Tag Archives: Hall farm

Chair Paintings – Part 1

In a comment on my post about Hezehiah’s chair, my cousin Becky asked if I might show some of my favorite outdoor furniture. I think my favorite outdoor furniture is indoor furniture brought outside on a sunny day.

In the days before real outdoor patio furniture, my grandparents and parents used all the chairs they could find for an outdoor picnic. I love this photo of the family having a picnic near the farmhouse on Whirlwind Hill. They sit in chairs from the kitchen and dining room of the house, balancing plates of food on their laps and enjoying the sunshine.

Farm Picnic, 1948

Chairs and sunshine are perfect vehicles for painting pleasure. The light creates patterned shadows and intensifies color. While I was going through slides and photos of my chair paintings, I realized how very many chairs I moved around inside and outside to take advantage of the light. (I did this when traveling as well, and probably embarrassed many a friend and family member by moving chairs around in public places.)

Sometimes my chair images are close to home, and sometimes they come from away. The chairs in this post are not chairs from my house. They’re chairs from places that feel like home – California, New England, and Hawaii. Next week I’ll show some of my chairs from home.

California

This white wicker chair sat in the garden of my in-law’s house when they lived in Stockton, California. I had just discovered the artist David Hockney and was influenced by his colored pencil drawings.

“California Chair,” Carol Crump Bryner, colored pencil, 1979

Vermont

My friend Robin has a lakeside “camp” in Vermont. I probably moved her furniture around to take advantage of the view, which was very lovely.

“Porch by the Lake,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 30″ x 40″ 1997

Rhode Island

I fell in love with the “Ocean House” in Watch Hill, Rhode Island in 1998 in the years before it was renovated and fancy-schmancied up. I did paintings of its porches, chairs, windows, and doorways. Fortunately it was nearly empty during the off-season, and no one seemed to mind me posing its furniture for pictures.

“Ocean House #2,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 1999

Maine

My favorite place in Maine to paint is the Olson House in Cushing. Its rooms are empty except for a few chairs and the sunlight coming through the windows. I never get tired of going there.

“Northern Light #10,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 38″ x 30″ 2001

These rocking chairs were on a porch in Pemaquid, Maine.

"Green Rocking Chairs," Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 2009

“Green Rocking Chairs,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 2000

Connecticut

This is the cottage porch – one of the best places in the world to sit and watch the ocean.

“Porch Chair and Screen Door,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache, 2009

Hawaii

Hawaii is all about color and light. To paint a Hawaii painting in my studio in the middle of a cold and grey winter is the best therapy ever.

"Waimea Plantation Porch," Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 26" x 34" 2000

“View to the Ocean #1,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 26″ x 34″ 2000

“Lanai with Two Chairs,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache and colored pencil, 2009

My sister-in-law and her husband generously share their beautiful Kauai house with us for a few weeks each year. We started going to the Garden Isle in 1976, and it’s a place that always feels truly like home. The painting below shows the view from their living room. I moved an indoor chair outside and painted a view of the ocean that you might see if there weren’t houses across the street. Artistic license to the rescue!

“Morning Sun,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas 40″ x 32″ 2000

Next week my chairs will move closer to my home in the far north.

Chair Drawings

12 Replies

On a 1985 visit to Whirlwind Hill, I needed a calming focus while I spent two weeks with my two young children and my wonderful, but very talkative mother. I decided to draw all the chairs in my parents’ house. I made a good start of it, but I didn’t get very far. Still, it was a good exercise in looking, and I came to appreciate the intricacy and the beauty and the history of this furniture.

The farmhouse living room was a hodgepodge of chairs, sofas, lamps, and tables – some antique, and some not. Above all, the space was comfortable and light – a perfect multi-purpose room. My parents’ living room was also spacious and bright, and some of the furniture in it came from the farm. Chairs were moved around to meet the demands of guests, Christmas trees, pets, and playing children. Below is a photo of the farmhouse living room in the 1950’s.

The farmhouse living room in the 1940’s

Here are a few of the chairs I drew on that 1985 visit. My drawings were too big to scan, so I apologize for the quality of the photos.

The Fancy Chair

With their low pink seats and straight backs, this chair and its mate are rarely used for sitting. They flank the living room fireplace in a rather useless, but decorative manner.

