Frederick Burne - Yeah, it's south of Amherst. It's just past Springfield. Just past Springfield.

Okay, here's... Yeah, Agawam's right out there. Right.

It's not too far from Agawam. Here's these documents that you loaned me. I made copies of them.

Okay, so here's these back. Okay. Yeah, you made some nice swords.

Here's those back. These are what you made copies of. Right, right.

Now, you know what I found interesting? I wanted to ask you about this. This is a very interesting thing.

Yeah. You know how when Roby went bankrupt? Yeah.

I saw where this guy Stock bought everything for $2,000. Well, Stock, wasn't he the... Well, I don't know how to say it.

Let's see. It's got it listed right here. I'll show you.

Stock. Didn't he have charge of the... The bankruptcy?

The bankruptcy court? That must have been it. Let's see.

It's in the back of it. It's right here. Yeah, it says here...

This is what I was going to ask you about. Stock to Roby. Yeah.

Well, I think that's just an intermediate number. Oh, you think he was just a... Because what it said was the court paid $2,000 for all of Roby's holdings.

On the other side, see? It is right here. In consideration of $2,000 paid by George Stock of Nashua, New Hampshire, he bought all of Roby's stuff for $2,000.

Yeah, but I think that's just for a record. Who do you think bought it? Well, I think it's for paper.

In other words, you've got to make a... You know, for a dollar and other considerations, you purchase certain things. Yeah.

And that's just, I think, a legal maneuver. By Roby? No, Stock.

Was he a clerk of the court or something? I don't know. It looks to me like he was somebody.

George Stock of Nashua, New Hampshire. He was from a different state, so I don't think he would be... He took all the rights and everything.

Yeah, that's all right. He was just a... He could have just bought it at auction.

Well, I don't know. He wouldn't call it a stooge, but... Well, what I wanted to ask you was, then the following year, he sold back the Roby house to Susan Roby...

Interviewer - Yeah.

Frederick Burne - ...for $800. Yeah. Now, do you think that was a setup?

No, I don't think that. I think that's the way they did things. Well, I still do.

I mean, you could go into bankruptcy, and some relative of yours could buy it. I don't think... So, what I'm saying is he lost his house and everything, and then his wife was able to purchase back his house.

I think it's a little different now, because I... Legally, I don't know that I know just how they maneuver, but in the old days, you know, what I know when I was selling Roby, there was a field lady that worked in our office. She'd been in the company for years, and she inherited her father's estate, the house, and they had land in back, and a local physician wanted to buy the land in back of that house, and she didn't want to sell it.

So, he had another fellow in town approach her to buy it, and he would just buy it and then turn it over to him. It's just a transaction, a legal maneuver. Lots of times... Like, if you were a millionaire, and you came to me to buy some of my property, knowing who you were, I would put top dollar on it. So, what they would do, the millionaire would get a stooge to buy it, and then... So, do you think Roby had some involvement with...

I think this is just a bankruptcy procedure. In other words, my mind is sharp as it was, but I'm trying to think of an example, and I think this is due to the bankruptcy procedure. This stock, I don't know whether it gives it somewhere else or not, but when I came across this, I see Sawyer.

Who was Sawyer? Was he the judge? Or maybe he was a bill holder or something.

Maybe he was a bill holder. Now, there's Sawyer, a signee of said Christopher Roby, and for good cause's own, it is ordered that said assignee be authorized to sell. I think this is just the maneuver of the court.

Yeah. So, the $2,000, they got everything. They got the mill, the water rights, his house, his whole estate.

Well, $2,000 is a lot of money, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. The other thing is, I found out a lot of this stuff.

You know what I was asking you? You were telling me how you thought one of the reasons he got into financial trouble was because when the war started, a lot of his manufacturing stuff was in the south, and he lost money. That was in Waters' history.

Well, it wasn't a case of selling. They weren't paying. I guess he had already shipped the stuff down there.

Well, they shipped. If you were a client of mine, you would order something, not ship to it, and then bill you. I think what happened when the war started, he had a lot of outstanding bills, and they just didn't have any money down there.

A dollar was no good, and Confederate money had no value. So, he was stuck with all those bills, and the only approach he had was bankruptcy. Now, I noticed the other thing is that I noticed that he was representative of Chumsuk in 1866.

