The teams were very often more than the barns of the taverns in the town could accommodate, and on summer nights the wagons would extend for long distances along the village street with horses tied behind them.
The sound of the toddy stick was hardly interrupted in the barroom inside from morning till night.

The temperance reform had not made great headway in my youthful days.

It was not uncommon to see farmers, bearing names highly respected in the town, lying drunk by the roadside on a summer afternoon, or staggering along the streets.

The unpainted farmhouses and barns had their broken windows stuffed with old hats or garments.

I have heard Nathan Brooks, who delivered the first temperance lecture in the town, at the request of the selectmen, say that after it was over he and the selectmen and some of the principal citizens went over to the tavern, and each took a mug of flip.
There were great quantities of huckleberries in the pastures about Concord, and the sweet high blackberries abounded by the roadside.