Diary of Hiram Harvey Hurlburt Jr - Chapter 27
A part of the Diary of Hiram Harvey Hurlburt Jr
Mr. Wood took a contract to furnish two hundred thousand feet of one inch market boards, nine and one half inches wide, for Heywood of Boston. Heywood was stripping the whole of Addison County of oak timber to put into “shooks;” these nine and one half inch boards were for the heads, which called for a diameter of nineteen inches. I had heard a good deal about Heywood, how sharp he was; and that he had three sail vessels plying between Boston and the West Indies with these shooks for barrels; returning with sugar, molasses and rum. I thought a good deal about the responsibility, and if there should be any discrepancy in keeping account of measurement, I would be looked after. So when Wood was at the mill one day, I asked about his contract with Heywood. He said, “It was not finished yet.” Then I told him to be sure and have the lumber taken from the saw or board way; as if piled up to season it would shrink; how much I had kept to myself, as my contract with Wood and Jewett was by the thousand feet taken from the saw.
When I was in Albany at the Fountain Inn, boarding, in the year 1850 I had been employed while the civil engineer was sick, to look after some lumber being unloaded from canal boats, and had directions from the officer how to do in inspecting lumber; he giving me a small book with rules. If lumber was green, it was to call for 21,000 feet of pine or whitewood to make 20,000 feet, and of spruce there must be 17,000 feet to make 16,000 feet of spruce seasoned.
The lumber was carefully measured taken from the board-way and carted to East Middlebury, and piled up in square piles the usual way. When it had been seasoned it was measured again by Almon Tupper, when it was found to fall short some six thousand feet in one hundred thousand feet. Wood came up when Heywood told him of the shortage; I told Wood what the law was in New York State, but Heywood was crabbed, and they finally left it to arbitration; the true facts in the drying of lumber were ascertained; and Heywood acknowledged the Yankees in Vermont were equal to those in his native state Massachusetts.
Wood had closed the contract of heading with Heywood. I had measured the last load, and was wondering if there was not a respite from driving work. I was at the house looking for some forgotten bill to correct. When I looked down the road, I saw a horse and buggy coming up the grade; as he came nearer, I saw it was an elderly man, heavily built, and after looking a minute or two until I could make out the high crown silk hat, the hat gave a nod forward; then, when another nod was passed, another quick nod.
“That man,” said I to myself, “is Wm. Wilson of Brooksville, Vt.” That nod was familiar to me; for years before he had had the grass scythe forming under the trip-hammer; the nod was the token for the helper to let up on the gate handle, which shut off the power from the water wheel that carried the hammer. I walked down to the high-way to this old acquaintance, wondering what could have induced him at the age of seventy five years, to climb the Green Mountains, and such a distance from home.
After the usual salutations, he immediately let me know his business, saying, “I have come to get you to build me a sash sawmill at Brooksville. That dam you built here for Hiram Rider several years ago has never been put to any practical use, and I am going to have a sawmill at my end.” There was an occasional nod to have the gates partly shut. This habit he could not avoid; but it never annoyed me, for he did not appear to know that he made it. The outcome of this journey of Mr. Wilson was, that before 4 o’clock P.M., April 2nd, 1855, a bargain was made for me to furnish everything, and put up a mill twenty-two by forty-four feet in good and substantial workmanlike manner, and have everything in readiness to saw lumber the fifteenth of September following. Mr. Wilson on his part, was to prepare the place for a flume by slashing or cutting out the rock in a suitable manner, his part of the contract to be finished by the 15th of July next.
Now this Mr. Wilson was of a stern disposition. His ideas of contracts was that they must be kept, and woe to the contractor who failed to be on time! I had heard his past history of a lawsuit with a brother, in regard to a contract, that was continued in court for years; until finally, Providence seemingly took the suit in its own hands and sent a July freshet that swept away nearly all possessions of both parties; and there was nothing left for either party to lay claim to.