“The Fancy Chair,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil drawing, 1985

A Wooden Chair

This little wooden chair is also uncomfortable, but it holds a special place in Whirlwind Hill lore because it is very, very old. At least I think it is.

“The Little Wooden Chair,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil drawing, 1985

The Low Rocking Chair

Now that I look at this drawing, I’m trying to place the chair but can’t remember seeing it lately. I’ll have to look next time I’m back on Whirlwind Hill.

“The Low Rocking Chair,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil drawing, 1985

The Upholstered Rocker

I like to picture my mother rocking me in this chair when I was a baby on the farm. Did this really happen? I have a vague memory of her telling me that it did.

“The Upholstered Rocker,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil drawing, 1985

Me as a baby on the farm with my Grandma Crump, my mother, and my Great-grandma Barton

The Chair with the Velvet Seat

For a long time this chair sat at the end of a long hallway leading to the bedrooms in my parents’ house. There was an oval mirror hanging above it and a long patterned runner on the floor. I did a linocut of this scene, and it’s now hanging in that same hallway.

“The Chair with the Velvet Seat,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil drawing, 1985

“Hallway,” Carol Crump Bryner, linocut print, 1975

The Queen Anne Chair

My mother was proud of this chair. It had a long history on the farm. My great-grandmother, Lydia Jane Hall, was photographed sitting elegantly on its seat. No one sits in it now, (it, too, is uncomfortable) but maybe someday one of my great-grandchildren will look at this photo of me and my great-aunt Hattie sitting on the chair and say, “That’s my great-grandmother Carol sitting in the Queen Anne Chair.”

“The Queen Anne Chair,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil drawing, 1985

Lydia Jane Hall, around 1900

Aunt Hattie and Carol, Christmas, 1946

Drawing is way to explore and learn and really, really look. Painting seems to me to be a medium that brings objects and scenes to life. In my next post I’ll share a few of the many (I count close to one hundred) paintings I’ve done of chairs.

The Ground Shakes and the Sky Opens

16 Replies

Five years ago my husband Alex and I were in Connecticut to visit my father and brother. I was desperate to get to Portland, Oregon because my daughter was expecting baby number two within a week. The day we were to drive to the Hartford airport, the sky opened and dumped nearly two feet of drifting snow. My brother and my husband, both heroes, spent the morning snow blowing and shoveling the long driveway so we could get out to the road. In my haste to get going I slammed my husband’s finger in the car door. He good-naturedly gathered a baggie of snow, stuck his poor mangled finger in it and told my brother to drive on. We made our flight. The plane took off. The baby was born a week later.

Now we’re in Portland again, waiting for baby number three. In Connecticut this weekend the skies opened again, and although the thoughts of being snowed in with a cozy fire and a nice tumbler of scotch are appealing, I’m glad I’m here in Portland where we have had neither a blizzard nor an earthquake.

My phone was awake with messages this morning about the large and scary earthquake in Alaska. Everyone – even a neighbor who lived through the 1964 earthquake – said it was the scariest one ever. At least it had that effect in Anchorage. Snow seems tame and benign compared to rolling floors and swaying light fixtures. Our house sitter reported that all the pictures and paintings on our walls were askew. And, she said, “You have so many pictures!!”

I remember certain snowfalls and snowstorms from my childhood. Some memories are vague and some so vivid. Before I-91 went in, my mother and I walked one winter day from our house on East Center Street through the snow to the farm on Whirlwind Hill. The road was quiet and without passing cars. I picture the snow forts and snowmen we made in our yard on the days school was cancelled. My mother always said that the best thing ever was to ride in a horse-driven sleigh over snowy fields. And I’ve always loved seeing the dark branches of elms and oaks and the long sinews of stone walls etched against a stark white New England landscape.

So here are a few photos of snow in and around Wallingford and Whirlwind Hill. I’ve written this in haste, so excuse any typos or bad grammar. My mind is on snow as I write, and my memories wanted to be woken up. Hope all of you are safe and cozy. Remember – it’s still winter!!

Newspaper clipping about the 1888 blizzard.

The barnyard of the Hall farm on Whirlwind Hill after a snowstorm

Cows in snow, Hall farm on Whirlwind Hill

After a snowstorm on Whirlwind Hill near the Hall barn.

Sue Collins and Carol Crump on a Radio Flyer.

