All the Brontës, father, mother, sons, and daughters, to the number of twelve, were clad in wool, and they were the healthiest, handsomest, strongest, heartiest family in the whole country. They were a standing proof of the excellency of the woollen theory, and it is interesting to note how Hugh Brontë’s theory and practice have received approval in our own day. For a time the Brontës had to look to others to weave their yarn into the blankets and friezes that they required, but Patrick was taught to weave as soon as he was able to throw the shuttle and roll the beam, and then his father’s house manufactured 454 for themselves everything they wore, from the raw staple to the gracefully fitting corset.
Even the scarlet mantle for which “Ayles” Brontë is still remembered in Ballynaskeagh was carded, spun, knitted, and dyed by Mrs. Brontë’s own hands. The spirit of independence manifested by the Brontës in England was a survival of a still sturdier spirit that had had its origin in one of the humblest cabins in County Down.
As time passed Hugh Brontë became a famous ditcher. There is a very old man called Hugh Norton, living in Ballynaskeagh, who remembers him making fences and philosophizing at the same time. It is very probable that the introduction of corn-kilns constructed of burnt pottery may have left him without custom for his straw-mat kiln, just as the introduction of machinery at a later period left the country hand-looms idle.
In Hugh Brontë’s time more careful attention began to be given to the land. Bogs were drained, fields fenced, roads constructed, bridges made, houses built, with greater energy than had ever been known before, and, although the landlord generally raised the rent on every improvement effected by the tenant, the wave of prosperity and improvement continued. Hugh Brontë was a good, steady workman, and found constant employment, and at that time wages rose from sixpence per day to eightpence and tenpence. The sod fences made by him still stand as a monument of honest work, and there are few country districts where huntsmen would find greater difficulty with the fences than in Emdale and Ballynaskeagh.
As Hugh Brontë advanced in life he continued to prosper. He removed from the Emdale cottage to a larger house in Lisnacreevy, and from thence he and his family went home to live with Red Paddy, Mrs. Brontë’s brother. On the Ballynaskeagh farm the children found full scope for their energies, and they continued to prosper and purchase surrounding farms until they were in very comfortable circumstances. The Brontës were greatly advanced in their prosperity by a discovery made by one of their countrymen. John Loudon Macadam was a County Down surveyor. He wrote several treatises on road-making of a revolutionary character. His proposal was to make roads by laying down layers of broken stones, which he said would become hardened into a solid mass by the traffic passing over them.
For a time he was the subject of much ridicule, but he persevered, and proved his theory in a practical fashion. The importance of the invention was acknowledged by a grant from the government of ten thousand pounds, which he accepted, and by the offer of a baronetcy, which he declined. He lived to see the world’s highways improved by his discovery, and the English language enriched by his name.
The old, unscientific road-makers were too conservative to engage in the construction of macadamized roads, but the Brontës were shrewd enough to see the value of the new method, and they tendered for county contracts, and their tenders were accepted. Then the way to fortune lay open before them. They opened quarries on their own land, where they found an inexhaustible supply of stone, easily broken to the required size. With suitable stone ready to their hands they had a great advantage over all rivals, and for a generation the macadamizing of the roads in the neighborhood was practically a monopoly in the Brontë family.
I remember the excellent carts and horses employed by the Brontës on the road, and I also distinctly recollect that the names painted on the carts were spelled “Brontë,” the pronunciation being “Brontë,” never “Prunty,” as has been alleged.
With the lucrative monopoly of road-making added to their farm profits the Brontës grew in wealth. They raised on their farm the oats and fodder required by the horses, and, as the brothers did a large amount of the work themselves and had nothing to purchase, the money received for road-making was nearly all profit.
In those days the Brontës added field to field, until they farmed a considerable 455 tract of land, which they held from a model landlord called Sharman Crawford. That was the period at which a two-storied house was built, and there were houses occupied by the Brontës, from the two-storied house down to the thatched cottage. In fact, the house of Red Paddy McClory, in which Alice was born and reared, stood about half-way between the two-storied house and the cabin. The foundations of the house in which Charlotte Brontë’s Irish grandmother was born are still visible.