Turley Publications photo by Ruth M. Lyon

The children were given packets of herbs to sniff, in order to determine what remedies they might contain. This student can’t decide what this remedy for motion sickness is. Ginger root, still used today by herbalists, is the answer.

Society brings history lesson to fifth-graders

By Ruth M. Lyon

Turley Publications Reporter

WEST BROOKFIELD- “What would it be like to leave your family and friends behind and travel, by ox cart, stage coach, canal or river boat and even on foot or horseback from central Massachusetts to a wilderness hundreds of miles away? How would you live? What would you take with you? What if you were sick? Where would you go to school?” These are a few of the questions discussed when a museum education teacher from Old Sturbridge Village brought 1830s history to fifth-graders at the elementary school.

This town’s cultural council and historical society recently joined forces to bring a history lesson from the living history museum in Sturbridge to the school. OSV teacher Amanda Sullivan arrived in 1830s costume and bonnet, bringing with her examples of what she explained were both primary sources, such as “stuff” and secondary sources, such as textbooks and other printed material.

“We will be historians today,” she explained as she divided the students into groups of four and five and handed them packets. These packets contained examples of both kinds of sources, she said. The basis for the historical adventure that the ten-year-olds would undertake, a trip from Sturbridge or Barre, both local towns, to Ohio and Illinois, were letters and diaries in the OSV collections.

Thus, the experiences of the family of Pliny Freeman, whose family lived in Sturbridge, could be followed across the country as it then existed. Excerpts from the diaries of men, women and children would be read, maps examined, and reproductions of actual items which might have been used in the westward migration could be handled and examined.

There was talk of fifteen or many more days of travel, utilizing several modes of transportation, to arrive in Illinois, where the soil was 12 feet deep and could be purchased for $1.25 per acre. What problems might occur along the way? Wild animals and Indians? Would the stagecoach get stuck in the mud or fall down a steep hill? Would the boat sink? Was the ride bumpy? Where would you sleep along the way? Where would you go to the bathroom? What would you eat? How would you know when you’d arrived? (One wonders, how many westward-bound kids asked “are we there yet?)

And how could you communicate with the friends and families you’d left behind? How could they reach you? As the children used quill pens to write letters, they learned how to fold them for mailing, and the likelihood of letters being lost. Imagine, in this day of email, iPods and texting, writing with a quill pen, with ink made from butternuts or other natural ingredients, on paper that was scarce – no stores to visit to purchase more. And mailing your letter, knowing it would take weeks to reach Sturbridge or Barre, and weeks for your friend’s reply. Imagine, the only music you could hear was from the fiddles, fifes, drums, jaws harps and penny whistles your parents might have brought with them, if in fact they did so.

Where did you take a bath? Where did the water come from? What if you caught a cold, or had a tummy ache from the bumpy ride or the motion of the steam boat? Could you fall off the barge? What if you caught mumps or measles or whooping cough?

Small hand-stitched paper parcels of dried herbs were passed around for children to sniff. They were surprised to realize that herbs used now as curatives were used then as well. But then, they read from a diary of a young man, “I suffered an accident with a broad axe, the gash is 3 ¼ inches long, to the bone. I oint it with ground worms and butter, which is recommended very highly.”

Two letters, written to the editor of the Barre Farmers’ Gazette in 1834 (the year the Barre Gazette was founded) express the differing opinions of an old and a young man. The old man describes a perilous journey, “removing themselves from the land of their homes and birth, from all that is happy and delightful, from a climate which is healthful, from a soil which is rich and productive, to a land “flowing with milk and honey,”

Then, he goes on to describe the tribulations, the “unhealthiness of the climate, the stagnant and miserable water, danger to life and limb.”

He finishes by saying that, if money is the moving principle, it can be accumulated anywhere. “Let our young men remain in their own sweet New England, where if they work hard wealth, happiness and honor will be theirs.”

The young man responds in his own letter to the editor. Saying “Your correspondent is very ignorant of the subject. He goes on to say the trip is easy, pleasant and safe, and that old men should not discourage “those who would attempt honestly to obtain a competency. For this purpose a number of persons visited the state of Illinois, they report that in no part of the world is there such a field open for enterprise, for honor, for wealth and happiness.” He describes the fertile soil “It is only necessary to plant the seed, and it will grow and ripen without any care, until harvested…People from New England are flocking to this state.”

At the end of the lesson, the individual groups of children chose topics to discuss among themselves, then report to the class. This they did with enthusiasm and in some detail; all appeared to be interested and involved with the subject and with the materials they’d had the opportunity to examine. However, not one child appeared ready to yell “Westward Ho!” and jump on a wagon.