Chris Heilman, Kirt Crump, and Francis Hall on Whirlwind Hill with coon dogs.

Update – Climbing the Three Notches

18 Replies

On a recent April Saturday afternoon I set out in the company of my brother Kirt, my cousin Dean, and Dean’s wife Jean, to climb the mountain ridge that we call the “Three Notches.” We wanted to follow the paths our ancestors used long ago, and we also hoped to find some marks left on a rock at the highest point of the ridge.

In a 1944 letter to his future wife Betty, my mother’s cousin, Austin Norton wrote:

“When I was a kid I used to be crazy to go out to Mother’s home [his mother was my great-aunt Ellen, my grandfather Ellsworth’s sister] and help them hay and milk. I would ride my bicycle out there every Saturday just to get in the way and watch. That must be a satisfying way of life, farming I mean…There is a range of hills beyond the farm which we love to climb for a picnic lunch…Our favorite spot on the range is called “Three Notches,” and on the highest notch, Mother’s dad [my great-grandfather William E. Hall] has his name chipped into the rock. That’s the highest point of land in Wallingford and you can see for miles around, Long Island Sound on one side and Hartford, the capital on the other.” – Austin Hart Norton

Since last March, when we first heard about the carving, my brother and I were, as Austin put it, “crazy” to go search for it. These mountains (which in Alaska would be called hills) are part of the trap-rock Metacomet Ridge that stretches from New Haven, Connecticut to the Vermont-Massachusetts border. We decided to start our hike at the south end of Fowler Mountain, just east of Whirlwind Hill, and follow the Mettabesett trail to the base of the first of the three peaks. When I asked my brother how far a walk this would be he said “Not that far.”

“Not that far!” – A view of the Three Notches and Fowler Mountain.

My brother had never climbed the “Three Notches.” He’d ridden a horse on Fowler Mountain back in the 1970’s when the old cabin used to be there. Dean had gone more recently, and agreed to guide us on this sunny, windy afternoon.

Determined to go on this hike despite a bad cold and a worse fear of ticks, I sprayed myself with a ridiculous amount of “Deep Woods Off” and hoped for the best. The trail, although steep and treacherous in places with loose rocks and branches hidden under deep layers of leaves, was wide and sun-dappled and easy to follow.

Starting up the trail

I was thrilled to come upon patch after patch of wildflowers.

First were the adder’s tongues –

Adder’s tongue (or trout lily)

Then rue anemone and bloodroot –

Rue anemone

And just as I was telling Jean about hepaticas and how hard they were to find these days, I looked down and saw a small army of the bright little flowers popping out from under brown leaves. Joy!

Hepatica

A cabin used to stand somewhere on the ridge of Fowler Mountain. My brother and Dean looked for signs of this former refuge, but there wasn’t enough time for a thorough search. This was proving to be a much longer walk than I had planned on, and “not that far” had begun to seem like wishful thinking. I could see on my phone map we were still a long way from the Three Notches.

But at the end of Fowler Mountain we came across an old marker for the George Washington Trail. Although the plaque itself was gone (most of the metal plaques on these markers have long ago been spirited away by vandals), the post was enough to show us the place where our first president and our early Hall ancestors crossed the Metacomet Ridge on their way from Wallingford to Durham. It ran perpendicular to our trail up the ridge, and someday we’d like to explore it more thoroughly.

George Washington Trail marker post

Ahead of us was another steep incline, which I hoped was the ascent to the first notch, but in a “Bear Goes over the Mountain” scenario, we found yet an even steeper climb on the other side. I was ready to quit, but Dean prodded, “Come on Carol – It’s worth it.”

Getting closer

It WAS worth it. The view was spectacular. To our left we could see Whirlwind Hill and the view beyond to New Haven and Long Island Sound. To the right we looked at Meriden, Hartford, and on toward Massachusetts.

The view from the notch – looking toward Whirlwind Hill and beyond to Long Island Sound.

And then my brother said, “Here’s the name!” He found our treasure. On an outcropping of rock overlooking the Ulbrich Reservoir, were letters and numbers carved into the rock’s surface.

Kirt with the carved rock

My great-grandfather’s name, W. E Hall, was still there – a one-hundred and thirty-year-old memento of his wish to be immortalized on this spot. The carved date of 1874 indicates he was probably thirty-seven years old when he chipped away at the hard rock.

