Moultonborough Historical Society

Moultonborough Historical Society Preserving the Past for the Future http://www.moultonboroughhistory.org/default.html

08/31/2019

THE STORY OF RAGGED ISLAND Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H.
Told by
The Rev. Frank E. Greene
The Moultonborough Historical Society
August 8, 1988


RAGGED ISLAND
Last week Edie and I had a chance to visit Ragged Island in its new guise as a natural sanctuary. John Worthington, Director of the educational programs there for the Lakes Region Conservation Trust and the Natural Science for Youth Foundation, met us at Harilla Landing on Long Island and took us the mile or so across Back Bay to the south side of Ragged.

On the boathouse a rustic sign proclaimed that we were now in the
JANE WHEELER BECKETT WILDLIFE PRESERVE.
Otherwise
everything was much as it was ten years aero, the time of my
V last visit. ^path to the right under immense red and white
pines and oaks still lead to the white-painted building known as the "Governor's Cottage," now, with an added wing, used as a dormitory for staff and visitors there for meetings or conferences. Several bunkhouses retrieved from the defunct Camp Idlewild on nearby Cow Island had been set up beside it.

The path to the left of the boathouse still led to the main lodge, which previous' owners had used for a living room and sleeping quarters and has now been converted into a museum for the study of nature. From the veranda there was still the view across the Long and Sandy Islands, as well as the whole range of the Belknaps at the south end of the Lake.
Here Mr. Worthington left us free to explore the rest of the island. A hundred feet north along the shore was the kitchen and former dining room, the latter now used as a meeting place. Its walls were still decorated with murals painted by Jane Brackett's sister, showing scenes of Greece, Egypt, and India. Like the lodge and most of the other buildings this structure was shingled on the outside, with white trim, making it fit modestly into the landscape around it.
The path from there on, now known as the
EDNA M. CARLSEN NATURE TRAIL, led entirely around the shore of the twenty-acre island. It features wooden bridges over swampy spots, and signs identifying trees and wildlife. As we walked around we saw Little Bear Island to the north and Little Ragged and Little Pine Islands eastward, toward Cow Island.

As we approached the "Governor's Cottage from the other side I realized that we had missed the studio which Mr. Beckett had built on the north shore of Ragged. One of the staff told us that this is now off the main trail, in a sheltered cove set apart as a loon sanctuary.

Mr. Worthington being preoccupied with a group of campers arrived for a scavenger hunt (for teaching purposes) and not able to bring us back to Harilla for some time, I took the opportunity to return to the trail and look for the studio, now used by the Loon Preservation. Committee as a center for loon study for young people. This time I found the path to it, through blueberry bushes thick with berries and over a wooden footbridge. I looked in through the French doors. The furniture, the Indonesian artifacts Mr. Beckett had brought back from a year at Jakarta were gone, of course, as was the grand piano, to which I had listened many times. Ten years ago a barge had come and taken it away to start on its long journey to South Africa, to be with Wheeler Beckett in his last home.

The sight of the old studio brought back many memories. I thought of the meeting I had attended in the summer of 1978 on the porch at Windermere. A group of conservationists led by John Ripley Forbes discussed with Mr. Beckett the possibility of taking over Ragged Island for a nature sanctuary. The property had been for sale since Jane Beckett's death the year before, and many of us were afraid that this paradise of nature at its most beautiful would be despoiled by development or changed by the whims of some private owner. Mr. Beckett agreed to let them have it, if they would pay him $10,000 a year for the rest of his life. As he was in his late seventies this seemed a fair proposition. He died just this past year, among his friends in South Africa, so Mr. Forbes' vision and shrewdness resulted in a great victory for conservation at a very reasonable price.
* * *
2.

