Part 18 (1/2)
Many general customs existed in the early colonies which were simply exemplifications of neighborliness put in legal form. Such were the systems of common lands and herding. This was an old Aryan custom which existed many centuries ago, and has ever been one of the best ways of uniting any settlement of people, especially a new settlement; for it makes the interest of one the interest of all, and promotes union rather than selfishness. Common lands were set off and common herds existed in many of the Northern colonies; cowherds or ”cow-keeps” were appointed and paid by the town to care throughout the summer for all the cattle owned by the inhabitants. This was an intelligent provision; for it saved much work of individuals during the months when farmers had so much hard work to do, and so short a time to do it in. In Albany and New York the cowherd and ”a chosen proper youngster”--in other words, a good, steady boy--went through the town at sunrise sounding a horn, which the cattle heard and knew; and they quickly followed him to green pastures outside the town. There they lingered till nearly sunset, when they were brought home to the church, and the owners were again warned by the horn of the safe return of their cattle, and that it was milking time. Sometimes the cowherd received part of his pay in b.u.t.ter or cheese. In Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, Cowherd Rice, in 1635, agreed to take charge of one hundred cows for three months for ten pounds. The town also paid two men or boys to help him the first two weeks, and one man a week longer; he kept the cows alone after that, for the intelligent cattle had fallen into habits of order and obedience to his horn. He had to pay threepence fine each time he failed to bring in all the cattle at night.
On Long Island and in Connecticut there were cowherds, calf-keepers, and pound-keepers. The calf-keepers' duties were to keep the calves away from the cows, water them, protect them, etc. In Virginia and Maryland there were cow-pens in early days, and cowherds; but in the South the cattle generally roamed wild through the forests, and were known to their owners by earmarks. In all communities earmarks and other brands of owners.h.i.+p on cattle, horses, sheep, and swine were very important, and rigidly regarded where so much value was kept in domestic cattle.
These earmarks were registered by the town clerk in the town records, and were usually described both in words and rude drawings. One of my great-great-grandfather's earmarks for his cows was a ”swallow-fork slit in both ears”; another was a slit under the ear and a ”half-penny mark on the foreside of the near ear.” This custom of herding cattle in common lasted in some out-of-the-way places to this century, and even lingered long in large cities such as Boston, where cows were allowed to feed on Boston Common till about 1840. In Philadelphia until the year 1795 a cowherd stood every morning at the corner of Dock and Second streets, blew his horn, tramped off to a distant pasture followed by all the cows of his neighborhood, who had run out to him as soon as they heard the familiar sound. He led them back to the same place at night, when each returned alone to her own home.
Sheep-herds or shepherds in colonial days also took charge of the sheep of many owners in herd-walks, or ranges, by day, and by night in sheep-folds built with fences and gates.
Fence-viewers were men who were appointed by the town for common benefit to take charge of building and keeping in repair the fences that surrounded the ”great lotts” or commons; that is, the enclosed fields which were the common property of each town, in which all farmers living near could place their cattle. The fence-viewers saw that each man worked a certain amount each year on these ”pales” as the fences were called, or paid his share for the work of others. Each farmer or cow-owner usually built about twenty feet of fence for each cow which he pastured in the ”great lotts.” The fence-viewers also examined the condition of fences around private lands; noted breaks and ordered repairs. For if cattle broke through a poorly made fence, and did damage to crops, the fence-owner had to stand the loss, while if the fences were good and strong, proving the cattle unruly and destructive, the owner of the cattle had to pay. All the colonies were watchful over the safe-keeping of fences. In 1659 the Dutch rulers of New Amsterdam (now New York) ordered that for ”stripping fences of rails and posts” the offender should be whipped and branded, and for a second offence he could be punished by death. This seems cruelly severe, but that year there was a great scarcity of grain and other food, and if the fences were pulled down, cattle could get into fields and eat up the growing crops, and famine and death might result.
Sometimes a common field was fenced in and planted with Indian corn. In this case the fence served to keep the cattle out, not in. This was always the case in Virginia.
Hay-wards were, as the name indicates, men to keep watchful care over the growing hay. For instance, in Hadley, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1661, Goodman Montague was chosen hay-ward by the town. He was to have twelvepence for each cow or hog, two s.h.i.+llings for each horse, and twenty pence for each twenty sheep that he found loose in any field or meadow, and successfully turned out. The owner of the animal was to pay the fine. At a later date these hay-wards were called field-drivers.
