Ohio History Journal

THE PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF

GENERAL CHAUNCEY EGGLESTON

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

BY FRANK EGLESTON ROBBINS, University of Michigan

General Chauncey Eggleston, one of the first settlers

of Aurora, Ohio, was a descendant of the first settler

of this name, Begat, or Bigot, Eggleston, who came to

Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1630 and was a first set-

tler of Windsor, Connecticut, in 1635. Here he died

September 1, 1674. His youngest son, Benjamin (2),

born December 18, 1653, married Hannah Osborn

Shadock, daughter of John Osborn and probably the

widow of Elias Shadock, March 6, 1678, and died in

1729. Benjamin (3), the only son of Benjamin (2),

was born in May, 1687, and died October 30, 1732; his

wife was Mary Dibble. Up to this time the family had

lived in Windsor or East Windsor; the son of Benja-

min (3) and Mary, however, Biggett (4) Eggleston,

removed to Murrayfield, Massachusetts, taking up new

land. Biggett (4) was born March 17, 1724, and mar-

ried Mary Corning of Enfield November 7, 1745. His

second son, Benjamin (5) Eggleston, born January 2,

1747-8, before his parents left East Windsor, was the

father of General Chauncey Eggleston.

Murrayfield, where Biggett Eggleston and his son

Benjamin settled, no longer exists as such. The north-

west corner of it, where the Egglestons first lived, be-

(284)

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  285

came in 1783 a part of the new town of Middlefield. It

is in the ragged upland region of western Massachu-

setts, in the midst of the Berkshire Hills, now full of

deserted farms, but at that time a territory into which

pioneers were eagerly pushing from both Connecticut

and Massachusetts. The admirable History of the Town

of Middlefield, Massachusetts, by Edward Church Smith

and Philip Mack Smith (privately printed, 1924) tells

the story of its prosperity and later decay. Crowded

conditions at home, Indian wars, considerations of land

titles, and religious dissension all seem to have brought

about the original influx of settlers, just prior to the

Revolution; and the hardness of the life there, con-

trasted with the attractions of the newly accessible West,

was the reason why many of them moved on, after the

war, to New York and Ohio. The Egglestons were

among the first regular inhabitants. The Murrayfield

valuation list of 1768 contains Biggett's name and Ben-

jamin is listed among the taxpayers of 1769; Benjamin.

however, seems actually to have been the first to occupy

his lot, in 1770, and his father came two years later.

That Benjamin was a man of some prominence is shown

by the fact that when Middlefield was incorporated he

was selected to assemble the first town meeting.

These "Reminiscences" tell sufficiently the fortunes

of the family as they journeyed in 1807 from Middlefield

to Ohio. It will, however, not be out of place to set

down some account of the individuals concerned. The

children of Benjamin (5) Eggleston and his wife, Mary

Gordon, probably the daughter of Samuel and Mar-

garet (Henry) Gordon, whom he married October 9,

1774, were the following:

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2. Benjamin (6), born September 29, 1775

3. ii. Martin (6), born April 11, 1777

4. iii. Joseph (6), born July 6, 1779

iv. Betsy (6), born December 29, 1781

5. v. Moses (6), born February 16, 1784

vi. Achsah (6), baptized November 4, 1792

6. vii. Chauncey (6), born August 27, 1786

viii. Susanna (6)

ix. Harriet (6).

Benjamin (5) died June 1, 1832, in Aurora, and his

wife Mary died December 19, 1817. He had been a

Minute Man on the occasion of the Lexington alarm.

2. Benjamin (6) died in 1855; he married Phoebe

Finch (1782-1844). He was the author of a history of

the Revolution. Children:

i. Benjamin; married

ii. Hiansel; married

iii. William Henry, 1808-1869; married in 1830

Calista Parker (1809-1891); farmer at Au-

rora, Ohio

iv. Monroe; married

v. Mariette; married Louis Nettleton.

3. Martin (6) married Mary Kilborn (intention

dated September 27, 1802); he settled in Bainbridge,

Ohio, and had the following children:

i. An infant child who died April 27, 1803 (Mid-

dlefield records)

ii. Joseph K. (7), of Bainbridge; died 1890; mar-

ried Lucy Buckley

iii. Myron (7), who died at Chardon, Ohio; mar-

ried Sally Little

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  287

iv. Harvey (7), died at Bainbridge, Ohio

v. Lucy (7), married John Little, brother of Sally;

lived many years at Munson, Ohio.

4. Joseph (6) married (1) Parla Leonard of

Washington, Massachusetts, May 27, 1807, and (2)

Anna (Mack) Clark. He removed to Aurora, Ohio,

with the rest of the family and died there November

26, 1872; his wife died November 27, 1857. Children:

i. Sidney (7), of Aurora, Ohio

ii. Milton (7), of Aurora, Ohio.

5. Moses (6) married Sally Taylor; he also re-

moved with the rest of the family to Aurora, Ohio, and

died there August 6, 1866. Children:

i. General Nelson (7), born October 3, 1811; grad-

uated Hudson College 1831; admitted to the

bar 1834; a farmer and landowner, and gen-

eral in the Ohio militia; married Caroline

Lacy, daughter of Isaac Lacy, Jr., January

29, 1835; lived at Aurora

ii. Wealtha (7), married Simeon D. Kelley and

lived in Tuscola, Illinois

iii. A child who died young.

6. General Chauncey (6), of Aurora, Ohio, (au-

thor of the "Reminiscences"), married Eunice Kent in

1810; he died November, 1873, and she April 19, 1873.

Children:

i. Orson, born January 12, 1813; died October 31,

1842; married Adeline Ward in 1841

ii. Eliza, born December 19, 1814; married Wil-

liam Hurd in 1834

iii. Minerva, born May 25, 1817; died October 4,

1832, unmarried

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iv. Chauncey, Jr., born May 24, 1819, died Novem-

ber, 1875, in Michigan; married Mary Hurd

in 1838

v. Norman, born March 8, 1821, died November

21, 1850; married Cynthia McFarlan in

1842

vi. Carolina, born December 18, 1824; married (1)

Lathrop Smith and (2) in 1854 John Sharp

vii. Clinton, born July 14, 1827; died at Chagrin

Falls, Ohio, in 1914; married (1) Abigail

Hickox, who died in 1865, and (2) Mary

E. Parker

viii. Zeno Kent, born April 19, 1829, died December

2, 1899; married in 1852 or 1853 Olivia

May, daughter of Jude May; removed to

Chagrin Falls in 1869

ix. Emily C., born October 9, 1831; died July 12,

1858; married Lyman E. Kent October 7,

1856, Bainbridge, Ohio

x. Eunice, born February 23, 1835, died April 19,

1875; married Erastus Jackson in 1859.

