Chapter 21: Farm Tasks vs. Farm Village

Meanwhile, back to our time line:

Once the ground thawed and dried out enough, Mark and I planted the garden. We alternated on taking morning and evening critter patrol. It was a lot easier this year with two people than the drudge of day in, day out that I'd had to carry last year.

Our smoke house benefited from the hungry fauna. Mostly we caught rabbits and raccoons. We did kill several full-sized deer which we butchered, cured and smoked. Once we had the carcasses in salt a couple weeks to pull the moisture out of them they were hung and cold-smoked over a corncob fire. (It's considered a peculiarity to southern meat smoking. A lot of hams have been corncob smoked over the years.)

I thought about my project to make the kids woods aware. My goal was to make them short buckskinners. I ordered tanned deer-skins, two fur-on bearskins, an eighteen foot tipi with the pole set and the full set of Mark Baker woods runner DVDs. The guy did four DVDs focusing on the skills of an early American eastern longhunter.

I found some small format paper-bound books on flintknapping, harvesting and butchering deer, cordage, firemaking and why a canvas tarp is your best friend. I dug out my old buckskinner books volumes one through six, all the old foxfire books I'd been able to collect and found a couple sources for clothing patterns.

I bought a few single-color woolen blankets in dark blue, dark green and grey to use as materials for capotes and cloaks. I bookmarked where to find oilskin tarps and overcoats. (I'll never give up my oilskin poncho, even today now that I've left buckskinning behind me.)

I convinced the Friends of Sears Island to buy into the pioneer village idea, focusing on the history of Sears Island. The documentation from the old chest sealed the deal once I proposed to display it in their new visitor's center. With their approval I got the pads poured for the visitor's center, a few buildings and a big stone (not brick) barn, on their side of the fence not far from my second barn and facilities. I got my contractor started on the smithy and kitchen on my side of the fence. I had two gates put into the fence connecting the two built-up areas. By mid-summer the buildings were ready. I hired a couple of guys that helped run Museum Village in Monroe, New York and Hale Farm Village in Bath, Ohio to come and give us some oversight to get set up. I thought about getting someone from the Shaker village in Bardstown, Kentucky, but from what I recalled while attending university in Lexington, it was a static display.

They brought plans for the black smithy, church and sawmill that I wanted to set up. I had pictures of the old farm kitchen to go by, and the formal dining room as well. For a rural farm village in the 1860s they suggested a few squared-beam log cabins, such as the Foxfire books illustrated. They brought pictures and construction plans. They also suggested a small timber-framed church with clapboards and a pot-bellied stove or two. (This being Maine, we ended up putting in four.)

I paid them to track down and hire a crew to buy and install a loom and a five-seat spinning wheel. These were called spinning circles. The "spinsters" would spin the wool for the weaver(s). I remember something about stringing a loom being the most difficult, time consuming operation involved in working with a loom.

We needed to buy raw wool and spun wool.

I hired the timber-framing group they suggested to raise the church. They did a very nice job. I had photographs taken as they worked and assembled an exhibit within the church. The pews were not fastened down, giving the village a multi-use structure as had been done in some locations at the time. There was a dias, rail and pulpit but it was all left quite plain. It was never consecrated as a church and simply left an impression of a non-denominational house of worship.

The third, stone barn and visitor's center were started at the north end of the island.

Our sawmill was purchased and rebuilt. We used recycled barn and factory timbers placed on a gravel pad in the south end complex. I purchased and had installed a reproduction of an early-1800s steam engine called a Corliss engine. It had a bloody huge fly wheel and had a reputation for high efficiency. I had a five ton coal bunker built near the steam engine and had it filled. This would easily supply our black smithy as well. I called around and found a timber company willing to supply a limited number of clean logs for our sawmill operation.

The first few dozen logs' worth of timber went to provide beams and floors for the new structures and wood to make up the mangers, floors, beams and walls in the new stone barn, once we got the kinks out of the operation. We drilled and pegged where we could, especially while setting the beams and support structures in the barn. They would prove to be the most visible.

