In the cold season of 1816, when snow fell every month of the year, he was the only one whose corn got ripe enough to grow again. The next year he sold it for two dollars a bushel. His daughter Lucy kept his home many years, and afterwards lived with her brother Amos, who married Lydia Gould and moved to Milan. He made spinning wheels and regulated clocks.

Samuel Jr., was a licensed preacher, and in the absence of a regular minister conducted the religious exercises of the place. He married the Austin sisters, Lydia and Hannah. The children were Austin, Joseph, Samuel, Anna, Margaret and Judith.

Austin was a freewill Baptist minister, talented and well educated. Judith married Enoch Peabody and moved to Stark, where two of her daughters, Mrs. James Dodge and Mrs. James Larrabee still reside.

Anna was Mrs. Reuben Hobart, and Margaret, or Aunt Peggy, as she was familiarly called, lived with Samuel, and died single.

Samuel married Eliza, daughter of Life Burbank, by whom he had four children. Years after when his second wife died leaving a family of four little ones, his daughter Betsy, only sixteen or seventeen years old, took charge, and with a patience and self-abnegation farely equalled, stayed with the orphan children till the youngest sister was capable of managing her father’s house. A few years ago Mr. Wheeler bought the Austin farm, where he now lives, and his son Ellery owns the home place. This is the only farm in town that has descended from father to son in a direct line for four generations. We wish more pride of ancestry were felt in this country, and farms redeemed from forest might be bequeathed to children for centuries, a priceless legacy cutailed by love, if not by law.

EVANS AND CLEMENS

Jonathan Evans and Benjamin Clemens came to Shelburne at the same or nearly the same time. They were both soldiers of the Revolution, and probably both stationed at Fort Ticonderoga.

Daniel Evans, son of Jonathan, married Phila Clemens, and cleared the farm owned by Otis Evans. He was a man of influence and wealth, owning what is now four farms. He injured himself while fighting fire, and for several years before his death was a mental and physical wreck.

Jonathan Evans Jr., married Mary Lary and lived on the Charles Philbrook farm. He was a large portly man, and his three sons, Hazen, Jabez and Augustus, living in Gorham, resembled him in this particular. Since writing this above we heard the death of Mr. Augustus Evans. He was already to go into the woods to work and on retiring set the alarm on the clock that he might rise early. At about the time he intended to rise he was found in a dying condition by his housekeeper.

Sarah, a daughter of the elder Jonathan, was left behind when the rest of the family moved here, and owing to imperfect communication was lost sight of. Many years after, a person from Coos county happened to be at Plainfield and stopped at the house of a Mr. Gates. Mrs. Gates was interested at once, and after learning their names an antecedents, was convinced that they were her own folks. The next year, in company with her son Jefferson, she sought them out. The reunion must have been more sad than pleasant. Her parent, whom she had last seen in the prime of life, were bowed down with age; the little brothers were middle-aged men, and she herself a gray-haired, wrinkled woman. Eventually her husband, Bazeleel Gates, moved here with his family, and bought the farm owned by William Newell. Caleb, the youngest son, married Bathsheba Porter and remained home. They had four children, Woodbury, Cass, Matilda and Frank. Matilda died at Newburyport about ten years ago. Woodbury married a daughter of Hazen Evans, and owns a meat and grocery store in Gorham.

Jefferson Gates married Maria Porter, and lived on the farm adjoining his brothers Caleb’s. His widow survives him, and remains on the home farm with her son Henry and his family.

Simeon Evans was a brother to Jonathan, and came from Massachusetts about the same time. Ezekiel, Elijah, Lydia and John were his children. Speaking of his cousin Daniel, Ezekiel said: ” Daniel has got a corn-fed wife, but I’m going to get one fed on gingerbread.” so he went back to Massachusetts, won his wife and brought her here on horse-back. The most conspicuous article among her wedding finery was a lilac silk bonnet, which was the envy and admiration of all her neighbors. They lived just below Mr. Hazeltine’s, in the ruined, deserted house still standing, and raised a large family of children. Only Mrs. Moses Hazeltine remains in town. Parker Evans, one of the grandchildren, is a highly esteemed and efficient engineer of the G. T. R..

Elijah, another son of Simeon, lived on the Hitchcock interval. His son Henry married Joanna Leighton, and built the Hitchcock cottage, where he lived several years. Afterward he bought the place now owned by his son-in-law, Trustem Minard.

John Evans, a third son of Simeon, died while at work on Thomas Green’s house. The frame was partly up, and standing on top, Mr. Evans reached down to lift a heavy stick, and pitched headlong into the cellar. It was supposed he broke a blood-vessel from over-exertion. He left seven little children, among whom were Mrs. Abraham Wilson and Mrs. Palmer, twins.

Mr. Clemens had a large family, but none of his descendants are now in town except those connected with the Evans’.

John married Dolly Jackson and had eleven sons and one daughter; enough, one would think to keep a man from dying dependent on the town, as he did.

Typhena married Thomas Jackman and lived where Moses Hazeltine does. Mr. Jackman died suddenly of heart disease while yet a young man. He cut two cords of wood on the day of his death, and came into the house at night in his usual health. Taking up his little daughter he talked and played with her for some time. “Now I must go and tie the cattle.” he said, putting her down with a kiss, ” be a good girl till I come back.” Mrs. Jackman got her super ready and looking out for her husband was surprised to see the cattle still in the yard. It was dark in the barn, but she went in and felt round on the floor, fearing he might have fallen from the scaffold. Failing to find him she got a light and called Ezekiel Evans. As he opened the tie-up door, the first object the wife’s horrified eyes rested upon was the lifeless form of her husband. Sabrina, the eldest, married Bostie Head; Eliza, Sewell Lary, and Barak, Arvilla, grandaughter of John Evans.

JONATHAN PEABODY

It is a popular legend in his family that two brothers of the name came over from England in the May Flower. Soon after their arrival one of them died, and all the Peabody’s in this country are descendants of the survivor.

Jonathan Peabody came from Andover when a young man, married Phobe Kimball of Bethel, and lived on the farm now owned by Horace Green. He had five children, Priscilla, ( Mrs. Ben Bean ) Phebe, Sally, ( Mrs. John Messer ) Amos and Oliver. He afterward married Pudence Patterson, a widow with three children, Betsy, Jennie and Hosea. From this marriage there were five more children. Mercy, ( Mrs. Amos Evans ) Philena, Charlotte, ( Mrs. Nathan Newall ) Asa and Jonathan.

Oliver Peabody married Susy Messer and lived with his father. His children were John, Loami, Nancy, ( Mrs. Noah Gould ) Eliza, Betsy, Sally, who married Peter Runnels and lived and died in the house now owned by Sylvester Hubbard, and Samuel, who married Lovisa Clemens for his first wife, by whom he had several children. Only one lived to grow up, Lovisa Ann.

Jonathan Peabody, Jr., had three wives. His first wife and the brother, of his children, was Eliza Coffin of Gilead. Three of his children, Warren, Augustus and Eiza, married respectively, Mary, Lydia and Charles Tenny. Eveline married Madison Gilehrist; Eldridge, Angie Perham; Oravel, Maria Wight, and they all settled in Londonderry. Augustus died in 1865. Oravel lost two children about the same time, and his wife never recovered from this affliction. She died soon after, and her infant boy was adopted and brought back to Betel by her sister, Mrs. Ed Holt. Josh Billings says of his ancesters. ” None of them have ever been hung, as far back as I’ve traced them.” We can say the same of the Peabody’s, and add none of them deserved hanging either. With a few exceptions, they have all been farmers and farmers’ wives, and as a family honest, industrious and frugal.

JONATHAN LARY

Jonathon Lary, a son of Joseph Lary, Jr., married Susan Burbank, a sister of Barker Burbank, and cleared the farm now owned by Daniel Evans. They had five children, Rachel and Elmira, twins, Selbina, Voltaire and Churchill.

DEARBORN LARY

Dearborn Lary was a son of Capt. Joseph Lary of Gilead. He married Polly Chandler, a sister of John Chandler, and had a large family of children. Frank lives on the old homestead with his family. Elan married and sttled in Gorham, and his mother and two sisters, Hannah and Deborah, reside with him.

NATHANIEL PORTER

Nathaniel Porter lived just below the stock farm, and had a family of seven girls and one boy. From the little we have been able to learn he seems to have been a quiet, easy-tempered man, fond of fun and practicle jokes. He was the first blacksmith in town. The story of his shoeing the old buck so he might chase the boys on the ice, is familiar to many.

Col. Head was an uncle to Gov. Head. Two sons, Merrill and Bostie, settled here. Elsie married Hazen Evans. We have space only to mention the names of Jerimiah Gould and his son Noah, Jonathan Bullard and his son Dr. Bazeleel, John Chandler, Sam and Edwin Thompson and William Newell and his descendants.

In later times Harvey Philbrook was a prominent and popular man. He furnished a good illustration of the advantages of natural gifts over school education without those. He filled every town office from highway surveyor to representative, did a large and lucrative business in buying and selling cattle, and acquired a handsome property. He died in the prime of his life, regretted by all who knew him.

Dr. Oliver Howe was a student of Dr. John Grover, and came here when quite a young man. He married Esther Burbank, built the house now known as the Winthrop House, and is the only physician who ever live in Shelburne for any length of time. Hiram Cummings owned the upper half of the Great Island, and the farm opposite. He was a successful book farmer, as experimenters are derisively called. He sold out to John Wilson, and moved to Paris, Me., about two years ago.

Of the old names, Evans is still borne by twenty individuals, Hubbard by seventeen, Green by thirteen, and the descendants of those three families comprise more than one third of our present population.

CHAPTER III

INDUSTRIES

For many years people could only attend to clearing the land and raising food for their growing families. The largest and straightest trees were reserved for the frames of new houses; shingles rived from the clearest of pines; baskets, chair bottoms, cattle bows, etc, made from brown ash butts, and all the rest were piled and burned on the spot. Thousands of timber and cords of wood were thus consigned to the flames as of no practicle value. Corn, potatoes, wheat and rye grew abundantly on the new soil, enriched by fallen leaves of many centuries. Plenty of sugar could be had for the the making, and moose, deer and the delicious brook trout were free to all, regardless of the game officer.

Next to the actual necessity of something to eat, comes something to wear, and on every clearing could be see a little patch of blue blossomed flax. This was pulled, broken, combed, carded, spun and woven, entirely by hand, and made into tow pants and tow and linen shirts for men’s summer wear, into serviceable checked dresses and aprons, and the nicest of bed and table linens. A day’s work was spinning two double skeins of linen, carding and spinning double skeins of tow, or weaving six yards, and for a week’s work a girl received fifty cents. Mrs. James Austin has had a hundred yards of bleaching at once.

Wool was worked up about the same way, and all through the fall and winter the irritating scratch, scratch, of the cards, the hoarse hum of the big wheel, the flutter of the flies on the little wheel, and the rattling of the loom machinery, made cheerful music in the dismal log houses. Much more enlivening to some minds than the heavy, resonant wailing of the modern organ.

Piles of fleecy blankets and stockings were packed away against the marriage of the girls. Pressed quilts were part of the outfit, lasting for years, often to the third generation.

Mrs. Hepzibeth Peabody had one over fifty years. It was originally a bright green lined with straw color, and quilted with blue in inch squares. Mrs. Arron Peabody had a blue one quilted in little fans. Mrs. George Green had several. One was quilted in feather work with a border of sun-flower leaves, and then cross quilted in straight lines. Mrs. Eziliel Evans was generally called upon to mark the patterns, and the best quilter was the belle of the company.

Overcoats were just a trifle less hideous than the ulster. For while the ulster comes only in somber gray, the old-fashioned overcoat was bright as a flower garden. Ben Bean had one made of red, green and brown plaid, a gorgeous affair, even for those days. Ladies’ cloaks were made of similar plaid; about four breadths plaited on a deep yoke. Put one of these cloaks next to a pumpkin hood on to the dearest girl in the world, and you couldn’t tell her from her grandmother. To keep the snow from getting into low shoes, gaily striped socks were worn, and every child could knit double mittens in herring-bone or fox and geese pattern. Peggy Davis could knit the alphabet, and in a pair of mittens she once knit for Barker Burbank she inscribed a verse. Other took pride in knitting remarkably fast. Many could knit a pair of double mittens in a day; but the best job in that line was done by Nancy Peabody. Her brother Allan came out of the woods and wanted a pair of mittens as he had lost his. There was no yarn in the house, nor rolls, but plenty of wool. Miss Peabody was equal to the emergency. She carded, spun, scoured out and knit a pair of mittens, (white) and had them ready to wear into the woods the next morning.

