The trader of the barrel period did not, consciously, travel or work in his garden for pleasure or recreation. Those pursuits were means of livelihood. When he was through for the day, if he ever did get through, he was glad to go home and sit a spell. He was tired.

He did not serve on committees whose purpose was to ameliorate the condition of the poor. Each man was, then, expected by public opinion to support himself, his wife, his children, his wife’s parents, his own parents, and all the unmarried women and widows who could claim kinship even to the third or fourth cousinly degree. If they were in need. As each man was expected to do this, it really left nobody to be supported by community effort. It also left the definition of need to the man who was paying the bills, which meant that the aid was adequate—public opinion saw to that—but not extravagant.

There was after this business of earning a living for so many people, very little leisure in the life of any man. I have searched the barrel to see just how Israel Brayton spent the little leisure that was his.

The Poor They had with Them

There were two persons in the village who were without kith or kin. Nor were they related to each other. They were poor and they were old and sick. Israel used a little of his spare time in visiting these people—an unpaid job—and he got nurses and doctors for them when such were needed. He got the best doctors and nurses in town, the only doctors and nurses, apparently. These poor old people were dependent upon their neighbors for at least partial support. Israel used to receive during store hours over the counter notes such as this:

(Diadema Boiston was probably one of the Acadians allotted to Swansea some years earlier.)

This was business for Israel; pretty small business you think; but honestly conducted a very safe and sane way of administering “Poor Relief”. Occasionally Diadema Boiston did some housework, for which she was properly paid. It was Israel’s housework.

To Aid the Veterans

Israel saw that the crippled veterans of the last two wars got their government pensions, he saw that the doctors made examinations and sent in reports.

“We, the subscribers, practising physicians of the Town of Swanzey, County of Bristol, State of Mass., do hereby certify that after a careful examination in the case of Henry Lawton who is now on the pension roll of the State of Mass., we are of the opinion that his disability does still continue. Occasioned by canister shot passing through his left hip also by a musket ball through his right thigh, and further that the degree of disability under which he labours at present is one third, being not less than the original degree of disability for which he was placed on the roll”.

The authorities sent the following letters:

Four days later, he received another letter: “We are sorry to find that we sent you the wrong blanks—a new form is now indispensible.”

The barrel has held through the years a Surgeon’s Certificate never filled out.

The School Committee

Israel’s special service to the community was as a member of the School Board. He conducted the correspondence with the school teachers. There was no clerk, no paid assistance. Israel wrote the letters for the veterans and for the school committee with his own hand.

Israel attended the many meetings of the school committee, and took time to get a very accurate picture of the schooling he and his neighbors were providing for their children. Teachers did not stay long in Swansea or Somerset, but I fancy they did not stay long in any country town. For they were mostly men and women who were teaching to get a little money to start in on something else. All the letters in the barrel show that they could write a good hand and express themselves coherently. A sample letter will be enough. Though Israel had to read them all.

“The subscriber makes a tender of his services to the inhabitants of the second school district in Swansea as a teacher for the term of three months to commence on Monday the 3rd inst. And he assures those who may think proper to intrust their children to his care, that if the most strenous exertions on his part can prevent it, their confidences shall not be misplaced. Hoping by assiduous application and unremitting attention to ensure the patronage and meet the approbation of his employers—

Jos D. Nichols”

“In consideration of which, we, the subscribers, agree to furnish wood for the school, board the said Nichols in our respective families, and pay him the sum of fourteen dollars per month which shall be apportioned according to the number of scholars set against each of our names respectively.

Captain Charles Pratt taught for a much longer period than was usual.

“We have obtained satisfactory evidence of the good moral character of Captain Charles Pratt, also of his literary qualifications and capacity for the Government of an English School.” That was how the committee appointed to look into a teacher’s application felt about qualifications. Israel was on the committee.

I must not leave out the lady teacher, the barrel has record of only one. Her name was Miss Sophia Stebbins.

“Whereas it is contemplated that Miss Sophia Stebbins will commence a school, in this district, to be continued for 4 or 5 months, at the rate of one dollar 33 cents per week, and that for the use of the school house she pay 50 cents per month, to be appropriated to the keeping of the same in repair; we the subscribers agree to pay our proportion of the expenses of such school, and to furnish our proportion of boarding for the instructress, according to the number of scholars set against our respective names.

etc etc.

Israel really did good work on the School Board in his leisure time and it is only to be expected that in his business hours he sold School Books over the counter.

The books were: Alden’s Spelling Book
”    Reader
Morse’s Geography
Murray’s Grammar

He carried slate pencils and slates and exercise books. And Song Books.

Church Activities

Israel was—not unduly—interested in the church in which he and his family owned pews.

The Church choir was not a paid choir nor was it a good one. Some people thought it should be trained. Israel headed a committee to get a good singing teacher down from Taunton. Mr. Sproat, a Taunton lawyer, was consulted. He seems to have been a personal friend of Israel’s. And some of his letters are in the barrel. Arrangements were made. Letters passed.

“Mr. Sproat was married Sunday Evening”. (A hint of the marriage customs of the time.)

It was understood that the Singing School was to be kept “in Swanzey Village the ensuing winter, by Mr. Jonathan G. Colburn, for the benefit of the Baptist and Methodist Societies in the Towns of Swansea and Somerset.”

They got the singing school and Israel sold a good many song books. But he found getting the subscribers to pay for the school, difficult. The village men argued that since they really had no musical ability, they should not have to pay for instruction they could not “themselves use”. But the committee argued “the burden of expense should not fall altogether on the shoulders of those who are favored with voices to sing.”