Set in stone

Happy and satisfied with our findings, we took photos of each other before beginning the long trek back to our car.

Kirt and Carol

It was so quiet up there – a peaceful solitude that’s hard to find these days. We could understand why this spot was a favorite for our relatives, and we plan to go back whenever we can. It cheers me now to have a focus for those mountains beyond Whirlwind Hill. The distant view is more meaningful because of knowing where to look – at a spot on that high windy rock where part of my family history is set in stone.

“The Three Notches,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache, 2014

A View of the Farm

26 Replies

I worried off and on this year that I was spending too much time in the past with my long ago relatives. But now that I’m stepping away from it for a while I feel even closer to the farm on Whirlwind Hill and to all the ghosts that kept me company while I wrote, painted, and researched.

Distance, as painters know, can make a painting come together. When you step back to take a look at what you’ve done, all those individual brush strokes suddenly coalesce and the image takes on its own life. What you thought were many little pieces become a complete view.

But there are many different views of the farm on Whirlwind Hill. I’ve written about happy times, good memories, tragedies, and successes. I’ve deliberately left out family quarrels, hard feelings, crop failures, and the stormy times that are an integral part of a long family history. I prefer a more cheerful slant, and chose the moments that worked to carry history into the present and give it an encouraging future.

Because this is my last regular post I’ll close with some painted views of the farm. The farm lives on for me as a feeling – a feeling and a memory of a place that embraced me and still connects me and my brother and cousins to the ancestors who loved and sheltered and protected us. I send out a huge thanks to all of you who followed my musings and encouraged me this year. I’ve enjoyed every minute of this project and every chance I’ve had to learn more about my readers.

Here is the painting of the farm by Mary E. Hart that hung in the farmhouse parlor. It was probably done around 1860-1870.

Oil painting of the Hall farm done by Mary E. Hart around 1860 as it hung in the farmhouse parlor in 1932.

A hundred years later, my mother, Janet Hall Crump, made a copy of Mary’s painting and passed the copy on to me.

“The Hall Farm,” Janet Hall Crump, oil on canvas board, around 1960, after a painting by Mary E. Hart

She – my mother – was my touchstone for farm memories and the source of endless stories about the family. She gave me not only her love for her childhood home, but also her sense of humor and her appreciation of painting and art. Thanks Mom!

Carol and Janet Crump on Whirlwind Hill, 1947

In 1998, for my brother Kirt’s birthday, I made him a copy of my mother’s copy of Mary E. Hart’s painting. It always pleases me that the Hall barns were once painted yellow and the house and picket fence a classic white.

“The Hall Farm,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 1998, after a painting by Janet Hall Crump

In 1985 I painted my own view of the farm, as I knew it during my childhood when the house had brown shingles and the barn had two silos. Because this is a monoprint, the image is backwards, but no less real to me.

“A View of the Farm,” Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint, 1985

In the end it doesn’t matter which is the “true” memory or the “real” view, because when I’m on Whirlwind Hill, I’m always home.

Games and Grandparents

6 Replies

When my cousin Sue and I played dress-up in the old clothes from our Grandma Crump’s trunk, we might have been practicing for our first prom. We put on the too-big dresses, the “clip-clop” shoes (Sue’s words for the high heels), the bright red lipstick, and the outdated hats. We thought we looked like princesses, or maybe like the unidentified Civil War era relative in this photo.

An unidentified relative in a Civil War era dress.

Instead, we looked like this – waif-like, but so cheerful with our illusions of glamour.

Sue Collins and Carol Crump around 1952

My grandparents rarely involved themselves in our play, but they kept a few toys and books around and they themselves seemed to be always nearby.

At my Crump grandparents’ house the toys and books were on a shelf in the living room below the staircase along with the movie projector and their travel souvenirs. I remember the “Higgly Piggly” board game, a blue plastic ball with bells inside, and books like “The Fly-Away Hat” and “Fluffy and Tuffy.”

The cover of “Fluffy and Tuffy”

Most of the play on the farm happened outside. Both my grandparents were busy all day with farm and housework, but they were a constant and comforting presence. My grandmother could often be persuaded to play a hand of setback or a round of croquet, but on rainy days we resorted to our imaginations. We played games of hide and seek, hide the button, and “school.” I remember only one toy in the house, and that was a set of lead battleships and soldiers that we spread out on the living room floor. Another rainy day activity was looking at the World War I photos that came with the 1920 stereoscope. When looked at through the viewer, the two pictures on the card became a vivid three-dimensional image. It felt like we were right there, in the midst of the destruction.

