By Silvia Harrow
The inventory of Jonathan Fairbanks represents his and his families’ way of life in New England. Few things found on the inventory came from England. So the inventory depicts Jonathan’s life work from 1633 to 1668 when he died at age seventy-four.
Jonathan, like many English emigrants, was in the middling class financially when he came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. From Fairbanks’s inventory at death, his assets were valued about average.
In Inventory of Jonathan Fairbanks of Dedham, Massachusetts 1668: Part I, we explored the items found in the original house built by Jonathan Fairbanks which was begun in 1636/37. The new settlers were required by town law (DTR Vol 3, page 23 ) to occupy their houses by November of the same year. In part two, we explore the “new house” or additional lean-to that was erected about 1641, the cellars, yard, livestock, and land.
The Lean-to
The Fairbanks House, Dedham, Massachusetts, north or rear of the house. Taken by Sharmin Fairbanks McKenny.
A lean-to was added to the original 15.5’ by 35 ‘ wood frame house built by the Fairbanks Family. This was a typical addition to houses in the early 1600’s. The lean-to was joined to the rear or north side of the house. This provided another room and acted as insulation for the lower rooms against the severe English winters.
The roof line of the lean-to became a continuation of the roof of the original house, sloping down to within five feet of the ground. There was an entrance on the north from the outside. Doors opened into both the hall and the parlor from inside the lean-to.
North door of the lean-to at The Fairbanks House
The purpose of the spare room/s can be surmised based on the contents listed six days after Jonathan Fairbanks’s death. Being on the north of the house and having no fireplace, the lean-to was cooler than the other rooms. That would make it suitable for processing dairy products, cheese and butter, and storing grains.
Farming Tools found at NPS Saugus Ironworks museum. Cross-cut saw above. Iron and wooden shovels. Picture by Sharmin Fairbanks McKenny
The area was definitely used for storage of tools. Five pitchforks, three rakes (one made of iron, likely with a wooden handle), three keelers or small shallow tubs, one half-bushel (probably a basket or other container), one half-peck container (for dry content equal to eight quarts), and lumber were found listed together. Another listing in the lean-to itemized more hand tools, three spades, four hoes, three shovels, two cross-cut saws, five old sickles, and one iron cablet (a small cable, especially a cablelaid rope under ten inches in circumference).
The last items found in the new house related to the work of the women. For cheese making, there was one cheese press and two cheese fats. One tow comb (a comb used to remove the woody parts of flax, hemp, or jute when processing). There was also a screw for grinding and ropes.
Tow comb for removing woody parts of flax, hemp, and jute. The Fairbanks House
Cheese press at The Fairbanks House
For spinning or making spinning wheels, there were lumber and rims for the wheels. There was also one beetle (a tool resembling a hammer with a large wood head to drive wedges), and four wedges.
There were draft chains, part of harnessing for the oxen or horses to pull a plow or load. There were also other irons. Jonathan needed these to clear and cultivate the lands that he received in Dedham.
Beetles at The Fairbanks House
Lean-to Chamber
The lean-to had a chamber, like the original house. The chamber or upper room of the lean-to was used for storage. Indian corn, rye, pease, wheat, hemp, flax, and hops were itemized in that storage area.
Working Cellar
The working cellar was probably below the original house. If you visit the Fairbanks House today you can find a door to the cellar that is under one of the additions on the west. In that entry door, rose-head nails or nails that were hand wrought were used. These are believed to be some of the original nails in the house.
Believed to be the original hand wrought rose-head nail at The Fairbanks House
Believed to be original cellar door, now door to cellar of west addition. The Fairbanks House
Note: nails were expensive at that time. They also rusted. The frame of the house was constructed without use of iron nails. The wooden pegs and the use of interlocking wood made the house more resistant to aging. If a house or building of the early 1600’s burned, the owners or others would sift through the cooled ashes for the nails so they could be used again.
