Tempus fugit: Farmers’ Almanacs as Diaries

Tempus fugit:  Farmers’ Almanacs as Diaries                                by Alan Borer

Many Americans have no more contact with the agrarian world than the occasional glance at the Old Farmer’s Almanac.  Published annually since 1792, this creation of Robert B. Thomas is now on the steroids of modern marketing and online advertising.  It still provides guesstimates of what the weather will bring, along with arcane astrological information, planting by the moon, and witty asides.  It brings back the rural world of our forebears.  But were they ever actually used by farmers, or as an actual source of farm information?   The editors and publishers of the farmers’ almanacs were quick to point out that their predictions had no guarantees.  The information contained in an almanac was based on secrets, statistics, and luck.  But except as reading material, and later, as toilet paper, did farmers actually use the almanac?   And if they were, in what ways?

Facts about the readership of a publication as ephemeral as an almanac are themselves ephemeral.  We know that thousands were read, and that hundreds were kept.  They were kept for scratch paper, for nostalgia, and through a lack of time to make clear decisions about their preservation.  Many were saved by throwing them in the attic or barn.  But a precious few were saved as notepads, as diaries, or as farm record books.  Almanacs used in these ways may give us some clues about how they readers used them.  Evidence suggests that “farmer” and “almanac” was not just a fantasy, but in some cases, were a real thing.

Almanacs have a long history.  Often the only printed words in a home, after the Bible and, possibly, a prayer book, colonial Americans used the almanac to predict something out of their control: the weather.  Weather, and the growing season predicated by the weather, was handy to know in an agrarian world.  Any publication that offered advice on how to control or predict the weather was bound to be popular.  Before 1800, the almanacs were among the most popular books of the day.

            As long as America was mostly rural, the almanac maintained a hold on the popular imagination.  As the nineteenth century progressed, and mechanization and urbanization grew, the almanacs remained the same, but with a smaller audience.  From roughly 1820 to 1890, almanacs fell into two categories.  Institutional almanacs, published by newspapers, church denominations, and perhaps most notoriously, political parties, proliferated.  Our collective memory, such as it is, still contains the “Davy Crocket” almanacs of the 1830s and the “Tippecanoe” almanacs of the election of 1840.  They helped elect a congressman and a president.

            The other category of almanacs was the “farmers” almanacs, which continued to predict the weather, the crops, and the astronomical events of the year.  As the rural population declined, an element of nostalgia crept into their pages, as newly urbanized workers recalled, sometimes wistfully, the rural life they knew as children.  By 1890, when the census showed that America was no longer a nation with a frontier, fond yet selective memories of “grandfather’s farm” were sometimes the only exposure to country life people could claim.  The keyword there was ‘grandfather;’ farming, and the almanacs they chronicled, were increasingly a thing of the past.

            To understand the past, we need contemporaneous written words.  Certainly a printed almanac can be used to view the past, but if an almanac contains notes, we have, in effect, a stereo view: a tool, and, how the tool was used.  Most readers of almanacs left no comment, but a few did.  Half a lifetime spent in libraries and archives have given me a few rare glimpses of almanacs that were heavily annotated.  Several almanacs I have seen contain marginal notes on weather, daily events, and lists, whether of cows to be bred or of things bought and sold.  I have no real idea how many almanacs were used this way, but I have seen enough to know they are not unique.  Here are a few examples:

1910 Baugh’s Farmers’ Almanac

            One almanac/diary I have studied was published by the Baugh & Sons Company for the year 1910.  Founded in 1855, Baugh and Sons was, at one time, the oldest agricultural chemical company in the United States.  Specializing in bone meal applications for a variety of crops, the Philadelphia based company advertised their wares in part through a yearly almanac.  Appearing from about 1900 to 1923, the almanac contained the usual astronomical charts, coupled with pages advertising the company’s products.   

            The almanac in question was used as a diary of the work year.  Blank lines for each month provided enough space for use as a diary starting in March.  The diarist, who did not leave us his name, lived and worked in Cumberland County, New Jersey.  That he was a farmer quickly becomes apparent.  Starting in April he sowed oats; in May he plowed for and planted corn; the rest of the summer and fall were taken up with making hay, husking corn, and chopping wood.  Hunting was a pastime; our diarist called it “gunning; and noted on November 26 that he “killed three rabbits.”

