Rum and Carpentry

I am trying to find a link to the Chase family that takes me somewhere else in the Upper Valley. Bethel is an outlying town, and much of the Chase family were either early proprietors or settlers in Bethel. I wasn't going to continue posting about Bethel, because I ended up in Bethel with the Akins family, and here I am again with the Chases. However, as I read the stories, they are so interesting, I feel compelled to share them. There are some interesting stories in Bethel's past. Part of the reason there are so many stories available on the internet is the book “Two Vermont Hollows, a History of Gilead and Little Hollows, published in Randolph in 1976. This book is often quoted on various genealogical sites, and would be a gem of a book to read over the winter, for anyone interested in the history of Bethel.

Dudley and Alice's oldest child, Mercy,, born in Sutton, Massachusetts, moved to Cornish when she was 10 years old. She was one of the kids who traveled up from Fort Number 4 in the canoe when Alice demanded to be taken to Dudley. She married Stephen Child in 1778 when she was 23. Stephen had served in the Revolutionary War under Jonathan, and was with him during the aborted trip to Ticonderoga. He was a corporal under Jonathan, and returned to New York State with Jonathan as they marched to the Battle of Saratoga, and witnessed the surrender of Burgoyne.

Along with Dudley, Stephen was one of the early proprietors of Bethel, although he never lived there. He and Mercy lived to be old in Cornish. Stephen died at age 82 and Mercy died at age 80.

Two of their sons, Daniel and Enos, did move to Bethel.

Daniel married Apama Lyman, from Lebanon, in 1804, when he was 25 and she was 19. They moved to Rochester as newlyweds. Apparently Dudley Chase was one of the proprietors of Rochester,and he sold his grandson Daniel a hundred acre lot. Daniel and Apama cleared their land and built a house. Daniel had settled in Rochester because the road from southern Vermont to Montpelier was supposed to go through Rochester Hollow near his land. The road was never built, and in the summer of 1818 the Childs moved to Bethel. By this time they had six children: Emily, Abel, Philander, Eliza, Elijah and Lucy.

Daniel relocated in Bethel by trading his farm in an even trade with Charles Morse. Morse took possession of Daniel's farm in Rochester, and Daniel moved to Morse's farm in Bethel. When they moved to Bethel, the Childs were not satisfied with the house there so they hired Chester and Cyrus Chapman to build another. The 1820 census lists a Charles Morse living in Rochester, and he had a wife and two children. It is entirely possible that the Morse house was not big enough for six children.

Leyland Wood, in his book “Two Vermont Hollows”, published in Randolph in 1976, says that the Chapman brothers built the house for an unspecified amount of money and all the rum they could drink. He goes on to say that “The builders must have been able to carry their liquor well. It is doubtful if present day builders would be able to construct a house that was true and plumb if they were to consume a gallon of liquor daily.” I have lived in old houses all my life, and have always wondered if carpenters from that era had even ever heard of a plumb line or a level. Now I know that there may have been other reasons for the uneven floors and slanted molding in the houses that were built back then.

The story was that Daniel's two sons, Abel and Philander, carried the rum from Bethel every day. The rum was contained in a gallon jug, and the two boys carried it between them strung on a stick.

In 1818 Abel was 8 years old and Philander was 6. It's hard to imagine such young boys doing such a huge job, but it certainly wasn't uncommon in that day and age.

The “Two Hollows” book describes the location of the house as being “in the short cross road from the Camp Brook Road to the present Route 12, the first place on the right going south.” From this description, it is a fair estimate that the boys walked a little more than two miles every day to deliver the rum. The question is, did they walk from the farm to Bethel, get the rum, and bring it all the way back? If so, it would have been a four mile walk. Did they get a ride to Bethel in the farm wagon, and then walk back? Were they living in town in Bethel while the house was being built? If so, they walked from town to the building site and then back to town again.

At one point, Daniel thought he might want to move to Ohio. Several of his Chase relatives had moved there and he thought he would check it out, so he walked there, didn't like it, and walked back.

He was very involved in town and church affairs. He was one of the organizers of the Old Christ Church. He was also the clerk of the Episcopal district of the area. Wood, in “Two Vermont Hollows”, tells that the local paper was the “Woodstock Mercury”, and Daniel would stop in at the
post office on Friday and gather up all the papers belonging to the subscribers that were church members, and hold them hostage until Sunday, when he would scatter them on the pews of the church, making it necessary for those people to come to church to get their papers.

                                                                                                                                                                          Old Christ Church in Bethel                                                                                  

Daniel was a surveyor and was well known for keeping meticulous records and being very focused on details. His surveying work was accurate and well documented, and even in the 1970's, landowners used his old documents to ascertain property lines. He was also the town clerk for many years. He was famous for his beautiful handwriting, and in 1829 the town hired him to recopy the records of the early proprietors, as well as the early vital statistics. His work is still in the town vault.

Daniel and Apama had nine children and lived to their early seventies. Daniel dropped dead in the streets of downtown Bethel when he was 73. Just to keep things in perspective, Dudley and Alice Chase were Daniel's grandparents. Jonathan was Daniel's great-uncle. Allace and Bibye Cotton were his Aunt and Uncle, as were Lois and Benjamin Smith. There is every indication that the various branches of the Chase extended family in Bethel got along, so Daniel and his children probably spent a lot of time with many of these relatives, all of whom had large families of their own.

Note to readers:Looking at google maps, I can see where the end of Camp Brook Road makes a fork into Route 12. Using the street view, there is a house that appears quite old that would be the first right headed south. I hesitate to definitively say this is the house, but if you are reading this, and you have some extra time, and are interested, head to google maps, give it a look, and email your comments, or comment on this blog. If I have time in the next few weeks, I'll head up to the Bethel town clerk's office and do a title search on this house to see if it is Daniel and Apama's house.