Freeman Upson and Sally Culver

by Lydia Standley Burnham

daughter of Alexander Scoby Standley and Philinda Upson

written in December 1931

My great grandfather Freeman Upson, son of Joseph Upson, when a young man went to Ohio where it was yet unsettled to establish a home. The land was covered with heavy timber and it became necessary to clear the land of the timber before he could plant his gardens, orchards and fields. He cleared enough first to made and plant a nice orchard of apples as well as other fruit trees. Later he used the apples to make barrels of cider. They would extract the juice from the sweet apples and make a sweet syrup, using the pulp to make apple butter, for the family use.

He married Sally Culver. They had 9 children three boys and six girls. He built a two room log house with an attic which was used for bedrooms for the boys, a ladder being used in place of a stair­way. They had a large fireplace and a crane with hooks on to hang the kettles of food to cook. They did their baking in a large flat iron kettle, with a lid on it. This filled with dough was placed on the rock hearth and live coals, placed around the kettle and on the lid. They had to learn from experience how many coals to use and how long it took to bake different kinds of bread. My grandfather had a set of shoe maker tools so he could made and mend the shoes for the family.