Diary of Hiram Harvey Hurlburt Jr: Chapter 7

… was allowed to go off alone to walk down to grandmother Bullard’s I was directed on the road in particular. I should say it was June. When I had gone about three fourths of a mile, there were some young cattle forward of me grazing side of the way, and as soon as I come up to them they would start and run ahead as if I was driving them. I tried my best to get by them, but no use they kept advance. We came to a log house, the door was open, and the floor of the houses to be the same height of the street; so in the door went two or three of these young cattle, probably yearlings, instantly an elderly lady came driving them out with a good deal of energy. Spying me she came up and wanted to know “Whose boy I was?” Then she piled the words on to me, she would send word to my father, on driving cattle into her house. I kept moving along carefully expecting every moment she would pounce onto me, and whether she would give me the most extreme of punishment I had seen or read of or of a milder type – anyhow my happiness was getting to a very low ebb as I trudged along to my destination. Finally I succeeded in getting to the gate of the yard leading to the house, then I saw my Uncle Marcus one and a half years older than myself, as soon as I got to him I put my arm around him and the flood of tears, that had been kept in waiting broke loose, and when Mark inquired, “What was the matter?” I was perfectly unintelligible in my report.

Mark took me into his mother’s room, my grandmother took me close to her to find out what had happened, after I knew I was safe I told all, then she espoused my cause very strongly, she would see about old Mrs. Halsey, she would send Cullen up there and he would carry me home. Of course I had found friends, and the terrors of the future punishment faded away. Mark and I went fishing down a brook that had quantities of horn dase and shiners, which grandmother served up for our dinner in fine style. So my visit came to joyful end being carried to my home by my kind Uncle the Doctor.

At another time cannot remember exact date but it was warm weather I had been up at the clothing works where my uncle finished cloth, when I looked out the window saw an old lady passing along knitting as she walked. It was mostly descending in the grade, after a bit I went toward home, pretty quick I saw some yarn on the ground moving slightly; and as far as I could see either direction was this yarn. Then I thought of the woman knitting, and as I knew what way she was passing, I ran to find her. She had passed through both bridges and was going up a hill and had just discovered that she had dropped her ball of yarn, as the rise of the ground made more exertion to carry the thread she was working at. Then Aunt Hitty turned around and retraced her steps to recover her goods. As the two bridges were three hundred feet in length and the rocky island one hundred feet she must have unwound nearly four hundred feet!

There were several noticed this incident, and the quotation was often uttered “Aunt Hitty Sanford spinning street yarn.” As I reflect am pretty sure from that circumstance which was noticed by several before the yarn was finally rewound came the always as not pleasant reminder. She was spinning street yarn.

On the Rocky Island when I was a boy were the ruins of several industries. For some reason when I was a small boy two old people told me some early history. My finding some s???s of timber imbeded in the ground below the clothing works. So I inquired of Enoch Sprague? To satisfy my curiosity he went with me to show where such and such buildings stood. Afterwards Isreal Marsh confirmed the fact.

Just below the clothing works was a forge for hammering cut nails, as far as I can find outthe first ever cut by a machine. They were cut out of the plate which were wide enough for the length of the nail; and the head of the nail was all on one side or rather the edge. In the old plank houses in Quaker Village these nails were used and in later years about 1869, I found the same pattern of nail in the Van Schai? house in Lansingburg, N.Y., as the roof from which I removed in the shingles to replace with slate, the roof then showed that of the several roofs that had been placed. First the hand made nail, then the pattern from the Weybridge Mill.

Down the stream a little farther was the distillery. Where cider brandy was made, that would make the drinker forget their trouble, but when they recovered their senses; their woes would look more unsurmountable.

This distillery was carried by William Sanford and his wife Mahittable and I was told by an old resident in my youththat he had seen both husband and wife to far gone in the exhilerating influences of its products that no business could be done with them. This business of distilling was abandoned after a few years and Wm. Sanford made pearlash, “salaratus”, from the ashes he gathered in the neighborhood. I can recollect the price per. lb. when he brought the article to our house, fifteen cents, but its strength was such that a pound lasted quite a while.

(The full diary will be located here when complete.)