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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1973-06-28, Page 51Serving the Community with pride since 1953 Back, Bill Skinner, Harry Clout and manger Ray Murley. Centre, Liz Vermunt, Sharon Channel, Angela Sweitzer, Diane Gerstenkorn and Diane Hackwell. FrOnt, Cathy Keller, Yvonne Glover and Wendy Grasdahl The BANK of NOVA SCOTIA Section 2, Page 3) THE EXETER TiMES-ADVOcATE JUNE 28, 1973 Noted archeologist recalls life here Charles Trick CurrellY, world - renowned archeologist and the First Curator of the Reyal Ontario Museum of Archaeology was born in Exeter in. January 11, 1876. He lived here for a little over 9 years, and the following excerpts are from the first chapter of his book "I Brought the Ages Home." "Exeter at that time (1880's) was a village of about two thousand, a mile and a quarter long with two or three streets on each side of its Main Street. Three communities came together there: a Scotch com- munity on the northeast, an Irish community, and a larger Devonshire community." "The village was extremely pretty, owing to its tidiness and the flowers and vegetables growing everywhere. There was one thing on which all three communities were determined, namely, that the tax rate should he low. Economically the town was free from misery. The only real tragedy was typhoid fever: I can remember a hundred and twenty-five cases in a single autumn. As I left at an early age, I was afraid that I might have idealized this life, but I consulted a man who had left at a mature age'and he assured me that I had not done so. If a man were out of work for a few days in the summer time, he was rather glad, as it gave him a chance to do more in his gar- den. In the winter he could get more wood cut up. A number of families kept a cow, which ran the roads, and milk products were plentiful. The comfort of the population was largely due to the great economy: there was no waste, and food was ridiculously cheap by modern standards. The best beef was n cants a pound, the poorest about four cents. Chickens were five cents a pound: ducks six cents, and turkeys seven cents. Bread was five cents for a large loaf, and milk was five cents a quart. Most of the vegetables were home grown. The farmer stripped the hides from his beasts, our tanner tanned them, and excellent shoemakers made the leather into long boots, which came nearly to the knees, for the far- mers. The boots had brilliant red or green pieces of leather set in the fronts. Ordinary boots and occasionally what were called low shoes were made for the villagers. The farmers' wool was woven into blankets and the woollen mill was capable of weaving quite complicated designs. We manufactured our own wooden pumps, wagons, sleighs and buggies, and nearly all of our furniture. We had one fair-sized factory, the Verity Plow Com- pany. The main imports were groceries and cloth. Wages were steady at a dollar a day. Apprentices started at three dollars ' a week, or, if they boarded in, as they usually did, it was fifty dollars for the first year, seventy-five for the second, and a hundred for the third. After that they became journeymen. For some reason a large number of the village boys became tailors. Most of the work was done on a friendly basis by people who had gone to school together, grown up together, and called one another by their Christian names." "The social life centred around the churches. There were two Methodist churches and one Presbyterian. The Anglicans had at first a small mission — later, one of the Methodists built them a very pretty church of brick and stone as a memorial to himself and his wife. The clergy received from six to nine hundred dollars a year and counted on sending their sons to the university. The boy, of course, worked in the holidays and met part of his own expenses. The hand-pulling of flax was the common employment for boys in the summer time and an energetic boy could make a dollar a day. It was probably the Scotch influence that caused such a value to be set on a university education. One labourer, working for a dollar a day, sent his son through the university," "The village school had five teachers, and work a little beyond the entrance to high school was carried on. As I remember, it was arithmetic, arithmetic and more arithmetic. There was also acurious kind of club life: groups of men would meet in the shoe shops and other places, and as there was a con- siderable number of retired farmers in the village, in winter they met sometimes three times a day, There were four hotels where the board was three dollars a week, or a dollar a day for transients, and where the main living was made by selling beer and whiskey. The hotel keepers were socially outside the pale, and I think deservedly., because a more contemptible crowd it was hard to find. The wholesale liquor people who did business with them said that theirs was the hardest, meanest trade it was possible to imagine. A few loafers hung around the hotels, and the only time I ever saw a man horsewhipped was when an old, lame, enormously fat hotel keeper horsewhipped a strong young man, Though I was only five or six years old, I can remember this young man crying while the big horsewhip came down rhythmically across his back and legs. He could easily have run away or upset the old man, but so craven had he become that he only cried and implored not to be whipped any more. Among the young people there was a great deal of music, and it was a poor house that did not have either a piano or a reed organ. There was also a band, and two orchestras. We had a fair public library run by an old sea captain, who had seen a good deal of the world and was usually pleased to talk to the boys about foreign countries, Both cricket and baseball were played, and at one time a quite good lacrosse team had been raised in the village. Association football was played by the schoolboys only. A peculiarity of the village that I have never seen elsewhere was that during summer, on Sunday evenings after church, the whole corn- Muni ty promenaded up and down the plank sidewalks for an hour or two." "I then went to sehool for a time in Exeter and worked with a tutor, Rev, Jasper Wilson, who taught me Latin, and, what in- terested me more, how to shoot. During this time I wandered the woods on all possible oc- casions, Unfortunately, there were a few men who in the summer-time went shooting nearly every afternoon, and every possible kind of bird except sparrows was shot, This made the majority of our birds much scarcer, and as the dead birds were not even brought home, it was a cruel and useless method of putting in time, Pigeon shoots were very ^ common. Fifteen cents a pair was paid for the pigeons, who were released from a falling trap and shot as they flew away." HURON GARAGE - In the early 1900's the Huron Garage (long, low building on the right) was located approximately where Tuckey Beverages now is. To the left is R.N. Rowe's funeral business, now Dinney's Furniture Home and Funeral Home, and further down the street is the corner of Huron and Main.