They are still appointed in many towns and cities, among them Boston.
Hog-reeves were men appointed by the citizens to look after their hogs that roamed the roads and streets, to see that all those swine had rings in their noses, were properly marked, and did not do damage to crops. Many towns had hog-reeves till this century; for until seventy years ago hogs ran freely everywhere, even in the streets of our great cities. It was a favorite jest to appoint a newly married man hog-reeve.
When Ralph Waldo Emerson was married and became a householder in Concord, the young philosopher was appointed to that office. Sometimes a single swineherd was hired to take care of the roving swine. The two Salem swineherds or swine-keepers in 1640 were to have sixpence for each hog they drove daily to pasture from April to November. These and many other public offices were simply a form of legalized cooperation; a joining together of neighbors for public good.
The neighborly a.s.sistance given to new settlers began with the clearing of the ground for occupancy. The girdling of trees was easy and speedy, but it was discountenanced as dangerous and hideous, and was not frequently practised. A chopping-bee was a universal method among pioneers of clearing ground in newly settled districts, or even in older towns.h.i.+ps in Vermont, New Hamps.h.i.+re, and Maine, where great tracts of land were left for many years in the original growth. Sometimes this bee was held to clear land for a newly married man, or a new neighbor, or one who had had bad luck; but it was just as freely given to a prosperous farmer, though plentiful thanks and plentiful rum were the only rewards of the willing workers.
All the strong men of the towns.h.i.+p repaired at an early hour to the tract to be cleared, and with powerful blows attacked the great trees. A favorite way of bringing the day's work and the day's excitement to a climax was by a ”drive.” This was made by chopping half-way into the trunks of a great group or circle of trees--under-cutting it was called--so that by a few powerful and well-driven blows at the monarch of the group, and perhaps a few well-concerted pulls on a rope, the entire group could be felled together, the leader bringing down with his spreading branches in his mighty fall his fellows in front of him, and they in turn their neighbors, with a crash that shook the earth and made the mountains ring. It was dangerous work; accidents were frequent; the records of death at log-rollings are pathetic to read and to think of, in a country where the loss of a st.u.r.dy man meant so much to some struggling household. A heavy and sudden gust of wind might blow down a small tree, which had been carelessly ”under-cut,” and thus give an unexpected and premature collapse of the simple machinery of the grand finale.
A century ago a New Hamps.h.i.+re woman and her husband went out into the forest primeval; he cut down a few trees, made a little clearing termed a cut-down wherein a tiny patch of sky and cloud and scant sunlight could be seen overhead, but no sunrise or sunset, and built a log house of a single room--a home. With the opening spring came one day a group of kindly settlers from distant clearings and settlements, some riding from ten miles away the previous day. In front of the log house they chopped all the morning long with st.u.r.dy arms and swinging blows, yet felled nothing, till in the afternoon when all was ready for the final blow at the towering leader, which by its fall should lay low a great sloping tract for a dooryard and home field. As the n.o.ble trees fell at last to the earth with a resounding crash, lo! in the opening there appeared to the startled eyes of the settler's wife, as if rising out of heaven, a neighbor in her loneliness--Mount Kearsage, grand, serene, and beautiful, crowned with the glories of the setting sun, standing guard over a smiling lake at its foot. And every day through her long and happy life till ninety-six years old, as she looked at the splendid mountain, standing as it will till time shall be no more, did she thank G.o.d for His gift, for that n.o.ble companions.h.i.+p which came so suddenly, so inspiringly, upon the cramped horizon of her lonely forest home.
After the trees were all felled, it was no longer a ”cut-down” but an ”opening.” This was made preferably in the spring. The fallen trees were left some months on the ground to dry in the summer sun, while the farmer turned to other work on his farm, or, if he were starting in life, hired out for the summer. In the autumn the tops were set on fire, and the lighter limbs usually burned out, leaving the great charred tree-trunks. Then came what was known as a piling-bee, a perfect riot of hard work, cinders, and dirt. Usually the half-burned tree-trunks were ”n.i.g.g.e.red off” in Indian fas.h.i.+on, by burning across with a smaller stick of wood till the long log was in lengths which could be dragged by the farmers with their oxen and horses into vast piles and again set on fire. Another treat of rum accompanied this day's work. The word ”log-rolling” was often applied to the latter bee, and occasionally the felling of trees and dragging into piles for firing was done in a single log-rolling.
