The Mysterious Midnight Delivery

Sometimes the smallest incidents of everyday life are the ones that survive longest in local memory. One such story from early Wilbraham involved nothing more valuable than an old farm hoe.

Stephen Newell, an early South Wilbraham resident and Revolutionary War veteran, once loaned a hoe to one of his neighbors. What should have been a simple favor turned into a very long loan. The neighbor kept the hoe for more than a year despite repeated requests to return it.

Unidentified Illustration of a Man Hoeing a Garden (1868). Artvee

Then, one summer night, the missing hoe finally came home.

Rather than return it during the day, the neighbor apparently waited until the middle of the night. He quietly placed the hoe against Stephen Newell's kitchen door, resting its handle on the doorstep, and disappeared into the darkness.

The next morning, Newell opened his kitchen door. The old hoe fell inside.

There was just one problem: the hoe was broken and practically worthless.

The incident apparently amused someone enough to turn it into a poem, written as though the old hoe itself were speaking to its master. It began:

“Good morning, Dear Master, you see I am come,’Twas late in the evening before I got home.”

The imaginary hoe explained that it had been gone a long time because the man who borrowed it had “used me so bad.” It claimed that it had finally decided to “throw off my chain” and return to its “good old Master.”

The poem ended with the hoe reminding Newell that, when it was young, it had “hoed all your corn,” before signing off simply as:

“An Old Broken Hoe.”

The story might have disappeared completely into Wilbraham's past if not for the poem and the story being preserved in Chauncey E. Peck's 1914 History of Wilbraham, Massachusetts. Peck noted that he had obtained the account from the Newell family and included the entire poem in the town history.

It is a wonderfully ordinary story, but that may be what makes it worth remembering. In an age when most people owned few possessions, even a simple farm tool mattered. And apparently, in old Wilbraham, borrowing one for a year and returning it broken in the middle of the night was memorable enough to inspire a poem.

Below is the complete poem from Chauncey E. Peck's 1914 History of Wilbraham, Massachusetts.

"THE OLD HOE-AN EPIGRAM"

"Good morning, Dear Master, you see I am come, 'Twas late in the evening before I got home, I found you were sleeping-I tho 't I'd not wake you For fear you would think twas a Sheriff to take you.

So here I've been standing these five hours or more, This long Summer evening- to enter your door. Long time I've been missing, but now I return, And for my misconduct I heartily mourn.

Now into your favor if you'll receive me, I'll always prove faithful and constant to thee. Like the hound in the fable, my teeth are worn out; therefore, don't correct me for this saucy bout.

But remember when young, I hoed all your corn; you ne'er had a better hoe since you were born. You've often enquired who hoed with me last, but no one remembered when, since it was past.

The man whom you lent me to used me so bad, I ran away from him because I was mad. He did so much more, and he hoed with me faster, Than e'er I was used to when with my old Master.

That I was resolved to throw off my chain, And live 'long with my good old Master again; For when you hoed with me the most that I did Was to serve as a shore to prop up your head.

So like the hound in the fable my teeth are worn out. Therefore don't correct me for this saucy bout; For when I was young I hoed all your corn. You ne'er had a better hoe since you were born. I came from the Eastward, you very well know. So I am your servant, an old broken hoe.

My skulking place a thicket of weeds near Hovel Lane 1791."