Money may be the root of all evil, but like poor rum, many people want it bad enough to run all risks. No sooner had the new settlers begun to be comfortable than they cast about them for ways and means to make money. The nearest market was Portland, eighty-six miles away. Hey, grain and potatoes were too bulky to pay transportation; but Yankee ingenuity soon overcame that difficulty. The hay and grain was transformed into butter, cheese, pork or beef. Wood was condensed into potash, and in that state was easily carried away. The process of making potash is quite complicated and interesting. The wood was cut eight to ten feet long, piled, and burned to ashes. Leeches capable of holding ten or fifteen bushels were placed over a through made from a large tree, and the lye boiled down to a black, sticky substance called salt. Sometimes it was sold in this state at $5.00 a hundred, but where business of any amount was done, it was further reduced to potash. Then it was dissolved, boiled down again and baked in a long brick oven till changed to a white powder, called pearlash, which was used in bread. Mrs. Enoch Hubbard informs us that she got her first print dress by bringing ashes off the hill and selling them for nine pence a bushel.

With a more liberal supply of money came the chance for some enterprising fellow to set up store. Thomas Green, Jr., was the first merchant, and had a potash manufactory in connection with his store on the Jewett farm. years after, George Green and Robert Ingalls opened a store, first as a partnership, then separately. The Bisbee brothers and William Hebbard each tried trading, but were uncuccessful.

Now-a-days a man would hardly accept a bushel of corn as a gift if he had to carry it to a Fryeburg grist-mill on his back; yet, seventy-five years ago, every neccessary of life was carried in that way or hauled on the light, flexible hand sleigh. The first grist-mill was put up by the Austins on Mill brook. William Newell, Sr., worked there after he sold out to Mr. Gates. Afterward saws were put in, and Stephen Peabody sawed the lumber for his house on shares. Clear pine boards, twenty-four inches wide, only cost him six dollars a thousand. Still later the Newell brothers put in machinery for sawing shingles and spool wood. The mill was washed away in the freshet of 1878, and has not been rebuilt. Another grist-mill stood on Scales’ creek, now called State-line brook. When William Newell, Jr., lived in Berlin, he used to carry a bushel of corn to the mill, stop and do a day’s work for Barker Burbank, and carry his meal home at night. This was before the ten hour system of work. On Clemens’ brook were two saw mills; one owned by Lawson Evans and one by Jefferson Hubbard. The Wheelers owned one on Ingalls brook, and Enoch Hubbard one on Lead Mine brook. All these mills were local conveniences, not money-making enterprises.

The earliest carpenters were Mr. Peabody and his son Oliver. C. J. Lary’s old barn was framed by them, and was the second framed barn in town. Of shoemakers we have Thomas Hubbard, Moses Harlowe, Richard Boswell and John Burbank. Col. Porter was the first blacksmith, followed by John Chandler, Summer Chipman, James Hall and Isiah Spiller. Joseph Conner made cart wheels. He was working for Harvey Philbrook one day, and the conversation turned on the wholesale destruction of pine timber. With considerable irritation the old man exclaimed: ” In a few years there won’t be a pine tree to lay your jaws to!”

Some men made a living making sap-buckets, ox-yokes or sleds. Others shaved shingles. It looks to be slow work, but Aaron Peabody could turn off thousands a day, and a building once covered could be warranted to last a life time. One of R. P. Peaboy’s barns was covered with pine singles, shaved by his grandfather more than fifty years ago, and last fall the overlapped end was found perfectly sound. Picking up a handful for kindling we saw one marked H. P. S. in large, handsome capitals.

Fifty years distant in the past, yet how easy for the imagination to picture the clearing, a tiny island in the forest sea, the rough log house, and the young fellow in homespun clothes, idly cutting letters in the smooth white surface of a new pine shingle.

Were they his own initials, or did they stand for a rosy face, lit up by sweet, shy eyes, smoothly braided hair and little brown hands hardened by incessant spinning and weaving. We were fast losing ourselves in a possible romance, when our matter-of-fact companion suggested that they might have been made by Henry Smith, when as boys they played together on the scaffold. Twenty-five years ago Judge Ingalis had a brick-yard near the present residence of I. W. Spiller, employing four or five men. Part of the bricks were used to build a coal kiln near the bridge crossing. Mr. Jacob Stevens did a good business burning coal and hauling it to the Glen. It is a tedious and rather disagreeable way of making money, but he was one of those steady, perservering men who do well at anything they undertake.

Logging has always been a standard industry, and the timber holds out like the widow’s meal and oil. All the pine went first. Nothing else was fit for building purposes in those days. The old-fashioned tables, two and a half feet wide, made from a single board without a knot or blemish, the beautiful ceiling and floor in old houses are enough to make a man’s heart ache with envy, particularly if he has just been using spruce boards so narrow that when laid seem to be two thirds cracks. A Mr. Judkins from Brunswick, was one of the first contractors, paying from .75 to $1.00 per thousand, delivered on the river. Years later Stephen Peabody hauled from Success for $1.83 per thousand. Barker Burbank was agent for the undivided lands, and did an extensive business. It was while in his employ that Amos Wheeler and Samuel Phipps, brother of the late Peter Phipps, were burned to death in a camp up Dead River. The unfortunate men were so nearly consumed that they could only be identified by the length of the charred bones. Millions of nice timber have been taken from the intervales, and as much more from the uplands and hillsides. Mason Green has quite a handsome growth back on the ridge. Others have reserved small tracts of second growth, but no pine trees of size can now be found. The Lead Mine Valley has always been famous for nice spuce and hemlock. For several successive years all the timber worth hauling has been taken out, yet this winter eight oxen, six horses and a dozen or so men are still finishing up. Our present industries outside farming are first, the saw mills.

SAW MILLS

Mr. Jewett’s on Rattle river is run by steam, and employs fifteen or twenty men, cutting, hauling and sawing spool wood, which is loaded on the cars at the siding, and sent to a Massachusetts market. Mr. Hubbard’s on Lead Mine brook can only run during the spring rise of water. They can work up a hundred and fifty cords of wood.

The summer hotels are not only a source of profit to the owners, but afford a home market for syrups, chickens, eggs, butter or berries.

THE WINTHROP HOUSE

At the village was formerly the Dr. Howe Stand. It accommodated thirty-five city boarders, and is open to transient company beside. Josh Billings stopped here one season, and spoke a good word for Shelburne through the columns of the New York Weekly. Longfellow also spent a day or two here, an absent-minded, dreamy old man he seemed to those who saw him. The Post Office is in this building, and Charles Hebbard proprietor of the house, is also postmaster.

THE ST. CHARLES

The St. Charles is situated on high land, two miles and a half from Gorham, and commands an extensive view–that is, if any view in the Androscoggin valley can be called extensive. Mr. Endicott, a western merchant, who has stopped here several seasons, gave $250 and the town raised an equal sum to expand on the road from Gorham line to the nearest river bridge.

Marked improvements were made near the brook above the school house and at Pea brook. Now if some generous soul would urge the expediency, and aid to cut off the top of the Great Hill and graft it to the bottom, we should embalm his memory in our hearts and daily pray that his path of life might be an easy grade.

THE PHILBROOK HOUSE

The Philbrook House is the largest and handsomest, though they receive only 25 guests. Good carriages and horses and careful drivers are ready to take visitors to all places of interest. Sometimes a gay party prefer a ride in the hay-rack and the sweet, shrill laughter of the girls accords with the singing as the blended music rises and falls in the summer twilight. Up the north side of the river, across the Great bridge down, the south side, and across the wire bridge at Gilead is round the square.

THE LEAD MINE

More than sixty years ago Amos Peabody discovered lead ore near the banks of the Great brook, since called Lead Mine brook; but it was not till twenty-five years later that New York capitalists became interested enough to investigate. A rich deposit of lead was found, and the mime first opened in the fall of 1846. Two shafts were sunk in the bed of the brook, and a tunnel projected thirty-five feet into the hillside. An engine pumped air into the shaft a water out of it, but the ore was hauled up by horses attached to a whimsey. Augustus Newell used to drive when the boys thought it fine to sit behind the horses and ride around the ring.

A large framed building was erected in the basement, of which was the heavy crushing machinery and smelting works. Above were pleasant rooms for the use of Mr. Lum. the superintendent, Mr. Farnham the boss, and others.

A dinning and cooking house, and several dwelling house made quite a village. Thomas Culhane, who married the oldest daughter of Enoch Emery, began housekeeping one of these log houses, and here their little son was born. James Howard lived across the brook a little below.

John Colby, the blacksmith, was an inventive genius, and for years followed that will-o-wisp perpetual motion. He had a wooden model that had run twelve years, and all his spare time while at the mine was spent in the vain effort to utilize his theories. He stuttered terribly, and was as homely a man as you’d meet in a day’s journey. Bearing this in mind, the point of the following incident will be see. In those days Natural Philosophy was not generally understood as now, and Mr. Colby’s assertion that we see a reflecting image instead of the object itself. All his arguments and explanations went for nothing. Everybody could see the absurdity. One day Jim Gordon stood at the door, looking intently at something outside.

“Wha–wha– what do you see?” inquired Colby, going toward him. Turning till his eye’s rested full upon the philosopher, Gordon replied with a comical expression of reluctant conviction:

” I give up. I can’t see anything but an image. “

Ed Merril and Enoch Hubbard built the big water wheel and did most of the carpenter work on the buildings.

The ore was hauled from the shaft to the water[house, as the framed house was called, crushed, sifted, washed, smelted and the lead ran into bars about two feet long. No effort was made to save the silver, and sometimes pieces of slag could be found as large as a man’s fist that when broken open looked like pure silver. Potter Smith hauled the leaden bars down Barker Burbank’s with an ox team, and from there they were transported to Portland. Probably the enterprise did not pay, for it was abandoned in 1849. Mr. Farnham and his family, consisting of his wife and seven children stayed through the summer at Mrs. Stephen Peabody’s, and then went back to New York as they came–in a covered carriage drawn by a pair of buckskin horses.

In 1856 a Mr. Pinch came on, hired some men and partially pumped out one shaft. A few blasts were put in, the ore on hand crushed and put in barrels, and the mine was again deserted. The dam rotted, and for many years the Shelburne Lead Mine was one of the interesting features of the past. Last spring rumors were afloat that the old mine was to be again worked. Of course the conservative natives took no stock in these reports. Had they not already seen the beginning but the end? But the watched the carriages coming and going over the grass grown road, and felt great interest in the strangers who were confidentially pointed out as members of a new mining company. E. M. Hubbard and sons built a dam, and soon after, four or five men under the direction of Mr. Johnson began to empty the shaft. The stagnant, milky looking water was very offensive, and many feared the foul gases would generate fevers, but nothing worse than headache and nausea was felt.

At a depth of seventy-five feet a piece of candle was found that must have been there for twenty-five years or more. A quantity of ore was sent away, and experts decided it was rich in silver and lead.

In October, 1880, Washington Newell contracted to put up a shaft-house and boarding house. The lumber was hauled from Gorham and the building ready for use in less than four weeks.

The mine seems to be a success. Fifteen or twenty men are employed there at present. Recently five hundred pounds of nice ore was taken out at three blasts. Mr. Holt is superintendent, and Mr. Johnson is connected with a contemplated mine in Gorham.

Several years ago Dr. Rowe, while at work on Mt. Hayes, was attracted by a glittering object on the other side of the pond. To gratify his curiosity he went over, and found it to be a lump of lead
projecting from a rock. Near by was a broken square indication that some one had previously been there. Dr. Rowe knocked off a piece of this lump and melted it in a spoon, but probably from lack of interest, he said nothing of his discovery.

Last fall Messrs Johnson and Culhane went out prospecting on Mt. Hayes, and report ore near the surface, the vein running towards the Shelburne mine. If there should prove to be a continuous line of lead ore from Shelburne to Gorham, mining could hardly fail to become a permanent and profitable industry. ( Click for continuation on page 96 )

THE STOCK FARM

A description of this valuable property which Shelburne proudly claims as all her own, we shall defer till later, when we hope to have the pleasure of visiting it ourselves.( Click for continuation on page 105 )

CHAPTER IV

TRAVELLING FACILITIES

Social intercourse is an imperative necessity, and where limited to a few, harmony and good will are much more likely to prevail. Crusoe could not belong angry with his man friday, and neighbors seperated by miles of gloomy forests, seldom find occasion to quarrel.

” Be sure. ” said one lady, and her assertion is repeated by others, ” Be sure and tell how much better people enjoyed themselves in those days than they do now. “

Is it really so, we wonder, or are everyone’s young days the best days? It can’t be the world is degenerating, for spite of many illustrations to the contrary, we cling to the belief that the divine is unchangeable. In the same circumstances, ” every human heart is human. ” Our grandparents were less selfish because more nearly equal. They were more social and neighborly because they had no outside resources, and they were more helpful because more dependent.

Doubly imprisoned by mountain walls and trackless forests, the early settlers seldom communicated with the outside world. Fryeburg was the nearest village, and people went there on foot, carrying their supplies on their backs in the summer, and in the winter using snow-shoes and hand-sleighs, which was much the easier way. Mrs. Oliver Peabody nee Susy Messer rode over from Fryburg on one of these light sleds, and they were always used to bring in large game.

