An Old Man’s Farewell

“One day last week James B. Robinson who occupies the late James J. Gross farm in the southwestern part of the town, went to Fox Ridge, where he bought a pair of steers, driving them to Auburn, a distance of fourteen miles in one day, and the next day driving them home, where he is now using them in plowing and doing other farm work. His journey through Auburn attracted much attention, a yoke of cattle being a rare sight these days in city streets, or farm roads, either. Mr. Robinson is nearly 84 years old, but is a vigorous and active man.”

1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

Auburnians F. D. Burleigh and his wife Clara L. Stockwell wrote a letter home to her father recounting their ordeal in San Francisco having survived the great earthquake.

“We escaped San Francisco yesterday with what little baggage we could carry by hand. Last night we were taken in temporarily by acquaintances here and are trying to find a way to reach Los Angeles. Dean and Mr. Pyre represent a company with $35, 000, 000 in capital but cannot get in communication with them and we are almost penniless. Oakland banks are all closed, fearing a run, and no one here seems to be able to give us any help financially. If we can reach Los Angeles, money and telegraphic communications will be easier to obtain we hope. And, too, smallpox has broken out in San Francisco, it will soon be quarantined and in that case this place will be infected, too. The fire is out and our flat was saved.”

Mrs. Burleigh tells that the fire did not damage their household goods but she lost a valuable watch at a jeweler’s. Continuing she says: “The weather has turned cold and the suffering and sickness will no doubt be doubled. We have cause to be grateful that our lives were spared and our household goods saved. But no one who was not there can ever get even the faintest idea of the horror of the hours since 5:15 last Wednesday morning. I have to stop and study before I can name a day that anything happened, for every hour seemed a day and ever day was nameless.”

Her letter told of fear and death and desolation during those first dreadful hours. “The house rocked back and forth and rose and sank all at once, together with an awful roaring and rambling and the noise of falling bricks and breaking crockery. I got to the door just as soon as the floor was quiet enough to let me walk and by even that time the first column of smoke was rising in the south. Little did we think that it was signal of a horror worse than the earthquake.”

“Thousands camped as thick as grass blades with no shelter except some kind devised from their small store of baggage; women fainting in the road and carried by the loads to the United States hospital.”

Amidst the charming tale of cattle being driven down Genesee Street and the harrowing recount of Mrs. Burleigh’s earthquake experience in the May 15th Auburn Semi-Weekly Journal, sits the brief death notice of my 87 year old, great great grandfather, Daniel J. Jennings.

“JENNINGS – At the residence of his daughter Mrs. John J. Trowbridge, East Orange, N.J., Thursday, May 10, 1906. Daniel Jennings (formerly of Auburn) in the 87th year of his age. Remains will arrive in Auburn via N.Y.C & H. R. R. Sunday morning, May 14 at 6:46 o’clock. Funeral services at the residence of his son, W. H. Jennings, No 9 Easterly avenue, in the afternoon at 3:00 o’clock. Burial at North Street Cemetery.”

A Note to My Readers: Life is a constantly moving stream of events. Large and small. Comical and quaint. Devastating and Tragic. Reading old newspapers -front to back- illustrates that fact like no other experience. In Daniel’s hometown of Auburn, the excitement of old Jim Robinson’s cattle drive through town…kicking up dust and causing a ruckus…made as newsworthy an event as did the complete destruction of one of the nation’s largest cities. Within all of that drama an old man’s body made its way home to be lifted from the train and carried by horse and wagon to North Street Cemetery where the Jennings laid him to rest with only a hymn disturbing the air to mark the occasion.

Deborah J. Martin-Plugh

Author, Contributing Writer and Genealogical Researcher

(c) 2021

A Man and His Dog

March 23rd.  National Puppy Day.

My family has long had a love affair with dogs. In fact, my great grandfather’s brother, Henry Eugene Curtis, Jr. was ferocious about his pup.

In September of 1879 it got him into a lot of hot water when a fellow Cayugan (NY) threatened the dog. Henry punched him so hard, the man went down like a ton of bricks.  In fact, it was a prominent new story in the local paper.

