Transcript of Interview with Ezra Stevens - Part One MALE ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Mansfield University Voices, an Oral History. The following interview is with Mr. Ezra Stevens. Mr. Stevens talks about the flood of 1889 and the agriculture and logging industry of the time. The interview was conducted by former Mansfield University history professor Dr. Paul O Rourke on July 31, 1973. EZRA STEVENS: My father, after that flood, died. That was in 1889. He started-- DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Your father was Horace. Horace Stevens. EZRA STEVENS: Horace L. Stevens. He started lumbering and lumbered all winter long. He had a million trees, piled in that, down through there, piled up high and everything. And when that June flood come, it took every one of them. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: The June flood of 1889 took the logs down to the Potomac River, down at Chesapeake Bay. EZRA STEVENS: What that meant, even at five dollars a thousand, five, six dollars a thousand, that s all they paid for it then. I don t know what they paid for it. [indecipherable] Got to be five or six dollars. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: So when you were growing up this was still, still some Pine and Hemlock around here. EZRA STEVENS: Oh yes. Yes. I know dad went up Stevens Road and they was cutting some logs, cutting something up there [indecipherable]. Fell a tree and hit a limb, bent down and come back and broke off. We d gone ahead, [indecipherable]. And I can remember us school kids, still met with him, they brought him down out of the haw, over across there and took him up home. But he come out of it. [indecipherable] DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: How did they take, how did they cut the trees down? EZRA STEVENS: Axe and cross-cut saw. That s all there was then. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: They d start out with, what they would start out with axe and then go to the saw? EZRA STEVENS: Well, the always notched them. Notched in, like that, the way they wanted it to fall. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: They d notch it in about half a foot-- EZRA STEVENS: Then they d saw in and if it was a big tree they d often put a wedge in there and hit that with a mall and drive it in, to keep it from pinching the saw, if it held a little bit that way, they wanted it to go, well they d pound that wedge in and away it d go. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: And what would they do with the stump? How would they get the stump out of there? EZRA STEVENS: They left them right there, on the hills, they didn t move them. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: They d wait until some farmer came along and wanted the land. EZRA STEVENS: At this farm right here, across the road, they was half dead after losing all those logs. In 1902 they moved down right across where the Baptist church was. Church wasn t there then. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Which church was that?
EZRA STEVENS: Baptist Church. I helped, I was ten years old, well yes, that church up there would be moved down here. At ten years old I was up home, take a big, my age. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: And you were born in 1884. So this would be 1894. EZRA STEVENS: 1894. I took the team, the wagon from down up there wherever we could find them and drag the stone down to the church. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: I see. And once they got the logs cut down, then how would they get them down? They d get them down to Crooked Creek down here? DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: They d get the logs to Crooked Creek, is that right? EZRA STEVENS: Well they did in the early days. After that we had to draw them wherever we could to have them sawed. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Oh, you d take em down to the saw mill. EZRA STEVENS: Yeah, the saw mill. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Now these logs that your father lost, were these, this is before he got them to the sawmill? EZRA STEVENS: Oh yes. Well he piled them up, there s a sawmill right over there. On the other side of the creek. They had a lot of logs in there. And they re old. But after that flood, washed all, they lost all their logs too. And they went and picked up what logs they didn t haul them in, around. But most of them went right along down. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Now you say you can remember the flood of 1889. You were five-years-old then. You remember that flood? And your mother woke you up in the morning, and said, Get up to the second floor. You were living in this old brick house. EZRA STEVENS: We went up the third floor. Way up high. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: This is in this old brick house down a mile south of here at 287. And how far up, did the water come up to the house? EZRA STEVENS: Oh, it come up to the old house, come there about 15-20 feet or so at the old house, down below the roads. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: To within 15-20 feet? It didn t come into the house? It didn t come into it? EZRA STEVENS: No, it didn t come in. didn t come in. It d be as far as from here down to those trees. Way below land. The other side of the house, the brick house. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: It would have come across where 287 is now though. EZRA STEVENS: Road went cross that, road went down about the same distance. Below the house before, come up about 15-20 feet. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Was it worse than the 72 flood? The flood of a year ago?
DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Was it a worse flood than the one we had a year ago? EZRA STEVENS: No, last year, that flood was pretty, that flood come up the road, was quite [indecipherable]. But that flood there was about two feet higher than it was in 89. Right down here, never seen any water. Come up into the main road, come up onto the main road. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Right up on to 287. EZRA STEVENS: You could see the, I wouldn t have known that, I wasn t down there. Left the drafts and stuff, hung on to those posts. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: I see. EZRA STEVENS: Well there s about two foot higher there. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: And they went back and-- EZRA STEVENS: Right here, I could, after we lived here for 57 years. I looked right down through there and at the water and I said to May that morning, I said, You know, the water is a lot higher than I ve ever seen it. And look right down there, you never seen water on that field. But it was up on that field, quite a ways. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: I see. Do you remember the blizzard of 88? Did that affect this area much? The big snowstorm in 88? EZRA STEVENS: Well, not too much, no. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Do you remember any other floods? EZRA STEVENS: What? DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Do you remember any other floods other than 1889? Were there any other ones in later years? EZRA STEVENS: 1889 was the highest one, till last year. We ve had lots of floods, but they never come up a lot like 89. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Yeah. Now your father, did he take the loss of this timber pretty hard? That he lost in 1889? EZRA STEVENS: Well, he lost all that, I d say about 10 million feet long, piled in there. But he had another batch, he had another batch that he got out and sold to pay his men. So he just about even with them, but course what he paid out and everything besides that, that left him dead up there on the old farm. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: It says here your father, he s very active in the Patrons of Husbandry. EZRA STEVENS: Yes. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Why was he active in the Grange? Was it a social organization? EZRA STEVENS: He belonged to Tioga. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Was Tioga, was that where you went to buy, the stores you went to in Tioga? EZRA STEVENS: Well we, well, no, we had a little store right down here we could trade to. Then there was Holiday. And we had to go above, well that s why we traded.
DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: I see. EZRA STEVENS: But we had done a lot of trading in Tioga. Holidays. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: I see. What kind of farming did your father and you do around here? Was it-- EZRA STEVENS: Well, we raised some, we had quite a lot of sheep. And some cattle, bout 8-10 head of cattle. And milk went to the cheese factory. And ten we raised bout 10-12 acres of tobacco every year. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Tobacco? Down here, the soil was good down here near the river? Down near the creek? EZRA STEVENS: Yeah, always had nice tobacco. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: And where would you trade the tobacco? Where would you sell that? DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Where would you sell the tobacco, once you had raised it? Where would you, would you take it somewhere? EZRA STEVENS: No, we d just harvest it. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Hay it? EZRA STEVENS: No, tobacco. And after it got cured down, ready in about oh, December, then we d take it down, rack it, keep it moist, then strip it and bud it. And then used to sod it. But didn t [indecipherable]. Oh, about that high and -- DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: About a yard high. EZRA STEVENS: Well, just about. Then there s different lengths, according to what the tobacco was. The fellas that took a shorter one, budders are a little longer and then the wrappers, they was quite long, four feet. I don t know. Just about like that. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Yeah, about 40 inches. And then where would you sell it? Once you had the tobacco? EZRA STEVENS: Buyers would come in, mostly Elmira, from Elmira. And used to sell it. When we married, before I was married, I used to, dad got, I d done the farming. I raised about 2-3 acres, about 3-3 ½ acres of tobacco. And then they got, they raised out here but they got so they didn t want to give nothing for it. I know the last crop I raised, all of it was nice, awful nice tobacco. And also happened down below here. He had, oh about three acres. Buyers, they d come through, offered three, four, five cents, six maybe. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Three or four or five cents for what? EZRA STEVENS: Pound. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: A pound. EZRA STEVENS: I said, no, I got tobacco, I says it s good tobacco and it s worth a lot more. I says, You ain t gonna steal it. And they all come into Tioga and Frank Adams, he always sat around that old hotel. They came in there, a lot of them, maybe three or four buyers, get talking. They were going to pay, oh 10-12 cents. Frank Adams say, Uh-oh, he can buy a lot cheaper than that. Now he was a farmer himself. They d pay him a good price. But they d come up through and buy what they could. I know they d come to
my house and I said, No sir. I looked at it and I says, That s nice tobacco. I raised tobacco ever since I was a kid. I says, No, sir. You can t buy that for six or seven or eight cents. Well, they left. Then they sent this old Frank Adams up here. He come up and he come in to talk for five cents. And dad come down there. I was ready, I was the one to deal with him. Get it on the rake and open it up. He looked at it and I said, You ain t going to look no more. Not at that price. Well he grabbed into the rank and hauled another one out. I says, I grabbed him on the shoulder and I says, Mr. Adams, I said, Right there s the door. You get out of here. I says, You ain t going to look at no tobacco here. You ain t going to buy it for eight, six or-- He d offered about four or five cents. I said, You can t but it for eight cents. I said, I ll keep this tobacco before I ll sell it for that. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: And you did. EZRA STEVENS: And as it happened the same way, who had been here. And then Billings who was, Billings, from Elmira, he often bought half the tobacco. And he rode up the road, he says, Arthur, hold your tobacco, he says, I ll be up. And it was spring and he come up. And he says, I ll come up. And Arthur wrote back to him and said, Ezra Stevens, he knew me, he said, There s only two crops of tobacco left. He says, I want it. He come up and he bought Arthur s for 12 cents. And Arthur says, Well, I ll get in with you and we ll go up to Ezra s. We lived about over there then. And-- DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: The other side of 287 or the brick house? DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Where did you live then, the brick house or the other side? EZRA STEVENS: No, no, we lived right over here then. That was after dad moved down here. And he come up and he looked at my tobacco. And boy it was nice. Great, big leaves, nice. I don t know if Mr. Billings had ever seen it. He looks up, Arthur, he says, Ezra here s got a better crop of tobacco then you. I knew it. He says, I m going to give him more money. He give me 13 ½ cents. That s the last time I ever grew. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Why didn t you grow any more? That, even that wasn t enough? DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: How come you never grew anymore? EZRA STEVENS: Well, because they, Mr. Billings, that was about the time he, just quit, and they wouldn t give nothing for it so then I went into bull, sheep and cows. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: The, what year was this, that you raised your last crop? EZRA STEVENS: Well, let s see. 1902, 4, oh, let s see it was around 1905, 06, 07. In there. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Right in there. And where was this Mr. Billings from? DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Where was-- EZRA STEVENS: Elmira. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: What would he do? He d sell it to the tobacco companies? EZRA STEVENS: They d take it down there and sod it. I don t know what they d done with it. They sold
it to the, for cigars. Wrapped it nice and thin, to make cigars. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Oh, your tobacco was for cigars? EZRA STEVENS: They sold it to, I suppose to different men for that. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Why was the price going down? Do you have any idea? EZRA STEVENS: They just, they just didn t want to pay, they wanted to get it nothing, that s all. They thought that the tobacco wasn t up there but just because they could get their heads together. There were four or five buyers there, they d chop it right down to nothing. You were lucky if you got eight, six or eight cents. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: What took the most, when you were raising tobacco, what was the hardest work about it? When did you have to do your hardest work? EZRA STEVENS: It was, of course we had to start in April, to raise the plants. Then we had to get our plants and we had to set them, set them about oh, the first of June from then till July, we were setting tobacco. Tried to get it in as early as we could, avoid the frost. And I think, right in the fields, scraping it, boy that was hard work. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Scraping the leaves? EZRA STEVENS: Yes. Scraped along the one side and then back the other. Boy, I ll tell you, I was a champion scraper. I was tough. And I d start up there and go right along. Many times I d take start in, along the road, go through down, stop there and looked up and I d been scraping back, maybe five, ten minutes. Turn right around and go right back to the other end. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: And scrape every leaf? EZRA STEVENS: Every plant had to be scraped. You just left it like that, tobacco was about that far apart. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: About a foot apart. EZRA STEVENS: About oh, ten, twelve inches. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: And what were you scraping off? DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: What were you scraping off? EZRA STEVENS: Well we scraped that to get the weeds and everything away. Then we get it scraped, then you d [indecipherable] and cultivate it. But that just got the weeds out. It was nothing but kids at that time, as you might say. My brother and I, we got out the old tobacco setter and start setting. Pull that sixty right along. They got so that they hired men, a dollar a day they paid the men. [indecipherable] If he missed a plant, well I d go over right and put one in. I was always ready, always had one right there to put in. And I got, at that time, it was a dollar a day. Well, we got so good that my brother, he hardly ever went away from home to work. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Did you inherit the farm from your father? EZRA STEVENS: No, no. I bought this since my father, he lost that up there. Well he traded to move down here. And he was still in debt some. And my wife and I, after I moved here, and then I worked carpenter work and she taught school. We saved her money.
DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: And then you were able to buy this? EZRA STEVENS: Well, I took a mortgage, we took a mortgage off of that place. And then what they passed on, they come up here. Before they come up here they signed it right over to us because we took care of them. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: You took care of your father? EZRA STEVENS: Father and mother. They was here 14 years. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: How many acres did you have here? EZRA STEVENS: Oh, not too many. Let s see, 22, there s 22 down there, that s all on the flat. And I ve got about 40 here. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: And then what did you mostly farm here? Dairy, dairy farming? EZRA STEVENS: I had some dairy, not much. But I worked it some. I didn t want too many cows. And I d come home and had to do that chore, get up early, feed them breakfast and well the boys got up so they could take it down the road. And I d go to work. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Oh, you d work as a carpenter? Generally. On your own? EZRA STEVENS: On my own, everywhere. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: But you were an independent? You didn t work for anyone? EZRA STEVENS: Then I, well I, after we sold out our dairy. I went to [indecipherable]. I went down there to work. I was down there twice. I was there about a little over a year. And I went there in October, first of October, we finished that job in December, the first part of December. I was there over a year. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: You finished some carpentry job down there? EZRA STEVENS: Yeah, bridges. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: But you always kept the farm here? EZRA STEVENS: Yes. We moved it for 57 years. We ve been married 61. DR. PAUL O'ROURKE: Sixty-one years. MALE ANNOUNCER: That concludes part one of the interview with Ezra Stevens. To hear more please download Ezra Stevens part two. These interviews are not copyrighted and you are encouraged to let others know about them and to use them for your own research.