~ Great-Great-Uncle Edward Forbes Barnes Memoirs of Marlborough ~

A story transcribed and submitted by Don Barnes (see email below)

Edward Forbes Barnes was the son of Edward and Lucy (Brigham) Barnes and was born in 1809.
He was the great- grandson of Richard Barnes who came to this country with his mother in the ship
"Jonathan" in the year 1639, settled in Sudbury  and came to Marlborough in 1657.

My name is Don Barnes and I live in the mountains of North Carolina. I was born in Uxbridge, Mass and my ancestors were some of the first settlers of Marlboro.

Some years ago I found an old composition book in which my great-grandfather’s brother had written a biography of his early life in Marlboro.  Later I transferred his writing to my computer. This biography includes many boring facts and at first I intended to only include the interesting parts.  However, it became too difficult trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, so I ended up copying it all. The period covered is 1809 to 1833 and included the names of many Marlboro residents at that time. but I will let you be the judge of that.

This great-great-uncle’s name was Edward Forbes Barnes.  There is also a Horatio Alger ending to Uncle Ed’s bio which is explained in the obituaries included at the end.

You have my permission to use use any, all or none of this.   You be the judge of that.

Donald Warren Barnes, Jr; Pineola NC
[email protected]

Autobiography of Dr. Edward F. Barnes.

Sometimes all that remains of a person long after they die, is a letter that they may have written or a diary that they may have kept. Edward Forbes Barnes was a doctor that lived in Marlboro Massachusetts during the nineteenth century. The account below is transcribed from this handwritten book. It has never been published before and while frequently dull, it gives a first person view of its times. The reader should recognize that this was written during the Civil War and begins by relating events that occurred during the War of 1812. Much,but not all, of the original spelling has been retained. Some of the words or situations unfamiliar to us today are explained within brackets.

(Written March 7, 1861)

I was born on Thursday, March 2, 1809 at the house now owned and occupied by Stephen Howe, about three fourths of a mile northwest of the west parish church. It had been the residence of my maternal great grandfather Asa Brigam who died November 18, 1806. My father married Lucy Brigam, the daughter of Jotham, the son of Asa, March 30, 1808. He in conjunction with Stephen Howe, who had married a daughter of Lewis, the son of Asa, purchased this farm in 1808.

The 1803 map section shows the location of the house he was born in.  The large star indicates the house location, the single small star indicates Clover Hill Rd., the two small stars indicate Brigham St. and the three small stars indicate Williams St.
 
 

I lived the first four years of my life at this place, and can remember various things which occurred during this time - the drawing upon my sled of four sticks of wood from the woodpile near the barn- the playing in the brook by the woodside - the going with Mother to Mr. Martin Rice's for the purpose of having me a pair of shoes made, for the pay of which we carried a bag of pears. This must have been Sept. or Oct, 1812. How Dr. Flagg came and lay down beside me on my trundle bed and asked me how I should feel if Father should die, who then lay upon his bed at the other side of the room dangerously sick, as I learned in after years of inflammation upon the sole of his foot.

The "Old Barnes Homestead" a water color done by Ellen Carpenter of Boston
 

This must have been in Aug. 1812. The last question was so startling that I always remembered it. How I went with Father one cold day to his father's old place where I saw grandmother and Cate, and when the former asked me if I like to come there, I replied, "no", and when asked the reason, I said it was because Cate was there; whereupon there was a laugh. This must have been Feb. 1813, at the time Father was negotiating with Carling for the purchase of his ancestor's place. He succeeded; and we moved there Thursday, April 1, 1813, as I found out forty years afterwards by one of Mrs. Stephen Howe's almanacs, while attending her March 1860.

(Written Thursday March 12, 1861)

1813

The year 1813 was in some respects a memorable one to my father, in that he succeeded in recovering back the homestead of his father's which had been previously in the hands of strangers eight years, a circumstance which he always held in high estimation.

In April, my sister Lucy was born. I can remember being excluded from the house on that occasion, an occurrence which I considered very strange and unjust and against which I strenuously protested.

And this year on the upland next the meadows was raised the famous crop of barley whose praises my father in after years was never weary of reciting. I can also remember going with Father and Mother one sabbath to view it and that upon going into it, it reached over my head; and how white the straw looked when it was mown and was being carted. Nothing at all approaching it could ever be attained afterwards.

1814

This year I can recallest no occurrence but one, and that of seeing the soldiers on their way to Boston, where returning from the school which was than kept on the little common opposite my present residence. This must have been Sept. 1814 at the time the British fleet was off Boston.

1815

(Written Sat. March 23, 1861) Sunday June 4, was the marriage of Aunt Nancy Willard Rice performed by Rev. Packard in the old house in the west room. At night I was much scared by the hideous noise of horns and bells around the old house. [A sharee or noisemaking done to keep the bride and groom awake all night] In the autumn of this year I was sent to Louisa William's school kept in an old house on the south side of the square opposite to the house of Joseph Howe, some two miles from home. What would people now think of sending a child of six years that distance alone to school?

During this time the great blow of 1815 occurred Sat. Sept 23, 1815. It rained heavily all the morning - slackened a little about 10 o'clock AM but the wind from the S.E. was tremendous. Father was churning in the old back room - he would now and then stop to look up at the roof which seems to lift at every gust. At last, said he, "This won't do" pushed his churn aside and gathered us all in the cellar as being the safest place. Here after consultation it was thought best to take refuge in the barn, as being new and full of hay it would not be so likely to yield to the gale. There we staid til near night before the gale abated. I still remember the fun which it gave me to see the trees one after the other fall around us and to see the loose boards and other materials flying in the air.

(Written Jan 5, 1875, an interval of 14 years)

The trees uprooted in the woods which then covered many acres not entirely denuded, afforded firewood for the inhabitants for ten or fifteen years. This was the year of the peace, and the joy on account of it was general and profound. I was too young to understand its import; yet from hearing it so often and feeling repeated, its utterance even to this day strikes me with a peculiar force. [The end of the War of 1812.]

I went a week or two this month Dec. 1815 to the centre school kept by one Cobb and in company with Eber D. Rice, a cousin who lived in the old house, a great rouge and consternation of mischief. He, one day was flogged severely by Cobb, which frightened me who witnessed it, dreadfully.

We afterwards for a week or two went to the Pond school situated on the road to Northboro above the "Pond". Eber getting dismissed one day an hour or two before was school was done, took one pair after another of the boys skates from the hollow oak tree close to the pond, and tried them in skating. For this the boys afterwards caught him and flogged him. Our going to school soon ended, whether from this or the deep snows, I cannot tell. I was a most shrinking bashful boy. The master's name was Grovesnor, a young man but big, burly, afterwards a Baptist minister of some repute, and the name I could afterwards never see or hear without some disgust and antipathy.

The school house, above, which he mentions was banned for use  in 1895. The 1803 map section to the left indicates the location of the school house; the large star indicates the schoolhouse, the single small star indicates his house, the two small stars is now Rt. 20 and the three small stars indicate Glen St.

