Joseph Z. Francis Interview with Roland Robbins on June 29, 1954
In 1883 Joe Francis was eleven years old. He and his family
lived on Walpole Street in the old Nathaniel Chickering place and young Joe
often wandered across through the woods and meadows to play at the old mill.
In 1954, at age 82, he taped his recollections in an interview with Roland
Robbins, the archaeologist who excavated the site for Amelia Peabody.
Following are excerpts:
R- Well now, Mr. Francis, IÕm going to ask you about your memories of the old mill as you first visited it, would it have been somewhere about 1880..
F- Eighty-three.
R- And you had occasion to play up there, did you, like boys do?
F- Well, we used to go hunting for nuts and different things through the woods and we used to pick a lot of evergreen up through there and make wreaths for Christmas .. and naturally we found the old mill and we thought it was wonderful. The wheel was still there where it stood originally only it was leaning over where fire had burnt the building and left it canted at one side.
R- You think the buildings had been burned down.
F- The buildings had been burned... a good many years before I come there. But the wheel itself was still there.
R- Which way was it leaning, do you know?
F- It was leaning toward the road.
R- And it was intact at that time.
F- ThatÕs right and I crawled all over it many, many times in my boyhood.
R- Did you ever crawl up over near the top of it?
F- I was over all of it.
R- That must have been quite a thrill.
F- It was, it was quite a thrill. In fact my sister was just as big a tomboy as I was and we traveled all over it. So we were inside and outside and everywhere. It was a great big wheel.
R- Do you recall whether there was any fill in the wheelpit then?
F- Well, that I do not recall.
R- Did you ever attempt to make the wheel turn?
F- Oh, we tried many times but she would not turn because she was canted, you see.
R- And then the shaft... you donÕt recall exactly how far that extended, do you?
F- No, I do not, I wish I did. Because that would be interesting today.
R- It would be very interesting. Of course we have the easterly side where it was anchored but the westerly side is rather controversial. I did not find the footing for the other end of the shaft; whether it goes down originally into the gear pit or over into the area where the rollers that did the actual cutting were located, I cannot say. Now, by 1883 there was no evidence of any of the buildings.
F- No evidence of none of the buildings.
R- Or of the warehouse building.
F- No, all buildings were flat...
R- And that goes for the house that I mentioned and I showed you the site of today. The Mill Company House.
F- ThatÕs right. That was all down, yes.... No buildings there anyway of any kind. All you could see was the walls that had been left where the buildings had stood. And Mrs. Kipling told me one time that there was, she called it, a double-decker house but today we wouldnÕt call it a double decker, but it was supposed to be two families, you see, one family up and one family down.
R- It was a two floor house.
F- Two floor house.
R- Now, do you recall whether or not there was any of the flume [that] carried the water from the dam, from the gate, sluice.. to the wheel. There was some of that?
F- ThatÕs right.
R- Did it come all the way over to the top of the wheel, do you recall?
F- I really donÕt remember just how far that did go but we used to walk on that flume and go on to the wheel ... so it must have been just a little short of the wheel, because we had to step over as I remember. We stepped on to the wheel.... I found out years afterward the hunters used to go there and build fires and rip off different parts to burn... They had several camps there... They all had axes in their wagons, donÕt you know, they didnÕt have automobiles. And they all had axes and hatchets and stuff and they chopped it down. They had no respect for it because nobody cared for it.
R- Well, it was a ruin, why should they.. It served their purpose.
F- Well, thatÕs natural. But today we would look at it from a different point of view. ........
R- Do you recall any elderly citizens of the town ever making any reference
to the old mill and what it looked like or how it operated; any stories any
references to it?
F- We used to hear a lot of stories about how Dover Street in Boston got its name. Because the mill was down to Dover Street, Boston, was the market place...
R- Just a moment now. Now, that was Dover Street in Boston?
F- Dover Street in Boston got its name from Dover because all the farmers in Dover used to congregate down there to sell their products. They used to take barrel hoops down there and of course the iron foundry was shipping their material there, getting their raw materials, bringing it back here to Dover.
R- Well, thatÕs Dover Street in Boston.
F- Dover Street in Boston.