“John Heifer, of Cayuga, a middle-aged man and one of the witnesses in the late church trial at that place, received a severe drubbing at the hands of Henry Curtis, Friday. The fracas occurred near the home of the latter and resulted from a chain of circumstances of which the seemingly harmless questions, ‘will your dog bite?’ was one of the links. It is alleged that Curtis, whose name was extensively used in connection with the unproved scandal of this trial, was deeply incensed against those who sought to defame his character, and that Heifer was one of the more prominent witnesses pressed forward to bring about this result. Like all similar questions, this one has two sides and the action is both eulogized and severely condemned by members of the community who are thoroughly conversant with the details of the scandal and the resulting fracas. The story told by Curtis is to the effect that Heifer while passing the Curtis property asked him if his dog, which was near, would bite. To this he replied his insistence that he hoped not, such a creature as he was. That thereupon Hiefer called Curtis insulting names and struck him, or at least struck at him. This so has libeled the latter that he dealt Heifer a blow. In the melee which resulted Heifer was badly pumelled (sic). The other version is that when Heifer asked the question in regard to the dog Curtis responded by calling the latter an opprobrious name and immediately followed it up with an attack on Heifer’s person. It is reported that a warrant has been issued for the arrest of Curtis. The matter is the leading topic of conversation in Cayuga. No matter what the provocations, such occurrences ceased fail to produce a demoralizing effect on the community which tolerated them and they are sincerely to be regretted. In addition to this, the peace and order loving position of the community have a right to be protected and they should trust upon entire measures being taken to insure against a reoccurence of such demonstrations – no matter who may be the offender.”

BTW… Henry was not held at fault and remained one of the Village of Cayuga’s most popular citizens.

And the dog? Well, if the portrait is any indication…he appears to be that good creature Henry held him to be.

Deborah J. Martin-Plugh

Genealogist, Author and Contributing Writer

(c) Copyright 2020

Phoebe H. Titus Crissey Durkee, a Pious Quakeress

7uA Note to My Readers:  Researching my Quaker roots has been a beautiful and enriching experience.   The last practicing Quaker in my family is Phoebe Howe Titus Crissey Durkee (1813-1898), the sister of my maternal 3x great grandmother, Lydia H. Titus Downing Coapman (1810-1874).    Both sisters were members of the Scipio Meeting having transferred from the Bulls Head Meeting in La Grange, Dutchess County, New York.  Lydia’s life as Quaker was defined by the recordings in the meeting minutes.  When she remarried out of the membership after being widowed, she was declared MOU…as was her sister when she, too, remarried out the Quaker faith.  Both sisters were reinstated and that lead me to believe how devoted to their faith they each were.   Beyond assumption was the testimony of Phoebe’s life in her obituary and her will.

Pious Quakeress

Phoebe Howes Titus (1813-1898) is the sister of my 3x great grandmother Lydia H. Titus (1810-1874).  Phoebe was the youngest of nine children of Dutchess County Quakers Gilbert Titus (1765-1847) and Jane Hoag (1772-1849) – Anna, Naomi, Daniel D., David Sands, John H., Sarah, Lydia H. and Jane.

Like Daniel, David, Sarah and Lydia and their parents, Phoebe migrated to the northeastern shore of Cayuga Lake, married and settled down to raise a family.

In 1839 Phoebe married Alexander Crissey in the Village of Cayuga and in 1841 their son Isaac Orlando Crissey was born.   Phoebe was widowed that same year when Alexander died.  He was buried in the old Quaker Cemetery in Union Springs.  Alexander and Phoebe Crissey were members of the Scipio Meeting.

When Phoebe remarried a few years later, she was noted in the Scipio Meeting Minutes as MOU.  Married out of Unity.

Durkee Phebe ack Scipio mou (married out of unity) formerly Crissey.

However, in 1850 the Scipio Meeting Minutes report her as “mbr” member.

Durkee Phebe mbr Scipio Friend

LIFE ON THE CRISSEY FARM

Norman and Phoebe worked the Crissey farm until 1858 when she put the Springport Farm up for sale.