General Eggleston's "Reminiscences" were written

in his old age, for the benefit of his grandchildren. By

those who knew him he is said to have been quiet, com-

petent, and genuinely religious. These and other quali-

ties will, however, be amply evident from the "Remi-

niscences" themselves.

Rev. Frank Otto Eggleston, of Park Ridge, New

Jersey (grandson of General Eggleston), furnished me

the manuscript of the "Reminiscences" printed here.

This was a copy, made by him, in 1913, from the origi-

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  289

nal. Mr. Eggleston also loaned me two sheets of Gen-

eral Eggleston's original draft; he remarks that he does

not know what became of the earlier pages. These two

sheets have of course been used, for the part of the

text involved (the latter part of the narrative of the

War of 1812, and General Eggleston's first farming

operations). A few corrections have been adopted from

a second copy made later by Rev. F. O. Eggleston, but

in general his 1913 version, supplemented by the brief

section of the original manuscript, has been faithfully

followed, although I have not thought it necessary to

preserve mis-spellings nor the original punctuation. A

few words (bracketed) have been inserted for the sake

of clearness.

 

THE PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF GENERAL

CHAUNCY EGGLESTON

I have always supposed that I was born at Middle-

field, County of Hampshire, State of Massachusetts, in

the year A. D. 1786, August 27.

I can remember when I was six or seven years old

my father's family all had the measles about the same

time. I had four brothers and one sister older than

myself, and three sisters younger than myself.

When I was a boy I went to school about three

months in a year until I was fourteen years old. I got

so that I could read and write, and cipher some, say to

the rule of three. Children in those days had small

opportunities to learn compared with what they now

have. A few months in a year until they were old

enough to earn something, and then their school days

ended. Farm work constantly and johnny-cake and

Vol. XLI--19.

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coarse living made them strong, and a good deal of

common sense put into active practice made them about

as learned as people nowadays.

The most I remember of those early days was my

love for going in swimming once a week and playing

with our great cosset sheep. He was ever ready to

attack us. We would hide away among the brakes, and

when he discovered us we had to flee for our lives and

mount a large rock as large as a small house. This rock

had a narrow path up one side of it, and the sheep would

follow us up, and when he got in the narrow path near

the top we would push him down or off. He would fall

eight or ten feet. This was fun for George and Brain-

ard Spencer,¹ brother Moses, and myself. Once in a

while we would get knocked over but we would get up

and try it over again.

We had a sugar place of about two hundred trees

and we used troughs. Brother Moses and I used to

sugar when we were twelve or fourteen years old. Snow

sometimes three feet deep. We gathered our sap on

snowshoes, or when the snow was frozen to a crust, so

that it would bear up. We used to make so much sugar

that it was talked about through the town.

My oldest brother Benjamin was a merchant and

went into trade in a place called Petersburg in the state

of New York in the Casanova [Cazenovia?] country,

1 George and Brainard Spencer were brothers, the sons of John and

Susannah (White) Spencer, from East Haddam, Connecticut, who settled

in Middlefield after the Revolution, in which John was a soldier. George

was born October 6, 1787, and Brainard, July 2, 1785, both in Middlefield.

The Spencer family moved to Aurora, Ohio, in 1812. In Middlefield they

were close neighbors of Benjamin Eggleston. Their sister Anna married

Epaphroditus Loveland in 1803; he also came to Aurora and is mentioned

later.

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  291

about thirty miles southwest from Utica. The country

about there was very new; a timbered country and few

inhabitants. One way from his store there was no clear-

ing and no house for six miles, and road just passable

leading from Petersburg to Utica. The first inhabi-

tants were the tribe of Stockbridge Indians. Adjoining

them toward Utica was the Oneida tribe of Indians,

and adjoining them the Brothertown Indians. They

were quite civilized, dressed like white folks, farmed it

for a living, and had cattle and horses, wagons and

plows. I rode in a wagon with one of the Brothertown

Indians when I was traveling from Utica to Schenec-

tady, say twenty miles. He talked good English and

kept sober. He had a bottle of rum and drank some,

and to make his horses show off he two or three times

took hold of their ears and poured a quantity into each

ear. He said it made them feel lively.

The Stockbridge tribe were considerably civilized,

generally dressed like the whites, and farmed it some.

Our government had bought land of them, and had

bought them a good sawmill and grist-mill and built

them a good meeting-house and placed among them a

good preacher, named Sergants. I went from the store

with two or three others twice on Sunday to their meet-

ings. Men and women sang in the gallery and our com-

pany said they never heard such beautiful voices. All

went off as respectably as in any common congregation.

The Oneidas wore blankets and were Indians; still

lived mostly by hunting.

I went to live with my brother when I was about

fifteen years old. I had a small hunting shotgun that

I took along to kill bears and wolves and deer, as there

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were many of those animals in the far west where I

was going. I started alone on a journey of about one

hundred and sixty miles.

I got a ride from Albany about fifty miles. It was

in winter, good sleighing. I then went on foot and

alone through the thick woods with my little gun ready

if beasts attacked me, but none dared venture, so I

arrived safe and sound at my brother's. He had a good

frame building two storeys high, and lived in one part,

and had a good room done off for a regular store, dry

goods, groceries, etc. He dealt much with the Indians,

bought their furs--otter skins, mink and martin, and

some beaver. He sold them powder and lead, blankets,

etc. They used to come in hunting parties, ten or twelve

Indians and some squaws with their papooses confined

by bandages, flat on their backs to a board. A strap

was fastened to the board and the board placed on the

squaw's back and the strap over her head; they could

carry their offspring wherever they pleased.

When they had a drinking frolic, they would choose

one to drink nothing at all; not a drop would he touch,

but must keep sober to keep the drunken [Indians] from

fighting and killing each other. They generally behaved

well and were peacable. Some of them hunted squirrels

and partridges with bows and arrows. Their bows were

of tough hickory, well shaved, and a good deer-skin

string. Their arrows for shooting squirrels and small

game had a thick lump on the forward end; those arrows

that were to kill large game were made sharp at the point

and had a flint or iron point and feathers attached to

the hind end to make them sail true through the air. I

bought a bow of an Indian and learned to shoot an arrow

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  293

with them at a mark. The first time I went out to try

my skill at game I killed five chip-squirrels in two or

three hours. I could shoot as straight as most of them.

I shot ducks and one deer with my little gun.