The original transactions^ recorded at the Registry of Deeds in Ossipee. Here we learn that on July 31, 1978, Wheeler M.A. Beckett of Englewood, N.J. conveyed to the National Science for Youth Foundation, then of New Canaan CT, the property known as Ragged Island. It is still owned by the Foundation, though it is managed by the Lakes Region Conservation Trust of Meredith.
The Becketts had owned Ragged for over forty years. After a few years of renting the place they bought it from Alice E. Lilly on October 1, 1936, together with Little Ragged, the buildings, and the Dodge motorboat.
I had come to know the Becketts during this period, as a high school student interested in music. Several times I had gone over to Ragged in my putt-putt to show the great man my latest composition, and he was always both kind and perceptive in his comments. He was then conductor of the Richmond Symphony Or-chestra, and my first contact with the exalted world of symphonic music. He was a handsome person, dignified and courteous in manner, seeming to live in a higher world than most of us. Perhaps his strongest characteristic was his interest in the musical education of youth, founding young people's concert series wherever he lived, in San Francisco, Boston and New York. I have often thought haw appropriate it is that Ragged Island is still devoted to helping young people to appreciate the finer things of life. The Becketts had kept Ragged just as the Lillys had left it, except for adding the studio, even the same boat and they were obviously as devoted to preserving natural beauty as he was to carrying out the intentions of composers, and creating harmonious music himself.
To return to previous owners, the Lillys, Edwin and Alice, purchased Ragged Island June 3, 1919 from Archie L. Lewis whom old-timers will remember as the captain of the U.S. Mail Boat Uncle Sam. Mr. Lewis, however, had owned it for only a few months, having bought it March 27,1919 from John T. Busiel and the estate of the late Frank E. Busiel. I believe that Frank E. was the Governor Busiel with whom my grandparents used to mingle socially at Wendermere. The Busiels had owned Ragged since 1981, when they paid Thomas French $250 for it.

*



French had owned the island for only two years. He bought it March 4, 1889 from Samuel G. Wentworth, administrator of the estate of his father Clark Wentworth of Long Island.
Going on backwards in our title search we find that Clark Wentworth had bought Ragged from John F. Stockbridge of Tuftonborough for $16 on July 10, 1876. Stockbridge had bought it just a few months before at auction for non-payment of taxes. Incidentally, the sale was held at Stockbridges own store. The taxes owed amounted to only $3.32, of which $2.04 were for incidental expenses. Stockbridge paid James Piper, Collector of Taxes, either $3.50 or $10, depending on which document you read.
Who was it, you wonder, lost Ragged Island for such a sum? The Town Clerk of Tuftonborough kindly allowed me to go through the old town tax record books. Here occurred one of those sur¬prises so often met by rummagers into the past. The previous owner who had not paid his taxes was none other than Clark Wentworth.

Why had he not paid the small tax and had to buy back his own property? Why was there no previous deed? It was around 1870 that Ragged, along with Sandy, Little Bear and most of Cow Island were transferred from Mouoltonborough to Tuftonborough. Probably Clark Wentworth had simply taken possession of Ragged without benefit of deed when his Long Island neighbors had no interest in the island, it being unsuitable for farming or pasturing cattle - which is just what George K. Brown and Horace Lamprey used the much larger Cow Island for when they bought it in 1867 from Blake Folsom. When the Tuftonborough authorities found that the island now lay within their jurisdiction they sent tax bills to the owners. Brown and Lamprey did not pay until their property was ad¬vertised for non-payment, then paid before it was sold. Wentworth did not pay, so had to buy it back. But at least he
then had a proper title to the land, the earliest we know of.
* * *
I would now like to turn to the problem of who built the
"Governor's Cottage?" Wheeler Beckett once told me that it had been built by the colonial Governor John Wentworth as a hunting lodge. A careful look at the style of architecture the other day convinced me that it could not possibly be that old, with its peaked roof, its porch with upright post ornaments in the upper corner of scroll-cut brackets it looked to me more like 1880 or 1090 than 1770. I would guess that either Clark Wentworth built it and the name was confused with that of his distant relative, the Governor, or which seems to me more likely a wealthy Laconia family they might well have built a vacation cottage on their island in the 1890's. So it is all right to call it the "Governor's Cottage!"

