62 FACTS RELATING TO GROTON, MASSACHUSETTS. 



Chaplin, our winter district schoolmasters were all from Cam- 

 bridge. Dr. Oliver Prescott was the oldest physician. There were 

 three stores; their owners were called merchants with great pro- 

 priety, for the number of articles they dealt in was never dreamed 

 of by the merchants of Tyre or Venice. Squire Brazer was the 

 richest and most important ; he was quite old and corpulent, with 

 reddish face, and wore a blue broad-tail dress-coat, with bright 

 brass buttons two inches in diameter, white vest and cravat, and 

 deep ruffled shirt, with black trousers, a high crowned hat with very 

 broad brim. In the course of my life I have seen some of the 

 mercantile magnates of Europe and this country, such as the 

 Barings and Rothschilds, Stephen Girard and Astor, but I have 

 never been so impressed as when in the presence of Squire Brazer. 

 My most painful early memories are with the bitterly cold church, 

 where there was no stove or furnace in winter. 



There were two grist and saw mills, Capell's on the Nashua and 

 Tarbell's on the Squannacook ; on the last named river was also a 

 carding and clothing mill of three brothers Rockwood. At that 

 time all farmers kept sheep for food, but mainly for clothing. The 

 wool was scoured in the family, carded into rolls about eighteen 

 inches long and two inches in diameter by the Rockwoods, spun in 

 the family on a stand-up wheel, backward and forward movement of 

 the spinner, and generally woven into flannel by the same person, 

 milled into cloth, dyed and finished by the Rockwoods. Some- 

 times a portion of wool was dyed a dark color, and mixed with 

 white wool to get a pepper and salt color. The flannels for both 

 sexes were made in the family, as well as sheets for winter. Flax 

 was universally raised, rotted (stiff" covering over the fibre), broken 

 and hetchelled, and spun on the small wheel with power from the 

 foot, making linen thread, which was woven into fabrics for domestic 

 use. The tow from the flax after hetchelling was made into a 

 coarse fabric for men's frocks and trousers. Men's and women's 

 underclothing, beyond the linen alluded to, was from the East 

 Indies. A cotton fabric from China, called nankeen (nankin), was 

 much used in summer by gentlemen. Carpets made from rags 

 were very common. I do not think there was any other kind in 

 Groton, and not one piano. 



The habit then was for all who could get it to use spirits, and drink 

 some before dinner, — even the most temperate. The better class 

 drank West India rum, and the poorer class New England rum. 

 French brandy was seldom taken. Cider was universally used till 