These days I try to keep my grandchildren away from violent images. But my brother and cousins and I looked with fascination at these scary pictures. I even hesitate to post the sights we stared at – the dead soldiers, the skeletons hanging over barbed wire, the decomposing horses, the devastated landscape. This picture of a bombed cathedral is mild compared to most of the one hundred depictions that we looked at on a regular basis.

“The World Renowned Cathedral of Reims, France, Ruined by the Huns”

My own grandsons like me to play games WITH them – to get down on the floor and make Lego sheep, play Dino Checkers, and move Fisher-Price people around.

“Village People,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and colored pencil, 2013

But one day recently, when they were visiting on a rainy afternoon, my daughter’s two boys had a long adventure using four of my old shoulder bags, a handful of coins, some painted Styrofoam balls that we duct-taped onto the straps of the purses, and various treasures they “bought” from me to take on their journey. They played on their own, but checked in every so often to tell me about what they were doing. I wasn’t being a playmate, or a teacher, or really even a babysitter, but, as my own grandparents had been for me, a reliable and comforting presence – a touchstone of reality in the world of make-believe. It’s one of the best jobs I know.

Henry and Aubrey Kennedy at the start of an adventure.

On Wednesday: Easter Cards for Agnes

Letters

4 Replies

“Pen,” Carol Crump Bryner, colored pencil, 2015

Among the Whirlwind Hill documents my mother treasured were a dozen or so letters written between 1812 and 1815 to my great-great-grandfather Salmon Hall. Until recently I assumed these letters to be written by his brother Aaron Chauncey Hall. All the signatures on the letters were either A. C. Hall, or A. Hall.

A. C. Hall signature

But just last week I discovered upon closer reading, that many of these old letters were written by my great-great-uncle, Asahel Hall, son of Aaron Hall Esq., older brother of Salmon Hall, and younger brother of Aaron Chauncey Hall. His signature is different than Aaron’s and the letters he wrote more detailed and informal. I was happy to be able to finally connect this Asahel to the Dr. Asahel Hall lauded in an obituary that my mother kept with these letters.

Dr. Asahel Hall signature

Asahel grew up on the farm, became a doctor, and during the war of 1812, when he was just twenty years old, became a surgeon’s mate at Fort Griswold in New London, Connecticut. (I wonder what this says about the medical profession in those days, that a twenty-year old could become a doctor?) Later in his life he settled in Poughkeepsie, NY, where he practiced medicine, married, and had four children. One of his sons, Henry Clay Hall, was a long-serving United States diplomat to Mexico, Cuba, and Central America, and was consul-general in Matanzas and Havana, Cuba. Abraham Lincoln signed Henry’s appointment as vice-consul general of Matanzas.

Asahel’s letters home to his brother from his post at Fort Griswold are affectionate and personal. He often laments the fact that he hasn’t heard from his four brothers and six sisters, and wishes he could come home to see them.

“Dear Brother, The mail has come in & nought [sic] do I hear from you & why? Are you too busy to give me a line, or your mind & attention given to the fair daughters? If the latter be the case, I will not presume but admonish you to relax a little and give me a word or two to revive a flagging spirit.” – Asahel Hall, in a letter to his brother Salmon from Fort Griswold, Connecticut, May 20, 1814

He also spends time thinking about women.

“Dear Brother, I am comfortably seated by a good fire in a warm room, although it is devilish cold without & in fact it has been so cold for a number of days, I have hardly made the daring attempt to call on the fair ones. Just after my return, I attended two parties & my favorite lady was there. She almost tempted me to sin. Her glistening arms & ruddy cheeks – her fine fair form & lips so sweet, would almost raise the devil with any fellow.” – Asahel Hall, in a letter to his brother Salmon from Fort Griswold, Connecticut, February 1, 1814

And he gives Salmon advice on planning for the future.