The soap-making operation was provided with a large kettle on a chain and tripod, suet and leaf lard, boiling tubs, forms, cotton cloth and lye. The candle-making operation was set up for dipped and molded candles.

We needed a wood-carver for all the spoons, paddles, trenchers and all the other little things that the farm required!

The kitchen and living room were laid out in the same building. A local blacksmith made the travelling crane and the fire tools. I located and purchased the stove, granite wet sink, pots, jugs, bottles, trenchers, oven sheets, pans, tins, molds, burl bread bowls and the big kitchen work-table we'd need for the kitchen.

An estate sale provided the dining table, low-boy or butler's table and chairs for the formal dining room. I sent out the parts of the chandelier to be strung and prepared for hanging on a pulley and windlass above the dining table. I bought more linen table cloths for the dining table and an eight-piece blue delft tableware set, as well as the water glasses, wine glasses and table-ware. I remembered to get a candle snuffer to light and put out the candles.

I contracted with a blacksmith to move a simple coal forge and anvil to the site and demonstrate on the weekends when we were in operation and on special circumstances. We'd provide the coal and raw materials.

The visitor's center was completed, the auditorium and its projection equipment were installed and the documentary exhibits were finished (for the time).

I hired a few locals to man the stations for a live fire exercise. The Searsport high school was going to deliver three bus-loads of kids with chaperones on our doorstep that Friday morning.

I wandered around in a black sack-suit, white shirt and ribbon tie. (a la Colonel Sanders) I wore lace-up, low-heeled boots and carried a cane. I introduced myself as the owner and talked about the site at the visitor's center and shepherded the oldest group around the site, explaining what they saw. I was doing the job of a professional site interpreter.

I was glad that I'd put up signs on the second barn stating that it was a maintenance structure and to please stay out. We hadn't locked the damned thing.

I noted that we'd forgotten a few necessary things. We didn't have any outdoor seating for people to rest and we'd forgotten the damned outhouses. We didn't have any for the reenactors or the guests. I also noted that we didn't have any shelters in case of rain, either. The only rest rooms were in the visitor's center and they weren't enough to handle the load. Next year I'd contract with an agency. I figured out where to put a couple picnic shelters with fireplaces.

Other than that we agreed that we did pretty well for a first run-through. It had taken long enough to get to this stage that the first snow flew soon after our run-through. We shut it down for the season. A wooden structure was quickly built over the steam engine and a canvas shelter went over the coal bunker. Within the month the stone barn was finished. I had half of the first floor filled with face cords of split hardwood. I had both of the septic tanks, at the reception center and the house, pumped out for the year. Mark's LP gas tan got refilled, as did my two tanks.

I had an artist make larger ink renderings of some of the illustrations that had been in the trunk. I wanted to use these to gather more interest in the documentation and compare what was to what we built.

I kept careful track of all the bills and receipts for the operation. Since it all went to the LLC it was taken off my income tax as a donation.

We started advertising the place as a spring-to-fall static exhibit during the week with live demonstrators during the weekends and on holidays. I figured that once we got into the groove we'd open it up a bit more and run live by appointment as well. I had a field plowed flat with a slight pitch and covered in six inches of crushed stone, close by the visitor's center. That would keep us from having to pull people's cars out of the mud.

Mark and Julie, bless them, had kept up with the garden while I was fighting the farm village start-up.

The first hard freeze came and the steers went to the butcher. The kids were a bit wide-eyed at first but we talked them through it.

We had all winter to get the pen ready for five or six piglets. We needed buried barbed wire about the periphery because pigs root by nature. We'd also need shelters, a watering station and a wet trough for feeding. To over-winter they'd need a heated manger. I wouldn't leave any animal outside in that climate over the winter.

Once the truck came back from the packing plant we made an emergency run to Lowe's. We needed two more chest freezers to hold all the beef.

The ground hadn't frozen too deeply yet so I took advantage of my contractor's slow-down in trade to get a foundation dug and poured, then the spinning and weaving house built. A fireplace was built into the spinning room and both a big high-backed fireplace settle and a single spinning wheel were added near the hearth. I recall reading in the estate journals an account of the children going to sleep to the sound of the spinning wheel. That page would be reproduced large and added to the display.

