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Farm Dynamics and Regional Exchange: The Connecticut Valley Beef Trade, 1670-1850

Author(s): J. Ritchie GarrisonSource: Agricultural History, Vol. 61, No. 3 (Summer, 1987), pp. 1-17Published by: Agricultural History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3743602 .

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FarmDynamics and Regional Exchange: TheConnecticutValley Beef Trade, 1670-1850J. RITCHIE GARRISON

In late May of 1771, John Adams set out on ajourneyfrom his home in Braintree,Massachusetts, to see the Connecticutvalley. Proceeding leisurely, he tarriedwith acquaintances over mid-daymeal in Waltham. As he dined, he was interruptedby a vast drove of cattlefrom the Connecticutvalley that passed by outside, headed for the marketin Brighton,just outside Boston. After dinner he rode on, stopping in theevening at Munn's tavern in Sudbury to spend the night. Over tea, hetalked with the proprietorabout the valley's agriculture,and in particularabout the region's livestock business. BenjaminMunn,Adams' host, waswell acquainted with the Connecticut valley beef trade. Bornin Deerfield,Massachusetts, in 1738, he had lived in Northampton priorto his removalto Sudbury. As he told Adams about the livestock trade, Munn describedthe crops, feeding practices, and marketingstrategies used by farmers inthe rivervalley, outlining for his guest a commerciallyorientedagriculturethat was already well established by the time Adams made his trip.'The trade in beef that Adams and Munn discussed is an importantelement in the development of a commercially scaled agriculturein theruralNortheast. Centered in the fertile bottomlands of the Massachusetts

J. RITCHIEARRISONs Assistant Directorof Museum Studies and Assistant ProfessorofHistory,Universityof Delaware.The author wishes to thank RichardBushman,DonaldFriary,Gregory Nobles, Robert Paynter,WinifredRothenberg,Alan Swedlund, KevinSweeney, andJohn Worrell for reading various drafts, suggesting revisions, or providinginformation hatproved valuable in developing this study. David Properand Louise Perrinof the PocumtuckValley Memorial Association Library,Deerfield, Massachusetts, and DanielLombardoof theJones Library,Amherst, Massachusetts, were helpfulon countless occasions, and went out oftheirway to bringsources to my attention.Citationsof PVMA nd Jones Librarymanuscriptsare made with permission.1. John Adams, Diaryand Autobiographyof John Adams, ed. by L. H. Butterfield Cam-bridge: Belknap Press, 1962), 11:17;George Sheldon, A Historyof Deerfield, Massachusetts,(Deerfield:PocumtuckValley MemorialAssociation, 1895),11:244.agricultural history volume 61 ?number 3 ?summer 1987. ? agriculturalhistory society

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2 agricultural history

portion of the Connecticut valley, the trade in fat cattle, as it was termedcolloquially, functioned within the household type of economy that manyhistorians have described, but it prospered because of calculatedattemptsto use agriculturalmarkets for personal and family profit.2The evidencefrom the beef trade supports Bettye Hobbs Pruitt'sargumentthat farmersin some sections of Massachusetts had achieved a degree of marketspe-cialization,thatthey were aware of internationaleconomic conditions, andthat productionfor household, neighborhood, and marketcould be com-plementary, rather than mutually exclusive.3 Pruitt'sstudy is convincing,but it does not go far enough. Heranalysis of the 1771tax valuations ablydescribes the state of family subsistence patterns in Massachusetts, but itdoes not always explain how and why they worked as they did. Moreover,the valuation records, which her study relies upon, cannot reveal howdynamic short-term exchanges functioned in regional and internationaltrade.

Although the beef trade was small by the scale of later nineteenth-century exchanges, the patterns of the system were established early inthe area's history. Bythe 1670s some Connecticutvalley winter-fed cattlewere being driven east to marketcenters.4 At the end of the seventeenth-century, the livestock trade was importantenough that at least one valleytown, Hatfield, Massachusetts, specifically exempted fat cattlefrom beingentered into the community's valuation records.5 Despite such officialcommunity-based encouragements, it is likelythat the number of cattledriven to market was small. The region suffered severely during King

2. George Sheldon, " 'Tis Sixty Years Since: The Passing of the Stall-fedOxand the FarmBoy," Historyand Proceedings of the PocumtuckValleyMemorialAssociation, 1890-1898, 3(1901)472-90; MargaretRichardsPabst, "Agricultural rendsin the ConnecticutRiverValleyRegionof Massachusetts, 1800-1900," Smith CollegeStudiesinHistory26 (1940-1941) 17-19,52-53; James WestfallThompson,A Historyof LivestockRaisingin the UnitedStates, 1607-1860 (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, Inc.,1973, 1st ed. 1942), 32-34; SylvesterJudd, His-tory of Hadley, Includingthe Early History of Hatfield,South Hadley,Amherst and Granby,Massachusetts, (Springfield:H.R.Hunting& Co., 1905), 368; ChristopherClark,"HouseholdEconomy,MarketExchange,andthe Rise of Capitalism n the ConnecticutValley,1800-1860,"Journal of Social History13 (Winter1979):169-89; James A. Henretta,"Familiesand Farms:Mentalite in Pre-industrialAmerica," Williamand Mary Quarterly35 (January 1979):3-32;MichaelMerril,"Cashis Good to Eat:Self-sufficiencyand Exchangein the RuralEconomyofthe United States," RadicalHistoryReview (1977):42-71.3. Bettye Hobbs Pruitt, "Self-Sufficiencyand the AgriculturalEconomy of Eighteenth-CenturyMassachusetts,"Williamand Mary Quarterly 1 (July 1984):333-64.4. Stephen Innes, Laborin a New Land:Economy and Society in Seventeenth CenturySpringfield (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1983), 172-79; Judd, Historyof Hadley,353-54; HowardS. Russell,A LongDeep Furrow: ThreeCenturiesof Farming n NewEngland(Hanover:UniversityPress of New England,1976),22, 53-56.5. David W. Wells and Reuben F. Wells, Historyof Hatfield(Springfield:F.C.H.Gibbons,1910), 126.

