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GOOD NEIGHBORS BLACK STREET, SCIPIO CENTER, NY C. 1900 PREPARED FROM A TYPESCRIPT BY THE LATE EDWIN R. HOSKINS [Written in the late 1970's-early 80's] EDITED AND TRANSCRIBED BY MARGARET B. REDMOND CURRENT OWNER OF THE HOSKINS HOUSE 4082 BLACK STREET, SCIPIO CENTER, NY 13147 September 2001 CORRECTIONS AND ADDENDA RESULTED FROM THE GATHERING OF BLACK STREET NEIGHBORS, OCTOBER 21, 2001, TO CELEBRATE THE CENTENNIAL OF THE HOSKINS' HITCHING POST INSTALLATION. INDEX MAP OF TOWN OF SCIPIO, 1904 { The 1904 Town Of Scipio NY Map can be viewed at website: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~springport/pictures43/00004373.jpg } INTRODUCTION PAGE 3 THE HOSKINS HOMESTEAD 3 COURTING 4 THE CURTIS FAMILY 4 THE COWAN INFERNO 6 THE WHITE SCHOOLHOUSE 8 THE MURPHY FAMILY 9 THE FORAN FAMILY 11 THE BODY FAMILY 14 THE CHAMBERLAIN FAMILY 16 THE GOULD FAMILY 17 THE POWERS FAMILY 19 THE DAVIS/SHAW FAMILY 20 THE ELLIOT FAMILY 21 THE WOOD FARM 21 THE WARD/ORCHARD HOUSE 22 THE LOVELAND COBBLESTONE LANDMARK 22 CORRECTIONS AND ADDENDA 24 "Good Neighbors" is a collection of my memories of the people who lived on the country road where I was born, in 1891, and reared on a small general crop farm bordering on the Black Street Road, Town of Scipio, Cayuga County, New York. My grass roots were well-established in this area, prior to 1900. The farming neighbors selected were also well-established prior to the "turn-of-the-century." All of them were dirt farmers, living from cropland and livestock. Black Street Road consists of a three-mile stretch of road commencing at a right hand fork off Route 34, approximately two miles south of the village of Fleming, and extending three-plus miles in the southerly direction to an intersection with Center Road. For many years there has been some confusion over the name "Black Street," which I consider the north end of the Indian Field Road. The Indian Field Road extends southward over twenty miles to the high steel bridge at Ludlowville. The author believes that this bridge is the highest steel bridge in the state. The first Indian Field road marker appears less than two miles south of the Hoskins House. Black Street, which is north of the Cobblestone House, is the common name used by most of the local people. I heard an explanation of the origin of the name, but I promised my good friend, Howard Chamberlain, now deceased, that I would not divulge the origin of the name. I remember best the names of several members in each family; their leading activities, interests and abilities. I remember about the farm homes and of the buildings in the several farmsteads. THE HOSKINS HOMESTEAD My father said that our house was built by Mr. Shaw, who bought the Joshua Hoskins farm when his estate was settled in the 1840's. The house I still live in today, where I was born, is of a plank construction. It is built on a foundation of stone drawn from the fields. Several plank houses were built in the so-called prosperous period prior to the Civil War. They were a great improvement on the tenant houses. My back kitchen was an old frame house that once stood by the road where my old lilac bush blooms in the spring. [ Ed. note: Mr. Hoskins' handwritten note says that his daughter Angie suggested: "First house with memories is to be Hoskins House. This section needs to be thought and finished. Page called "Courting" should be incorporated in this section of memories of my house."] See NOTES: pp. 27-32 of "Hoskins Family Record." COURTING Wednesday night and Sunday night were courting days, when people were "going steady." You were required to carry a light on the side of your buggy. Jack Foran said of one courter, "There goes that George Deremus running up and down the road with a lantern hunting for a wife." My father [Ned] set up the hitching post in 1901 for Hattie's and Irene's beaus. When Otto [Post] came courting, Hattie would sit on Otto's lap in the sparking chair. One of my cousins strung up the shade. Carriages had higher wheels in back than they did in front. He would exchange them and the beau would have a bumpy ride home. The girls had a limited opportunity to socialize. Hired men and local farm boys were the only men available for social contact. My sisters and the Powers' girls were the only girls in the neighborhood to "go away" to high school. My father wanted us to go to "Teachers' Training Class" in the Moravia School, twice the distance of the Auburn School. More girls went to high school than boys, who had to work on the farm. The girls prepared for teaching by starting one year in the M.T.C. (Moravia Training Class) conducted by Myra Chandler. THE CURTIS FAMILY The first family I'll mention is the Loren Curtis family, living near the fork near the north end of Black Street Road. The only ones I knew were Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, their middle-aged daughter Ella, and two married sons, Frank and Walter. The family lived in a well-established farm home but rumors of friction were heard as the two sons attempted to establish their attractive wives within the parents' household. As conflict grew, Frank decided to go to Alaska with the '98 gold "seekers." Excitement grew at the Black Street School as the little dogs drew the sleds through