Sarah Stillman Ransom's Memories of 19th Century Colebrook

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"Rhierson, the youngest son, married Ida Hitchcock of Colebrook. He was a soldier in the Civil War for three years. For several years before his death, he was a photographer in Jamestown, N.Y.

"My grandparents’ two daughters, Emerett, 15 years and Abby, aged 13, were stricken with typhoid fever and died within a week of each other.

"Mr. Stillman represented the town of Colebrook in the Legislature in 1885. He died the following spring of pneumonia, aged 72 years. Grandma Stillman died 10 years later, aged 82. Both are buried in the North Colebrook cemetery.

"Mr. & Mrs. Henry Granger, next-door neighbors to my grandparents, lived a retired life on their big farm, only keeping two cows for their own use. He lost his daughter (and only child by a former wife), Lucy, who was married to Clifford Hitchcock and was survived by a little son, Homer, two weeks old. Lucy was 29 years of age.

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"The house, one-half mile south from the Grangers, was called the ‘Old Spencer Place,’ and was always spoken of as the ‘haunted house.’ It was said people riding by claimed they had seen the house lighted up by spells and that they heard strange noises from within. It was empty for a good many years, when it fell to pieces.

"The next house, about one-fourth mile beyond, was where John and Augusta Smith lived. They took care of his mother, Mrs. Abigail Smith, 92 years of age and stone deaf. They had a sheep farm. They kept four cows and sold some butter. Mrs. John Smith used to have a loom and wove rag carpets and rugs, also spun her own yarn. She knit all their own socks and mittens and sometimes boarded the ‘school marms’ in the district. They all passed away from natural causes and no one lived there afterwards, and the house was eventually burned by arson.

"In the next house at the foot of the hill from the Smiths, lived Mr. & Mrs. Abraham Moses. They had three sons, Lyman, Stanton and Eddie. Lyman married Lois Thompson; Stanton, a Hartford girl and Eddie married Millie Clark. Millie Moses also wove rag carpets. Eddie kept a horse, a few cows, chickens and ducks. He had a cider press and made cider for the farmers in the vicinity who brought their cider apples to his mill. All are dead now and the house was eventually burned (also arson).

"There was another house just before you came to the Beech Hill Schoolhouse that was called the old ‘plastered house.’ The outside was plastered as well as the inside. The last family who lived there was Curtis Oles and five children. Three attended school. This was about 60 years ago [the 1890s].

"The schoolhouse came next. This school, as well as I can remember, had twelve desks for the pupils; six for the girls and six for the boys, and two long benches. There was the teacher’s desk and a big, long box stove that held large chunks of wood. I attended school there for five years, while I lived with my grandparents. Some of the scholars who attended were Dennis Chapin’s six children and five from James O’Neil’s. Mr. & Mrs. Krause, who lived on Cobb Street, about two miles toward North Colebrook, sent three children. There were two Joyner girls, also Mr. BeDell’s daughter. Mr. Curtis Oles’ children, and sometimes Julia Terrel came, and with myself, made twenty-two most of the time, but sometimes less.

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"Some of the teachers who taught there before I went were David Lawton, Sarah Joyce and Hattie Killfoil. Those that taught when I went were Almira Moore, Delia Wolcott, Laura Tenney, Katherine Doyle, Katie Merriman, Katie Hayes and Polaski Bowman. Mr. Bowman was from North Colebrook and was the Visiting School Committee. [School visitors were elected officials whose duties were to visit each school at least twice a year to monitor the teacher, the progress of the students and the physical condition of the school buildings.]

"It was from Mr. Bowman that I received what nearly equaled a high school education. He would explain the hard problems and give us his rules so we could understand those hard examples. He was very smart and had a wonderful brain.

"Sometimes when we had a big snowstorm, we were taken to school with the oxen and sled. It was seldom in those days that any of us were absent from having severe colds or absent from having too bad traveling. Two boys used to get a pail of water from the spring twice a day and another student would pass around the dipper. We never had heard of germs in those days, but finally two or three of us older girls bought a tumbler and kept it in our desks and the rest of the school twitted us for getting so ‘high toned’ that we couldn’t drink out of the dipper any more.

"Mr. Abraham Moses and Mr. John Smith used to make pretty silver rings for some of us school girls. They were made from ten cent pieces, which they placed on the end of a small, long, steel knife sharpener, pounding a hole out of the center, then kept pounding it into shape on the outside of the ten cent piece. The charge for making one was 10¢.

"Mr. & Mrs. Granger spent their winter evenings by making a great many lamp lighters from strips of newspapers rolled up very tightly. These lighters were to save matches.

"The Grangers and the Stillmans used to have a sundial so as to be able to tell the time of day if their clocks stopped. By leaving the back kitchen door open one-half way, it would be 11:30 A. M. when the sun shone in even with the half way mark on the floor. I remember checking this, and it was correct."

Sarah Stillman Ransom’s recollections will continue next week.