            Cumberland County borders on the Atlantic Ocean, on Delaware Bay.  The diarist lived and farmed in a very mild climate.  Living near the beach, his soil was sandy, and he was able to grow and harvest many truck crops.  He “worked in melons” on June 18-19; later in the month, he planted watermelons and sweet potatoes.  On August 20, he “set out celery.”  In other places he mentions peas, strawberries, and “b berries,” without specifying blue or black.

            The farmer frequently mentioned using smelt, or smelts, as fish fertilizer.  “Disk Smelt P. M.,” he wrote on May 27.  On June 6, he “set out smelts,” later in the month he specified that he used smelt to fertilize potatoes.  Assuming he was right about the species of fish, this raises a host of questions.  Fish have been used as fertilizer for centuries, but not always successfully.  Smelt populations are variable; North Pacific smelt are endangered; Great Lakes stocks are dwindling.  Our farmer used manure as well as fish.  Did he use smelt simply because it was plentiful in 1910?  Or was there another reason?

1812 Wood’s Almanac

            In a fairly battered condition, the Wood’s Almanac was a Quaker publication.  Samuel Wood (????-1844) was a New York City bookseller and publisher, starting in 1803.  He specialized in children’s books with many illustrations and morals.[i]  Published irregularly from at least 1811 to 1831, the astronomical calculations were made by one Joshua Sharp, who provided content for several midatlantic publishers.

            The original owner of this almanac made notations around the margin of each month’s information.  He or she made notes of nearly every day of the month, exclusively on the weather.  For example, on the March page, they wrote “Natural Snow Storm 16[th];” “misty 17;” “cold 19:20 [19 & 20].”  Other days of the month were listed along the left or right margins of the monthly text.  Some months contained more detail than others; some months more (or less) days were skipped.  Every entry that I could find addressed the weather.

            In the modern era, we are sufficiently sheltered from the weather and its extremes that we only pay attention to the weather if we are interested.  Farmers still watch the skies, and many urban gardeners still complain about the lack or overabundance of rain.  But two hundred years ago, the weather was a constant obsession, at least for this reader.  Whether he prayed or gave thanks for change is unrecorded, but fascinated he certainly was.

1814 Farmer’s Almanac

            The final example is in the worst shape, yet is the most elaborate use of an almanac as journal.  The original owner, again unnamed, kept a beautifully written, miniscule commentary of the year and then pasted in a separate monthly log in between the two facing pages allowed for each month.  He or she also removed the iconic print symbolizing each month’s weather or work.  I am not quite clear why, possibly to show the forthcoming month.

            Whoever created this folk-calendar, the writing is still perfectly clear and legible.  Most entries kept track of daily weather conditions, but a few other comments can be found by the patient reader.  On April 8 the “grey goose set.”  On the 12^th of that same month, “began to plow.”  “John Blasdel …took his Pig” on May 26.  “Washed Sheep” and “sheared sheep” were the chores for June 3 and 8.  For July 30 was the day to “cut Barley” and “finished pulling Flax.”  It took several dictionaries to decipher the entry of May 15: “Cow enixa” or gave birth.  Not every day was about agriculture, especially in wartime: September 12: “Soldiers off to Portsmouth;” October 7:  “fair, windy, cold, Regimental Muster.”  Births and deaths were sometimes recorded; “Captain Hallaburton buried” on April 19^th.  Yet the main work of the year, the family farm, never ended.

            While we do not have the farmer’s name, the farm was somewhere in or near Candia, New Hampshire; several of his neighbors can be traced to there.  The diarist frequently mentioned Exeter and Portsmouth, two cities about twenty-five miles apart.  That was a day’s trip in 1814; today it would be less than an hour by car.  Have we made progress? Depends on your point of view.

            So we have come full circle, starting and finishing with Thomson and his Old Farmer’s Almanac.  Although no sweeping statement can be made, it appears that, at least in some places and some cases, farmers did and do use almanacs.  How an individual farmer used them is probably as broad and different as any set of readers can be.  But from the examples I have cited, I feel comfortable in saying that some old farmers did indeed use their almanacs – and not just in the outhouse.

