Christopher Columbus COBURN, the diary began 2 Apr
1919, in Crystal, Maine, part eleven


Contributed by wagga719@idt.net (Sally Ruscio)
Copyright. All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm


April 2, 1919, (Christopher Columbus COBURN) met
friends, Mr. and Mrs. HUNT from Millinocket, at
Patten and on the 5th accompanied them to Ashland to
visit a couple of days with Ferdinand. Returning to
Moro he continued with son Arthur. Among some of
his chores was the building of a wagon body and a
stone-drag. Friday (the day he always said was his
lucky day), May 23, he set his last bear trap, at
the old EMERSON camp. No report that he caught
anything, but took up his trap June 13th. The week
end, June 28 to 30, he spent with Ferdinand and
family visiting Ashland and Portage for the last
time. The whole month of July, 1919, the record
reads peeling bark and working in the garden. They
also did some haying.

This haying operation continued to the end of the
diary, Aug. 11, 1919. It is coincidental that
Christopher Columbus COBURN ended his life doing the
thing he most enjoyed, that of hand mowing in the
hay field. He was a super man with the scythe. He
often told the story of a feat he accomplished
earler in life. He went out into an oat field at
sunrise with two sharp scythes; came in to noonday
dinner and had them mowed five measured acres; a
record that is is doubtful has ever been beaten or
even equalled. More that half his existence he
suffered more or less with a double Groin Hernia,
and after trying many patent contraptions, he made
himself a truss from elastic belts and cotton pads,
which allwoed him to do almost any kind of work with
very little trouble. In mowing he could cut a nine
foot swath and carry it all day, or he could walk or
cut wood from morning till nicht with ease. One day
he walked a distance of about forty miles and over a
great part of that milage he carried a pack on his
back weighing 75 pounds.

This last day he arose on Monday morning, ate his
usual hearty breakfast and went singing to the stump
piece with the other men, including his youngest
son, Arthur, and mowed with the best of them. Just
before noon as they were finishing the field, he sat
down and leaned against a stump to rest and when the
other men came along to go home he had past away
with a smile on his face, holding his scythe swath
in his hands.

The funeral services were held in the house he
helped build and his body was borne by his four sons
to its last resting place, the little Moro Cemetery
a few rods from the house. He had lived a varied
and useful life and left this present world without
any known enemies.

END OF DIARY OF C. C. COBURN, TRANSCRIBED BY HIS
OLDEST SON, FERDINAND RUPERT COBURN