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3 Connecticut Valley Beef Trade

Philip'sWarin 1765, and Indian attacks inthe 1690s and early1700s madethe upper portions of the Connecticut valley unstable. The wars causedconsiderable property destruction, and diverted men for militaryopera-tions during the growing season. Many households suffered the loss offamily members and animals. Only after personal security increased andsettlement proceeded, did the full potential for raising winter-fed beef6improve.The scale of the cattle business did not greatly increase until uplandtowns were settled on the perimeters of the lowlands. Uplandfarms pro-vided two essential services for lowland cattlemen: cheap stock to fatten,and summer pasture. Faced with shorter growing seasons and thinner,stony soils, few hillfarmers were able to produce hay or grain crops on thesame scale as farms on lowland intervale lands-even after their farm-steads reached a level of maturity. Depending on the size of their barnsand the quantityof fodder that they managed to save, most uplandhouse-holds had to sell off some cattle in the fall to manage effectively winterfeed.7 By contrast, lowland towns in the middle of the eighteenth-centuryfar surpassed other areas in Massachusetts in the percentage of landdevoted to tillage (see Fig. 1). As Pruittnoted, valley farms produced asubstantial surplus of grains. Many lowlanders also cut sizable hay crops.What valley farmers lacked, and what uplanders had in great abundancewas good pasture land. The net effect of such spatial differences was tocreate conditions for mutual economic dependency-a condition that per-sisted into the nineteenth-century-and to prompt farmers in hill andvalley to engage in short-term exchanges to balance household andfamily needs.8Lowland feeders purchased livestock from hill farmers, fattened thecattle on surplus grain over the winter, and herded them to market undertheir own power in the spring. Uplanders normallyculled their herds be-tween October and December. The pressure on hillfarmers to sell usuallyserved to keep prices down. With careful buying, lowland farmers wereable to purchase cattle for feeding at favorable local priceswithout havingto allocate too much of their own land for pasturage. To free fertile bot-

6. For a brief summary of this period of the valley's history see: Kevin M. Sweeney, "FromWilderness to Arcadian Vale: Material Life in the Connecticut Valley, 1635-1760," in The GreatRiver: Art and Society of the Connecticut Valley, 1635-1820, ed. by Gerald W. R. Ward, andWilliam N. Hosely, Jr., (Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1985), 20-21.7. J. Ritchie Garrison, "Surviving Strategies: The Commercialization of Life in Rural Mas-sachusetts, 1790-1860," (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1985), 174-75; RobertPaynter, Models of Spatial Inequality: Settlement Patterns in Historic Archeology (New York:Academic Press, 1982), 45-111; The process of development-was also described by JacksonTurner Main in The Social Structure of Revolutionary America (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1965), 7-43.8. Pruitt, "Self-Sufficiency and the Agricultural Economy," 357-58,361.

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Land Use in Massachusetts, by CountyHampshire I'.. .-a---'.- .|1751| BarnstablegSi -SggSt:::-:: i:::::::::.lb y Dukes .i..:::::.:.::-::-:: : .::::Ipercent . . . . . .Essex [... l:-: .: : : : : : : : :-:-:-:-

Middlesex ]RiD.'..g:. . . ...: .: .0 Orchard | antucket : : .*bTiatuke Plymouth ::::::::::0 lowinvg SuffolkVorcesterE33Pasture YorkFigure1 Thisgraph llustrates owdifferentHampshire ountywas fromothersnMassachusettsn1751.Thepercentage f land ntillagewasnearlywice hatofthenext closest county.At the same time, the regionhad relativelyittlepasture.Source: Based on Table 18, in David GraysonAllen, InEnglish Ways: The Move-ment of Societies and the Transformation of English Local Law and Custom toMassachusetts Bay in the Seventeenth Century, (Chapel Hill: The UniversityofNorthCarolina ress, 1981),231.