Does that mean like he's what Carol Clevin is today? He was what Carol Clevin is today? I think probably, yeah.

Yeah, because in Waters it had the selectmen and then it had a representative. It seems like he peeped in 1866. In other words, it was 1867 that he filed bankruptcy, so he was the representative of the town in 1866, and then he seemingly went bankrupt.

Well, he wasn't the only one at that time. Oh, a lot of people went bankrupt? A lot of people.

Similar to today? A lot of people going bankrupt? Well, a little different than today because the war was the cause of it, and his wife, her background was was good.

I mean, she came from...

Interviewer - Susan?

Frederick Burne - The first wife? No, the second wife. The second one?

She was a... Well, he didn't marry her until like 1875, right? That's right.

So he went through his troubles. His second wife was related to the George Snow's wife. They were tied in through marriage.

She was a wheeler. And that was George Snow? George Snow.

He was a selectman one, too. Oh, yeah. And he was very highly thought of in this area, and so his...

What was his wife's name? Clarabelle? No, I'll find it.

You know, one of the things that I've got in controversy in my mind is he formed F Troop. What? Roby formed F Troop in 1864.

You know, Spalding Light Calvary, his F Troop. Well, you know, I was just thinking... You don't know the Moynihans at all, do you?

No. Well, Ned Moynihan had... He's a lawyer, retired now, but Ned and I went to school together.

He was in my class. Yeah. And he went on to...

to Boston College. Then he went on to Harvard Law School. And when he graduated, he went to work in Ed Fisher's office.

Ed Fisher was a member of the Fisher family from Western, from well known. And his brother Frederick was a judge of the district court. And they did all our legal work.

I worked with Ed Fisher in drawing up all the deeds for the Abbott property. And Ned started in with Ed Fisher at that time. And then Ed Fisher died.

And a couple of Fishers, all the farmers died off. So it all came back to Ned. And he was always Ned to us, but he was Ed at law.

So after Ed Fisher died, I worked with Ned on the final papers of Abbott. And his father was in the Catholic. Oh, yeah?

And so I'm wondering if he... You might have to know something. ...know anything. Ed Moynihan is his name? Moynihan. Live in Chelsea?

You know, are you familiar with Main Street up here? Know where the church is? Yeah.

Well, they lived right across the street. And in fact, Dick's widow lives there now. But Ned was brought up there, and I know his father very well.

Oh, where does he live now? He lives in Lowell. Lives in Lowell.

And they're all dead. He's the last. He's still alive?

Yeah. Well, maybe I'll call him up and ask him about it. And he was quite close with his father, and they must have talked about it.

That's right. I could find out, yeah. But after Roby died, I think... See, this cavalry was a Westford. That's where they were located, in Westford. In fact, the old building, I think the Cadillac Club, and I don't know, the D.A.R.'s meet in that building. It's down on Boston Road. Are you familiar with... There's a little schoolhouse, a white building.

Is that the one you're talking about? I don't know much about Westford. School building?

I ride my bike by it sometimes. I see a little building they're going to fix up or something. Do you know where the Historical Society meets?

No. That's the old academy building. Oh, I know where that is.

Well, that's the Historical... Oh, okay. So that's Boston Road.

Yeah. And you go down there about a thousand feet. On the same side is the old cavalry building.

And that's where they used to meet. And... My question, did he get involved in St. Albans at all?

Interviewer - Vermont?

Frederick Burne - St. Albans when the Confederates came down into Vermont? See, because I've read a brochure that said Roby's, Spalding Light Cavalry was formed and went up there and fought up there. In Vermont?

Yeah. The Confederates came down from Canada. And then there was a battle fought in St. Albans, Vermont, in the Civil War. I don't know anything about that. But you know, when I'm reading it, I don't know. I'm going to have to look at the dates and see when St. Albans took place and when Roby formed the troop. You know what I mean? I think... He formed it real late, like 1864.

History gives the... I read where it didn't say anything. Yeah.

It didn't say anything about St. Albans. No. No.

Oh, because that's the first I've known of that. But a guy I'm going to talk to, this John Hamilton, who's done some research on Roby, wrote in a pamphlet that Roby did fight up there. Now he says he...

I read his references where he got it from. He got it from the history of F Troop. I've got to find that book or pamphlet or whatever it is, the history of...