A possible connection with Governor John Wentworth, however had to be thoroughly investigated. There is in Vol XXII of the N.H. State Records a map drawn by the Masonian Proprietors in 1818 showing the owners of the island as of 1782, and whom they had sold some of the islands to. This indicates that Ragged, along with Sandy, Whortleberry and Nine Acre Islands, had been assigned to John Wentworth, even though he had left for England in 1776 and his estates confiscated. However, an exhaustive search of all deeds associated with local holdings of the Governor and the subsequent owners failed to turn up even one mention of the Winnipesaukee islands as belonging to him. Poor John was not even able to finish his dream estate in Wolfeborough, let alone build a cottage on a far-off island in another lake. He did have two family picnic spots, but they were both in Smith's Pond, now Lake Wentworth.
If John Wentworth ever owned Ragged Island we have no proof that he was aware of the fact or was able to do anything about it.
* * *
So much for the history of Ragged Island. I would like to
conclude by saying how happy it makes me that the island has been saved as a natural sanctuary. It seems even more than the Becketts realized exactly that what they would have wanted. In their forty years of occupancy they did all they could to preserve its natural beauty. The buildings inherited from the Lillys they took good care of and added nothing that would detract from its atmosphere.

The studio was built to harmonize with the other buildings, at the far end of the property. They even kept the old Dodge motorboat until it became an antique, along with their massive old Cadillac. They believed in preserving everything that was good and beautiful.
On top of that, Wheeler's professional life was entirely devoted to helping young people discover the higher values of life. It would surely have made the Becketts happy to have seen a group of children learn to love and learn about nature by running through their woods on a scavenger hunt. May the beauty of Ragged Island always be put to such worthy purposes.
Sources:
Records in the Registry of Deeds, Ossipee, N.H.
" Probate,
Deeds, Dover, N.H. Probate, "
Diary of George Brown, 1871-73 (family records)
The Lakes Region Conservation Trust
Natural Science for Youth
1860 map of Tuftonborough N.H.

08/24/2019

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08/24/2019

UPPER MOULTONBORO NECK SKETCHES
By Josephine M. Goodhue March 4,1903

It is more difficult than one imagines at first thought to gather material for any continuous story of early life about here. The best one can do is to get a series of distinct sketches of people and places.
To begin with, very few of the old people are left who can tell one any tales of early life of the first settlers. Then, so many of the places have changed owners that those remaining really know very little about the first history of their own houses and lands.
The first two things of interest come really at the gateway of the "Neck" and these two, for several reasons, are the school-house and little chapel.
The school-house has undergone many changes during all the years
of its existence, now numbering nearly a hundred. My Grandmother Abbott got what little education that was considered necessary for country girls in those days at the old school house standing on the site of the present one. Then, all needed warmth was supplied by a big fireplace. The seats, without desks, run all the way around the room. The studies were reading, spelling, writing and arithmetic, the reading being from the old spelling book of the American Preceptor. I do not know how many scholars there were, but imagine there were more than now because people then had large families.
In 1841, when my father first went there to school, the house had been newly repaired. The seats were arranged in five rows, elevated from the front toward the back, while the teacher's desk was in one corner of the room. The woodroom and entery were taken out of the space now occupied by the school room proper. Before my father finished school here in 1855, the woodroom and entery were torn out and a woodshed built on. The number of scholars varied from 15 at the first of his going to 45 at the last. All students were taught from A,B,C5 to Algebra and Geometry, The teachers "boarded round" during much of this time and received from $1.50 to $2.50 per week for services.
Generally, there were from eight to ten weeks of school per year, sometimes twenty weeks, but very seldom the latter number. The terms werebsually in the most disagreeable parts of the year, either the