It was a time when pot and pearl ash were made in

large quantities, that I lived with my brother.  He

bought ashes and I worked six months alone and made

both pot and pearl ash. To make pearl ash out of

ashes, we put the ashes in tubs and add water, hot or

cold, until we get out lye or strength out of the ashes;

[and] that is boiled down until it becomes what is called

black sutt [soot?]. It is then shoveled into an oven.

I will describe the oven. It should be, say, eight feet

square, after being built up three feet high and eight

feet square with a narrow space near one edge or one

side, with grates arranged to put in wood and build a

fire. It must have a good smooth top of brick well laid

so as to be level as a house floor. It is then built up

oven-fashion, a wall the thickness of the length of a

brick, say sixteen or eighteen inches; a door [is] left at

one end to shovel in and stir the sutt. Then a low arch

is flung across from side to side, the ends both walled

up to the arch to support it, the door [being] in the

middle of the end wall. The black sutt is spread over

the fine dry wood and a fire built in the place prepared

for it. The blaze will pass over the whole arch. The

sutt is kept stirred up and the fire kept up until the whole

inside of the oven [is] red hot, sutt and all. They are

then let cool and taken out and boiled down into sutt

again and burned over in the oven [the] same as before,

let cool, and then it is pearl ash as white as chalk. It

is used for bleaching clothes and the like, barreled and

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sent to Europe by the ton. Potash is made by putting

six or eight inches of good lime over the bottoms of

large tubs and then filling the tubs with ashes; then

put on water until you get your lye; then boil it down

until it gets thick in large potash kettles. Then drive

the fire with fine dry wood and it will melt after a while

and stand in the kettle just like melted lead. It gen-

erally has to get kettle and all red hot before it is all

melted. When it gets cold it is [as] hard as stone. It

is barreled and used to be sent to other countries for

bleaching and making soap, and so forth. Ashes saved

when land is being cleared and house ashes have brought

millions of dollars into our country.

I lived with my brother nearly two years; then he

gave up the trading and returned to Massachusetts. I

went back soon after he did and lived with my parents

and worked on the farm about one year, and then went

with my father and mother to Hebron, in Connecticut,

to Uncle Strong, who married my mother's sister. He

was a blacksmith by trade; generally kept three appren-

tices. He made grass scythes, hoes, and did general

blacksmithing. They were smart folks and lived in a

pleasant place. He worked hard and made money. Sent

one son to college. I lived with him somewhat over one

year, and concluded I had rather live nearer my parents

and old neighbors.

Hebron was sixty miles from Middlefield, so I

thought I would go back to Middlefield and serve out

my apprenticeship with Captain Emmons2 in Middle-

2 "Captain Emmons" was Ebenezer Emmons born, in East Haddam,

Connecticut, April 23, 1766, where he died in 1835. He came to Middlefield

about 1790 and was living there at the time in question.

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  295

field. He did not work himself, but he had three ap-

prentices while I was there. We did common black-

smithing. We used in the winter to begin work at four

o'clock in the morning; wade through snow waist-deep

to get to the shop in the dark fifteen or twenty rods

from the house. It was the fashion in those days for

apprentices to work five evenings in a week. We went

around some on visits and some to singing school in

the evening, and had to work mornings to make it up.

I had sixty cents a week and clothed myself, and was

allowed to work one week in haying for someone who

would hire me, and that was my spending money for a

year.

I was sick while at Captain Emmons' with the canker

rash. His family had it; one of his boys died with it,

and we all came near dying. That was the most severe

sickness that I ever had. Since then I have never been

sick to be laid up or unable to attend to work except

twice, both [times] in haying. The first time I was not

able to work for one week, the last time not near so

long. I have been lame once by a small cut on the knee-

joint, while sugaring in Auburn, Ohio, the other time

by a lameness caused by a swelling on my foot that con-

fined me to the house [for] two or three months. Once

I had a felon on my finger and that laid me up [for] a

month or more.

My father's family,³ consisting of four sisters, two

brothers, and myself, concluded to sell out and move

to New Connecticut, as it was then called. Father was

not rich and we had to economize in every way we could

 

3 Apparently the two eldest sons, Benjamin and Martin, were not

members of this party, although they also migrated to Ohio.

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to live and get prepared to make the great journey of

six hundred miles, much of the way over awful roads,

with our large family, eight of us in all. We got leather

and I cut and made a whole set of double harness, made

the hames, and ironed whlffletrees, neck-yoke and all.

I borrowed a broken anvil and cut out of two tanned

sheepskins a small bellows, and in an old stable I fixed

up my tools and ironed a new wagon. All the iron work

we needed to fit us for our journey I did.

I was now in my twenty-first year. I did such shoe-

ing [of] horses and oxen and all things else that we

needed. Esq. Jeremiah Root and Samuel Taylor4 and

their large families were to accompany us through the

whole journey. All things were made ready and on the

7th of June, 1807, the line of march was taken up

and after forty-two days of diligent travel, over rivers,

mountains, and through swamps and mire we all ar-

rived safe at our journey's end. None of the company

was sick on the road. We camped on our own beds

spread on the floor and cooked and ate our own food

generally on the way.

Once on the Alleghany mountains our oxen were

sick and lame from eating rye. We could get nothing

else to feed and it fell into their limbs and they could

hardly walk or stand. I was left with them to bring

on if they ever got so as to travel. We drove a horse

 

4 Samuel Taylor, who moved to Aurora with the Egglestons, was the

son of Samuel and Martha (Lamb) Taylor; born in Springfield, Mass-

achusetts, June 4, 1769, died in Aurora, March 10, 1813; married Sarah

Jagger of Becket, Mass. Apparently Samuel and Sarah Taylor had seven

children at the time they journeyed to Aurora. An exciting story is told

of the narrow escape of Mrs. Martha (Lamb) Taylor from the Indians

at Pittsfield, where the elder Samuel was one of the earliest residents.

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Reminiscences of General Chaunccy Eggleston  297

hitched before them to help draw the load. I was left

on the Alleghanies some thirty miles from Pittsburgh.

As fast as I could after the oxen could travel I went on.

Our company were to stop two or three days at Pitts-

burgh to rest and wash clothes and there I expected to

overtake them and I did. I found some places so cut

up with the great six-horse Pennsylvania teams that it

seemed impossible to drive over them without upsetting

my load. Once I stopped my team and went ahead ten

or twelve rods to view the road and it looked so dreadful

that I burst out crying, rather childish for a boy twenty

years old, but there I was alone, with few houses along

the road, and it brings tears to my eyes now while I

am writing it. I finally got along without upsetting and

found the company at Pittsburgh as I had expected,

somewhat washed up and rested.

