The trader of the barrel period did not, consciously, travel or work
in his garden for pleasure or recreation. Those pursuits were means
of livelihood. When he was through for the day, if he ever did get
through, he was glad to go home and sit a spell. He was tired.
He did not serve on committees whose purpose was to ameliorate the
condition of the poor. Each man was, then, expected by public opinion
to support himself, his wife, his children, his wife’s parents, his own
parents, and all the unmarried women and widows who could claim kinship
even to the third or fourth cousinly degree. If they were in need. As
each man was expected to do this, it really left nobody to be supported
by community effort. It also left the definition of need to the man who
was paying the bills, which meant that the aid was adequate--public
opinion saw to that--but not extravagant.
There was after this business of earning a living for so many people,
very little leisure in the life of any man. I have searched the barrel
to see just how Israel Brayton spent the little leisure that was his.
_The Poor They had with Them_
There were two persons in the village who were without kith or kin.
Nor were they related to each other. They were poor and they were old
and sick. Israel used a little of his spare time in visiting these
people--an unpaid job--and he got nurses and doctors for them when
such were needed. He got the best doctors and nurses in town, the only
doctors and nurses, apparently. These poor old people were dependent
upon their neighbors for at least partial support. Israel used to
receive during store hours over the counter notes such as this:
“Swansa. August 29, 1827.
Mr. Brayton
Sir: Please to let Diadema Boiston have fifty cents in goods this
week, and as much more next week; and charge it to the Town and you
will oblige your friend
John Earle.”
(Diadema Boiston was probably one of the Acadians allotted to Swansea
some years earlier.)
This was business for Israel; pretty small business you think; but
honestly conducted a very safe and sane way of administering “Poor
Relief”. Occasionally Diadema Boiston did some housework, for which she
was properly paid. It was Israel’s housework.
_To Aid the Veterans_
Israel saw that the crippled veterans of the last two wars got their
government pensions, he saw that the doctors made examinations and sent
in reports.
“We, the subscribers, practising physicians of the Town of Swanzey,
County of Bristol, State of Mass., do hereby certify that after a
careful examination in the case of Henry Lawton who is now on the
pension roll of the State of Mass., we are of the opinion that his
disability does still continue. Occasioned by canister shot passing
through his left hip also by a musket ball through his right thigh, and
further that the degree of disability under which he labours at present
is one third, being not less than the original degree of disability for
which he was placed on the roll”.
The authorities sent the following letters:
“Mr. I. Brayton.
Dear Sir:
We are under the necessity of returning the power of attourney you
favored us with. Under a new regulation from the War Dept. all old
forms are laid aside and new substituted. We now enclose you those
blanks by which you will see how they are now to be made.”
Four days later, he received another letter: “We are sorry to find that
we sent you the wrong blanks--a new form is now indispensible.”
The barrel has held through the years a Surgeon’s Certificate never
filled out.
_The School Committee_
Israel’s special service to the community was as a member of the School
Board. He conducted the correspondence with the school teachers. There
was no clerk, no paid assistance. Israel wrote the letters for the
veterans and for the school committee with his own hand.
Israel attended the many meetings of the school committee, and took
time to get a very accurate picture of the schooling he and his
neighbors were providing for their children. Teachers did not stay
long in Swansea or Somerset, but I fancy they did not stay long in any
country town. For they were mostly men and women who were teaching
to get a little money to start in on something else. All the letters
in the barrel show that they could write a good hand and express
themselves coherently. A sample letter will be enough. Though Israel
had to read them all.
“The subscriber makes a tender of his services to the inhabitants of
the second school district in Swansea as a teacher for the term of
three months to commence on Monday the 3rd inst. And he assures those
who may think proper to intrust their children to his care, that if the
most strenous exertions on his part can prevent it, their confidences
shall not be misplaced. Hoping by assiduous application and unremitting
attention to ensure the patronage and meet the approbation of his
employers--
Jos D. Nichols”
“In consideration of which, we, the subscribers, agree to furnish wood
for the school, board the said Nichols in our respective families,
and pay him the sum of fourteen dollars per month which shall be
apportioned according to the number of scholars set against each of our
names respectively.
Israel Brayton--3
Gardner Anthony--1-1/2
Betsey Bowers--1-1/2
John Mason--3”
Captain Charles Pratt taught for a much longer period than was usual.
