prehistory - in a supernova patterns of light and energy re-arrange and form iron molecules. The gas these molecules are a part of cools and condenses into a dense cloud that then creates a smaller star with planets orbiting around it. The iron is in a rocky area of iron ore
1776 - Iron ore is found on a New Hampshire hillside and is mined for arms for the Revolution. Nearby, a sixth baby girl is born to the Colburns
1790 - With the war over and more arms no longer needed, some of the iron ore is brought to an ironworks in southern NH - the griddle is made then bought by James Hills for his first wife Abigail who had just given birth to their second child and needs more kitchen utensils.
1804 - Hancock - Abigail Hills dies in November leaving James alone with 8 children, ages 2 thru 17. His brother Joseph's family, who live next door, helps out that winter but it is clear that James needs a new wife.
1805 - Nashua - during a trip to Nashua for supplies, James 42 stays with his younger sister Rachel 27 who is married to Zaccheus Colburn. Zaccheus' cousin Thankful is almost 29 and not yet married. Middle of 11 children she stayed home to help with the younger ones but the youngest is now 18. She has recently come to help with Zaccheus and Rachel's 3 boys. Thankful is on her way to becoming a spinster. She knows housekeeping and childcare and would be the perfect wife for James and mother for his brood.
1805 - Hancock - Thankful as a new wife making breakfast for James Hills' flock of kids finds the griddle and uses it. She asks where it came from.
1807 - Hancock - James' children ask her how she came to be named Thankful. (story of her mother Mary Adams naming daughter for her own mother Thankful Blodgett so she would get a son - see story in LAB writings)
1820's - Hancock- evening, Rachel Hills, washing dishes - griddle too, asks her father to again tell her the story of April 19, 1775 when he rode with his father part way to Lexington.
1825 - Hancock - Winter blizzard so Rachel has no school. Stays home and cooks, weaves and sews with her sisters Catherine and Frances. Use sheet and two blanket pieces as illustrations. Pink "Reward for industry" mug given to RHT by TCH when R was quite young, for spinning
1835 - Hancock then Nashua - At age 24, Rachel goes to live with her Aunt Rachel (James' sister (Mrs. Zaccheus Colburn) in Nashua while she learns tailoring. She meets Samuel Stevens Taylor when he comes to Nashua to be fitted for a suit. They marry in 1839.
1845 - Hancock - letters from and to Calvin. Maybe T is cooking on griddle when Catherine comes in with a letter from Calvin telling of Harriet's death. Neglects griddle and burns food. Then writes a letter in reply.
1847 - Hancock - Thankful looks at the griddle one day and, knowing her daughter Rachel for the first time has a house of her own - the brick house on the hill in Dunstable - decides to give the griddle to her. Thankful's husband James had just died in Nov 1846, her daughter Catherine had just married Ralph Beatley and moved to Chelsea in Dec 1846. Thankful's last child living at home, daughter Frances, is engaged to marry Emmons Thayer of Hancock the next year in 1848. They have told her she is welcome to live with them. (see photo of their house) So she is dispersing her household goods, in preparation for selling the farm.
1847 - Hancock then Dunstable - Samuel Stevens Taylor comes to Hancock to get Thankful, his mother-in-law to bring her to visit her daughter Rachel, Samuel's wife who is about to have her 3rd child, in their new home, the brick house on the hill in Dunstable. Thankful recalls her sidesaddle trip to Cabot VT to visit son Calvin in the late1830's. Thankful brings the griddle to give to Rachel. At the brick house Mary Ella Taylor is a 3-year-old and George Taylor is a 5-year-old.
1854 - Dunstable - Samuel's mother dies in June, and his father and younger sister Sarah, who is herself quite ill, move to the brick house on the hill. One summer day after breakfast as Rachel is washing the griddle, Sarah gives to her the sampler she had made at age 9 and some more recent lace work.
1862 - Dunstable - brick house - MET has asked GB to dinner after church. It is January so they rode up in a sleigh. They talk about their brothers in the Civil War and discover they have great-grandfathers who were brothers (Isaac and Jonas Taylor), and that both were minutemen.
