Document text
1.
Form A
Vermont
(Mrs.) Rebecca M. Halley
West Newbury, Vermont
Sept. 20, 23, 1938
Folklore
1. Afternoon of both days.
2. Maple Grove Farm.
6. Huge white house surrounded by maple trees, with a,piazza
an two sides, sits on the rise of land just above West Newbury.
It was, at the time William and Dudley Carleton were alive
(grandfather and father of present Arthur A.), about the most
productive and fertile farm in the whole town. It overlooks
the White Mountain range and the Connecticut River valley and
is skirted in the immediate foreground with level meadows and
the famous 3,500 maple bush, which, incidentally, was laid
waste by the hurricane of Sept. 21, 1938.
The interior of the house is made dark by the trees, the
piazza, and the old-fashioned finish of dark wood and papers.
There are any number of mementoes of past glory and a bookcase
filled with old editions, some of which are doubtless very
valuable. Mr. Carleton awns a complete edition of Will Carle
ton's homespun poems, also wood -covered reading book which was
his grandfather's and an edition of Rev. Grant Powers' "History
of Coos County" published in 1811. There is a scrapbook giving
much of the Carleton and West Newbury history, original poems,
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etc. Mrs. Carleton hospitably served a huge piece of pumpkin
21..! made with maple_ ,sugar and we visited long and furiously
about the days gone by.
The house was built in 1891 by the aforesaid William and
Dudley Carleton on the site of the building which was for near-
ly thirty years the Town Farm of Newbury. During that period
(1837-1866) the farm served as refuge for the town idiots and
mentally deficient as well as the poor, for there were no in-
sane institutions then. Many of Mr. Carleton's stories were
based on the adventures and misadventures of these unfortunates.
He was a small boy at the time they moved to the farm and the
incidents, as told by his elders, made an indelible impression
on his mind. Many of them through their nature cannot be re-
peated here. I have culled the best and least offensive.
1.
Form B
1. English from the Carletonts of Carleton Hall, Corinth,
Cumberland County, England. First Carleton's came to America
in 1639 and settled in Rowley, Mass.
2. West Newbury, Oct. 26, 1873.
3. Mrs. Sadie Carleton, Marion Carleton, Lowell, Mass. Harold
Carleton, West Newbury.
4. Always lived in West Newbury on the farm which has been
in the family for three generations.
5. Grade school in West Newbury.
6. President of the Vermont Maple, Sugar Growers' Association
from 1912-1919.
7. Very clever about arranging flowers for special occasions
and arrangements of maple sugar for exhibits. Won numerous
prizes with latter at Maple Sugar Conventions before and after
he was president. He did not exhibit while he was in office.
8. He has always been active in community affairs following
in the steps of father and grandfather.
9. A. A. Carleton is a little taller than average when he
stands straight, however, he is stooped some from illness and
age. He has removed the greyed edition of the moustache which
made his pictures so ravishing in the papers when he was front
and foremost in the development of the maple sugar industry in
Vermont. His hair is almost white. He usually wears an old
grey shirt and khaki pants around the farm and sticks to old-
fashioned "genuses" for support. He chews tobacco, and evidences
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of it decorate the corners of his mouth. He is kindly and
lives in the glories of his ancestors, enjoying nothing more
than a good visit about the times that are gone. He loves
above all things to shock people and will tell uncensored
tales of events and people of this village in an effort to
get a "rise" out of one.
1.
Vermont
Mrs. Rebecca M. Halley
host rewbury, Vermont
TALL STORIES
From Informant A. A. Carleton
(See Form 73 Sheet 1)
"flow I can't vouch for this story. 'Twas told to no
way back when I was a little shaver. I won't say as to whether
it was true or not because I wasn't there. It all happened
long 'fore I was born. fly Orandsir, now, lived on a farm
down on the little Ox Lox. There were nice fertile fields
down there along the river same as there are now. One fall,
Grandsir turned his pigs out on the little Bow same as usual.
