The Farmer Takes A Wife––

Everyday Life In The Early 1830s Recorded In Beach Camp’s Diary

By Dottie Evans

It was the first day of spring in 1831, when young Beach Camp, 24, a newly married farmer living in Newtown’s Taunton District, purchased a blank notebook for 25 cents. His intention was a simple one: to keep a daily record of his life.

He was faithful to this purpose for 18 months but then abruptly left off writing for no obvious reason. Perhaps there is another Beach Camp diary out there gathering dust somewhere. It is more likely that he became so involved in all the activities he was describing, he simply did not have time to continue.

When Cyrenius Booth Library Curator Caroline Stokes came across the diary temporarily stored in the vault, she was immediately captivated by its charm.

“It’s so homey. You learn all sorts of details about what they were doing. Such as how they walked to church every Sunday, from three to five miles whether it was to Newtown or Brookfield center. The distances were so much greater. Beach Camp’s wife’s family lived way over on Bennetts Bridge Road. When she visited her family home for a weekend, it took hours to get there,” she said.

Ms Stokes remembers when the diary first caught her attention. It was “in terrible condition, covered with mildew.” Not long after that, a member of the Platt family (descended from one of Beach Camp’s brothers) asked her if “she’d like to read it.”

Soon she found herself poring over the musty, handwritten pages. With the family’s permission, she sat down in January 1983 to transcribe the diary word for word before its contents became further damaged or lost. This turned out to be a wise move because the original has since left town along with its owners. Copies of Ms Stokes’ transcription are available today in the library’s Third Floor Reference Department.

A God-Fearing, Practical Man

By the age of 24, it is possible that Beach Camp already had an appreciation of his place in town history. He was a direct descendent of Newtown founder Lemuel Camp of Milford who settled here in 1707, and he would have been proud of his father, also named Lemuel (1762–1837) who was a farmer, school teacher, Republican, and Whig.

In the early 1830s, the population in Newtown was relatively stable at 3,000. The population of sheep at that time was 2,685 –– nearly as many sheep as people.

Like most in those days, Beach Camp was very religious. He often quoted scriptures, and he chastised himself for having a fit of temper or uttering such curses as “Blast it all!”

He was a keen observer of nature, noticing the return of the “feathered tribe” to the fields as he was plowing. On August 12, 1831, he wrote, “[T]he sun was uncommonly pale this morning. A dark spot was clearly perceived on the face of the sun.”

He was handy at home, and made a routine of repairing things. (“Today I riveted snuffers together which had come apart.”) He fashioned tools, built and repaired furniture, and made household implements such as baskets and broom handles.

When he started the diary, Beach Camp had been married Catherine H. Foote for exactly six months. The couple was ready to move into their “new” home (built in 1719) on Mt Pleasant Road. He would live there for the next 55 years until his death at age 79 on July 18, 1885.

Though it has been much altered, the antique farmhouse may still be seen today sheltered by tall pines on the west side of Route 6 near Exit 9. It is currently home to the Mount Pleasant Hospital for Animals, and Pond Brook stream where Beach Camp constructed his “waterworks” for a comb factory, runs just south of the property.

Born July 27, 1806, Beach Camp was the sixth of ten children born to Lemuel and Sarah Dibble Camp. He spent a good deal of time with his brothers and sisters whose names were Joel, Cyrus, Polly, Dibble, Adah, Maria, Hiram, Sarah Ann, and Mary Ann, a fact that becomes clear as their names keep coming up in the diary. He mentions raising a barn, slaughtering pigs, picking apples, or moving households. It is obvious that the Camps stuck together and young Beach was a loyal brother who was always ready to lend a hand.

As a devout Episcopalian and member of Trinity Church, Beach Camp was active in the search for a new minister during the years 1831 and 1832. He was constantly organizing “singing schools” and attending services. His lifelong connection with Trinity Church is noted in the Johnson History of Newtown.

In infancy, Mr Camp was baptized by Rev. Daniel Burhans. He was confirmed when 16, and was chosen warden of the church at 37, which office he held with exception of two years from 1843 to 1883. Neither summer heat nor winter cold hindered his attendance upon public worship, and until within three or four years his death…his seat was seldom vacant whenever the door was open for a divine service…so that his absence was always noticed and remarked upon.

Running A Comb Factory

Like most who were full-time farmers in the 1830s, Beach Camp raised livestock, ploughed and planted crops, pruned his orchards, and somehow found time to set up a small business on the side.

As Dan Cruson wrote in a November 1990 issue of The Rooster’s Crow titled “The Button and Comb Makers of Newtown,” the Industrial Revolution was just getting underway. Newtown’s primary industries were hatting and button and comb production.

“In its earliest stages from the 1830s through the 1850s, the industry was dominated by the small shop employing between five and ten people,” Mr Cruson writes.

For someone as industrious as Beach Camp, comb production was not only a way to supplement his income, it gave him a useful occupation during the winter months when farming activities were at an ebb. His lady’s comb business was carried on in a separate workshop with the aid of his brothers and a hired hand named George. The trials of making a go of this business continue to plague him.

The raw materials –– cows’ hooves and bulls’ horns –– were obtained from local farmers or from a nearby slaughterhouse, and Camp bemoans the “tedious” hours needed to bring the finished product to markets in Bridgeport, Norwalk, and New York City.

He mentions soaking, pressing, cutting, bending, dyeing, rubbing, and polishing dozens of combs in batches, and then wrapping them in paper before selling them. The comb market was not always good (he once called it “dull in the extreme”) perhaps because of a glut of combs produced by other small manufacturing shops.

 

When Dying Was A Way Of Life

Although marriages and baptisms are briefly noted in the diary, today’s reader cannot help notice that more words are dedicated to recording deaths and subsequent funerals. Many of these losses, such as the wife of Rev Stratton who died shortly after childbirth and whose newborn twins also died and were laid to rest beside her, seemed to weigh heavily on Beach Camp.

A dreadful fatalism seemed to take over his writing –– possibly a common reaction for the time because so many in this small community were taken during the sudden, unexplained onset of fevers and lung disease.

Cholera, influenza, and measles took a terrible toll on the youngest and the oldest members of society. Beach Camp carefully records the various ills and misfortunes of his siblings and friends, and when his wife becomes ill in December 1831, he is “fearful about the result.”

Town Historian Dan Cruson wrote about “Dying As a Way Of Life In 19th Century Newtown” in the 1992 issue of The Rooster’s Crow, published by the Newtown Historical Society.

“Deaths from consumption ranged to a high of 36 percent in the years 1824 and 1854. The average was 21 percent, or roughly 12 citizens a year,” Mr Cruson notes.

He added that consumption or the “wasting disease” would be known as tuberculosis by the end of the century.

“This was not a healthy time. Death was never far away. In addition to the epidemic diseases, deaths were frequently attributed to lockjaw, whooping cough, measles, diphtheria, influenza, child bed and lung fever (pneumonia), all of which have become childhood diseases or treatable with antibiotics and so have lost their terror for us. It is no wonder that anyone contemplating a trip backwards in time would first want to check his supply of penicillin,” Mr Cruson writes.