roughest of winter or hottest of summer.
When my father taught there in 1871, much of this had been changed. The floor had been leveled and old-fashioned double seats and desks had been put in, also a stove beside numerous other improvements. The teachers no longer boarded round but received so much a day — he got $1.50 — and boarded themselves. Early in the *80s I began my school life there, and then the school-house was much the same as today. Now, however, there are fewer scholars and more weeks of school — 26 weeks a year, I believe.
The chapel is a comparatively recent acquision. Originally, it was the dwelling house of Samuel Moulton and stood somewhere near where the "Cambridge House" is now. It was moved to the present site and fixed up sometime in the 70's. A small society of Freewill Baptists used it for their house of worship. This Society had two settled pastors, Elder Mudgett and then Elder Davis, who was ordained there. Later, Elder Pettengill preached there a while. The two deacons were John Cotton, who lived up by Red Hill, and David A. Ambrose, now of Meredith, This society was broken up sometime about 1887. Since then, the chapel has been used for miscellaneous services, though of late years the Advent people have held more meetings there than any other sect.
In olden times, the next house on the road was that now occupied by Roland Avery, or at least a part of the house he now lives in was then in being. This was built sometime before the school-house. The first resident's name I have been unable to find out, but in 1834 Darins Drake lived there. Then all the land on that side of the road up through to the Main Road belonged to this estate. Later, Deacon Knowles* people came there to live. Since then, it has changed owners very frequently.
The land on the other side of the road from the Main Road down belonged to the Greene Family, the head of which was my great grandfather Nathan Greene, The first notice of him in the Town Records is that in 1803he was taxed for five acres of improved land, though at that time he owned some 150 acres. He gradually increased his possession until before his death in 1840 he was owner of some 600 acres. His son,

Nathan, owned the place now occupied by Kendall Dow. At that time the Main Road curved in at the Dow place and went up over Basin Hill through the part now covered by woodland and came down the other side of the present Nathan Greene’s barn, joining the road as it now is, about halfway between the barn and my home.
When great-grandfather first moved there, they occupied what is now used as the hog house. There were but two rooms and in these, the nine children were born. In 1816 he started the frame for the old style colonial house which now stands there. In 1819 he had it completed so that the family moved in. Yet he was so homesick for the old two-room house that many times they would find him sitting on the old stone doorstep weeping.
I have heard my grandmother Abbott great-grandfather's third daughter tell how that when great grandmother went for the cows at night, she had heard the bears growling in the forest behind her. My great grandmother must have been a very busy woman with all those nine children to bring up, and with none of the modern conveniences for lightening labor. Yet her work was no harder than that of the average wife and housekeeper of a well-to-do farmer of that time.
However, it is easy to see that a woman's work on a farm then was much different from now.
The farmers raised flax so that they might have linen for their bedding, table linen, etc. The flax, after ripening, was pulled, rotted, broken, swingled and combed, until finally the fibers were separated. There were several grades of flax, the coarser being called "tow". This mass of fine fiber or else the "tow" was placed on the distaff of the little linen wheel and spun into thread for weaving. The very finest they used for thread. This was reeled and then bleached. But, if to be used for weaving, it was wound on to quills and after weaving, then bleached or "bucked" as they called it. This "bucking" must have been a tedious process. The patterns used for weaving were called drafts. We have now three linen tablecloths that my great grandmother spun and wove. One of these is very fine and pretty.
For the same reason, sheep were raised. The wool, after being taken from the sheep in the fleece, was washed, greased and carded and
made into rolls so-called, all ready for spinning. To spin five skeins

