Colebrook town expenses, 1814 : 1825

I find it interesting every so often to review public expenses.  The old ledgers of towns, businesses, physicians, tradesmen and just plain farmers sit on shelves (if they are fortunate enough to have survived at all) unread and unnoticed, and yet they will reveal a wealth of information if given half a chance.

It is comforting to know that poor Mrs. Sweet, although a ward of the town, probably through no fault of her own, receives her gin and tobacco, and there was no public outcry by holier-than-thou residents as to the expenditure of public funds for such a purpose.

Wages were low almost to the point of being nonexistent.  The town allowed 68 cents to be deducted from property taxes for spending a 10-hour day working on the highways, but when you read these figures, it becomes understandable. And before you think of these as “the good old days,â€� remember that most of the graves Seth Whiting dug for $1.67 each, probably were for someone who would have easily survived if living today.

The following list of expenses dates back to the early 19th century in Colebrook. There was a previous ledger alluded to, but we don’t have it.  When the entries cease in this volume, expenses were kept in the selectmen’s journals.

1814 John Tyler received for services as selectman for 1814    $15.59

Tyler, for carting and putting on planks on the bridge near his house     .83

Seth Whiting, on Nov. 8, for planking a bridge .75

1815 Seth Whiting, for opening six graves in 1815 and 1816    10.00

 Selah Treet, on Apr. 10 for 3/4 of a bu. of rye     1.00

 For Mrs. Sweet [ward of town], 1 pint of gin      .36

 Enoch Horton, by building bridge over Farmington River     235.00

   By two string pieces extra     10.00

   By drawing timber for bridge    12.58

   $257.58

1816 Elijah Grant, for six days as selectman     6.00

 9 yards of flannel for John Wright and Reuben Bobbs’ child    6.68

 Mrs. Holcomb, for keeping your child up to the 15th of Sept. @ $55.00 per year    41.25

 Bildad Seymour by work and plank for bridge near Couets    2.60

 Daniel Stillman, by pair of shoes for Rowley Burnham    1.00

1817 (June) 137 1/2 lbs. rye flour @ 4 1/2 ¢     6.19

 2 bu. potatoes    1.00

 For repairing Forge Bridge    10.76

 By 13 lbs. of mutton for Solomon Moor     .65

 By 3 pecks of rye and 54 1/2 lbs. flour    2.66

 By 1/2 bu. turnips    .12

 By moving Solomon Moore and family from Winsted    2.75

 By 1 1/2 lbs. tobacco for Mrs. Sweet, plus postage for one letter    .23

 Daniel Phelps by plank for the bridge east of our house and putting on    .50

 (Sept. 15) By 215 feet of plank for Sandy Brook Bridge    2.50

 By 3 1/2 days work at bridge    3.50

 By oxen to draw timber for the same    .68

 By 4 strong pieces for the bridge    2.00

 By 375 feet of plank for bridge    3.75

 By 2 quarts of brandy     .40

 (Sept. 18) Erastus Seymour, by building a bridge by Elisha Sage’s

  shop.  [The bridge at the Center on Rt. 183.]    21.00

1818 (January) Levi Hitchcock, by boarding Thomas Simons and wife

  and child 3 weeks and 2 children 4 days    7.00

 (Sept.) John Minor, by building part of the bridge near

 Capt. Phelps with Alpha Simons     8.55

  By making an abutment to road west of the river in

  company with A. Simons    7.50

 (Oct. 19) Jesse Carrington, for doctoring the Town poor to date     50.00

1819 Martin Rockwell, by building Mill Brook Bridge    15.00

1820 Jan. 1820 thru Jan. 1821, Mrs. Holcomb’s son kept one year    64.67

1823 (May 11) by 245 feet of plank and putting on    2.80

 (Sept.) Jonathan Stillman, by work at Viets Brook Bridge    1.00

 (Oct.) Henry Bass, by 121 lbs. of pork @ 4 3/4 ¢    6.12

1824 (Jan. 10) by repairing Simons’ Bridge    5.75

1825 (Jan. 4) Nathan Bass, by building a bridge across Wright’s Brook    5.00

 (Jan. 5) By repairing bridge    5.00

 (July) by labor, plank and timber for bridges    18.70

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less