RV- Tell me about William and Annie King and their blacksmith shop.
The house is still there you know... Yes.. same house. The shop was down about where..the back driveway for the Schmidt's place [is]. The shop set back a little bit from the street. It was about on a level with the street. It might have been two or three inches higher ..you know, to shed the water a little bit. But they had a porch and there were a couple of windows on the side towards the brook... It wasn't a very large place. He had a little vegetable garden and he had a few hens ..and they must have had to buy whatever meat they had.
Up in back there was a hen house and a tramp house and I think the town paid him so much for feeding a tramp you know.. a night. And it was sort of a bunk that they had to sleep in. I imagine it was probably a hay mattress or something or straw .. that kind.
The wheelwright shop is near the millpond at the
left. The building in the middle is Annie King's Shop
and the little building at the right was the Lockup for
Tramps. The peak of King's house shows at the
back. Farm Street is just visible beyond the tree
at the left. Dover Historical Society
Photo.
RV- Were they still taking in tramps in your time?
Yes. Oh yes, because all the tramps used to stop at our house for something to eat. We always thought the place was marked. Lizzie, [our maid] was very tender hearted and she never could turn anybody away and she always would give them a good meal. And I don't know whether it is by word of mouth or whether they have some way of marking the stonewall or something like that but anyway I don't think anyone ever went by the house. They always came in and asked if they could have something to eat. ...
RV- Were they just people down on their luck or were they just migrants or ...
Oh, I think they didn't want to work that's all. And 'course [if] they went to the tramp house to stay overnight I think they had to break up rocks in the morning ..to pay for their feed. But they didn't do anything when they came to pay us. And she'd give them a sandwich you know and it would be that thick. Big slab of meat and.. two great big thick pieces of bread and a mug of coffee and a piece of pie or cake or whatever was in the house..
RV- Lizzie fed them pretty good.
She certainly did. No wonder they all knew where there was a good handout.
RV- I thought that by that time ..there really weren't any of these folks traveling around any more..
Oh, no. You see this would be eighty years ago...when I was a child....
RV- You said the Kings went barefoot?
Yes. He used to shoe the horses when he was in his bare feet. And I don't think they ever.. put on shoes unless they were going to Natick.
RV- And in the winter time?
I don't know.
RV- I'd think that in the winter they'd have to put something on. Course it must have been warm in the blacksmith shop. I suppose with the fire going .. long as they didn't step on cinders.
Well,..you know it was that kind of a fire..they [had] just... when they were doing some work ... You know they would use the bellows and pump it up until it was a real glow.. He had a nucleus of it you know so he could start it up quickly. But he didn't burn it so it was a big fire all the time. But I suppose that's soft coal isn't it? ItÕs a different kind of coal...
RV- How about Mrs. King? Did she help in the shop?
No, I don't remember that she ever did any horse shoeing. She used to come out. She was Mrs. four by four... She was short and she was about as big.. wide, you know, as she was tall.. almost.
RV- And what did he look like?
He was tall and kind of scrawny. And as near as I can remember I think they were past middle age when I [knew them].. I should say that at least they were middle aged. They must have been fifty years old, at least
RV- Did they have any children?
No, not that I know of, that I can remember. But there was a carpenter named Souther that boarded there and he was the one that had the pug dogs. He gave me one of the pug dogs from one litter that they had. My dog we named Rex.. and Rex was always running back to play with the other dogs, you know. and he wouldn't come home. So I had to go down and get him. And that's how I happened to go there... I never went in the house, only just up to the back door. Oh.. boy.. My recollection of that house is I don't know how they lived in it.
RV- It was cluttered or..?
Oh it was cluttered and it was dirty and it went with bare feet... (..Laughs..) Even as young as I was then I couldn't understand how they could eat. You know.. and it must have been pretty casual food.
RV- Course they were really old farm folks that had been livin on the land like that for years..Life must have been kind of primitive out in the country then...