of yarn in one day was called a "stint." Each skein consisted of seven knots of forty threads each. This yarn was wound from the spindle of the big wheel on to the reel into the skein, then if to be doubled or twisted, the skeins were to be put on the "swifts" and wound into balls and twisted by the spinning wheel. Three or five yards of woven woolen goods was a day's work.
The cotton they used for weaving they purchased in the yarn at the nearest market, and from this way, the market was Dover.
The getting of the raw material, either wool or flax, into thread ready for weaving or knitting, was the winter's work beside the knitting itself and making up of clothing, etc. More of the weaving was done in the warmer weather.
The woolen goods for the women's dresses was often woven in checks, either red and white, blue and white, or black and white. The cloth for the men's outside clothes, was oftenest of butternut color. Think of this woman's doing all the housework, spinning, weaving and making for herself, husband and nine children with little help beside that the children would give. Truly, people in those days got their living by the toil of their hands and the sweat of their brows,
Women in those times who "worked out" at housework got $.50 per week and sometimes these had to take their pay in "kind." What would the hired girls of today say to that?
The farmers kept the hides of the creatures they killed and had them tanned. Then, when the shoemaker paid his annual visit. Some of various members of the family were measured, and he made shoes. Some of this foot gear was of strange design, I imagine.
The chief foodstuffs raised by the farmers were corn, beans, rye and potatoes, and later on, wheat, but corn and rye were the staple products. They seldom bought much beside salt-fish, molasses and new rum. What sweetening was used beside molasses was mostly maple sugar, though sometimes they used pumpkin to sweeten their brown bread.

When sapping time came, the trees were tapped by cutting out a gash with an axe and the sap was caught in troughs, hollowed out of logs. Later on, the first spikes were made of sumac with the piths taken out, and the buckets for catching the sap were handmade of hewed-out staves. All these articles were made by the farmer them¬selves as well as many of their tools. They also rived out red and white oak staves, which they sold at $20.00 per 1000. They made shingles too, either splitting or shaving them out. Frequently, there were 18 inches long. Sometimes they got off timber in the winter season. Tho, in the early days many of the monsters of the virgin forests about here were left to rot where they lay. Occasionally, you will run across an old decayed stump which give you an idea of the size of these trees.
The rafting and getting to market was done somewhat differently then too. The trees were cut into logs ranging in length from 12 to 20 feet, then rafted in joints by boring holes through the poles and pinning directly into the logs. After the rafts were done, they hewed out immense oars and the men would row these rafts to market — either Wolfeboro, Lakeport or Meredith. It meant a two- or three-weeks trip sometimes and also a stop at Aunt Dolly's Island. Alas! Many times for a good drink, for nearly every man in those days must have his portion of rum.
There were never many stops on Moultonboro Neck, for it was strictly a farming community. Yet, there was a corn mill just below the old dam on Meadow Brook which flows into the Sanborn Meadow Cove. Then, from 1850-59 there was the Canacan Blacksmith Shop on the Sam Brown Place, now owned by Sarah Greene. And, before that, the Snow Blacksmith Shop down on the farm now occupied by Everett Cooke.
There was some brick-making done farther down on the Neck, but only for local building.
The chief amusements were summed up in raisings, huskings, paring bees and quiltings. Books and papers were very rarely found and then too often the few who cared for them were looked on as ne'er-do-wells or openly sneered at.

Yet, we find today who object to our strenuous lives and long for "the good old times". If these persons wish to live on brown bread sweetened with pumpkin, let them, but most of us do not. As for hard, possibly unsatisfactory work, they found it then as well as now. People may wish for times to turn backward but it is Nature's Law to press onward, hoping and striving for something better.
UPPER MOULTONBORO NECK SKETCHES
It is more difficult than one imagines at first thought to gather material for any continuous story of early life about here. The best one can do is to get a series of distinct sketches of people and places.
To begin with, very few of the old people are left who can tell one any tales of early life of the first settlers. Then, so many of the places have changed owners that those remaining really know very little about the first history of their own houses and lands.
The first two things of interest come really at the gateway of the "Neck" and these two, for several reasons, are the school-house and little chapel.
The school-house has undergone many changes during all the years
of its existence, now numbering nearly a hundred. My Grandmother Abbott got what little education that was considered necessary for country girls in those days at the old school house standing on the site of the present one. Then, all needed warmth was supplied by a big fireplace. The seats, without desks, run all the way around the room. The studies were reading, spelling, writing and arithmetic, the reading being from the old spelling book of the American Preceptor. I do not know how many scholars there were, but imagine there were more than now because people then had large families.
In 1841, when my father first went there to school, the house had been newly repaired. The seats were arranged in five rows, elevated from the front toward the back, while the teacher's desk was in one corner of the room. The woodroom and entery were taken out of the space now occupied by the school room proper. Before my father finished school here in 1855, the woodroom and entery were torn out and a woodshed built on. The number of scholars varied from 15 at the first of his going to 45 at the last. All students were taught from A,B,C5 to Algebra and Geometry, The teachers "boarded round" during much of this time and received from $1.50 to $2.50 per week for services.
Generally, there were from eight to ten weeks of school per year, sometimes twenty weeks, but very seldom the latter number. The terms werebsually in the most disagreeable parts of the year, either the