R- Today thatÕs not a market district. This was, presumably, many years ago.
F- Many years ago, yes, even before my time. ...And they used to go down there and if you wanted a man from Dover you just wanted to say, ÒWell, go down to the market and youÕll find all the Dover people there.Ó Now old man Whiting used to make barrel hoops and charcoal here.... Josiah Whiting. He used to ship barrel hoops for hogshead to South America and the barrel hoops were cut right here in Dover, shipped down there.....
R- Really? You know, thatÕs what they cut up at the Dover Union Iron Company.
F- They used to make barrel hoops there.. ........
R- Well, now you tell me a very interesting story here...of somebody... whose father used to be one of the drivers of an ox team that took the metal from Boston out here?... Then brought the finished product back.
F- Bob Jones who lived in West, down near the Charles River, his father did all the teaming for the iron company.
R- For the Dover Union Iron Company. What was his fatherÕs name?
F- His name was Bob, the same as his son.
R- Robert?
F- Robert Jones.
R- Excuse me, Robert Jones was his name and his sonÕs name was Robert.
F- We ainÕt never called him anything but Bob, they both been Bobs all their life.
R- Now has Bob, Junior, does he have relatives living here?
F- No, he died here about thirty or thirty-five years ago and he had no children. He was the only one left that I know of....
But old Bob used to load his stuff and take it.. thatÕs the father. Used to load it with four oxen... and take it..
R- With four oxen? ... Did you say four?
F- Four oxen and haul it to Dover Street, Boston... where there was shipping and then heÕd get his raw material there where it was brought in on boats, the boats used to come in there, they donÕt now because itÕs...
R- Boats used to dock there...
F- Dock right there at Dover Street.
R- And did he ever tell you what the name of the iron was that he got?
F- No, he might have but I donÕt remember.
R- So he actually brought, was it sheets of iron out here, or...?
F- Well, so far as I can understand it was raw materials more of the ore.
R- Now they actually didnÕt use ore here.
F- They didnÕt?
R- IÕm sure of that. .....
R- Now did Bob Jones ever make mention of the products his father would carry
back to the...
F- No, he might have.. but we werenÕt interested so much .. Ôcause they didnÕt tell these stories Ôcept when they had a little too much gin in him, you know. When they went down and got a load of brewerÕs grain and had a little beer in why, of course, then they used to tell what his father used to do. And we naturally didnÕt pay too much attention to some of it because we werenÕt interested in some of the old stories. But I remember very well, Bob never got a bung on but what he used to tell of his father hauling material from the Dover foundry to Boston and back.
R- In other words, heÕd bring the metal out and theyÕd work it and then heÕd take it back. Do you know whether he was the contractor that got the contract for all of it or whether he just did part of it.
F- Well, he was just a teamster. He was a teamster and he hauled it, he did all the teaming.
R- With his own oxen?
F- Well no, they belonged to the company... He was just a teamster. Just a driver.
R- Do you know whether Bob said there were others that did that sort of thing or not?
F- No, he didnÕt, the old man seemed to do it all... because he used to go in one day and come out the next.
R- Oh, I see, in other words it was a two-day trip.
F- Two day trip.
R- One going in.
F- He loaded the stuff and took it in and unloaded it and then brought it back.
R- Next day he loaded it an brought it back.
R- Now... did Bob tell you, so weÕre getting it more or less direct from a generation that actually worked here, did he ever tell you when the mill operated? What seasons of the year?
F- Only just in the winter.
R- Did it ever operate in the spring while they still had water?
F- As long as the water was, plenty of water, they could work. But just as soon as the water got down...
R- It terminated their power.
F- They were farmers.
R- Oh really, they were?
F- Everyone; all were farmers. All these, Bob Jones and his father were farmers. And in the wintertime instead of going into the woods, he just went up and did the teams work.
R- I see, in other words it was a good deal easier to drag that on sled than by ox-cart, wasnÕt it?
F- Sure, well of course they had sleds, snow. More snow in those days.... We didnÕt have railroads and streetcars to mess it up.... I can remember when you could travel to Boston with a sled just as well as you could in the country. Not too many years ago.