The many little boys on the "little seats" could not always keep their feet perfectly still; and his way was several times a day to take his ruler and go whacking with it the boys shins from one end of the low seats to the other, the boys curling and clinging their legs under them to avoid the blows. I wore a little blue overcoat made out of my father's old surtout [a man's close fitting overcoat, especially a frock coat] by my maternal grandmother who was a tailoress. This I was to bashful to take off during school hours, for under it buttoned tight upon my breast was my Perry's spelling book which I did not dare to bring to light; for the spelling book in use was Alden's and I knew the master would poke fun of my book if he got sight of it, yet father would oblige me to carry it, not having money or time to get me a different one. I stood at the foot of the 4th class long row of boys. I spelt a word correctly which started near the head of the class. I started behind the row of boys to take the place in the class which the spelling entitled me to. The master called out, here, here, youngster. Walk up in front, walk straight up in front, which I did sweltering with red face in my big blue overcoat amidst the boys titters of "Corn Barnes" my nickname, and feeling as though I would like to sink through the floor. This nickname of Corn Barns or Cob Barns was given me by Wm. Barber, a big boy. When I first came to the school I was asked by the master my name. I replied being greatly agitated, Edward Fobs Barns. Barber called it Corn or Cob Barnes which the boys immediately adopted. Wm. Barber, was the son of Wm. Barber, the watchmaker, grandson of Eph Barber who made so many clocks, some seventy years ago for the farmers of this and adjoining towns. The last time I saw Wm. Jr. was in May 1826 in deep consumption [tuberculosis] riding with his stepmother. The pain which his nickname had once caused to my sensitive nature forceably came back to me at that time.

1816

This was the great frost year, long mentioned in Thomas's old almanac. No corn on account of late and early frosts and cool summer. There was much talk about spots on the sun. The Fourth of July was celebrated, both parts of the town uniting for this purpose. Mr. Bucklin in an address upon the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination, Nov 2, 1858, said that the old church (very large since it was built for the whole town) was never filled but on two occasions, it's dedication and his own ordination. [Apparently the church split] Yet it certainly was filled to overflowing on this day, the 40th anniversary of this nation. The three tiers of seats in the great semi-circular gallery were filled with singers whose earnestness and capacity of lungs seemed boundless. The stanza, beginning, "The British yoke, the Gallie chain, were urged upon out necks in vain. The all haughty tyrants we disdain. And short, long live America", was rendered with great power, by the great choir, aided by all the fiddles, bass viola, bassoons, that could be got together. Then the three militia companies followed by the crowd, marched up to the William's Tavern. The ground upon the east side of the tavern had been mowed a second time, and a long booth of birches set up upon it where the dining tables were spread, and where from the shouting and laughing which the boys heard but did not altogether behold, something to drink as well as to eat, abounded.

No corn this year. The frost came when it was yet in the milk and whole fields turned black and "the land stank" as Egypt of old. The orchards failed also. Cider was a principal article of export for the town and its failure along with corn bore hard upon the farmers. Streaks of good luck turned up now and then, which the farmers loved to relate when they met in the store or in church. A row of apple trees under Jericho was not touched. I made sixteen barrels from them which brought me eighty dollars with which I made a payment to Witherbee and saved my farm. [Jericho was a hill at the back of the family farm. In recent years has had a ski tow on it.]

1817

School District No. 3 was organized in the beginning of this year, and the school house built opposite to the spot where it is now situated, a little to the west of the crossroads near the Stevens and Bent place.

The 1835 map section to the left indicates the location of the schoolhouse; the large star indicates the schoolhouse, the single small star indicates his house,the two small stars indicate Williams St. and the three small stars indicate Forest St.

There were about forty pupils. Eliphiz Fay of Westboro was the first teacher. From Crane Meadows there were Abner, Adolphus, Alden, Austin, Lousia, and Nancy Brigham, children of Abner Brigham. Eliza, Mary Ann, Adeline, Winslow, Harriet Stevens, children of John Stevens. Susannah and Mariah Brigham, children of Moses Brigham. William and Curtis Whitcomb. Adeline, Charles, Anethura, Louisa, Albert Rice, children of Nathan Rice. Edward and Henry Barnes, children of Ed Barnes.Eliza and Ed Felton, children of Wm. Felton. Ashbel, Varnum, Charles and George Brigham, sons of Col. Eph Brigham. Evilina Loring, daughter of John Loring. Jabez, Brigham, Nahim, and Maria Witherbee, children of Caleb Witherbee. Jenub, George, Hepsibah, and Aug. Fay, children of Joseph Fay at the east of the pond. Wm. D. Gates, son of Wm. Gates, next door to Jos. Fay. Of this 40 or more, there are now twelve about living. Abner Brigham is Canada, Alden Brigham and two sister at Cold Brook and Flint, Michigan. Myself and Henry in Northboro. Ed Felton on the old place. [The Barnes old place?] Charles Brigham in Philadelphia.

This year, 1817, was born May 25, Jabez Bent Barnes, so named from Jabez Bent who died May 26, 1817 and who was a neighbor and friend of my father. Jabez was one of those children too good to live as they say, he never cried, always smiling and laughing. He died of dysentery Nov. 1, 1818, a sad day for us little ones. We, all old and young wept, even old grandmother who lived in the old house. We followed him to the grave in three or four chaises. David Wyman (Capt. Pipe) following behind on foot with his long best cane. Captain Pipe as he was called, was the foster brother of my paternal grandmother, having been adopted and brought up by Zerarbbuel Rice, her father by adoption. Captain Pipe having squandered a fine estate left him by Rice, was now at the age of 68 a town pauper, my father at the auction of town paupers having bid him off to keep during the year of 1818 for 40 dols [dollars]. The Captain was so fond of the little child that he took this way of showing his love and respect. Captain Pipe died in the poor house some ten or fifteen years afterwards, drawing a pension for his services at Ti.,(Ticonderoga) as he used to say. Jabez if living would be 60 years old. Was this 17 or 18 months of life the whole of his career? If so, how unequal.

This next winter 1818-1819, our school was kept for the second winter by Charles Hudson, now an old man of 81. His two schools were successful. One thing at his last examination struck me as unaccountable, that he took no notice of Mr. Packard, the minister, not even offering him a book, and that Mr. Packard at the close of the exercises should remark with very solemn countenance, "I think it inexpedient to offer prayer". New sects were now first springing up, and Mr. Hudson, a talented young man, had joined the Universalists, whom Mr. Packard had warmly opposed Hudson, on this account as well as perhaps other, was no friend of Mr. Packard's and the latter knew it. A day or two before Levi Bigelow at Robin Hill had ejected him from the desk and abruptly dismissed his school without a closing prayer; and so on this occasion, Mr. P. would not expose himself to the same insult. Mr. Packard was now approaching the close of his ministerial service, being dismissed the ensuing May.

1819

1819. The world's vision became more extended as to perhaps to all boys of ten yrs. Was much afraid of thunder showers, particularly one of Friday, July 2. (dates here first began to stick in memory) A feeling or habit acquired from Grandmother Barnes who was always exceedingly timid at these times. Ed B. Rice, a cousin, fifteen years, worked for father this summer. Went away in Sept. when the time seemed to me dull indeed.

Monday, Oct. 11. Went to muster with Father and Jake Whitcomb on foot to the Davises in Northboro. Had 1 cent to spend on gingerbread. Eat sour apples from the trees all the way home. This muster afforded staple for talk for many a day between me and Henry.