1867 - Rachel Hills Taylor cooks a special breakfast for her daughter Mary Ella on her wedding morning 18 Sept 1867. Discussion of George Taylor's death 5 years before in the Civil War. SST knows his family name will "daughter out" but he's glad to be getting a good son-in-law, George Butterfield.
1877 - METB and GB and 3 girls move back to brick farmhouse. METB is happy to be back on the hill. Exclaims over the old griddle still there in her mother's kitchen.
1877 - Dunstable - IRB falls into pigpen, gets rescued and cleaned up. Then her mother cooks something special (comfort food) on the griddle and gives it to her with a cup of milk.
1880 - Dunstable - brick house - Grandma Rachel Hills Taylor calling the girls to get up. Finally METB rouses them with promise of ? cooked on the griddle for breakfast
1895 - METB unpacking things in Dunstable village house - finds old griddle and almost decides to give it away, changes her mind and hangs is on the wall in her kitchen.
190? - Passaconaway - IRJ, WHJ and Dena on a camping trip to the mountains. Before trip she asks (telephone?) her mother METB if she still has the griddle. METB gives it to her. (Need to check WHJ's writings to find when this trip to "Patty-cake Camp" happened and who was on it. Have the patty-cakes, whatever they were, cooked on the griddle)
1905 - WHJ and IRJ move to Portsmouth. While packing at 14 Liberty St in Waltham, Walter asks Ida Rachel why she's keeping that old griddle. Says his mother has plenty of griddles and spiders (frying pans) on the farm. Ida Rachel says nothing and just packs it into a box with her other kitchen pans.
1906 or 1907 - Portsmouth - some incident while RBJ is a baby
1911 - WHJ and IRJ adopt Arthur and bring him home - something gets cooked on the griddle in the Portsmouth kitchen. (a few photos taken in kitchen - but not of stove. Was it a woodstove?)
1911 - Day after Thanksgiving at Portsmouth - METB tells story of the women's suffrage meeting and thunderstorm. Ruth comes in from feeding geese and getting hen eggs. Is given a fried egg for breakfast.
1914 or 1915 - Portsmouth - fishing trip/cookout on island Ruth, Arthur and Ida Rachel with cousins Bob and Florence - go to island in dory - see photos
1919 - Portsmouth - griddle is packed into car with last odds and ends as James family moves out of farm and heads for Waltham - Ruth's 13th birthday. AMJ upset at leaving farm where she had lived 53 years.
1920 - Chocorua - another camping trip, this time with Ruth and Arthur along - see photos
1922 - Dunstable - Whip-poor will camp being built. IRJ and Ruth use griddle to cook leftover potatoes on the sheet-metal stove outside the tent. Arthur makes birch camp furniture. Story about SST's potatoes the grew on this site in 1854
1928 - Waltham - 158 Dale St- METB as a very old lady is reminiscing - recalls the pigpen incident and asks IRJ to cook her a lunch of (whatever the pigpen incident comfort food was). Blue flame gas stove.
1930 - "Andy" and "Jimmy" (Margaret Andrews and Ruth James) hiking and camping in the White Mountains - story of how they got their "boy" names. Photo of them in 1932 at Carter Notch.
1934 - Montana - IRJ and WHJ now with neither children nor old mothers living with them take a car trip west. They celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary with a noon cookout by roadside - menu in her notes. Have photo from Montana Hist. Soc.
193? - IRJ again takes griddle to Whipoorwill camp in Dunstable. Reminisces about her girlhood in the brick house on the hill just up to the south. Stone fireplace - see photo. Maybe something about the recession in the 1880's? and the depression in the 1930's
1938 - Sept hurricane blows down trees around the Whipoorwill camp (see photos). Trees cut up, new camp built and griddle taken there. Photo of WHJ cooking in the new camp.
