OLD HOMESTEAD 



Vashty Lyman or bearer, thirty-two good, merchantable store 

 sheep, to be delivered at the now dwelling-house of Silas 

 Lyman, in Lorraine — eighteen of the above to be ewes and 

 six lambs — no rams. 



^ c Benjm. Wise." 



Lorraine, June 5, 1824. 



A man with a mechanical turn, with a good stream running 

 through his farm on which were good mill-sites, and constantly 

 in need of lumber, could not live long surrounded by a forest 

 without having a sawmill, and in 1823 the old or upper dam 

 and mill were built. The flume was raised October 4, 1823. The 

 dam was a large one and the mill was not completed and run- 

 ning till 1824. As with the potashery accounts, the books are 

 full of barter trade but no cash entries. Logs were sawed on 

 shares for customers, and the one-half going to the mill was 

 marketed the best way possible. The farm and potashery and 

 store did not give him work enough, so he had to have the mill, 

 with the business of cutting and hauling logs, sawing and draw- 

 ing lumber, which in turn was exchanged for lime, salt, brick 

 and other kinds of property desired. This old mill went down 

 about 1838 and a new mill was built near the four corners west 

 of the house, about the year 1842. 



He liked work in which there was more interest than the 

 routine labor of a small farm, and in 1827 he built for John H. 

 Whipple the old stone block in Adams. He lost largely in 

 doing the job and did not fully recover financially until he fell 

 back upon the dairy, using the profits derived from that source 

 for several years to make good the amount lost in one summer 

 as an amateur contractor and builder. 



He built the school-house in District No. 4 in 1828, and the 

 Congregational meeting-house in 1830; this last was an unfor- 



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