The house contained 7 inside panel doors, four outside framed doors, and four cellar batten doors, five windows, which contained each 24 panes of glass, and panel window shutters to each window, four small windows above the outside doors and eight small chamber and cellar windows, and a large closet each side of one of the fire places. These two jobs were paid in money, which was of much more value at that time than at present.
Few country dwelling houses contain as great a weight of materials as were put into this building. It lasted until the year 1823, and, with a little repairing and a new roof, might have stood and been a good house until the present time. It contained all its first materials except a small repair of the floors before each fire place, and rebuilding the east wall, from which the pointing had been washed by northeast storms of rain and caused it to fall. The lower and upper floors, and the two end roofs, were yet water tight when the house was taken down. The roofs on the north and south sides had become leaky, and more on the north than south side. The two end roofs were very steep, and those on the sides were somewhat steeper than roofs of the present time.
[BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS OF OUR ANCESTORS.]
As there has been a great change in the business transactions of people in this part of the country generally within the last half century, I have thought proper to give a more particular statement in relation to that of the inhabitants formerly of our present town, than what has been mentioned in the preceding part of this work.
Commencing with the ending and beginning of the year, I will in the first instance narrate the manner in which Christmas and New Year's days were kept.
The day preceding Christmas, preparations were made to enjoy some good diets on that and the next succeeding day, by baking cakes, boiling doughnuts, &c., on which to feast, especially the second Christmas day, when neighbors visited each other and partook of the good victuals previously and this day provided. Formerly two days were kept as Christmas, and two days as New Year's throughout our valley. The first Christmas day was kept holy and reverential as Sunday, and the second as mentioned, on the evening of which the young people generally had a dance. The day previous to New Year's, the same preparations were made for both New Year's days, and early in the morning of the first day, at or before break of day, a few individuals would be out in one part of the neighborhood and salute a near neighbor with the firing of guns by his door, which awakening the inmates they speedily arose out of their beds, and, on meeting their visitors, they mutually greeted each other with the wish of a Happy New Year, after which a treat of cider was given and sometimes other liquor after it became used, and some cakes, doughnuts and apples were distributed among them. Here they were joined by one or a few of this family and proceeded to the next neighbor, where the same routine was gone through and generally one or a few individuals were added at each house, and by this means quite a company was formed by passing through the neighborhood. In my time these proceedings began to be disapproved, and gradually ceased until they became abandoned. In all other respects, the first and second New Year's days were kept in the same manner as the second Christmas day.
After these festivities were past, the people resumed their business, which was very urgent at this time of the year, in which, before my time, it was said there generally was good sleighing and they had to do a great amount of teaming in the winter season while sleighing continued, to get their wheat to market, their fire wood, post and rail timber drawn, and much other work which teams had to perform. Wheat, in the first instance, had to be taken between 50 and 60 miles distance from our present town to market, afterwards between 40 and 50 miles.