tomlands for tillage and mowing during the growing season, many valleyfarmers also rented pasture from uplanders. Jonathan Hoytof Deerfield,Massachusetts recorded in his diaryon May14, 1805,that his son Cephas,"... drove out cattle to Shelburne [Massachusetts] pasture."9Similarly,Solomon C. Wells of nearby Montague noted in his diaryof 1833,that heput two cows, a yearling, and a colt in a pasture inthe neighboringtown ofWendell.10While the region's farmers generally preferredto rentpasturefrom friends or kin,they did summer cattle on lands owned by strangers.1They also bought cattle for fattening from men who were strangers.Lowland cattlemen normally bought cattle in pairsfrom the uplandersin November, after the crops were in and the lowland common fields were9. Jonathan Hoyt,Diary,14 May 1805, Hoyt Papers, PocumtuckValleyMemorialAssocia-tion Library,Deerfield,Massachusetts (hereafterPVMA).10. Solomon C. Wells, Diary,23 April1833, PVMA.11. Garrison,"Surviving Strategies... ," 26-148; Concord farmers also used hinterlandpasture.See for example: RobertA. Gross, "Culture nd Cultivation:Agriculture ndSociety inThoreau'sConcord,"Journal of AmericanHistory69 (June 1982):8-10.

[r; . .. .:.:::::::::::::::::::::::1 [-,\.... . .':::::::::.....:.. :::::::::::::::::::1: . ..???RM . .~~~~~~~~~~~?? ?.,. I?WJie8~~~~~

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open to browsing. Although lowlanders seldom bought more than a pairof cattle from a single uplandfarmer per year, it is clear from descriptionsof the trade, account books, and family correspondence, that purchasesdid not depend on local exchanges (see Fig. 2). A frustrated lowlandfarmerwrote to his father on March 11, 1831, and observed that

I have not yet sold the cattle for I have not had an offer for them. Ourfolks have sold a considerable number of cattle and are fillingup againbut they seem to preferto go out of town for them for some reason oranother.12Account books document the purchase of cattle from neighbors, buttheyalso record purchases from farms in distant towns in southern Vermont.Similarly, newspaper editorials and family letters warned of buying cattlefrom strangers who passed through lowlandtowns selling cattlethatwerestolen.A number of families fed between four and twelve cattle a season ifthey were involved in the fat cattle business at all. A small number offeeders raised more than a dozen animals, but such operations de-pended upon hiring wage labor for at least partof the agriculturalcycle,or upon sons living at home.13Pruittfound no clear differences betweenuplands and lowlands in livestock ownership in the Massachusetts Val-uation List of 1771, and was unable to explain the reputationof Hadley,Hatfield, and Northampton as centers of the Connecticut valley meatpacking industry. Using her evidence, she concluded that the valleyeconomy was not so specialized and commercialized as previously be-lieved, but in this case her evidence was misleading-valuations for the1771 tax list were made in September, before cattle were purchased forfeeding on lowland farms. Because the feeding business was a dynamicprocess, the valuations do not pick up the true number of cattle fed invalley feedlots and are unreliable for estimating the nature and extent ofcommercial livestock feeding.14

12. HenryKingHoytto ElihuHoyt,11 March1831, Hoyt Papers,PVMA.13. It is difficult to establish accurate figures on the number of cattle the valley feedersraisedin one season as no statistical sources such as tax valuations are reliable.TheSheldonstypically raised between ten and fifteen oxen a year (see John and Seth Sheldon, AccountBook).Other armers likeJulius Robbinsof Deerfieldseldom fattened morethanfourinayear.See Julius Robbins,Diary,PVMA.Also see A. Scott Foley,"TheAge of CommercialSpecializa-tion: Agriculturein Deerfield, 1811-1840," (unpublished seminar paper, Historic DeerfieldSummer Fellowship Program, Henry N. FlyntLibrary,Deerfield, MA1985),24-66; Sheldon,"'Tis Sixty Years Since...," 472-82; John and Seth Sheldon, Account Book, 1791-1858,PVMA;Charles Hitchcock o ElihuHoyt, February10, 1806,CharlesHoyt o ElihuHoyt,4 Febru-ary 1809, Hoyt Papers,PVMA.14. Pruitt,"Self-Sufficiencyand the AgriculturalEconomy,"357-58.

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Figure 2 Based on the evidence in his account books, Seth Sheldon's purchasinghabits varied from year to year. In 1817, for example, Sheldon bought more cattlefrom his neighbors and relatives to put into his feedlot than he did from strangers,but this was not a consistent pattern. In 1825, the purchases were considerablydifferent,for in that year he bought more cattle from farmers in other towns. Whilethe number of cattle he bought in upland communities changed each year, Shel-don's reliance on upland farms for stock to put to the stall was significantin all ofthe years he recorded purchases in his accounts. Similarly,other lowland feedersdepended on these links with uplanders.What the valuations did pick up was substantial grain production, be-yond what was necessary for household food needs. Pruitt concluded that

grain production in the valley ranged from forty to eighty-six bushels perpoll, two to three times what she estimated was needed for home use. Sheassumed that the surplus was exported, presumably to some of the lessagriculturally well-endowed communities to the east. Judging from ac-count book evidence, some grains clearly were exported, but the substan-tial grain surpluses indicated in the valuation lists also enabled farmers tosustain livestock feeding operations using grain.15

Most feeders fed their cattle provender. As it was most commonlyprepared, provender was composed of corn and peas-and-oats ground ata mill and mixed in a 1:1 ratio. The peas-and-oats were sown and har-vested together as field crops and were threshed and winnowed on barn15. Ibid.,357-58; For information on the quantities of goods shipped down river see:Anonymous, Account Book, List of Shipments on the ConnecticutRiver, 1752-1754, JonesLibrary,Amherst, MA.

