Written by D. Irving Mead and read by him at the annual meeting of the Westchester County Historical Society at White Plains on Oct. 28, 1931.
When my great-grandfather, Enoch Mead, at the age of twenty left Greenwich in 1776 with his young bride and settled in Cortlandt Manor, near Long Pond, now known as Lake Waccabuc, he was certainly a pioneer.
The Manor of Cortlandt was purchased from the Indians by Stephanus Van Cortlandt and erected into the Lordship and Manor of Cortlandt by King William III, June 17, 1697. In the partition of the Manor the vast territory was divided among his ten children, each receiving three great lots. These were divided into farms of approximately two hundred acres and leased to settlers who, in many cases, later purchased the fee. The easterly boundary of the Manor was called the Oblong or Manor line. Just south of Lake Waccabuc there is an angle in the Manor line which is referred to in a deed dated May 27, 1771 as a monument at ”an angle in the Oblong Line, called the Twenty Mile Monument,“ – twenty miles from Verplanks Point on the Hudson River. No such monument is to be found there now but the point is clearly indicated by a substantial stone wall.
In 1788 the townships were established by act of Legislature and then the Town of South Salem included not only the lower part of the Cortlandt Manor east of the Croton River, but that part of the oblong lying between Cortlandt Manor and the Connecticut Line. The township subsequently became Lewisboro.
Rev. Solomon Mead, an uncle of Enoch Mead, who graduated from Yale College in 1748, settled in Salem as the Pastor of the Presbyterian Church in 1752, and two other uncles, Jared and Deliverance Mead, purchased from the Cortlandt heirs a farm near Lake Waccabuc, May 27, 1771. No doubt Enoch Mead was influenced to settle there by reason of those associations.
According to the best information we have Enoch Mead and his bride journeyed into Massachusetts on their wedding trip on horseback, and on their return settled at Lake Waccabuc and built a log cabin where their first children were born.
In 1780, as indicated by a stone set into the chimney, a new house was erected, which is still occupied by his descendants and is known as Elmdon.
Enoch Mead, while still living in Greenwich, served as a private in Capt. Abraham Mead‘s Company, Greenwich, Conn. Militia, at the Lexington Alarm and Private of the same company, Ninth Regiment, Connecticut Militia, Lt. Col. John Mead, August and September 1776.
After moving to Lake Waccabuc he served as a private in the Westchester County Militia, Fourth Regiment, Col. Thaddeus Crane‘s, and as Adjutant, Westchester County Militia Associated Exempts.
In spite of the interruption of the war Enoch Mead apparently prospered as a farmer for he continued to acquire adjoining farms, and as the family grew their homes were built along the New York and Vermont Post Road, until the neighborhood was known as Mead Street, and has continued to be so called to the present time.
In 1807 he died and was buried in the Mead Street Burial Ground, leaving two sons and four daughters.
The oldest son, Solomon, occupied his father‘s house, and the other son, Alphred, built a house just south of the old home.
It is of the family of Alphred I wish to speak because he was my grandfather, and my father never tired telling of the life in his boyhood home. They were farmers, as were the uncles, and cousins, and neighbors, up and down Mead Street.
The little frame school house was located on their farm, and in some way they managed to get a good, if not a complete, education. One of the things which impresses me most as I think of that group of aunts, uncles and cousins, is the high average of intelligence which they possessed. They were all well informed and their letters are well written, and their ideas clearly expressed, yet, except for my father, none of them, so far as I know, had any schooling except what they obtained at the little school on the cross road.
They were real farmers and with five boys and two girls and a most capable wife my grandfather was well equipped to get more than a living out of the soil.
In those days before railroads and cold storage the problem was to feed the growing City of New York. Cattle were brought into Westchester County from the western part of the State and later from Ohio. They were fattened on the rich pastures and sold to the drovers who took them on the hoof to the New York market.
My father went on at least one occasion to Ohio and slept under the stars while his herd fed in the fields which were rented for that purpose along the way.
At other times the drovers passed by the farm and sold some of the lean steers to the farmers who would fatten them and sell them to the next drover who came along.
The farm produced almost everything the family needed except tea, salt and sweetening. What little they were compelled to buy was obtained through bartering eggs or farm products. They raised their own corn and grain which, after threshing with flails on their own barn floor, they took to Hoyt‘s Mill near Katonah, to be ground.
For the grinding of the corn, wheat or buckwheat, they made payment in kind, that is, one bushel of grain for so many bushels ground.
Sweetening was obtained by buying empty molasses barrels and cleaning them out to obtain the sugar.