A SPRINGPORT FARM FOR SALE
THE SUBSCRIBERS OFFER FOR SALE
the well known CRISSEY FARM situated on the east shore of Cayuga Lake, two miles south of the village of Union Springs. Better buildings, more beautiful location or a better Farm in not in Cayuga County – A never-failing Spring of Pure Cold Water jets from a passtock? [illegible] in the Kitchen. The Spring also waters the Farm, and supplies an Artificial Fish Pond. It is also first Fruit Farm. The House is of brick, and its commanding location cannot fail to interest the attention of travelers by Steam Boat. The Farm contains 160 acres. Payments made to suit the purchaser. – Dated Springport, Oct. 18, 1858.
PHEBE DURKEE, Executrix
BENJ. F. COMSTOCK, Executor

As yet, I found no records of a completed sale, but the pair remained in Springport and in the 1855 census, Phoebe states she has lived there for 16 years.  It appears there was no sale after all.   In 1860 Norman is head of household and listed as the owner of the farm and its impressive value is $7000.  It is also likely that the Crissey farm was held in trust for her son, Isaac and Norman’s enumeration was just traditional male assumption.  Phoebe’s sister Lydia had been widowed in 1839 when Obadiah J. Downing died and her brother David Sands Titus became the executor and trustee of his estate.  When Lydia remarried, Obadiah’s estate remained in trust for their children.  This is probably the case for Phoebe.

Isaac Crissey was a bright young man and in 1859 launched his own newspaper “The Casket of Gems” which he wrote on the farm and had printed in Auburn, New York.  He had an impressive education studying at the Cayuga Lake Seminary in Aurora and continued his newspaper career publishing “The Cayuga Lake Recorder”.   His editorials were increasingly political as the period before the Civil War became more heated.   A staunch supporter of William Seward, he was disappointed when Lincoln won the candidacy for president.  He enthusiastically took up support for Lincoln and attended the inauguration in Washington, D. C on March 4, 1861 and considering that war was inevitable, wrote a passionate editorial

“Let the people of this great nation take courage – we have a great president.”

No doubt he was influenced by his uncle David Sands Titus who was a personal friend of Mr. Seward and a staunch Lincoln supporter.

Norman and Phoebe had three daughters, all who died in their youth.   By 1865 Norman was dead and her son Isaac was a married young man living in Buffalo, New York.  Phoebe and her daughter, Isabella were left to the lovely farm on the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake.   Tragedy struck in 1868 and Isabella “Belle” died at the age of 20.     Alone at the age of 55, Phoebe packed up her belongings, left Union Springs and went to live with Isaac and his wife Harriet Simmons and their three daughters – Netta, Louise and Laura in Buffalo, New York.

A  LIFE IN BUFFALO

Phoebe continued to live a devoted Quaker life and was well known for her piety by her Buffalo neighbors.  Her home in Buffalo in 1869 was her own and located at 275 Ninth Street and her property was valued at $2000.   By 1873 Phoebe is listed as living at 275 Prospect Street in the directory and it is designated as “h” for home…not “b” for boarding so perhaps the street was renamed during that period of time.

The last of the Titus siblings, Phoebe provided a unique glimpse into her life on the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake and her devotion to her faith as practicing Quaker.   Her obituary reports that she was found dead in her home kneeling at prayer.

DIED IN PRAYER

PEACEFUL END CAME TO MRS. PHOEBE H. DURKEE OF PROSPECT AVENUE.

Mrs. Phoebe H. Durkee, 86 years old, of No. 275 Prospect Avenue, was found dead yesterday morning, kneeling at the side of her bed.  She was the mother of Isaac O. Crissey, former Police Commissioner, and now an examiner under the State Board of Regents.

Mrs. Durkee lived alone.  Her son had lived  with her up to the time of his appointment under the State Board of Regents, when he found it necessary to move to Albany.  he wanted his aged mother to accompany him to that city, but her home in this city had become so dear to her that she refused to leave.  Mr. Crissy went to Albany and since that time Mrs. Durkee had been living alone.

She was a bright energetic, kind-hearted and excessively pious woman.  She was brought up a Quaker and during her entire life she adhered strictly to the doctrines of that sect.  It followed, therefore, that during the latter years of her life she spent a great deal of her time in prayer.

Some of the neighbors saw her about the house last Saturday night.  In the morning they missed her.  Most of the curtains remained drawn and the house was as quiet as if no one lived there.   About 10 o’clock yesterday morning some of the neighbors, fearing that all was not right, went to the door and rang the bell.  There was no response.  The shade at a side window of Mrs. Durkee’s bedroom was partly drawn.  One of the neighbors peeked into the room and saw its aged occupant kneeling at the bed.   She wore her night robe and it was thought at first that perhaps she had just arisen, and, in accordance with her custom, was opening her day with prayer.  After a time her neighbors rapped on the window, but no response came from the kneeling figure.

Patrolman Gorman of Police Station No. 10 was summoned and he forced the side door.  Mrs. Durkee was dead.  The bed had not been occupied during the night.  She evidently was offering her evening prayer when death came.