In the working cellar, there were two vises, one turning lathe, and other small things. These items, with the spinning wheel rims and wood found in the new house, leads us to believed that Jonathan built spinning wheels.
Another Cellar
There is no mention where “another cellar” was. Perhaps it was deep in the ground where things could be kept cool. In this cellar there were four beer vessels, three tubs, one chair, five keelers, three trays, and one old cupboard. The beer vessels could have been barrels that George, the second son, made as a cooper.
After the dairy products and meats were processed, this is where the cheese, butter, beef, and tallow were kept. Cheese became known as “white meat” and was consumed during the winter when flesh meat was not available or was used sparingly to preserve it throughout the winter.
Dipping tallow candles. Image from Pintrest
Cattle were slaughtered in late fall when it was cool. It could be hung to age, and there was not a rush to processing or preserve it.. The organ meat was used first because it was more difficult to preserve. All parts of the animal were used or preserved, including rendering the tallow (fat) for candles and lye soap, and lubricant for leather. Tallow candles smoked and smelled. Bees wax candles from England were preferable, however they were very expensive.
Yard Cellar
The Pilgrims encountered cellars when they landed and found caches of buried corn where the Indigenous People stored their produce for winter use. Cellar helped to preserve foods by keeping them cool and out of the elements. Cellars were also used in England in the 1600’s.
The farm where I grew up, had buildings 100 years old at that time. It also had a yard cellar. It was a hole dug into the ground a few yards from the kitchen door. The ground was mounded over the top of a brick-lined hole about five foot high. The doors were plank wood and lay on a slant up the mound. The double doors opened to either side and lay on the mound. There were crude stone and cement steps down to the holding area.
At the bottom of the steps, there was a small room lined with crude wooden shelves on three sides. In this cellar, there was just enough room to walk into it amongst the various bags of apples, onions, turnips, etc. Much of the dried and preserved items were in containers. In the 1970’s these were mostly gunny sacks and glass jars. This is what I envision the yard cellar like at The Fairbanks House, except that the containers may have been wooden, clay or baskets.
Their yard cellar was probably larger than my family’s cellar. The yard cellar at the Fairbanks House held four vessels with cider, probably barrels. There was one powdering tub with some pork in it. This may have been a salting tub for preserving the pork. Apples were also found there.
Apple cider, as it ages over the winter, eventually turns to apple cider vinegar, depending on if sugar was added. When Jonathan died, it was early December, so the cider would have been fresh. However, there was likely vinegar stored somewhere. It was used for many purposes.
The Yard
Perhaps the family was still in the process of making cider for the year. About every family made their own beer and cider. Dedham was known for their wonderful orchards (Johnson, Page 179-180). They drank a lot of cider in various stages of fermentation. The cider press was still standing in the yard along with those things belonging to it when the inventory was taken. There was also grindstones in the yard. After a fall butcher, knives would need to be sharpened. By this time, Dedham had a mill to grind grains, but a hand mill would have been used until the mid-sixteen hundreds.
Cattle
In the 1600’s, all livestock were termed cattle. So under this heading, we find various animals.
There were three swine, one having pigs, four cows, and one yearling calf along with two steers, about four years old. There was a barn, probably on the twelve acre home lot, where at least some of the animals would be kept during the winter.
In the barn was hay and other fodder. Fodder could range from shredded corn stalks, sometimes called silage, straw from wheat, or other coarse food that was fed to the animals when poor winter pasture grasses would not sustain them.
House and Lands
The last items listed were the buildings and lands that John, the first son, received as progeniture. Grace had usage of these, particularly those around the house lot, until she died.
The house, house lot, and buildings included an orchard and land on Wigwam Plain, near the house. These were within the domain that Grace Fairbanks would use until her death in 1673
Under Jonathan’s possessions were listed common areas. These were large meadow areas where all proprietors of the town were allotted a certain number of cattle to graze based on the town’s criteria. Usually they were herded or fenced. Fairbanks had eight cow commons. It is unclear if this one was only for the wet herd, the cows for milking and that would calf, or included the dry herd, work animals and cattle raised for beef. Generally they did not keep both herds in the same area.