Seth Sheldon's Cattle Purchasesl Pairs purchased out of tovnI Pairs purchased in tovn

5 @31

1817 1825

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7 ConnecticutValley Beef Trade

floors during late fall and winter. Stall-fattenedcattlewere also fed quanti-ties of hay. Good lowland meadow generally yielded three tons of hay peracre in one agriculturalseason, but on the best mowing lands farmerssometimes cut even more-up to four tons. Such productiveness made acommercially scaled agriculturepossible in lowland towns of the Connec-ticut valley throughout most of the eighteenth century.16Duringhis conversation with Munn,Adams learnedthatfatteningcattlewas labor intensive business. He reported that ". .. it is the whole Businessof one Man to takecareof em-to feed, Water,andcurry hem. Theygive anOx but little Provender at first,but increase the Quantity illan Oxwill eat aPeck at a time, twice a day."17Using Adams's recordof the conversation, itwould appearthat fattening one ox took nearlytwo bushels of provenderaweek. For farmers who fed a modest number of animals, four to six, feedgrainconsumption would have rangedfrom 8 to 11bushels aweek, equiva-lent to about a third of the quantity Pruittestimates would be a yearlyminimum for a normalfamily. Onlysubstantial surpluses in grainproduc-tion would have sustained such large scale consumption.18Processing and storing such large quantities of fodder placed consid-erable demands on farmers, their buildings, and their equipment. Storingquantities of fodder for fattening livestock over the winter requireda siz-able investment in outbuildings and barns. Most of the more substantiallowland feeders owned two barns by the 1770s. A generation latermanyfarmers were building large barns with special sheds for feeding theirstock. Most of these feeding sheds consisted of a wing or lean-tooff of themain barn into which farmers could pitch or carryfodder. The feedingsheds generally were open on one side and faced south or east to protectcattle from the weather (see Fig.3). Inthe shed were feeding stalls. Aboutthree feet wide, these stalls were separated from the others by strongstuds on the stable side of the manger. The studs were boarded up aboutthirty inches and a stout pole was fixed at the level of the oxens' necks toprevent them from walking into the feeding area. The feeding area was alarge trough extending across the length of the stalls. Theoxen were heldin their stalls by a strong rope that was fixed about their horns and tied tothe stud next to them. The rope prevented the oxen from getting the mealof lesser companions and fear prevented them from contesting the terri-tory of an ox furtherup on the herd hierarchy.While these barns and cattlesheds made feeding chores more efficient and convenient, they easedrather than eliminated much backbreakinglabor.19

16. Garrison,"SurvivingStrategies,"26-148.17. Adams, Diary,11:17.18. Pruitt,"Self-Sufficiencyand the AgriculturalEconomy,"341-45.19. Sheldon, " 'TisSixtyYearsSince,"473-75; Listof Houses, Out Houses &c.own'dby D.Hoit, Feby 8th, 1799, Hoyt Family Papers, PVMA;BenjaminA. Clark,Map of the Town of

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I


.1 1# & 0 0./%VIay/I' '% % '%0 ,. %1% . . - % % .I 1I11I1I1

-'-I-,--,.\ \

Figure 3 Floor Plan of the Seth Sheldon Barn,DeerfieldMassachusetts, ca.1830-1880, (not to scale). The barns owned by cattle feeders often followed traditionalpatterns, but were modified by adding lean-tos or sheds to accommodate the live-stock. In this barn the cattle were kept in a lean-to to the south (left) of the haymows. This feeding shed was on a lower level thanthe mainhay barnto permit heSheldons to pitchfodder down to the animals. The main barnwas approximately30by 50 feet and dated to the eighteenth century.Atvarious times sheds were addedfor horses, tools and grains. The structure was demolished in 1938. While tradi-tional English-stylethree bay barns were common inthe Connecticutvalley intheeighteenth century, the location of feeding sheds varied accordingto topography,the size of the operation, and the wealth of the household. Thisexample shows oneapproach used to improve the convenience of the feeding operation.

Almost all of the fodder stored in these barns was grown and pro-cessed with traditional hand tools. The introduction of fanning mills to thecapital stock of prosperous farmers in the 1780s and 1790s and cornshellers in the 1810s, improved the efficiency of farm technology, butthese improvements were not widespread among ordinary farmers untilafter the mid-1830s. Early nineteenth-century probate inventories seldomrecorded this improved equipment, and most farmers continued to man-age their fields and animal feed by using tools that had been traditional in

Deerfield,(Philadelphia,1855), PVMA;Massachusetts GeneralCourt,Committees, Valuations,"AListof the Polls and Estates, Real and Personalof the Several Proprietors nd Inhabitants fthe Town,1771, 1791, 1811," Microfilm,PVMA;Althoughmost of the feedingsheds that existedin the early nineteenth century have been demolished, field observation corroborated heirexistence in other lowland towns of the Connecticutvalley.