The barrel holds another letter showing Israel’s relation to the church which he attended and served in many ways. Hezekiah Anthony wrote him from Providence:

Lorenzo Dow was the fashionable evangelist of his day. There is a “Life” of Lorenzo Dow, mostly a printing of Dow’s diary. Strangely enough, the dates on which Dow is supposed to have been preaching in Swansea and Somerset, are left blank. I think it quite true that the men of Somerset and Swansea, though men of their time, were not an excitable lot, and would not have provided Lorenzo with any very spectacular results. He had just come back from Ireland, where he had preached the gospel as he understood it, up and down the country, without losing his life, and the diary thinks that a triumph.

I rather think that Israel and the other men trading around Scrabbletown, went to hear Lorenzo Dow hold forth—and yawned.

After the visit of Lorenzo Dow, Israel stocked his shop with Bibles.

Israel and Literature

Always at all times Israel kept a stock of Almanacks on hand. The fascination of Almanacks for those village men is to me incomprehensible. But it was genuine. They read Almanacks in their leisure time. (Bibles, of course, but to those men the Bible was not literature). Israel always carried “The Farmer’s Almanack”, and “The Rhode Island Almanack”. He ordered at the first of the year, but he reordered as the year progressed. He also took subscriptions to popular magazines. The most popular was the “Zion’s Herald”. My grandmother who came from that part of the world, used to subscribe to the “Zion’s Herald”. I remember it quite well. There was some demand for the “Manufacturer’s and Farmer’s Journal” and the “Telescope”. The “Rhode Island American” and the “Providence American”, with a few subscriptions to weekly newspapers, were sold over Israel’s counter. Papers were late, and people complained and sometimes cancelled their subscriptions. As Edward Anthony of Taunton wrote: “This paper did not go on Wednesday on account of the travelling. (This was February 27, 1829). Most of the Mails have been carried on horseback, and it is quite uncertain about your getting the paper today. I am glad that you have obtained those subscribers and I hope you will get more. Money is scarce, snow in abundance, and but little news.”

The leisure time of these Scrabbletown traders was not spent in reading books; is this quite clear? Israel did not stock books, because there was no demand for books. He knew perfectly well what people wanted. The Newport paper was advertising “The Solitary, or the Mysterious Man of the Mountain. Translated from the French of Viscount d’Arlincourt by an American Lady”. Also “Helen de Tourneau. a Novel by Madam de Souza. 87-1/2 cents.” Israel did not even carry the paper which carried the advertisement. He did not carry “Roche Blanche: or the Hunters of the Pyrenees”. Which was a Romance, written by M. A. M. Porter. It was popular but not in Scrabbletown, Israel thought. He had opened his first trading station the year Scott’s “Guy Mannering” was published in England. But he did not stock Walter Scott, either. Probably never heard of him. That was the year Jane Austin’s “Emma” was put on the market. Byron belongs to the early years of Israel’s trading. The “Poems” of John Keats were just out. Shelly and Wordsworth were becoming known to the English world of letters. Not to the world of Scrabbletown, I think.

Scrabbletown and Israel were quite right. Their countryside was a place of such beauty that all their lives were lived against a background of harmonious color, lovely line, and wide reaches of quietude and peace. The fields were full of sheep and oxen which were so much a part of their still pastoral lives. The little white sails were hurrying up and down the lovely rivers of their land. The bearded sailors, sitting in the sun, told them tales of all the faraway places, the bearded sailors being their own sons and brothers who were emphatically glad to get home. There was little need to look in the pages of any book, they all felt, when the shad bush was in flower and the shad were running free. Better go fishing.

And they did. And in the Fall, when they had any spare time, they went hunting for bears, over in the great forest.

Did they pine for Romance, History, Biography, Poetry? I have not heard that they did. They were even a little fed up with Romance. And Heroism. The older men had seen Jemima Wilkinson dressed like an angel riding through the village on a white horse—her golden hair flying in the wind. It was a hotheaded young cousin of theirs who had paid for the horse, and followed Jemima to his undoing.

Toussaint L’Overture had been a slave of theirs, they knew all about the darkly glorious Rebellion in Hayti—a lot of the village boys had been down there on their own ships. They knew Jerathmael Bowers, too; he was one of their own. He was the Bowers who married out of the village a beauty and a belle, and built her a wonderful fine house in Somerset, and hired Coply to paint her portrait—all dressed up she was—life size, with a pink rose in her bosum. And when it came to heroes, which they never did like to come to, being of New England, who could touch Washington? They had all seen Washington, many knew him. Some of them knew Lafayette. The crippled and the pensioned men, sitting out on the back porches, could still tell—and they probably tried to.

Sir Walter Scott would, I am sure, have seemed a little tame to these men had Israel succeeded in selling him over the counter. Better by far, if restless, get on your father’s little boat and sail off to the Sandwich Islands for a change. So they thought and so they did. And they always came back as soon as possible and went clamming.

Israel and Politics

Politics, as a means of livelihood or as the occupation of a gentleman with some leisure, was unheard of. The barrel holds a few communications from far off representatives in Taunton or Boston who wanted Israel to get out the vote occasionally. New Bedford, according to the barrel, wanted a new jail. Israel did not want New Bedford to have a new jail. That seems to have been the only time he got roused. He wrote that he could not get the village to take much of a stand, because they had sort of planned to go off hunting that week end.

Is this all in the barrel? Indeed it is, and more. But do not forget that Israel sold school books and that the turnover was rapid.