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- Storytelling was a primary
source of entertainment amongst the early settlers and
Moses Morrison, a Hancock resident, had a talent for spinning
a yarn that made him famous throughout the area. Cheshire
County Historian David Proper submitted the following
story in a 1982 edition of the Keene Sentinel:
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Old Moses Morrison and
How To Trap Turkeys
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- "One morning in the late
fall, early before it was light, old Moses Morrison set
out for the woods to chop his winter supply of wood. As
he was passing along the shore of Half Moon Pond, he glanced
up and spied a flock of 12 wild turkeys roosting on a
limb of a tree overhanging the water. Fearing if he returned
home for his gun it would be become light enough so that
the turkeys would have flown away, he decided to take
a chance and throw his ax up at them in hopes of knocking
one off, for he did want one of those turkeys. He threw
his ax, which did not land exactly as he had expected,
but struck the limb on which the turkeys were roosting,
splitting it lengthwise and so cracking it off from the
tree so that it fell into the pond. As the limb fell,
the ax blade loosened and fell out, the lengthwise crack
made by it closing over the toenails of the 12 turkeys,
holding them fast to the limb and making it impossible
for them to escape.
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- Now old Moses Morrison
could not stand to lose his turkeys that way, so fully
dressed as he was, he jumped into the pond and swam out
to the limb which he succeeded in getting and commenced
to drag it ashore, the turkeys still securely fastened
by their toes in the crack. He was dressed in one of those
old-fashioned jackets or jumpers, simply fastened by one
button at the neck and another at the waistband, and when
he jumped into the water this jacket simply ballooned
out around him, helping to hold him up in the water. At
that time the waters of Half Moon Pond simply teemed with
fish and by the time Moses reached the bank and climbed
to shore, dragging his limb with the turkeys, so many
fish had been scooped up inside his jacket that the bottom
button gave way with a pop, and flying off, hit a jack
rabbit sitting 50 yards away and killed the animal instantly.
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Myron Johnson and the
Woodchuck
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- One day Myron Johnson saw
a woodchuck carrying a load of sand, he thought it was
strange and he watched it go on for a few days. Finally
he asked the woodchuck, "Where are you going with the
loads of sand?" The woodchuck answered, "I'm bringing
them up to Prospect Hill so I can dig a hole!"
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Roger Terrill and the
Pickwick Ale
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- Roger Terrill spent his
summers at the Robinson Homestead (still owned by Robinson
descendants) at the site of Elmwood Station and he recounted
this tale:
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- "Willie Curtis lived in
a little bungalow on South Elmwood Road and he was caretaker
of what is now the Mathewson place. When I was a teenager
in the 1940s, I would help him get in the hay. I remember
especially one very hot, muggy summer day. I got so hot
and thirsty I really needed a drink. Someone gave me a
Pickwick Ale, I drank it right down and it tasted pretty
good. You remember Pickwick, don't you? It was about 15
cents a quart.
Well, years later I saw
Pickwick Ale in a store and bought a bottle for old
times sake. It was awful, so I decided to send a sample
to a lab in Concord. A few days later I got a letter
back from them and it said, "Dear Sir: We have examined
the sample you sent and we are sorry to inform you that
your horse has kidney trouble."
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- Submitted by Gloria
Neary. The Woodward and Terrill stories were excerpted
from an audiotape she recorded for the Hancock Historical
Society in 1986.
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