FIRST SETTLERS AND EARLY HOME LIFE 



the astuteness of a Litchfield County man during Revo- 

 lutionary days. Up to this time nails were all ham- 

 mered out of bar iron, a slow and expensive process. 

 There was a slitting mill in New Jersey in which nail 

 rods were made, but the process was kept secret. 

 Samuel Forbes of Canaan wished to obtain a know- 

 ledge of it, and so employed an ingenious mechanic and 

 millwright, who, under disguise, obtained admission to 

 the mill and critically and without suspicion marked the 

 machinery and its operations so as to be able to make a 

 model of the machine and construct a mill for Forbes. 

 The shingles used in the early days were all riven 

 by hand. "A block was sawn from whatever wood was 

 handy, ash or chestnut or pine, but a good straight 

 grain. Then the piece was set on end and it was care- 

 fully split into thin pieces by frow and wooden mallet. 

 These were then shaved to the proper thinness and 

 would last, even the pine shingle, for fifty years. And 

 that was because they didn't lay 'em so tight. What 

 was a frow? Oh, it was like a broad, thin-bladed axe, 

 and was always struck by a mallet to drive it in." 



But it was the great stone chimney with its flanking 

 fireplaces that was the heart of the home. Built of 

 rough field stone, rudely cut into blocks, the chimney 

 often took up as much space on the first floor as a mod- 

 ern city room. This great size was necessary to pro- 

 vide flues for the many fireplaces which were built in it, 