roughest of winter or hottest of summer.
When my father taught there in 1871, much of this had been changed. The floor had been leveled and old-fashioned double seats and desks had been put in, also a stove beside numerous other improvements. The teachers no longer boarded round but received so much a day — he got $1.50 — and boarded themselves. Early in the *80s I began my school life there, and then the school-house was much the same as today. Now, however, there are fewer scholars and more weeks of school — 26 weeks a year, I believe.
The chapel is a comparatively recent acquision. Originally, it was the dwelling house of Samuel Moulton and stood somewhere near where the "Cambridge House" is now. It was moved to the present site and fixed up sometime in the 70's. A small society of Freewill Baptists used it for their house of worship. This Society had two settled pastors, Elder Mudgett and then Elder Davis, who was ordained there. Later, Elder Pettengill preached there a while. The two deacons were John Cotton, who lived up by Red Hill, and David A. Ambrose, now of Meredith, This society was broken up sometime about 1887. Since then, the chapel has been used for miscellaneous services, though of late years the Advent people have held more meetings there than any other sect.
In olden times, the next house on the road was that now occupied by Roland Avery, or at least a part of the house he now lives in was then in being. This was built sometime before the school-house. The first resident's name I have been unable to find out, but in 1834 Darins Drake lived there. Then all the land on that side of the road up through to the Main Road belonged to this estate. Later, Deacon Knowles* people came there to live. Since then, it has changed owners very frequently.
The land on the other side of the road from the Main Road down belonged to the Greene Family, the head of which was my great grandfather Nathan Greene, The first notice of him in the Town Records is that in 1803he was taxed for five acres of improved land, though at that time he owned some 150 acres. He gradually increased his possession until before his death in 1840 he was owner of some 600 acres. His son,

Nathan, owned the place now occupied by Kendall Dow. At that time the Main Road curved in at the Dow place and went up over Basin Hill through the part now covered by woodland and came down the other side of the present Nathan Greene’s barn, joining the road as it now is, about halfway between the barn and my home.
When great-grandfather first moved there, they occupied what is now used as the hog house. There were but two rooms and in these, the nine children were born. In 1816 he started the frame for the old style colonial house which now stands there. In 1819 he had it completed so that the family moved in. Yet he was so homesick for the old two-room house that many times they would find him sitting on the old stone doorstep weeping.
I have heard my grandmother Abbott great-grandfather's third daughter tell how that when great grandmother went for the cows at night, she had heard the bears growling in the forest behind her. My great grandmother must have been a very busy woman with all those nine children to bring up, and with none of the modern conveniences for lightening labor. Yet her work was no harder than that of the average wife and housekeeper of a well-to-do farmer of that time.
However, it is easy to see that a woman's work on a farm then was much different from now.
The farmers raised flax so that they might have linen for their bedding, table linen, etc. The flax, after ripening, was pulled, rotted, broken, swingled and combed, until finally the fibers were separated. There were several grades of flax, the coarser being called "tow". This mass of fine fiber or else the "tow" was placed on the distaff of the little linen wheel and spun into thread for weaving. The very finest they used for thread. This was reeled and then bleached. But, if to be used for weaving, it was wound on to quills and after weaving, then bleached or "bucked" as they called it. This "bucking" must have been a tedious process. The patterns used for weaving were called drafts. We have now three linen tablecloths that my great grandmother spun and wove. One of these is very fine and pretty.
For the same reason, sheep were raised. The wool, after being taken from the sheep in the fleece, was washed, greased and carded and
made into rolls so-called, all ready for spinning. To spin five skeins