There were several common dry herd pastures. One was in the Natick area where there was a herd-house erected for the herdsmen to use while they tended the cattle on those distant pastures. (DTR vol. 4, page 12) Many of the town rates or taxes were based on the number of cow commons a proprietor was granted.
There were six acres in Broad Meadow and two acres in Fowl and Common Meadow.
In the Low Plain, there were four acres. These were granted to Fairbanks in 1641 (DTR, Page 80 & 91). This may have been a distance away, since in 1658, Fairbanks was to view fences in the “remote area,” of Low Plains (DTR Vol. 4, Page 2).
There were twenty-two acres of meadow in Purgatory Plains. As you might have suspected from the name, much of this land was swampy.
Fairbanks also had twenty-four acres in the Natick District. Between 1650 until his death, many proprietors asked to have their Natick land exchanged for other land. The Indigenous People of Natick, the first Praying Village started in 1650, had started cultivating the land south of the Charles River where Dedham had granted land to their proprietors and had established a pasture for their dry herd, including a herder’s house. (DTR, Vol. 4)
Both the Dedham and Indigenous People considered the land south of the Charles River at Natick their own. After many court cases with varying outcomes, Natick north and south of the River was given back to the Indigenous People in exchange for Dedham taking land far west at Pocumtuck or Deerfield, Massachusetts. At the time of his death, Jonathan had twenty-four acres in the Natick District and rights at Pocumtuk (Deerfield), also.
The remaining land that Jonathan held was in the clapboard trees area (Westwood), the Great Cedar Swamp near the saw mills at Wollomonopoag (Wrentham), and more cow commons.
Summary
Like most other early colonial families, we see the Fairbanks’s had cows and made cheese and butter. They also butchered beef and pork. Grace kept a garden and had enough implements for various family members to help tend it.
The family grew and preserved much or all of their own food and drink. Beer and cider were their main liquid beverages. There were hops stored in the house, but it might have been taken to a town’s man , or woman, who specialized in making it into malt. Many used this man or woman to prepare the malt to assure a finer beer.
The men grew different crops and stored them for the family meals or to feed the animals when pastures were too thin in the winter.
In the lean-to and the working cellar, we find evidence of Jonathan’s trade as a wheelwright. He would start with the cross-cut saw, then use the turning tools in the hall chamber. and the lathe in his trade making spinning wheels.
There was not a loom listed anywhere in the original house or on the property. Many spinning wheels, pieces of cloth, and raw material to spin were listed. Often a man in town or nearby was a weaver. Weavers at that time were Thomas Payne, Michael Bacon, and Samuel Judson. The threads were taken to one of them to weave and full. Michael Metcalfe was a weaver in England. James Draper was a weaver in Dedham starting in 1653. (DTR )
Remnants of a barn just steps from the lean-to was excavated at the Fairbanks House in the 1970’s. That barn was determined to be from about 1780’s to 1860’s. However, a barn is listed on the inventory in 1668. Its location is not indicated, however, in the harsh winters, it would have been prudent to build it near the house.
In 1662, Dedham received 8000 acres to replace the land they returned to the Indigenous People for a “Praying Indian Town.” Jonathan had land in the Natick area and rights in Deerfield at the time of his death.
From Jonathan’s inventory, we see the Fairbanks family was an industrious, self-sustaining family. Jonathan was involved in farming and worked as a wheelwright. Grace was occupied with the household, dairy, and spinning. George from the Dedham Town Records proved to be a cooper and worked with wood. Jonas perhaps brought home some of the iron pots when he worked at the forge at Hammersmith Iron Works. Their legacy is available to us through their house, Jonathan Fairbanks’s will the inventory, Dedham Town Records and other ancient records kept during the early colonial days. We are fortunate to know, in detail, so much about our heritage.
