SKIMMINGS and BATTELLE

SKIMMINGS

RV- Do you remember Mrs. Skimmings' store at the Corner of Springdale and Main?

Yes. It was originally the Cheney house ..

It looked very much like the main part of the house now except..I suppose there must have been a door there. But I don't remember it and it wasn't at the very beginning of her having the store that they had those big windows. Because they're larger than would be in an ordinary house. There must have been just small windows if there were any windows there. I don't know. I can't remember that. But I distinctly remember that was sixty-seven or sixty-eight years ago. It was in existence then.

RV- The store?

Yes.. Mrs. Skimmings Store. I don't know as it was as long ago as seventy years. ...

How I am guaging that was a cousin in New Bedford..and her husband came up to make a few days visit and she was pregnant with the first child, and I think that first child would have been sixty-seven or eight now. I know the younger girl is sixty-five. I remember that because she was born the year I was married. And their mother..was intrigued [with Skimmings store].. She wanted to go down there and sit every night and listen to the old codgers that came in..

RV- Into the store?

Yes...You'd go down there and sit on a keg you know. And she had a little counter and she had some canned goods and she had baker's bread and donuts I suppose she'd bake, and dry groceries of various kinds sugar .. cheese and butter. And she was hard of hearing and she had a funny laugh. She was very good natured.

She had two young girls that lived with her and ..Course [the store] was downstairs you see [and] they lived on the second floor. They'd go up the steps, the outside steps now to the north of the main part of the house.. The first room there was the kitchen and in back of that there was kind of a summer kitchen or something or other, and in there was where the well was.. I think the well is still there.

Mr. Skimmings had died. He had consumption and I think I told you that my grandfather had brought him out from Boston... I think he lived off of Temple Street on Beacon Hill and there was an alleyway or something along..in there. He used to do a lot of papering and painting for maintenance. My grandfather had a lot of property that he rented and he used to do a lot of the work for him. Whitening ceilings and painting and papering.. and when it was east wind and foggy weather as we'd have in Boston quite a lot Mr. Skimmings had a lot of difficulty breathing.

When [my grandfather] bought the [Dover] house he had him come out to do the work...and he said out here it was the first time he'd ever been able to breathe with comfort. That place [at the Corner] must have been for sale and he bought it. And moved his family out here and they lived here the year round.

Mrs. Skimmings was quite stout.. and not too tall and always laughing and good natured. I guess she had a lot of patience..with her customers. She had a son and two daughters.. and she had two State children..Girls [who] might have been orphans. They used to bring out children that were orphans you know and place them. It was mostly through the Catholic Mission I think.. The State paid a very small amount of board for them. But in those days a dollar went very much further than it does now and there were certain families that were glad to have them.

RV- Do you remember the horse fountain there by Skimmings'?

Yes. It was an iron fountain that stood up you know on a pedestal and then out of that came a lantern and I guess they used to put a kerosene lamp in there at night. I don't know if Irving Colburn was the one delegated to keep the light going there every night or not. It was pretty, picturesque back in those days.

The fountain lantern at the Corner.

JUDSON BATTELLE'S BARNYARD

RV- There are some stone pillars at a gate that goes in to the left...

Oh that was Judson Battelle's land.

RV- Why the stone gate and stone posts?

That was in the middle of the field that went into the lot where he had his barnyard. and his land went way down... And Miss Marietta Bailey who lived in the house ...You know where Judson Battelle lived? Well, the house this way was where Marietta Bailey lived. She was a Baptist and she used to go to that church when the fire station was the church... and she told me that there was a right of way and a path for the parishioners up on Main Street to go through instead of having to go way down around to get to church. I think it was only a path. You know, with a stile...

RV- The stone posts led to Battelles barnyard?

The barnyard was in back underneath the barn and came up.. It came out a little bit but..those stone posts are not very far from the end of the barn are they? Well, he used to go down in there to get at the lower part of the barn rather than go in and go through .. In the back of the barn that fell down the cows I think were on the upper level and then he had he had kind of a chute they walked down you know. It was graded up enough to the second story so they could get in...