The Ways of a Worker of a Century Ago as Shown by the Diary of Joseph Lye, Shoemaker

JOSEPH LYE HIMSELF. Joseph Lye was born in Lynn, Mass., in 1792, being one of the nine sons of Joseph Lye, a shoemaker and soldier of the Revolution, and Ann Hart. He kept a diary which shows that he "was first clerk of the Second Congregational church (Unitarian), clerk of the Fire club, served as juryman, trained in the militia, watched with sick friends and neighbors. He was something of a traveler in his modest way, worked as a shoemaker, painter, fisherman and skipper, and sailed small boats. He cleaned the chimney, set out posts and fences, fixed the pump, caulked boats and helped kill the neighbor's pig. Interested in religious matters, he led the active, useful life of a good citizen." Altogether, he was a busy man. He viewed life from many angles. His diary is doubtless a good and accurate record of the acts and thoughts of the average man of his time. It furnishes material for contrast with men and their ways of these days. In Lye's time all work was done by hand. Machinery was scarcely known. Men often worked alone, for the factory system had not been started. As they toiled in solitude they read from a book or meditated in silence. They were given to deep thinking.