Family Pay Dirt

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My wife and I have been on a serious quest to find out about the Johnson history. We knew via family stories that it had some interesting history but an old book that my Great Great Great Grandfather² wrote has been good reading.

Sometimes you forget how different things were back then. He was a school teacher and I had to cringe when he said he decided to change the system from "repeated whippings by a leather strap" to that of signing hymns. He was reported to the Superintendent who came out and said he enjoyed the change. Of course neither would be allowed by law now, but I don't think my wife...a school teacher....would accept school teacher wages in bushels of oats. Nope I am not making that up. Its how teachers were paid back in 1850.

Another account that was funny was his father's convictions not to plant hops. Back in the 1840's it was how farmers here made a living. His father (a very religious man) felt it was wrong to get money from a crop that caused drunkedness. So they plowed it under and threw it over the rock wall. Now this explains why those wild hops always grew there today. I guess those hops are not so wild after all.

Apparently he got a bit of wonder lust too, so reading about his 150 day trek from Me to CA on a ship during the Gold Rush was cool, until a mutiny almost killed the Captain over a dispute about going around the Horn.

He talks about the old Johnson trunk, and yes that is still in the family today, discovered in a town hall that was under renovations and was given back to the family. Since we have not moved, you get a different view of what life was like back then. A 1859 map shoved inside the book gives you names of homes back then. These are old cellar holes today, but its nice to put names to the places I have logged and farmed beside and wondered "who lived here anyway"?

I won't bore you with all the details, but a lot of things have been cleared up by reading this autobiography, and its interesting to see his view of things back then. But still some things remain the same. Many of the people he mentions...the Robert's, the Wallaces, the Morton's, the Philbrick's and other families, are still here today. And as for this family, we still log, raise sheep, farm and teach school children. Some things just never change I guess.

I did have one question though. That map has several homes that my farm now encompasses. The Hogan Farm, the Hamlin Farm, The Davis Farm, the Cate's Farm and others. If you divide the total acreage up as it exists today, these farms averaged a mere 40 acres a piece; could 40 acres really sustain a family homestead in 1850? Considering everything they needed to get by in life rested on only 40 acres, it doesn't seem possible.
 
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Well, they didn't live as well as we do now. Also, no mechanization to speak of and so one man with one or two horses, 40 acres is a very demanding task. Also back then, one farmer only fed maybe 5 people. I often think of just getting wood for the winter, what a daunting task, crosscut by hand, split all by hand. Haul from where ever.
 
I often wonder what it would be like living in the mid 1800's. It's not long till I come to my senses and start thinking about all the manual labor that would be required just to survive much less any "leisure" time. Jonathan's example of just putting up enough wood to get through the winter for example. Growing and preserving enough food to make it through the winter also. I have the greatest respect for the "old timers". It's no wonder they usually had large families, they had to grow their own farm hands usually.
 
I happen to teach with a Science teacher that is also an EMT and he states the big killer back then, rotten teeth. I had bad teeth as a kid, finally have my dentures and with today's technology it wasn't the most pleasant thing to have 16 teeth removed at a time! So statistically, I would have died early. So Mother Nature's selection process is being messed with by technology on me. Plus I sweat easily and have had pnuenomia each year the past six years and in '77 had double pnuemonia, severe dehydration and collapsed arteries. So, I prefer living in the day and age I do. :thumb:
Farming with my horses is very relaxing for me, but I also can fire up the Oliver 770 with the front end loader to move and lift things. As well as my John Deere 2510 to finish quickly anything the horses and I can't complete in a timely manner.
 
It's funny you should mention teeth Jon. 20 minutes ago I called into work and said I won't be in, because I have to find a dentist for an emergency tooth extraction. I have had this broken tooth for a few years now and its bothered on and off, but in the last few weeks its gone from annoying to very painful. A few weeks ago I could kill the pain with a shot of Listerine twice a day. Then when that stopped working a shot of hydrogen-peroxide every few hours would kill the pain. Now its down to 2 asparin every 4 hours and Ambesol every 10 minutes and I can't eat or sleep either. Time for this 34 year old tooth to go. I cannot imagine living in the dark ages with an absess tooth.