1819 - 1820

The school was kept by Dwight Witt who was not very successful. I had no idea that half a century afterwards I should, as a physician, attend him in his last sickness. In Oct. Father went to Boston, (Ed B. Rice with him) with a load of potatoes and cider and Henry and I had fine times with gun. I wonder we did not shoot ourselves - two boys 11 and 9 firing a gun all day long.

1820 - 1821

Lambert Biglow kept the school and was successful. Aunt Weeks from St. Albans, Vt. came and staid all summer in Marlboro. Had fine time shooting birds at election, May 30-31. 1/4 lb powder, 1 lb shot. Why were we taught to shoot birds I cannot conceive. This was the universal practice for the boys at these times.
Went to Boston with Father in Oct. with potatoes and cider. Went by Cam. College in the night. How cold and dreary the building looked - a feeling I often used to recall when I lived there afterwards. Father mistook the way and found himself in Charlestown in the morning. Went into Boston over Ch. Bridge, Father urging on the slow oxen and inquiring of all he met of where Mr. Irving lived. At last we found him on the mill dam. He wrapped hard as we went by his shop window. We were glad enough and tired out by traveling all afternoon and night. The poor oxen rested and devoured their hay in stalks with a relish beside the street. At night with an empty wagon set out for home. Now the oxen walked with a will, all the way without stopping to Marlboro, their backs white with frost from their sweating; reached home just a daylight. I was a tired boy and did not choose to go to Boston again.

1821 - 1822

Aaron Brigham kept our school, afterwards Col 1828. [Probably means Brigham was made a Colonel in 1828.] Was elevated this winter to the dignity of a cypherer. The [Willars or Williams] came from St Albans, staid a week or two and carried home Aunt Weeks. Father, I, and Henry in March and April built 30 rods of wall for D. Stevens in the German pasture, near Crane Hill. The digging, drawings, and laying upon the steep side hill became most laborious, but I can see now there was discipline in it, though we boys then thought we were handly used. An unusual quantity of birds was slaughtered this election, May 29-30. 1 lb powder, 4 lb shot being expended. The Gates house was raised June 15, affording to us boys a fine time, as well as at times to watch the progress of the building, a great event in town. On Monday Oct. 14th went to Westboro muster. Lost Henry and came home alone in the dark evening; but he found his way as well as I an hour later. I am afraid that even then we boys got a taste for liquor which was the universally used by all on all occasions.

"Cornwallis" in Marlboro Sat. Oct. 19. [This appears to be somekind of a pageant.] The the new rifle company appeared, called the "Rifle Guards. There was "A" Co., of light infantry from N'boro, Indians under Stephen Hudson as chief, father of Charles Hudson. "A" Co. of horse under Sam A. Brigham (Bangs) with big horse pistols. British under Col Lovell Barnes, Continentals under Col. Ephg. Brigham. Fort was built and captured near Israel Howe place and altogether it was a great time for Marlboro, especially the military and of course for us boys. This year was a fruitful one, apples in abundance, and the ox teams were all the time upon the road to Boston with them, 10 and 15 barrels of cider each.
(Written Feb. 5 1878)

1822 - 1823

Elijah Brigham of Shrewsbury kept our school the winter of 1822-23. He was liked and quite successful. Feb. 6 1823 there was a grand sleighride to Worcester got up by the elders and married people. Feb, 26, I had my first pair of boots made by Martin Rice, the shoemaker. I put them on with great satisfaction in his shop in the evening, several persons being there present. "Now be careful", said Rice, "that the boots don't trip you up.". I had no idea that the boots would do any such thing, but I had not got a rod before I was plunged on my back; whereat the company in the shop, hearing the concussion, burst into a loud laugh. But the comfort and pride I received from that first pair or boots cannot be described, although it took a long time every morning to pull them on and longer at night to get them off.

I now (1878) perceive that it was this year (1823) that I first began to notice dates. There were no books in the house save the bible and almanac. I was continually pouring over the latter; and while at farm work and at other times was constantly meditating upon the several days on which the years, months, and weeks began until centuries behind and before. I could see the order of days as plainly as one can see in his minds eye the homes, hills, and plains of every town with which he has from childhood been familiarly acquainted. To this mental frame-work, time as it went on with me, filled with events, as a post office clerk does his boxes and pigeon holes, all numbered and labeled so that he can in a moment without any reckoning refer to the alcove or shelf where any particular book is to be found.

I this year (1823) at times saw the Concord newspaper which was a great treat, especially when it contained news of the French invasion of Spain. I had learned at school a little of geography and had an old map where I used to search for all places found mentioned in the newspaper.

Dates. Monday March 31: Great snow storm. Mr. Caleb Witherbee used oxen to drag his market wagon to Boston. Monday, April 14. Wm Loring elected Capt of the next militia company. Wed. May 28, old election. We boys had not so good a time as the year previous. Sunday June 15. Went bird nesting with Ed. B. Rice, cousin, who at that time was at his trade (learning blacksmith's) in Southboro and in mischief we rolled logs down the south side of Jericho, trees that had been cut the winter before. Sunday June 29. Was at church, a day even to this day, well remembered but for what is of no consequence except to young boys. Had with Henry and Willard Rice, a hoeing match at half hilling, Tuesday, July 1. Sunday July 13 went after pond lilies in the pond in the west of Southboro. Sunday July 20, Ab. Rice, child of Eli Rice, (now of Detroit) was baptized. Sunday Aug 10. At church. Great thunderstorm the night before, than pleasant and reviving air this morning. Mr. Alden baptized his child (John Carver) born July 29. Sunday Aug 31, at church for the last time this year. One reason, no suitable clothes to wear. A family struggling to keep its head above water and to pay a little for the farm on which it lived. We were poor enough and lived as economically that should any do so now, they would be complained of to the overseers of the poor. The pork barrel used to fail in early summer and then no meat for us boys till a lamb was killed in Aug.

No wheaten bread except at Thanksgiving and then only 7 lbs. Barley bread as soon as the barley about Aug 1, could be gathered and threshed and a half bushel carried to Dea. Ames mill.

The 1835 map section to the left shows the location of "Ames Gristmill". The location of his home is also shown

The bread made from it was generally black and clammy but it was swallowed and mostly without a bit of butter. But there was the hand skim milk cheese; and when the baking tree apples were fit for the oven, here was a godsend (all honor to the old baking tree, which for the great part it had in upholding their race, the present generation can know but little.) After the pans and pots of bread and beans, the old capacious oven was crammed with apples and then the oven lid was out up and vamped all round the edges with woolen rags to make it tight. The sizzling then of baking apples was very musical and pleasant. What matter, if, when they came out many of them were covered with ashes. Barley, or barley and Indian bread, skimmed milk cheese with baked apples powered with ashes, how many glorious meals have they afforded to the earlier boys, the best boys, perhaps I ought to have said ! But some one of the old ones will here cry out, "Not a bit of butter ?" do you say. What became of the odd weight, let me ask ? Well, indeed, there was a certain odd weight; but the quantity was for the most part mighty uncertain and odd. And here the young ones will cry out, "What in the name of nature do you mean by the odd weight"? Well!, explanation is needed. Suppose, you had, after churning 10 full pounds of butter and a few ounces over. These odd ounces were the odd weight and it was an invariable rule that these, and no more, should serve the family for a week. All the rest went into the butter box for the market; and, as you may imagine, the odd weight often disappeared before the first 24 hours, and then goodbye to all butter till the next Sat. Let not us of a degenerate generation sneer at the odd weight of our grandmothers. It was one of the many economical devices which built up the prosperity of the family, the town, and the country. One of our great grandmothers was famous for the tenacity with which she adhered to the odd weight in her family. She was three times married, at the head of three families during her long life of 84 years, and a housekeeper for a fourth in her latter days; and no doubt all these families were made to know very well what was meant by the odd weight. From said Aunt Smith? and Mrs Joseph Howe, another granddaughter, no persuasion would induce her to break ever this rule. Apple sauce and cheese you might have, but no butter if the odd weight was gone.