I made a decision that I'd have to convince the Sears Island people to run with. Most of our displays should all have been built into one big building with a double-course brick or stone first floor followed by frame and clapboard floors above that, dammit! I wanted the farm-house at the north end and the out-buildings (other than the barn, which was already there) to be at the south end. This would mean building the farm-house, moving the displays inside it and tearing down some of the smaller structures that we'd already built. If we insured (a) electrification of the house, (b) wide doors and corridors, and© an elevator at one end for the wheelchair-bound, we might get put onto a national register. That would sure be a feather in our caps.

I had spent several million dollars on the project and it was almost matching my vision but it wasn't quite rational yet. There were conspicuous holes in the flow of how a farm of the period would operate. There was yet to be built a bunk house for the field hands, a small house for the foreman, a bath house, a wood-working shop and a stable with an attached paddock for the mules. There were no farm carts or buckboards. Where were the plow and the drag? Where were the cooper and wheelwright? There should be an office for the guy that doctored the people, cut their hair and pulled their teeth as well as doctoring to the stock. Where was the dining hall for the field hands? Where was the latrine for the field hands? There should be a farm office for scheduling and accounting. Where were the cooks and the housekeepers to sleep? Where was the school house for the kids? Should we have a firehouse?

I documented it all.

We had a ways to go yet. However, our first step had been a giant one. I was going to turn my face away from it for a while. I needed to stand back and look at it with a different viewpoint.

I bought a couple of sun loungers and a small table for the conservatory. I was lying back, trying to catch some tan between the sun and the halide lamps. I was relaxing with a bourbon and coke, dressed in my bathing trunks. I was comfortable.

Julie came in and sat on the other lounger.

"Are you done yet?"

"Done with what?"

She gave a careless wave towards the other barn. "All that."

I cast an eye her way. "Not done. Just in hiatus. I'm letting it rest."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure. I may waffle a bit if I'm uncomfortable with the subject, but you can certainly ask."

"Why have you done all this? Why not just sit back and live the high life? You must have the bucks considering how you've spent money on this project. Why not live in the Caribbean or on a cruise liner or something? Why live out here in the boonies?"

I smiled as I looked at her. She really didn't get it. "I've got two reasons. One, the quiet. I'm addicted to the quiet. Some night when it's clear, cold and crisp and the stars are shining so brightly that you feel that you could reach out and touch one, just listen. Listen for anything. You won't hear it. You may catch the sound of the waves lapping against the shore. If you're unlucky you'll catch the sound of a ship's horn. That's it. Blessed silence. You can't buy that anymore."

"The other reason I'm afraid you'll laugh at. You see, I had, for lack of a better word, a vision. It was a brief burst of clarity in which I saw this place as it was and as it could be, one of the last true self-sufficient farms, with the facilities to show interested people how their great, great grandparents lived and what they thought natural and proper. I've had a few mis-steps and a few mis-interpretations but all in all it's coming together. The few holes are quite glaring to me. I've been writing them up in a to-do list but I want to let everything percolate before I make any big decisions."

"After all, this is a Maine farm village, not in Georgia. The slave economy and management legacies just weren't there. The mattresses were filled with corn husks and straw ticking, not cotton or rice straw. Pot-bellied stoves or legacy Franklin stoves were everywhere. There was a lot more fish and chicken in their diet than beef or pork. Those were cash crops, so to speak. Sunday dinner could just as well be salt cod and potatoes as anything else."

"In the south, including Texas, reconstruction and the carpetbaggers destroyed much of what was left of the previous land owners' culture as well as their farms and plantations."

"The Indian wars across the Great Plains, the transcontinental railroad opening in 1869 and subsequent laying of the vast network of local lines, the San Francisco fire of 1906, the Great Chicago fire of 1871 and near simultaneous burn-off of most of northern Wisconsin, the Alaskan gold rush of 1897; all these things provided a tremendous amount of energy for change throughout the rest of the nation."

