102 BOARD OF AGRICm.TURE. 



mnflfled drums and arms reversed, they bore the bodies of the dead 

 captains, to lay them "In their graves, over-looking the tranquil 

 bay." The party reached the import settlement October 10, 1813. 

 Judge Oak had a log house on the east slope of what we call the Gar- 

 rison Hill, Mr. Joshua Putnam one across the road ; a small clearinsr 

 was around each of them. Above, at the top of the hill, Mr. Joseph 

 Houlton had built his log cabin ; his son James had a camp near 

 the present depot, and Mr. Aaron Putnam a log house and barn down 

 across the stream, near the present bridge. Such was Houlton and 

 the Saxon settlement of our county when she first looked upon it. 

 Mr. Joseph Houlton was one pioneer who felled the first tree in the 

 spring of 1807. His family were in AYoodstock that season. Sev- 

 eral grandchildren of Mr. Houlton still live with us. From Mrs. 

 Louisa S. Powers, one of those descendants, the fact was learned 

 that her mother, afterwards Mrs. Isaac Smith, was fourteen years 

 old that summer. She had told her daughter that in August her 

 mother got tired of staying alone at Woodstock and they two came 

 over on horseback to the place where Mr. Houlton was at work, in a 

 bit of a clearing at the foot of the east slope of the Garrison Hill ; 

 and as the women came in sight Mr. Houlton was busj^ cutting his 

 first crop of w^ieat. Neither Mrs. Powers nor Mrs. Putnam can say 

 just when the first potato was brought in and planted ; but putting 

 together all facts attainable, and merel3^ drawing a fair inference, it 

 is reasonable to believe that in June, 1807, Mr. Houlton planted the 

 first potato, and it was, undoubtedly^ that variet}' known as Early 

 Blue or Blue Nose. When Mrs. Putnam came, six years later, and 

 the settlement comprised the four log cabins and a camp, the settlers 

 had a supply of this kind of potatoes. Immediately after this season 

 came what is known, and remembered b}' these aged persons with a 

 shudder, as the cold years of 1814, 1815, 1816. Crops could not 

 grow and ripen and the seasons rather grew worse, till in 1816, on 

 the 9th of June, nine inches of snow fell in Madawaska, and the 

 ground was completely covered in Houlton, Mrs. Putnam's father 

 was a house carpenter and had moved his family to Woodstock be- 

 fore the worst of this distress came around. She remembered the 

 harrowing tales of crops cut off, of rj'e flour $17.00 a barrel at 

 Fredericton, of families going from six to eight weeks at a time 

 without a mouthful of bread to eat. 



