Oliver and Elizabeth (Wheeler)
Farnsworth had six children. The oldest, Havilah, was born in 1769
in Charlestown, ten months after his parents were married. The next
two children, Abijah (1771) and Biel, whose given name was Abial
(1772) were also born in Charlestown. The last three children,
Oliver Jr (1775), Elizabeth (1776) and Phebe (1778) were born in
Woodstock. Oliver and Elizabeth moved to Woodstock with three
toddlers. The five oldest children lived to be adults. It's pretty
likely that Phebe died early, since I can't find any record of her
marrying, or a date for her death.
The Farnsworths lived in the Number 9
School district in Woodstock. The kids would have gone to school at
the District 9 School. Henry Swan Dana, author of “The History
of Woodstock , tells us in the book that although the first
District 9 schoolhouse might have been a log building, the only
schoolhouse on record for District 9 was of frame construction.
There was a good spring fifteen rods west of the building, where
students went to get a drink of water. A container of water was not
kept in the building for students to drink out of, which was probably
healthier in the longrun, anyway.
Inside the schoolhouse, benches were
built along three sides of the room, with desks attached to the front
of them. There were openings at either end of the benches, and in
the middle, but if you were blocked in by other students, you just
jumped over the desk to get out. There was an ordinary sized table in
one corner for the teacher, but he shared it with four of the older
students.
The schoolhouse was heated by a
fireplace. The students who were old enough took turns building the
fire. Boys bowed and girls curtseyed when they entered the school,
and they were also taught that when they were walking along the road
in a group, and an adult passed in a wagon or carriage, they had to
line up single file and take their hats off to show respect.
Students wrote with quill pens and
ink. Ink wells were made with lead and pewter, and students who were
too poor to buy these metals used a cow's horn, cut off at both ends
and fitted with a bottom and a top. Ink was made from boiled white
maple bark. The quills were goose quills, feathers that were
specially prepared by the teacher before the day began. Dana says,
“
The teacher was accustomed to
be at his post half an hour before it was time to begin the morning
session, to provide beforehand a batch of pens for the day's use, and
yet during school hours always some one would be calling out, "Please
mend my pen." Catherine Reef, in
Education
and Learning in America,
says that sometimes a skill at mending pens was the most important
qualification for a teacher. The phrase “pen knife”, now used for
any small knife, was originally used to indicate a knife used for
cutting and repairing quill pens. As people wrote with the quills,
the quills would break down and lose their point, and either the
writer, in the case of an adult, or the teacher, in the case of a
student, would use the pen knife to cut a new point into the end of
the quill.
The notebook of the day was called a copybook. Copybooks didn't come
with lines in them. Students drew the lines themselves, using a ruler
and a plummet. Plummets were the ancestor of the pencil. They were
made at home by melting waste lead and pouring it into cracks cut
into a piece of wood especially for this purpose. Sometimes people
used the cracks in the floor. After these thin pieces of lead
cooled, a hole might be made in one end, and a string or thread put
through the hole so that the students could carry them to school
around their neck and not lose them. Of course, at that time no one
knew about lead poisoning!
There were very few textbooks. Beginning readers in New England
often used the “New England Primer”, which featured verses based
on the alphabet, a strict moral code, and biblical principles. In
some schools, advanced math students studied from “Root's
Arithmetic”, the first math textbook, written by Erastus Root, a
Dartmouth graduate. It is impossible to know if Woodstock schools
had these books.
Oliver died in 1785 at age 44. Havilah would have been 16 years
old. Elizabeth remarried, to Reverend Elijah Norton. I can't find
out much about him, although Elizabeth died before him. Abijah's will
mentions “my honored mother, Elizabeth Norton”, and we know that
Elizabeth lived in Woodstock at the time of her death. It is
impossible to know whether or not the children lived with Elizabeth
and her new husband.
Havilah and Oliver, Jr became printers, spending part of their lives
in Newport, Rhode Island and part of their lives in Ohio. Havilah
became a doctor and stayed in Ohio. Oliver, Jr left Ohio to return
to Newport, where he died. Abijah died in his early 40's and his
wife died a year later. Three of their children became wards of
Bezer Simmons, a sea captain. Abial accompanied his Aunt Relief and
Uncle Warren Cottle to Cottleville, Missouri. Elizabeth did marry,
but there is no other information about her.
Eunice Farnsworth lived with her son Stephen, Jr, until her death at
age 89, in 1811. Her obituary, in the Vermont Republican, says,
“She left a numerous offspring, namely, six children, forty-six
grandchildren, and seventy-five
great-grandchildren, making in all one hundred and twenty-seven.
She never experienced a fit of
sickness in the course of her life, except a slight attack of
fever. She never made use of many
of the luxuries of life; was much averse to spirituous liquor of
any kind. Her principal diet milk and vegetables. She was confined in her last sickness about nine
weeks, during which distressing scene
she manifested the greatest calmness, composure of mind, and
Christian fortitude, and left the
world in the
full assurance of a blessed immortality beyond the grave.” We know
that she outlived at least one of her sons, Oliver. It must be hard
to live longer than your kids.