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[i] https://books.google.com/books?id=q7B25EPMla4C&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=samuel+wood+printer&source=bl&ots=F4X7Bc9u_c&sig=ACfU3U2CGlSsFYa7--PN4nCC-lN_0jvlgA&hl=en&ppis=_c&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjJyeyr8MTmAhUGca0KHZFeBeUQ6AEwDXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=samuel%20wood%20printer&f=false; https://books.google.com/books?id=8xiHtwAACAAJ&dq=samuel+wood+almanac&hl=en&ppis=_c&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjTjNPZ8sTmAhVCVK0KHZDoCCMQ6AEwA3oECAEQAQ

Joseph Lincoln – Westerville’s Gravedigger

Joseph Lincoln – Westerville’s Gravedigger                                              

by Alan Borer

           

            In the 19^th century, every town needed a gravedigger.  Their proper word is “sexton.”  But the term is just a disguise for a job that could be very unpleasant.  We live in a culture that, until relatively recently, practiced “inhumation,” or burial in the earth.  That was the preferred method of disposing of the dead until 2015, when cremation outstripped earth burial in popularity.[i]  Modern cremation requires technology unavailable 150 years ago.  Burial was both feasible and inexpensive; cremation was taboo in many traditions and the choice of gravedigger often fell to the lowest class of society.

            In Harold Hancock’s book Nineteenth Century Westerville, we read the following quote in the section on the Otterbein Cemetery Association:

The first regularly paid employee was a man with the last name of Lincoln (black), who as ‘janitor’ in 1879 was charged with visiting the cemetery once per day, supervising the vault and digging the graves at the rate of $3 for adults and $2 for children. (p. 41)

Finding out the full name of the gravedigger appeared challenging, but was not actually too difficult.  Now that the vast compilation of almost 250 years of the United States Census is computer indexed, we can search for citizens by any one of a number of descriptors.  There was only one African-American man in Westerville in 1880 who fit Hancock’s quote, and that was Joseph Lincoln.

            Joseph Lincoln was born in 1812 in Virginia, and likely born a slave.  Most of his life is a blank.  Percentages suggest that he would have done fieldwork, although he could have been a house servant or craftsman.  We also have no idea when and why he came to Ohio, although given his (probably adopted) last name, it would have been during or after the Civil War.  We know he had a wife, Frances, who died in 1866.  Frances Lincoln is buried in Otterbein Cemetery, so the Lincolns must have called Westerville “home” by then.  In 1870, he was living in Blendon Township, where the census listed him as a “farm laborer.”  He was unable to read or write, and was listed as “mulatto,” or mixed race.  He lived in the household of Frank and Eliza Smith.  Frank Smith worked in a sawmill, and Eliza appeared to be Joseph Lincoln’s daughter.  

            In 1880, Joseph Lincoln lived right next door to Frank Smith.  Eliza ‘s job was now “hair work,” and their son John found employment at the “tile works,” probably the Everal works.  Joseph, now listed simply as “laborer,” sports the label of “father-in-law.” For unknown reasons, Joseph Limcoln lived in a separate building with a seven-year-old girl named Fannie Anderson, also black, and probably a relation.

            It is unknown how Joseph Lincoln advanced from freed slave to employee of the Cemetery Association, but a clue may be found in the same census roll.  Lincoln’s other neighbor in both 1870 and 1880 was none other than Henry Garst, Otterbein faculty member and future college president.  Garst may have been broad minded enough to help his black neighbor find work at the cemetery.  Garst had a black servant, Millie Stafford, in 1880, and she may have acted as go-between.

            Joseph Lincoln held the job of gravedigger about four years.  Although performing a job at the lowest stratum of society, he was well thought of.  A line in the October 27, 1883 issue of the Westerville Review read:

Joseph Lincoln, a well known colored man, died last Monday, aged seventy-one years.  He was buried in Otterbein Cemetery.

[Joseph Lincoln's marker, Otterbein Cemetery}

            Lincoln was laid to rest in ground that he knew well.  I wish we knew more about this man, born a slave and living in a time that considered him fit only for digging graves and other kinds of shovel work.  Did he resent his treatment, or did he look at Westerville as a home far superior to a Virginia slave quarters?  As historians, we can only speak from facts, and the facts just don’t exist to answer the many questions we wish we could ask Joseph Lincoln.          