When Amos Peabody lived at Gilead, he went out hunting with Daniel Lary, and they killed a moose up towards Success. The next day it was packed on the sled, hauled over the mountain to Milan, and then down the river, the journey requiring three days time. Girls were good walkers, and thought nothing of going from Capt. Evans’ to Fletcher Ingall’ to meeting, or from one end of town to the other to attend singing schools, huskings, dances or quiltings. One young walked over the mountains to attend protracted meeting at Milan. ” They had different preaching then. ” and it ought to have been if it cost so much to hear it.

Oxen were used for farm work, and as soon as roads could be cut, the teaming and most of the riding was done with them. Horses kept by a few, and long journeys were made on horseback. When Stephen Messer returned from a visit to Andover he brought in his hand a willow stick for a whip. On reaching home he drove the stick into the ground near his house, just above Moose river, Gorham, and the magnificent tree that sprang from it is the parent of all the English willows in this vicinity. Those in front of R. P. Peabody’s were broken from the Clemens willow, near Moses Wilson’s, and were planted by his sister Elvira and himself at least thirty-five years ago. horses were formerly supposed to be able to carry all you could pile on them, and it was no unusual thing for a man to take his wife and one or two small children up behind him. Capt. Daniel Evans and Phila Clemens rode across the river together when they went to Esq. Ingalls’ to be married; and twenty years later their daughters, Eliza and Hesy, rode to Lancaster to visit their aunt, Mrs. Gooddale. Sometimes accidents happened, a when John Clemens started to go to a dance with Dolly Jackson. Probably the clinging arms around the waist, or a bright face so near his own, kind of frustrated him, for he lost his bearings, got into a deep hole, and swashed poor Dolly around in the water till she was wet to her waist.

Sleighs were in use long before wagons were thought of. A lady of seventy-seven says she was out berrying when the first wagon she ever saw passed by, but when she told her folks of the “four wheeled carriage.’ they only laughed at her, never having heard of such a thing.

The roads naturally run along a near the intervales a possible, and no material change ever been made. From Manson Green’s to Churchill Lary’s it has been moved from the top of the hill to the base. From Andrew Jewett’s to the Gates place a similar change has been made. From Jotham Evans’ the road was through the farms were cut up in such narrow strips that Messrs Jotham and Henry Evans built a side hill road at their own expense. Near Moses’ Rock the rosd again diverged, coming out by the meeting house.

Longer ago than the “oldest inhabitant” can remember, a rope ferry run across from Mason Green’s intervale. Alfred Carlton kept a large boat that was sculled across, and later Enoch Hubbard put in a rope ferry against his intervale. The road came up from the river just below Moses Wilson’s. A English willow and a bed of red roses mark the site of a house on this road once occupied by Benjamin Clemens.

After good roads were built and the teaming from the upper part of the country passed this way. Shelburne became a lively place. Three taverns found plenty of custom besides occasional company at Barker Burbank’s tavern and Capt. Evans’.

John Burbank’s tavern stand stood just back of Jotham Evans’ stable. A long, low, unpainted house, the sign hung on a post at the west end. Like all public places at that time, an open bar was kept where liquor sold for 3 cents a glass.

John Chandler’s, near Moses Rock, was two story, painted red with white trimmings. While at work here Jefferson Hubbard received the injury that crippled him for life, cutting his knee with a shave so badly as to cause a stiff joint.

George Green’s, at the village, was a stage station and Post Office, and the best Tavern between Lancaster and Portland. A huge guilt ball hung out from the ridge-pole, and on it in black letters was ” George Green, 1817. ” Jonas Wells and Jefferson Hubbard each served as hostlers and a hard berth it was. often they had to be up every hour in the night.

Horr Latham and others drove the stage to Lancaster twice a week. In the fall of 1845 Randall Pinkham made his first trip in the employ of Barker Burbank. He drove two horses, one forward of the other, on a single wagon, and his only passenger, from Lancaster was Lovisa Ann Peabody.

The August freshet in 1826, is remembered as a terrible flood, but probably there has been much larger rainfalls since. The banks of the rivers and brooks have worn away so much that now they hold a much larger volume of water. Peabody brook was a small, narrow stream, that one might step across, but according to eye witnesses a wall of water, rocks and trees came suddenly rushing down, carrying all before it. A point of land on which was a rock maple, eight or ten inches through, was cut off, and the little bridge swept away like a straw. The water rose to the doorstep of Mrs. Gates house nearby, and a large rock dropped into a potash kettle standing on the bank, showing thre depth and force of the current. A little spot of an, planted with corn, was all that could be seen of the Great Island. Potatoes were wash out, uncut grain laid flat and soaked in the mud, and pumpkins torn from the vines went bobbing up and down in the water.

Joseph Lary and William Newell lost their entire crop of wheat from the Gates’ intervales. As the water rose higher and higher the stooks were lifted up, and away they sailed down river.

As great a rise of water occurred during the ice freshet of December, 1838. Hugh cakes of ice floated out over the fields, and before the water had time to subside it cleared off cold, and the whole valley was one sheet of ice. In the spring of 1851 Enoch Hubbard built a bridge across the river from the Great Rocks, but owing to some defect or miscalculation it did not stand. Nothing daunted his failure, the next spring Mr. Hubbard built again, and petitioned the selectmen for a road. It was refused, not from any particular fault in the bridge, but because many wanted it further down the river at Gates’ or Green’s. But people found it much more convenient than the ferry, and at last the County Commissioners came down and laid the dugway. It is said one of the selectmen, hoping to find legal quibble in the proceedings, inquired:

” Did you lay out the road to and from the bridge? “

” We laid out the road to and from the bridge and right across it. ” Was the crushing reply.

The natives called it the Great River bridge, but it was re-christened Lead Mine bridge by city visitors, it being a fashionable resort for artist and romantic young couples.

It did good service for fifteen years, and then one night quietly dropped down. The next one built by the town; Merrill Head, Caleb Gates and Jotham Evans building committee. An abutment of stone was put in by Moses Mason in place of the old log one, and a bridge built under the direction of Nahum Mason. This was blown down in November, 1870, and rebuilt the following winter by Enoch Hubbard and John Newell. Much discussion and opposition has been raised on the subject of a bridge. Some are in favor of a road through to Gorham on the north side. Others want the bridge at Green’s ferry, where the river is wider, the banks are lower and the intervales flooded at every rise of water. So far commonsense has prevailed over predjudice and self-interest, and a good bridge stands on the only good site in town.

The building of the Grand Trunk Railroad through Shelburne began in 1851. Most of the workmen were Irishmen who came along the way with their wives and children. They only required limited quarters, Mr. Hebbards woodshed affording ample accommodation for three families. The houses, or hovels, rather, which they made for themselves were simple four posts set in the ground, boarded over and banked up, often to the eaves, with earth. A barrel stuck in one side allowed some of the effluvia to escape. There were two classes or clans of these workmen, Corkmen and Fardowns; and a fight always signalized their meetings.

Porter’s Ledge was called from the contractors who cut the road through it. In July, 1852, an engine, Jennie Lind, came up as far as Potter Smith’s, now John Wilson’s. Such a sight it was for old and young! Even the few who had seen an engine before had never heard the whistle. ” O, how funny it did sound! ” says one.

Much of the wonder was due to the lack of newspapers. Very little was known of the outside world. The electric light and various kinds of machinery were as wonderful Adventions, but we heard of them at every stage of their progress, and when finally perfected the wonder had fled. It was only what we had long expected.

Jefferson Hubbard was appointed station agent, a position he held till his death in 1877. About two years ago a siding was put in at the bridge crossing, and thousands of cords of wood and bark have been sent to market from there.

Upon the advent of the railroad Shelburne’s prosperity began to wane. In thirty years her population has decreased one half. Yet Shelburne is not a bad place in which to make a home. Most of the farms are capable of a high state of fertility, work is plenty at fair prices, and Gorham affords a good market and plenty of entertainment and school privileges to those who wish to avail themselves of them.

CHAPTER V

CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS

Solitude and danger conduce to a devotional frame of mind. Cut off from human aid, we instinctively turn to the Devine. Alone with the vastness of nature the character acquires a depth and earnestness in harmony with the gloom of the forest and the rugged grandeur of the mountains. Natural phenomena, that modern science has reduced to mere curiosities, were formerly regarded as forerunners of dire calamities; war, pestilence, and even the destruction of the world.

But few families lived here during the dark day May 19th 1780, but doubtless those few suffered more mental agony than would be possible to us to-day.

A brilliant display of northern lights has twice been seen; once before the war of 1812 two lines extended across the sky, and flashes of light passed from one to the other. Finally the western line ab
sorbed the other, and they faded out. Of course after the war everybody knew the western line meant the victorious American army.

In the year 1834 or 1835, what is known as the red northern lights were seen. In the north-east lay a heavy red cloud, something like a thunder pillar. In the weird light the snow looked as stained with blood. The bible was the only book of reference, and the timid and irreligious remembered with a thrill of horror that ” the river shall be turned into blood before that great and terrible day. ” Pious men, fearing they knew not what, gathered their families and their neighbors around them and prayed for ” the peace that passeth understanding. “

Many of Shelburne’s first settlers were pious men and women, and the Sabbath and family worship was strictly observed in their new homes, but the first public religious services were conducted by Fletcher Ingalls. Every Sunday for years ” Uncle Fletcher’s ” house was well filled, many walking four or five miles. Young girls went barefooted or wore their everyday shoes and stocking till within sight of the house, when they stopped under a big tree and put on their best morocco slippers and white stockings.

The seats were benches kept carefully clean, not quite so comfortable as the cushioned pews in the chapel, but better filled, and we think long, dry sermons Mr. Ingalls used to read were received without cavil. People believed as they were taught instead of wandering off into speculation by themselves. The reading over, exhortations were made by Samuel Wheeler, Edward Green and others. The singers were Nathaniel Porter, Johnathan Lary and his sisters, Betsy, Hannah and Mercy, and in fact most of the worshipers took part in this exercise.

Sometimes a stray shepherd chanced along and fed the flock. Messrs. Pettingill, Jordan, Hazeltine, Trickey, Austin Wheeler and Elder Hutchinson were free-will Baptists, Sewall, Hidden, Richardson and Burt Congregationalists. Scores of interesting and curious incidents are related of these primitive christians, who at least possessed the virtue of sincerity. One summer the drouth was very severe, threatening to destroy the crops. At the conclusion of the regular Sunday services Deacon Green requested all those who were interested and had faith in prayer to meet at his house to pray for rain. Their petitions proved not only fervent but effecious, for before they finished a terrible thunder shower arose and the deacon’s shed was blown clear across the road.

The first church of which we find any record was organized 1818 as the Church of Christ, with seventeen members:

The signatures are written on stiff, unruled paper, yellow with age, and would form an interesting study to those who pretend to read character by the hand-writing. The best specimen is the name Lucy Wheeler, very fine and distinct, and written with good black ink, while in others the ink looks as though it had been frozen.

In 1832 the meeting house was built; Robert Ingalls, Edward Green, George Green and Barker Burbank being the building committee. It is dedicated as a Free Church. Jotham Sewall preached the dedicatory sermon, Free-will Baptist and Congregational, were present. All the best singers in town had been well trained by the choirister, John Kimball, and the long, difficult Easter Anthem from the Ancient Lyre was skillfully rendered.

A schedule of time for the year 1838 gives the Congregationalists twenty-four Sundays, The Free-will Baptists twenty-five. Universalists one, and Methodists rwo. Whenever the pulpit was unoccupied Deacon Life Burbank or Fletcher Ingalls read the sermon, or Samuel Wheeler and others exhorted.

In 1841 a new organization was formed, called the Shelburne Free-will Baptist Church. The covenant is in the hand-writing of Stephen Hutchinson, and article 3d provides that ” we agree to exercise a suitable care one of another to promote the growth of the whole body in christian knowledge, holiness, and comfort to the end, that we may all stand complete in the will of god. ” Article 8, ” We will frequently exhort, and if occasion require, admonish one another according to directions in Matt. 18. We will do this in a spirit of meekness considering ourselves lest we also transgress, and as in baptism we have been buried with Christ and raised again, so there rests on us a special obligation to walk in newness of life. ” Delegates were sent regularly to the quarterly conferences with a report of the religious condition of the church. Of the eight original members only one is still living, Mrs. Stephen Hutchinson. In 1848 the membership had increased to thirty-three. Of these more than half have since joined the Church, triumphant, prominent among which are Stephen Hutchinson, Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Peabody, Samuel Wheeler and Jonas Green.

The Congregational Church was formed many years ago, but there was no regular organization of Methodists till Daniel Barker was stationed here in 1861. During the following two years there was a great revival. Night after night lively and interesting meetings were held at Mr. Palmer’s, Mr. Hebbard’s or Mr. Hall’s. It is an undecided question whether such religious excitments are advisable. Certainly a proportionate reaction always follows. Mr. Sinclair succeeded Mr. Barker; but though he came over from Bartlett every Sunday, braving the cold winds and deep snows, the interest greatly abated.