As I said before, she was in her latter days a housekeeper for a fourth family, that of Zachary Maynard, who lived where Mr. Lorren? (Warren) Arnold now lives and had the care of Mr Maynard in his last years.

The 1835 map section shows the house of Warren Arnold.  The large star indicates the house, the single small star indicates Forest St., the two small stars indicate Crane Meadow Rd., the three small stars indicate Williams St. and the small triangle indicates his home.

Mr. Maynard is well known as the giver of the "Zacharay money", so called whose benefits so many of the poor of the town have experienced. And. here we may ask, was the odd weight rule carried out in his family? No doubt it was. Then how many of these benefits to the poor can be traced back to it as their original cause, it and similar practices of economy ?

But all these experiences did not belong to the year 1823 alone, but to that and the years preceding. But there was milk a plenty ? No. There was not in winter. In most families the cows came in in March or April. Few had farrow cows as they were called; and for two or three months in the winter season, they were without milk. We children luxuriated upon water porridge sweetened sometimes with molasses. And then there was bread and cider as a last resort. It was poor stuff to go to school upon and to do the usual snowballing, but it had to answer. A dish of it, I will allow was not palatable, especially some of the last spoonfuls, but as I said before, it had to answer now and then for our breakfast. No, milk was not plenty.

They had it at the tavern and sometimes word came that we could have skim milk by coming for it. And then over the hill through the deep snow and into the kitchen of the old William's Tavern we would go with pail, very timidly, where Mrs Gates and especially Mrs Abraham Gates (afterwards Mrs Dea Phelps) (blessings on her memory - little did she imagine that the bashful urchin before her and whom she was helping to keep alive with skim milk, would as her physician attend her in her last sickness 40 years afterwards) would receive us very kindly, fill the pail nearly full with which with aching arms and many stops for rest we struggled home. And then the hasty pudding or the boiled milk into which were emptied all the bread crusts of Indian bread which had been accumulating for a whole week or more, furnished a supper as few kings know how to appreciate.

Wednesday, Sept 24, 1823 was a day somewhat memorable in Marlboro's annals. Three banners or standards as they were called, were presented by the ladies to the three militia companies of the town. To the Rifle Guards and the East and West companies. That given the Guards cost 75 dolls, and the other two 40 dolls each. [In the economy of that time, they must have been made of pure gold.] Mrs. Brigham, the wife of Col Eph. Brigham - her portly form and blooming cheeks are still visible - presented the first, then speech was emphatic and to the point, to which Ensign Thayer, afterwards Capt. Thayer, responded. Miss Ann Spurr and Mrs. Wm Barbour, presented the two others. To the latter Ensign Aaron Brigham, afterwards Col. Aaron Brigham, replied, whose speech in neatness and manner of delivery it was said, surpassed those of the other ensigns. * The raising of these sums of money and it expenditure in the way occasioned endless talk throughout the town (* and altogether the ceremonies offered a delightful holiday to the farmers and the farmers boys and girls)

On Monday night, Oct. 6 the house of Roger Phelps, (where Mr. Ect Gary now lives) was burned. And the remark most common among the crowd assembled at the fire was the foolish waste of money in procuring these banners. Had this money been laid out in fire buckets, said one of the old gentlemen, very emphatically, "so that we could have come as well prepared as Squire Draper did come with two or three tin pails upon his arms". But what good they did or what good the fire buckets could have done, it is hard to conceive. But Mr. Phelps was not suffered to bear his loss alone. He was the tailor of the town, small in statue but not in heart or head, much esteemed; and his townsmen, far and near, united, and rebuilt the house now Mr. Gary's. Tailors who were once his apprentices, went from his shop to all parts of the country, almost as many and excellent, as of wheelwrights from the shop of his son, Dea S.P.Phelps.

Oct 1823. Father procured boards from "up country" (Templeton, I believe), with which he and Dick (Isaachan Dickerman) boarded the east side of our house, which for 10 or 15 years previous had only the enclosing boards. The next season the other parts of the house were boarded in the same way except the west side which was clapboarded in 1825. Slowly the snow and rain were shut out of the house into which they had hitherto a full passage. Before the boards were put on, the north chamber, where stood the boy's bed, was a Greenland in winter and I wonder how they could run up into it so nimble and barefooted to bed as they did. As the boarding proceeded from bottom toward the roof, we boys rejoiced to see the cracks and knotholes gradually being covered up, particularly the latter for more reasons than that they let in the snow and rain, for outside for a great distance they were not pleasant things to look at.

I have said that, when boys, our food, shelter and clothing were of the poorest kind, but in the former; perhaps from about this time, 1823, a little amelioration took place. When haying began (the most serious time of the year) a barrel of flour was procured. How this purchase came to be thought possible, I know not. But, one afternoon I was sent with oxen and hay rigging down to Mr. Witherbee's, the marketman's, to bring it home . I went reluctantly, because I dreaded to be seen upon the road with such an outlandish concern as our hay cart was. The stakes were about a third longer that those of any other hay cart, particularly those fore and aft and they flared outwards all round. What good this long row of tall stakes would do towards helping home the barrel of flour it was difficult to conceive. But they were part of the hay rigging and had to go with it and the boy had to go too.

Arrived in Mr. Witherbee's yard, the boy could not manage the oxen so as to turn round the long and cumbersome vehicle and Mr. Witherbee had to take the whip, and his first words were "what did you come with this old thing for ?" a remark which made the boy feel cheap, thought he felt cheap enough before. But he got away at last and tried to forget his mortification and comfort himself by now and then catching a glimpse of the precious barrel of flour, visible occasionally amidst the forest of stakes; where it seemed some what like the transportation of a barrel of corn in a wheelbarrow. This was the first and last barrel of flour in the family that I remember for years.

Thanksgiving Day, Nov 20, very pleasant. Ed B. Rice and his brother Eber, cut down a large chestnut tree in Wm Felton's land on order to find a racoon or something of the kind. They found nothing. Toriah Bride of Berlin kept the school 1823-24; with tolerable success,

1824

Feb 4. Vaccinated myself at Jerup Fay's so successfully that it lasted certainly 54 years. March 9 was at the barn moving at Gates's. This year (1824) lived at home. Father was now 46, the two older boys 15 and 13 and we did a good deal of very hard work. Besides the ordinary farm work, we built as much as 30 rods of heavy wall for Daniel Stevens in April and May at the west of the old school house on the log bridge road. In June as many rods for Silas Gates on the road to Southboro beyond Jericho. In June, Aug, and Sept. dug and drawed and laid a long length of wall at the upper end of the meadow, a most difficult job and laborious. Began this job Aug 21 and finished it Sept 10. Sept 5, went to Westboro's muster. Sept 18, Ruth Packard gave Ruth (Baby sister) 5 dolls for being named for her. Helped (Sept 30) Jonathan Walker up the hill by Col Eph. Brighams. He had a load of boards for father to cover the remainder of the house. Oct 7 went to muster at S'boro and Oct 12 went to work for Col Eph Brigham where I staid till Oct 30. Read in Nov in some book; Bonapartes campaign in Italy and poured over it the whole month. Oct 19. Corwallis near the Widow Woods. Fay from Westboro kept our district school this winter.