“I had some conversations with Father, about you & business. He said he had not mentioned to you anything about living with him the ensuing year, but was of the opinion it would be best for both for you to tarry another year, as in the course of that time the prospects of affairs might change, & some good opportunity arise for you. He said he would give you so much per month or give you a proportional part of the products of his land, etc. etc. Under all circumstances I could but believe an agreement in one or the other of those points, would be better than entering into any other business.” – Asahel Hall, in a letter to his brother Salmon from Fort Griswold, Connecticut, February 1, 1814

Salmon took his brother’s advice, and so the Hall farm was passed down for generations to enjoy.

Letters sustained me for much of my life. I became homesick easily, and newsy letters arriving at camp, college, summer jobs, and my eventual exile in the far west were always welcome. Both of my grandmothers and my mother regularly wrote me news of all sorts. In this letter sent to me at camp in 1958, my grandmother reports on all of my Hall first cousins except Dean, who hadn’t yet been born.

Grandma Hall’s letter to me at Silver Lake Camp, Front page, summer 1958

Grandma Hall’s letter to me at Silver Lake Camp, back page, summer 1958

During my teenage years I corresponded with a pen pal, Merle. She and I wrote letters back and forth from her home in England to my little red house in Wallingford, Connecticut. We talked about lipstick, nail polish, new dresses, our parents, our siblings, our pets, and boys.

I never met Merle, but felt I knew her through the details she sent to me about her everyday life. And now I’m gradually starting to get acquainted with my distant and sometimes mysterious forefathers and mothers. Although their lives and times were different from mine, we shared a similar desire to stay connected, to send and receive news, and to give advice. Maybe the ancestors didn’t talk about lipstick and perfume as I did with Merle, and I certainly never advised anyone to take Calomel the way one brother advised another, but we enjoyed the process of writing a letter – of putting pen to paper and using words to bring another person closer to us and to let them know we care.

A letter from Asahel to Salmon

On Monday: Foraging

Tractors

6 Replies

I miss the putt-putt sound of a tractor. There aren’t any real working farms left on Whirlwind Hill. Some land is still farmed, and a few cows pastured, but I seldom hear the farmer’s useful machines going up and down the hill pulling their loads. What a nuisance it used to be when I was in a hurry to get someplace only to find myself stuck behind Mr. Cella’s tractor and manure spreader. There was often no way to get around until he took pity on me, pulled to the side and slowly waved me by. But still, I loved that sound and the slow pace of life it implied.

What tractors lack in speed and beauty, they make up for in strength and simplicity, and in the beginning of the twentieth century they became indispensable farm equipment.

The first tractor came to the farm in 1921. Prior to that, horses and oxen did the work. In this grainy photo from around 1914, my grandfather’s hired man, Andrew Rossi, drives a team of oxen down the lane.

Andres Rossi driving an oxcart, around 1914

In 1921 my grandfather Ellsworth took a step into the modern world. He bought a McCormick-Deering Farmall tractor.

Saturday, November 26, 1921 – “Cloudy, cold, and stormy. Ellsworth been to Peterland watching a man trying a tractor which he wants to sell.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, November 29, 1921 – “Ellsworth has decided to have the tractor and will soon work at Peterland pulling out trees.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Thursday, December 1, 1921 – “Nice day after the storm. Men have gone to Peterland pulling out trees. Ellsworth says it does good work. Hope it will be of great use to him.

Tuesday, December 13, 1921 – “Nice day. Chores done. Men fixing the machine to saw, everything ready. Have commenced sawing. The wood all sawed into one large pile in time to do the chores. A great help.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Here is the original tractor being used in 1939 at the backyard woodpile to saw the wood into usable pieces. This tractor didn’t have regular tires and was used mainly for pulling and for running machines.

Cutting wood from the woodpile with the Farmall tractor, 1939

It sat out in the field behind the house for many years, and my brother, who adores tractors, had his photo taken sitting on its front end.

Kirt Crump on the Farmall tractor, 1952

The farm had its own gas pump to keep the tractors going.

The old gas pump on the farm in 1972.

My grandfather always used Farmall tractors, whose distinctive red color may have influenced the purchase of my brother’s favorite toy.

Carol, Kirt, and Blossom the dog, 1953

Later on, when my father bought our land on Whirlwind Hill, he bought a John Deere tractor. He used it to rake hay, haul brush, plow the driveway in winter, drag the horses to their final resting places in the back fields, and give rides to his grandchildren and nieces and nephews.

