Carrie E. Soule (1839-1911)

Carrie E. Soule, George T. Putnam,

photographer, Middleborough, MA,

1880s

Caroline ("Carrie") Elizabeth Soule was born May 3, 1839, the daughter of Otis and Irene (Cushman) Soule of the Soule Neighborhood of East Middleborough.  Miss Soule never married, devoting her life to public school teaching.  The bulk of her career in Middleborough public schools was spent at East Middleborough, and she was serving as the teacher of the Soule School when she retired in May, 1903.

The History of Our Schools: Soule School

Original Soule School, Winter Street, Middleborough, MA, photograph,

1902.

The photograph depicts the original Soule School which stood on the

south side of Winter Street nearly opposite the site where its successor

would be built in 1902.  This is presumably the last class to have attended

school in this building.  The teacher is Carrie E. Soule who spent many

years teaching in the school and who retired after a year in the new

building.

During the 1930s, a series of short informal histories of the various Middleborough school houses were compiled by J. Stearns Cushing, Superintendent of Middleborough Schools from 1927 until 1955.  Mr. Cushing prepared these histories for publication as a series in the Middleboro Gazette beginning on February 24, 1933.  With information culled largely from town reports, the series entitled "The History of Our Schools" sought to provide the community with a better understanding of the past history of its public school buildings. The Soule School on Winter Street which served the Soule Neighborhood was perhaps one of the least well known schools in Middleborough, situated as it was in the remote northeastern corner of town.  Even Cushing's history gives little information beyond the construction costs.

The Soule School was built in 1902 to replace a smaller, earlier structure.  On November 12, 1902, the new school was officially dedicated with ceremonies recorded for posterity in the pages of the Brockton Times. 

"The dedication of the new schoolhouse in the Soule neighborhood took place yesterday afternoon. There was a large attendance. An interesting program consisting of memory gems, recitations by individuals and by the school in concert, as well as songs arranged by the teacher, Miss Carrie E. Soule, was successfully carried out.

"The exercises opened with a prayer by Rev. W. C. Litchfield, chairman of the school board. This was followed by remarks by Supt. Of Schools C. H. Bates, Augustus H. Soule and William Parnell. Supt. Bates met a number of the pupils’ parents.”

Soule School

Altho' the appropriation had been made [for the Soule School] at the same time as that for the Pleasant Street school no bid was received by the Committee which could be carried out and keep within the appropriation.  The specifications were revised and a new bid accepted which it was hoped would keep the cost within the limit, and the contract was awarded.

The cost of the building was as follows:

Receipts
Appropriation  $2,000.00
Sale of old house  25.50
Total  $2,025.50

Expenses
Lot $20.00
Building contract  1,575.00
Building fence etc.  17.00
Foundation and grading  73.20
Heating & Ventilation  169.62
Desks  93.38
Blackboards  9.41
Curtains  8.80
Plans, Surveying etc.  95.00
Total  $2,061.41

Overdrawn  $35.91

The Committee reported that a fence must be built on the line of the lot adjoining Mr. Ward, and that a well should be dug.

The list of teachers who have served in this building are:

1902
Carrie E. Soule

1903-08
Mary E. Deane

1909-10
Etta W. Toothaker

1911-12
Maude DeMaranville

1913-14
Mary C. Azevedo

1915-16
Blanche G. Carey

1917
Mary R. Warner

1918
Vernette L. Perrin

1919-21
M. Alice Jones

1922 Constance A. Sellers

1923
Esther A. Zeman

1924-25
Mary W. Hammond

1926-27
Winifred S. Carver

1928
Lillian M. O'Neil

1929-35
Margaret Sullivan

The school was not re-opened for the 1940-41 school year.  In 1945, the schoolhouse and lot were offered at auction and disposed of by the town.

The roll of teachers following the period covered by Cushing's history is as follows:

1935-38
Mildred K. Bowman

1938-40
Elsie LeBlanc

Sources:
Brockton Times, "Schoolhouse Dedicated", November 13, 1902.
Cushing, J. Stearns. "The History of Our Schools: Forest Street School". Photostatic copy of original manuscript, 1932-33. Author's collection.
Middleborough Annual Town Reports, 1933-40.

James Soule Blacksmith Shop, 1898

James Soule Blacksmith Shop, Cedar Street, Middleborough, MA,

real photo postcard, 1898.

The handwritten caption on the card reads:"Middleboro, Plymouth

Co., Mass.  On the road from Eddyville to Halifax.  Before and after

1860, this was the blacksmith shop of James Soule.  Grass &

flowers, in the foreground, grow where was formally [sic] the lane.

This picture was taken 29th of June 1898."

