The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1891-08-28
NEWTOWN, CONN, FRIDAY, AUGUST 49, 189l---sX PAGES.

and II, Josiah Fairchild. Jr, giving 81 81
for the Sunday before; the nightly price
. was from " cents to 81 30. Receipts
q $72 05; expenses, including 81 cents fol
: three pecks Of salt furnished by Theoph
:. illus Botsford, $55 49,; dividend, three
: cents and two mills. In the flock of 1926
. Jabez b. Botsford, Theophilus Botsford
: Zechariah Clark, Jr and Jonathan s.
: Fairchild each had 30 sheep, Samuel c.
Blackman and Abijah Curtis each rs,
:, Ezra III. Johnson, Israel G. Botsford
and Daniel Botsford, Jr. each IS; 10
seph Blackman "a, Asa b. Beardslee
%, Salmon Glover 81, Simeon N. Beers
and James w. Bennitt each 20. Joseph
, B.Wheeler had IA sheep in the flock. The
!, price touched 81 30 that year. Dan Peck
gave SIS cents for August 20, Charles
:, johnson 81 cents for September 6, Gould
, Curtis 81 cents for August 10, Capt Oil
yer Northrop, Hosea Northrop's father,
n cents for August 10, Stephen Crofut
6S cents for July %. The receipts,
1913 81 and expenses, $66 50 IL, left only
S. SO 1-2 for dividends. The days of the
flock were numbered and in 1927, the
last. year of the records, Zerah Judson
led the flock with 81 sheep, Abijah B..
Curtis putting in 80 and Simeon Nichols
IS. The use of the flock got as low as
bers bid ST. 81 for Saturday and Sunday,
July q and %; Cyrenius Northrop, ia
ther of Horace Northrop, 81 40 for Sat-
urday and Sunday, August Is and 10;
Henry Nichols, father of Philo Nichols,
81 76, for Saturday and Sunday, Septem-
Der and 8 and Villeroy Glover, father
of Mrs Philo Nichols, 90 cents for
August %. The expenses and receipts,
$40 "a, just balanced, that year and the
public flock, no longer proving profita-
BILE, was given up.
Those were simple, prosperous days
for farmers, for there was little money
and the farm produced almost everything
that its owner and his family needed.
There was no butcher cart nor meat
market. When a sheep, lamb or beef
was killed, the surplus, not required by
the family, was lent out to the neigh
they butchered. Dea Hill, long sexton at
Trinity, kept the first meat market in the
Street, i. l.. Johnson thinks, back of E.
F. Hawley's store, where Peter Keeler's
shoe shop stands. The late Mrs Julia M.
johnson used to recall when meat was
peddled in saddle bags, on horse back.
1t was not so easy getting out of town to
trade, for travel was by stage or ON
horseback. Three stages, at least, ran
through Newtown: That from Wood
bury to Norwalk; that from New Mil
ford to Bridgeport and that from New
Haven to Danbury. There were few
good travelled roads outside the turn
pixies and it took the best part of week
to go to New York and return. Bridge
port was then mainly known as a ship
ping point for Newtown grain, pork and
beef to the West Indies. 1t had only
1900 inhabitants when made town in
1921 and but 3400 when it set up business
for itself as city in 1886. Ready made
clothes were unknown, for wooden and
linen of home make was pretty much all
there was to be had. The flax was grown
here and the wool sheared here and both
worked up into cloth in town. Then the
tailor whipped the cat'' from house to
house, making up clothes for the men
and boys, whose wooden and tow goods
were durable, if not as stylish as modern
dress. Ezra III. johnson, e. l.. Johnson's
grandfather, was such a tailor and being
caught in the field one day at work, sat
down on rock and cut out a garment
for customer. The shoemaker also
whipped the cat'' with the tailor. New
town was once proud of its tanneries for
the early shoemaker was tanner as
well as cobble and the leather that he
slowly and laboriously turned out would
turn water and last, too. The ladies made
their own garments, bed and table fur
nishings and also braided hats of rye
straw for the men and boys to wear in
Summer, who also wore caps of cloth and
fur hats that cost from sc to $40 and
shops then, as well as comb shops and
Samuel Beers. who lived near the ceme-
terry, father of Dea Harry Beers, the
merchant, taught the trade to many
NeWtown young men. The ladies split
the straw for their own bonnets and
then braided it. The cities had not then
spread the upas shade of their influence
the whole country through and railroads
had not broken the slumber of the CEN
turtles, nor electricity startled the world
with its wonders. Farms were worth
something, for grain, sheep, cattle, but
ter, everything that the farm produced
had not entered into competition with
the prairies of the great West.New Eng
land not only gave its sons and capital
to develop that West, but also gave its
markets with them, until such time as
the denser population of the Mississippi
valley and Pacific slope shall demand
more of its own products and furnish
them more literally to foreign markets.
The. penalty for exploding dynamite in
streams or ponds stocked with fish
should be rigidly enforced in Newtown,
where carp and many of the game fish
that abound in Taunton lake have been
destroyed by repeated charges Of dyna-
mite. The guilty man is said to reside
not hundred miles from Bethel.
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A. S. Tuttle of Hawleyville has visited