Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1899-03-08
Clar-
..,rly vouchel

...,y after reaching their desti-
.elon the Sweiles began converting
the wilderness into homes. To put
them in the way OF earning their liy-
ing by their own labor, Nh. Thomas
set them to work telling trees, cutting
out roads and building houses, paying
them 81 day in provisions and tools
from the state fund provided for that
purpose. At the close of the year,
through births and additional immi
grafton, the colony had increased in
numbers to ia; seven miles of road
had been cut, twenty-six dwelling
houses built, and about three hun
dred acres of land cleared and partly
sowed in grain. A number of the
dwellings were erected by the state,
and were paid for in labor. These
buildings were of peeled logs, and
contained three rooms each. They
were also furnished with cooking
stoves. The same year public build
ing, called 10 this day s'The Capitol,
was erected, wherein all public func-
tions not given in the various churches
are held.
Today there are more than seven
teen hundred Swedes in the colony,
which now extends over seven town.
ships. They have more than seven
hundred buildings and eighty miles of
turnpike roads. They own about 500
600 worth of live stock, and in 1894
their farm products were valued at
s173, 730. That same year the total
value of buildings, clearings, tools,
stock, factories, mills and farm aud
mill products reached nearly $500, 600.
When one considers that quarter of
century ago this territory did not
produce dollar these figures are elo-
quent. Today there are upward of
four thousand Swedes in Maine, who
are the direct result of this enterprise.
On every side were neat farmhouses,
some of them bright with paint, and
all of them tidy and warmly built,
with barns three and four times their
size. Around them were pasture
lands and groves, orchards and mead
ows and vast potato fields. Aroostook
county raises more potatoes than the
entire balance of the state. It is one
of the great potato-raising regions of
the world. One farmer has raised as
mnny as 743 bushels to the acre, and
the average yield is more than two
hundred bushels.
1t pays to raise large families in New
Sweden. There would be very little
profit in farming, if there were not
plenty of children to load the baskets
in the potato fields. A youngster
can pick up as many potatoes as q
grown-up, and this is the great har-
vest among the Aroostooi Swedes.
But tits hard work, and there is plenty
of it.
The First Lutheran church is a plain,
white structure, bare and simple, quite
different from the rather gaudy Bap-
tist meeting down the road,
where we saw the parson and his
pretty wife in the family potato patch
with their little ones, harvesting their
crop, the same as the rest of the peo-
pie do. The preachers of New Sweden
all combine farming with their minis
terial labors. Money goes long
way in this faraway nook, but even
here $500 year is not enough to rear
and educate family, unless it is pieced
out with some kind of labor. The
feature of the Lutheran, as of all
churches hereabouts, is the horse shed,
large enough to shelter regiment of
cavalry, and in which the worshipers
leave their teams during services. The
Swede is merciful man to his beasts.
There are half dozen white school
houses with patriotic fagstaffs, and
dozen or more sawmills and starch fac
tories. Tie latter is the greatest of
all manufacturing industries in this
region, turning out fifteen thousand
tons. of starch annually. New mills
are going up yearly Istopped at one
of these mills.-.a simple affair, with
many odd makeshifts in mechanical
line, such as a homemade pump and an
S.ectric plant, designed and made by