We then started on our one hundred and ten mile

journey through bush and swamp and up and down some

of the worst hills or mountains that could be passed

over by man or beast. But by constant perseverance

and knowing no thought of discouragement, we moved

on slowly and got, after a number of days, four miles

west of Warren, where all stayed over night, and as

the twenty-six miles west of Warren that we then had

to travel was an almost unbroken forest, beech woods,

beech root, and beech mud, no bridges and almost no

road, it was thought best to send me on twenty-six miles

and have Captain Perkins5 take his yoke of oxen and

help the company through. I started early the next

 

5 "Captain Perkins" was another settler of Aurora who had come from

Middlefield, Mass. Phineas Perkins was born in Enfield, Ct., May 26, 1752,

had lived in Southwick, Mass., and in 1799 bought land in Middlefield.

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morning with my rifle on my shoulder to kill bears,

wolves, etc. I made the twenty-six miles in the fore-

noon and arrived at old Esq. Sheldon's just as they

were sitting down to dinner. They were overjoyed to

think that Aurora was going to have such an addition

to the number of its inhabitants. They gave me a din-

ner, of course. I then just called in at Gamaliel Kent's,

the next house, and he was highly pleased to hear of

their coming.

The next place was Captain Perkins's. He was

ready early next morning to go to meet them with his

team, and in due time all the company were in Aurora.

All the Taylors, Egglestons, and Roots that have lived

in Aurora since July, 1807, can date back to that time

as their starting point.

After a time I obtained an anvil and vise and made

me a good bellows of elk-hide, which is good yet after

having been used sixty years, more or less. So with

the anvil and vise I made my hammers and other tools,

built me a shop and worked at blacksmithing, as people

wanted, but still did most at farming, clearing land, and

the like.

I made sugar in 1808 from about two hundred and

sixty trees, boiled sap in two kettles set on an arch,

and gathered with a sap-yoke and by hand. I made

about eight hundred pounds of sugar. We then lived

where I now live in Aurora, in a rough log house cov-

ered with bark, with a split plank floor. We then had

no sawmill in this part of the country. We had alto-

gether in our family $20 in money to buy anything with.

We had to work or die, but we were willing to work

and did so, early and late.

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  299

Esq. Sheldon got my anvil and vise in Pittsburgh

and I paid him in blacksmithing. We had to go to Gar-

rettsville to mill. Our family was large, father, mother,

and four sisters and considerable help. It took two days

to go with a horse load of grain and get it ground. I

was the first that ever went from Aurora to Garretts-

ville and back in a day. It was a half dozen years after

we had come here before we secured a grist-mill in

Aurora.

In 1808, Esq. Sheldon built a sawmill where Mr.

Howard's now is; we then could get boards. We had

plenty of good whitewood trees for saw logs. We could

get them sawed into boards for four dollars a thousand.

We went on in 1808 and built our east barn, got boards

and shingles and got it inclosed well that year. We

got nails at Warren. In 1809 Esq. Sheldon built him

a frame house of good size, the first frame house in

town. He could not get brick to build his chimney, and

I had worked some at brickmaking in the east. He

urged me very hard to make brick and agreed [that] if

I would go and make them near his house he would

give me six dollars a thousand and board me and tread

the mortar. (This was done with oxen as in ancient

threshing; the cattle were driven around and around in

the soft clay.)

I finally went and made twelve or fourteen thousand

brick, and he got me glass and nails from Pittsburgh

to use in building the two-storey house where we now

live. In 1809 I made sugar from five or six hundred

trees; hauled a part of the sap, after it was gathered

into store troughs, in two barrels with a horse. Worked

some at farming, blacksmithing, etc. While working at

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Esq. Sheldon's the carpenter and joiner that did his work

agreed with me to build said white house and enclose

it for $200; and only two years after we got to Aurora,

without any money when we came here, I ventured to

go ahead and build said house.

The price of the joiner and carpenter work, without

lathing, was $400. I paid some in sugar and about

$100 in common grass scythes which I made, and some

in grain, and after about two years it was done from

top to bottom in good workman-like manner. We lathed

it and got enough limestone over near Esq. Sheldon's

and burned them near my house, on a great stone heap,

to plaster the whole house, and it was a good convenient

house for two families. My father's family consisted

of father, mother, Betsy, Susan, Achsah, and Harriet.

They were all willing to work but little work could be

obtained to make profit in those days. Very few wanted

to hire. Our nearest store was at Warren, thirty miles

through mud and brooks, with perhaps four [or] five

houses on the road, a dark, gloomy wilderness with bears

and wolves prowling and howling.

To Pittsburgh, one hundred and ten miles of the

same gloom, which was our nearest cheese market. It

was called worth three or four cents a pound to carry

or fetch from Pittsburgh. Cleveland had, say, half a

dozen houses.

We used to go to the center of Aurora to meetings.

Generally the women would travel barefoot, two or three

miles, and carry their shoes and stockings in their hands.

We had some preaching and some deacons' meetings.

Read a printed sermon and had good singing.

I used to hunt deer and turkey. I have sometimes

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  301

killed three or four deer a day when the first snow in

the fall came, and sometimes two or three turkeys out

of one flock. Bears were not very plenty, but were

plenty enough to kill a hog now and then. We had one

killed by a large bear. We got a large double-spring

bear-trap and set it by the dead hog, and within a few

hours it caught the bear, who made off with the trap.

We could follow his tracks and overtook him, say, a

mile from where he was caught. The trap was a pow-

erful one and he made rather slow work where he had

to go through a thick alder swamp, and about the time

he got through we overtook him. We had two rifles

and soon made a dead bear of him. We pulled off bark

and harnessed four or five of our company and drew

him through the wilderness, to let the women and chil-

dren and hogs see what had come upon them. The hogs

were more scared than the rest. They raised their

bristles and grunted and fled and did not return to our

house for two or three weeks. I went out hunting one

day and shot a large wolf and a turkey, which made a

good load to draw home on the snow. I never spent

much time hunting. A deer is a wild animal and only

good hunting when it snows.

After the country became more settled and the in-

habitants became more numerous we had no big hunts.

There were no inhabitants in Streetsborough for a long

time after I came to Aurora; the land was not for sale.

Aurora on one side, Hudson on the west, Kent on the

south, and Shalersville on the east. And as there was

much game in Streetsborough it was concluded to sur-

round the town and drive the game to the center and

slaughter as far as possible. Notice was given to each

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and every town, and each town chose a committee to

meet on a certain day at the center of Streetsborough

and arrange all matters relative to said hunt. I was

chosen for Aurora and the committee met as was

agreed; a day, etc.; all would help, old and young, guns

or no guns, all would help drive the game in. We were

placed on the town lines. We had men and boys enough

to go around the town, five miles square, by placing them

twenty or thirty yards apart, and after we were all

placed I was to give the word as loud as I could holler,

"All ready!" The first on my right was to repeat it, and

so it was to go from one to another clear around the

town. Then we would know that all were ready.