From this time till the reform movement, only occasional meetings were held. City ministers, Orthodox or Episcopal, sometimes preached half a day during the summer. The old church was fast going to ruins, to say nothing of the people themselves. The Temperance wave struck Shelburne broadside. Such excitement, such rally to the work, such confessions of weakness, such promises of future uprightness! The blacker the sin the greater reformation, and it was awful to hear one manly idol after another shatter himself in the presence of his adoring female relatives and friends. A good moral young man, who never drank a glass of intoxicating liquor in his life, was nowhere; but the most dissipated were greeted with deafening cheers.

Lecturers labored to prove that alcohol in all its forms was a deadly poison, equal to arsenic or strychnine, yet one member of the association said that he probably drank a barrel for every day of his life! He must have been poison proof. Only one person in all the town, A J. Bartlett, ridiculed the movement and persistently refused to sign the pledge.

” I’ll give you two years to get to the end of your rope. ” he said one day, after a hot argument with an enthusiastic ironclad.

He did not live to see the fulfillment of his prophecy, but he gave them time enough. One evening, some months before the second aniversary, the President requested all those present who had not signed the pledge to rise, and only one solitary Frenchman responded. Everybody had reformed. The work was done. What sense in struggling for what we already have? The Reform Club meetings changed to prayer meetings, Mr. W. W. Baldwin, the Methodist minister stationed at Gorham, came down half a day each Sabbath, and an interest was awakened that increased during the next year, when MR. Chandler preached. The meeting house was repaired and re-dedicated in September, 1877. The death of Miss Fannie Hubbard the following Spring broke up the choir, and though we have many good singers, no choir has since been organized.

Mr. Williams, a Congregational minister, stationed at Gilead, preaches here Sunday afternoons; an organ has been purchased; a communion service presented by the sewing circle, and a baptismal bowl by Mrs. R. I. Burbank. Nothing seems to be lacking to our religious society but the main part–a disposition in the mind of the people to support it by their presence in the house, their appreciation of the preacher’s efforts, and the cultivation of a charitable unselfish spirit among themselves.

SCHOOLS

We have no way of knowing how the first generation obtained an education, but it is hardly likely there were regular schools where the children would be obliged to go long distances through the woods. Perhaps some went back to Massachusetts, while others learned at home. A little later we find plenty of well educated men and women. In Moses Ingalls’ family were three good teachers, Fredrick, Nancy and Robert.

Some sixty-five years ago Robert, or as he is commonly known, Judge Ingalls, kept school near Moses Rock. Among his scholars was a half grown boy, whose parents had recently moved down from Randolph. In those days Randolph was considered far removed from the benefits of civilization, and Mr. Ingalls naturally concluded the boy would be behind others of his age, ” can you read? ” he inquired, taking up the old Perry’s spelling book. ” I can read my ABC’s. ” replied the boy, bashfully hanging his head. Slowly slipping his finger along he repeated the alphabet correctly. ” Very well. Now can’t you say a-b ab? ” ” I can try, ” was the modest answer. With the same slow precision that lesson was read, then the next and the next, and not till Mr. Ingalls found out that with one exception his new pupil was the best reader and speller in school, did he see where the laugh came in. Barker Burbank also taught here, and was called one of the best instructors of the times, often spending a whole noon-time explaining some of Walsh’s problems to a puzzled scholar. To this school came the Stowell boys, the Thompson boys and Ezekiel Evans’ girls.

Back at the Philbrook house, close to the foot of the mountain, stood a schoolhouse, where Hannah Mason Taught. Sometimes schools were kept by Capt. Evans’ or Samuel Head. Susan Gates, Sally Austin, Elsie Head and Lydia Porter were teachers of fifty years ago, and good teachers they were, too, though they never heard of a Normal school nor a Teacher’s Institute.

The Bean Hill school-house, just below H. P. Gates, was moved up about half way between Allan and Roswell Peabody’s, and here Merrill C. Forist taught school and penmanship. Mr. John Willis kept one term in William Newell’s barn at the Dugway corner. Isabel Gates, Mrs. C. J. Lary, Mrs. M. L. Burbank, Judge Burbank and Mason Green are a few of many experienced and popular teachers.

The text books formerly used were the Understanding and American readers, Perry’s and Webster’s spelling-books, Walsh’s and Welsh’s arithmetics, and Olaey’s geography. The geography would be quite a curiosity to young people now. Michigan, Indiana and Illinois were territories. Mississippi Territory was bounded north by Tennesee, east by Georgia, south by Florida, which belonged to the Spanish, and west by the Mississippi river. Louisiana was divided into two governments, State and territory. The State comprised the Island of Orleans, the country east the Mississippi to the Perdido, and all west of it south of latitude 33-degrees. The Territory was bounded south by the state of Louisiana, west by Mexico, east by Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois and Mississippi territories, and north by unexplored regions. Supposing one of the teachers in 1815 or ’20 had thus addressed the class in geography:

” Children, those of you who live to be elderly men and women will see all that black space on the map of the United States dotted with towns and cities; an iron horse, capable of drawing ten or a dozen carriages as large as this school room, at the rate of a mile a minute, will carry you from George Green’s intervale to the farthest verge of that unknown region in eight or ten days. You will hand a short letter directed to a friend in Boston to a man at the depot, and in ten minutes you will receive an answer. You can go to the summit of Mt. Moriah and converse in your ordinary tones with a friend in Shelburne Addition. That burning spring which is now regarded as one of the curiosities of Virginia will prove to be the outlet of a vast subterranean lake of oil, much superior for illuminating purposes to tallow candles or pitch pine knots, and after this oil has come into general use a new light will be invented or discovered (which?) that will rival the sun in brilliancy.”

Wouldn’t the whole school have stopped study to listen to such fallacies? Wouldn’t the parents have been all by the ear and the committee been blamed for hiring such a teacher? Yet how far short would the prophecy fall in reality? Viewing the future by the past, have we the right to say anything is impossible?

Esq. Burbank’s sons and A. R. Evans we believe are the only Shelburne boys who have been through college, and the only natives now engaged in teaching are the misses Lary and Ernest Hubbard. C. S. Cummings, of Paris, is also a successful and popular teacher.

The law allowing women a voice in school meeting is of no practicle value in this conservative town, and on general principles we doubt its propriety.

Sanford Hubbard, Fannie Philbrook and Edward Green are examining committee. Mr. Hubbard is said to be very thorough in his examinations, and whoever receives a certificate may be considered amply qualified to teach all the studies required.

The way in which the first generation acquired the art of singing is as doubtful as how they learned the alphabet. As most of the parents were singers perhaps the children took it up naturally. the first singing master that those now living can remember, were Reuben Hobart and John Kimball. ” Mr. Kimball could sing more base than six men now-a-days.” No doubt they could all make good music from pieces in the Handel and Hadyn and the Ancient Lyre, but heard across the wide waste of years perhaps it sounds sweeter today than at first. Jefferson Hubbard taught in the church some thirty-four or five years ago, and used a book in which figures were used to denote the sound.

Horatio Newell was the last singing master here, and taught in the red school-house above the village.

Before closing this chapter we wish to relate a little incident of school life; one of those every day happenings that borders so closely on darksome tragedies. Little Mary Smith went down to school one morning with her elder sister. The Novelty of her surroundings soon wore off, and she shyly started for home, as she thought. Elder Samuel Wheeler met her a short distance below the school-house, and asked her name, whose girl she was, and if she would ride with him. Her baby answers he could not understand, but as she positively declined to ride he drove on, told the teacher, Betsy Mann, and saw the children start after her. Mr. Wheeler stopped at Aaron Peabody’s, and the family were just eating dinner when the alarm was given that Mary Smith was lost. ” O!” exclaimed the old gentleman. ” I’m to blame for that! I ought to have taken her right up. ” Everyone joined the search. The hillsides down the brook, and pine woods below were hunted over, and Mrs. Smith, half distracted with fear, kept calling her name, for they thought the child would recognize and answer her mother’s voice if within hearing. It seemed impossible that so small a child could have wandered farther, and retracing their steps they drew off the pond, and searched the mill and the house which was unoccupied. Anxiety was fast deepening to despair when some one suddenly came across her in the pasture north of the house, fast asleep on a log. The sudden reaction of feeling completely unnerved Mr. Smith, and snatching up his recovered baby, he cried like a little child. The possibility that a few steps or a few minutes might have consigned the little one to a fearful and lingering death, is enough to cause a shudder even now. When Abigail Leavitt was lost from Esq. Moses Ingalls’ she came out in Bethel or Newry. But a quarter mile more to the northward and she would have missed the settlement, and been hopelessly lost in a vast, unbroken wilderness.

CHAPTER VI

AMUSEMENTS

Whatever interests and divert the mind may be called amusement, even though considerable physical exertion is mingled with it. Before men played croquet or lawn tennis they took pride in trials of strength or courage. Moses Ingalls was offered a lot of land to climb the smooth incline on the north side of Mt. Winthrop. it is said he ran up in his stocking feet as easily as a cat, and thus, by a single exhibition of skill and daring, gained a remembrance and a monument that martyrs and heros might envy.

A little to the west of the top of Moses Rock ( let no iconoclast dare change its name ) may be seen a pine stump. It stands under a projecting ledge, and leans over a sheer descent of at least a hundred feet. By the aid of a tree at the of the precipice Thomas Green, Jr., climbed up and cut off the tree that once grew on it. We do not learn how he got down. Getting up seemed to be the main point, and he evidently had faith in the old saying that his weight would bring him down.

Chopping trees were quite popular while people were clearing their farms, and must have been fun, inasmuch as men often went five or six miles and considered a good dinner and what rum they could drink as ample pay for a hard day’s work. Two sons of Amos Peabody came very near being killed at one of these gathering. they wanted to go out and see the drive. ” Be sure and hallo before you get there. ” o yes, ” they promised readily, and boy like, never thought of it again. In their eagerness to reach the men they got too near, and were caught by the falling trees. Aaron was thrown down by a big spruce, but the limbs kept it from quite touching the ground, and the boy was got out uninjured, though ” a hen could hardly have crawled through where he lay. ” Enoch fared worse; as a tree came down over him, his head and shoulders shot through between a limb and the body, but so close was the chance that a stub grazed his head, cutting a gash four or five inches long.

Oscar Phipps, a brother of Peter Phipps, was instantly killed while at work for Barker Burbank. Uncle Fletcher saw Joe Conner come out in great haste, and fearing an accident he caught up his camphor bottle, that ever handy remedy of old times, and hurried to the clearing; but it was too late for earthly remedies. The unfortunate man’s skull had been crushed. such casualties, however, were not common. With ordinary care the work was not paticularly dangerous.

Sportsmen will now be very glad to find a flock of pigeons, especially if there was to be a shooting match with an oyster supper at the end; but seventy five years ago these birds were so thick that every effort was made to get rid of them. They were caught by hundreds in pots or traps. The traps were made of small poles arranged like the front side of a chicken coop, an inch or two apart, and narrow strips of board were nailed round the edge, making sort of large, shallow box. To catch the birds the frame was propped up on one edge, a rope tied to the prop and carried back behind a screen of boughs where the hunter was hidden. A horizontal bar or pole was put up six or eight feet high for them to light on, and grain scattered under the trap. One by one they flew down for the perch, always leaving one as the sentinel; the rope was pulled, the trap dropped, and the unlucky birds run their heads up through the slats only to have them twisted of. They made capital soups and chicken pies, “o how nice and tender the little things would be! ” we exclaimed. ” tender! ” with a contemptuous smile at our ignorance, ” they were tough as tripe and blue as whetstones! “

One morning, as many as fifty years ago, Amos Moses called his family: ” Just come and see what a flock of pigeons! ” A column of these birds seemed to come from back of Old Crag and stretch across the eastern sky to Moses’ Rock. For some time neither end could be seen, nor there a break in the line. It was a grand exodus. Like the moose or deer they fled before the advance of civilization.

Wrestling was often carried to such extremes as to be injurious. Two young fellows got into a dispute one summer evening, and one endeavored to put the other out of the shed. They struggled for nearly two hours, and the younger and lighter of the pair, now eighty years old, says he never fairly got over it; yet he thinks it a terrible thing for a boy to break a finger or black an eye playing base ball. To be the champion wrestler of the town was as much honor as to be the champion walker now.

A man who came over from Fryeburg once stumped any Shelburne fellow to lay him on his back. He was pretty heavy and self-confident, and for some time no one cared to take hold of him; but the night of Enoch Emery’s husking, when a good liquor made them smart and brave without being top-heavy, a small, lean, wiry fellow stepped up and announced himself ready to uphold the honor of the town. After a short struggle the Freyburg man lifted his little opponent, to throw him over his head; but instead, a quick, dexterons and wholly unexpected turn knocked him off his legs, and down he went like a log. After a second trial the stranger acknowledged he had met his match, and the hills echoed the triumphant cheers.

