Part III
The following biography is taken from Vermont History: The Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society, Volume 31, No. 4 (October 1963), Montpelier.
It was written by Eliakim 's nephew, Edwin L. Bigelow. Thanks to Clare B. Sheppard, St. Albans, VT for this contribution.
Part I appeared in Vol. 29, No. 3 (July 2000). Part II appeared in Vol. 29, No. 4 (Oct 2000).

     There were Lyceums which members of the family frequently attended, though the diaries give no hint of what the programs may have been. There were school exercises and occasional camp meetings to attend. The Sewing Circle seems to have met quite regularly over the years, judging by the frequency with which mem­bers of the family attended it, and it sometimes met at the Bigelow home.
     In addition to the social visiting which might be termed a form of recreation, there were picnics and fishing trips that were def­initely in that category. On August 17, 1881, Eliakim went on Mount Mansfield with thirteen others. He again made that trip July 20, 1895, with brother Ned's folks and went into the Notch with them August 7. The date of another Notch picnic was August 8,1881, and he went in there again with a party of thirty on August
a, 1899.
     There were taxes in those days the same as now but the figures were considerably smaller. During the twenty-one years from 1881 to 1902 the farm tax is mentioned in fifteen of those years. In 1882 it was $19.31 and in 1884, $16.44. Then it ranged in the twenties until 1890 when for some reason it dropped to $19.60 and the next year even farther to $18.38. The year 1893 saw a jump to $40.60 and then in 1895, 1896, and 1897 it was over $30.00, but by 1900 had increased to $47.51 and in 1902 was $51.26, the highest amount recorded.
     In addition to the farm tax there was a district school tax up to 1893 when the individual districts were merged into one town district by legislation passed in 1892. That probably accounts for the total tax increase beginning in 1893. Previous to that, Eliakim mentions school tax payments of $5.29, $6.64, and $7.51, the latter in 1890.
     Those taxes seem low in comparison with present day exactions, but it should be remembered that the general price level of those times was also low by present standards, so those taxes may not have been particularly easy to meet, but there is no indication but that Eliakim always made his tax payments when due, something which seems to have applied to all his financial obligations.
     The prices in vogue for services and the sale of farm products seem very low by today's standards, but the self sufficiency of the farm life enabled those who participated in it to live well and main­tain the property, even though no major accumulation of cash rewarded the hard and varied work. Likewise the prices of items necessary to purchase were equally low by today's standards.

October 8, 1885    Bought a mowing machine $50.
February 29, 1888    Paid Mr. Dike $2 for hearse. [Mother Barrows' funeral]
March 3,1888    Paid Mr. Straw for casket $26.
April 10, 1888 Sold 26 pound sugar 9 cents.
April 30, 1888 Sent 5 tubs sugar 151 pounds to Iowa  8 cents.
November 14, 1888 Sold 123 pound butter 24 cents.
February 8, 1889 Bought Frank Robinson's oxen $85. [Sold them July 30 for $105.]
January 5,1881 Sold 47 sheep $3.00 each.
October 19, 1881 Sold 5 bus. apples $1.10.
January 22, 1885 Got a new overcoat $12.50.
June 20, 1885 Sold 335/2 pound butter $6.03.
March 8, 1893 Bought 3 pigs $10.
January 1, 1894 Bought a cow of Mr. Boyce $17.
February 12, 1891 Sold 92 pound beef $4.06.
March 5, 1896 Paid $2 for a pr. pants.

     There were other sales of butter at twenty-five cents and thirty cents a pound. At the district school meeting March 29, 1887, Eliakim bid off the school wood for $1.30 a cord and Dan Sallies bid off the teacher's board at $1.50 a week. On August 27, 1894, Eliakim went over to Adamses and engaged board for daughter Annie for the school year for $1.25 a week.
Butter accounted for $251.69 for the year 1882. In 1883, 761 pounds of butter were recorded as sold for $177.18. From February 23 to November i, 1884,1,407 pounds of butter were produced and sold for $289.55. Up to April 19, 1893, 2,408 pounds of maple sugar had been made.
     While the weather was a sufficiently important item to warrant daily mention in the diaries, it rarely made any difference in the work schedules except perhaps to increase the hours of road break­ing on occasions of snowfall and wind. Eliakim never failed to men­tion the weather, but usually referred to the temperature only when it was unusually cold or hot, and the diary entries generally went something like the following samples:
February 3,1885 22 below. Worked for Fred Sears. Edwin went on hill and split short wood.
February 14, 1885 Pleasant but very cold. 20-40 below 0. Brushed out road.
February 4,1886 34 below at the village, 20 below here. Went to Morristown and took the 2 horse wagon home.
January 3, 1885 Very strong cold east wind. 20 below. Drawed 2 loads logs from back lot to mill. [The next day it was 34 below and no work is noted.]
January 19, 1887    22 below, roads all full. Worked self and team 3 hours.
January 21, 1888 Very cold and wind blows 14 below. Went to mill. Father went down and I got him some leggins and overshoes.
January 27, 1888 Cold windy day. Snow drifted badly. Shovelled on road 2 hours. The road so bad the girls had to stay at Dan Sallies overnight. Done nothing but chores and shovel snow today.
July 19, 1894    Good hay day. very warm 96. Got in 4 loads hay. July 20,1894   95 got in 8 loads hay. January 25, 1897    Fair cold. 18 below, sink spout froze.
July 5, 1897    Merc. 99 too hot to work. Mowed a little in front of the house. Got a load of hay in the swamp.