The word "All ready" came around, and then I gave

the word "Forward march!" and we came in regular

on all sides and drove in at one of the hunts and killed

at the center ninety-four deer. We surrounded the town

of Freedom and killed among other things twenty-three

bears. At a later day we surrounded swamps to kill

wolves. I was always chosen leader. We would track

in wolves on the snow into a swamp, and if the wolf or

wolves had not gone out the alarm was given and the

town would fly to arms and meet at a suitable place and

choose a leader. We would then form two lines of two

abreast and march still--no noise allowed--until we

came to the swamp. The two leaders, or the two at the

head of the line, would then part, one to the right and

one to the left, and go ahead. When the two lines had

parted the two rear men would halt when as far apart

as was intended to place them; the next rear men would

do the same, and when the two leading ones came round

within a number of rods of each other the swamp would

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  303

be surrounded. Then the word "Halt!" would be given,

and if the swamp was large the word would be given by

the captain to march toward the center of the swamp.

When within a proper distance of the center of the

swamp they would halt and kill the game, if possible.

Sometimes two or three wolves, when there were several,

would run through the line and escape. We killed so

[many] that for forty or fifty years back very few sheep

have been killed by them in this part of the country. I

always, from a small boy, liked to hunt. Back in the

east I killed two partridges with a pistol and rabbits

sometimes. I could shoot as close as anyone in Aurora,

but I never spent much time hunting.

Whisky was in early times thought to be necessary

as our breath to keep society alive. No raising, no train-

ing of the militia was, no fashionable gathering could

be had without it. Our cupboards and stands must have

their well-filled decanters and drinking glasses, or we

were behind the times; and as there were few distillers

in this new country and counting this business profit-

able, as we all supposed, as whisky was worth seventy-

five cents a gallon and one bushel of corn would make

three gallons and the still slop would fatten many hogs,

I concluded to go into the business on a small scale. I

built a still-house and spent all my energies for about

two years at the business and made nothing. The men

I employed made little more than enough to pay for the

grain they used, so I gave it up, a wiser and a better

man than when I commenced.

We had a military company formed at Aurora about

the year 1810 with say thirty men of war. Ebenezer

Harmon was chosen captain, Joseph Eggleston lieu-

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tenant, Eber Kennedy ensign, and myself orderly or first

sergeant. I had to keep the roll of the company, and on

days of training to parade the company and add the

names of all newcomers on our muster roll, etc. In 1812

war was declared by our government against Great

Britain. We were poorly prepared for war, our disci-

pline was naught, and our arms but few and poor; some

good rifles and good shooters, but we were farmers and

our war arms, what there were, wholly unfit for a battle;

a great wilderness around us. It was eighteen miles

from Aurora to Newburg without a house.

Thousands of Indian warriors joined our enemies,

who were fully acquainted with this part of the country.

so we were in sore distress--our weak militia poorly

armed and poorly disciplined, with the God of battles to

help us as our sole dependence. When our weak militia

company was called away, none but the old folks and

mothers and girls were left to take care of themselves

and fight the savages if they came as they were expected

to do. We had word that Detroit was captured by the

British and the Indians, which was true. Then word

came that the whole British force, after taking all Hull's

army, was coming down the south shore of Lake Erie

and would soon be at Cleveland, and two thousand sav-

ages to spread over the country and murder and destroy

it. Our company was called together to prepare and be

in readiness to start at a moment's notice for Cleveland.

After meeting and arranging matters two or three times

we received word from the colonel that we must be in

Cleveland by six o'clock, as the enemy would be there

by that time. This was Sunday morning. We were

notified Saturday night to meet as a company early Sun-

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  305

day morning, and we had met and paraded when a mes-

senger from the colonel came ordering fifteen of the

company to be in Cleveland by six P. M. that day, and

as many more as would volunteer. That was a dark

time. Our captain called for volunteers; say thirty-five

men, poorly armed, most of them heads of families, just

come into the woods, no one to leave behind to guard the

old or the young that were left behind. All those armed

for war were to go and leave their homes, wives, and

families and what little property they had, wholly un-

protected; and it was said that two thousand Indians

were just at hand, and they were better acquainted with

this country than ourselves, as they had roamed over it

for bear, deer, and elk.

What should men do in our situation ? I had a young

wife, had been married two years, and an old father and

mother and four sisters living with me. Could we volun-

teer to leave them and start that same Sunday, and go

through eighteen miles of dark woods to meet such a

formidable foe--two thousand Indians and six hundred

British regular soldiers, with tomahawks and scalping

knives? We were placed in one rank, thirty-five of us,

and the order was read that fifteen must go and as many

more as would volunteer. All volunteered to go except

two young men who had no families. All the rest stood

facing death, strange as it may seem. We were dis-

missed to go home and get our dinners and bid our fam-

ilies farewell and meet in all haste on the west line of

Aurora, on the road to Cleveland, to start as a company

for Cleveland. We knew not who should feed us that

night, nor had we a word of promise that we should have

any military force to help us destroy that host we ex-

Vol. XLI--20.

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306      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

pected. We were the American army, bold and courage-

ous. We went home and bid adieu to family and friends,

left them and shouldered our rifles and hastened to our

place of meeting to start as a company, and on arriving

found that new word had been sent that Hull had sur-

rendered, that the supposed army was our own soldiers,

and that they were on their way home on parole. Then,

shouting and firing off guns, we all went back to our

families, thankful to God for our disappointment.

A few days later we were ordered as a company to

go to Hudson and join some other companies, and from

there to Cleveland. We went, and while at Hudson

Hull's men, that were taken at Detroit, went along. They

stopped and talked with us some time--told us that Hull

was a coward, and how he surrendered up two thousand

good soldiers without firing a gun. We finally went on

to Cleveland and drew our rations of one pound of meat

and 11 pounds of bread and [a] half pint of whisky to

each soldier. Our officers drew two or three rations

each. We were camped out this side of Cleveland, say

half a mile. I was orderly sergeant and had to draw the

rations. We lay there in tents furnished us by [the]

government [and] had to cook our meat as we could.

After a few days we were sent home to defend our fron-

tier from savages, as there were no inhabitants west of

us and Hudson nearer than Huron. We finally fur-

nished five or six from Aurora and about as many from

Hudson and some from Mantua and Tallmadge and

made out a company of rangers who guarded the fron-

tier to prevent savages from coming through the wil-

derness and murdering and robbing the scattered inhab-

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  307

itants. This company was commanded by Captain Mc-

Arthur.