Immediately after making the bargain, I made active preparations to do the work. The place where I lived was sixteen miles from the mill site, and this was the way I arranged: I made out my plan for the building, had the lumber all prepared, the carpenter work completed where I lived, the frame ready to set up on its arrival, the teamsters delivering it on the spot. Then I appeared at the place, with suitable help, ready for operations. Very soon, the frame was up and covered; but the 15th of July came and went, without Mr. Wilson having the waterway prepared. Uncommonly wet weather, causing high water, kept the men that were blasting and cutting rock from doing that part of the contract; and a delay of three weeks hindered progress, but I still kept getting ready, so that when the way was clear I could hurry up the job.
About the first of September, when the owners of the pine timber in the mill yard came around and notified Mr. Wilson that the wood worms were working their way through the pine logs. They could be heard, where a log lay up from the ground on skids, with their zz-zz-zz as steady as the tick of a farmer’s clock, making their industrious headway through its valuable pulp, without any regard to the owner’s loss. Mr. Wilson had agreed to have the mill ready to work by the time my contract expired. There was not much conversation between us, but I kept steadily at the work, planning every reasonable way to secure the completion of the job as soon as possible.
“I wish to leave this account, and write of something that took my attention, and sort of lightened up the care at this time.”
Mrs. Sylvester Fisher, of Ripton, who had purchased the Chipman farm and lived in the large two-story house in the Hollow, had fenced off the grounds with some shade trees that had been from time past used as a place to hitch the horses of the people who came to the Congregational Church. This act of Mrs. Fisher was not taken pleasantly by Ripton people who came on Sabbath, waiting for Mr. Wilson to remove the rocks, so as to place the flume. I stood at noon talking with Dr. New about this inconvenience. I looked at Mr. Fisher’s house and said, “If I had the half of this, or all of this, somebody would do something today.” Dr. New said, “They would take one of Fisher’s big cartwheels and carry it to the top of the house.” Some of my men must have heard it, for two of them were standing near; that day (Monday), Fisher was hunting all over the Hollow for one of his cartwheels. Finally, some one, driving on the street, looked up and there was the wheel with hub stuck in the high chimney, above the roof, about seven feet where they accomplished such a feat considering the height; and they were right at the six-foot wheel; all not to disturb anyone in the house. Fisher had to get a number of men to get that out and down. Mr. Fisher removed the fence right away so the churchgoers could hitch their horses for a shade. I could never find out who accomplished the act but it is still remembered.
The second day of October found the work finished; the first log was rolled onto the carriage and made into boards at 2 P.M.
Mr. Wilson seemed pleased with the work done and said, “We would go to his house and settle.” This was soon done, but the balance due of several hundred dollars was to be paid according to contract. I was waiting to receive it. When Mr. Wilson’s mill bill must be warranted for one year, before any payment would be made. From now we were on good terms and had had a hard world’s stay time of our acquaintance. So I was prepared to act.
Some three weeks previous to this time, I was at Middlebury settling with Jason Davenport’s hardware store for castings, when his head clerk, Martin Dorrance, inquired about my building a mill for Wilson, and Dorrance, being well-versed in Mr. Wilson’s former history, he told me, in consideration of my youth, “My experience in dealing with people of all kinds: To keep cool, keep the boss up in my bargain with Mr. Wilson, and not get frightened; but keep ready for anything that might turn up.”
After Mr. Wilson had made the remarkable assertion of “No warrant (in our contract—not a word about a warrant),” I was silent probably five minutes. It seemed longer to me, but I was trying to choke down my anger and control my voice, when I said, “Mr. Wilson, I will go out to my tool chest there in the mill, which contains a good padlock with three feet of chain from Chapin, and I will lock the gate that admits the water to the wheel to make the power; and that gate must stay shut until the warrant you ask for has expired.”
Now was the time for Mr. Wilson to be silent. No doubt another five minutes or more passed, while he took into consideration his contract with the owners of the logs, and the harm they were taking. At last, his head gave that familiar nod, and he said, “We will close up the contract at once.” Which was done with no further argument.