1824 - 1825

He (the school master) lent me one day Eytter's? history and night and day I devoured it over two or three times. Very intimate this winter and the next with Jesup A. Fay. The poor man died, insane, in Virginia 40 years afterwards. March 2, was 16 years old, a very pleasant day. This spring (1825) was a very early one. There was a thunder shower on March 17 and on March 30. I went to work for J. Holyoke and Ed Rice at 8 dolls per month, half the time for Holyoke, half for Rice on alternate weeks. Did a man's work most of the time but had a boy's wages, but I did not complain. Can now remember almost every day where I was and what I did through the whole summer. Went to church perhaps half the Sundays. The other half studied the old newspapers and books that I found about the houses where I lived. Whitney's history of Worcester County was one. I recollect pausing in one place where he said a town "multiplied and increased, grew and extended" and thought he was piling up words without much meaning. In June was 50th anniversary of Bunker Hill. Many extra stages went down the road filled with passengers. Mrs. Alden died July 31 and Ward Cotton of Boylston preached a long sermon about her Aug 7 with Alden sitting in the pulpit beside him and Aug 14 he himself gave another sermon on the same subject. She no doubt was a superior woman.

The regimental muster was this year in this town on the farm so called, Sept 28. Great darkness Oct 9 on account of fires in Maine. Almost equal to the dark day of 1780. On Dec 1, I came home, having finished my 8 months farm work amounting to 64 dolls which was paid father Jan 2, 1826. I did not have a dollar of it, either as spending money or in clothes. I mean anything than more I had always received. I had no winter suit fit to wear to church, no overcoat which I was not ashamed of. Dec 1, Mother's taciturnity [disinclined to talk, habitually silent, uncommunicative] first drew my attention. I had worked 10 days at Northboro Cotton Factory and this was the night after I came home. The children were around the fire, eating apples. Each one having a case knife, talking merrily, but not a smile on mother's face; so unusual I had not the least idea of the great calamity impending. This year 1825 was the last, for many years, which may be said to be prosperous to our family. Hard work and hard fare had been its fate hitherto, but it had crept slowly ahead, but now some trials were to come and all progress ahead was at an end.

1826 - 1827

This winter 1825-26, Martin Howe, who is now (1878) living , kept our district school., but he was a poor teacher and I got but little benefit. On Tuesday, March 21 I went to live at Silas Gates's, the old Gates Tavern. There I labored on the farm and in the cattle and horse stables 14 months till May 21, 1827. I had, or rather father had, 10 dollars a month for my services.

The work was hard, early and late, good living at the table, rum or sling in the morning, toddy at 11 and 4; and I wonder greatly I did not here get the habit of taking liquor. On Sundays, I had the whole care of the barn and many cattle and when I came into the house at 11 o'clock, Abraham was already ready with his mug of flip which he and I drank; which partially got us both intoxicated. On Sunday, June 18, Mrs. Gates said to me "your mother, they say, was much worse yesterday". Much worse. What did she mean by that ? Gradually it dawned upon me that mother was becoming insane. The next day after work at night, I went home and found her singing at the chamber window. I tried to talk and reason with her but she would not answer me. It seemed very strange, and I remember how the Sunday before she stooped in passing by the windows, so that, she said, no one might see her; how that, at supper she set the table up in the chamber; and they told me that the day before in the midst of a heavy rain she ran to Jericho before Henry could catch up with her. The next Sunday, July 2, I was at home, when I found everything in confusion. Things were scattered all about the house. Mother was leading down stairs, Ruth, then about 2 1/2 years old, that fine silk dress (Mother's) which Mrs. Wm Banham had made for her the Feb. before. Now, all in tatter and dirt. Father appeared utterly discouraged. Yet the children, though ragged and neglected, were cheerful and at play as usual. They did not at all realize the situation, and well it was that they did not. I did not myself more than half realize it. I told father I wanted to visit Boston on July 4 with Wm Rice. "Well", said he with a momentary smile, "you may go." And so I rode to Boston in Caleb Brigham's gig which Wm Rice, the brother borrowed and came home the same night tired. and sleepy as well could be.

Sunday, Aug 6, I went home again. There was the same disorder all about the house; but the children did not mind it. Charles, 4 years old, was digging a hole in the ground near the grindstone with his hammer, Father soon came out of the house and said that mother had gone away and inquired if we had seen her. He then went down the lane in a hurry in search of her. Charles then looked up to me, having for a moment stopped his digging and said "Mother is crazy, she is, didn't you know it ?" Aunt Sally and Aunt Nancy in the old house nearby did what they could to assist the family in its distress, but mother met them, formerly the best of friends, with torrents of abuse and would not suffer them to enter the door. So with Lucy's help, then but 13 years old, the summer and fall were got through in some fashion. Watch night and day had to be kept, else mother would get the corn and milk and throw it to the hogs or carry it to the neighbors hogs.

Sept 10, Sunday, went home and carried a copy of the Worcester Spy to father, He laughed aloud on seeing something that could divert his thoughts from the things around him. He and Henry this fall, in order to keep watch on mother, made barrels in the shop room and did the work on the farm when they could. Sept 28, on my way to work on Gate's Jericho, passed by father and the children around him who was setting fence on the side hill. They were forlorn and ragged. On my saying something to him about my own clothes, he said, looking at me as I had never seen him before, "now you must learn to take care of yourself." Oct 4, was at work on the main road near the pond. Mother came by with Ruth asleep in her arms and dressed in the clothes in which she was baptized a year or two before. I entreated her to go home, but she would only look at me and smile. It was a great consolation that in all her long years of insanity, she never manifested injury to herself or her children, of whom no mother could be more fond. Nov. 21, Passed by father's on my way to work on the Gate's land near Jericho. Mother was opening and shuttering the windows, opening and shuttering the doors, all of which had to be done 2, 4, or 8 times, not in a day, but many times in the day and night and not in one month or year but for many years incessantly; and this banging of the doors and windows and constant trudging to the well with two dishes (which had to be done also 2, 4, or 8 times at once). I used to wonder that she was not tired out and exhausted, but she never showed any sign of weariness. Father was very deaf and could not at night hear the constant clatter, which was fortunate for him and the children became accustomed to the noise that they little noticed it and slept soundly. The greatest mortification was when reports came in about mother's proceedings at the neighbors and about every thing transpiring in the family. How the boys followed and hooted her in the streets. Once in the midst of service (Sept 5, 1830) she went into Mr. Budlin's pulpit and attempted to hand him a note. After hearing these things, renewed efforts would be made to keep her at home, but this was impossible without constant watching and soon she would get to visiting again in all parts of the town, with feet almost bare, in tattered gown, she wandered up and down the town, and if its area, scarce a rod which first and last she hath not trod.