The rest of our battalion was left as muster men to

go to their homes and be ready to march at a minute's

warning. We were called out as a company a short time

after and went to Boston [Ohio], and camped there three

or four days, and then all of our battalion were dismissed

to go home but one company that went through the wil-

derness to Huron and joined General Perkins who was

camped there with two or three thousand soldiers to

prevent the enemy from coming to Cleveland. We were

not called on after that. The war continued, say, two

years, after Perry's victory on the lake in capturing all

the British fleet. General Harrison was sent with a

large army across to Canada and took and destroyed all

the warlike forces the British had in that quarter, and

killed old Tecumseh, the great Indian chief, and scat-

tered his two thousand Indians to the four winds and

soon the war was ended.

After the war was over the prices of property held

up and wheat was near two dollars a bushel, and I con-

cluded to get in a big field of wheat and hired twenty

acres cleared in one job on rough ground on lot 23. Por-

ter McConoug[hey] and Mr. McCarty of Bainbridge

took the job to chop and clear and fence for fourteen

dollars per acre. I concluded to clear twelve acres more

by hiring some and doing what I could myself. We

commenced both jobs about the first of May, to chop and

pile the brush, and by the first of July we had the whole

thirty-two acres chopped and brush piled, fit for burning

and going to logging. I had two good yoke of oxen and

we went to logging, and Mr. McConoughey and McCarty

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continued to log and work on their piece through July,

and had it all cleared and ready for sowing by the mid-

dle of August. I had considerable haying to do, and

got all my haying and harvesting done and my twelve

acres cleared and fenced and ready for sowing about

the middle of August. We commenced sowing and har-

rowing with two teams, and early in the month of Sep-

tember we had it all sown and harrowed in. About the

twentieth of September was called good season to sow

wheat, but early sown was always considered much

surer to be a good crop.

I raised sixteen calves that year, and the wheat grew

up, say about six inches high, and I turned the calves

onto the wheat early and left them until snow came so

deep that they could not feed. They grew wonderfully.

One to see them when turned on and when taken off

would not take them to be the same calves. I had a

good fair crop of wheat, and when it was fit to cut the

next year I engaged different hands to help harvest it.

I worked considerably at blacksmithing and [the] hands

agreed to help me harvest at any time. When we called

the field white for the harvest, we gave notice, and a

company of twenty-three good reapers were on hand,

sickles in hand, and they had the thirty-two acres reaped

and bound on the third day before night. We got it into

one large barn by filling it about full. We did our

threshing in the winter with horses treading out the

grain. One span would thresh twenty-five bushels in a

day, keeping the straw well stirred under their feet. We

cleaned up in fanning mills. We had about five hundred

and eighty bushels. I got some of it floured and sent to

Cleveland. My calves never lost their growth, lived on

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  309

straw the second winter, and continued to grow. I sold

say half the wheat to folks about home.

In 1816 we commenced to make arrangements to

build a meeting-house in Aurora. It was finally agreed

to build the brick house as it was first built, and so we

went ahead with it. In 1817 a superintending committee

was chosen and I was the first one chosen. Robert Bis-

sell6 and Brainard Spencer were the other members of

the committee. We agreed with Esq. Carlton, of Man-

tua, and Martin Eggleston and Justin Parrish to make

brick near the burying-ground. They started in the

spring of 1817 to make them. The season was uncom-

monly wet, and they only got enough to raise the walls

that year up to the gallery. The next year, 1818, the

walls were finished and the house inclosed. It was not

finished so as to be dedicated, I think, until 1821. I had

to be at a great deal of trouble to get it paid for, and I

think I paid about $700 in all before all the debts were

settled.

I was on a committee since to tear out the gallery and

put in slips, etc., which cost, say, $700--shingling it

over, and all. It now wants repairing considerably.

I commenced building the mills in Bainbridge in 1820

in company with Sanford Baldwin, and was at great

expense in building a long dam and sawmill and grist-

mill with two run of stone, in the wilderness near a mile

from any house. I bought Mr. Baldwin out soon after

we commenced building, and had all on my hands, but

finally succeeded in getting them finished in a year or

two, and we did a good business for many years in saw-

6 Robert Bissell. Another Middlefield man. He was the son of Israel

and Hannah Bissell, born in 1770, and died January 20, 1833, in Aurora.

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310      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

ing and grinding, and a great benefit they were to the

public in this wilderness country. For fifty years past

much sawing and lumbering has been done there, and

grinding grain and making cider and planing boards,

etc. (Cheese boxes were made there). Much of this

was done by Mr. Fuller who still manages the mills. I

got new burrstones and repaired the mill several times;

built two stone dams. All the expense the mills were to

me I have thought would amount to $7000. I sold my

half of the mills about 1860 to Mr. Fuller for $600. I

do not know but what they earned and what they sold for

would about pay for the cost of building.

I was one of three that built a stone dam and sawmill

in Slab City (Aurora Station), and sold my share of it

to Eliakim Baldwin.

About the year 1830, I bought in Auburn two hun-

dred acres for a sugar-bush and paid two dollars per

acre, and two or three years later I bought one hundred

acres of Franklin Snow -- which had about twenty-five

acres cleared on it and into grass -- at six dollars per

acre. I hired a large sugar-house of logs made, and we

sugared in it two or three years. It was very uncom-

fortable to live in the cold and smoke, so I concluded to

build two houses, so that there are now three, one to

sugar in and the other two to live in when sugaring. In

1837 we made from about 2600 buckets sixty barrels of

sugar, which sold for near $1100 at about eight cents a

pound. I paid over $600 for making. We used the place

for sugaring for say thirty years. I then sold it to Zeno,

my son, for $30 per acre. I have bought the Ben place

and the Carolina place, and sold sixty acres to Mr. Lead-

well and sixty acres to Zeno and his wife. I now, March

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  311

15, 1871, have in all Auburn about 233 acres. We have

kept cows mostly, and made some sugar, etc.

About the year 1835 I bought the Root farm at $10

per acre, and had to let out to several, Mr. Saxton, Mr.

Barnes, Mr. Parr, and Samuel Hurd. We had on both

places ninety cows when Mr. Parr and sons took it, and

he was to pay me $10 per cow rent. They took it for

three years and did poorly for themselves and me, and

went away four or five hundred dollars in debt. Finally

Clinton wanted a farm and I gave him one hundred acres

and sold him the rest of the Root farm, 160 acres, and

he has owned it since.