"Before those such as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison changed transportation and began electrification, before World War One denuded the country of mules the way of life outside of towns in the east didn't really change from about 1865 to 1914. That's a long damned time! True, the mills changed with the advent of steam powered engines for power, better stoves took over the kitchens and fashions definitely changed but that's about all." That magical stability gave people a multi-generational false sense of security. The world changed around them and when it finally impacted their lives they didn't quite know what to do about it. I wish I could see the newspapers from five years after the break in our documentation. The changes must have been dramatic."

"So, does that mean you're a historian?"

I thought about it a minute. "Not at first, but I suppose that I became one once I got interested."

Now, with all these public-access modifications I'm beginning to feel threatened. I'm going to have another fence built to enforce my privacy here at the house. I don't want dirty-fingered tourists peering through the windows. Let's go look at the master map and decide where the fence line should run."

We got up and walked over to the office. I still kept the master map there on the wall. I wanted to minimize the public land and maximize the private, yet leave room for future expansion. I drew a curving line with my finger, encompassing the buildings, orchards and rendezvous site.

"Why include the rendezvous area and the orchards on the public side?"

"Because buckskinners like flatlanders to come and visit, spend some money. A lot of them spend the winter time at crafts that they can sell for their gas money, if nothing else. People swap, trade, sell and bargain all through a rendezvous. It's an early-American flea market!"

"Cool!"

I looked her over. "You'd look great in a bleached leather dress with some bead work. Let me show you what I mean." I walked out to the shelves where my rendezvous books were and found the Buckskinning books. I forgot which one had the women's garments, so I pulled the first four and settled down at the table. She followed curiously. I found the pictures I was looking for, turned the book around and slid it over to her.

"I could wear something like this?"

"Sure! There are loads of patterns and the skins are available. The beading is a skill, though, and we might have to look around for someone to do it if you don't care to learn yourself. Wait here."

I went back to my bedroom and opened up a suit carrier I had stuffed at the back. Within were my breeches, linen shirts, weskits(colonial vests), socks and silk head scarves. I dressed to the period, put on my rough-out brogans, found my rendezvous 'possibles' bag, dug out my neck knife in its beaded sheath, put the knife around my neck and put the bag over my shoulder.

I walked back out and stood there looking at her.

She looked dumbfounded. "This is a whole different side of you. I never would have expected this."

"Period dress is just that—designs and materials limited to the period. We restrict them to mostly linen, some cotton and silk, wool, leather and oilskin. Much of the clothes are hand-made, including the shoes! These are pegged together and assembled on a cobbler's bench, then turned inside-out to wear. They started out as buckle-shoes but the buckles hurt my feet so I converted them to lace-ups. I had metal taps put on the heels because I kept wearing the leather heels down so fast."

I dug down into my possibles bag for something I kept there. Ah, found it. I withdrew a heavy amber necklace. "You should wear this with your Indian dress, along with a beaded belt as well as a knife and leather punch with the sheaths decorated in dyed porcupine quills."

I brought up the Crazy Crow catalog on-line to show her where they could be bought.

She grinned. "This is really cool. No wonder you're hooked on it. But I'm a little blonde to be an Indian princess, don't you think?"

"Nope. Virtually all the native tribesmen were fascinated with blonde hair. You would have been captured as a child and brought up in the tribe." She nodded.

"Now, some of the skills a good buckskinner should know are how to build a camp, set up their lodge, build and use a fire—safely, throw a knife, throw a hawk, or tomahawk, and speak a few phrases in French.

French was the trade tongue for nearly a century on this continent and, I believe, Quebec just carried on the tradition, making it their common language. That's why Canadian signs and packaging are bi-lingual. Did you know that the Cajuns that settled Florida and Louisiana were distressed Newfounlanders that lost their homes in the war? That's to the best of my understanding. That's how the Cajun French came to be. It wasn't from French settlers in the gulf."

"I'll pull some phrases in French for you with translations. You memorize them and we'll drive the kids batshit. Deal?"

I'd not seen her with an evil grin before. "Deal."