I'm going to have to talk to him and ask him where that is. I didn't know that they did any fighting at all. In Waters' history, it mentions no fighting.

Oh, because they just... Well, of course, Waters' history is... Yeah.

It's debatable. You know what's really a shame? I went to the library last week and I was going through the archives, what they have, and I found the 250th anniversary thing of Chelmsford written by Perham.

All right? And when he got to the Civil War, he said, well, I'm not going to say much about the Civil War because everybody knows about that. See, it was written in like 1910 and there were lots of people around who knew about it, so he didn't write anything down about it.

What a shame, huh? And he knew all about it. Well, that's the same as now.

Yeah. I mean, like yourself personally, it's all half what's happening. Yeah.

And you don't realize that 50 years from now... Exactly. It's going to be interesting to see.

And that's a shame because he mentioned nothing about the Civil War. And Waters really doesn't talk much about it. He lists names of men and stuff, but he really doesn't talk at all.

Well, they just got that from records. Yeah, yeah. But I know Wilson Waters, he made statements about the water power company.

I told you about that. Yeah. It's all wacky.

It's wrong, huh? Because George Moore never had any land up there. Yeah.

One of the interesting things I read that Perham said was that he went through kind of the history of Crystal Lake, that there was a lake there and then somebody tried to do something and the bank let go. And for a hundred years, there was no lake there. It turned into a forest.

Yeah. And it wasn't until, you know, I guess 18-something that somebody jammed it back up again. Well, Crystal Lake used to be fed from the other side.

Yeah. You know where the... Little bait shop is?

It used to come in there. Yeah. And it fed my canal to the mills.

Then when Drake and... Who was the other guy? Drake's the guy who bought the water rights and stuff?

He's the one who sold to Roby? No, he didn't. Roby got all his stuff from...

Fowler? No. Fowler?

Yeah. Fowler was the one that bought it. And Lincoln Drake.

And he established... And they dug a canal. See, he built this dam down here.

Lincoln Drake did? Not Drake. Fowler.

No. Anyway, just about the time Roby or Fowler established the sewer factory.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Frederick Burne - Lincoln Drake built the dam down below. And you saw a picture of the red house. The red house?

Yeah. It was down here. And he dug the canal from there down to feed Crystal Lake.

Oh, yeah? And that was done about 1826 or something like that.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Frederick Burne - And that established Crystal Lake. They cut the timber off. What did they build with the timber?

I read something. They built something. Town hall or someplace, a school or something.

He cleaned that off. And I remember the mills using that water in the canal. Now, is that where Bainbridges is today?

Huh? Does that canal go down by where Bainbridges is, you mean? You know where the restaurant Bainbridges and stuff is?

Yeah. Down in that area? It's up above.

And it comes down across, I think, under. I don't know. I think it went under Princeton Boulevard.

And over to the Merrimack River? And fed Siliesia. I'm not too sure.

But he fed his mill. That was George Moore bought that and all the rights. And that's why when Crystal Lake broke out and lost all its water.

Yeah, I remember that. And they didn't know who owned it. I don't see why they didn't know that.

Because he owned all that. He owned the canal and the whole works. And, of course, the Boston Ice Company built their ice houses there.

And I can remember those buildings. I've got pictures of it. And so that was an operation until they got electric power.

And then they did away with the water pretty much. It wasn't very dependable. See, Moore controlled the water in Mabnasset.

And it's still in a quarry over it now. Have you read about it? No.

The water in Mabnasset went out, you know, last year. You're talking Mabnasset Lake, then? Yeah.

It went down to a trickle. No kidding. And, of course, Moore used to drain it.

He used to draw water every summer. For what? Well, the water.

Are you familiar with Mabnasset Country Club? No. I know where it is.

Well, the water. He had a dam on Mabnasset. And the water came from the dam right through the golf course came down across and came out by Worcester Corner, you know, where the big tune is up here.

Well, it came right down there and came into the pond above this pond up here. And so when the water would get low in Crystal Lake to draw on the mill, they'd let the water out of Mab and it would go feed in the stony brook and go down to the North Simpson Mill. And they used to do that with stony brook up above.

So one person owned all the water rights? George Moore controlled the water rights right up to here. I don't think he had it in the next pond because that was the second and first banking company.