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the seventeenth century.The evidence supports Rothenberg'scontentionthat agricultural production increased because of intensified farm laborrather than improved technology.20During the early decades of the nineteenth century, this intensifiedlaborslowly butsteadily increased the size of tillage, mowing, and pastureby putting unimproved or what was termed "unimprovable"land intoproduction (See Fig. 4). Although the wealthiest lowland farmers ex-panded their holdings of improved land the most, a number of middlingand small farmers also enlarged the acreage of the land they had in pro-duction. The quantity of unimproved land declined for most towns in theregion. Some of this newly improved land was used in the 1820s to raisecash crops like broom corn or to increase the amount of pasturage avail-able for raising sheep, but the beef trade remained a strong component oflowland production strategies and uplandfarms continued to supply ani-mals for the fattening process.21The problemfor farmers engaged in thecattle business was that competition from other New Englandand west-ern farmers made the profits of the trade inconsistent. Increasing produc-tive capacity to maintain profits only served to drive up the number ofcattle sent to market and furtherdepressed prices.22Reducinglabor coststheoretically might have improved profit margins, but much of the laborwas performed by family members who would otherwise be idled, andlabor inputs were somewhat inelastic since the fattening process was sointensive and time consuming. Technological improvements promisedbetter efficiency in the processing of grains, but the methods of fatteningcattle demanded a high level of personal attention.As Adams noted, the fattening process was a full-time occupation.Oxen were the preferredstarterstock. They were purchasedin pairssincethey were trained as teams from their youth and breaking up a teamadversely affected the animals' behavior. The qualities of these cattlecould vary considerably as few farmers bred their steers for fatteningpurposes. The ages of the teams also differedsince some farmers sold offcattle they had worked for many years while others unloaded younger

20. Winifred B. Rothenberg,"FarmAccount Books: Problems and Possibilities,"Agricul-turalHistory58 (April1984): 106-12; The evidence in the regionfor the use of tools is availablechieflyfromprobaterecords for Hampshireand FranklinCountieson microfilmatthe HenryN.FlyntLibrary,Deerfield,MA.Also see the collection of agriculturalmplementsat the MemorialHallMuseum, Deerfield,MA,and the HadleyFarmMuseum, Hadley,MA.21. Pabst, "AgriculturalTrends in the ConnecticutRiverValley",47-66;Foley,"TheAge ofCommercialSpecialization,"67-82; HenryColman,FourthReporton the Agricultureof Mas-sachusetts, Counties of Franklin nd Middlesex(Boston:DuttonandWentworth,StatePrinters,1841),51-80.22. Sheldon, "'Tis Sixty Years Since," 480-90; Sheldon's account is the most detaileddescriptionof the stall-fedoxen business, but his recollections can be corroborated rom nu-merous primary ources; ElihuHoytto HenryKingHoyt,10 January1832,HoytPapers,PVMA.

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Figure 4 Likeother towns in the Connecticutvalley, Deerfieldsteadily cut back theacres of unimproved land. The significant increase in tillage and pasturagewas atthe expense of woodland and "unimprovable"land. Largerpastures and graincrops allowed more farmers to increase the size of their herds and many did.Despite the growth, many farmers in the 1830s began raisingother marketcropsasthe profitmargins on cattle shrank.

teams that were surplus. Once the cattle feeders were ready to bring theoxen to winter quarters, they established a ranked feeding order in whatwas called "seating the meetinghouse." The feeders had to insure thatyokes of cattle rather than individuals were arranged in hierarchical se-quence as yoke mates maintained a close relationship throughout theirlives. To break up that relationship would cause problems among theherd. The biggest, strongest team dominated, but farmers had to inter-vene on occasions if one of the weaker mates of a team was challenged.After the order was established, the risk of fighting among the herd waslargely eliminated-reducing the danger of goring to cattlemen and beast.If new teams were added to the herd later in the season, the rankingprocess had to be repeated.23After the first week of feeding passed, the livestock grew accustomed tothe system and became docile. Until then, the feeders had to rely on

23. Adams, Diary, 11:17; heldon, " 'TisSixty Years Since,"478-80.

Land UseDeerfield, Massachusetts600050004000 by acre

i Pasture2000~3i^ -- II M UnTillage1000 i-- ::: Unimproved?i~~5 :owing1811 1831

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1 1 ConnecticutValley Beef Trade

sturdy fences, strong gates, and a watchful eye to protect their invest-ment. One cattleman, George Sheldon, recalled that

One day Ihad turned into my well fenced barnyarda largepairof oxenjust down from Vermont. Not long after I happened to see one of thestrangers, with a spring as light as a deer, clearthe top bar at a bound.The mate did not feel equal to this feat, but he proposed to show thatsome things can be done as well as others; so after giving one lookaround for a vulnerable point, he walked up to the bars, bent his headdeliberately down, adjusted his horns carefully to the rails and liftedboth posts bodily out of the ground, quietly laid the whole down flatwithout misplacing a bar and walked out over the prostratestructure.But with all their active determination and prodigious power they ac-knowledged the mastership of man. Ihad no difficulty nstopping themin a lane leading to the highway, and so saving a world of trouble to allconcerned.24

