My own people are comparatively late comers. I was
born in a pleasant old colonial house built near 1750, and bought by
my grandfather sixty or seventy years ago, when he brought his
household up the river to Berwick from Portsmouth.
He was a sea-captain, and had run away to sea in his boyhood and led a
most adventurous life, but was quite ready to forsake seafaring in his
early manhood, and at last joined a group of acquaintances who were
engaged in the flourishing West India trade of that time.
For many years he kept and extended his interests in shipping,
building ships and buying large quantities of timber from the
northward and eastward, and sending it down the river and so to sea.
This business was still in existence in my early childhood, and the
manner of its conduct was primitive enough, the barter system still
prevailing by force of necessity. Those who brought the huge sticks of
oak and pine timber for masts and planks were rarely paid in money,
which was of comparatively little use in remote and sparsely settled
districts. When the sleds and long trains of yoked oxen returned from
the river wharves to the stores, they took a lighter load in exchange
of flour and rice and barrels of molasses, of sugar and salt and
cotton cloth and raisins and spices and tea and coffee; in fact, all
the household necessities and luxuries that the northern farms could
not supply.
They liked to have a little money with which to pay their taxes and
their parish dues, if they were so fortunate as to be parishioners,
but they needed very little money besides.
Pages:
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413