R- Of course, you didnÕt have a bunch of mechanical smowplows scraping the roads down.
F- You didnÕt, well, when they got horse cars, the horse cars, didnÕt bother us too much.
R- Well... you would say further that Bob Jones .. told of his father being one of the teamsters that hauled...
F- Hauled the materials for a number of years. I wonÕt say all the time, but for a number of years, while they were in business. He did most of the teaming.
R- And during their off-season they were farmers.
F- They were farmers.
R- And they operated as long as the water...
F- As long as they had power....
R- Which would be during the winter, the spring and probably might pick up even in the fall, or for that matter...
F- Well, early fall. You got a lot of water which would naturally, if they had the power they were willing to work because they would leave a lot of work undone, to keep the mill going because they tried to make it pay.
R- Well, now do you remember whether Bob Jones ever mentioned where they kept the oxen?
F- No, I do not.
R- There was never any mention of that.
F- Well, the oxen of course, I assume, was kept up there.
Because they was...
R- In other words they werenÕt his own oxen, belonged by the mill..
F- No.. And even if, assuming they were his own, why he wouldn't take them home because he didnÕt know when he was going to start the next day, the following day and he would be foolish. They kept the oxen there and as I understand it they belonged to the company. .......
R-...and you donÕt recall, then, any other thing that Bob Jones might
have mentioned relative to his father and his experiences with his work with
the Dover Union Iron Company other than that he had a four team...
F- Four ox team that he used to haul material back and forth.
R- Did he ever speak of it being carted in by sled?
F- Well, naturally through the winter it was all sled work....in the Spring of the year and in the Fall they hauled a lot of stuff by wagon.
R- In other words, both team and sled were utilized for that purpose and he just said that his father would go into Dover Street and would get the metal that was to be worked and bring it out here and then the finished product would be taken back when he went in for another load of...
F- HeÕd haul a load in and haul it back..He never went in and came home empty because that wasnÕt busineess.
R- But he would take a day, letÕs say to go in and unload and then the next day to load and get back out there.
F- Took him a day to go each way.
R- Yes, and he never mentioned the product that ..his father carried one way or the other.
F- If he did I donÕt remember. It was just simply that the material was hauled from Dover Street and thatÕs how Dover Street got its name because so many Dover farmers were there.
R- But that used to be the market place...
F- That was the market place of Boston.
R- And that boats used to actually dock there.
F- The boats used to come right there. The boats use to come there even in my time. in my day. But not so many, they wasnÕt very big boats. The big boats come in the other place.
R- ..Where they had a greater draft and so forth, but you assume then, probably that the metal they were bringing out here came in by boat.
F- The metal evidently come by boat because thatÕs where he used to get his load and thatÕs where he used to take it.
R- They do mention here that they used Norway iron. Now, IÕm not acquainted with that, I donÕt know whether thatÕs iron that came from Norway as the name implies of whether thatÕs the name of a product that was made here in this country.
F- I think itÕs the name of a product made here.
R- Oh you do.
F- Yes.
R- Well, thatÕs interesting.
F- I know a Norway process or something. IÕve heard of something to that way of talk.
R- Well, I havenÕt had the time to do that research and I donÕt know as I will have, but as I understand the Norway Iron Company had a place of business there somewhere in that general area or possibly it was on Dorchester Avenue just over the bridge into South Boston.
F- Well, that would be Dover Street, you see, in my way of talking.
R- But you still go over the bridge and you still are on the other side of the body of water there.
F- Naturally assuming ..in those days, you wouldnÕt say Dorchester. Today we talk that way but at that time it was ..Dover Street...and the surrounding area.
R- Well, that very well could be, he probably picked up the material from the Dover Iron Company which was over in that section, I have been told.
F- And then heÕd deliver his stuff to wherever it was going.
R- But other than that you donÕt recall anything that Bob Jones might have said relative to that. And you donÕt know offhand now, you donÕt recall any other references or any other memories that you might have had other than what weÕve said..
F- No, IÕve been trying to think... but I canÕt seem to recollect anything of importance.
R- Well, I think this has been a very pleasant interview and weÕve gained a great deal, gathered a great deal, of first hand accounts from a person who remembers....
8/9/00