But these things were not more conspicuous of this year (1826) than they were mortifying to the children that they seldom went away from home. Nov. 24. Went home one cold evening. Found the children before a warm fire with new suits of "grey all wool" cloth which Aunt Nancy had made. Charles was so unaccustomed to a warm jacket that he sweat before the fire, whenever father laughed at him. And here, about this time, one alleviation of the general gloom turned up, and the I think of it, the more am I inclined to think it saved the family from utter distraction.

In the spring of 1826, the boys, as in rainy days especially, were continually rummaging the old chambers, garrets and chests to see what they could find. At the bottom of an old chest, they one day came across father's old fiddle, the head or neck broken off and hanging by two or three old fiddle strings. We had heard father say that when young he used sometimes to play on the fiddle at junkets. We tied on the neck with strings, carried the fiddle to father and teased him to play. He declined altogether; said that he had not touched the fiddle for nearly 20 years and could not. But we would not be let off and continued to tease him. He then took the fiddle, tightened on the head which was broken off, tuned the two or three fiddle strings left, which we thought took a long time, and then played to us, Noah Totty !, and afterwards pieces of other old tunes. We were delighted, and the old fiddle henceforth knew no rest.

Several of the family have since become somewhat noted in the musical line, aiming to be leaders, choristers, styling themselves "Philharmonies" and the like and are in several ways quite stuck up with their musical accomplishments. But do they know that the root, the seed from which all this sprung was Noah Totty ? That all their future eminence in this line once hung on two or three old fiddle strings, which would not suffer the fiddle's head to be lost.

But this is not all, but I must leave it for the present. I said before on March 21, 1826, I went to the Gates Tavern to live. This was one of the main tavern stands and one of the oldest, the oldest except the old Howe tavern in Sudbury on the road from Worcester to Boston. Droves of cattle on their way to Brighton stopped there on Friday and Sat. nights; and then we hired men had lots of meadow hay to feed to them all over the cattle yard. Heavy teams from the western part of the state stopped every day. Two stages from Springfield and Northhampton came down every Mon. Wed. and Friday, and up from Boston at 6 o'clock the next morning where the passengers took breakfast. The accommodation stage (Daniel Haskell many years driver) came down on Tues.,Thursday,Sat. and back from Boston the next day at 2 P.M. where the passengers had dinner. This household then (1826) consisted of ten or eleven persons, the old gentleman and wife (Mr and Mrs Silas Gates) Abraham Gates, his son, and wife (afterwards Mrs Dea. Phelps) three hired men (in summer) vis Otis Morse, Astebel Brigham and myself, Billy More, the hostler, whose business it was to take care of the stage horses, two female help, vis Mary Rice and Harriet Maynard, whose wages were $1.00 per week; and a washerwoman (Mrs. Eber Rice for many years) on Mondays. In winter time we had to be early risers in order to be in readiness for the stages at 6 o'clock. When they came full of passengers and dined on breakfast, the old man was always pleased and the men could depend upon it that he would be agreeable through the day.

If the stages came empty we could not depend upon the old man's smile, but must expect a word of fault finding. Mr. Silas Gates had a face of vermilion, was a first rate landlord, scrupulously honest, but close to a half cent. [Early version of "close with a buck".] Father hired his carriage to go after mother who was at McLean Asylum (Charlestown, Dec 10, 1827). Mr Gates wanted to go to Boston so took passage with father.. Coming to Cambridge Bridge he told father that his part of the toll would be 1 cent being only a passenger and father should pay the balance, about 10 cents. Goodmore, one of his men, went fishing one day when it rained so hard that no work could be done (Aug 11, 1826) On settlement, the old man charged the time, although he eat of the fish in a hearty meal. He did not like to see pies on tables set for his men and generally would make an errand through the room for a pitcher of water in order to see what the men had upon their tables for supper. Hearing his step, many times Mrs. M. Gates, afterwards, Mrs Dea Phelps, would throw over the pie, the corner of the table cloth. Abraham, his son, was more haughty and impervious and fond of big words. He like his father, too early got the taste for liquor, which caused him a good many fits of sickness, The work was very hard, but in the bustle and busy activity of the old hotel a young man of 17 learned a good deal.

1827 - 1828

I staid at the tavern till May 21, when I put my old chest on the wheelbarrow and went home and helped father on the farm through the summer and fall, Henry, having in the spring gone to Gershorn Bigelow's to work. Mother continued the same old practices and habits, though her disposition to destroy things and to waste was somewhat lessened. On Sept. 10 she was carried to Asylum in Charleston but it did her no good at all. The money I had earned at the tavern enabled father to do this; and it was a most severe tax upon his resources any way, but it enabled him to feel that he had done what he could and mother always spoke of her residence there with pleasure. On Aug 6, grandmother Barnes died in the old house, having survived her husband, Col Barnes 24 years. Sept. 1, Ned Felton and I went to Worcester with a load of barberries [a sour oblong red berry from a spiny shrub.], our first speculation which resulted well, and to Leciesten and Oxford on Sept 17, 18, on speculation that resulted not so well. On Oct 4, I first did military duty. The regimental muster was at Foxboro. On Dec 11, I went to Worcester to work in the smith's shop of Ed. B Rice, a cousin, where I staid till May 20, 1828. I had no liking or faculty for this work, and it was well that getting sick, I came home.

1828 - 1829

I resided at home, partly unwell and worked on the farm. Father recovered a little of his courage and ambition and we rebuilt several old walls on the place. George this year lived at Aaron Brigham's and Henry some of the time at Moses Howe's. In December, which was uncommonly pleasant, Henry and I cut several large oaks on Cedar and Walnut hills, and lots of alders in the swamp around the former. So we had alders for firewood all winter. And you may depend on it the fiddle was not idle this winter 1828-29, especially evenings, so that a blazing fire of alders and the sound of the fiddle are two things indelibly associated in my memory.

As I said before, after our discovery of the fiddle in the spring of 1826 at the bottom of the old chest, I went to live at Gate's, but Henry and the fiddle were seldom apart, and being at home one night (Jan 19, 1827), I was surprised how well he could play, and fast day, April 5, 1827, he was playing for some dancers in the old house and when I came home from Worcester in 1828 he had improved greatly.

So that all this winter 1828-29 and the next 1829-30, he was fiddling at junkets here and there. At Asa Haygood's Dec 3, at Eph Trowbridge's Jan 28, at Nathan Rice's March 24, at old John Lovings March 2, at Levi Ward's March 4 and so on. On Jan 9, he played at Cocky Felton's with Daniel Walker. It was evident that one the the players considered himself superior to the other.

All the children except myself, went to school this winter. I was among the alders all day long. On Jan 14, Henry took it into his head to go the academy for the remained of the winter. The coat and jacket he wore at school, at night or when he got home, he would tuck behind the clock. One day he told me that Augustus Fay said ('Gustus Fay was then attending the academy and brother of an old crony Jerub Fay) that I, if I pleased, could be at the head of our academy. A preposterous idea, but one nevertheless which always remained and would keep coming in my thoughts. Henry learned a little geometry this winter, and he heard them reciting Latin, and so next term he thought he must learn Latin also.