of yarn in one day was called a "stint." Each skein consisted of seven knots of forty threads each. This yarn was wound from the spindle of the big wheel on to the reel into the skein, then if to be doubled or twisted, the skeins were to be put on the "swifts" and wound into balls and twisted by the spinning wheel. Three or five yards of woven woolen goods was a day's work.
The cotton they used for weaving they purchased in the yarn at the nearest market, and from this way, the market was Dover.
The getting of the raw material, either wool or flax, into thread ready for weaving or knitting, was the winter's work beside the knitting itself and making up of clothing, etc. More of the weaving was done in the warmer weather.
The woolen goods for the women's dresses was often woven in checks, either red and white, blue and white, or black and white. The cloth for the men's outside clothes, was oftenest of butternut color. Think of this woman's doing all the housework, spinning, weaving and making for herself, husband and nine children with little help beside that the children would give. Truly, people in those days got their living by the toil of their hands and the sweat of their brows,
Women in those times who "worked out" at housework got $.50 per week and sometimes these had to take their pay in "kind." What would the hired girls of today say to that?
The farmers kept the hides of the creatures they killed and had them tanned. Then, when the shoemaker paid his annual visit. Some of various members of the family were measured, and he made shoes. Some of this foot gear was of strange design, I imagine.
The chief foodstuffs raised by the farmers were corn, beans, rye and potatoes, and later on, wheat, but corn and rye were the staple products. They seldom bought much beside salt-fish, molasses and new rum. What sweetening was used beside molasses was mostly maple sugar, though sometimes they used pumpkin to sweeten their brown bread.


When sapping time came, the trees were tapped by cutting out a gash with an axe and the sap was caught in troughs, hollowed out of logs. Later on, the first spikes were made of sumac with the piths taken out, and the buckets for catching the sap were handmade of hewed-out staves. All these articles were made by the farmer them¬selves as well as many of their tools. They also rived out red and white oak staves, which they sold at $20.00 per 1000. They made shingles too, either splitting or shaving them out. Frequently, there were 18 inches long. Sometimes they got off timber in the winter season. Tho, in the early days many of the monsters of the virgin forests about here were left to rot where they lay. Occasionally, you will run across an old decayed stump which give you an idea of the size of these trees.
The rafting and getting to market was done somewhat differently then too. The trees were cut into logs ranging in length from 12 to 20 feet, then rafted in joints by boring holes through the poles and pinning directly into the logs. After the rafts were done, they hewed out immense oars and the men would row these rafts to market — either Wolfeboro, Lakeport or Meredith. It meant a two- or three-weeks trip sometimes and also a stop at Aunt Dolly's Island. Alas! Many times for a good drink, for nearly every man in those days must have his portion of rum.
There were never many stops on Moultonboro Neck, for it was strictly a farming community. Yet, there was a corn mill just below the old dam on Meadow Brook which flows into the Sanborn Meadow Cove. Then, from 1850-59 there was the Canacan Blacksmith Shop on the Sam Brown Place, now owned by Sarah Greene. And, before that, the Snow Blacksmith Shop down on the farm now occupied by Everett Cooke.
There was some brick-making done farther down on the Neck, but only for local building.
The chief amusements were summed up in raisings, huskings, paring bees and quiltings. Books and papers were very rarely found and then too often the few who cared for them were looked on as ne'er-do-wells or openly sneered at.

Yet, we find today who object to our strenuous lives and long for "the good old times". If these persons wish to live on brown bread sweetened with pumpkin, let them, but most of us do not. As for hard, possibly unsatisfactory work, they found it then as well as now. People may wish for times to turn backward but it is Nature's Law to press onward, hoping and striving for something better.

By Josephine M. Goodhue March 4,1903

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