. . .Swamp was four or five miles up Mud Stream, a small tributary of the Penobscot. It was situated on "wild" land, as it was called, and was full of yellow ash, black ash and elm.

We had gone there early in November. Our first work was to fell the great ash-trees and cut them up so that the wood could be burned in ricks. Many of the trees were very old, nearly lifeless, and punky at the heart; but they made an abundance of ashes.

There is no wood in the world from which such quantities of ashes can be secured; and that is the reason, I suppose, why the tree is called ash. Nor is there another tree whose ashes make so strong a lye. It was for this reason that we came here to make "salts."

We brought up on our raft twenty old flour-barrels, to be used as leach-tubs. These were set up in a semi-circle round our boiling-place, which was a long stone "arch." A pole and lumbe. . . Read More