1945 - Dunstable new camp - James and English families have saved gas rations and take a trip to camp in the James' 1935 Ford "beach wagon." Use griddle on woodstove in camp.
1950 - IRJ sorts thru stuff at new Dunstable camp, finds griddle and remembers its history - decides it is too valuable to leave unattended at the camp. Puts tag on it and takes it home to Topsfield to store in Ruth's big barn
1952 - Topsfield - In the barn Ruth finds the griddle among other old pots and pans. Decides to take it to Jackson camping. Takes label off and writes "griddle" on it so she will remember what the tag goes with. Jane is up there too, dressed up as a cowgirl and playing on the side saddle that is on the back of an old couch stored there in the top of the barn. She sees tag and asks who Thankful was. Ruth tells her Thankful was her triple great grandmother and used to use the side-saddle. Jane wants to use the griddle to cook lunch - they make grilled cheese sandwiches - electric stove.
1952 - Jackson - Ruth cooking breakfast at campsite - half-built cabin in background. Discussion of what mt Ruth, Ben, Jr. and Jane will climb that day while BWE helps carpenters. Outhouse has been moved here from Whip-poor will camp.
1953 - Topsfield - Jane and the Girl Scout troop she belongs to are working on the Backyard Camper badge. They make cooking fires in small groups and cook pancakes. Jane's group uses the griddle. Ruth is there as assistant troop leader. Later Jane tells IRJ about the activities.
1954 - Topsfield - Ruth cooks on the griddle on the camp stove in the big fireplace while power is out during Hurricane Carol. Thinks about her ancestors cooking on it in the same way. Then the sun comes out and all is still as the eye of the hurricane passes over. They leave the food and go out the west pineroom door and see the wall of clouds all around. A bluebird sings in the tree. Then it clouds up again and they go in make Ruth a birthday pancake for her 48th birthday.
1970 - Topsfield then Tamworth. While Ruth is sorting thru stuff trying to decide what to get rid of before moving, an appraiser tells her the griddle is old but not worth much. After she leaves, Ruth says to herself, "Maybe its not worth much as an antique but I'm going to keep it because of its history." Packs it in a big box with other camping pots. Goes into moving van bound for Tamworth.
1973 - Jane and Gia-fu are headed on a camping trip to Maine, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. They take the griddle along after again removing the tag. Jane catches a trout which they cook on the griddle.
1989 - While cleaning out the Tamworth house, Jane and Judy find griddle in a paper bag with camping pots in back of kitchen closet. Jane sees tag and decides to keep griddle. Packs it to have moved to Mt Shasta. Her niece, Heather, at age 3 is playing in the kitchen there in Tamworth while Jane does this.
1990 - Mt Shasta, CA - Jane unpacks griddle, uses it to cook lunch (gas stove), then decides to hang it by the woodstove. Wonders about all the griddle has experienced.
2000 - Jane and cats by the woodstove one morning in October. Jane wonders again who had used the griddle and what they had cooked on it. Jane realizes that would make a good story.
2000 - Jane packs griddle in a box, sends it to Heather in Jackson. UPS driver delivers package and Heather opens box and finds griddle wrapped in a sweater. She asks her mom, Judy, to hang it up with the other frying pans and griddles - (good place to show evolution of griddles - cast iron, aluminum, teflon coated)
2000 - Jackson - December, just before Christmas - Heather cooks hotdogs on the griddle on the electric stove.
2002 - Mt Shasta - Heather and Jane and Heather's mom, Judy, use the griddle to make ??? for brunch on a solar hotplate after flying in Jane's balloon. This is just before Jane moves to VT. Heather and Judy had brought the griddle back to CA for this. Full circle for the griddle, from the sun back to solar heat.
2003 - epilogue - Jane in a Native American sweat lodge in VT. At the end the lodge keeper offers blueberries to the spirits of the directions and to the grandfathers -- the hot rocks in the pit in the center of the sweat lodge. As the berries sizzle on the rocks and their good smell fills the lodge, Jane thinks, "That's the original great-grandmother's griddle!"
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