Norwich bulletin., 1916-11-11
THE ERA OF THE PUMPKIN

Pumpkins, however, were % abund- ant Tn New England that the wits seized upon them as q symbol Of the; country. A chubby boy astride a mammoth pumpkin ana blowing the hollow stalk of 2 vine for trumpet, was long favorfte emblem.
 At that era. pumpkin johnny -cake. mdae of corn meal and etewed pump made or corn meal and stewed pump. a trencher. and turned so as to give brittle crust to both sides. was an article for the table which was highly popular.
 The drink of our ancestors" Miss Caulkins says consisted chiefly of pure water from the well or fountain; but they had also beer. cider and zlsetheglin. and they had made great juice of berries, and cordiais distilled from nlints"
 In addition to the flesh afforded by the focks and herds which they fed, the bounty Of Providence furnished them with rich supplies.
 Deer at the time of the settisment were not infrequent: wild fowl, es- peeiaiiy pigeons, were, at the proper season, very abundant. All the small CT game, such as squirrels, foxes, woodchucks, and rabbits. might be I6uEAI All SAIdA "a dL Ilt9 vExS loOlS 01 the houses, while the rivers and brooks around them furnished frst-rate bass, innumerabie shad, fine Holsters, deli cate oysters and highly prized trout. Such were the dainties spread upon their board.
 The Thames River in these early dsys was widely known, we are told, for it's lavish abundance of fish.
 Shad, aiewiyes, bass, n1aekerel, eels, oysters and Holsters were nowhere to be. found in larger quantity or greater perfection.
 Sturgeon and other large fish often wandered into the stream, and even the chronicles tell, would semi occa- sionally leap into passing boat. Ii is recorded that as late -as May, 1861 a sturgeon called in marine 1ernaculaI Albany beef,') was caught above Gales Terry and weighed 125 pounds.
 It is chronieisd in the Boston News. Letter that, after the great freshet 1T February, 1729, the Norwich river was swarming with fish to such an ex- tent that 20.000 bass had been caught within few days just below Tht Landing--now the city proper. Tha1 might have been a larger amount thar usual, Miss Caulkins comments, add ing that every year. at the breaking up of the ice, there was great de mand from far and near for th' striped bass of the Norwich river. In a newspaper of 1771, it was men ftioned that over 300 barrels of mack | terel had been taken that season in th' river, between Norwich and New London, and that six barrels wer filled from the contents of a singl seine.
 So it is evident that the people Q early Norwich never needed to g | hungry-from lack of food, that it. l They did do so, however, each year with the return of the annual Fas Day, which had none of the charac 1 teristics of our own holiday with tha title.
 | The historian has nothing to relat of base ball games, or horse racing
 or similar pastimes on that revere
 day.
 1 Among the people of oId-time Nor
 Wich, the annual Fast was kept witt
 almost as great strictness as among tn
 ancient. Hebrews. No food was per i rnittedn between sunrise and sunset ! l. : But by contrast, Thanksgiving wa
 a holiday of feasting, as it has sine continued.
 ! year, the time for family gathering 1 and heart greetings. The noon-d da | feast, of which the wild turkey carl 1 became the central feature, was fol | lowed by a. social afternoon, then b
 an evening spent in eating nuts an
 apples. telling stories, playing blind mans buff and similar simple bu hearty games.
 i Naturally, these two special season
 excited tine mirth of the funny me | of that day; and in time they bega 1 to be known as the two saint days C l New England, or, as expressed by l domestic humorist, the festivals c l Saint Starve and Saint Atuff.
 Later :n local history, during tn ] first years of the Revolutionary Wa ! there came time when Norwich sui
 fered from scarcity of sugar an
 molasses. and when the ingenuity C the towns inhabitants found sub 1 stitute for the latter necessity b contriving a substitute, corn stal molasses, as it was known; but this ]
 a subject for later story.
 | THE DTCTAGRAPH. T0TE. FDfT0F