A real old-fashioned dance was the place for plenty of pleasure. One gentleman now living could wear out a pair of thin boots during the night, and keep school all the next day. At a grand ball given at John Chandler’s Mrs. George and Mrs. Thomas Green each wore black silk dresses; the short, strait skirt, plain waist and sleeves, requiring only six yards of material. Others wore calico or stamped cam brie. A mulatto by the name of Johnson played the fiddle till three o’clock in the morning.

In 1828 a menagerie was exhibited at Green’s. The cages containing lions, tigers, leopards, monkeys and one with a hyena ( or Kieny, as Mr. Ordway informed his boy ) were arranged round the barn yard, and seats were also put in to accommodate the visitors. The big elephant was in the barn; the double doors being just high enough to let him through without scraping him back. A tent for the circus part was on the intervale close by, and an exhibition of waxworks in the house. Mrs. William Newell, Mrs. James Austin and Mrs. Thomas Green attended, each with an infant a few weeks old. Times have changed since then. Now-a-day women ignore their babies as far as possible, seldom taking them to public assemblies, and never to church.

One Fourth of July some fifty years ago a liberty pole was raised on the hill near the meeting house. After singing and prayer a short oration was delivered by Judge Ingalls, and the audience went down to Green’s tavern to dinner.

Formerly girls attended husking and boys quiltings, and after the work was done they had a dance. When farmers could raise a hundred bushels of ears of corn to the acre they didn’t mind a little waste, and sometimes the corn was thrown around and the fodder trampled on in a way that could not be tolerated now. Quilting, too, are out of date. No more of the presses woolen quilts with their intricate patterns of roses and sunflowers. Even more modern patchwork is now seldom used for anything but tacked puffs.

Raisings and hauling brought together all the people in town, and were as handy for the diffusion of news as a local newspaper. When Judge Ingalls’ barn was raised the dinner was tastefully arranged on a long table out of doors, and at short distances apart for the whole length were handsome decanters and glasses. When liquor was only ten cents a quart, with no prejudice against its use, a man would have been thought lacking in hospitality had he neglected to provide a plenty. ” Didn’t people frequently get intoxicated/ ” we asked. ” No; you wouldn’t see a man drunk oftener than now. The liqupr was better than the pizen stufff you get now, and didn’t fly into the head. ” At Mr. Ingalls’ raising Erastus Hubbard met with quite a serious accident. He fell headlong from the plate on to a pile of rocks. John Burbank and Dr. Watson, who were also on the plate, jumped down and lifted him up before those near him could move. ” He’s a dead man! ” exclaimed some one. ” O no! ” he replied almost instantly opening his eyes, ” I’m better than any six dead men. ” Dr. Howe dressed his head, which was badly cut, and he declared himself all right, but it was fortnight before he was again able to work. The last building moved was the house built by Elbrige Peabody. It was purchased by John Bennett of Gilead, and hauled down the river.

A company of thirty-five or forty under the command of Capt. Daniel Evans used to train, or drill, as it is now called. They had no uniforms, and part of them used sticks instead of guns, but one of the members says they could go through the motions as well as the White Mountain Rifles. Warren Coffin of Gilead, was drummer and Asa Peabody fifer.

There was another company many years before this, but only the fifer, Enoch Messer is remembered. An interesting incident of superstition and subsequent tragedy is related of him. One day when he was dressing for training his wife went to the bureau drawer for his fine shirt, and there on the bosom was a spot of fresh blood. Shortly afterward he went out to shave shingles with Ben Griffin. A shower came up, accompanied by a heavy wind that seemed to whirl round and round, taking everything in its way. Mr. Griffin saw a big pine tree falling, and sprang to one side, but Mr. Messer stood looking right up at it. It struck him on the head with such force to drive his feet into the ground and break nearly every bone in his body. His fife, which was found in his pocket, was afterward owned by Enoch Hubbard.

Youth and health are always beautiful, but some of the Shelburne girls have possessed even more of Natures gifts. As many are long since dead and those who remain have lost their girlish charms, it will provoke no jealousy if we particularize these old time belles. The porter girls were all blonds of the purest type, but Sarah ( Mrs. John Chandler ) was called the prettiest of the seven sisters. the lary girls had delicate wild rose complexions and large, bright blue eyes. The Evans girls were darker, and Roxy in particular had brilliant dark eyes and rosy cheeks. Capt. Eavans’ adopted daughter, Eliza, had a very clear white complexion, flaxen hair, and eyes a shade or two darker. She and Hepsy, the captain’s own daughter, always dressed alike, and when they married their outfits were just the same.

It would hardly be fair to pass the children without a word as to how they amused themselves when they had no store playthings, no picture books, no boys and girls magazine, and only very rarely a taste of candy or oranges. They had pets; an owl, a cosset lamb, a flock of tamed pigeons. One little boy had a big dog that was broken to work like a horse. He could haul quite a load of wood in a little cart or draw his master a mile or more at a smart trot. Others had steers to handy and use, and it was a great treat to take a little team and carry mother and sisters out visiting. Elbridge and Roswell Peabody used to take their steers across the Great Island in the winter and bring Mrs. Goodale and her daughter Delphina over on the little sled. In the summer Elbride had a sort of cart called a bumblebee; the wheels being simply wide trucks sawed from a huge log. When the children were confined within doors they parched corn in the ashes, made wooden oxen yokes, windmills, sawboys, and in fact an infinite variety of playthings that afforded as much pleasure as articles costing two or three dollars would now. One little girl had a play-house in a hollow pine stump. Her dolls were only bits of linen rolled up, but with their aid she enacted many scenes from an ideal drama, dreamed many dreams that were never told and never realized, and wove many fancies that the future washed out in tears. The day before she first left home to work out she played till the afternoon shadows had drank the sunshine, then carefully arranged the little caricatures of humanity in their mossy beds, put up the bark door and left them, never to return to the free child life again. At present our stock of recreation is small; base ball is played out; the Maple Leaves are fallen; the Silver Stars have set; lyceums fall through for want of support.

Only the sewing circle at the lower end of town seems to thrive, and occasionally give necktie festivals or oyster suppers.

CHAPTER VII

THE INDIANS

Newspapers are so plenty now-a-days that we are familiar with all the detail of folly and crime. An account of the killing of one or two men by Indians would be given but a passing thought, but in one’s own town such incidents assume an importance not accorded by the world at large.

On the morning of August 3, 1781, just one hundred years ago, a party of six Indians, painted and armed with guns and tomahawks, came out of the woods in Bethel, then called Sudbury; there they took four prisoners, Jonathan and Benjamin Clark, Jonathan Segar and Eleazer Twitchell. At Gilead they took James Pettingell, but for some unknown reason he was killed and scalped when a short distance from the house.

Two children, Nancy and Stephen Messer, were playing in the brook a little farther on, and the Indians asked them if any men were in the next house. They never could tell what possessed them to answer as they did. ” Yes, there are ten men, and they will have guns. ” But their unreasoning answer probably saved their father’s life, for he was alone in the house, and had often said he never would be taken alive.

Remembering the cruel, treacherous nature of the savage, it seems wonderful that they did not kill the children outright, instead of ordering them to keep down to Mr. Pettingill’s. To avoid passing a house they thought so well guarded the Indians crossed the Androscoggin and went up to Hope Austin’s, on the north side. Here they killed an ox and picked up everything of value. No harm was done the family, though they were much frightened, and Mrs. Austin said: ” My Judy and my Jeems hung right to my chair all the time old Tumpty Magan was there. ” Mr. Austin was up to Capt. Ridge’s. He saw Peter Poor shot down, and frantic with fear fled down the mill brook and across the river to Deacon Ingalls’, where he found his wife and children.

Elijah, the Deacon’s son, had been taken prisoner, but was released, some say on account of his mother’s grief, but it is more likely their own superstition led to respect the unfortunate boy.

Mr. Ridge is supposed to have been a Tory, and certainly he did seem to have a good understanding with his unexpected guests. If he had untied the prisoners’ hands, as Clark begged him to do, the Indians might have all been captured while down in the cellar; but he not only permitted them to take what they wanted, but even brought forward things himself.

In the meantime, Mr. Messer searching for his children, found Mrs. Pettingill walking the floor and ringing her hands, while all around her were broken dishes and furniture. She told him her husband was a prisoner, not knowing his more terrible fate. the little settlement collected together, and fearing the savage enemies might return, they went upon Hark Hill and spent the night. Betsy Messer, fourteen years old, carried her brother Samuel on her back. Nancy, her sister, was too young to realize the situation, and her only memory of the terrible night was the irritating torture of black flies and mosquitoes. The next day the settlers took their cattle and what few household articles they could carry and went to Fryeburg and stayed till spring.

This was the last murderous raid the Indians made in these parts, but for some years parties of them appeared, occasionally drinking, fighting, and scaring women and children. Five or six came to Mr. Messer’s one day, ground up their knives, dug up a patch of English turnips and raved round though possessed of the evil one. Another lot went to Deacon Green’s and wanted to borrow a tin dish. Anxious to gain their good will Mrs. Green gave them a new pint dipper. They then went to Chandler’s, got a supply of rum, stopped by the roadside and danced, while one of the number kept time on the basin. It must be the band was cheated of its share of the stimulant, for though one after another of the dancers dropped down in a drunken sleep the music got more rapid and vigorous.

After the melody was battered out of the new tin dipper the ” honest injun ” carried it back, and he handed it to Mrs. Green with a polite bow he over-balanced and pitched headlong into the fire-place.

Moll Locket and her daughter, Moll Sysup, used to pass through here occasionally, and later Billy Williams, and his wife, Sally Mitchell, made and sold blankets. The had two little boys, one of which was named for Tom Hegan, more commonly called by old people Tumpty Magan. Very rarely now we see an Indian peddler with his packs of fancy baskets and bead-embroidered cushions, but he bears little resemblance to his wild and savage ancesters.

SHELBURNE’S SOLDIERS

Several of the first settlers were Revolutionary soldiers. Evans, Clemens, Wheeler, Lary, and perhaps others of which we did not hear. Tom Marston and Hosea Young went out in the 1812 war, and never returned. Samuel Wilson, Reuben Hobart and Peter Wheeler came safely back. Mr. Wheeler was with Perry, and used to tell how the bullets fell on deck, seemingly as thick as hall-stones. At the close of the war some children were started by a ” road full of soldiers. ” One of them stopped and asked: ” Are you Amos Peabody’s Children? ” ” Yes, ” was the answer. ” Well, you can tell your father that you saw Peter Wheeler going home from the war. “

During the war of the rebellion Shelburne freely contributed to the human sacrifice required. A volume of reminiscences might be written on this subject though we could never fully transcribe the bitter partings, the exhausting marches, the horror and excitement of battle, the painful wounds, the recollection of which terrible homesick longings stirs the narrator, and sends a sympathetic thrill through the heart of the listener. One of the first to respond to his country’s call was Albion Abbott, adopted son of Daniel Evans. He was in the 5th New Hampshire, under Col. Cross, and supposed to have been killed at Fredricksburg. A comrade stood by his side when the orders came to charge, and shortly after recognized his gun and knapsack, which were covered with blood. Nothing more was ever heard. Weather he was instantly killed and buried with others in one common grave, or was wounded and languished for weeks or months in hospital, will never be known.

Henry Gates enlist in the 4th Maine Battery. He was in eleven engagements, and though never wounded was often nearly exhausted with fatigue.

One of the sadest incidents was the execution of a deserter. The solemn and impressive ceremonies, and the tragic death of the poor fellow, made a deep impression on Mr. Gates’ mind. Ira Gates went from Boston in the Massachusetts 13th. Solomon Wilson was killed at the battle of Fredricksburg.

Darias Green was detailed for hospital duty at Ship Island, where Butler’s division was stationed. This island is nine miles long by one half mile wide, and was a fashionable resort in hot weather, being only thirty miles from New Orleans. Mr. Green says one half was cover with snow-white sand, and the other with hard pine, cedar and alligators. As he was there six months, and saw an aligator sixteen feet long, we allow that he knows.

Sandford Hubbard, Albert Green and Halan Ingalls enlisted together in the Navy, and returned in safety at the close off the war.

One day in November, 1865, while waiting in the eastern depot at Portland, we noticed two cars full of soldiers who had just come down from Augusta on their way to Washington. A guard stood before the door, more as a form apparently than a precaution, for on recognizing our companions, Abrose Jackman threw off blue overcoat, and slipped through the window like and eel, he was in the best of spirits, and stayed till just before the train started, when with the cool audacity that characterizes him, he walked up to the guard and requested admitance. He soon found a way to get back, however, bring his rations with him, and in spite of the mild suggestion of the conductor ” If you are a soldier your place is back with the rest of them, ” he remained till we left at Dover. Mr. Jackman’s native wit and shrewdness, coupled with a demure unconsciousness of evil, carried him through many a scrape that would have tried the nerve of older men. But reckless audacity changed to heroism when he nursed the small pox patients in the hospital, nursed the sick and cared for the dead when they were so loathsome with disease that the flesh sloughed from their house.