This kind of unpredictabilitydemanded considerable responsibilityon thepart of the owner. While the size and strength of the animals had to beaccounted for in supervising feeding operations, even recalcitrantanimalssuch as Sheldon's usually responded to the routine of lavish feeding.This routine almost never varied. Feeding began at daybreakwith pro-vender. When the ration was gone, the feeder took hayfrom the mow andfed it by hand to each animal untilthey could orwould eat no more. Whenthe cattle had their fill, the feeders took the oxen out of the feeding stall apair at a time to drink from a trough filled with freshly drawn water.Afterward,the animals bedded down in an open shed that faced south.Feeders tolerated few things that upset the feeding routines or the ani-mals' rest. They kept children and women away to prevent anything fromarousing the animals' curiosity, and they were careful to eliminate any-thing that would slow the fattening process. As the engorged cattle rested,the barnwas cleaned up. Excess hay was rakedup and fed to the ordinarycattle, and the manger was swept clean. Awell-runfeeding operationwasan issue of competitive pride and it was characterized by neatness andregularity.Anything less was regarded as a sign of waste, sloppiness, andpoor management.25Afternoon feeding occurred punctually at 2:00 p.m., and few thingswere considered important enough to interrupt he schedule. When MajorDavidDickinson of Deerfield,Massachusetts, died in 1821,observers werewitness to the rigidity of the feeding schedule. The funeral procession

24. Sheldon, " 'Tis Sixty Years Since," 478.25. Ibid.,478-80.

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moved off to the graveyardafter mid-daydinner.One-by-one,as the pro-cession passed their doors, Dickinson's three surviving brothersslippedaway to "put up" their cattle. By the time the gravesite was reached, theranks of the mourners had thinned noticeably.The body was lowered intothe grave and, as local funerary custom dictated, the group paused toallow an opportunityfor a close friend of the bereaved to eulogize the lifeof the deceased, and to express thanksto the participants n the funeral fortheir help and concern. On this particularoccasion the pause was brief.Ebenezer Hinsdale Williams, a neighbor of the departed, who had beenselected to deliver the eulogy,

... advanced to the grave and with his peculiaremphatic, ahem! andhis accompanying kickwith the heel of his right foot, sent the earthrattling down upon the coffin and exclaimed shortly, 'Cover him up!Cover him up! No friends here!' It is not clear whether he was morevexed at the absence of the three brothers, or of his own enforcedpresence after two o'clock.26

The Dickinson funeral may well have been an exception, butthe routine ofthe livestock business was not easily alteredby eitherfamilyor communalrituals.Over the course of three to five months, stall-fed cattle added a consid-erable amount of weight. Account books seldom provide much specificinformationabout the weight of cattle before fattening, but a typical ani-mal in the mid-eighteenth centuryfrom the valley feedlots seems to haveweighed 600-1000 pounds. Bythe early-nineteenthcentury,animals wereoften purchased weighing 700-800 pounds, and left the lowland barn-yards 400-600 pounds heavier. A few extraordinaryanimals reachedweights that exceeded 2200 pounds, but most animals went to marketwith live weights of 1000-1400 pounds. Most of this weight gain came inthe form of fat since the animals were discouraged from being activewhen feeding. The high fat content contributedto the reputationof valleyfat cattle as tasty and desirable beef. Before sending them off in a drove,the feeders typically had to exercise the animals for about a week toprepare them for the long walk to market.Although some of the weightgain was exercised off on the marketdrive,the loss was an accepted andunavoidable consequence of doing business.27

26. Ibid., 482-83.27. For weight estimates see: Thompson, A History of Livestock Raising, 32-34; Judd,History of Hadley, 368; Russell, A Long Deep Furrow, 158-61; Joseph Barnard, Day Book,1737-1785, PVMA; Colman, Fourth Report, 51-80; Rodolphus Dickinson, "A Geographical,Statistical, and Historical View of the Town of Deerfield," (Deerfield, Graves, and Wells, 1815),9-12. Using Dickinson's estimate of 400 cattle weighing 440,000 Ibs. in 1815, the live weight of

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Profits in the livestock business depended upon marketing.Normally,cattle were purchased by drovers, middlemen who made their livingdriv-ing cattle overland to the marketin Brighton,next to Boston, or even to themarket in New York City. Often the transaction between cattlemen anddrover occupied considerable time and included much haggling overprice. The drover was speculating on the future priceof the animal in themarketwhile the farmer was anxious to make more than his costs. Bothcontestants in this process employed an informalbut extensive and well-developed network of news and rumor to project market conditions.28Fromteamsters who made frequent trips, travelers, relatives,and friendsof relatives who lived near the marketcenters, information on prices anddemand made its way out to the hinterlands. One letter written in 1805,reflectedthe kindof information that was passed on. A localvalley legisla-tor wrote home requesting his wife to

Tell Charles to make the hay and corn hold out as long as possible forthe prospect of beef is very good indeed ... Iam told that there is nothalf as many cattle in the County as there generally is this time of theyear. Ithink we should do well ifwe can keep our cattle a month ortwolonger.29