I once sold the Bainbridge mill and gave Chauncy

$1000 out of the price, and bought the land, nearly 100

acres, where Zeno has lived, and gave it to him for his

own. Since then I have bought the Ben and Carolina

places and have not cared to buy any more.

I once bought fifty acres of Thomas Hughes and

thirty acres of Mr. Dickinson and sold them a long time

ago to Mr. Winchell and Carolina, and I bought the Dea-

con Parker place for forty dollars per acre and sold it

to Mr. Bissell, who now owns it.

I could mention other things that would be of inter-

est, but will only say that time has passed on and I now

find myself an old man and infirm, and shall soon fol-

low the great multitude that I have known while I live,

that are now mouldering in the grave. "Vanity of van-

ity, all is vanity."

In the year 1849 I bought the tavern stand at Chagrin

Falls of Mr. Bosworth and paid him $2000 for it, and

Chauncy went into it and took the whole charge of it as

a hotel and livery stable. He kept six or eight horses

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and ran a hack three times a week to Cleveland to carry

passengers. He did well in so doing for two years. I

then agreed with George Harmon to build a new tavern

house, the same size as the one that now stands on the

same foundation; I was to give $2000 and he to do the

whole work and furnish all materials and board himself

and hands. There was a good barn nearly one hundred

feet long, and quite a good tavern house which we were

obliged to move off, say, at $50 expense, which was done,

and the new house framed, raised, inclosed and almost

finished, all lathed and partly plastered, the old house

moved back and still used as a tavern; had all of the bed-

ding and furniture in it. Fire was set to the barn, where

there were nine horses, a hack, and a number of car-

riages and harnesses, and it was near midnight and was

not discovered until the barn was all in flames and the

horses and almost everything perished and was con-

sumed. The new house and the old one took fire from

it and all was ruins. Scarcely anything was saved. This

was about the year 1851. Chauncy finally concluded to

get a house [and] run the hack to Cleveland, and we

finally concluded to rebuild the house and a new barn

one hundred feet long and thirty-six feet wide, the same

house and barn that is now owned by Mr. Pope (1871),

a good house and a good barn.

Esq. Coles, who then lived at the Falls, and Mr.

Lampson undertook the whole of the job at $4500, and

were to complete them and do off the saloon, etc. They

built it in the year 1853, I think, made good finished

work of it all, and Esq. Coles said that it cost him about

$5600 to go through with it. He wanted me to give him

ten or twelve hundred dollars more than he agreed to do

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  313

it for. We left it to Lyman Fowls, Mr. Poole, and Jere-

miah Root, and after hearing witnesses they held Esq.

Coles to his written contract that we had signed, which

had governed the building of the house and barn. I gave

him fifty or sixty dollars that I had overpaid him and

he seemed satisfied.  Chauncy kept the tavern for a

number of years. We let it out to Mr. Burnett for one

year for $500 and after that we let it out to several oth-

ers, and finally sold out to Mr. Pope and a part of the

land to Mr. Washburn and company, for near $6000, so

that [we were] cleared from owning any real estate at

Chagrin Falls. The loss occasioned by the fire was con-

sidered about $5000. The people at the Falls signed

$1000 that they would give me if I would go on and re-

build. They finally did give me about $500 and that is

all of the help I got.

I once bought, with half a dozen other Aurora boys,

one hundred and twenty acres of land on the other

branch of the Chagrin and a great water power, but it

did not get started to go ahead as we expected, and we

finally sold it for half what we gave. It lies there un-

used, the water wasting, a great pity to have it so, but

so it is. Esq. Blakesly thinks now he will go there and

I hope he will.

I paid toward a railroad to go through Chagrin Falls

$3300 cash. I have let out for a number of years our

home farm and what I own in Auburn. We have gen-

erally had about thirty cows in Auburn and thirty or

thirty-five cows at home. The rent on the Auburn place

was two hundred pounds of cheese to the cow. One

year Mr. Wait took the place and sold it for about

twenty cents per pound. We had thirty-two cows; the

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rent, besides the boxes and all other expenses, amounted

to over a thousand. That was about the time I paid the

railroad debt and I did not feel it much. I have paid

my children that now live five or six thousand dollars

to help them through the world, have paid near $500 to

the American Bible Society, say $150 to help buy land

for the poor at Cleveland under Mr. Watterton, some

to the New York Children's Home. I paid six or seven

hundred dollars toward Hudson College, the last pay-

ment of one hundred dollars cash, and I am, if I wish,

to have a scholarship for that, if I choose to send one.

Nobody wants it as a gift as I know of. I have lost

in all I presume cattle and sheep more than one hundred

head. All losses for sixty years would amount to

$25,000. Still we have lived and never drove for a debt,

never sued.

We have always believed with Solomon that there

was nothing better for a man than that he should eat,

drink, and enjoy life. We have not went hungry nor

naked. We have been sick and afflicted as a family more

or less. Five of our children have died from consump-

tion; they were returned to the ground from whence

they were taken and their spirits have gone to God who

gave them, and thanks be to God that we were not left

to mourn without hope. None of them feared God, and

God Most High grant that all of our children that yet

live may become Christian, confess Christ before men,

and finally be confessed by Him before the Father, when

the scenes of life end with them.

I have almost always owed large sums of money for

land, and borrowed money, but always have been able

to pay when it has been wanted by those to whom the

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  315

sums were due. The paying up for the Root farm was

not wholly done, I think was not, under fourteen years

from the time it was bought, but it was paid along at all

times as soon as they wanted it. I borrowed $2500 of

Thomas Smith to help rebuild the tavern at the Falls,

to run ten years, and he would not take any of it until

it was due. I never had any trouble in raising some to

pay all claims against me, although some have been

large, especially the railroad $3300 all at once.

I came into Aurora in 1807. We did not do any

town business then, but after two or three years were

organized as a town and held town meetings and chose

town officers, a justice of the peace, trustees, constable,

etc. We were also set off as a military company, and

we chose Ebenezer Harmon captain, Joseph Eggleston

lieutenant, and Eber Kennedy ensign. I was chosen or-

derly sergeant, to make out and keep the muster roll.

All of the said officers held their offices for several years.

When Captain Harmon was promoted to major, Joseph

Eggleston and Mr. Kennedy resigned and I was chosen

captain of said company. I served as captain for two

or three years and was then chosen lieutenant colonel,

held that office a few months and was chosen colonel. I

served as colonel for two or three years, was then chosen

general of our brigade, and served three or four years

and gave up all my authority as a military man. I was

probably at $300 to $400 expense in military equipment

--one pair of brass pistols, bought at Pittsburgh, $24,

one sword $18, coat, hat, etc., one saddle with leopard

skin housings, holsters, etc.; besides, treating with

whiskey made a big bill. Sometimes gave ten or twelve

dollars for a grand studhorse to ride on parade.

