A Remarkable Family
A Visit to the Farm of Benjamin Barber
How a Farmer Reared a Family of Twenty-one Children and Got Rich
Chenango Union, Norwich, NY, July 24, 1873
On the evening of the 28 March 1873, a small audience assembled in Sumner Hall, to listen to a lecture by Rev. Robert Collyer, of Chicago. A grand, splendidly developed Americanized Englishman was the lecturer. With the physique of a well preserved specimen of the man a little past the middle age, with a speech that had in it "the bit of a brogue" and with a voice that possessed a quaint, undertone of the pathetic, inexpressibly charming though at the same time sad, with gestures that unfailingly indicated the anvil work of his younger days, he stood before his hearers and with the sledge-hammer of his words shaped into comely form many a golden truth. His lecture was concerning "Clear Grit."....The speaker argued that every young man should "get married early and raise a large family." Enlarging under this head, he deplored the lack of families in our country. Large families were few. A grand family of a dozen, two dozen, was becoming unknown. The American race was dying out. The children of foreigners were supplanting the native born. Therein was the great peril of America, therein the impending danger of the nation.
The remarks of the speaker were brilliant generalities, just in a degree, but not altogether true. Within four miles of the hall where the speaker stood, was their refutation - was one of those very families the lack of which he lamented.
One day last week the Union reporter started out to interview the head of this remarkable family to get a little sketch of his life. He jumped aboard the afternoon train of the Midland south, and a splendid ride he had - better than a tonic. How grand to climb the hill at thirty miles an hour. There is such a sense of power in the puff of the engine. Then how the village, and the river and the farms glide around into sight, like well-trained dancers, and all the time you are leaving them, and the view is becoming broader and larger. The hills that first bounded the vision sink into undulations, and the horizon "moves on" to newer and more distant heights. The north is purple. The south is hazy. The farms dwindled into gardens. Absorbed in the view, the scream of the whistle startles you. You glance ahead, the cobweb of a bridge, spanning a deep ravine, waltzes into the picture. The train moves slower. You begin to climb the trees. You are halfway up the trunks. You are in the branches. You are above the tops. You are higher than the tallest tree piled upon the tallest tree. You are creeping along -one hundred and sixty feet in the air!
At Lyon Creek bridge we left the train. We scrambled down the stairway of sixty-seven steps; stumbled over the rocky plateau to the brow of the hill; hopped, skipped and jumped down the hill till we struck the road, followed down the road towards the west as it winds and turns with the Lyon Creek, till we came to the three corners. Here a sign board pointed to the south and read "3 miles to Oxford;" to the east and read "10 miles to Mt. Upton;" to the north and read "5 miles to Norwich." Shouldering his umbrella, the Union reporter started northward.
Advancing up the road and passing the highly cultivated farm of John Shattuck, Esq., adored with a splendid growth of fruit frees and ornamented with that sure index of a thrifty and intelligent farmer - a large well-built barn, we came to another equally attractive place - a fine two-story house, painted white with green blinds, hedged around by a luxurious growth of shrubbery and fruit trees, framed on the north by well-built and commodious barns and having for background the lofty hill over which we had just rode, and for foreground a long stretch of level flat, with the silver ribbon of the Chenango looped amid its waving growth of green. This was the place we sought - the home of Benjamin Barber, Esq.
Moving through the yard to the house, we came upon four stalwart, robust young men - sons of the owner of the farm.
"Is Mr. Barber at home?"
"Father? Yes sir. Walk in." And he led the way into the house. Here we were met by a gentleman perhaps five feet three inches tall, with hair touched a little with the frost of age, with hands somewhat knotty from the labor of three-score years, and a form which must have been tough and sinewy when young, but now somewhat bent by age.
Having been introduced, we passed the usual civilities. "We have come Mr. Barber," the Union reporter then remarked, "to obtain a little sketch of your life, if you have no objection to giving it. We represent the Chenango Union."
"I have no objections to giving the few facts in my history, but I must say that I have never affiliated with the party the Union represents, nor with the principles it has always advocated."
"That makes no difference. The Union is the great local newspaper of the County. It is determined to maintain its reputation as such, if time, energy and money can contribute to the result. No mere partisanship is allowed to stand in the way of a good item."
"Well then, I was born at Richmondville, Rhode Island, June 1st, 1801. In 1806 with my parents, I moved into this county. We came here in the middle of May - just two weeks before I was five years old. We moved upon this farm. Ezra Hutley lived here then. The only house on the farm was a log one. It stood where my woodhouse is now. Just across the road was a frame barn. We lived in that two weeks - cooking our victuals by the side of a pine stump. The barn was used afterwards as a church. That was sixty-seven years ago."
"Was the entire valley covered with forest?"
"There were only about ten acres of cleared land hereabout."
"Did you have any neighbors?"
