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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.
Well Maintenance and Firewood
When I worked on the farm there was always that delivery of milk to West Rindge and about 10 head to be milked night and morning. There was a big stone trough that set in the front of the barn that had been brought down from Fitzwilliam Granite Quarry. It was all in one piece. The water came down from a well way up on the hill by gravity down thru a lead pipe. They also had water in the house from that same source. People used to say "I'd think you'd get poisoned from a lead pipe", but Grandpa Robbins lived to be 93 years old and he said it never poisoned him. The well up on the hill was 8' across; I don't remember how deep, but it was pretty deep. I know once in a while a rabbit would get into that well. They'd dig down to make their nest and fall out thru the stonework so we had to go up there and dig all the way around that about 2 wide and 2 or 3 feet deep. We packed in stones and then poured cement over them and we finished that up so there was never any more of that kind of trouble. We had to do a lot of trimming around that well because a lot of foliage takes up water. Frank had got the sled pretty well piled with wood and he said, "I guess I'll go down with this. Don't do anything foolish while I'm gone". Of course I always had to bull into everything. I saw a dead pine and said, "Oh boy, I can cut that". So I swung the axe and it went thru it all right and right into my leg. It stung a little but I didn't think I had done much. I got the tree down but there was nothing but the bark, there was nothing inside. So I kept on trimming branches off of trees. When Frank came back he said, "What's the matter with you? You're white as chalk". I said, "Nothing". He said, "What did you do, did you cut yourself?" and I said, "I guess so". He said, "What's that on your boot?" Well, he took me down to the farmhouse, and I had a good cut in my leg. I had to stay down there for 3 days keeping my foot up. I learned how to swing an axe after that, though, I can tell you.
Photo Archives
Photo of a young man from the Society Archives, unidentified and undated
James Roger diary entry
3rd December 1912
Fair and mild; wind variable, going to East. David emptied coal and went for mail; then, Dan and him at Spoffords’ all day. Not feeling well, I stayed in the house except for going for forenoon mail. Got letters from Hamish and May.
Very good stories of wells. When I was a kid the men always did dowsing before drilling. I watched them once. It was not considered a superstition for them to do this. Just a practical step so the men wouldn’t start digging for nothing.
Young Marion learned the hard way that when it comes to humans v trees, the tree always wins and the ax or chainsaw always has the last laugh.
Yes, Marion learned how to swing an ax and participated in wood chopping contests beating most men she competed against. I also suffered Marion's fate when I was trimming a fallen tree and the ax hit my knee. On wells, my father and I dug 3 of them on the old Stillman Gibson property at the Whirlpool. They were 8 ft in diameter and 22 ft deep (the length of the ladder we had.). Only the third one was hooked up to the house we built. The first one involved using dynamite to get through the granite but at 22 ft we only had a trickle. The second one required pulling up a huge boulder but otherwise good digging and a fair amount of water. That one became our 'garden well'. The third one was 300 ft from the house which meant digging a 300 ft trench 4 ft deep. To pull the dirt up we used a tripod made from birch trees, a pulley system, and heavy rope and a 1940 Chevy picckup.