Mr Benjamin Curtis

• Birth Notes
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• General Notes
  • Benjamin first built the Curtis mills on the Third Herring Brook. [Samuel Deane, "History of Scituate, Massachusetts, from its First Settlement to 1831."]
    
    The Curtis Mills on the Third Herring Brook were built in part as early as 1688, when Benjamin built a sawmill, and later a grist mill. They were known at one time as the Clapp and Curtis Mills, Constant Clapp having been part owner. Served as Selectman. Lived in the house on the corner of Main and Union Streets, Hanover.
    
    "Honey has always been a luxury of the wilderness. Benjamin found bee trees in the forest. These were generally hollow lindens or butternuts, and were easily felled. He would not only secure the honey, generally a hundred pounds, but would capture the bees and hive them for domestic purposes. If the queen was secured, the swarm would settle down to work in the old cone-shaped straw hive, and add largely to the home comforts. In those early days at least half of the settlers had a few swarms, and occasionally some one would accumulate a hundred. After the honey had been extracted it was kept in jars, and the wax was melted. This constituted one of the first articles of commerce from a frontier home. He would climb to the top of a forty-foot ladder and brush a swarm into a pan and come down with it, unstung. But woe to the mortal whom the bees by some instinct failed to like! Not recognizing the Mosaic Sabbath, they would swarm when the family ought to be at church. It was necessary to leave one at home, who in case the bees came out hung a sheet from the chamber window. The good man at church was kept from going asleep over the thirty-ninthlies by looking out for the possible flag. Every swarm was worth ten bushels of corn."
    [Taken from: Richard Silvester of Weymouth, Massachusetts, and some of his Descendants by Albert Henry Silvester.]