I have already said that the old fiddle with Noah Totty at the bottom of it was the chief thing or one of the chief things that saved the family from total distraction and disintegration by the powerful influence it had in diverting melancholy thoughts and feeling of discouragement and irritation which mother's condition and conduct constantly produced. I am now inclined to go farther and to say that the chief cornerstone of the family's greatness and ultimate comparative prosperity was, if you have a mind to go to the bottom, Noah Totty and nobody else. That if he had not been in the fiddle no reputations afterwards in Northboro would have been built up upon aloes [a bitter purgative drug] and sorghum syrup. Hudson would never have witnessed the resuscitation of a vehicle utterly dissolved. Now Marlboro's president who can any day look out of his window upon a monument erected to fame. But how do you make it appear, it will be asked?

As I just now said, Henry heard them at the academy reciting Latin, and so was moved to study it also and got a Latin Grammar. Now many people consider a Latin Grammar the beginning, the first stepping stone of their future professional or other excellence or eminence, and very likely it is as much as any other. Now on the first page of this Grammar which he got, right under his name, was written in large letters, "Provided by my music"; that is, by the money got by playing at junkets. I have explained how future eminence depends on the Latin Grammar and now I hope the connection is seen between a Latin Grammar and the old fiddle. And from the old fiddle, please go into its depths, even down to Noah Totty, and consider how laboriously from thence father extracted him more than half a century ago. But I am told that Noah Totty is not the only ancient piece of music with which the old fiddle was familiar in paternal hands. A certain mournful ditty, most lugubrious would sometimes come from it. This was the tune that father heard played on the march to the gallows when Smith was hung for burglary at Concord, some 70 years ago. So then, it seems, the fortunes of our family not only once hung by two fiddle string, but upon the hanging of poor Smith, who is now no doubt utterly forgotten.

1829 - 1830

On March 30 of this year, I went to work at Barnabas Brigham's in the southern part of the town. The old Dr was then alive, Dr Daniel Brigham who had for many years practiced in Berlin and Northboro. I had 12 dolls per month for 8 months. There I staid till Dec 3, 1829 when I went home. This summer the old house was torn down and Aunt Sally, Caty and Nancy moved into the other part of father's house which had been finished off for this purpose, with an ell part extending back. Their coming into the house when mother was so bitterly hostile to them occasioned infinite trouble but it could not be avoided. Lucy needed their assistance, which though they could not give in the way of direct labor, did so in the way of advice and in making and mending the children's clothes and in helping to keep them in some decent order. Also when sick, Aunt Sally was always ready with all sorts of herbs and hot water, and then the children were sure to go to bed in a sweat and also in her big shoes.

Long be the memory of Aunt Sally treasured by the family. Of grandfather's children, she was the sixth living or in age next to father. She married in 1801 Eber Rice and moved to St Albans Vt. Her husband then dieing in 1806 she returned to Marlboro and resided in the old house with her mother and feeble minded sister Caty, of whom she had the care till their deaths in 1827 and 1845. Grandmother after grandfather's death, lived in the old house and upon her "thirds", widow's thirds, as they were called, which father carried on at the halves or some arrangement of that kind. In addition to this Aunt Sally was always having some piece in the loom, weaving for the neighbors, and one of the first and most delightful works of the children was to wind her bobbins or quills, while all the time there was the alternate whisk of the shuttle and the bang of the swing beam. And almost every week we were called on to turn the crank to wind the warp upon the great beam in the rear of the loom. And then what tedious work she had in pulling the threads through the harnesses and sley, of which she seldom had the right number and we were often sent across or around the pond to Aunt Brigham's, another old weaver, to get sley No. 28 or 32 as the case might be. On Mondays, for certainly more than 20 years, she went to the Gates Tavern to work, before daylight in the winter time, for which she would come home at night, with 25 cts in money and loaded by Mrs. Gates with provisions and the news of the day. And then there was her garden at the north of the old house, which never seemed to fail. She was the first to have early potatoes, peas, beans, cucumbers, lettuces, and the Sunday boiled dishes which this garden furnished was never before equaled. Meanwhile Cate attended to the hens and chickens and all that were to lay that day were brought in before daylight and deposited in the old back chamber, and there they had to stay till they had laid. Often there was an awful cackling in this old chamber of the hens who were disposed to rebel, but it did no good. They had sometimes to stay there till near night, when they would generally come to terms. The hens were generally under good control, but if by chance any of them did get to scratching in the garden, the yah, yah, which was then set up was fearful to hear, and then the hens never stopped to scratch gravel till they were safe under the old corn barn. This was a reception of old yokes, sleds, hay poles and cart stakes and was a grand house of refuge for refractory and sulky hens; and Cate's patience was often wholly exhausted in rattling the poles to get them out at bed time. If "Devilish Fools" were written on the old corn barn as many times as there uttered it would be covered all over.

Aunt Caty was great at wood and brush collecting. Piles of old wood and brush she had gathered in the pastures, she would transport by stages toward the old house. Each day would witness one remove of 40 or 40 rods,till finally it reached its destination. Often on a still pleasant day a crash was heard in the direction of Jericho's swamp. On going to the wall to learn what it could mean, Cate's old chip hat would be seen among the trees and her strong right arm tugging with a hooked stick to bring down some dry apple tree limb. Peace and happy memory to deformed, simple minded, good-hearted Aunt Caty, who rocked our cradles and took care of us of evenings when father and mother were gone to some party in our early days. She went to the Barney Brigham place with Aunt Sally in 1845, but lived but a few months. I returned from France and saw her the day before she died, Sept 24. She was pleased enough to see me again, but had only strength enough to point to her new calico dress hanging in the closet and to ask for some water from (brother?) Jabez's new well which he had that summer dug on the old place where she had lived 78 years. Aunt Sally did not long survive her as she often predicted, but died of Diabetes March 7, 1846. A word might be said in regard to her children who were in our younger days so often our companions. Mary, the eldest, lived with a family in Harvard till 18 when she learned the dressmaker's trade which she followed till she married Barney Brigham in 1839, whose widow she now is, aged 76. Edward B. learned the blacksmith's trade in Southboro, was in after years at the head of the car manufactory in Worcester firm of Brady and Rice, went to California in 1850, died of dysentery in the miner's camp, Nov 2, 1850, aged 46. Eber D., the youngest and most talented, also learned the blacksmith's trade in Westboro, became dissipated, and was killed, it was supposed, in Texas in 1836.

1830 - 1831

Dec 14, 1829. I entered Gates Academy kept at that time by A.D. Wheeler. The necessity of more education began to dawn on me. I took up English Grammar and learned it now very easily and quickly, also arithmetic was all plain and easy where it was once very hard. Geometry, trigonometry, and Surveying I also accomplished. In Feb 1830, I constructed a wooden quadrant with which I surveyed several pieces of ground very accurately. I returned to Barney Brigham's to work on March 22, 1830 for 6 months at 11.50 per month. There I staid till Sept 4, 1830 when I returned home at father's, and on Sept 13, again entered the academy, then run by Wm Otis. He was not so good a teacher as Mr Wheeler but I perfected myself in the common studies and on Dec 6, 1830 took a school in the southern part of Southboro and on March 4, 1831 returned to father's. I was tolerably successful in this school, but I was through the whole course tormented with excessive apprehension. So great was it that I vomited many times on my way there on the morning of Dec 6, 1830.