As for wood cutting its interesting to note that this book was written about times in the 1850's when Maine was being cleared for sheep. (The rivers here drove the looms that spun the woolen trade). He notes in many places, "30 acres of woods cleared and burned."

I assume during that time wood could be had for little or nothing. Just this weekend alone as I cleared an acre of ground for my sheep, I was glad I had a chainsaw. I could not imagine doing such work with a ax and crosscut saw.

I guess that is what is so neat about finding this book now. I am actively clearing land for sheep, just as my Great Grandfather² was doing on this same land 159 years ago. What happened is, this acre of land is between working fields. Because its a drainage for both fields, it gets wet and makes mechanical harvesting impossible. So it grew regrew into trees. But the trees are very limby from the abundant light. So the hardwood is too limby to be of any use other than firewood and the softwood trees are only good for pulp. In other words its not a very good woodlot and its not tillable either. The best use for it as far as I can see is for grazing. So I'll clear it out and let grass grow and sheep graze.
 
As for homesteading our research answered another long time question in the neighborhood. We have this old 1850's family cemetery on the farm in Thorndike. A nice place back in the day in a grove of Maples and on this little hill looking towards the distant mountains. Now the Thorndike Historical Society could not figure out where this family came from as no Steven's ever lived in Thorndike as far as records go.

But our farm is split between two towns, primarily...Thorndike and Jackson. Just across the line is an old cellar hole of an Inn. It was big in its day and via rockwalls now grown up with trees, you can see where it was an old rotary. Roads went to Dixmont, Jackson, Thorndike, and Brooks. You can even find an old well, some remains of stables, and of course the inn's rocked foundation.

My dad made the connection that maybe the Steven's came from that Inn. Well we found out that they did not own the inn but were servants in it and were felled by a family outbreak of Scarlet Fever. They simply found a suitable spot for a cemetery a few hundred yards away but it just happened to be in another town, throwing everyone off. This is a good find because now we can help people of the Steven's family doing research on their geneology and direct them to the right cemetery.
 
Turns out dental care is really important. People who floss have a lower incidence of heart disease than those who don't. The bacterial burden in the mouth is a source for all sorts of bad things. Hope you get that tooth fixed soon.

As for the good old days - along with woodcuts of medieval woodworking techniques, there's lots of them showing some poor guy getting a tooth yanked out.

Good luck with yer tooth.
 
to that of signing hymns. He was reported to the Superintendent who came out and said he enjoyed the change. Of course neither would be allowed by law now

I know some kids that could do with "repeated whippings by a leather strap" :D My wifes nephew comes to mind.

Well, they didn't live as well as we do now. Also, no mechanization to speak of and so one man with one or two horses, 40 acres is a very demanding task. Also back then, one farmer only fed maybe 5 people. I often think of just getting wood for the winter, what a daunting task, crosscut by hand, split all by hand. Haul from where ever.

Plus back then your neighbors never batted an eyelash at helping each other out.

could 40 acres really sustain a family homestead in 1850? Considering everything they needed to get by in life rested on only 40 acres, it doesn't seem possible.

I would bet most Amish farms are under 60 acres.
 
Not here. They bought 2000 acres and are looking for more.

There is a company here that is called the Maine Scythe Shop or something. Anyway they said a good scythe farmer could cut 3 acres of hay per day. That's a lot! I am not sure I could do it, or would want to, but I watched my grandfather cut some hay with one. There is some technique to it.

Myself, I would put the 16 foot haybine up against a hand scythe any day. Of course you can get a lot closer to rocks with a scythe then you can a haybine!
 
I hear you Darren.

My boss makes fun of me because he was farming back when they made the transition from loose hay to square bales. One day I made a comment that "no one bales those square bales any more." Now whenever we talk haying he laughingly says, "you know, those rectangular things out in the field that is all scrunched up with hay."

We had those years ago and there is no way I would go back to that laborious task. I got round bales now, but on the dairy farms we don't even hay at all. Too much work. Just haylage...

