Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1915-09-10

means were urged to "take a drink"
AMI perhaps take jug full home.
Then of course they would feel rich,
buy what they could have done with
out, and if they could not pay up,
the sheriff would walk in" with
greeting" and relieve the poor
man and his family of what little
property they might hare, and then
"for want thereof take the body" to
jaiI until he or she should pay "the
uttermost farthing," with costs.
Hence by far too often poverty was
the rule and plenty the exception.
During the cold seasons the snow
fell fearfully deep, and the few
families that stayed in town found
it next to impossible to keep a road
open in the winter. Mr.. Bel! has
told me that he had worked hard to
break a road two miles from his
house towards Guildhall for two en-
tire days. In the winter of 1916, |
think it was when the roads were
blocked up with snow, his bread
stuff failed, and he started with a
bushel of wheat on horse to go to
Guildhall to mill, leaving a family of
small children alone with their
mother, and one or two of them so
sick that he hardly expected to find
them alive when he should get home;
and, after wallowing about two
miles through the snow drifts, had
to turn his horse back, put on his
snow-shoes and take his grain on his
back and go on his gloomy way to
mill. The mill owner, Gen. Cush-
man, sent his hired man with him
the next day, and helped him back
with his grist home to his family,
who were bt tier. In December pre-
vious Mr.. Bells mother, a woman in
the prime of life, started from Guild
hall for CRANKY one very cold day on
horseback. The next morning her
horse was found in the barnyard and
the woman in the road, within a
hundred rods of home, dead. APP
parently chilled too much to situpon
horse she fell or got off, and after
crawling a rod or two in the road on
her hands and knees, sunk down in
despair on her bed of snow and slept
the "sleep that knows no waking"
The wife of Mr.. Waid, who lived
at the outside clearing towards East
Haven, who had long been in feeble
health, died unattended by any kind
neighbor, in one of the winters when
there were but three families in
town (1S16, probably and Mrs. Cook
went on snow-shoes two or three
miles and helped lay her out, she be-
ing the only woman that could get to
the funeral.
In the month of March, 1885, Mr..
VIM. Griffin, a resident of CRANKY,
aged II, who had been at work in
Guildhall, started for home during
very severe snow storm, persisted in
the snow, ard was found by those
who were breaking out the road one
or two days afterwards nearly OPP
posite to where the Westinghouse
Of Chas. Gleason now stands. But |
will not enlarge in this direction,
for hardship and suffering were the
lot of all who commenced new set
Elements, which we that enjoy the
fruits of their tolls and privations
IN hardly realize or fully appreciate.
| shall perhaps be pardoned if |
make some illusions to the reckless
manner that the agents of the pro-
prietors did the business entrusted
to them. Proprietors' meetings
were called very frequently, adj
journment piled upon adjournment,
committees and agents appointed,
schemes started, pursued awhile,
then reconsidered and abandoned,
roads cut in various directions by
committees who would let jobs to
each other, so that all could make a
rich thing out of it; tax was voted
on tax and land sale followed land
sale, until the original proprietors
were worn out or became bankrupt;
spectators bought up the lands and
in turn failed and made assignments
to trustees for the benefit of credit
Urs; the trustees managed dishonest
ly; rival claimants under different
land sales were in convention; Daniel
Boardman, of New York city, laid
claim to a large quantity of land in
Cranky, and to perfect his title a
suit in chancery was commenced,
and in 1914 decision was made in
his favor, which quoted the contro-
versy about title, and to a great ex-
tent accounts for the land in CRANKY
being so generally owned by very
few individuals, and mostly by one
who claims under the Boardman
title.
The first mail route through