Woodbury Jackman, Delevan Hubbard, John Newell, William Ingalls and Rufus Hodgdon enlisted in the 17th New Hampshire, but were transferred to the 2nd. Mr. Jackman was slightly wounded in the Gettysburg battle, and came home in the fall. Mr. Hubbard lost two fingers from his right hand while in camp at Concord, and soon after discharged. Mr. Newwll was taken sick soon after reaching Washington, went to the hospital at Philadelphia, and stayed all summer. Mr. Ingalls and Mr. Hodgdon both died and their remains were brought home for burial.

Leland Philbrook died of spotted fever. He was brought home and funeral services had at Mr. Harvey Philbrook’s.

Josiah Black and his son did not enlist from Shelburne, but the family removed here soon after, and are well known. Mr. Black served in the Maine 1st and 10th. He was stationed one winter at Harper’s Ferry. David was in the 5th Maine Battery, and saw many hard battles. Lawson was wounded in the leg and taken prisoner at Chancellorville. A letter was subsequently received form a chaplain informing his friends that he suffered amputation of his leg, and died only eight days later. Fred went to New Orleans when scarcely well of the measles. They camped on the ground the night of their arrival, and though his comrades generously covered him with their blankets, he took cold and was obliged to go to the hospital. He begged to be sent back, away from the enervating climate to his own northern home, were his mother and sisters could nurse him back to health: but in the hurry and excitement his request was unheeded. He then sent for his friend, Lieut Fisher, to come and see him. This was also denied. The transport vessel was ready to sail and no passes could be given. The poor homesick boy’s last-look rested on the pallid face of his suffering companions, and the compassionate though unfamiliar nurse; but he sleep as sweetly in his unknown grave beneath the blue Louisiana skies though watched over by loving friends.

Isaiah Spiller enlisted as a private, but afterward served as blacksmith in the 5th Maine Battery. the first winter he was in camp at Augusta with no shelter but a tent. They went to the front in April, and Mr. Spiller was in the seven day’s march under McDowell. Though never actually engaged in battle, he was near during the engagements of Anteitam, Gettysburg, Fredricksburg, Winchester, the Wilderness, and Bull Run. He was frequently out with foraging parties when cattle, orchards, and all kinds of property were wantonly destroyed. A man would be given five minutes’ warning, and his beautiful house burned down, leaving him with his family without shelter. One time they came to a nice looking residence, apparently deserted except for a young girl, who sat on the door step, holding a pretty grey horse by a long line while he fed round the door-yard. On pretense of attending the horse, Mr. Spiller went round the corner of the house and laid low while the captain talked to the girl. Presently the grey pony fed along just out of sight, and quick as thought the saddle and bridle were shifted from one of the other horses. Mr. Spiller sprang from his back, cut the rope and was off before the southern girl knew of her loss. ” O! that was real mean! ” we cried indignantly. ” Well, yes; ” he admitted., ” it was a rather mean trick; but they would have done the same to us. ” Yes, so they would; burnt our houses, destryed our crops, laid waste our orchards, killed our flocks and herd, and abuse our women and children, but that the fortunes of war made Virginia the battle-ground instead of New Hampshire.

In the fall of 1776, when the American army at Quebec was in a most deplorable condition, twelve deserters made their appearance in Shelburne. They were discovered by Capt. Ridge’s negro, and induced to come to the house. One of their member had been left at Errol, being too much exhausted to walk farther. On nearing this, Capt. Ridge accompanied by Moses Ingalls, then about thirty years old, started in quest of him. He had dragged himself to a little stream to drink, and too weak to rise, or perhaps too despairing to care to, he lay on his face and drowned. They buried him on the bank of little river, and in memory of his fait called it Hall’s stream.

CHAPTER VIII

BURYING GROUNDS

To those who sometimes ” pause by some neglected grave-yard for a while to muse and ponder, ” a short notice of these silent cities of half forgotten dead may not be uninteresting.

Perhaps the first spot of ground given to the dead in the new settlement is occupied by the mutilated remains of Peter Poor. He lies just below the hill on the intervale owned by Marti n Burbank. Some simple memorial should be raised over his grave to perpetuate the memory of those early times, when the nervous tears of women and children turned every shadow and ever unwonted noise into a lurking foe, and the husband and father went to his daily worked armed as for battle.

Many old families were buried on the Porter place. Among others were Oliver Peabody and his wife, Mrs. Runnels and her daughter Mary Ann, who died of throat distemper, Mr. Runnels disappeared when this child was a few months old, and was never heard from after. The railroad cut off one end of the yard, exposing some of the coffins. Many were removed to a new yard, and doubtless others were forgotten or unknown to the living.

The new yard below the stock yard farm is well jept, and contains a number of handsome stones. Esq. Burbank’s is a granite monument. Martine Burbank’s children, who died with diptheria, were brought over here. Little Hattie was a lovely child, and death touched her so lightly that the lifeless form was almost perfect in its waxen fairness.

Fletcher Ingalls and his wife, and Thomas Hubbard and his wife are buried near Moses Hazeltine’s. The graves of Noah Gould’s children, who died of throat distemper, are marked by plain grey stones. Melvina, another daughter of Mr. Gould, jumped from a rock while at play, and received fatal injuries. Many have been taken up from here and reburied in a new yard. A child five years old that had been buried thirty years was found petrified.

On the hill near the church is George Green’s family burying yard.

No one who passed can fail to notice a little enclosure filled with shrubery near Otis Evans’. The white headstone records the name and age of William Evans. The untimely death of this promising young man will always be deeply regreted; not only by his own family, on whom this affliction fell with such crushing force, but by all his friends and acquaintances.

The Evans, Clemens and Heads are on the Jotham Lary place; and Mr. Lary himself was brought back from Maine, where he passed the last years of his life, and laid to rest near the home of his youth.

Three generations of Austins sleep in the yard near the old homestead.

In the yard near Mr. Minard’s are the Ingalls, the Wheelers, the Greens and the Philbrooks.

On the hill in front of Gates’ Cottage is the family burying Ground of the Gates. Mrs. Bazeleel Gates was thrown from wagon when returning from church, and was instantly killed. Anna, a pretty little Irish girl, and a protege of Miss Sarah Gates, died of consumption at the age of thirteen.

But the most pathetic story of the delusiveness of human hopes and the certainty of sorrow and disappointment is written on the row of narrow mounds across one end of the little yard near the Lead Mine brook. Jacob Stevens and his wife came to Shelburne some twenty-five years ago, and bought the farm owned by Durius Green. They were a most amiable and industrious couple, and managed not only to bring up a family of nine children, but saved a competence. The children were strong and healthy looking, but some fatality seemed to overshadow them. the first sickness was the last. Harriet died during the typhoid fever. A married daughter, Mrs. Mason Green, and three grown sons, Simeon, Henry and Charles, were all claimed by death within 12 years. Broken in health and spirits Mr. Stevens was the next victim, and in a little more than a year Ellen, the youngest daughter followed him. It would seem that the insatiate conqueror was satisfied. Herbert, the youngest son, married Josie Martin and remained at home with his mother. He was a tall, rugged looking young man, the very embodiment of healthful life. A little daughter was born, but the sweet blossom faded in five short months. In just two years an infant son was taken from the ill-fated family, and Herbert was in the last stages of consumption. It was a sad funeral, doubly sad, but the sympathies of the friends and neighbors were not so much for the sorrow-stricken mother and suffering father as for the poor old grandmother, so utterly crushed and helpless she seemed when led out to join the procession. It was the last time she rode over the rode as a mourner, for when Herbert died she was too ill to see him laid in his last resting place. For six months she battled with incurable disease, literally struggling for breath, and then was mercifully released. The oldest son, Joseph, drifted off out west, and from there to Australia and has been lost sight of for many years. Living or dead he is as lost to his friends as though sleeping in his grave. Of all the once pleasant family only one daughter, Mrs. Loren Evans, remains. As we have read the successive chapters in this story of real life, it has seemed sadder and sadder, though we know there are worse afflictions than death, bitter disappointment and more overwhelming sorrow over the wayward living than over the peaceful dead.

A little slat headstone marks the spot where lie two children of Stephen Peabody, victims of throat distemper; Amelia, a promising child of eight, and Daniel aged two. Little Danny, forty-seven years in his narrow grave, is still a precious baby in the hearts and minds of his friends. Time never shall silver the golden hair nor wrinkle the rosy dimpled face. Enoch Peabody had a son of the same age, and hoping to escape the pestilence he removed to Berlin. Allan Peabody went up with them, and as he drove away little Allan, his name-sake, said sorrowfully: ” I never’ll see El again. ” ” O yes you will, ” replied his mother. ” next week you shall go down and make a visit. ” But he only shook his golden head and repeated sadly. ” I never’ll see El again. ” and he nevr did. The dred disease they fled from was on there track, and little Allan’s next week was eternity. In the same row lies Edith, oldest daughter of R. P. Peabody.

“How shall we know her? We were sad,
As we saw her last in her grave clothes clad,
But the eyes and the smile shall greet us there
As they shone on earth, but more dazzling fair,
And in robes of white in that radiant sphere
She shall bear the likeness she once bore here. “

In the next row back is buried all that is mortal of Mary Ellen, oldest daughter of Allan Peabody, a lovely and intelligent girl of twenty-two. Knowing and loving her from childhood perhaps judgement may be partial, but to us she possessed rare capabilities for usefulness and happiness. With only limited school privileges she acquired a thorough English education, and was conversant with the best literature of the day. She was in failing health for two years, and during the last few weeks her disease assumed a most distressing form; but she was patient and cheerful, so remarkably cheerful and even lively that but few realized how near she stood to eternity. She was glad to go, and though we mourn her loss, we believe it is her infinite gain. we leave these sacred enclosures feeling more keenly than ever if this life were all, ” we are of all men most miserable. ” Our friends slip from our embrace, and vainly we strive to follow their flight through the darkness of futurity. No tender voice comes back to cheer us, no loving hands stretch out to guide us, but an inborn faith points to a single star of hope, ” though weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning.”

PART II

HISTORY OF SHELBURNE LEAD MINE

BY MRS. R. P. PEABODY

( Continued from MOUNTAINEER, No. 6, 1881. )
(History of Shelburne, page 42 )

Three or four years later, the local agent, Barker Burbank, hired Ben Morse and Roswell Peabody to crush the ore remaining on hand, and pack it into barrels.

In 1855 the property changed hands, and about that time a Mr. Pinch came on, put in a few blasts, and partly emptied one shaft; but nothing came of it, and for many years after the mine was deserted save by occasional visitors, curious to see the rusty machinery and shafts, which were only round spots of water, blinking like eyes in the sunlight. The dam rotted down, rocks and debris buried the engine, and the houses were fast going to ruin. Finally the machinery was sent to a foundery at Lancaster, and what remained of the buildings sold to Elbridge Peabody.

In the spring of 1880 a new company was organized under the name of the Shelburne Mining Co., with a capital of $500.00. The office is at No, 93 Exchange St., Portland, Me., and the President, L. D. M. Sweat, and all directors but one are residents of that city.

The property consists of a tract of mineral land eighty rods square, having for its centre the main shaft sunk by the old company. In his report of the mine, Prof. C. H. Hitchcock, State geologist of New Hampshire, says: ‘ The ore closely resembles the mass of ore taken out of the Comstock. It would puzzle most of us to separate the specimens from Shelburne and Nevada, were two piles of the ore from the two localities mixed together. the quantity of this ore is immense, averaging sixteen feet thick and eighty rods long, extending downward indefinitely. “

” Quartz from the very bottom of the shaft is said to have yielded $10.00 in gold, besides silver, Excellent specimens of galena have also come from a great depth as well as handsome pieces of brittle silver. “

” Four samples sent by the company yielded:

1st sample, 564 per cent lead, 32 lbs silver to the ton.
2d sample, 43 per cent lead, 36 lbs silver to the ton.
3d sample, 446 per cent lead, 648 lbs silver to the ton.
4th sample, 426 per cent lead, 753 lbs silver to the ton. “

Experts of thirty years ago, among whom Hodges of New York, Jackson and Richardson of Massachusetts, Prof. Avery and Dr. Partz all agree that the mine is very valuable.

Prof. James Hodge, of New York speaking of the vein, says: ” It is permanent, cannot be exhausted in depth nor probably in length.”