Which would you rather do? This...

1317843832_22ae9b4ffe.jpg


or this?

Chopping_Corn-small.JPG
 
Hi Travis

I looked up the differences between Hay and Haylage on wikipedia so now I understand some of it. Could you show me a picture of where you store the chopped cut plant matter. Or do you wrap it in plastic?

Thanks for the post
 
We take the haylage via truck and haul it back to the farm where we push it into a pile and then cover it with plastic. You can see us doing that very thing in this picture, though this is early in the season so the pile isn't very big yet.

Tractor_on_Haylage_Pile-small.JPG
 
I've been doing some more research on the family and the connection to logging is interesting. I knew the family came from here from the very beginning, but I could not figure out why so many kids were born in other places. Patty made the connection pretty quick. They farmed in Jackson in the summer and worked up north in the Great North Woods in the winter.

My Great, Great, Great Grandfather met an untimely death up there, by being accidentally shot by a hunter getting food for the logging camp. Anyway he got on his horse and made it home but still died. He kept a journal right up to his death, which I now have and its a good read.

Being a foreman he tells about how "the boys cut 276 trees today and the horses consumed 17 bags of oats". It does not seem like much but cutting 4 foot diamter spruce and pine with cross cut saw and ax meant 276 trees was quite the accomplishment. Of course that pales in comparison to another relative that settled the Cedar Falls area of Washington State where the trees were a bit bigger. Being a logger from back east, he describes in detail the spring poles and oddities of felling Douglas Fir 16 feet off the ground.

As for sheep, its nothing new either for this family. Some documents we found show that a my Great Grandmother² residence was selected as a sheep shearing shed. Since her father was a tailor that's not surprising seeing as wool would have made up the majority of garments in 1633.

As for for woodworking today, I now know what my next project will be. We have a Johnson trunk that was lost and found a century later, but the family member that has it won't give it up. I can't blame her so maybe my next project should be another family trunk. I'm thinking maybe I'll make the traditional 6 board trunk entirely made with hand tools just to make it interesting. Who knows, maybe in 200 years someone will find my life interesting. One thing is for sure, logging and sheep farming seem to be in this families DNA.
 
Travis as a matter of interest to compare, how many trees would a logger get through cutting today. How many "boys" were there in the logging camp that cut those 276 trees. Be interested to know the difference between then and now and how the chainsaw and the like have changed the pace. Fascinating metrics.
 
This is the last journal entry he made Rob. Not a whole lot of detail, but you can get an idea that a days work meant sawing wood from the time the sun came up, until the sun went down.

Saturday [Sept] 30, 1899
Rain in morning. 17 men sawed ½ day. Sawed 254 trees. Lou and Moring unloaded a car of hay and grain. Hawled in 18 bags of grain. Seth went down.

[end of entries. Frank C Johnson died October 2, 1899, age 35, in the woods near Katahdin Iron Works. Accidentally shot, he got on his horse and the horse brought him home (as related by his daughter, Hattie Ellen Johnson Washburn).]

He was in an area of Maine called the Katadin Iron Works, a place that is pretty rugged. I don't have any photos of the area during the summer, but I do have a few during the winter. That's because we snowmobile past this area a lot.

Katadin_Overlook3.JPG


As for the chainsaw versus the misery whip...I'm am not sure they can be compared. I know when the chainsaw came out they claimed the forests could not keep up with the rate of harvesting. Now that trees are harvested by machine, they claim the same thing.

I hate to say this to a bunch of woodworkers, but the truth is the fastest growing forest is one that is under 40 years old with diameters in the 1 foot range. After that the tree tends to mature and slows growth. Its better for woodworkers of course, but for wood destined to make paper, its time wasted.

I know as a logger I could harvest a load of wood a day and that was about 100 trees making up about 11 cord of wood per day. If I am reading his dairy right, 17 men could harvest 500 trees in a day. At that rate it would take 3½ men to harvest 100 trees a day. Or put another way, his 17 man crew was harvesting 55 cords of wood a day.
 
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