But then the mill up in Mabnasset, you know where that is? You know where Joe Cross' food locker was? No, I don't.

I don't know too much about Worcester. Well, it's just above here. And see, there's a pond here.

Not now, there's a brook. Interviewer -

There was a pond.

Frederick Burne - There's a pond up above. And then that continues on. There's another large area, pond area, that goes up and goes under the river track.

And that's where the Mabnasset, no, Westwood, no, the sportsman's club is up there. On Granville Road.

Interviewer -

I know where it is. You know where that is? Yeah.

Frederick Burne - Well, they have a little area there. There's a little fishing farm in the back. Huh?

A little fish farm in the back.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Frederick Burne - Well, that's part of stony brook. It goes under the river track and there's an area there that is a spill from the mill up above. And so Moore owned, from the pond, the mill, Mabnasset Brookside Mill, up above, and he owned the rights at Western Depot.

Then it went up to Granville and then sergeants controlled the water at Granville.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Frederick Burne - And that backed up to Forge Point and the abbots controlled the water in Forge Point. Those people you used to work for. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was the, they formed a corporation, which was the Stony Brook Water Power Company. That's the one I told you that I was clerk of the corporation.

Yeah, yeah. And that controlled the water in Forge Point and Specter was born up in Middleton. That was another feeder.

So the same water all the way up. And then it fed into Stony Brook. Yeah.

So in the summertime, in the dry seasons, Moore would call sergeants, Granville, see if they could let down some water and if the water wasn't too good in Granville, they'd call, well the abbots were right in Granville. Yeah. But they controlled Forge Village.

And they'd have abbots let down water from Forge Point to feed Stony Brook. Yeah. And it was all in that Stony Brook Water Park up there.

So you're saying it was a squabble there last summer or something, the net, they let the water out of the net?

Interviewer - Yeah.

Frederick Burne - Moore owed a man, of course.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Frederick Burne - And he would let the water down. But when the dam broke up here, it let the water down way below what it used to be drawn to. Yeah.

And it was always down to a trickle. So who had to pay to put a new dam in? Huh?

Did they put a new dam in? Yeah, I don't know. See, Moore, it's a little complicated, because Moore sold all that area up there to a developer that developed all the cottages on the lake.

To see at one time, but you're not familiar with that. I am. No way.

Well, Moore owned pretty much the northern side of the lake and Edwards owned the south. That's where Edwards Beach is now? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that was developed by Summer Edwards, who was the grandson of Charlie Edwards, who owned that. And Charlie was a brother of W.C. Edwards, and he owned from there all the way up to the top of the world. So those fellas in those days, you know, they were never satisfied. They always wanted to buy the land next to them. And by the time they got through, they owned half the country.

Yeah, yeah. You know, another interesting thing that I want to talk to you about that you mentioned the other day is that you talked to a relative of Roby's. What was that person's name?

In Lowell, you said? It was his sister, his wife's cousin. Oh, oh, oh.

She told you that he always had money problems? Yeah. Who was she?

How long? She was a Butterfield or something like that? It was down in Lowell, down by the power.

What's that? Powers, yeah. Powers Road?

Powers Street? Well, it's a continuation of the... It's a new bridge over the...

Yeah, right, right. And it goes right around to the land, Lowell City Landfill. Right, right.

I've forgotten what her name was. She was a relative of his wife? I think she was a Powers, or she came from a Powers.

Yeah. And she married, I think it was a relative of the, I don't know, I'm not looking, I never looked at the stuff at once. Yeah, yeah.

So, now that's the only comment she had, was that he always had money problems, but anybody in business has money problems. Yeah, yeah. Especially now when they're trying to keep things going, trying to get money to finance.

You say, if someone was going to write about Roby, right, and put stuff down in a book, what would you like to see in it? What? If someone was going to write a book on Roby, right, what would you like to see in it?

What do you think is important to have down in it? I don't know. See, I missed him by about six years.

I was born in 1905. He died when? 97?

98? Somewhere, 97, somewhere. But like, take Stanley for instance, Stanley's train, right?

You know Stanley down at Stanley's train? You know Stan runs the little train shop down there? Oh!

