Very warm to-day; rainy in forenoon. Settle a boundary dispute.

November 9. 

Surveying for Stedman Buttrick and Mr. Gordon. 

Jacob Farmer says that he remembers well a particular bound (which is the subject of dispute between the above two men) from this circumstance: He, a boy, was sent, as the representative of his mother, to witness the placing of the bounds to her lot, and he remembers that, when they had fixed the stake and stones, old Mr. Nathan Barrett asked him if he had a knife about him, upon which he pulled out his knife and gave it to him. Mr. Barrett cut a birch switch and trimmed it in the presence of young Farmer, and then called out, “Boy, here's your knife,” but as the boy saw that he was going to strike him when he reached his hand for the knife, he dodged into a bush which alone received the blow. And Mr. Barrett said that if it had not been for that, he would have got a blow which would have made him remember that bound as long as he lived, and explained to him that that was his design in striking him. He had before told his mother that since she could not go to the woods to see what bounds were set to her lot, she had better send Jacob as a representative of the family. 

This made Farmer the important witness in this case. He first, some years ago, saw Buttrick trimming up the trees, and told him he was on Gordon's land and pointed out this as the bound between them. 

One of the company to-day told of George Melvin once directing Jonas Melvin, for a joke, to go to the widow Hildreth's lot (along which we were measuring) and gather the chestnuts. They were probably both working there. He accordingly took the oxen and cart and some ladders and another hired man, and they worked all day and got half a bushel.

Mr. Farmer tells me that one Sunday he went to his barn, having nothing to do, and thought he would watch the swallows, republican swallows. The old bird was feeding her young, and he sat within fifteen feet, overlooking them. There were five young, and he was curious to know how each received its share; and as often as the bird came with a fly, the one at the door (or opening) took it, and then they all hitched round one notch, so that a new one was presented at the door, who received the next fly; and this was the invariable order, the same one never receiving two flies in succession. 

At last the old bird brought a very small fly, and the young one that swallowed it did not desert his ground but waited to receive the next, but when the bird came with another, of the usual size, she commenced a loud and long scolding at the little one, till it resigned its place, and the next in succession received the fly. 

Bigelow, the tavern-keeper, once, wrote C., put up this advertisement in the streets of Concord, “All those who are in favor of the universal salvation of mankind, are requested to meet at the school-house (?) next Saturday evening (?), to choose officers.” 

Very warm to-day; rainy in forenoon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 9, 1857

postscript 11/13/57:

My assistants and company in surveying on the 9th were, Gordon and Buttrick, the principals in the dispute; Jacob Farmer, the principal witness; George Buttrick, son of Stedman; and French, son-in-law of Gordon. 

I had the most to do with Gordon, who came after me. He was quite eloquent at our house on the subject of two neighbors disputing at his time of life about a ‘ seemed really to have a very good heart; thought that the main thing in this life was to keep up friendly relations; and as he rode along, would quote Scrip ture in a low tone, and put his whole soul into some half-whispered expression which I could not hear, but nevertheless nodded assent to. He thought it was too bad that he should have spent his seventy-third birthday settling that dispute in the woods. Apparently did not know it till afterwards. 

Buttrick is a rather large man, in more senses than one. His portly body as he stood over the bound was the mark at which I sighted through the woods, rather too wide a one for accuracy. He did not cease to regret for a day or two that I should have had no dinner, but Gordon detained me. Buttrick said that he had a piece of meat cooked and expected me at his house. Thought it too bad in Gordon to make a man go without his dinner, etc. He offered me a glass of gin, or wine, as I chose. Lamented the cutting down of apple orchards and scarcity of cider-mills. 

Told of an orchard in the town of Russell, on the side of a hill, where the apples rolled down and lay four feet deep (?) against a wall on the lower side, and this the owner cut down. 

Farmer, half a dozen years since, saw Buttrick trimming up the trees there and observed [to] him, “You are on Mr. Gordon's land.” This was the beginning of the trouble. Buttrick adhered to the bounds which Abel Brooks, who sold to him, had pointed out. 

Farmer was sure of the bounds between them, be cause when Jacob Brown's Bateman wood-lot was divided between Mrs. Farmer (his mother) and her sister, the mother of Mrs. Gordon, he had witnessed the setting of the bounds as the representative of his mother, and came near being whipped at this one.