Mr. A. A. Hayes, State Assayer of Massachusetts, gives the following results of his assay:

1st sample, 32 lbs pure silver to ton
2d- sample, 36 lbs pure silver to ton
3d sample, 6477 lbs pure silver to ton
4th sample, 753 lbs pure silver to ton

Dr. Jackson, in his report to the New Hampsire Legislature, remarks that

” The ore contains three pounds of silver per ton; hence it is worth $60 dollars per ton for the silver, while it also yields 70 per cent of lead. “

Frank L. Bartlett, State Assayer of Maine, gives the composition of ore as follows:

The chart of the shaft shows a perpendicular descent of fify-eight feet, then an incline of about 60 degrees to the northward. Several short shafts or tunnels lead from it to the east and west. The upper and most important ore extends sixty feet westerly, and carries a rich seam of galena, vary from a few inches to two feet thick. From this drift was taken the specimen exhibited at Sydenham Palace in 1851, about four feet square, and weighing 2400 lbs.

Early in the spring of 1880, E. M. Hubbard and sons built a dam to turn the course of the brook, and soon after four or five men, under the direction of Mr. John Johnson, commenced to empty the main shaft. The stagnant, milky-looking water was very offensive, and many thought the foul gasses would generate fever; but nothing worse than headache and nausea was felt by those at work around it. They tried hauling up water by hand, but it ran in nearly as fast as they could dip it out. Even after the engine was procured it was busy work to hold their own against the flood that came in tiny streams from all directions.

In October, Washington Newell contracted to put up a shaft-house and boarding-house within a period of four weeks. The lumber was carried down to the siding from Gorham hauled to the mine by two two-horse teams, and the buildings ready to use at the specified time.

The work was well worth the visit, and will be a great addition to the places of interest in this vicinity. They are on Lead Mine Brook, only 1-1/4 mile from the main road. The last half mile is quite rough, but with careful drivers is not dangerous. Crossing a long pole bridge, we come to the little flat where stood the buildings of the old company, the sites of which can be plainly traced

by a rank growth of grass and catnip. Thirty rods further on is the present boarding hpuse, 20X40 feet, containing sitting room, office, dinning room, store room and kitchen. A flight of stair in the sittin-room lead to the chambers, furnished with mattresses and blankets. Mr. Harte Coffin boarded a few weeks first, but now the company hire a cook and board the men themselves. We passed through the entire house, and found everything in Mr. Libby’s domain in perfect order. We really envied him the kitchen, which is cool, roomy and very pleasant, if one is not dependent on the amount of passing for happiness. The view is only mountains and sky, but these are susceptible of endless and delightful variations.

The shaft-house is 30X50 and 18 feet posted, and has recently been painted brown. On one side is placed the fifteen horse-power engine, that hoists the ore and works the pump, placed 240 feet below the surface. The water has all been removed from the shaft, and with the pump is easily kept out, while a brick wall keeps back most of the surface water. the explosive used is Atlas D., ( Giant powder 2 ) with Glycerine as a basis made into cartridges. These are kept carefully locked up in a little building back on the hill. The engineer, Mr. Harding, kindly explained the method of discharging the blasts by electricity when, owing to dampness, fuse cannot be used. ” When eight or nine blasts are all connected with the battery at once it makes everything rattle. ” and the concussion of the air is so great that the candles are instantly put out. A telephone intended for use in the shaft is of no practical value, owing to these variations. Just then the alarm sounded, the engineer stepped back to his post, and looking down into the black depths we could see a white unturned face of one of the men slowly ascending. The bucket moved quickly and steadily, and putt out his hand he kept it from stricking the sides of the shaft. Only one accident has happened. Last winter Alverton Farewell, of Bethel, was struck by the pump timbers and thrown out. He fell thirty-five feet, went through a two inch plank, and fell ten feet more into the water. He was badly shaken and had one arm broken. A Notice posted near the opening prohibits the engineer from lowering visitors into the mine, or allowing them to descend on the ladder without a special permit from the superintendent. It was no bar to our pleasure, for no probable combination of circumstances will ever induce us to hang, even a two-inch rope, over such an abyss. The feelings of the miners when first introduced to the business, is quaintly expressed by the Frenchman, who says:

” You don’t want to think not at all nor look up; if you do, you think you’re lost sure. “

Mr. George D. Holt, the present superintendent, is a quiet, affable gentleman of acknowledged business capacity. The following tribute to his mining qualifications we copy from the Gold Hill News of March 5, 1881:

“George D. Holt, of Gold Hill and Silver City, Nevada, for three years superintendent of the Niagara G. & S. Mining Co.’s property, and a worker of other mines on the south end of the Comstock is an experienced mining engineer and draughtsman. He was engaged in making the draughts of Gould & Curry, Overman, Hale and Norcross and other new and extensive machinery for mines and mills of the Comstock, and was formerly draughtsman in the Union Iron Works. Proscott, Scott & Co., San Francisco, the builders of most heaviest machinery there in use. “

The Company purpose at an early date to put in good condition the road leading from the mine to the main road by the way of E. M. Hubbard’s. This will save a half mile’s travel, and what is more important, a hard pull up the Great Hill. If our people had a little public spirit, and were anxious to help each other, we have no doubt the company might have been induced to expend at least half as much on the other road. It would be money in the pockets of every farmer in town to give a week’s work with a team for the sake of having this hill cut down. But no, they will go on year after year, pulling the load up one way and holding it back the other. and spending more time and strength after trigs than it would need to carry away the whole hill in a bushel basket.

A dozen small cottages will be built at cost not exceeding $200 each, to accommodate a permanent force of miners, doubtless from the Eastern Provinces. It is proposed to commence shipping ore at regular intervales, say once a month a first, and oftener as circumstances warrant it. Pay-day is the 10th of every month, and there has been standing call for men since the work began.

THE WHITE MOUNTAIN STOCK FARM

BY MRS. R. P. PEABODY

(Continued from page 42 )

This large and valuable piece of property is situated about one and a half mile from Shelburne Village, and is owned by Judge R. I. Burbank of Boston.

The nucleus, so to speak, the farm of his father, the late Barker Burbank, to which has been added the farms formerly owned by Fletcher Ingalls, Nathaniel Porter, Oliver Peabody and Deacon Edward Green, making an unbroken intervale field two miles in length. the hillside, for the same distance, have been cleared up and afford ample pasturage for one hundred and twenty head of cattle. The house, a large two story building with extensive ell, carriage house, workshop and woodshed, was erected by Barker Burbank forty years ago, and with the exception of piazza, modernized roof and tower, remains unchanged. Probably no money could purchase the diamond shaped window panes near the front door, or the narrow winding front steps.

The view from the house grounds is magnificent, one grand picture drawn and painted by the hand of Nature. you seem to stand in a vast amphitheatre, three tiers of mountains rising on either hand. The highest, shadowy, indistinct, is outlined against the blue-grey horizon; below is a darker range heavily wooded, and lower still the green hillside pastures. The Androscoggin winds in and out like a jeweled necklace thrown carelessly down on its green velvet bed, darkling like jet in the shadows, flashing, sparkling, twinkling like myriads of diamonds in the sunlight. Here and there a graceful elm or maple contribute to the beauty of the landscape, and in these days of reckless change and doubtful improvement it is good to see the pile of rocks and row of choke cherry bushes spared because an honored father left them so.

Mr. E. P. Burbank is superintendent, and employs from four to ten men on the farm. Passing down the road leading to the intervale we notice first a two

acre piece of Jerusalem artichokes. The plants seemed to be well rooted, and the crop is said to yield better, and be more nutricious food stock than potatoes. A little farther on are fields of carrots, sugar beets, turnips, potatoes and corn, all looking finely and testifying to the experience and personal oversight of the superintendent. All these crops, however, are but accessories or experiments, the leading crop is hay, of which over three hundred tons are raised yearly.

Quite a strip of land near the river bank is overflowed at high water, an a sediment deposited which acts as fertilizer. Some of this award has been unbroken for fifty years, and still produces a fine crop of grass. Here may be seen one of the curious freaks of Nature. What was once a bend in the river has filled up, making level field several acres in extent, on which grass was growing five feet tall. On the new river bank were trees four and five inches in diameter.

No surface dressing is applied, on the principal that plants receive their food in the form of gas, and where this is supplied from above most of it passes off into the atmosphere before it can be utilized for vegetation. Instead, the ground is carefully plowed, dressed either with barnyard manure or lime mixed with muck, and sown in the fall with grass seed alone. Most other farmers in the vicinity seed down in the spring with oats or barley, and have to complain of a poor catch. We noticed one piece in particular that three years ago was covered with dark mess. It was treated to a liberal coat of oyster shell lime, and now cuts two tons to the acre.

An in exhaustible bed of muck supplies immense quantities of valuable fertilizer. Prof. Jackson analized it some years ago to ascertain for what crop it was best suited. The Almighty provides a simpler and cheaper test–experiment. All crops, so far as tried, do well on it. A very luxuriant growth of India wheat stood within a few rods of the cavity where the muck had been taken out. Farther on was a strip of potatoes with fodder corn between the rows. Two large barns have been built in the field, and are very convenient if work is driving or a sudden shower arises.

Not the least interesting feature to us was the house of Fletcher Ingalls, still in comfortable order, and occupied by one of the workmen. A little to the west is the cellar over which stood the first framed house in town, built by Fletcher Ingalls, on or near the sight, we think, of Deacon Ingalls’ log house. Standing on this spot we shut our eyes to the wide stretching green field and see only a tiny clearing, dotted here and there with blackened stumps, and shut in by the primeval forest. Just across the river is the home of Hope Austin, his nearest neighbor, and right there fastens the little, their only means of communication. Wild animals and wilder and more savage Indians lurk in the shadows; the hardy pioneer stands his gun nearby as he works, and the wife and mother slys out to the spring of patch of berries, every sense on the alert; the whirr of a bir’s wing or snap of a dry twig sending a spasm of fear through her heart.

One hundred years ago! Ah me! How short the road when we glance backward; how far it stretches into futurity when we look ahead. Not a vestige now remains of the old house. No one living ever saw the father and mother who built this home in the wilderness and reared their children within its walls; but the framed house, finished about three weeks before the birth of Mrs. Barker Burbank, is still in existence. It is used for a wood shed, but the Judge reproaches himself for permitting such desecration, and intends to preserve it as a memento of those ” olden time. ” We suggest that it be restored as nearly as possible to its original appearance, and furnished with relics of the early settlers, of which every family has one or more–a straight-backed kitchen chair, a turnup bedstead, home made bed and table linen, a plain glass tumbler thin as paper, a tiny silver spoon, or a piece of quaint blue and white or red and white crockery. The collection would be invaluable for its associations.

The pastures lie along the south side of the highway, and are well cleared and fenced. Thirty or forty head of young cattle are kept in the lower enclosure. We noticed some fine one and two year olds, and one that was curiously marked like both parents, one side being Holstein and the other belted Dutch have been broken to work, and one of them is frequently driven in harness by Lincoln Burbank, as o of the superintendent. The Ayrshire bull, ” Son of Mars, ” and several heifers were in another field, and still further on a herd of Jerseys. These Jersey heifers are handsome and delicate as deer, and are considered very valuable. Great pains are taken to keep the breed pure, nearly evry animal being recorded in the hard book, and some of the pedigrees extend back perfectly pure of eighty years.

We stopped here just a moment to admire a silvery sheet of water formerly know as Moose Pond, but since called by the more euphonious title of The Lake., and while the herdsmen went back on the hills for the cows we looked over the barns. How handy everything is! Such a nice chance for a woman to do chores! This was our first envious thought. You see we know what it is ti run the gauntlet of a frozen pairs of heels or horns to reach the last creature in the row. Here the tieups are partitioned into stalls holding two or four animals, and each fitted with a heavy swing door that closes the first stall as it opens the second, and so on. Under these barns are root cellars. ” Do you consider silos of practical value? ” we enquired. ” Certainly, if rightly managed. Most farmers build too large. Why I know farmers in Massachusetts who could put their whole farm into a silo. “

The next barn contains a row of stalls for horses, a huge meal-chest, hay cutter and mixing-through. All the horse manure is shoveled into an adjoining building, where it is worked over by swine. A large number of Berkshires are kept; every out of the way corner was full of them. The tool room is filled with the tools not in immediate use, chains, ploughs, horse harrows and rakes, thus saving time usually spent in hunting for articles that have been mysteriously spirited away. ” This I call the hospital. It is often expedient to remove sick animals from the rest of the herd. “

And passing through the numerous white washed pens, each with its own outside door, we thought preparations had been made for a general prevalence of pleuro pneumonia or epizootic. So many doors had been opened that we got bewildered and we cannot say whether the calves were in a separate place or not, but we saw them somewhere, fifteen or twenty of them, of all sizes and breeds. Some were very nice, though brought up on skim milk.

One, eight month old, was larger than an ordinary yearling, and the Swiss calf, ” Young Luna, ” was a sight to those unfamiliar with the breed. She has large legs set well apart, thick wrinkled neck, big ears sticking straight out like signboards, and is about the color of a field mouse.