           

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[i] Josh Sanburn, “Cremation Is Now Outpacing Traditional Burial in the U.S.,” Time Magazine, August 1, 2016.

The Harrison Trail, Sandusky County, Ohio

The  Harrison Trail, Sandusky County, Ohio                                          by Alan Borer

            If you visit Fremont, Ohio, in Sandusky County, you will likely see the home, museum, and estate of Rutherford B. Hayes, the nineteenth president.  It is a beautiful home, an interesting museum, and on a nice day, a pleasant park.  President Hayes inherited the parkland from his uncle, Sardis Birchard, who had named the woodland “Spiegel Grove.”  “Spiegel” is the German word for “mirror,” so named because rain puddles in the grove were thought to have a curiously reflective quality.  Hayes, incidentally, reflected on and was fascinated by the history of northwestern Ohio, and his museum is full of artifacts. 

            One artifact, the focus of this essay, is not a cannon ball, an Indian arrowhead, or a china teacup.  It is a road.  The road that winds through Spiegel Grove was once part of a trail that ran all the way across Ohio from Port Clinton in the north to Portsmouth in the south.  At the entrance to Spiegel Grove you will see the remnant trail marked as the “Harrison Trail,” named after General William Henry Harrison.  Harrison’s army did use the trail during the War of 1812, but they were not the only ones.  More properly, the road is also remembered as the Sandusky-Scioto Trail.

            General Harrison was only one of many users of the trail.  The trail started as a Native American pathway.  We sometimes think of our Indian forbears as limited to a small geographic area, but many tribes were extremely mobile, following woodland trails and paths to follow game.  Sometimes road use was seasonal, or separated into hunting men and garden-tending women.  Thus we cannot attach a specific date to when the trail came into use.

            The trail ran generally north/south, although not in a straight line.  “U.S. Route 33 follows the route of the Scioto Trail from the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers to State Route 161, where U.S. Route 33 becomes State Route 257. The Scioto Trail extended from the mouth of the Scioto River at Portsmouth (also known as Shawnee Town) to Sandusky Bay and connected the Shawnee's hunting grounds in Kentucky with Lake Erie. The trail ran along the Scioto River, the Little Scioto River, and the Sandusky River with a portage between the Little Scioto and Sandusky rivers in Crawford County. The Scioto Trail, used for warfare, trade, and migration, was one of the most important trails in the Old Northwest.”[i]

            British, Indian, and American forces used the trail.  It saw use in Pontiac’s War of 1764-65, Colonel Crawford’s disastrous massacre in 1782, and the British attempt to capture Fort Stephenson (modern Fremont) in 1813.  Harrison, knowing he was fighting a frontier war, built several forts along the Sandusky River, connected by the Sandusky-Scioto Trail.  South of Fort Stephenson came Fort Seneca, then Fort Ball (modern Tiffin) and Fort Feree (Upper Sandusky).  Sandusky River petered out in Crawford County, where travelers walked overland to the headwaters of Scioto River.  There they could put their canoes back in the water and travel on to the south.  Rarely an easy trip, any number of skirmishes and accidents occurred along the trail.  Colonel James V. Ball, whose name went to Fort Ball, was ambushed by Native tribesman, while travelling from Fort Stephenson to Fort Ball.  Ball was able to avoid casualties, but seventeen tribesmen were not so lucky.

            Spiegel Grove was bought by Sardis Birchard in 1845.  Presumably the trail was still obvious then.  As a busy lawyer, Hayes delayed building a home there until fifteen years later.  Service as a general, governor, and president meant irregular residence in Fremont, but Hayes retired there in 1881.  When his son, Webb Hayes, deeded the property to the state of Ohio in 1909-10, he specifically instructed that the Harrison Trail be preserved as a drive through the park.  Written into the deed, the trail survives to this day.[ii]

            Postally, this postcard is interesting for the message, if not for the markings.  A nice clear strike by the Gibsonburg post office.  Figure 2] The card was mailed to Helena, so sender, receiver, and picture on the reverse all are in Sandusky County.  The message, however, is distinctive:

Dear Neva – Mother has bought a little lard at the store.  But if your folks have any to spare she would like to have it.  Tell your mother to come whenever she can and when she comes to bring some “grease” along.  If she has 5 gal. we can use that.”  - Beulah.