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The civil offices that I have held?--first, constable

two or three times, sometimes overseer of the poor,

supervisor of highways, township trustee, justice of the

peace, one term, and two years a senator in the Ohio

Legislature. All of those offices ended in 1833, thirty-

seven years ago. Since then, for the most part, I have

enjoyed good health and labored all I have been able to

do.

I have outlived all that were senators with me in

1832 and 1833, and there is scarcely an officer or soldier

that I served with in the military line from 1812 to 1825

that I can hear of that yet lives. A short period will

number me with them that have had their day on earth

and are among the dead and forgotten.

I joined the Congregational Church in Aurora about

1810. Rev. Seward was our priest for thirty-one years.

I have always paid as much to support him as any one.

For more than thirty years, almost every Sunday, I was

among the singers in the gallery and used the bass viol

to help the singing. For some years I led the singing,

naming the tune and giving the pitch and going ahead,

singers following. I was almost always to meeting Sab-

bath day from the time I was eighteen years old and

with the singers until I was eighty years old. Our ten

children were all baptized by Mr. Seward and I was

always glad to bring them to Christ Jesus that he might

lay his hands on them and bless them, and God grant

that his blessing, even the pardon of all their sins, may

be vouchsafed to them all and that in age they may all

be converted and become as little children and be re-

ceived as his chosen ones. May God by his Spirit stir

them all to lay hold on eternal life. I hope and pray

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  317

that none of them may so love this wicked, perishing

world, where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves

break in and steal, as to set their affections upon it, but

will be God's humble, faithful servants and worshippers

while you live, when you die, and forever. May we all

meet in heaven, and join that innumerable company of

angels that are doing God's work and singing God's

praise forever. Oh, let all be wise and choose that good

part that shall never be taken away from us. We are

all sinners and we must repent and believe in Christ Jesus

as our Saviour, that God's mercy alone saves us.

I will say a little more about sugaring in early times.

We had about eleven hundred trees, mostly along the

high ground between our houses and Mr. Loveland's,⁷

and I got buckets and also troughs for them all, and we

had three small store troughs placed among them and

was going to gather the sap with a sap yoke and pails

into them and draw it in two barrels with a horse from

them to our boiling-place near our dwelling place. I

had never heard of sap being gathered in barrels but

thought to try it. It worked well, and the next year I

took three barrels on a sled and drew them with oxen

around the bush, the first sap ever drawn together with a

team that was ever heard of. After a few years we

used a stone-boat and it soon became the fashion to

gather sap with teams and barrels.

We tapped all our trees by chopping a box with an

axe, two or three blows with a slant, so that the sap

 

7 Epaphroditus Loveland, son of Epaphroditus and Eunice (Bascom)

Loveland born at Hebron, Ct., June 1, 1783, died at Aurora, August 4,

1865. He had lived for a time in Middlefield, Massachusetts, and came

to Ohio later than the Egglestons.

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318      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

would all run out of the box at one end, and we then

drove in two or three inches below a gouge and drove in

a spout fifteen or twenty inches long and near two inches

wide, slanted down to carry the sap into buckets which

set on the ground or on blocks. This was the way every-

body tapped their trees in those days. After a while

it was the fashion to tap with a gouge, drive it in side-

ways, first one way and then turn it the other way, and

take out a chip and put in a spout the same as when

boxed with an axe. Next I concluded to try boring with

an auger and hang the bucket on an iron spike drove

into the tree a little below. I tried about two hundred

trees one year, and the spike cost considerable and broke

off in the tree, many of them, and I concluded to try

hanging on the spout that was to carry the sap into the

bucket. After trying several trees with large buckets

I concluded that it was the best way that trees could

be tapped and I made spouts from elder, 3300 spouts in

one winter. All had a notch to hold the bucket. The

fashion of hanging buckets on the spout is now almost

universal.

I was the first one that used an arch to boil on. We

used to hang up kettles on their bails and make fires

around them. For twenty years I used to tap about

eleven hundred trees and generally made about three

thousand pounds. Afterwards we used on the Root

farm and at Auburn 3300 trees and boiled in potash

kettles on the Root farm and in those half round sheet-

iron boilers that I made and got made, until I got flat-

bottomed pans. The one at Auburn is capable of boil-

ing 125 barrels in twenty-four hours. It is five feet

wide and sixteen feet long with partings (within) two

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Reminiscences of General Chauncey Eggleston  319

feet of each other and a gate to shut when pleased to

do it. I had two log sugar-houses burned up in sugar

time one on the Root farm at a loss of $200.

I built in 1831 the brick house in which we live, and

did most of the joiner and carpenter work. I built

about 1808 the chimneys of our white house and made

the brick out of clay dug out of the cellar that was under

the kitchen part. I made them in the road between the

blacksmith shop and the house. I made about thirty

thousand in all and sold some for ovens, etc. I used,

when our sugar trees began to die out east of the house

and young hickories sprouted up, to trim them up and

let them grow thinking that some day they would be

wanted for wood and timber, and they continued to grow

until there were about three thousand. There were

used five or six years ago enough to make axe handles

and other handles that sold for not less than $1800. I

had one-third of it for the timber standing. The tops

were used for wood. We girdled a piece where we are

now making sugar in early times and a new growth has

come up so that more than a thousand sugar trees may

soon be large enough to be used for sugaring and will

make a beautiful sugar camp for some one, not for me.

I have been to Pittsburgh two or three times with

loads of cheese; started from home Monday morning

and would be at home Saturday night that same week,

110 miles with awful roads. Once I went with a sleigh

and happened to have plenty of snow and cold until I

got home. I went one day with a cutter and horse to

Cleveland to get sheet iron to make another sap-boiler

like those round ones. We had six of them and wanted

one more large one to boil in. I started from Aurora

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320      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications at twelve P. M. and had gone sleighing, got to Cleveland in a short time, went into two or three houses and finally found good sheet-iron and bought over four hun- dred pounds at 37 cents per pound. I then went over to look up Corwin Eggleston and waded about in the snow-drifts awhile, did my business with him, and went back to Cleveland. I fed my horses and took a meal of victuals and started home with my iron and reached there at eight P. M., just twelve hours from home. I made the iron into a large boiler that now stands back of the white house. I did this in my shop, making all the holes by driving a punch through with a sledge- hammer. The others were all drilled by hand, and every hole in the large boiler was driven with one or two strokes of the sledge-hammer, which saved a heap of work.

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