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Curious Falmouth Facts

The old town records (1894) of Falmouth yield the following curious facts…

Falmouth then spent $500 a year for the “suppression of in-temperance and gambling,” and $25 every year for a speaker on Memorial Day.
If you produced evidence, you received a bounty for every skunk you killed.
The school budget included such items as 30 cents for two wisp brooms, 15 cents for a thermometer, 34 cents for a bell tope, six cents for matches, and three cents for needles. (They certainly told the taxpayers where their money went.)
The current wage for labor was 30 cents an hour in 1894 in Falmouth.
You could buy 652 feet of matched pine for only $15.65, and 2,000 shingles for only $7.
When there was a big forest fire, 200 men turned out to put it out, and for this arduous work they were paid anywhere from 40 cents to $36.40 in the season.
A boy named Charles R. Grinnel received $3 bounty for a seal’s tail, and $4.75 was paid for the burial of a stranger.
The tax rate was only $6.10 per thousand.

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