            That’s a good deal of grease!  Neva Klotz was 15 when this card was written, and living on a farm with her parents, Samuel and Mary Klotz.  Neva lived to be 91, spending the whole of her days in Helena.  Growing up on a farm early in the twentieth century, she likely did have grease to spare.  And while Beulah did not sign her last name, the only Beulah in the census of the right age is Beulah Spangler.  Her father ran the water-works in Gibsonburg, confirming that her family would have to get along with store-bought lard.

          We rarely know who used a road before us.  Roads themselves change course, change design, and rarely stay the same. All the more reason, if you should find yourself in Fremont, take time to walk on the Harrison Trail.  Christopher Gist, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, and any number of presidents have walked this roadway.  You may share some memories, good or bad, with your fellow travelers

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[i] http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM3XCY_Scioto_Trail_Upper_Arlington_Ohio

[ii] LUCY ELLIOT KEELER, THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION OF THE BIRTH OF RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES AT SPIEGEL GROVE, FREMONT, OHIO (http://resources.ohiohistory.org/hayes/results.php)

Willis Perrine’s Roundabout Life

Willis Perrine’s Roundabout Life                                                    by Alan Borer

What do you do with a stack of old pictures that are not labeled?  The sheep-shearing party shown here is interesting as a way of looking into the past and how things have changed.  Other pictures in this group show barns, farm wagons, corn shocks, and family groups.  Very interesting, but could we attach a name to the pile?  Luckily, a few of the photos have a tiny hand stamp on their backs, marking them as property of W. A. Perrine, Toledo, Ohio.  And while I still do not know if these are siblings, cousins, or distant relatives, I could at least gather some clues from the story of Mr. Perrine.

Born in 1874 near Oakwood in Paulding County, Willis A. Perrine likely grew up on a farm.  His parents were Ithamar and Jane Perrin, who, later in life, lived in Continental in Putnam County.  Ithamar (some records spell it Ithmar) was a farmer, and his son Willis likely grew up on his father’s farm.  By 1903, he was living in Toledo where his occupation was railroad brakemen.  That year, he married Mary E. Hansen of Bettsville.  They had a daughter, Margaret.  Although he does not appear to have served, Willis’s World War I draft card showed him living at 1704 Oak Street and working as a “freight conductor” on the Pennsylvania Railroad.  Aged 44, the draft clerk described him as average height, slender build, dark blue yes, and gray hair.

In 1920, the Perrine family was still in Toledo.  On June 29, 1926 Mary Perrine died in Mansfield; Willis had moved his family there sometime in the early 1920s.  Willis married a woman named Ada.  By 1933, daughter Margaret was back in Toledo, living at 833 Broadway where married a Pennsylvanian,  Leroy Thieme.  The couple moved to California.  Meanwhile, Willis and Ada Perrine lived on in Mansfield.  Ada died in 1958; Willis died in 1961 and is buried next to his first wife in Old Fort, Ohio, near her hometown of Bettsville.

The picture mentioned above, printed with a postcard back for easy sharing, shows men watching what was a newfangled contraption in the 1910s.  For many centuries before this scene, sheep farmers sheered their sheep with hand held clippers, the design of which changed little for a thousand years.  Once electricity was available, shepherds had the ease of powered shearing machinery.  Much of rural America did not have electricity until the Rural Electrification program of the Depression era.  But between hand clippers and electric ones, there was the “Sheep Shearing Machine.”

If a shepherd wanted the speed of a power clipper, but did not have access to automatic power, they had the option of hand-cranked energy.  As can be seen in the photo, the man on the right did the shearing.  One can imagine that he needed to shear as fast as he could, problematic as sheep dance around and struggle when being shaved!  That is where the man on the left came in.  The shearing machine cranked a cable, which fed power to the clipping mechanism.  It must have been dull and repetitious to crank the power supply, but this machine was so much faster than the old hand clippers that it was eagerly adopted by sheep men.