1831 - 1832

Some changes had taken place in mother's habits. She did not open and shut the doors and windows so incessantly as a few years previous, but this practice was by no means discontinued. She had taken up the habit of picking berries, huckleberries, blackberries, cranberries, and nuts, and these she would gather in all parts of the town. She would trip across the pastures like a deer, in a short dress and cloth shoes. These shoes were made daily, the bottoms being generally made from an old felt hat, or something similar. No part of a creature that has been killed, she said, should even touch her foot. It was marvelous that she never took cold or complained of cold feet. In Nov and March, she waded in the meadows for hours after cranberries without the least harm. She sometimes would be gone all day on a visit to Fort Meadow in the north part of town and then come home loaded with knickknacks from the store and begin to prepare her own supper. The proceeds of her berries and nuts were spent for the most part on eatables. When rubbers first came in vogue about 1835, it was a great relief to her daily shoemaking. Like all insane people, the fantastic delighted her, and something of this kind was generally visible about her.

Father this year, 1831, labored under a good deal of difficulty. He had the winter before fallen and fractured his shoulder, and it was now continually getting out of place. He managed chiefly with one hand to pitch his hay and to do the often heavy work; but the constant pain wore upon him and he this fall looked thin and worn down. Henry went to the academy much of the time. I on March 28 went to work in Northboro for Dea. Jonas Bartlett where I staid till Nov 4, 1831. On Sundays I used to go home, where seeing Henry's Latin Grammar lying on the desk (he being gone to church) it was my custom to copy several pages of it and put them in my pocket to learn during the ensuing week. In this way, during the summer I learned the whole Grammar nearly and more thoroughly then ever afterwards any other book. Those old bits of folded paper; I wish I had preserved them, containing long lists of Latin words and their declarations and conjugations. The best time to study was when hoeing of which there was much to be done. And often have those who worked with me wondered that I was so silent and little disposed to talk while at work, preferring to keep a rod or two either ahead or behind them. That my hand every now and then was pulling something from my pocket, they did not observe.

The idea of one day going to college haunted me all summer and though I many times reasoned it away as a thing impossible which every way of looking at it, yet it would continually return. My chief arguments were that I was too old and too poor, yet had I not one Sunday (May 22,1831) got hold of a biographical Dictionary where I read of a great many when they began a certain work or enterprise, who thought themselves too old and too poor?

This winter 1831-32, I kept the pond school. I was not very successful and was very glad when it was completed. Henry kept the school in our home district this winter and he on March 3, 1832 went to Wm Howe's to board while attending the academy. I went to Boston Feb 19 looked round the city and the legislature which was then in session, walked home the next day, March 2, 1832 through Cambridge by the college which I looked up to with great venerance.

1832 - 1833
A long season of doubt. I wanted to study, but myself and others told me it was of no use. I was too old and too poor; and finally, I was persuaded by the Fays, old friends, to go to work for them, with a certain idea of learning their trade, that of painting and cabinet making. I did not like at all. I had little or no mechanical genius and left the Fays July 1, 1832. Then worked for father and Jabez Witherbee at haying till Aug 22, 1832 when I took up at home in the old bedroom chamber my Latin books again and during this fall went through alone the Latin Reader and part of Virgil, all the while haunted with the idea that it was of no use, that I was spending my time for naught, Two or three times this fall, I determinedly threw my books aside, took the old bush scythe, went into Jericho swamp and mowed it all over (it is now, 1878, quite a piece of woods). Then some how or other, I used always to find myself back again in the old chamber.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With this, Dr. Edward Barnes, finished his handwritten autobiography. We know from his obituary, that too old or too poor not withstanding, he did eventually go to Harvard College , then to medical school and finally became a physician.

From the Marlboro Advertiser, Nov 6th (1878) this is the newspaper account of his passing:

It pains me to have to record the sudden and lamented death of Dr.Barnes, which occured on Saturday morning the 2d inst. He was born in this town on the 24th of March 1809, being the oldest son of Edward and Lucy Barnes, and was at the time of his death 69 years and 8 months old. Until he was of age he worked upon a farm, but after attaining his majority, he commenced his preparation for college and entered Harvard in 1834, graduating in 1838, in the class that included James Russell Lowell. Dr. Barnes sustained a high rank as a scholar. After graduation he devoted some time to teaching.

Having decided to devote himself to the medical profession, he pursued his studies at Harvard medical school, and complete them in Paris, receiving his degree of M.D. in 1844. In 1846 he commenced to practice in this town where he was married in August 1847. In the summer, while attending his brother Jabez, sick of typhoid fever of which he died in September of the same year, he was himself attacked with the same disease from which though very sick he at length recovered. Dr. Baker the principal physician here died in September of that year, and Dr. Barnes on his recovery succeeded to a large portion of his extensive practice.

The house to the left was that of Dr. Baker.  It was located in the west end of town.
 

During the thirty years that have followed he has been constantly busy in his profession, securing the confidence of his patients in him as an able and faithful physician, and proving himself in a large degree skillful and successful in his practice. For several years he served as a member of the School committee, preparing some of the annual reports. A few years ago he was called to a severe affliction in the death of an only daughter, a young lady every way worthy of the deep paternal love which she called forth; under which loss, however, he was sustained by the assured Christian faith which he cherished.

From another column in the same paper....

The early struggles of the Dr. to get and education were such as to severly test his qualities of will, endurance and perserverance. He would only be satisfied with the best. He graduated at Harvard in '38. His good scholarship there was indicated by his selection to serve as tutor in the college for a couple years thereafter. He loved this alma mater and seldom missed attendance on the Commencements and class reunions, not even did he miss going to Cambridge this year at Commencement time. He studied medicine with his brother Henry, we believe also at the medical school at Cambridge (Henry went to Harvard to college but went to medical school at Dartmouth in Hanover, N.H.), and then went to Europe upon hospital service, where he completed the surgical portion of his education. He started practice here in his native village, near the West End church, but later on, located in the part of the town where he died, viz: directly opposite the Soldiers' Monument. He was connected with the Mass. Medical Society throughout his professional life, and more or less a contributor to medical journals.

He leaves two brothers who are physicians,viz: Dr. Henry Barnes of Northboro and Dr. Chas. W. Barnes of Hudson, also a third, Mr. George Barnes of Northboro, Two sisters survive him, Mrs. Jones and Miss Ruth Barnes. . . He leaves a widow and an adopted daughter......

From 'Funeral address' delivered by Rev. R. A. Griffin at the West Parish Church, Marlboro,Mass. and published at the request of the Unitarian Society. The society passed a resolution Dec 1, 1878 that the Pastor publish the Funeral Sermon...

Edward Forbes Barnes, born Mar 24, 1809. Died Nov 6, 1878

It was hoped that we should have had one to address us on this mournful occasion who had long known our departed friend. Mr. Alger, to whom I refer, is unfortunately prevented from being present. But though he could have given more extensive biographical information, and a more authoritative estimate of the career of the deceased, he could hardly have been animated by a more appreciative and reverent regard than which dictates what is about to be said - - - -

---As we might expect, a life so substantial and harmonious was built upon a good foundation. He was born in 1809 and graduated at Harvard College when in mature years, 1838. (29 years old). He taught two years in Cambridge, after which he was disabled by sickness for a year. In 1842 he commenced the study of medicine with his brother in Northborough. In the years 1843-4 he made an extensive journey in Europe; on his return he graduated at the Medical School, 1845, (34 years old), and commenced the practice of his profession in Marlboro in the same year.

Edward is buried in the same cemetery as his brother Charles behind the Unitarian Church in Northboro.

Back to Short Stories