The surveyors immediately began laying out the town lots and the farms for those people who had bought shares in the company, and many laws or regulations were made by General Putnam and his friends, which were nailed to the trunk of a large tree on the river bank where all might see them.
The place was then, and is now, as beautiful a spot as one could well imagine. There are fish in the rivers in abundance, and game of every kind to be found in greatest plenty. Just fancy herds of buffaloes and deer roaming through the forest and over the plains, while wild turkeys are found in such numbers as would do your heart good, especially after a good plump one has been cooked on a spit in front of a roaring fire.
There was very little hunting done for sport, however, so Allen Devoll told me. Those people who went out in search of game did so only that they might provide themselves and their companions with food; for the work on every hand was abundant.
CLEARING THE LAND
Enormous trees in the forest were to be girdled and thus killed that they might the more easily be hewn down, and the soil had to be prepared for planting. That these newcomers were not idle may be understood when I tell you that, during the first spring they were here, one hundred and thirty acres of corn were planted.
Of course there were no cleared fields, such as one might see about Mattapoisett. The seed was put in among stumps, where only the underbrush had been cleared away; therefore a plow could not be run to make a straight furrow.
The greater portion of the work was done with hoes and spades; and already I have had disagreeable experience in that kind of labor, which causes one's back to ache woefully and blisters the hands even of those who are accustomed to such toil.