Withmarket informationfor a background, bargainswere struck and cattlesold. The process could go on for hours with farmer and drover arguingthe merits of a particularanimal, mentally weighing costs and profits.Cattle usually were sold at a fixed price per head. Alternatively,theoxen were consigned to the drover at a fixed price per hundred weightwith settlement made after the drover returned with a bill of weight.Sometimes cattle were sold on drift with the drover peddling the cattle inthe market for the best price he could get. Less frequently,feeders drovetheir own cattle to market. This practice eliminated the middleman butexposed the feeder to the problems of dealing with the Brightonbutcherswho were always ready to take advantage of novices, and who workedwith what was in some respects a closed system. Butchers and droversanimals probably averaged 1100 Ibs. by that date. Also see John and Seth Sheldon, AccountBook, PVMA,and Sheldon, " 'Tis Sixty Years Since,"478-80.

28. Sheldon, " 'TisSixty YearsSince," 478-90; EliasJoynerto ElihuHoyt,10August1801;Stephen West Williams to ElihuHoyt,10 January 1832, Hoyt Papers,PVMA;bythe late 1820sthe newspapers in the Connecticutvalleywere publishingpricesfromthe BrightonMarket.Seeforexample; GreenfieldGazetteand FranklinHerald,13October 1829.Also see: DavidC. Smithand Anne E.Bridges,"TheBrightonMarket:FeedingNineteenth-CenturyBoston,"AgriculturalHistory56 (January 1982):3-19.29. ElihuHoyt to Hannah Hoyt, 27 February1805, Hoyt Papers,PVMA. ometimes con-spired against feeders who broughttheir own stock to market.

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sometimes conspired against feeders who brought their own stock tomarket. One common tactic was to inform the farmer that the marketwasglutted and that prices had fallen. Another technique involved rings ofbutcherswho might approachthe feeder at differenttimes, each offeringaprice lower than the last in an attempt to unnerve the inexperiencedfarmer and force a hasty sale.30No matter how careful farmers were with marketing strategies andfeeding practices, they faced increasing competition in the marketplaceand rising costs. Prices for fattened cattle fluctuated, especially after thesecond decade of the nineteenth century. One Deerfield farmer, ElihuHoyt, complained to his wife in 1819, that

I understand our cattle are in the markettoday much to my regret,for'tis said that there are many more than arewanted, some say 150 head.Ifso we cannot expect to get much for feeding them. Thisyou know ismy usual luck. I know of no other way but to submit to it & be at rest. Iam sure no man wants the money more than myself.31A few hours later he wrote another letter, lamentingthat the cattlethat hehad ordered sent on driftbrought $120.16. He reportedthat the sale " ...after paying for the cattle, & interest, to this time &the drift,will leave mea clear profit of 92 cents." He added that, "This is another lesson whichgoes to confirm me in my former opinion that I ought not to try to getmoney by fatting cattle."32Despite his frustration,Hoyt kepton fatteninglivestock, continuing to pursue a business with calculated risks because itwas more profitablethan other types of farming.Hoyt's letter was solid evidence of how far the market process hadpenetrated the experience of most valley farmers. Throughout much ofthe eighteenth century, valley farmers would not have expected to payinterest on the cattle that they bought on creditto fatten.Theyanticipatedpaying the original owner back after the fattened cattle were sold on themarket. Seasonal rhythms of farming forced almost everyone to livewithin a system of credit, but after the Revolution interest payments onloans became increasinglycommon.33 Creditcost money and interestpay-ments became a fact of life for farmers who had to compete inthe marketfor capital. Wealthy farmers had enough resources to buy outright thebeef they would fatten, but middling wealthholders like Hoyt depended

30. Sheldon, "'Tis Sixty Years Since,"478-80; John and Seth Sheldon, Account Book,PVMA.31. ElihuHoytto HannahHoyt,7 June 1819, Hoyt Papers.32. Ibid.33. WinifredB. Rothenberg,"TheEmergence of a CapitalMarket n RuralMassachusetts,1730-1838, TheJournal of EconomicHistory45 (December 1985):789-91.

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upon creditto participatein the system. As interestcharges became morecommon, middling farmers were further squeezed between the pricesthey received for their cattle and the costs of doing business.Not all cattle were sent to urban markets. Some were slaughtered bylocal butchers who clearly hoped to garner some of the region's trade.Localnewspapers often carriedadvertisements for cattle, and valley mer-chants did act as middlemen for a considerable quantity of the area'slivestock.34Estimatingthe scale of this local business is very difficult.Forexample; following the poor economic years caused by the Warof 1812,Rodolphus Dickinson's survey of Deerfield noted in 1815, that