When I talk to him about it, he seems to feel that West Chelmsford, right, is like the black sheep of Chelmsford. He seems to feel that there should be more made about the history of West Chelmsford that seems all lost. And I can see his point in some ways, like there used to be a beautiful pond there and all this kind of stuff.

Everything seems to have fallen apart. And how many people really know what used to be here, you know? He said for instance there used to be, maybe you remember, was there a plaque there that said Roby's factory was there?

Stan said there was one, but it's gone. A plaque? Yeah.

Right on the road by the railroad tracks? That's what he said. I had my brother investigating it to see if there was one, but so if there was, I'd like to see it put back up.

Do you know why? I don't remember. He started dreaming it.

Well, you know, it's awfully easy to survive certain things. And if you don't get the facts of it, if you just get it from hearsay, you can go anywhere. Even in history, you'll go anywhere.

Like I told you, hoops in water? He made statements in the book about that. You can't substantiate them.

But I think if you get it from the horse's mouth, like I say, Ned Monaghan was very close to his father, I think. And I think his father was very interested in Ned because Ned was a lawyer and Mr. Monaghan was very civic-minded. So he was on the school board.

He was on the school board when I went to Corsi school. And he was a very highly respected man in town. And so I think probably he and Ned talked a lot because Ned worked with Fisher and Fisher was in the cavalry with his father.

Well, I think I'll call him. The next step is I'm going to call him. I'm going to go see the guy in the Massachusetts archives who was in charge of military and see if I can find out some stuff from him.

Then I'm going to go see that guy, John Hamilton, who wrote like about seven, eight pages on River. Where does he live, Hamilton? Right down in the old Bartlett house.

You know where the park is in the center of Bartlett Park? The house right there? Across from the library?

Right in that house, right on the edge of the park. I understand he lives right there. So I'll have to talk to him.

What's his name? John Hamilton. Was he brought up in Chelmsford?

I don't know. I don't know where he lived. I don't know.

I think he works for the federal park. He works in like Lexington or Concord in one of the federal... You know, how they keep stuff, records and stuff like that.

So he had access to a lot of records. I talked to one guy, asked the Globe head about Christopher Roby. So I called him up and he said, come on down, I got to get down to Natica somewhere like that and look through some of the records Roby had of all his bills and stuff like that.

So, you know, I want to put out some kind of a pamphlet on him from the Historic Society, but I've got to get everything accurate. Well, this cavalry was formed, I think, Wilson Waters gives the reason for it. Being formed.

Because of the invasions down from Canada. Well, they were afraid that some of the soldiers come up and make trouble. Yeah, right.

And, yeah. So I think those... The only ones I know that were in the cavalry were Westwood people.

I don't recall anybody down here. Have you ever seen, have you ever seen Hamilton's pamphlet on Christopher Roby? No.

Why don't I drop you off a copy of it? Good. It's got a picture of Christopher Roby on the cover in his uniform.

Oh, I've got a picture of him. You do? Yeah.

Oh, I've seen it. Yeah. Did you want to get a picture of him?

Sure, I'd love to get a picture of him. Well, let's see if I can find it. He's got a picture of Roby.

I'll drop you off a copy. All right? I'd like it, yeah.

Yeah. I wasn't particularly interested in Roby as such, excepting that I was interested in... Well, I told you once, probably to stop with that old post.

And I was trying to find out if it was the one I thought it was. Yeah. And I think I convinced myself that it was.

Yeah. And anything pertained to Roby was just a passing thing. Yeah.

And I was interested in the Roby house You were born in the Roby house? Yeah. No kidding.

Were you born in the house itself? Sure. No kidding.

The front bedroom. Really? Yeah.

Wow. And I lived there until I was 10 years old. Yeah.

1915. Mother could have bought that house, but she didn't want it. Yeah.

She... They bought this house? She was interested in this one.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a pretty house.

Well, she liked the openness. Yeah, it's big. That house is very dark.

Yeah, and it's smaller rooms. This has much bigger rooms. Well, I don't know if the rooms are much bigger than that.

The living rooms were fairly good. Yeah, because I looked at it. I almost bought that house.

Huh? I almost bought that house. You did?

Yeah. In 1981, it was for sale, and I was looking for a house in town. And I looked at it.

I had about five acres of land. Yeah. And so I liked the land, but I didn't like the house.

