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The Old Homestead

from the recollections of Laban Becker Harley, circa 1870-80

The House

The old house stood in the yard of the present brick house. Old Granddaddy Becker (John) built it. This was the old home place, probably built when they came from Pennsylvania. It was torn down before I can recollect it. The place in the yard where the grass didn't grow was where the fireplace was. The new house was built within a couple of rods of the old one in 1860. I remember hearing that the house cost about $2000 to build. The first I remember was something about putting up lightning rods and somebody carried me up to the west side of the house.

The second floor had four rooms. A big box stove in the living room and settee, chairs and stand and a big walnut clock; a corner cupboard with lots of nice dishes. We sat around the stove at night and read. Aunt Becky was always spinning. Mother would knit.

Anna Becker Harley, mother of Laban Becker Harley, Died, July 31, 1893

The boys would lay around the stove and fuss and carry on like boys do. I always liked to lie on the floor at the side of the spinning wheel, and put my hand on the treadal and work it, make it go whizzing, and Aunt Becky had to feed it so much faster. If we'd get too noisy, father had to hold up his finger so we'd quiet down. He never said much.

Abraham Harley III, father of Laban Becker Harley

There was also a little room on the second floor which had a big stand where they kept a lot of flowers in winter. We kept the sewing machine there. Got that about 1870. Grover and Wilson. The front room was the parlor. It had hair covered chairs, nice ones, too. We sat there when we had company. The bedroom had one bed, and a trundle bed. I slept there. I pulled it out at night, pushed it back under in daytime.

On the third floor Aunt Becky had the northwest room.

Rebecca Becker, sister to Anna, Aunt of Laban Becker Harley. Aunt Becky was a spinster and lived with her sister's family. Born 1844. She lived to nearly 100 years.

It had a cherry chest in it which Maun Warner of Salem made for her when she was young.

Rebecca Becker and Isabel Becker, 1865 age 21 years.

The little low rocker must have been old then, because a man went around through the country re-canning chairs. I took it up to Rinehart's. This man made for it the bottom that is in it now, out of the inside hickory bark, soft and pliable, like leather. Wasn't quite done when we went after it, so he took a piece of shingle and wrote something on it, and stuck it inside, and finished the chair. And whatever he wrote is there yet.

Later on, when we got older we boys slept up there on the third floor. We had feather beds to lie on and over us in old four-poster rope bedsteads without any springs. We went to the strawpile and filled a chaff tick with straw tight as we could stuff it, then carry it into the house and put it on the bed. The first few nights, two in a bed, we almost had to tie ourselves on it to stay on top. Then after the straw in the tick got worn and broken up and pretty flat, we'd find ourselves sitting on the floor, head and heels in the air, after the rope broke.

In the attic, we kept odds and ends. We used to keep our hickory nuts up there. Sometimes the mice would get in and carry the nuts over the floor and they'd rattle down the stairway. I fell down those steep stairs different times, head over heels. Many and many a time after that I dreamed that I was falling down stairs, drawing myself up so I wouldn't get hurt. When we made maple sugar we kept that in a barrel in the attic, also. They used to send us boys up there to bring sugar down. We filled the old sugar bucket for daily use, the one Mama always kept her sugar in. We used maple sugar all the time; we didn't know anything about white sugar. We would get Orleans molasses sometimes. Later we got Coffee A sugar, it had lots of hard lumps in it.

The Kitchen

When they built the house they left a place along the east wall for a fireplace. It was used for several years, then they wanted a stove, so they put the latter over in the northwest corner of the kitchen, with a pipe running clear across the room to the chimney. Later they moved the stove over to the other side of the kitchen. No fence was then around the spring, which had been walled up with stone when the house was built. A ledge ran along the side, making it dangerous for children, so I built a fence (red) along the side, making it so you would not fall. Same with the spring on the front, outside of the house.

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Handmade fantasy masks for Halloween, Mardigras and any masquerade occasion!