This real photo postcard depicts the James Soule blacksmith shop which stood on the west side of Cedar Street, Middleborough, between Soule and Winter Streets. The shop was operated by James Soule (1811-84) and was built on Soule’s homestead farm [now 94 Cedar Street] probably in the late 1830s or 1840s. It is clearly shown on Walling’s 1855 map of Middleborough, and it remained in operation through at least 1880 when Soule is listed as a blacksmith in the census record for that year.

The shop was one of three which once served the Soule Neighborhood, including an earlier one at the corner of Cedar and Winter Streets and a later one at the corner of Cedar and Soule Streets.

The view captures the shop the year before it was moved across Cedar Street for use as a grain storage house on Charles H. Soule’s duck farm. The shop no longer stands.

Charles H. Soule's Valley Farm

Originally I had not intended another post about ducks, but a comment by a reader on the previous post regarding the Sampson duck farm in Lakeville prompted me to consider the history of duck-raising at East Middleborough to which the reader refers.

What the reader describes in his comment are the remains of Valley Farm, the duck farm of Charles H. Soule (1871-1948). In 1963, Soule’s daughter, Alberta N. Soule described the ruins of the farm which even then was returning to forest.

There is a short lane off Cedar street in East Middleborough (between the home of Mrs. William Kelley and that of the late Edwin E. Soule) where there are tumbled down buildings and traces of what at one time was a thriving business. The remains on an incubator cellar would tell one that it was the site of a poultry business perhaps, but it would be difficult for one who didn’t know the history to visualize the large duck farm that was operated on those eight acres of land. It is now all grown up to scrub oak, pine, and maple with a slight clearing through the center part of the acreage.

The duck farm which occupied the site was established in 1899 when Charles H. Soule acquired the former homestead of James Soule on the west side of Cedar Street just north of Soule Street as well as an eight-acre woodlot on the opposite (east) side of the road. Soule had previously engaged in duck-raising at his father Orlando Soule’s home, the distinctive brick house which stands further north on Cedar Street, and it was on the newly-acquired eight-acre woodlot that he chose to establish his own business. To do so, Soule cleared the wood from the lot, and relocated a former blacksmith shop from the James Soule homestead.

[The blacksmith shop] was moved across the street and down the lane to be used for a grain shed and picking house. Later a larger building was added on top of which was a large tank building holding hundreds of gallons of water to be used all through the farm. A windmill arrangement was first used for pumping water, but sometime waster had to be pumped by hand to supplement that amount. Later a gasoline engine and an artesian well were installed.

Water was provided for the ducks through a pipe system laid all through the farm with a faucet arrangement in each pen through which the water was turned on three times each day to fill the troughs. A large horse-drawn low cart was the feeding vehicle. Several hundred pounds of ground grains and meat plus chopped cornstalks or cooked mangle beets were mixed with water and hand-mixed with a shovel and taken in the cart to be shoveled out to each pen three times each day.

Grain was bought by the carload and delivered at the East Middleborough Railroad Station. Grain was also delivered twice a week from local grain merchants in large grain trucks drawn by four horses. Mangle beets were bought by the ton from the Bridgewater State Farm and cooked in a huge iron vat. Field corn, raised on the farm, was cut while young and fed through a corn cutter to cut pieces about an inch long. These two ingredients provided the green in the feed which the ducks needed.

Each summer my father raised and marketed from 12,000 to 15,000 ducks, shipping them by express each day from the East Middleborough Station to Boston. James D. Legg, Thorndike & Gerrish, and Adams & Chapman were some of the markets in Boston with whom he did business.

Three to four pickers were employed all through the picking season. After picking, the ducks were placed in large barrels with plenty of ice, and early the following morning they were packed for market. The poultry arrived in Boston for market the morning after it was dressed.

To perpetuate the stock from year to year, three hundred breeders were kept over through the winter months, from which eggs were hatched in the incubator cellar. At first the hatching was done in small Cyphers machines operated by kerosene. Later two Candee machines were installed, each of ten thousand egg capacity. These were coal operated machines. Custom hatching was done as well as hatching for the farm. [Alberta N. Soule]

Among local farmers for whom custom hatching was done was Horace G. Case of Rock, a farmer who raised turkeys on a small scale for a number of years following 1910. Case reported in 1927: “I hire Charles Soule to hatch the [turkey] eggs for me and this year from 194 eggs he hatched 179 poults. Two years ago he hatched 101 from 105 eggs.” 

The incubator cellar on the Soule farm would have housed the hot water mammoth incubators mentioned by Alberta Soule, although the term "cellar" is somewhat misleading as often incubator cellars were built partially or even wholly above ground.  It is likely that one of the concrete slab foundations mentioned in the reader's comment on the previous post is the incubator cellar foundation, such foundations being typically of poured concrete since great amounts of moisture were employed in incubating the eggs and which would have quickly rotted a wooden floor.  Other buildings on the farm would likely have included brooder houses, fattening houses, a feed storage house or barn, and the picking or killing house previously mentioned where the ducks were prepared for market.  Water, as noted by Alberta Soule, was vital for the farm's operation, required in the incubator cellar and brooder houses for heat, the picking house for processing, and as a water supply for the ducks.