A dispatch was sent to Albany immediately, notifying Mr. Crissy of his mother’s death.  Last night a patrolman watched the body.  So far as could be learned, Mrs. Durkee had no relatives in Buffalo.

Coroner Tucker was called, but decided that an inquest was not necessary.

Buffalo Evening Express.  17 October 1898.

While no formal cemetery records exist of her burial site,  her will stated that she would be buried in the Old Quaker Cemetery in Union Springs where her brother Daniel and his family and her brother-in-law Obadiah J. Downing are interred.

 

 

 

 

A funeral notice in a Cayuga County newspaper reported

DURKEE – At Buffalo, Sunday, October 17, 1898, Mrs. Phoebe Durkee, aged 85 years, 20 days.

Interment at Friends’ cemetery, Union Springs, Wednesday, Oct. 20.

As her sister Lydia was also a member of the Scipio Meeting, it leads me to believe, she, too, is buried there as well.

Deborah J. Martin-Plugh

Genealogical Researcher, Historian, Contributing Writer and Author

© Copyright 2019

Author’s Note:

A few years ago I was contacted by a descendant of Phoebe and her son Isaac and we enjoyed sharing information and she provided photos of Phoebe’s spirited granddaughters taken in the early 20th century in bathing costumes of the day.  Of course, we are cousins and beyond the genealogical research, it was such fun to reflect upon the lives of Nettie, Louise “Lulu” and Laura and wonder what their grandmother would think of them and the very changed world.

 

 

 

 

Dark and Bloody Cayuga

A Note To My Readers:  Researching my Freece/Freese family (my paternal lineage) along Cayuga Lake, I found a Mr. John Freese that lived in the village of Cayuga.  As I have often discovered when I return to the peaceful little village in the 1800’s,  my paternal and maternal lines have multiple familial and social connections.   My cousin Charlie Baker and I are both family historians and share the same ancestral grandmother, Lydia H. Titus Downing Coapman who lived in Cayuga.  Over the years Charlie and I have marveled at how many of our family members have shared life altering events in that tiny community.

Henry Clay Hutchinson (1830-1878)

As I was trying to establish more information on John Freese, I discovered that he was at the death bed of the mortally wounded  Henry Clay Hutchinson, my cousin Charlie’s grand uncle.  An intelligent and ambitious young man,  Henry  was an engineer and submitted designs for the Cayuga Lake bridge, but his design was rejected.  It was around that time, Henry fell in love with a young beauty from Ohio and anxious not to lose her, promptly proposed marriage.  Henry was content in his marital bliss.   It wouldn’t last.  Henry’s lovely bride gave birth to a full term infant five months after their nuptials and embittered, he had the marriage annulled.   Thereafter, Henry was a surly, contentious man and never remarried.

Henry’s prickly nature led him to suing people so with his sharp intellect and litigious nature, he achieved his attorney’s shingle in his thirties. When his mother, Elizabeth Boardman Hall Hutchinson died in 1877, she had quite a bit of land and just below the grand Hutchinson house,  a Cayuga lakeside lot  which she had leased to Mr. James B. Robinson, a boat builder.

James B. Robinson (1823 – 1911)

Hutchinson House.  Lake Street, Village of Cayuga

Henry wanted Robinson off the property, but Robinson had built a boat-making shed and ‘apartment for living’ and was running his business and was not about to go. Henry took him to the Supreme Court, but it appears that Elizabeth’s lease was in good faith.  Henry’s half brother, Cyrus Davis, managed their mother’s estate and agreed that Mr. Robinson could continue to live on the property.

Thwarted once again and  true to his disagreeable disposition,  Henry was livid.

He harassed Robinson…breaking out his windows…shooting at the building and chopping at it with an axe. He even tried to sabotage a little potato patch Robinson had planted.  Hutchinson would often rail at the situation and in one instance at the local store owned by John R. Van Sickle and Ransom Olds (two more kin of mine), Henry threatened

“If he did not leave he should put a hole through him, and if one hole was not enough, he should make another.”

The tension was very high,  constant and escalating so Robinson spoke with several members of the village and went to the law for advice. He had Hutchinson arrested on July 9th, but Hutchinson was from a respected family.  So free he went and the law told Robinson to just do his best to ignore him. Robinson tried, but Hutchinson became more and more threatening and even told Robinson’s adult son that he would burn him out. Robinson borrowed a shotgun and kept it by the living room door he was so afraid. Men from the village would walk Robinson to his door to try to help keep the peace. It wasn’t to be.

