house, occupied by his grandson, Samuel Boardman, Esq., of West
Rutland. It is near a brook, in a pasture, cold, wet, bunchy and stony,
and does not look as if it had ever been plowed. He had better land
which he cultivated afterward, and which yielded abundantly. But at
first he must have wrung a subsistence from a reluctant soil. Yet
the leaf-mould and ashes from burned timber on fields protected by
surrounding forests would produce good wheat, corn and vegetables. Near
that spot still stands one very old apple tree and another lies fallen
and decaying near by. So tenacious are the memorials of man's occupancy,
even for a short time.

After a few years he removed this small framed house, fifty rods
westward and dug and walled for it a cellar which still remains, a
pit filled with stones, water and growing alders. He then made some
additions to the house as demanded by his growing family. He also built
near it a barn. His house was still on the cold, bushy land which slopes
to the north-east, and is now only occupied for pasturage. Here seven
young children occupied with him his pioneer home.

The tradition used to be, that at first he incurred somewhat the
derision of his neighbors, better skilled in backwoodsman's lore than
himself, by hacking all around a tree, in order to get it down. It is
said that some imagined his land would soon be in the market, and sold
cheap; that the city bred farmer, better taught in navigation and
surveying, than in clearing forests and in agriculture, would become
tired and discouraged and abandon his undertaking. But he remained and
persevered, and his good Puritan qualities, industry, frugality, good
management, and persistency for the first ten or fifteen years,
determined his whole subsequent career and that of his family. He was
never rich, but he secured a good home, dealt well with his children,
and became independent for the remainder of his life. Indeed, like most
New England Puritans, of resolute and conscientious industry, and of
moderate expenditures, he was always independent after he was of age.

A man of such character, and of so fair an education would, of course,
soon be valued in any community, and be especially useful in a new
settlement where skill with the pen and the compass are rarer than in
older places.

He was appreciated and was soon made town clerk of Rutland, and county
surveyor for Rutland county. He was also in time made captain of the
militia, in rec