COMMUNITY HELP

Early years saw the people of our communities working together to help one another in times of need. It was a system of cooperation that benefitted everyone. You would work several days around the neighbourhood, and then they would help you.

Billy Taylor and O’Leary MacDonald both recalled working long days behind a threshing machine, travelling about the community and spending up to several days at one farm. No strict account was kept of the time spent at any one farm, the work was simply done.

Fifty cents a day was the rate to hire someone but the payment was often a pair of socks or mitts. The bonus part of the payment was the enjoyment of socializing and working with your neighbours.

Most of the community help occurred when the farm work required many hands. Cropping was a good example. Planting, hoeing, weeding, and harvesting often saw farmers on the opposite side of the road or in a neighbor’s turnip patch. Expertise and labour were traded freely.

Threshing was one time work was traded. There were two or three farmers who had threshing machines and would go around to different farms. They would charge a toll which was usually six bushels of oats for every 100 threshed.

Eddy Clay recalled farmers in the Bridgetown area who had threshing machines included Frank Clay, Wilbur Wood, and Robin Clay. The first threshing machine in Little Pond was a horse-powered one operated by Bob MacDonald. Ronnie (Alec) MacDonald had the first gasoline-driven thresher, and threshed using it in 1911. Tommy Banks told us that his grandfather also had a threshing mill around the turn of the century.

Sawing bee at Harold Robertson’s Robertson, Russell Robertson, James — Poplar Point. Left to Right: Harold Banks and Hudson Robertson.

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