On July 19, 1878 Henry shot at the house and a confrontation ensued. Finally afraid for his life, Robinson took up the borrowed shotgun and seeing Hutchinson with the gun, he shot in Hutchinson’s direction. Robinson was not familiar with guns and thought he aimed at Henry’s legs, but Henry was injured fatally…in his abdomen and wrist and leg.

David Coapman (1844-1911)

When the shots were heard, men came running and Henry, lying in a pool of blood,  told them Robinson had shot him. Doc A. J. Cummings, whose wife was a cousin of Henry’s, was summoned and Henry said he knew he was dying so John Freese was summoned to record his testimony and his last will in front of witnesses including Henry’s half brother, Cyrus H. Davis. James Robinson was arrested by Constable David Coapman (my cousin’s great great grandfather and my maternal 2x great grandmother’s brother).  Circles.

David Coapman knew Robinson to be a peaceable fellow and testified to his docile disposition at the trial.

When John Freese, a Justice of the Peace was summoned to the dying man’s bedside, Henry used his last breaths to declare himself harmless and to indict Robinson as a cold blooded murderer and that “this was all the work of Cyrus Davis”.  Then Henry’s focus was on directing his sister, Mary Rebecca Ferree (my cousin’s great great grandmother) to evict James Robinson from his late mother’s property…immediately.   Even to the end, Henry was intractable.

A coroner’s inquest was held on July 22 and after a long list of testimonies, the jury’s verdict was manslaughter in the first degree and the case was set for the grand jury.  The pronouncement of manslaughter was roundly criticized as outside of the province of a coroner’s inquest and only fitting for a trial jury.  On October 12, the grand jury convened and indicted Robinson with 21 indictments, one of which was murder.  He pled not guilty.

Thus James Robinson went to trial in Auburn, New York on October 19th attended by a  jury of his peers – twelve good men from Cayuga County.   From the beginning the testimonies given by several individuals who knew both men were clear about Henry’s  threatening and relentless  behavior.  A long time acquaintance of Henry’s,  James Cox, testified at the trail.

Hutchinson was passionate, unforgiving and vindictive.

Despite District Attorney Sereno Elisha Payne’s summation attempting to downplay the provocations against Robinson and his often declared fear of Hutchinson, the testimonies were irrefutable and Defense Attorney Milo Goodrich’s case was airtight.   Six months after Henry’s death, Robinson’s fate was in the jury’s hands.  After deliberating for a little over two hours, they returned with their verdict.   James B. Robinson was acquitted.   The audience which had been held rapt by the proceedings, rose and applauded the verdict.  Robinson’s wife, son and daughter-in-law, moved to tears, embraced James amid the hand shaking and congratulations.

During all of the trial,  a close friend had removed Robinson’s boat shop and personal belongings and took it to his place on Owasco Lake. James Robinson never set foot on the Cayuga Lake property again.

Henry Clay Hutchinson is buried in Lakeview Cemetery in the Hutchinson family plot- a few hundred feet from the Hutchinson house and the site of his death.

The news coverage was statewide and the village was described as ‘quiet’ and ‘idyllic’ and the shooting an ‘interruption of the peace’ and one headline declared “Dark and Bloody Cayuga”.  The drama of Henry’s life and death gave me a ton of reading material for the afternoon and provided insight into a good amount of characters from Cayuga.  Unfortunately, it left me with no clue as to my relationship to John Freese other than a familial name.

And another topic of conversation for my cousin Charlie and me.

Deborah J. Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

© Copyright 2018. All Rights Reserved

 

OLD TIMES AUBURN

John B. Swain of Throop (1799-1891) was the husband of my maternal 4x great aunt Almira J. Tyler (1804-1873). Almira is the sister of my 3x great grandfather, Lonson W. Tyler (1794-1872).  In 1890 John Swain’s recollections were published by the Auburn, NY Daily Bulletin on January 18th.  His reference to his father-in-law in his recollection is to my 4x great grandfather, William Tyler (1773-1860).

L to R: John B Swain, his son-in-law Martin Van Aken and his daughter Martha Swain Van Aken.

OLD TIMES AUBURN.

