Some of the stories recorded in Huntoon’s "History of Canton" show that our ancestors were not the stiff, prim people indicated by the austere portraits painted in Colonial times. They were as human as we are and were endowed with a sense of humor, a feeling for romance and sometimes a weakness of character that got them into trouble. The following three accounts illustrate how lively the "good old days" could be!

Huntoon mentions the many ancient cellar-holes he had found on the land between York Street and Pleasant Street. A portion of this tract had been purchased from the Indians in 1725 and on that section had stood the houses of John and Moses Wentworth, Moses Gill, Edward Pitcher, Elias Monk and Elhanan Lyon. One human-interest story handed down concerned Edward Pitcher, who supposedly fell into a hole while he was pursuing a wolf and found, much to his surprise, that the wolf was already in possession. The hole became known as Pitcher’s Pit.

Another version of the episode is that Mr. Pitcher, annoyed by a pilferer of vegetables, dug and carefully concealed a wolf pit, in which he found one of his neighbors the next morning. The neighbor, who had been unable to extricate himself, was henceforth known as Pitcher’s Wolf.

There is the warmly human story about Deacon Joseph Tucker, who was a prominent man in the affairs of the church and the Town, with the honor of being the first Town Clerk of ancient Stoughton. The deacon, unfortunately, had a weakness which has afflicted many people,-he had a fondness for liquor. As Huntoon described the problem:

"Deacon Tucker, like the rest of mankind, had his troubles. In 1742 the gossips declared that he had been ‘overcome and disguised with drink’, and that this happened in a very public manner, and that his associate and companion at the time had been no less of a person than Parson Dunbar. Of course, in those days such matters could only be settled by the church; and on the 10^th of September Deacon Tucker made a speech to the church members in which he strongly denied the charge. He attributed his behavior, which he owned was like that of a drunken man, to an injury he received by the stumbling of his horse; but after the witnesses had given their testimony, he confessed that the last time he went to Boston he took many ‘drams’, besides some ‘mixed drinks’; and he might have taken more than he was aware of. The church continued him in communion, but deprived him of the office of deacon."

Then there is a human interest story with a romantic twist. It is Huntoon’s account of the courting days of Col. Benjamin Gill, who, at the age of twenty-two, "sought in marriage Bethiah Wentworth". The young lady was already engaged to a Mr. Liscom, if the ring he had placed on her finger indicated prior claim, but one evening both Liscom and Gill met at Bethiah’s house and urged the girl to make up her mind. She told Gill she feared he did not love her warmly and he replied:

"Bethiah, I love you as I do my life, and I always intended to make you my wife."