Thursday, October 30, 2008

Canada Thistles

I continue to read over the Town Meetings of Scipio's formative days. It must be that pigs were still a problem for in 1801, there was another resolution that hoggs be not free commoners - at all. A resolution was also passed that the bounty for wolves scalps would be five dollars. That would be $78.27 today adjusted for inflation.

Nuisances were not always animals. In 1806, a resolution was passed that any man having "Cannady" (Canadian) Thistles knowingly on his land, that he cut them at the full moon in June and in September. A penalty for neglect of that duty was assessed as $10.00 ($163.94). The money was to be collected in the name of the Town Supervisor, with one-half going to the complainant and the other half to the Overseer of the Poor. The thistles must have been a huge problem, for the Town to pit neighbor against neighbor!

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