There was one big old sow about ready to farrow. She ot lost
and didn't come up to eat with the others and you may know
there is sonethint far wronc7 when a pia won't come to dinner.
M11, sir, nu Srandsir and a couple others long about dark
went huntin' that sow. They traveled all over the little Ox
Dow. Finally they went down toward the bank of the river. It's
forty -fifty feet wide there. On the bank was a punkin' vine, a
goralmf.7hty big one, loaves like umbrellas. Out from the vine
was r;rowin, stalks, big ones, and two of them stalks had grown
together. You know, the way molasses candy looks when you pull
it, flat this way. oil, the olC sow's tracks went right up to
that vine and disappeared, just vanished into thin air. That
vine stretched out riht across the river. Clear over to the
:ev 7almshire side. t.arn't no other place the old sow could
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have gone, so Grandsir knew she must have crossed the river an
the punkin* vine, Wait now, that varlet all of it. The man
got a canoe and crossed the river. That was 'ay before the
bridges were built. On the other side they follered up the
bank. They went along and there in a little while they come
to the place where the vine had hit the bank. They went along
by it and there were the sow's tracks. Way back a bit they
come across a big punkin', the biggest one they ever saw.
Around the other aide was a little hole about so big. They
peeked in and there was the old sow sleepin' sound with a
whole litter of little pigs cuddled up to her. Shows the
inginuity of the species and the fertility of the river valley."
"Way back in the times when this village was first settled
everybody kept pigs. They let 'em run loose in a big herd.
Early in the fall they'd get 'em all together and turn 'en out
up on the side of Moore Mountain. They'd make a big pen and
keep 'em in it a few days and nights to get 'em used to it.
Then they'd let 'em go to fatten up on acorns and berries and
things.
"Well, there was an old boar at the head of the outfit.
He was big boss of the whole gang. He must have weighed six
seven hundred and he had tusks as long as this. He would lead
that whole herd round through the woods and keep 'em mindinl
their P's and Q's.
"Late one afternoon some of the young folks was up in the
upper end of the village foolint round the way young folks will
and they beard a commotion up near the pig lot. They looked
around and there was that old boar a roundin' up about forty
of the old some and young stuff and thovint 'em into the hog
lot. He was ripped in a dozen places and losin' blood fast,
but when be got Ism all in be told tem to stay there if they
valued their hides and then he put up over the bill a kitinl.
*The young ones rushed back to the village and told what
they had seen and a bunch of men got their rifles. They back
tracked the boar clear up over the top of the mountain and just
down the other side they come onto a big bear all laid, out with
his insides ripped open and deader'n a door nail.
'Well, sir, they kept on and pretty soon they come onto
another bear treated just the same. They left that one and
followed the boar's tracks a couple miles further to the edge
of the pond. There was a tremenjous commotion going on down
there and they hurried on as fast as they could. 'Was begin-
ning to fall dark and they couldn't do so good in the thick
woods. When they got out onto the edge of the pond there in
a clearint was the old boar and he was 'twin' off round and
round in the middle of a ring of three bears. He'd gored 'em
some, but they was closing up on him fast. Two rifles barked
and two bears died and just as they drew on the third bear,
he brought his paw smack down on the boar's back. Then they
got him, too. Well, sir, there was the old boar and five bears
way off in the woods scattered from there to the village. One
man built a fire and stayed with the boar that night. The
critter's hind quarters was paralysed from the whack the bear
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gave him and be couldn't walk and he was too heavy to pack. So
the other two went back to the village. In the mornin, they
bitched a couple pair of oxen to a drag and cut a road through
to the pond. They piled the old boar and the five boars unto
the drag and took them back to the village. All the villagers
had bear meat to eat that winter and there was several nice
bear -skin rugs made out of them as weren't damaged much.
"Oho the boar? Well sir, he mayn't much damaged except
he couldn't walk no more. They kept him in ease and comfort
until his tusks fell out and he died of old age.