The next time I was online I did a little shopping at Crazy Crow. They had good quality copper cooking kettles at a reasonable price, the deerskins I wanted, beaded sheathes and canvas water buckets for campfire duty. All the rendezvous that I've ever attended have one specific line built into their rules: "A full water bucket will be near every camp fire." Notice it's not 'should', it's 'will'. I placed a phone call to the folks at Crazy Crow to see if they had anyone that would bead a dress or do some quillwork for a good price. They had a few leads, and agreed to broker the jobs for me. Since it was winter time, they would be working or alternatively, may want a few commissions.

I thought seriously about the displays at the visitor's center. It was too 'Sears Island' centric. I wanted to expand it to link in the other driving cultural events of the time, namely the Civil War. I would feel like a cad if I asked for the Civil War militaria back so I didn't do it. Instead I had the journal copied, found a resource for battlefield photographs of the time and had an artist sketch out the scenes noted in the journal. Some were chillingly like the pictures that I'd found. Those, I had the artist do some rotations without referring to the pictures. A sketch from the journal writer's viewpoint was presented first, then a rotation that matched the picture that was presented third in line, next to the previous sketches. It was an amazingly effective exhibit.

I had a very heavy, vault-class, display case installed with multiple layers of armored glass in the front. Why the glass? After all, it was a display case. Within I hung the rifles that I'd inherited, as well as some others (some reproductions) of the period, such as the Winchester 1885 high wall falling block rifle in .45-70 and a more common brass frame Henry in .44 RF which the Southerners were reputed to have said the damned Yankees would 'load on Sunday and shoot all week'.

The 1874 Sharps with a Creedmore Sight was displayed highlighting a few blemishes. The incidents leading to those blemishes were noted in the sniper's journal, almost in an apologetic manner, giving provenance to the weapon on display.

The peripheral display contained cartridge boxes, paper boxes (copies) that the bullets were bought in, examples of various cartridges of the times compared to modern cartridges and some photographs of what those weapons were used for. The photographs of the battlefield at Shiloh were particularly riveting when placed alongside a quote noting that one could walk across the battlefield without touching the ground, simply by shifting from corpse to corpse.

I wrote about how some of the returning veterans were quite abrupt with the non-combatants that stayed behind. The journals of several local ministers noted that many fell to 'midnight justice', but the papers never even whispered about it. That's one display which I did not have illustrated.

One newspaper article did note that "The returning soldiers were all thin and somewhat pale. They all had a presence about them. They were watchful and quick to act. None cared to stand while framed in silhouette."

With the heady prospect of possibly being entered into a national register the board of "The Friends of Sears Island" gladly signed on to the changes. It meant a little more electrification, a few more acres dedicated to the project and a better road put in to the parking lot, but they agreed. After all, it was all on my dime!

I hired an out-of-state architect familiar with Civil War period building construction, rehabilitation and reproduction. He knew exactly where I was coming from when I told him to keep the plantation feel out of it as this was to represent a working farm estate grown into a small village. I went down the pages of my notes with him, noting which out-buildings had yet to go up and what trade-offs were to be allowed in building the big farm house. I insisted that the roof be done in slate.

The most glaring anachronism, of course, was the elevator. It was disguised as a closet and the back wall was to be covered in shelves.

One feature of the antebellum south was adopted as it made sense: the kitchen for the workers was built into the basement, making use of the house flues and ovens. A smaller version of our root cellar was to be included in the basement. It was to have a heavy paved floor in glazed brick and the walls were to be done in tiles. Two four-burner wood stoves and a huge table would be the focus of the place. The upper walls would feature many windows for illumination, as well as many kerosene lanterns on dedicated shelves high on the walls, as the kitchen usually started business at four A.M.

I wondered what the hell to do about a cold house! Ah-hah! The stream that the original settlement was built around had at its head a spring. We'd have to find it, isolate it and build a spring house around the damned thing. It wouldn't be conveniently adjacent to the kitchens as it should be, but there would be a spring house! It couldn't be built in cast stone (cement). It would have to be built in riven stone and dry-laid to keep the yearly freezes from turning it into gravel.