People nowadays are very mobile.  What with (relatively) cheap gas, interstate highways, and satellite maps, almost anyone can up and move 1000 miles in the time it takes to pack the moving van – faster if you just want to stay for a weekend.  But I enjoyed looking into the less extravagant world off Willis A. Perrine of Paulding, Toledo, Mansfield, and Old Fort.

Rural Postmasters and Missing Persons

Rural Postmasters and Missing Persons                 by Alan Borer

            Relatively little has been written about the rural postmaster and their role in rural society.  That role is changing, and the change is accelerating.  Postmasters tend not to be “locals” anymore.  In the days of the USPO, they were appointed mainly for their political connections.  Often the village shopkeeper or owner of the local newspaper, the village postmaster received his appointment due to their work for whichever political party they belonged.  This system was loaded with corruption and malfeasance, but at least led to the appointment of resident citizens of wherever the postmaster was located.  Since the 1971 advent of the USPS and the closing of many small town post offices, the postmaster is whoever passes a civil service test, whether they have local connections or not.

            One of the tasks that settled on rural postmasters was that of an informal “missing persons” bureau.  In a mobile society, it is nearly impossible to track members of a population, missing persons bureau aside.  Fifty years ago, before forwarding addresses and the various “people-finding” websites, the local postmaster was often one’s only choice.  Even the smallest towns had runaways, soldiers who disappeared without a trace, and families looking for lost members.  The postmaster, who saw so many faces and knew where so many people lived, was worth a try.

            Take this example.  [Figure 1]  A big city resident contacted the postmaster of New Riegel in Seneca County:

Post Master

New Riegel

Ohio

Louisville, KY Mar 9, -52

Dear sir,

I am writing to you in regard to my Mother Catherine XXX.[i]  The last letter I received from her was November 7 -51 and she told me that my Brother Sylvester was going to sell the house and Every thing Nov 29, -51 and she was going to stay with him on the farm and I have wrote to her Every week or two since November Return address and all But never heard From Her.  As you may Know my Brother and I have not spoken since 1920, so I thought maybe she did not get my letters.  Hoping that you will let he hear from you once and send me her address, and tell me where She is at for I am awfully worried about her. . . .

            The answer to this query has not survived, however much we might like to know why two brothers refused to speak to each other for over thirty years!  But the answer is beside the point; it shows that one of the roles people saw for the postmaster was to provide information on the whereabouts of missing persons.

            Lest anyone presume that this was a phenomenon of the twentieth century, here is another example.  Just south of New Riegel, straddling the Wyandot-Seneca county line, is the village of McCutchenville.  Like New Riegel, its reason for being, at least originally, was to serve as a market town for a rural hinterland.  McCutchenville (originally McCutchinville) began life in Crawford County, before Wyandot County was established.  The two hamlets are roughly five miles apart, but the queries are chronologically distant.  From 1951, we jump back to 1839:

The Post Master

McCutchenville

Crawford Co

Ohio

Bucyrus May 9, 1839

Dear Sir,

A note has been left with me for collection against a man by the name of Henry Solatt [?].  I am informed that he lives near your place   If you are acquainted with a person of that name I shall esteem it a favor if you will inform me where he resides & what are his pecuniary circumstances.  This note was given for 30$ some four years ago

Very Respectfully

Yours Etc.

Franklin Adams

            This time we have a reply, partly because the reply was written on the same sheet:

McCutchenville O May 23 – 1839

[Illegible] reply to the above inquiry I briefly say that Mr. Slott [?]  resides about two miles from this village; & that his “pecuniary circumstances” are pretty good I believe

Yours &c

W. M. Brinkerhoff

            There is a bit of sarcasm in the postmaster’s reply.  But the query was answered, and presumably this “missing persons” case could proceed..

            It is unfortunate that New Riegel (and perhaps McCutchenville; data is missing) no longer has a postmaster.  On the USPS website, a statement reads:

On January 10, 2015, [New Riegel] converted to a Level 6 (6-hour)

Remotely Managed Post Office under the direction of the

Postmaster of the Tiffin Post Office. The Postmaster position remained
ultimately vacated.

          I'm sure the USPS had good reason to do this.  Villages all over Ohio have lost their postmasters.  But when a rural community loses its postmaster, it loses a community hlper, a familiar face, and even a finder of missing persons.

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[i] I have removed the name for the privacy of the family, many of whom still live in Seneca County.