BOYHOOD REMINISCENCES.

CHAPTER I.

BUXTON AND ITS EARLY SETTLERS-A TYPICAL OLD-TIME HOUSE- CIDER AND APPLEJACK-A TRIP TO THE CARDING MILL-HOW FAMILIES WERE CLOTHED AND SHOD-THE DISTRICT SCHOOL-GETTING THE COWS.

Buxton was a famous place to me in my boyhood days, being named for Buxton, of England, I presume, for having many of its rugged qualities and the class of people who settled there. It is said to have been named Buxton by my grandmother.

Many of the first settlers of the town located there. The Danforths, Bulkleys, Tallmages, Fords, Hoxeys, Kilborns and Youngs, settled on neighboring house lots, and most of them had large families. Most of their children were older than myself and I knew but little of them except from tradition. It was the world I lived in and the only one I knew in my young days, and the life and doings of these early days, in which I moved and participated, made a deep impression

upon my young mind, and are fresher in it than many things which have occurred within the last year.

Being one of a large family, born in January, 1822, in a one-story house covering some less than onehalf acre, situated on the extreme west house lot on Main Street, having seven rooms on the ground floor, with a chimney some eight feet square at the base, with a large brick oven which yielded at Thanksgiving time its wealth of brown bread, suet puddings, chicken pies, and other things too numerous to mention; having fire-places in these rooms, situated around the big chimney, the fire-place in the kitchen being five feet wide, into which we used to pile four-foot logs and wood for light and warmth in the long winter evenings, being occupied with many neighboring men who came to talk over the news of the day and lay plans for the next political campaign (my father being a leading democrat), while I, a boy, made frequent excursions to the cellar to replenish the empty pitcher; for those were days of much cider and applejack, but very little drunkenness from the use of the same. The women of the family occupied the sitting room with their mates, and the company indulged in their own domestic employment and neighborly gossip. During the day the men were engaged in the severe labor of the farm (as my father possessed many acres) and the mother and daughters took up their duties of the day, spinning, weaving, and other domestic work,

as there were not any factories in those early days, though there was here and there a carding mill and cloth-dressing mill.

I remember when a small boy driving my mother to the South part carding mill, located on the road to New Ashford, operated by William Johnson and Charles Butler, in the building afterward used by James A. Eldridge as a plane factory. We stayed all day, waiting for the rolls to be manufactured from the budget of wool which we brought to the mill. Meanwhile I played around the mill and my mother visited with Mrs. Johnson. When the rolls were

brought home they had to be spun and made into cloth by the home-weaver, and stockings by the knitter, for the family use and wear, which kept the mother and daughters of the family busy. There were not any drones in those days; they were days of toil and self-help, still people had their hours and days of recreation and pleasure.

My big brothers had become full-fledged and left the old nest before I was old enough to remember much about them, but there lingered about the old home many of their doings and sayings. We had living with us a lame Swedish sailor called "BrokenBack" Charley, who used to have a glass he carried around at commencement time and let the boys look through at a cent a peep, saying to them they could see the whole world in it. Charley used to cultivate

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the gardens, feed the pigs and do other light chores about the house. The upper part or chamber of the old house was in one room, the boards of the floor of which did not touch the big chimney, leaving some foot space between the floor and chimney as a protection against fire, as there were not any fire insurance companies in those early days. This space made it a very convenient place for the mother cat to bring up her kittens; the chamber door and kitchen door having scientific cat-holes cut in them for the ingress and egress of the feline occupants. This chamber was occupied by the weaving loom and quilting frames, and our lodging room for the boys and hired men. One of my brothers was quite a young wag, and ofttimes in the middle of the night would call out to old Charley, "What's the number of your room?" and Charley would answer, "Sixteen." The old sailor's couch was near the quilting frames, and as soon as the light of day came into the room he would shake the quilting frames and hallo, "Boys, up, the early bird catches the worm."

In my early boyhood I was permitted to run at large in the street and over broad acres, playing "one old cat," and base ball, (no scientific games or balls hard as a white oak boulder in those days) except when pressed into service to ride the horse to plough out the corn and potatoes. This being somewhat monotonous and sleepy business, I would fall asleep

astride of the sheepskin on the horse's back, leaving the horse to his own sweet will, when a sod hurled by the holder of the plow would take me in the back and cause sleep to depart. I also followed the mowers with my rake stale to spread the swathes of the new mown grass and bring the drink to the weary men who swung the scythes. I attended school two months in summer, and three months in winter. How well I remember those youthful days of fun and frolic far back in the past, while attending school in the little red school-house on the bank of the brook at the foot of the hill, taught in the summer time by charming young misses, and in winter by young men from the college. In those days the long winter vacation gave the students an opportunity to earn some few dollars to assist them in their college course, and most of our schools in town and neighboring towns were taught by the students of the college the winter term, when the school-house was filled with large boys and girls of an interesting age, and oftentimes students who did not really need the small reward which the town dealt out to them for teaching, would take a school for the amount of fun they could get out of teaching and boarding around in the different families of the district, adorned with good, bright, healthy country girls, as the families of those days were large and the girls were beauties. The first female teacher I remember was Miss Percy Bridges, afterwards Mrs. Henry