The land on the southly side of Green Hill in Barrignton was first settled by the Hayes family. Paul Hayes was one of the prominent settlers of the town and one of the original founders of the Congregational Church. His son, James, known in his day as "Jeems" was the man who made Green Hill famous. For in the 1816 there was a very bad cold snap which ruined most of the crops planted that summer. Wadleigh's history of Dover records some of that summer's bad weather - "May 15, frozen hard enough on plowed ground to bear a man; June 10, heavy frost; July 11, heavy frost, killed a great deal of corn and apples; July 15, ice formed in Wason tan yard in Dover; August 20, rain and snow on the heights; August 22, heavy frost which killed corn and potatoes"
As if by a miracle Jeems Hayes had 10 acres of corn which survived all of this bad weather and produced a good crop when most other crops had failed. To obtain sufficient food people came from as far as 40 miles away to buy corn from Jeems Hayes. He charged one silver dollar per peck of corn and wouldn't accept any form of payment except for silver dollar coins. The silver dollars quickly filled a good sized trunk and Jeems soon became one of the richest men around. Mr. Hayes died soon after the famine year though and so didn't get to enjoy his newly obtained fortune for very long.
Some of the money was lent to the Strafford bank in Dover during a panic but much of it was kept in the old trunk by Jeems' widow until one night when Jeems' grandson Jim and some of his friends were having a good time getting drunk in the family house. A drunken brawl broke out over some matter or another and Jeems' widow became afraid that her money would be stolen and so she opened the trunk and took all of the silver dollars she could carry in her apron and quietly snuck out of the house. She headed westward past the old Hayes family burying ground into the deep woods. She wandered around for a while looking for a place to bury her money. She found a spot in the middle of a triangle formed by 3 large trees where she dug a deep hole in the soft earth, put in the contents of her apron and then neatly covered it and then went back home.
A few days later she went back to retrieve her money but she couldn't locate the triangle of trees again. She summoned help from her family and neighbours but after an extensive search they gave up without ever finding the money. Many have since tried to find the treasure but no one (as of 1930) had reported it found.
-- as told by Mrs E. E Wiggen circa 1930
That's a pretty good tale Steve, but I find it hard to believe. If there's 4 pecks to a bushel, and 48 ears of corn to a bushel, that means there's 12 ears of corn to a peck. Of course I could be wrong, but I can't imagine someone paying that much money for 12 ears of corn back then.
Keep the faith
Well I know 1816 was the so called year without a summer and it was a tough year both in North America and Europe and it helped establish the little ice age. I believe there was a volcano called Mount Tambora that was one of the biggest volcano eruptions ever recorded that blocked out a lot of sunlight and lowered temps quite a bit. You can find out more about it here:
GREAT STORY
let's all hope that the cold spell doesn't repeat itself, especially this year with our current cold spell. I couldn't imagine going that long of a stretch of cold. Thank God for the SUN.
Great post thanks for sharing