In the spring they took the sheep to the stream where it crosses the State road to South Salem, near what is now Senator Agnew‘s place. Here they washed and scrubbed the wool thoroughly with home-made soft soap and rinsed the sheep in the running stream until the wool was white. Then the sheep were driven home and sheared by hand; the wool was picked over and carded and spun into yarn on the large spinning wheels and was sent to the nearest weaver, probably to some neighbor who operated a loom in his home. The cloth was dyed and taken to a fulling mill and made ready for use by shrinking and pressing. There was such a mill in North Salem. Then the cloth was made into clothing for the men, serving for many years.
Flax was also raised on the farm and after curing was broken and swingled until the fiber was completely separated from the wood. Then it was hackled and spun on the small flax wheels into thread, and this was sent to be woven into linen to be used for bedding, towels and tablecloths.
They cooked over open fires and baked in the Dutch ovens. They made their own yeast from their own hops.
The firewood was cut and drawn to the house one winter for the next year‘s supply so that it might season. Fence rails were split for fences over land too soft to hold stone walls, called zig-zag or snake fence, and for by-ways.
Hay was cut and dried and stored in the haymow of the huge barn.
Candles, which were the only source of artificial lighting, were made of tallow by dipping wicks into hot tallow or poured into candle moulds.
Pigs were slaughtered and the hams smoked in the smoke-house. Port was packed in brine and sausage cake was made and packed in tin pans.
Ice was not used to preserve food. Milk was kept in the spring or down the well on a rope. Butter was churned in large quantities when the milk supply was heavy and packed in firkins which were kept in the milk-room in the cool cellar adjoining the basement kitchen.
When there was nothing else to do they built stone walls, with the help of the strong and calm oxen, using crowbars and stone boats. They still stand in straight lines while the more modern ones have fallen down.
The house was heated by open fireplaces and Franklin stoves, and the beds in winter were made at least warm, if not comfortable, by feather beds and down spreads, supplied from their own geese, and on cold nights warming pans or hot bricks were also used. In summer, for greater comfort, the beds were filled with corn husks.
Some of the neighbors made shoes during the winter months. The leather tops, and soles, and findings were supplied to the farmer, and in a little building built for that purpose – generally just across the road from the house – he worked in the short winter days for a little cash, which the boss shoe-maker paid when he called for the finished goods in the spring.
Not to be outdone by the men, the women made shirts which came in the same way and were put together with cuffs, neckbands buttons and buttonholes, for which, I have been told, they were paid ten cents each.
As to diversions, I never heard my father speak of swimming or fishing, or skating on the lake, but the presence of many old fashioned skates in the Homestead indicate that they did. As to other diversions, the church seemed to occupy the first place, and I would like to read an account written by my father nearly fifty years ago which gives a picture of the joys of attending church in those primitive days.
Then there were the annual fall visits from the Greenwich cousins, which must have been a doubtful pleasure when we consider the added work entailed in entertaining them for an indefinite stay, and yet they were a most hospitable family for I can remember that my old aunt, who was born, lived and died on the farm, always said to one when leaving ”Come again when you can stay longer.“
My grandfather used to insist that if anyone came at meal time he should first feed his horse and then come into the house for dinner before he would discuss any business.
When the circus industry, which centered about Somers, returned to winter quarters, the owners were unable to house all of their wild animals in their own buildings and were in the habit of boarding them out with the farmers. In those early days, Peter Hall, who lived near the lake, had undertaken to board an elephant for the winter and while snow was still on the ground the elephant died. Having no easier way of disposing of the carcass they took it out on the lake which was then covered with ice, fastened rocks and chains to the body, and when the ice went out in the spring the elephant descended to his watery grave.
In 1848 the Harlem Railroad was opened as far as Whitlockville (later called Katonah), and thereafter the life of the farmer changed materially in character.
I have here a quotation from my father‘s diary written in 1849 showing how he reached New Haven by a long route:
Prepare to take my exit from home to New Haven. Leave home at 12 o‘clock, Whitlockville at 1.45 o‘clock. Reach New York about 4 o‘clock. Go down to Peck‘s Slip with D. Hunt and see Daniel Webster and lady on board the New Haven boat. Stayed at 25 Bowery. Leave Peck‘s Slip for New Haven at 7 o‘clock A.M., arrive at New Haven at 11.30 A.M.
Before the days of the railroads there were stages running from New York through Bedford to Ridgefield and Danbury. The overnight stopping place was at Russell‘s Tavern, the brick house near Cross River.
I have attempted to show how primitive life was in those early days and as I recall what my father told me, I cannot agree that ”What was good enough for the father is good enough for his children.“