Charlie Crump on the John Deere

Charlie Crump and Paul Bryner on the John Deere, 1975

It’s not easy to drive a tractor, but young farm boys usually know how to drive one long before getting behind the wheel of a car. My grandfather preferred driving the Farmall to driving the car, and left all the auto duties to my grandmother.

We still have some tractors on Whirlwind Hill. They’re useful in all seasons, and little boys love to look at them and wish they were sitting high up on the seat and putt-putting slowly down the lane.

Carol and Henry with the new tractor, 2008

Outbuildings #5 – The Woodshed

Outbuildings #4 – The Chicken Coop

House Divided

6 Replies

Long ago I had a dollhouse with a removable front. I could peer into the rooms, and because the roof came off too, I could look down onto the bedrooms, bathroom and staircase. For me this was magic – to be able move the furniture around and pretend that real people lived there. I’m a romantic when it comes to imagining the rooms in the houses I pass by on my walks. The glimpses I get into lit-up nighttime windows give just the barest hint of the lives lived inside.

I thought about my old dollhouse when I read my great-great-great-grandfather Aaron Hall’s will, inventory, and property distribution documents. The actual real estate settlement and uses of the land are still confusing to me. Where exactly was the “Lot adjoining the Garden,” or “The Meadow north of the bridge,” or “The Side Hill and Meadow, under the Rock?”

The thing that piqued my interest and made me chuckle was the description of future use of the “dwelling house and buildings” for the two important women in Aaron’s life – his wife Annis, and his daughter Mary. At the time of Aaron’s death Annis was seventy-five years old. Mary was forty and unmarried. Annis was Aaron’s third wife and Mary’s second stepmother. Aaron and Annis had been married for twelve years when Aaron died. Mary and Annis both lived in the farmhouse, and as far as I know they continued living there. Mary never married, and Annis died in 1844.

I have no photographs of Annis, but do have this tintype of Mary taken in the 1860’s.

Mary Hall, around 1860

Aaron left to his “beloved wife” no property except what she brought with her to his house at the time of their marriage. She was to share the use of the chaise and horse with his daughter Mary.

And she was to have the use of the house as stated here:

We set to the widow Annis Hall, the use of one-third part of the dwelling house & buildings north of the highway towit:

The east front room with the bedroom adjoining.
One undivided third of the keeping room.
The east third of the garret.
The south part of the old cellar to the amount of one third of all the cellar room.
The south part of the milk room.
Her right in the oven, and at the well, with the right of passing to and from the above named apartments and appendages.
Also her right in the wood room. [In the written document this looks like “mood room,” and I thought what a wonderful place that would be to have in a house – a place to hide out when you were just in some kind of mood.]

To his daughter Mary, Aaron gave six acres of land, $150, and his chaise. Her share in the house was also specified:

The use of one-sixth part of the dwelling house, while she remains single, towit:

East front chamber with the bedroom adjoining.
One undivided sixth part of the keeping room.
The west end of the garret to the amount of one sixth of all the garret room.
The remaining part of the old cellar, with the right to use the oven and the well.
Also the right to use the stairs and passes leading to and from the apartments and privileges herein set to her.

I try to picture how the women lived in this way, if indeed they did. Maybe it just had to be put down in writing in case some kind of argument ensued. But it’s hard for me to think of the rooms I grew up with – dining room, kitchen, living room, bathroom, parlor, etc. being used so very differently. I don’t know how many other people were living in the house in 1839 when Aaron died, but the 1830 census counts ten people. By 1939 my great-great-grandfather Salmon had married Cornelia and had added three children to the household – Aaron, Mary Jane, and my great-grandfather, William E. Hall.

I wish I still had that dollhouse. Maybe some day I’ll make a model based on the Hall farmhouse, but for now I’m content to speculate about nineteenth-century domestic life on Whirlwind Hill.

“Farmhouse Rooms,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and colored pencil, 2015

On Monday: Spoons

On Whirlwind Hill

An artist's memories of a family farm – Carol Crump Bryner

Tag Archives: Hall farm

Chair Paintings – Part 1

Chair Drawings

The Ground Shakes and the Sky Opens

Update – Climbing the Three Notches

A View of the Farm

Games and Grandparents

Letters

Tractors

Outbuildings #4 – The Chicken Coop

House Divided