“We have obtained satisfactory evidence of the good moral character
of Captain Charles Pratt, also of his literary qualifications and
capacity for the Government of an English School.” That was how the
committee appointed to look into a teacher’s application felt about
qualifications. Israel was on the committee.
I must not leave out the lady teacher, the barrel has record of only
one. Her name was Miss Sophia Stebbins.
“Whereas it is contemplated that Miss Sophia Stebbins will commence
a school, in this district, to be continued for 4 or 5 months, at
the rate of one dollar 33 cents per week, and that for the use of
the school house she pay 50 cents per month, to be appropriated to
the keeping of the same in repair; we the subscribers agree to pay
our proportion of the expenses of such school, and to furnish our
proportion of boarding for the instructress, according to the number of
scholars set against our respective names.
Israel Brayton--3
Perry Bowers--1-1/2
John Mason--2-1/2
John Winslow--1-1/2
Stephen Brayton--1
Lloyd Slade--1-1/2”
etc etc.
Israel really did good work on the School Board in his leisure time and
it is only to be expected that in his business hours he sold School
Books over the counter.
The books were: Alden’s Spelling Book
” Reader
Morse’s Geography
Murray’s Grammar
He carried slate pencils and slates and exercise books. And Song Books.
_Church Activities_
Israel was--not unduly--interested in the church in which he and his
family owned pews.
The Church choir was not a paid choir nor was it a good one. Some
people thought it should be trained. Israel headed a committee to get a
good singing teacher down from Taunton. Mr. Sproat, a Taunton lawyer,
was consulted. He seems to have been a personal friend of Israel’s. And
some of his letters are in the barrel. Arrangements were made. Letters
passed.
“April 2. Taunton
Travelling is so bad--the date of the meeting must be postponed.”
“Mr. Sproat was married Sunday Evening”. (A hint of the marriage
customs of the time.)
It was understood that the Singing School was to be kept “in Swanzey
Village the ensuing winter, by Mr. Jonathan G. Colburn, for the benefit
of the Baptist and Methodist Societies in the Towns of Swansea and
Somerset.”
They got the singing school and Israel sold a good many song books.
But he found getting the subscribers to pay for the school, difficult.
The village men argued that since they really had no musical ability,
they should not have to pay for instruction they could not “themselves
use”. But the committee argued “the burden of expense should not fall
altogether on the shoulders of those who are favored with voices to
sing.”
The barrel holds another letter showing Israel’s relation to the church
which he attended and served in many ways. Hezekiah Anthony wrote him
from Providence:
“December 23, 1824.
Mr. Israel Brayton. Sir:
I am requested to inform the People with you that Lorenzo Dow
intends to spend next Sabbath at the Methodist Meeting House in
Somerset. He expects to be at Warren on Saturday night. On Sunday
morning to go to Somerset to preach, as I suppose, all day. Please
to give notice accordingly.
Your friend
H. Anthony.”
Lorenzo Dow was the fashionable evangelist of his day. There is a
“Life” of Lorenzo Dow, mostly a printing of Dow’s diary. Strangely
enough, the dates on which Dow is supposed to have been preaching
in Swansea and Somerset, are left blank. I think it quite true that
the men of Somerset and Swansea, though men of their time, were not
an excitable lot, and would not have provided Lorenzo with any very
spectacular results. He had just come back from Ireland, where he
had preached the gospel as he understood it, up and down the country,
without losing his life, and the diary thinks that a triumph.
I rather think that Israel and the other men trading around
Scrabbletown, went to hear Lorenzo Dow hold forth--and yawned.
After the visit of Lorenzo Dow, Israel stocked his shop with Bibles.
_Israel and Literature_
Always at all times Israel kept a stock of Almanacks on hand.
The fascination of Almanacks for those village men is to me
incomprehensible. But it was genuine. They read Almanacks in their
leisure time. (Bibles, of course, but to those men the Bible was
not literature). Israel always carried “The Farmer’s Almanack”, and
“The Rhode Island Almanack”. He ordered at the first of the year,
but he reordered as the year progressed. He also took subscriptions
to popular magazines. The most popular was the “Zion’s Herald”. My
grandmother who came from that part of the world, used to subscribe to
the “Zion’s Herald”. I remember it quite well. There was some demand
for the “Manufacturer’s and Farmer’s Journal” and the “Telescope”.
