WATER CLOSET FOR MARCH 27, 2015

[pullquote]’Besides the arrowheads, there were war clubs, tomahawks, axes, large pestles for grinding nuts into grain, different kinds of knives, scrapers, drills, gouges, adzes, pieces of soap stone and pieces of pottery with designs pressed into it.'[/pullquote]The fields in the floodplains along Boston Brook, Nichols Brook, and the Ipswich River in Middleton have seen agriculture for an estimated 4000 years. Native Americans since the continental glacier’s ice left 10,000 years ago were hunter-gathers. In the last few millennia before the English they also planted corn, beans and squash in rotating patches in the good bottom lands. The Colonists who took the land continued cultivation there with the help of horses and oxen. In the last century people passing through got a glimpse of old fashioned farming by the Curtis brothers and their hired hand the late Warren Evans.¹ Arthur and Ernest died in the 1960s. Warren and horses carried on keeping the fields sold to Essex County for conservation mowed. Richardson Farms is still using the ancient fields for alternating crops of corn and legumes for fodder and green manure.² We often wonder in passing how many Indian artifacts have been broken by modern disc harrows and plows drawn by heavy tractors, or just not found.

Ipswich River is just to the left behind the trees. This fallow field in the floodplain off Peabody Street, Middleton, may have been cultivated for over 3000 years. – Judy Schneider photo

In 1995 Warren Evans wrote an article for the Tri-Town Transcript about the Curtis family’s hobby for two generations of looking for and finding hard signs of earlier gardeners who spoke Algonquian while tending their fields. Last week the brothers’ grand niece Mary Curtis sent the Stream Team a copy of Evans’ piece. The Transcript has kindly given us permission to use it in our weekly Water Closet.
Page 14 Townlines – Wednesday, August 9, 1995 –   Tri-Town Transcript
Indian relics found in Middleton donated
to Peabody-Essex Institute
BY WARREN EVANS
Arthur Curtis was a farmer and saw miller who lived in Middleton all of his life with his brother Ernest. It was here they operated a 200-acre farm where some of the fields still remain open today. Curtis’ hobby was collecting Indian artifacts.
Curtis found many artifacts while walking behind a plow being pulled by two horses. When plowing with horses, one horse walks in the furrow and the other on the unplowed ground. The man holding the plow handles can usually see what the plow turns up and stop the horses and pick up any artifacts.
Arthur Curtis was first inspired to save these things because his father, John Curtis, had years earlier gathered a collection and donated them to the Peabody Museum in Salem.
Sometimes he would unearth many of the same kind of artifacts in one spot. Once Arthur Curtis found 20 spearheads where a Stone Age workman must have made them. His collection was rated by scientists as one of the best in private hands in New England.     Besides the arrowheads, there were war clubs, tomahawks, axes, large pestles for grinding nuts into grain, different kinds of knives, scrapers, drills, gouges, adzes, pieces of soap stone and pieces of pottery with designs pressed into it.

The Ipswich River is to the right just beyond the oaks. The field showing corn stubble is under water during major floods. Its soil contains unfound Indian artifacts. Gould Hill is in the background. – Judy Schneider photo

The knives were very fine, of semi-lunar shape form and still have a pretty keen edge. The straight edge was the handle and was thicker than the moon-shaped blade. Some of the handles were decorated with incised slanting lines.
Mr. Curtis found the sharply pointed drills still efficient, and he once demonstrated how the Indians used them. Using one of these tools, he was able to drill a hole through a piece of slate, by hand, in half an hour. That would have been pretty good 4000 years ago.
The gouges would still be able to scoop out wooden dishes which the Indians made in great numbers.
The adzes are similar in contour (to ours?) and were originally supplied with wooded handles.
The scrapers also had wooden handles and were used in preparation of meat and hides. Women did most of the work.
The Indians who lived here over 4000 years ago were hunters and gatherers of food, according to Eugene Winter, a past president of the Massachusetts Archeological Society and the New Hampshire Archeological Society. Winter received an award from the New England Society and was teacher in the Middleton schools for many years.
Winter states that the Indians hunted bear, moose, deer, caribou, musk ox, and turkey here. They also gathered fruits, seeds and nuts as well as fished.
The women prepared the meat. They would spread each hide on the ground and peg it down with the flesh up. They would remove the meat by scraping the hide with a scraper and sharp stone. The hide was then washed and rubbed with soap stone to make it soft. Some of the meat would be eaten quickly and some dried for later use.
Curtis thought some of the pestles, worn with constant pounding, had been used in a large stone mortar found on his farm and now in the Peabody Institute Museum in Salem.
I have seen and handled these ancient artifacts many times and thought of the Native Americans using them so many years ago. I have often thought that if the war clubs, tomahawks and axes had handles on them, they would be just as deadly today as they were long ago.
Curtis died in 1966 and I was told that his collection was also donated to the Peabody Museum as was his father’s.
I feel a debt of gratitude to those early Native Americans who took such good care of the land and only killed animals in order to survive. One might say they were the first environmentalists and conservationists.
1   Warren Evans (1927 – 2001) has been mentioned in the Water Closet before. He knew the Curtis acres and the whole northeast part of town well. He and his hayrides with horse drawn wagons and sleighs over old logging roads were very popular in Middleton for many years. He volunteered to help the Town and Greenbelt on land issues. Many hours were spent by him at the Essex County Registry of Deeds researching the history of land parcels. These were followed up with visits to the sites in question. We who knew him know he too was an environmentalist and conservationist like the Indians he credits in his last sentence. He and his horses lived lightly on the land.
2 The Curtis fields were sold to the County for conservation. They now belong to the State and can be seen from Mill and Peabody streets. The town is negotiating with the state for ownership. Many of the fields are partially in floodplains that are covered with water every decade or so. Warren Evans and his horses used to enjoy pulling stalled cars out of flooded patches of East and Peabody Streets.
WATER RESOURCE AND CONSERVATION INFORMATION
FOR MIDDLETON, BOXFORD AND TOPSFIELD`

Ipswich R. Flow Rate (S. Middleton USGS Gage) in Cubic Feet/ Second (CFS):
For March 24, 2015  Normal . . . 151 CFS     Current Rate . . . Unavailable-
*Danvers Water Filtration Plant, Lake Street, Middleton is the source for actual precipitation data thru Feb.
**Middleton Stream Team is source of actual precipitation data for March.
Normals data is from the National Climatic Data Center.
THE WATER CLOSET is provided by the Middleton Stream Team: www.middletonstreamteam.org or <MSTMiddletonMA@gmail.com> or (978) 777-4584