Building the Lodge (part 1)
New Ipswich Historical Society
Marion Davis Audio-Tape Transcriptions
Sometime before her death in 1986, Marion Davis recorded her memories at the encouragement of her brother, Walter Buck. The recordings were transcribed by a secretary.
The Friends of Wapack have made these available to the Historical Society. Marion was born on February 8, 1894 in Fitchburg, MA.
Cutting Timber
Well, having a trail was the incentive of having a place to put folks up overnight. For years Alice had been at me to go in with her on a tearoom business somewhere. Frank said, "All right, we'll start and build on the old Brown cellar hole. It was in 1923 that we started in cleaning out the cellar hole. That fall he and I cut timber down at the old Peppermint then some up on the side of. Grin and we hauled it down to where the Lodge was. It's a strange thing but right off that fall a mill set up right down by the old Peppermint. They had a portable sawmill down there and Frank went down to see if they would cut our lumber. They said yes they would saw it out for us if we got it down there. So we got it down to the road and they took it down to the mill, sawed out as Frank had marked it for us. They even brought it back up to the side of the road. We had to bring it up to the Lodge and stick it up so it could dry.
Then the next spring we hired a planer of Harris Rice and drew that over there. We had 2 tents at the time we borrowed a big one; I don't know who from) that we set up over this planer rigging. We rigged up a little splitting saw arrangement besides and we planed that lumber, the dimension stuff and the boards.
Photo Archives
The Brown’s cellar hole 1922 (foundation for lodge)
James Roger diary entry
2nd January 1913
Frosty, fine day; wind west to south. David went to Greenville in forenoon and brought grain and went to Depot in afternoon for barrel from Bayshore. I swept the Hall and fixed Church for Mary Whitney’s funeral; a large turnout of friends and visitors; also a big show of flowers. Got letters from Mrs. Hooper and May and cards from Bob, Cora, etc.
What, no pullets?
Been there, done that, as they say. My father and I cleared out the old Stillman Gibson cellar hole including the large center chimney. We cut timber with axes and a 2 man (or women) crosscut saw. Hauled them to Maki's sawmill. The first yr summer we enlarged the footprint (with pick & shovel) and put in a concrete foundation (hand mixed). The lumber was sticked (i.e. stacked with sticks to allow air flow). After 3 yrs of work we had a house that we moved into. Electricity brought in after the house was erected.