     Eliakim was in his seventies when I became well acquainted with him, though he had known me since babyhood. In his diaries when I was in my teens are many references to my working with him in haying during summer vacations as well as in other phases of farm work. In all the years I knew him I never heard him use profane language of any sort, and in his diaries there is rarely any mention of Sunday labor, and they bear record of his payments for support of the church or "minister" as he generally wrote. He was one of the original organizers of the West Branch Meetinghouse Associa­tion in 1883 and served as clerk until 1915.
     Since reading the diaries, I can more thoroughly appreciate the meaning of the bent back and gnarled hands that characterized him, as marks of the prodigious amount of toil spent in securing a living from that 135 acre farm. I once asked him what part of the farm work he liked best, and he replied that he liked it all in its season, and he must have, to have endured it all those years.
     In December 1884, he took a deed of the Barrows farm in Morris-town for which he agreed to take care of Father and Mother Barrows for life. He then let the farm to Mr. L. D. Bliss and finally sold it to the Bliss children in October 1886. Mother Barrows died February 26, 1886. Father Barrows helped a good deal about the farm until his death December 4, 1896. Mother Bigelow died March 23, 1893. Newell's wife Charlotte and Eliakim were there. Two of the broth­ers living in Massachusetts came to the funeral three days later.
     In 1893 the original Bigelow homestead at the foot of Luce Hill came into the possession of Mr. Frank Butler of Salem whose wife was Eliakim's niece, and he put in considerable time supervising the renovation of the buildings, making the garden, and in general looking out for the place in addition to the work of his home farm for the several years that the Butlers owned it.
     This entry appears in the diary for September 4, 1894: "We all went to Freeman's in the afternoon. Eliakim Bigelow Elected Rep­resentative on first ballot. About 75 friends made us a visit in the evening." Family tradition has it that cider and doughnuts were served.
     He went to Montpelier September 22 to engage board for the session. He got home at four o'clock and got in a load of corn. On October 1, Mr. Alger commenced to work and the next morning Eliakim went to Montpelier and handed in his papers at the State House. On Wednesday, October 3, the legislature met at 10 a.m. and organized. Seats were drawn in the afternoon, and he drew No. 7 in the front row on the right hand of the Speaker. He was appointed to the House Committee on Claims and to the joint Senate-House Committee on Temperance.
     He attended the governor's reception at the State House Wednes­day evening. The next day he listened to the message of the retiring Governor Fuller in the morning and to that of the incoming execu­tive, Woodbury, in the afternoon. The diaries provide little com­ment upon legislative business. He was seldom absent and went home nearly every weekend. He made one trip to the State Prison, presumably upon legislative business, and was one of a group which went to Rutland at the city's invitation. He stayed with a Mr. Cook in Mt. Holly that night. He mentions that the Rutland bill passed the House November 22 and was discussed in the Senate November 24 but he writes nothing about the subject of the bill.
     The session closed November 27 when his committee sat for its picture. The final adjournment came at 2 o'clock in the morning. In the meantime there were several recesses and a mock session was held. He stayed at the Union House and they had an oyster supper there at 12:30 p.m. According to his cash account he paid $52 to Union Hotel, paid Mr. Alger $30, and received $125.40 from the state. He left for home the next day at 10:15 a.m. and got there at 4:00 p.m. The following day was Thanksgiving and they all went up to brother Newell's for dinner.
     There had been occasional illnesses over the years, usually severe colds, though in 1893 Eliakim and Annie had the German measles. The upsets that Eliakim had from time to time are interesting to read about because of the work he did when ailing. A few quota­tions will illustrate the point:
August 1, 1886    Most sick today got 6 loads of hay.
August 8, 1886    Was sick all night, went down to see the doctor and got some medicine, have not worked all day.
August 9, 1886    Feeling some better, churned most all day.
October 11, 1886    Washed in forenoon, husked some in afternoon. Not feeling very well.
August 15, 1886 Most sick. Bad cold and teeth [The next day he washed in the forenoon and went to the village in the afternoon.]
May 22, 1887 Most sick at home all day. [The nextday he churn­ed and helped wash.
September 16, 1894 be was home all day most sick with a cold. The next day he took Annie to school in the morning, and then went to the village. They dug 53 bushels of potatoes.]
January 1892 [He had the doctor and was laid up four days. A number of people came to see him.