Sometimes before the opening was cleared it was planted. The spring rains and melting snows carried the fertilizing ashes deep into the soil. Corn was planted and ”dug in”; rye was sowed and ”hacked in.” The crops were astonis.h.i.+ng; the grain grew among the fallen logs and stumps in rioting luxuriance. A stump-pulling was another occasion for a friendly bee, to clear off and put into comely shape the new field.
Another exhibition of cooperation was in a stone-hauling or a stone-bee.
Some of the rocky fields of hard New England would defy a lifetime of work of one man and a single yoke of oxen. With judicious blasting, many oxen, strong arms, and willing hearts the boulders and ledges were tamed. Stone walls eight feet wide, such as may be seen in Hopkinton, New Hamps.h.i.+re, stand as monuments of the patience, strength, skill, and cooperation of our forbears.
To show the struggle and hard work willingly done for a home, let me give the statement in 1870 of a respected citizen, the historian of Norridgewock, Maine, when he was over ninety years old. He served an apprentices.h.i.+p of eight years till he was twenty-one, then bought on credit a tract of fifty acres in the primeval woods. On eight acres he felled the trees and left them through the winter. In April, 1801, he spent three weeks in burning off the logs and clearing as well as possible by handwork three acres. These he sowed with wheat and rye, buying the seed on credit. He hired a yoke of oxen for one day and did what harrowing he could in that short time, grubbing around the stumps with a hoe for two more days. The crop grew, as did all others on similar soil, amazingly. The two bushels of seed-wheat yielded fifty-two bushels, the bushel of rye thirty bushels. On his other five acres among the fallen trees he planted corn, and raised a hundred and twenty-eight bushels. He adds:--
”When I could leave my work on my new land I worked out haying and other work. I made shoes in the Fall, taught school in the Winter, paid for my board and some clothing, but husbanded my resources to pay for my land. At the end of the year found myself worth two hundred dollars. I continued to clear up four acres each year till I had cleared the fifty acres, planted an orchard and erected suitable farm buildings and fences.”
Six years later he married and prospered. In eleven years he was worth two thousand dollars; he filled, during his long life, many, positions of trust and of profit, and did many and varied good deeds; he continued in active life till he was ninety years old. At his death he left a considerable fortune. It is an interesting picture of the value of honorable economy and thrift; a typical New England picture, with a certain vigor and stimulus about it that makes it pleasing.
A ”raising” might be of a church or a school-house, or of a house or barn for a neighbor. All the strong men far and near turned out to help, tools were lent, and many strong hands and arms made quick work. Often the frame of a whole side of a house--the broadside--was fastened together on the ground. After it was laid out and pinned together, sh.o.r.es of long poles were attached to the plates with ox-chains, and it was literally lifted into place by the united strength of the entire band of men and boys. Sometimes women pulled on the rope to express their good will and helpfulness. Then the other sides were put up, and the cross-beams, braces, and studding all pinned and nailed into place.
Afterwards the huge rafters were raised for the roof. Each man was a.s.signed in the beginning to his place and work, and worked faithfully when his turn came. When the ridge-pole was put in place, the building was christened, as it was called, by breaking over it a bottle of rum.
Often the house was literally given a name. Sitting astride the ridge-pole, one poet sang:--
”Here's a mighty fine frame Which desarves a good name, Say what shall we call it?
The timbers all straight, And was hewed fust rate, The frame is well put together.
It is a good frame That desarves a good name, Say! what shall we name it?”
Another, a Rochester, New Hamps.h.i.+re, frame was celebrated in verse which closed thus:--
”The Flower of the Plain is the name of this Frame, We've had exceeding good Luck in raising the Same.”
It was not luck that made these raisings a success, it was skill and strength; skill and powers of endurance which could overcome and surmount even the quant.i.ty of vile New England rum with which the workmen were plied throughout the day. Accidents were frequent, and often fatal. A great frame of a meeting-house, or a vast barn with forty or fifty men at work on it, could not collapse without loss of life and much injury of limb.