"O yes; George Knapp lived on the farm below, where John Shattuck now resides. Ebenezer Wilcox lived on the first farm north. I own that farm now, and two farms above it. Rathbone Gates lived where the Half-Way house is. We had to shut up our sheep every night to keep them from the wolves and bears. I never shot a bear myself, but I have seen them brought in by the hunters. About the time we came here a grist and sawmill was put up. Before that the people had to go to the Forks, over forty miles, to get their grain ground."
"I remained here on the farm till I was twenty-one, then I went to work for Isaac Pendleton who lived up above here, for nine dollars a month. The next year I received ten dollars a month. Then I worked eight months for twelve dollars and a half per month. That was considered "awful wages" in those times."
"When I was twenty-six, I found my wife. She was only eighteen. Then I was worth about $600." (Mrs. Barber, a venerable and fine-looking matron of sixty-four, was seated by Mr. Barber's side during the interview.)
"At such wages, to layup that amount you must have saved about all you earned?"
"Well, I did. I never spent a cent for whiskey nor tobacco, and I have raised eighteen children, too, and not one used liquor or tobacco. I want you to put that down. After eight months I went to keeping house. I worked for eleven dollars a month and boarded myself. My employer was William Mygatt, of Oxford. He was just like a father to me. I worked for him for two years. When I quit, he told me 'When you want money, say to buy land, come to me, and you can have it and pay it whenever you have a mind to.' The last time I borrowed any, he let me have $1,500. I told him I would write him a note. He said: 'No-if your word ain't good for $1,500, your note ain't.' After I left him, I hired the Darwin Davis farm for three years. Then I came where I am now. It was nothing but a plank house then. I have fixed it up, you see. I kept a dairy and made cheese. In the fall I couldn't sell it for five cents per pound; so, I hitched up and went down to Honesdale, and there disposed of the whole lot for six cents. I felt pretty good after that."
"When I moved here in 1830, I had four cows. I kept sheep for about four years, but they didn't pay. So, I went to dairying. Butter was worth ten cents per pound then. In 1837, though, when the canal came through, butter jumped to fourteen cents, and potatoes rose from twenty cents a bushel to fifty cents. That year I bought a piece of land for $500. I paid for it inside of three years. I thought I was doing pretty well then. but prices continued to increase."
"The highest price I ever received for my butter, till the war, was twenty-five cents. When our civil war broke out - you know how it was. During each year of that time, I turned off from my farm $3,000 worth of butter and $1,000 worth of stock, besides pork, apples, and such product."
"How large a farm have you now?"
"Not far from three hundred and fifty acres. I did have four hundred, but the railroads have taken some, and I have sold a few acres to one of my boys."
"You gave to the Midland the right of way through your farm?"
"Yes. I wanted the Midland. We all wanted the midland. We needed an outlet. I not only gave the right of way, but I also put $1,000 into the stock. I think it will be worth something, some day. As it is now - counting the interest on the $1,000, and the taxes - I pay over $200 each year for the Midland. But then, I wanted it."
"The D.L. & W.R.R. goes through your land too, doesn't it?"
"Yes sir. It runs over three quarters of a mile right through my flat land. It takes out about six acres. I got $2,500 for it. Their lawyer, Brisbin, came to me and asked if I was going to give the right of way. I told him 'Yes, if you will run the road right along the side of the Midland, and I will give you $2,500 too.' I moved eleven barns to accommodate that railroad, and its locomotives burned four, besides."
"How many children did you say you had?"
"I've had born to me twenty-one. Eighteen of them have grown to manhood and womanhood. Twelve of them are girls, and six of them boys. All are married except five - three girls and two boys."
"Any Grandchildren?"
"Yes, eighteen. They've just caught up. I expect they'll get ahead now!"
"I suppose you have always voted the Republican ticket?"
"Always voted straight, and all my boys with me. We're just like a jug handle - all on one side."
"It must cost something to carry on this large farm?"
"It does. I pay over $1,000 every year for hired help, besides my own family. I always make it a practice to pay my boys and girls when they work for me. I don't want them to work for nothing."
"Do you make cheese?"
"No, butter pays better. I keep about fifty cows, and winter about one hundred head of stock."
"Well" - said we, rising to leave, "you have been very successful, Mr. Barber."
"I have no reason to complain. I have never lost much. Never have made many poor investments and have always been honest. I tell you, sir, it never pays to be dishonest. dishonesty in the long run, always finds the man out."
With this we bade Mr. Barber "good afternoon." A gentle rain was falling, but the Union expedition was undismayed. It rolled up its pants, hoisted its umbrella, and left for Norwich. At 5:45 it passed the Halfway house. Its proprietor was just starting out to catch a two-pound pickerel - to match the one he had caught the morning before. We wished him something better than "fisherman's luck." Then we "Westonized" on only stopping now and then to "berry up." A few minutes after seven the Union train whistled into Norwich, with two red flags of distress, prophesying blisters, displayed on either of its locomotive heels.
Very interesting
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