There were all sorts of pocket industries which, while necessary to have available, could not be supported with the head-count a village such as ours would provide. The products from such industries as cobblers, coppersmiths, wheelwrights, clockmakers and dedicated tailors would be imported. Out-sourcing was not a new idea! We needed a woodwright that also could carve spoons and such. The woodwright and the blacksmith together might be able to fashion a wagon wheel but not as elegantly or as timely as a professional wheelwright would who had templates and tools dedicated to the job. A cooper was a necessary member of the community as he made the buckets, barrels, firkins, pails and churns for the community. He stayed busy.

With such a surplus of widows from the war needing food and shelter, spinsters were common and hosting them was considered an act of charity. Their children were brought up in the farming community. Some gained worthwhile skills such as what the cooks, the cooper, the woodwright or the blacksmith could teach; thus making a place for themselves on the farm. Others remained as field hands while others yet attempted to find their fortune out west or in the factories of the larger cities.

I found a source for many pot-bellied stoves. We'd need them! I also found a supplier for McGuffey readers and wood-framed slates for the schoolhouse.

Several companies had period machine-woven runners for the halls of the farm-house.

I roughed out the doctor's office in a corner of the stone barn and bought supplies for it. I found a reproduction cased Civil War surgeon's kit and a case of equipment and herbs for pill-rolling. The dental kit was quite brutal in its appearance and effectiveness. A stained leather apron hung in the corner of the physician's office.

Bottles lined the shelves of a glass-fronted cabinet labeled Paregoric, Opium, Tincture of Tea, Ether, Alcohol, Slippery Elm, Quinine, Catnip, Olive oil, Valerian, belladonna, Laudanum, Tannin, Gum Arabic, Ipecac, Digitalis, Chamomile, Sarsaparilla, Blackberry Leaf, Boneset, Feverfew, Willow Bark, Ground Mustard seed, Flax seed, honey and Calomel. There was even a brand new, top-of-the-line ether cone! An alcohol lamp was ready to melt Gum Arabic to make sticking plasters and soften the beeswax to make pills. A small brass balance scale with tiny weights and a pair of forceps was fastened to the desk. Two cots lay against the walls and another cabinet was full of bedding, towels and roll bandage. A certificate of accomplishment of a two-year medical apprenticeship was fastened to the wall within a glass frame. Several books were shelved on the desk on such subjects as anatomy, the treatment of fevers and agues, the pharmacy of the modern practitioner, herbal remedies, difficult childbirths and amputation.

I spent some of the winter digging through period cookbooks such as copies of White House cookbooks and Pennsylvania Dutch works published for the buckskinning market. I printed, laminated and bound a practical cookbook for use in the village kitchens. I made certain to include recipes for things that the residents of the time would have thought silly, like how to make boiled salt cod and potatoes. Of course, everyone knew how to make that...

The roasts, small meats, forcemeat, sumac tea, black tea, chamomile tea, potatoes, biscuits and gravy, bacon, fried and scrambled eggs, French toast, various soups, game and fowl, a few vegetable dishes, various fresh fish, puddings, custards, fools, crumbles, pies and cookies were covered. I was able to specify temperatures rather than using the traditional "Keeping", "Warm", "Hot" or "Scorching" temperature notations of the period cookbooks. I had clip-on oven thermometers added to the ovens.

That was it. I'd had enough. I was taking a god damned vacation. The place would roll on alone without me for a month or so. I bought everyone five hundred dollar gift checks for Christmas and called a travel agent out of Bangor at random.

"Hello, Shelly's international travel. May I help you?"

"Yes, please. I'd like to have a private plane take me to Montreal, have a limo pick me up and take me to Le Petit. There I'd like a suite reserved for three weeks. During that time I'd like the services of a car and driver with local knowledge of the city. I'll be attending concerts, visiting museums, shopping and in general vacationing. I may be staying longer in the city but I don't know at this time. I may wish to head south to the Texas coast for a while to soak up some heat and barbecue. Please inquire as to reservations and produce an itinerary as well as a charge sheet. You can get back to me on this number. If anything needs to be mailed then the Searsport post office knows how to find me. I'm Howard Faxon and I'm one of two adult males on Sears Island. If they can't find me then I'll have to take up issues with them."