J. B. SWAIN OF THROOPSVILLE HAS INTERESTING REMINISCENCES.

How He Came to Auburn and the Many Things He Remembers About the Early Days.

To the Editor:
Seeing in the BULLETIN your request to old inhabitants of the city to write of the early recollections of Auburn, and observing the meagre details thus far, I was prompted to submit a few facts which I hope you will consider of sufficient interest to publish. I am not a resident of the city, but have lived within three miles of the prison gate for sixty-nine years.

I was born in New Jersey June 15^th, 1799, and consequently nearly 90 years. When eighteen years of age I left home with my brother for the State of Ohio, then considered the far west. We traveled in a one-horse wagon, there being no railroads, and landed in Smithfield county, Ohio at the end of thirty days. I visited Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland until 1820, when I started for this county the called the lake region. I made the journey afoot, the distance about 500 miles, in just twelve days. I came by way of Pittsburg, Finch creek and up the Allegany river to Olean, then across to Pike Ferry, Moscow and Geneseo, and thence through Lima, Bloomfield to Canandaigua, and east to Auburn. There was about a foot of snow on the ground when I arrived but the weather was quite pleasant. The place was known as Hardenburg Corners in those days.

The walls of the first few acres enclosed for the prison were built by Lawrence White and Ralph Decamp of New York. At the conclusion of the work White built a house at the corner of Van Anden and North Streets, and lived there, rearing a large family. Decamp settled on a farm near Fosterville and remained there until his death. West Van Anden and Seymour streets were a wild swamp. The land from the site of the State asylum to Hackney was covered by heavy timber. It was in the woods at a point about where the asylum gate is now that the eccentric Lorenzo Dow used to preach. From that point south, to Clark Street, was a wilderness almost impenetrable.

Jack Harris was the first man received at the prison. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for burning the Rome, Oneida county jail. At the expiration of twenty years he was pardoned. He learned the coopers trade during his confinement, and upon his release he worked for John Hepburn, counting staves at the corner of Wall and Cross streets, until he was nearly blind. He was finally removed to the county house, where he died about ten years ago, aged 100 years. My father-in-law’s brother, Gideon Tyler, a small boy, was the first person buried in the North Street cemetery. The prison chaplain was Mr. Bowser, a Methodist preacher who conducted a chair factory on Market street.

On the corner of Mechanic and Genesee street in 1821 there was a general merchandise store owned and conducted by two brothers named Patty.  Mrs. Arnett, of whom Mr. Bostwick speaks, was a relative of the Patty’s.  Mrs. Arnett’s husband had the Cooper contract in the prison and I worked for him nearly five years.  Richard Steele’s drug store stands to-day in the same place it did then.   Walter Weed had a hardware store just below.  When boats began running on the Erie Canal, Mr. Weed built a basin for the craft to load and unload cargoes.  The point was then called Weed’s Basin, but it has since been changed to Weedsport.  In a two story building where the Auburn Savings bank now stands, U. F. Doubleday, published a weekly newspaper, the Cayuga Patriot.  A Mr. Lounsbury was employed in the office, also a Mr. Allen who finally became a partner.  Finally Mr. Doubleday got out of the business and the paper was published by Allen & Lounsbury.  There was also a two story building where Seward’s bank now stands.  The ground floor was occupied by Abijah Fitch, who conducted a dry goods store.  The second story was occupied by the Auburn Free Press office, a newspaper published by a Mr. Oliphant.  In a room in the upper story of a building which stood about where Hunt’ drug store is now located, Judge Miller had a law office and William H. Seward studied law with him, and Enos T. and Geo. B. Throop were then residents of Auburn.  The former was afterwards Governor of the State.

The only hat store was owned by Nathaniel Garrow, afterwards Garrow & Linds, and finally the firm name became Carpenter & Linds.  The latter was soon after appointed principal keeper at the prison, and then the firm name became Carpenter & Bodley for a short time when A. T. Carpenter bought out the business.   When Charles Carpenter became of age the firm name was changed to Carpenter & Son.  The store is now run by A. T. Carpenter’s grandson, Charles.

In 1820, Milton Sherwood, a son of old Colonel Sherwood who was then keeping the Stage house at the foot of Skaneateles lake, came to Auburn and built a stage house called the American hotel.  He conducted the house until the railroad was finished and there being no further use for stages he retired from the business, settled on a farm, near where the fair ground is now, and engaged in breeding fancy cattle.  There were two whiskey distilleries and one beer brewery in Auburn in 1820.