... it may be safely estimated that the crop of Indiancorn duringthepresent season is not less than 37,000 bushels; and that the averageproduce of other years considerably exceeds 30,000, one halfof whichis probablyraised by the inhabitantsof the village; and bythe latter400of the finest cattle, mostly purchased from the farmers in the uplandtowns, are annually fed, in the best manner, from the beginning ofDecember to May, the weight of which may be computed at 440,000,and proceeds of their sale in the market, at $31,000 with a profitofabout half that amount.35Few other lowland communities fattened as many cattle as Deerfielddid,yet these figures represented only the village of Deerfield ratherthan theentire town. From Dickinson'sdescriptionand a varietyof othersources, itis apparentthat the cattle business in some well-developed lowlandtownswas well beyond the point at which it could be characterizedas householdproduction.36Despite Dickinson's sanguine description, many farmers searched foralternatives to fattening cattle following the poor tradingyears between1807 and 1816. Itwas no coincidence that as profitmargins for beef de-clined in the late 1810s, valley farmers turned to raising broom corn andmaking brooms.37 One farmer observed in 1821, that the people in his

34. See for example; GreenfieldGazette,8 September 1796;ChristopherF.Clark,"House-hold, Marketand Capital:The Process of EconomicChange in the ConnecticutValleyof Mas-sachusetts, 1800-1860," (Ph.D.diss., HarvardUniversity,1982), 125-92.35. Dickinson,"AGeographical,Statistical,and HistoricalView," 10-11.36. Travelers often observed the significance of cattle raising in towns such as Deerfieldand Hatfield.See: TimothyDwight, Travels n New Englandand New York Cambridge:Bel-knapPress, 1969, originaled. 1823), 11:226-29;Colman,FourthReport,51-80.37. CharlesJones, "TheBroom CornIndustry n the Countiesof Franklin nd Hampshireand in the Town of Deerfield in Particular,"PocumtuckValleyMemorialAssociation, Historyand Proceedings4 (1899-1909):105; John Wilson,MemorandumBook,WilsonFamilyPapers,PVMA.Historianswho have seen broom makingas evidence of the transition o a more com-mercializedagriculturehave not realized that commercial ventures such as the beef tradepreceded the large scale productionof either broom corn or brooms. See GregoryNobles,"Commerceand Continuity:A Case Study of the RuralBroommakingBusiness inAntebellumMassachusetts,"Journal of the EarlyRepublic4 (Fall 1984):287-308; ElihuHoytto HannahHoyt,7 June 1819.

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town were ". .. giving more for cattle than they fetch in this market."38Henry Colman, Massachusetts' distinguished agriculturalreformer, re-called in 1841, that another farmer had observed that the ". .. fattening ofcattle has not been a good business for years." He added that the pur-chase priceof cattle was too high, that the marketwas capricious,and thatthe meat packers in Brightonconspired to keep cattle prices down to gaina larger share of the profits.39 Many farmers continued to fatten cattleanyway. Without realizing it, Colman provided a partialanswer to thequestion of why the beef trade persisted. Some farmers,particularlyhosewho were well capitalized, who owned good lands, and who farmed effi-ciently, continued to turn a profitfrom the cattle business. Colman put itsomewhat differently, but the point was the same when he observed that

... it is better for a farmer to use his hay on his farm, though it willproduce him, when thus fed to cattle, but six dollars per ton, than tocarry it even a short distance to market and obtain eight dollars for it.There are in the latter case the loss of the manure,which the haywouldfurnish, the waste in removing the hay, and the wear-and-tear and toilof carrying it to market.40As long as fattening beef was managed within the limits of a farm's re-sources, farmers could manage to hang on.The hard lesson for men like Elihu Hoyt was that the business wasincreasingly left to rich farmers who could command the resources tocompete. Men like Seth Sheldon, who paid cash for startercattle,who fedmore stock and whose farms were better situated, continued to make aprofitfor decades, even if the profitin some years came principally n theform of several tons of rich manure that could be spread on fields tomaintainyields.41So the fat cattle system hung on inthe lowland towns ofthe Connecticut valley, surviving as an agricultural strategy amongwealthy farmers who could take risksin a capricious marketor who couldmanage their affairs effectively enough to compete with the growing vol-ume of western produce that flooded into eastern markets.42The stall-fed beef bridged the gap between the more generalized,mixed agricultural raditions of the eighteenth centuryand the specializedagricultureof the nineteenth century. The system worked by functioningwithin the constraints of seventeenth century nucleated village plans or

38. ElihuHoytto HannahHoyt,9 January1821, Hoyt Papers,PVMA.39. Colman, Fourth Report, 73.40. Ibid.,80.41. John and Seth Sheldon, Account Book,PVMA; heldon, " 'TisSixtyYearsSince,"474-80. 42. Ibid., Colman,FourthReport,78-80.

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17 ConnecticutValley Beef Trade

eighteenth century dispersed farmsteads; ithusbanded farmresources byreturninga portionof the soil's nutrientsin the form of animalwastes; andit served families by using the labor available in ordinary households.Finally,itwas a system that was built on the complex network of relation-ships between upland farms, lowland stall feeders, and the marketplace.This network could coexist comfortably with the traditions and values ofthe household economy, but it also accommodated a dynamic, intenselycompetitive and market-oriented system of agriculturethat used inter-town exchanges to provide for family security and individualprofit.Noteveryone benefited equally fromthat network,but one way or another,thesystem influenced the expectations and strategies of many farm familieswho lived in the Connecticut valley.

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