The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1905-10-05
EARLY DAYS IN JACKSON.
"REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD SETTLER

lDlIkIllS THAI SltllCS VI olSi VtlilNo oo
told by our older people would be OF IN
tereSt to our readers we several weeks
ago wrote to number of old men IN
this and surrounding towns, asking
them to call on us when in Brooks.
This week we had the pleasure OF
meeting and conversing with one OF
these venerable men in the person OF
"Jncle" Jewell Piper of Jackson, who
called at our office in response to our
letter. He said he would have called
before this had he not been SO busy,
for after harvesting his own large crop
of hay he had been working by the Gay,
having for others, and didn't want TO
quit until every body had got quite
through.
After getting well seated and his
pipe lighted, Uncle Jewell said he was
ready to talk. A few leading questions
got him under way, and for about two
hours We sat and listened to the stories
and happenings of the earlier days as
they fell from the lips OF this citizen OF
Jackson. Uncle Jewell says he was
born in Jackson, December IL, 1s0o, and
therefore will be 81 years old next De
cember. He is sound i'll mind and
memory, and except for a touch OF
rheumatism is as strong and active as
most men at sixty ncle llper mas
been a farmer the most OF his HE, al
though i'll his younger days he engaged
i'll numbering quite extensively. VI
course when he first began to Work on
the farm people hadn't the improved
farm machinery of the present time
but did their work by hand, and there
was usually great rivalry between the
workers as to who could do the most
work III any one day. Uncle jewell
says lie was specially noted in the hay
tield in olden times. He began NOW
ing by hand the summer before he was
SIX in December, and the sumner after
he was seven in the previous December,
he and his fatheT,-who had but one
hand. having lost the other one in a
bear trap-cut the grass on - acres OF
moving land, all hand work, OF course,
he pitching both ways. He has moved
by hand every year since the summer
after he was six in the December be-
fore, this being his DIST consecutive
year.
From the time MI Piper was % years
of age he was engaged each winter in
numbering operations up to about lS43,
when he quit that business and since
has devoted his time wholly to farming.
Every winter during his activity in the
numbering industry he had large crews
of men and teams at work for him.
But few horses being used then, mostly
oxen. His greatest numbering opera
ton was in the winter OF 1910, when
his crews of men and teams were so
large that it paid him to buy the pepper
for the mems beans by the car load and
the brads for his goad sticks by the ton.
Uncle JEWELS parents settled on what
l., IVA
Jackson. near the Dixmont line, and
there he was born. He says he can re-
member when the lumbermen had
their lumber sawed in the mills at East
Jackson-then called "Norvou City
built into RATS of some hundreds OF
feet in length, containing many millions
of feet of lumber: these RATS piled for
many feet high with shingles and other
short lumber We're then tlOateu down
the stream to the Penobscot River at
Frankfort Marsh These RATS We're
steered by long plank sweeps at the
ends, it taking from eight to ten men
to handle one of them and about two
weeks to make the "trip and return
home The stream on which these rats
were located TO market is now SO d.
unfinished that the cattle IN the pasture
through which it winds it's course have
to lave their drinking water carried to
them through the summer season, and
some years NJ. FIetcher-who has a
mill On this streanl-llas to truck the
water from the Peuobscot river at
Wiuterport to enable him to get all
his lumber sawed.
In Mr.. Piper'S younger days the In
dlans We're quite numerous and often
bothered the settlers by begging, and
~
thing they were always sure to steal it
afterwards. Nj. Piper distinctly re-
members when the young buck, Joe.
Sipsls, killed his father, all aged Indian,
on Mason Hill III Dixmont, and was
present at the trial of the young In
dian 1t seems the old Indian was some
what Of a fiddler, and was the owner of
violin which the son coveted. The
Indians in those days kept full OF old
New England rum the most of the
time One night young Joe. Sipsis
came home pretty we'll Jagged" with
his mind made up that he was going to
have that fiddle, whether or no. He
preached the subject to the old man,
who refused to surrender it, Whereup-
on the young man seized a good sized
club and laid the old man dead at his
feet.
News of the murder soon got abroad
and when the officers came to investi-
gate the crime, they found young Joe.
sitting astride the old mans body, saw
ing away on the fiddle for dear life.
When asked why he killed his father
Ais reply was, chin old and liable to
dle like hell any minute; no hurt to kill
um."
The murdered Indian was buried be-
tween two large boulders on land now
part of the lower mill farm at Dix
mont Center, one boulder serving as
his head stone, the other as his foot
stone.
Mr.. Piper tells some wonderful stories
OF the old growth timber with which
the territory of jackson was formerly
covered. He tells of an alder tree that
grew on the shore of Drake Pond that
scaled over two thousand feet board
measure. He says he can remember
when Elder Deering, who was a car
riage maker in his younger days, would
take his draw shave and hand saw, go
into the woods in the morning, and at
night come out dragging after him a
nice Concord wagon, all painted, with
patent leather covered dasher and sill
Yer plated rails.
OF course like all other persons Uncle
Jewell can remember the events of his
youth more distinctly than he can