There were four churches – one Episcopal, a little wooden building on West Genesee street which was burned in 1826; the First Presbyterian, a wooden building, corner of North and Franklin streets; the Baptist meeting house on Exchange street; and a Methodist place of worship on Chapel street.  The place where Richardson’s furniture house now is was formerly a Universalist church.

In 1824 a company of light infantry was organized in Brutus, Sennett and Mentz.  It was named the “Brutus Blues.”  One night a man rode up to my house and notified me to be at Auburn early in the morning, well equipped, to escort the Marquis De La Fayette into the village.  The company mustered early and marched out some distance and met the distinguished visitor.  He was in an open two seated carriage with three or four of the prominent men of the village.  I do not remember the names.  We escorted him to the hotel, fired a salute and then broke ranks.

The first building of the Theological Seminary was began in 1825.  I could write a volume of early recollections but I will forbear for this time.

J. B. SWAIN THROOPSVILLE.

Deborah J. Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

© Copyright November 2017. All Rights Reserved.

 

104 Degrees in the Shade

Note to My Readers: Part of a genealogist’s research involves delving into the world around our ancestors especially when there is something that seems out of the ordinary.   I have recently found the indexed information on my great grandmother’s New York State death certificate and sent away to Albany,  NY for a copy.  Lillian W. Jennings Martin was just 47 years old and a patient at King’s Park Asylum in Smithtown, Suffolk County, NY for at least five years when she died on July 18,  1905.

LOCKED AWAY

I began to read about King’s Park and its creation in 1885 as a ‘farm colony’ to care for Brooklyn’s ‘insane’ patients which included anyone who’s diagnosis ranged from mentally handicapped (idiot) to ‘hysteric’ (as you can guess women were those patients) to schizophrenic. It was a pretty terrible place where patients were subjected to lobotomies and electroshock therapy and were essentially locked away from the world.   Lillian’s diagnosis remains unknown to me though two factors are in play.  She was committed shortly after her daughter Lillian Florence Martin was born and her maternal grandmother, Orinda Bennett James, had been an ‘insane pauper’ inmate at Whitestown Insane Asylum in Whitestown, Oneida, New York at the time of her death in 1852 at the age of 62.  Postpartum Depression?  Incipient Dementia?   The Asylum was shut down in 1996 and records of Lillian are buried in some snaggled and bureaucratic mess.   If they exist anymore at all.

THE SUMMER HEAT WAVE of 1905

I ran across dozens of articles about the Heat Wave of July 17-19, 1905 that struck down easterners in astonishing numbers. Citizens in major cities east of the Mississippi were in desperate need of relief.  New York City found itself without the funds to ‘wash down’ the streets thanks to Tammany Hall corruption and ice handlers threatened to go on strike, but fortunately that did not materialize.  Ice was being given away for free to ease suffering and it wasn’t uncommon to see people in the streets of Brooklyn, Manhattan and Long Island chipping off pieces from the blocks that were placed in the streets.  The unclean streets.

By noon on July 18th thirty horses had collapsed and died in Brooklyn alone.  At nightfall the toll of horses dead from heatstroke was almost fifty animals.  Infant mortality was almost 80%.  The first day of the heat wave ten human deaths and two prostrations were reported and physicians advised populations to “(1) eat little or no meat, but ‘subsist on fruit and dairy foods’.  (2) Dress lightly in weight and color and avoid starched clothing as much as possible.  (3) Avoid violent exercise of any kind and keep in the shade.”    Still the populace collapsed and died.

MILK AND OYSTERS

Brooklyn Daily Star, July 18 1905

And then came the spread of typhoid. It was rampant and devastating. The Health Department had its hands full and hospitals were under siege with the heat prostration victims compounded now by typhoid. Advisories against consumption of oysters and milk were everywhere. But not ice. Not ice that was accessed by everyone on the fetid and sweltering streets by the desperate folks trying to get relief from the suffocating temperatures that reportedly measured 104 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade for three straight days.   The Stock Market seemed to be a victim of the torpor as traders themselves sagged under the oppressive heat.   As reported in “Billboard”, New York’s theater district was a ghost town as the more well-heeled citizens fled to the shores and mountains in pursuit of breezes and cooler temperatures. The Heat Wave of 1905 was reported in newspapers around the globe…Japan, Australia, London, Paris.