     On February 8,1915, after he had left the farm an entry is:] Not feeling very well, split wood part of the day.
     On February 12, 1901, Eliakim was taken with a chill about 10 p.m. which was the beginning of a bout with pneumonia that kept him in bed six weeks with a male nurse part of the time. Apparently that illness led to the decision to leave the farm, for a deed was signed March 15 for the Ayres place down at the Branch across from the church and the move was made April 19 with Eliakim in his seventieth year.
     The year 1915 brought the climax of Eliakim's life. The fiftieth wedding anniversary was observed April 12. Neighbors to the num­ber of 75 called and chairs were borrowed for the occasion.
     On June 18 he was 84 and J. E. Houston took Eliakim, Louise, and daughter Annie to Morrisville and Hyde Park. Louise and Annie were left with relatives in Morrisville while the men went on to Hyde Park to hear a court case of local interest. They got home at 6:15 p.m. His wife's, Louise's, birthday was September 25, but there was no special celebration beyond having brother Ned and wife to dinner.
     The farm on the hill was not disposed of for some time but the cattle and horses were sold in 1903. Taking up residence off the farm did not seem to bring Eliakim a very restful life. Not only was he busy with the garden, drawing wood, keeping a cow, pig, horse, hens, and the like but he worked in the cemetery, helped neighbors with their haying and the like for another fourteen years until the last diary entry November 12, 1915, which was a rainy day. At night he went after daughter Susan who was teaching at the village school.
     While there is much that we would like to know omitted from the diaries over the years, Eliakim never failed to record the weather and so we know it rained on November 12, and the figure 42 gives the temperature for the morning of November 13. The rest of the page is blank as are the succeeding pages of the diary.
     During the six weeks' pneumonia illness in 1901, the diary was regularly kept by one of the daughters, who faithfully recorded her father's condition, the doctor's visits and various details of the farm work being carried on by others. No one did that in 1915 from November 13 on but the story is told by three bills. Two of them are from the Mary Fletcher Hospital in Burlington dated November 21, 1915. They read as follows:

Mr. E. Bigelow:
To care for 6 days    $2.00        $12.00
To care for 1 day    2.58               2.58
To one day special nurse    1.71    1.71
To operating room    5.00             5.00
                                                $21.29
     The other bill is for private room $10 so we can assume he had the best of care. The charges are interesting to compare with those that would be charged today. The third bill is that of the local un­dertaker: "To expense of Mr. E. Bigelow's funeral $16.75."
     The house in which Eliakim passed his last fourteen years is now a ski lodge and motel. The church across the road from it which he helped organize in 1883 and served as clerk the rest of his life has been remodeled into a guest lodge. The farm on the hill is no longer operated as such but its superb scenic location has been capitalized as a real estate venture. The barn he built collapsed (1961) and is in ruins, part of it being used for construction of a summer theatre.
     The horse barn adjacent to the house to which he so often moved hay and straw as recorded in the diaries is gone but the house remains externally as he knew it, though the interior has been completely changed and modernized. Even the road as it ap­proaches the top of the hill has been relocated.
     After Eliakim's death, the house on the Branch was sold, and the surviving daughters and Mother Louise moved to the village where Susan was teaching. The mother died December 22, 1921. Susan died in June 1959 at the age of 85, and her sister Addie, daughter of Eliakim's first marriage, passed away in a Waterbury nursing home ten months later at the ripe old age of 98. Son Edwin, who had established himself as a practicing physician in Wolcott, Ver­mont, had come home to the house on the Branch with an incur­able malady, and the diary for June 12, 1905 had recorded: "Edwin passed away 11:45."
     Thus with the passing of Addie, the Bigelow family in Stowe remains as only a memory after 119 years of residence, a memory kept alive in some degree by the chimes which Addie willed should be installed in the steeple of the Village Community Church.

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