When Israel Brayton’s father, John the farmer, died in 1829, the life of Israel, the Trader, went on as before. Captain Stephen Brayton, Israel’s brother, returned to the farm and took over. He had been engaged in a few ventures of his own, as we know from letters found in the barrel.

The widow, Israel’s mother, petitioned the court to appoint Israel administrator. In June, 1829, he made an account of his administration. And that was all.

Stephen found in the house of his inheritance his mother; an aunt; a sister, Content, the old maid of the family; (all households had them). These women were absolutely dependent upon him as they had been upon his father, and he thought it right that this should be so.

To him had descended not only the use of the house but the use of all its furnishings. And these furnishings were astonishingly good. It was the age of mahogany and fine cabinet makers. John Brayton, according to the inventory found in the barrel, had owned a mahogany desk, a mahogany card table, a mahogany round table, a pair of mahogany dining tables, 8 mahogany arm chairs, a mahogany light stand, and a chest.

From an earlier age of even better cabinet makers, there was a cherry Pembroke table, a maple table, a high chest of drawers, 8 dining chairs, a tall clock, 7 bedsteads, 8 leatherbottomed chairs, 12 flag bottomed chairs, a pair of ordinary looking glasses, a gilt framed looking glass, a floor carpet—who has better? There was a brass fireset, 8 feather beds and 24 pillows, coffee and tea sets, 12 tablecloths—and of course a “weaver loom” and “2 spinning wheeles”.

On the farm were 2 yoke of oxen, 13 steers, 2 horses, 31 sheep, 21 lambs, 4 swine, and 14 pigs—2 ox carts, 1 horse sleigh and bells, 1 horse wagon and harness, 1 cider mill and press. Under Stephen all remained on the farm, and life went on as before. That some of these articles were bought through Israel’s Scrabbletown Store, we know.

Stephen died suddenly in 1832. According to the custom of the country, Israel, the trader of Scrabbletown, closed down his trading posts, and went back to the Farm of his fathers as his brother Stephen had done. He took over the responsibility of running the farm and the family.

He was still a young man, just turned 40. His eldest child, Mary, was 18. There was Elizabeth and Nancy and John Summerfield, and David, and Israel Perry and William Bowers—all born in Scrabbletown—now moving down to the Homestead Farm by the Taunton River. And there were more children coming—Hezekiah, Sarah, Submit.

It was a young household, ambitious, with a fine house and money to spend. Israel’s mother was an old lady, of course, well content to sit in the chimney corner. But there was Aunt Content, Israel’s sister, Stephen’s widow and his children, and probably some others needing shelter at the moment; Mary Morrison, for instance.

The house was perhaps a little crowded—it must have been. Mary, the oldest of the children, seems to have thought so. She left. We hear of her teaching school in the village of Troy, now called Fall River, as I noted earlier.

Kezia, Israel’s wife, was mistress of the house and of all that was therein. Which included all that she and her husband had brought from Scrabbletown. There was indeed plenty.

Kezia was not, however, a good housekeeper. No, she was not. For in all her housecleaning she never cleaned out the barrel that Israel had brought over from his Scrabbletown store and put up in the attic.

To her negligence, we owe our chance to see at first hand how the traders of Scrabbletown lived in those days now all forgotten.