The cows were now slowly winding down hill, and turning reluctantly from the comfortable and convenient barns, we climbed into the raised gallery along one side the barn-yard to watch them file in. Jerseys predominant-pale cream color, with markings of dark and white, slender build, small head and horns, and a general appearance of delicacy. Their milk, though not large in quantity, is very rich. It is set with milk of other breeds, however, and no trouble is noticed in churning all together. For ordinary farmers, and by such we mean those who have no income beyond the products of the farm, the Jersey is not the best breed of cow to keep. Their stock is small, and many think them not hardly enough to thrive on scant feed in open-work barns. We notice Victoria, Gravelotte and Nora, all imported. The rest are as like as two peas in a pod, and only the intelligent herdsman, William Gotham, the superintendent or their enthusiastic owner can tell one from another. The four year old heifer, ” Zulder Zee, ” is remarkable for size, as is also her calf, sired by ” Highland Chief. ” A noble pair of oxen might be raised from such a cow, and we wonder why horse should supersede

these trusty animals. But of all the herd our individual choice fell on ” Gypsy, ” a speckled Ayrshire, and her daughter, ” Pride of Shelburne, “

All these breeds are kept pure, and a good chance is afforded to obtain first class stock, much below the usual price.

The grain is stowed in the green barn, an eighth of a mile above, where it is threshed and ground. The house on this place has been remodeled, and during the summer is let to city visitors. Judge Burbank also owns the Gates place on the north side the river, but it cannot proper be said belong to the stock farm, as no work is done on it except to cut the hay.

We must not forget to mention the poultry, which according to the capital required, is the best paying stock on any farm. About two hundred chickens encamped around the back door. Some in common wooden coops, and the very youngest in smaller ones of wired screen. Plymouth Rocks are kept for mothers, as they sit steady and are not inclined to rove, but the brown leghorns are considered the best egg producers.

The water supply at the farm is plentiful and good. A well fifty-eight feet in depth never fails to supply clear cold water, and a new acqueduct was laid this fall bringing water from the hills to the barn-yards in lead pipes. A grove of pines has been set out at the west end of the house. They make rather sombre shade trees, but this is obviated in a measure by trimming them high. Miss Mary Wornwood, the housekeeper for many years, has personal over-sight of all the housework, butter-making, etc., and in the summer requires the assistance of three or four girls.

Brilliant hued peacocks display their beauty on the lawn, doves coo and flutter overhead, pet rabbits hop away, then turn and look back with pluk startled eyes, a tiny white boat rocks on a sheet of water near by, fanciful summer houses stand where the views are most delightful, horses and carriages, everything combined to make this place not only a resource for money making, but a pleasant home where the owner and his family can spend their summers in quiet enjoyment.

Perhaps a brief sketch of the Proprietor of the White Mountain Stock Farm may not be uninteresting, especially to friends of his boyhood, to whom the remembrance of his genial god nature and strong love of home. are more familiar of late years than his presence.

Robert Ingalls Burbank is the oldest son of Barker Burbank. Son Capt. Eliphalet Burbank, of Gilead, and Polly Ingalls, only child of Fletcher Ingalls.

For years his father was a man of wealth and influence, a social and political leader; and in many respects his mother was most noteworthy of the women of Shelburne. Though she passed most of her life, a long life of more than four score years, within sight of her birth-place, many a travelled lady might envy her attainments and knowledge of the outside world. In her family were doctors, lawyers, teachers, educated men, accomplished and refined women; but each all could find mother a companion capable of understanding their highest aspirations. She retained her faculties to the end of life, and ” mother’s room ” was a refuge where cares were made lighter, and troubles forgotten by loving sympathy. The aged parents now sleep their last, long sleep together in the little cemetery overlooking the lake, but their memories will live for generations like the ever green pines that wave above them.

Robert attended the common schools until far enough advanced to go to Bethel Academy, where he was a pupil of that veteran teacher N. T. True. Afterward he taught nine schools, several of them in Shelburne. The following anecdote is characteristic, and illustrates that natural kindness of heart that ever seeks to lift up lowly, care for the neglected, bring forward the diffident, in the pleasure of others. When Mr. Burbank taught school in the Moses Rock school-house, he numbered among his scholars the late Nathaniel Wells, of Gorham, then living at Stephen Peabody’s. Mr. Wells had enjoyed very limited school privileges, and consequently was behind others of his age. Of course he was picked upon and tormented in every conceivable way. If his persecutors had only been boys he would have held his own, but when the big girls turned against him he was defenceless, and gallantly bore the abuse in silence. One noon, however, the teacher happened in unexpectedly, and caught them in the midst of their cruel sport.

” I am ashamed of you! ” he cried indignantly to the blushing girls. ” only think how much greater your advantages have been than Nathaniel’s, and yet your acquirements are smaller in proportion than his. Never let me see again such an instance of unkindness, but instead of laughing at him for his difficulties, try to encourage and help him

Mr. Burbank graduated from Dartmouth in July, 1843, and went to Cambridge Law School, but left the next year to enter the office of Daniel Webster. Here he remained for years as Webster’s secretary, spending one summer at the statesnan’s farm in Marshfield. In 1846 he entered the Mass. bar, and after traveling in the west made his home permanently in Boston, where he had held many offices of honor and trust; being several times City Councillor, State Representative, State Senator, Chief Justice of one of the City Courts, and Commander of the 3rd Battalion and 1st Reg. Massachusetts Vol. Militia; but as he himself says “always a farmer, the highest honor of all. “

He is also a writer and lecturer of note, and frequently lectures on agriculture. two years ago he delivered a course of lectures at Dartmouth Agricultural College, and this year has been appointed lecturer at the same college.

He married Miss Lizzie W. Christie, a wealthy and highly accomplished lady, daughter of Daniel M. Christie, LL. D. of Dover, by whom he has two children, a son and daughter now living. Another son died in early childhood.

Immediately after his marriage, Judge Burbank and his bride went on an extended tour of Europe. While visiting the gorgeous palaces of Emperors, The National galleries of art, and ruins of Historical Castles, he found time to inspect the most noted stock farms of the world, and success of breeders intensified his already ardent love of farming and for superior stock.

Several years before the death of his father, he formed the idea of building a summer residence somewhere near his old home, but was induced finally to put his money into the homestead itself. The buildings have been repaired and improved, worn out fields restored to fertility, nice fences built, pastures cleared up and stocked with the best animals of all breeds. A few weeks every summer are passed here by the Judge and his family, and all visitors are welcomed with impartial courtesy.

APPENDIX

When we wrote this brief and Imperfect sketch of Shelburne for the columns of the MOUNTAINEER we did not realize how many eyes would scan the lines, or how many memories would be busy over every detail. Tradition handed from father to son for generations always become more or less changed, and one could hardly recognize their own exploits when related by great-grand-children. Many items which some assure us are positive facts are regarded by others as gross misrepresentations. However the errors can injure no one, for we believe the evil men do should be buried with them. There is plenty of good in every nature to occupy our thoughts and our tongues, and if in one heat has been roused a renewed interest for those who bore the ” Burden and heat of the day, ” we shall not have written wholly in vain.

For ourselves, we have become fascinated with these old time heroes. As the ideal characters of Byron and Shelly were living realities to sentimental Isabel Sleaford, real beings whom she knew and loved, so these hardy backwoodsmen, brave to meet danger, strong to endure disappointment, the saintly women, patient, self-denying, true-hearted, assume the individuality of old friends. the unsightly log ouses that once covered the numerous grass-grown cavities called “cellar-holes” are pleasant homes, ring with the happy voices of children, or breathing the bushel, solemn accents of prayer. religion was more than an empty name one hundred years ago; and though often bigoted, intolerant and unreasonable, it was a governing power in their lives.

We regret that we did not endeavor to write a reliable History, but as it is too late now, the most evident mistakes will be corrected here.

1st. Unintentionally the wife of Moses Ingalls was given to his son Fredrick, and vice versa. Mr. Ingalls lived near where C. J. Lary now does, and Timothy Hodgdon’s grandparents on the hill. On Mr. Ingalls’ ninetieth birthday Mrs. Hodgon, whose age was the same, called upon him to sleeve her home.

2d. Nathaniel Porter married Sarah Ingalls, a grand-daughter of Daniel Ingalls, and had a family of nine, one boy and eight girls instead of seven. Only one has died, Poly, Mrs. Hezikiah Ordway. Of the seven sisters living, Betsy, formerly Mrs. Supply Stevens, is eighty-four. Hannah, Mrs. Emery of Medford, Mass., is a remarkably well preserved lady of eighty-two. It is rarely that so large a family grow old without a break in the circle.

The Messers are a hardy and prolific race. Samuel, a son of Stephen Messer, has not been heard from by his friends in Shelburne for twenty-five years, but at that time his descendants numbered seventy-five. Nancy Messer had twelve children, but the Peabody element seemed to lack constitution, for one half of them died young. Still her living descendants to-day are fifty-four. Betsy Messer had ten children and lost only one in childhood, Eliza, who died at the age of fifteen, of a white swelling on her knee. Her daughter Mary, Mrs. William Newell, is eighty-two, and the oldest person in town.

In speaking of doctors we neglected to state how people fared before the advent of Dr. Howe. Women cared for their own families, mostly, always laying up a store of catnip, spearmint, tansy, mullein leaves, burdock, etc.. If these herbs were cut on a dry morning before dog days began, they would cure the most common ailments to which ” flesh is heir to.” Everyone saved a big bottle of goose oil for croup, and the decanters were filled with rum. brandy and sometimes whiskey. In severe cases of fever, childbirth or unknown complications, Granny Starbird was sent for. She went long journeys horseback, and was called very skillful, doctoring mostly with roots and herbs. Ezekiel Evans could pull teeth, and people had to stand it without the aid of laughing gas. In 1832 and *33, when the throat distemper raged, Dr. Howe was quite young, it was a new disease, and he lost nearly every patient at first. Like its counterpart, Diphtheria, it swept away whole families, or singled out the fairest of the flock. Stephen Peabody had buried two, and his only remaining child lay at death’s door, when a traveling doctor, by the name of Griswold, passes through the place. Hearing of the peculiarly sad circumstances at Mr. Peabody’s he called, and after seeing the child declared his ability to cure her. It was the straw held to a drowning man, but the afflicted parents caught eagerly at the slender hope of saving one of their little family. The prescription was given to the nurse, Nancy Peabody, and soon there was a change for the better. A few days later Nathaniel Wells, the hired man, was taken sick, Dr. Howes was called, but as soon as he left the nurse turned his medicine on the ashes, and followed Dr. Griswold’s directions. When Dr. Howe made his next visit he found the patient decidedly better. ” I am surprised , ” he exclaimed, with professional gravity. ” I am really surprised to see what effect my medicine has had on Nathaniel.” If he mistrusted the fate of his pills and potions he wisely said nothing, but from that time he always recommended Miss Peabody as a nurse when he had a case of distemper. ” There is as much in nursing, ” he was wont to say, ” as in doctoring. “

In account of the Indian raid, we find great diversity. Some are positive that Capt. Rindge or Ridge lived near Otis Evans’, others are equally certain that his house stood near Martin Burbank’s. We incline to the latter opinion, for Segar, an eye witness, says in his Narative:

” After this we went with the Indians to the house, where Capt. Ridge, the owner of the house, with his wife and children were,— the Indians went out and scalped Mr. Poor.”

Thus giving the impression that Mr. Poor’s body lay but a short distance from Capt. Ridge’s house. No other atrocity was ever committed here, but for many years Indians occasionally passed through the place in their war paint, drinking, dancing and feasting at some barn or by the roadside. The old revolutionary soldiers had a strong antipathy to the very sight of them.

” Godfrey knows, ” old John Lary used to say to his friend and comrade, Jonathan Evans, Sr.,
” If I had a gun I’d shoot an Indian as quick as I would a partridge, “

In the mention of the soldier of the Rebellion we omitted the name of Corporal Ellery Wheeler, 17th N. H.

In the chapter on churches, Burker read Barber. Many will remember that good but accentric minister. It was his custom to pop in on people at the most unreasonable hours, frequently happening at breakfast or just as the family were retiring. It is an excellent way to find out the ” true inwardness ” of a church. If one of the elders can tumble over the barnyard bars about daylight and spill a pail of new milk without losing the key of revival melody he was humming, there can be no question about his piety. A great religious excitement was experienced during Mr. Baber’s sojourn here, beginning about the time of Judge Ingalls’ death, and lasting two or three years. Mr. and Mrs. James Hall were prominent supporters of the meeting, and their house was a favorite resort for prayer meetings. Now they have gone where ” prayer is changed to praise, ” others have moved away, the enthusiastic converts have grown indifferent, the tidal wave of reformation has subsided. this generation has seen both its religious and temperance revival, and not till our children take our places can there be such intense and general enthusiasm.

Operations have been indifinitely suspended at the lead mine, but our mine is still there, and some day the right Company will come along and unearth its hidden riches.

In conclusion we quote the words of a Shelburne boy who has seen other and larger places.

” Shelburne is just as good a place as there is in the world. Always plenty of work, good wages and good folks to work for. “

The End

Source

Peabody, R. P. Mrs., History of Shelburne, New Hampshire, Gorham, N.H., Mountaineer print, 1882.