The Soules were the originators of large-scale commercial duck-raising at East Middleborough which grew to be a large enterprise in that area of Middleborough. The Middleboro Gazette in June, 1905 noted the growing business remarking that “Middleboro is coming to the front as a duck farming country, and a profitable business is done by poultrymen in the east part of the town.” At the time, Soule and his father had hatched out some 2,500 ducks while Albert Rolland who occupied the property immediately to the south of Soule had 1,500. “Mr. Whitworth, a recent comer to the eastern village, is another who is starting in the business on a large scale, and he has about 1,000 ducklings out already.” On nearby Fuller Street, Reverend William J. Robinson also was engaged in duck-raising. The ducks most frequently raised were white Pekins “as their flesh is more attractive, and they find a readier sale in consequence.”

The duck-raising business at East Middleborough expanded rapidly. In 1910, “the shipment of dressed poultry from the East Middleboro station .. was about three tons” and was expected to be exceeded the following year. By 1911, Soule was hatching 6,000 ducks per season, and in order to keep pace with his expanding business in 1914 he installed “a mammoth incubator, holding 4,800 eggs.”

The Middleboro Gazette left a record of duck-raising from this era in its pages in 1905 which reinforces the picture provided by Alberta Soule.

The birds are grown to marketable size in about ten weeks, and during that time they are stuffed with a mash made of bran, meal, scraps, and flour. On this they thrive and fatten quickly. To handle the daily sustenance of the quackers is no small task, as may well be imagined when it is stated that at Hall & Ristine’s plant in Lakeville about three tons are fed weekly, and the Messrs. Soule feed nearly that amount to their flocks. The grain trade in these places is cared for by Bryant & Soule, who send heavily loaded teams to the duck farms two or three times a week…. A good future in the duck … business is anticipated, and the men now engaged therein are constantly planning improvements upon their plants. Among those introduced are machines to mix the food for the ducks, while gas or steam engines or windmills are employed to draw the water for the birds. Practically all the hatching is done by incubators.  [Middleboro Gazette, “East Middleboro”, June 9, 1905]

[Charles H. Soule] continued in the duck raising business in a large way until about 1916 or 1917. Around that time prices were not good and the profit was less. He had always raised a few hens, marketed them, and sold eggs for market; he now continued this in a larger way on the farm. He also started experimenting with the raising of turkeys, and he was one of the first to try raising them on wire to avoid the black-head disease which made raising turkey difficult. The turkey raising grew until the early forties when my father retired. He will be remembered by many as supplying the traditional bird for Thanksgiving and Christmas festivities. [Alberta N. Soule]

In 1950, Soule’s daughters, Alberta N. Soule, Marion S. Griffith and Mildred A. Soule sold the former duck farm.

Sources:Middleboro Gazette, “East Middleboro”, June 9, 1905:1; ibid., October 6, 1911:5; ibid., January 30, 1914:1; “Rock Poultry Farm”, November 11, 1927:3
Plymouth County Registry of Deeds 814:293; 2085:241
Soule, Alberta N. “Three Blacksmith Shops, a Brick Yard and Shoemakers’ Shops in Soule Neighborhood”, The Middleborough Antiquarian, 4:3, June, 1962, 6.
Soule, Alberta N., “Valley Farm – Soule Neighborhood”, The Middleborough Antiquarian, 5:3, June, 1963, 4+

Flying Saucer Seen Over East Middleborough, 1950

"The first flying saucer in this area was reported Monday afternoon to the [Middleborough] police department by Mrs. William W. Kelley of Cedar street. Mrs. Kelley said her attention was attracted to the object in the sky when she heard a loud explosion. She said the object she saw was high in the air and appeared about 30 feet wide. She was positive that it was not an airplane. Mrs. Kelley reported to the police as she told the desk officer she was under the impression that she was supposed to report what she saw." [Brockton Enterprise, "Flying Saucer is Seen at Middleboro", May 9, 1950]

Illustration:
Donald Keyhoe, The Flying Saucers Are Real, cover illustration, 1950.
Flying saucers (and more broadly unidentified flying objects) were very much the focus of media attention at the time of Mrs. Kelley's report on May 8, 1950. Books such as Keyhoe's work as well as purportedly scientific studies fueled public speculation regarding the existence of such phenomena which in turn prompted reports like that made in Middleborough at the time. There was no later indication as to what Mrs. Kelley may actually have seen flying over East Middleborough in the spring of 1950.

Source:
Brockton Enterprise, "Flying Saucer is Seen at Middleboro", May 9, 1950.