The house was really run down. It was really run down. She spent a lot of money on it.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Frederick Burne - Somebody else bought it in 81. They spent a lot of money on it.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Frederick Burne - Yeah. I didn't have all that money. Yeah.

You know, but I like, you know, I didn't even know about Christopher Roby at that time, but I did look at the house. Maybe I would have bought it today, you know, and fixed it up if I had known, you know? They've done a lot of work over there.

Yeah. The drain. Did you know the drains?

They went to school. They went to Champion High, and in fact, Allen, I bought Allen a Chevy car. I bought the first one, and we had a little trouble registering it because he was a minor.

So I finally got it registered, and he took it out to college with him, and he took it out the first day and smashed it. Oh, the very first day. Wow.

So he sold it to one of the kids up at school, and I bought him another one, a better one, and that lasted him, except that he went to visit his girlfriend. She lived in the sorority house, and they had railroad ties as a stop in the parking place, and there was a big railroad spike in the tie, and he backed into it and put that spike right into his casket. So he called me up.

He said, I'm in trouble. So I brought up a bunch of rags and toggle bolts, and I don't know what all, and I went up and we plugged the hole, and so he followed, no, I followed him home. I had my own car, and it stayed put.

So Drain bought the car. Alan was, he had to go to Germany, and he was in the ROTC, and so we sold it to Drain with the condition that he had a punctured gas tank, and you know they ran that car for two or three years?

Interviewer - With the gas tank?

Frederick Burne - And then they put a new tank in it.

Interviewer - The rags were still there.

Frederick Burne - So you were still attaching it, huh? Yeah. Wasn't that dangerous?

The rags would get wet, gas on them? Well, it was inside the tank. Oh, I see.

See, I had a toggle bolt. I put the pack of rags around the stem of the toggle, then I tightened it up. I think I had a rubber gasket.

And it was a... It worked, huh? But it didn't leak.

Let's see if I can find Christopher. Okay. Let's shut this off.

Beautiful weather, huh? Huh? Beautiful day out.

Oh, yeah. Kind of hot though, isn't it? Yeah, but it's nice.

Take advantage of it. Won't have it long. This is our old office building.

I decorated it. Where was this? Fort Lewis.

Interviewer - Yeah?

Frederick Burne - The Abbot Worsted Company office. Nice building, huh? Yeah.

And those are my Christmas decorations. How long did you work for them? Oh, about 1930, 1933, I think.

And I went over to Murray after we sold Murray our office, our buildings. I worked for Murray 14 years, I think. And I worked for Abbott most of the time.

I think that's the entire site of the West Chelmsford Church.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Frederick Burne - And I think Roby had a hand in that. In building the church? Huh?

You know, what I was reading in Watt is that he was on the executive board for the monument in the center, you know, the one for the revolution.

Interviewer - Who was?

Frederick Burne - Roby. Oh, I wouldn't doubt it. Yeah, yeah.

He was involved in a lot of stuff. He had the fifth seat. You said you took over that role from him?

Huh? You took over that because you lived in the house? They gave you that same thing?

He had the fifth pew down? I thought it would be appropriate because we had a fairly large family. How big was your family?

Seven children. Oh, yeah? My father, mother, and my great-grandmother lived with us.

So there was like ten of you all together? Huh? Ten of you all together?

Yeah. Seven kids and three adults? And we could take the whole world.

That's Farwell's house. It later became Ellingwood's. Now, what is this?

This is next door to Roby's or what? This is the Roby house? Two down.

Two down, huh? That's John Farwell Jr. His house. He built it.

So Farwell sold to Roby and then his kid built two down from Roby's? No. He didn't sell to Roby.

He sold... They had nice fences in those days, didn't they? Yeah.

They made beautiful fences. And we were to walk from here right down on top of all that. That's Mrs. George Snow right there. That's a relative of his second wife's? A niece of Roby's wife. Yeah.

Wheeler. You got that, haven't you? Yeah, I do.

Come on, Christopher, where are you? What's he doing in the picture? Huh?

What's he doing? Oh, just posing. Yeah?

He had a frock coat on. Those are all old people in the village. If I didn't want to find that, that's all I'd be able to find.

I didn't understand Stanley saying that there was a plaque down there. Yeah, he said that. So I asked my brother, I said, did the town ever have a plaque there?