The “Rhode Island American” and the “Providence American”, with a few
subscriptions to weekly newspapers, were sold over Israel’s counter.
Papers were late, and people complained and sometimes cancelled their
subscriptions. As Edward Anthony of Taunton wrote: “This paper did not
go on Wednesday on account of the travelling. (This was February 27,
1829). Most of the Mails have been carried on horseback, and it is
quite uncertain about your getting the paper today. I am glad that you
have obtained those subscribers and I hope you will get more. Money is
scarce, snow in abundance, and but little news.”
The leisure time of these Scrabbletown traders was not spent in reading
books; is this quite clear? Israel did not stock books, because there
was no demand for books. He knew perfectly well what people wanted.
The Newport paper was advertising “The Solitary, or the Mysterious Man
of the Mountain. Translated from the French of Viscount d’Arlincourt
by an American Lady”. Also “Helen de Tourneau. a Novel by Madam de
Souza. 87-1/2 cents.” Israel did not even carry the paper which carried
the advertisement. He did not carry “Roche Blanche: or the Hunters of
the Pyrenees”. Which was a Romance, written by M. A. M. Porter. It was
popular but not in Scrabbletown, Israel thought. He had opened his
first trading station the year Scott’s “Guy Mannering” was published
in England. But he did not stock Walter Scott, either. Probably
never heard of him. That was the year Jane Austin’s “Emma” was put
on the market. Byron belongs to the early years of Israel’s trading.
The “Poems” of John Keats were just out. Shelly and Wordsworth were
becoming known to the English world of letters. Not to the world of
Scrabbletown, I think.
Scrabbletown and Israel were quite right. Their countryside was a place
of such beauty that all their lives were lived against a background of
harmonious color, lovely line, and wide reaches of quietude and peace.
The fields were full of sheep and oxen which were so much a part of
their still pastoral lives. The little white sails were hurrying up and
down the lovely rivers of their land. The bearded sailors, sitting in
the sun, told them tales of all the faraway places, the bearded sailors
being their own sons and brothers who were emphatically glad to get
home. There was little need to look in the pages of any book, they all
felt, when the shad bush was in flower and the shad were running free.
Better go fishing.
And they did. And in the Fall, when they had any spare time, they went
hunting for bears, over in the great forest.
Did they pine for Romance, History, Biography, Poetry? I have not
heard that they did. They were even a little fed up with Romance. And
Heroism. The older men had seen Jemima Wilkinson dressed like an angel
riding through the village on a white horse--her golden hair flying in
the wind. It was a hotheaded young cousin of theirs who had paid for
the horse, and followed Jemima to his undoing.
Toussaint L’Overture had been a slave of theirs, they knew all about
the darkly glorious Rebellion in Hayti--a lot of the village boys had
been down there on their own ships. They knew Jerathmael Bowers, too;
he was one of their own. He was the Bowers who married out of the
village a beauty and a belle, and built her a wonderful fine house in
Somerset, and hired Coply to paint her portrait--all dressed up she
was--life size, with a pink rose in her bosum. And when it came to
heroes, which they never did like to come to, being of New England,
who could touch Washington? They had all seen Washington, many knew
him. Some of them knew Lafayette. The crippled and the pensioned men,
sitting out on the back porches, could still tell--and they probably
tried to.
Sir Walter Scott would, I am sure, have seemed a little tame to these
men had Israel succeeded in selling him over the counter. Better by
far, if restless, get on your father’s little boat and sail off to the
Sandwich Islands for a change. So they thought and so they did. And
they always came back as soon as possible and went clamming.
_Israel and Politics_
Politics, as a means of livelihood or as the occupation of a
gentleman with some leisure, was unheard of. The barrel holds a few
communications from far off representatives in Taunton or Boston who
wanted Israel to get out the vote occasionally. New Bedford, according
to the barrel, wanted a new jail. Israel did not want New Bedford to
have a new jail. That seems to have been the only time he got roused.
He wrote that he could not get the village to take much of a stand,
because they had sort of planned to go off hunting that week end.
Is this all in the barrel? Indeed it is, and more. But do not forget
that Israel sold school books and that the turnover was rapid.