I scoured the Brooklyn papers that reported deaths on July 18, 1905 and for weeks after in the hopes that she was acknowledged. Nothing. Her husband, Henry had declared himself a widower in 1900 so was there shame?  It wasn’t uncommon for families to deny mental illness especially when a family member is ‘sent away’.  Perhaps Henry had been struggling so mightily to manage their children in the heat that providing a death notice to the newspapers was not a priority?  As one New York Times correspondent wrote:

“The suffering of the dwellers in the tenement districts is terrible. People sleep on the roofs, on fire escapes, in doorways, on the sidewalks-anywhere to get away from the suffocating rooms.  Yesterday an order was issued throwing open the parks at night, and every green space in the city was covered with sleepers.  The effect was exactly that of a battlefield.  All the ordinary rules of decency forgotten at such a time as this. Children bathe in the public fountains without any interference on the part of the police, and outside the public baths long lines men and boys stand waiting eager to lose no time when they are admitted that they have already divested themselves of almost all their clothing.”

King’s Park Asylum with its hundreds of patients no doubt had its share of prostrations and deaths due to the oppressive heat wave.  Did Lillian die due to the heat?   Will her death certificate reveal a truthful cause of death?   The conditions in New York City and Long Island may also explain why Henry’s son Albert…my grandfather…went to live in central New York (Auburn) with his grandfather’s family. Where he met my grandmother, Sarah Leona Penird.

Is my existence the result of the 1905 Heat Wave and a typhoid epidemic?

Deborah J. Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

© Copyright October 2017. All Rights Reserved.

Eggs, Dresses and Postcards

My 2nd great aunt Ida C. Curry Bedell (1866-1943) was a teacher for most of her life in New York state schools in Cayuga, Tompkins and Broome counties. Born in Aurelius, Cayuga County, New York, Ida is the sister of my maternal 2x great grandmother Katherine “Kate” C. Curry Curtis.

Deborah Jane Tyler Curry, Jennie B. Curry Sinsabaugh, Ida C. Curry Bedell in Ithaca, NY

My mother used to talk about Ida…”Aunt Ida” and would invariably pull out the image of  a photograph (circa 1900) of Ida sitting on the porch of her sister Jennie B. Curry Sinsabaugh’s home in Ithaca with Jennie and their mother, Deborah Jane Tyler Curry and Jennie’s daughters Cora and Elsie.  At the time, Ida was teaching in Ithaca and living with Jennie and her family and their elderly mother.   Three generations and one of my treasured possessions.

Ida was single for a good portion of her adulthood until at the age of 39,  she married in 1905 to widower Charles Henry Bedell of Aurelius, Cayuga County, NY.

A few years ago, after I posted a story about Ida, I was sent an image of Ida by a descendant of Charles Bedell and his first wife Frances. The photo was taken when Ida was a young woman. Among the keepsakes that belonged to Ida were some folksy postcards that she had sentimentally kept.

With no telephone (or social media) a plea for eggs on a postcard.  How fast did this get resolved?

Eggs gone and I would like more before Sat if possible.  Have been repairing the hen house and it disturbed the hens so they are not laying so well and i have not enough of my own for Saturday morning. So if you can not come please send card so I will now.

Hastily

Ella Fowler

Ida’s stepdaughter, Flora Viola Bedell Lasher sent a request for eggs…TWO DOZEN in a 1909 postcard.  Evidently Ida had some prolific hens!

Dear Ida

Will you please bring me a couple dozen of eggs next time you come out.  Come so you can stay a while.  We are all well.  Alvin cried for an hour that day.  He is all right now.  Good by yours  Flora

And another plea postmarked September 11, 1907 from Rochester, N.Y.  Was K. C. Katherine Deborah Curtis, my grandmother’s sister?

Dear Aunt,

Will you please send me that dress you said I could have.  Will pay charges on stage.

K. C.

 

Ida C. Curry Bedell

It was lovely to hear how beloved Ida was by her step children as evidenced by the fact that they kept her photo and memorabilia.  The photograph is lovely to see, of course, but the postcards are what I treasure most.

Ida is buried in Lakeview Cemetery in the Village of Cayuga with her husband Charles and his first wife, Frances Harnden Bedell and just steps away from Ida’s mother and father, Deborah Jane Tyler and Frances J. Curry.

Deborah J. Martin-Plugh

Author, Historian and Genealogical Researcher

© Copyright July 2017. All Rights Reserved.