Treasures in the Attic
Today, the attic of the Shaw-Hudson house remains as the last inhabitants left it – filled with trunks the speak of the many adventures they had. It also contains many artifacts from the past, including a spinning wheel, homemade baskets, and assorted furniture.
The following are excerpts from The Romances of a Country Doctor, a paper read at the annual meeting of the Northampton Historical Society at the Unitarian Church, Northampton, on October 7, 1947 and Plain Tales from Plainfield or The Way Things Used to Be, 1962, both by Clara Elizabeth Hudson. Ms. Hudson was a granddaughter of Dr. Samuel Shaw and the last surviving relative to live in the Shaw-Hudson House.
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“Our family had a skeleton-not in the closet, however. Among the articles which I inherited in the Plainfield house was a box in the attic containing a dismembered human skeleton. I do not know whether it first belonged to my grandfather, Dr. Samuel Shaw, or to William Cullen Bryant’s father, Dr. Peter Bryant, with whom my grandfather had studied medicine. It may have been the property of my uncle, Dr. S. Francis Shaw, who was a graduate in 1862 of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City and served for nineteen years in the navy as assistant surgeon and then surgeon.
The skeleton had plainly been used for the study of comparative anatomy, for in the box was also a pig’s spine. The human spine was missing. It seems that at some time the family hens were laying eggs with soft shells. In search of an easy source of lime, Grandmother Shaw had sent her younger son Charles to the attic with instructions to fetch the pig’s spine and pound it thoroughly for the hens to eat. Uncle Charles by mistake destroyed the wrong spine.
In later years the skeleton in its box was moved from the attic to the now unused barn, with its 22″wide floor planks. Finally, I gave “Mr. Bones” to the Hampshire County Red Cross for study-class purposes.
My uncle had many topographical maps of Massachusetts, and with his field glass he identified mountains at a distance and knew their names and elevations. Some of the local farmers said that Mr. Shaw was the first one to make them realize that they had mountains. By ascending a short, slanting ladder in our attic and opening the scuttle in the shingled roof we could see Mt. Greylock in Berkshire County. When the roofer replaced the shingled roof with slate, the scuttle was dispensed with and we lost forever our attic view of Greylock.
Wishing to make sure that the underpinning of the roof was strong enough to carry the weight of the slates, I asked the roofer to go up to the attic and inspect the safety situation. He reported that there was enough lumber up there to build a modern house. To be sure of having adequate support Grandfather Shaw had had a purline plate constructed which ran all the way around the attic to support the rafters half-way up from the eaves to the ridge. Heavy, slanting, wooden braces gave added strength.
The cellar, too, was an interesting place. Paving stones were laid on the earth wherever one needed to walk. The place was so cool that one could keep, without ice, butter in a crock and milk in jars. Long hanging shelves accommodated the various pears from our trees – Seckel, Clapp’s Favorite, and other kinds which I have forgotten. While the family was absent on Long lsland during the winter, home-canned fruits and vegetables stayed without freezing, set in wooden boxes on low platforms. I had even been able to have baked apples on our return in the spring by wrapping apples individually in newspapers and leaving them in a covered wooden box on a low platform.
I had two adventures with skunks, or rather lack of adventures. We had engaged the house-painter to do some touch-up painting jobs. Pails of left-over paint had been kept in the cellar where they would dry less rapidly than elsewhere. The painter started down after them, then rushed up, exclaiming, “Miss Hudson, there’s a skunk downstairs I”
Peeking from the top of the cellar stairs, I saw a good-sized black skunk. Earlier in the day the bulkhead had been left open to air the cellar. Some dry leaves had blown in and, warmed by the sun, had offered the skunk a comfortable bed for a nap. There he was, sound asleep.
As the painter apparently bad no intention of venturing down again, and as I had no work for him other than painting, I decided to try retrieving the paint myself. Very quietly I made my way down and as silently returned with the paint.
A problem still remained. As there were fruits and vegetables, fresh and canned, of value in the cellar, I did not wish to leave the bulkhead unlocked overnight. If the skunk moved from his warm bed he might go outdoors or to some other place in the cellar and I might lock him in, in which case a dangerous situation might arise.
Often, when in need of advice, I had consulted neighbors, and this time the hired man of one of them came to my rescue by volunteering to remove the animal. While, like sister Anne in the story of Bluebeard, I kept watch at the parlor window above the bulkhead, the man made a gentle noise, not enough to frighten
but sufficient to wake the skunk and urge him to retire gradually to the farthest corner of the cellar, followed stealthily by his would-be captor. A quick jerk and the man had him by the tail. With the skunk’s hind legs off the ground he was unable to do any harm. He was taken to the edge of a cornfield across the road and tossed toward the corn. Landing on his feet, be tuned, took one look at the hired man and then disappeared.
One day I saw several of my neighbors’ small boys kneeling on my side lawn, apparently examining something. Joining them I found they were petting a white skunk. He was all white except for a narrow stripe of black hair, almost concealed by white hair, along his spine. He seemed very harmless, so I decided to show him to my brother, who was in the house. As I carried him in, lying on my arm, he lapped my thumb in a very friendly manner. Encountering us at the kitchen door, my brother welcomed me with, “I think you had better take that animal outdoors.”
One of the boys took him home and kept him as a pet for several months. Then he disappeared. Where he had come from and where he went I do not know. I tried to learn what had become of him for an interested Smith College professor, but without success.”
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