He said, I don't know. I said, well, find out, will you? Because Stanley said it was there and it's gone.

I don't think so. So Stanley, I guess Stanley was born here, but... Yeah, he was a couple of years ahead of me in high school.

He isn't that old. You've seen that picture. Now, was that the Millard Brent?

Is that the Eagle Mill or something? That one. Well, I got it anyway.

That's a copy of a painting I made of that dam down below. Where's this painting now? The one I was telling you about Lincoln Drake making to feed the canal.

See, there are the two houses we're talking about. The Perry House. Nice looking houses.

When was this taken? They look in nice shape and everything. Beautiful barn in the back.

Look at how nice that is. Well, that's Tom Gonsalves. He bought that and he made that.

He put a lot of money in there, in the barn. He's got a paddock back here. And that's his mother-in-law that owns this.

So, I think he keeps it. You want to just, when you find it, you can give me a call? Well, I'll let you see the picture and then see if I can find it.

Because I know where, in my album where I got it. Do you have any idea what he looked like? Well, yeah.

The picture that I have of him is in this thing. He's got like a sash on. He's got a sword and he's standing there like this.

That's why I was wondering where he got that one. Let me get my...

Interviewer - 11 geese were out here. Huh? 11 geese.

In the front yard? In the front yard and they went down.

Frederick Burne - Al Rosen's geese. Yeah.

Interviewer - Making you.

Frederick Burne - Yeah, he's got a lot of interesting stuff to tell me.

Interviewer - Well, that's good.

Frederick Burne - Yeah?

Interviewer - I think it helps him too.

Frederick Burne - Well, I don't know whether I've given you much to go by. Well, you've given me a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff.

But I'm pretty sure Christopher is in here. He better be. I showed you that one, didn't I?

Yeah, that's the one with the workers, right? You said there was one guy in there? Yeah.

I think that is... That's Charlie Farris and I think that's Naylor. You said one of them used to work wrapping the handles?

Huh? One of them used to work wrapping the handles of the sword. Remember that cutlass I brought live?

Oh, he isn't a man. No? What was his name?

W.C. Eddards. Yeah. He was a big contractor.

Oh, is that right? He built most of... And he used to work wrapping the sword handles?

Yeah, well, that's when he was a kid. But he built most of Dartmouth College. He was a very highly respected contractor.

Who are these three guys? That's my wife's uncle. Big guys, huh?

Yeah. All of them. And that's President Taft's brother.

And this fellow was... President Taft's brother? Yeah, the president.

Yeah. And his name was Taft anyway. Yeah.

And this was... It was the Taft Man's Club. Ah.

And I've forgotten now. Yeah, it says the Taft Man's Club. The Combined White.

That's terrific. He was supposed to be the head of a railroad, Pennsylvania Railroad. But by the look of his suit, he didn't look too prosperous.

Don't tell me I haven't got clips of her in here. I guess I haven't. We better correct that, haven't we?

Yeah. Well, I haven't got it. Well, when you find it, you know, if you find a copy, just give me a call, right?

But you're interested in... Oh, yeah. Pictures.

Yeah, I'd like a picture of him, right? Yeah, I'd really like a picture of him. Yeah.

Well, if I go through this, and I find what Jeff Weimer is, it's enrobing. Right, right. Yeah.

So I didn't concentrate on him too much. Yeah. But you're one of the ones who know more stuff about him than anybody else.

Well... Just from side stuff, you know. Just falling into it.

Yeah, yeah. Plus, you were born in his house. Huh?

Plus, you were born in his house. Well, I don't know if that had much weight on it. But I mean, he popped into the...

Yeah. He ran the... sort of the file shop, scythe shop, from about 1840, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah. To 1864. Yeah.

Well, 66, I think, is when he went. 67 is when he went bankrupt. So that was, what, 30 years?

Yeah, almost 30 years, yeah, yeah. So... He was here for a long time, in this area.

All right. Well, do you still have my telephone number? I do.

All right. And what I'll do is give me a call, and when I come back next time, I'll bring you a copy of that pamphlet I wrote.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Frederick Burne - It's got a lot of good information. Yeah. All right?

I'm interested. I don't know why you've come to the point now where I'm over the hill. Ah.

I don't think so. Uh-huh. Well, I've been interested in history.