the snow drifts in the adjoining big field to show the gold seekers the way north. We imitated the adventure of Frank Curtis. the little dogs were little boys like me, pulling the big dogs like Harry Chamberlain and others on the sleds. Mary Beech Curtis, Frank's wife, was left with a small boy, Floyd, when Frank went to Alaska. Mary and her little boy, Floyd, visited many homes including the Hoskins Farm, which in the long run established many friendly relationships with the Beech-Mosher family. Many years later, Floyd became best man at my wedding in 1924. In 1899, Mary baked a cake for my father's fortieth birthday. He thought the cake was so beautiful and wouldn't let anyone eat it. It was enshrined in fossilized grandeur on the top of the pantry shelf. I threw it out thirty years later when I cleaned out the house. Jenny H. and Mary were friends. They traveled together to the Buffalo Expo in 1901, on an excursion train and they traveled to Brooklyn by train to visit Aunt Hattie Richardson. We used to send Aunt Hattie a barrel of apples every fall. Frank Curtis had some success and brought home some gold nuggets. He came home and bought up horses and equipment in the attempt of trying to succeed in farming. He finally gave up, sold out, and went back to Alaska and the west, saying, "I can make more money sitting down in Alaska than working my head off on a home farm exchanging work with George Doremus." He went west and returned to die at his son, Floyd's home in Cayuga Village several years later. his wife, Mary, and he were divorced and she later married a Mr. Atwater. George Doremus courted Ella Curtis in the traditional way, Wednesday and Sunday evenings. Old Jack Foran used to laugh at George going by, while he was sitting in his rocking chair on the porch, the source of the earlier story. MEMORIES OF THE COWAN INFERNO [recorded by Paula Hoskins] The following is an account of a disastrous fire that occurred in 1896 on the Russel Cowan farm located just north of Hoskins Homesteads. But before I describe the fire as told to me by my grandfather, Edwin Ray Hoskins, here is some historical background on the Cowans. Two brothers, William and Thomas Cowan, arrived in Scipio in 1797, one year before the Hoskins family arrive on the premises. Here is an interesting anecdote on how the two brothers decided where to build their farms. The two brothers came to the corner of the Gulley-Mosher Road on Black Street. During the winter, when there was a crust of snow on the road at that place, Thomas Cowan stood up his ox whip and said, "Whatever direction this falls - I'll settle there." His brother William did the same act. The outcome was that Thomas settled towards the west of the road while William settled towards the south of the road. The two men and their families then settled in Scipio. Both brothers operated farms that adjoined each other. Everything was fine until 99 years later.! In May, 1896, the Russel Cowan (a descendent of William Cowan) farm, which included a beautiful brick house and six barns, went ablaze during an exceedingly warm evening. Russel Cowan was visiting the Hoskins at the time of the incident. Pandemonium occurred in the neighborhood! Sparks were flying all over. A thought that was lurking in many of the farmers' minds was the fact that it was unusually dry for May. My grandfather was only five years old at the time of the great fire. Even though he was deprived of viewing the spectacle, his sister, Irene, who was seven at the time, was allowed to watch the blaze. How my grandfather came to know about the Cowan fire was because his sister boasted to him about her being able to see the fire. My grandfather's father partook in helping extinguish the fire. His task was to pump water from the well into buckets. While he was doing that another man was throwing water on his back in order to prevent my great-grandfather's clothes from catching on fire. Some courageous men went into the blazing house to save some of the furniture. Although the men were very careful about carrying the feather beds down the stairs, they showed a lack of common sense when they threw the valuable marble tops and bureaus out of the windows. Needless to say, they did not survive the fall. After the fire was extinguished, there was great speculation among the neighbors on how the fire was started. The popular theory was that the fire was a work of an arsonist. Some of the neighbors, who didn't like Russel Cowan, believed that Cowan set his farm ablaze for the insurance money. This was highly unlikely because all he received was $4,000. The actual value of his loss was several times the amount that he received from the insurance company. The Cowan family, who wanted to find out who the arsonist was, even went to the extreme of visiting a clairvoyant. Even though the woman put on a great show by looking into her magic globe, she didn't come up with any concrete information. However, she did say that while looking into her magic globe, she saw two men running into the woods. The question of who set the Cowan fires has never been answered. My grandfather recalls the aftermath of the fire during the summer of 1896. He and his father often visited the Cowan farm. One of my grandfather's most vivid memories was that of the awful stench of burned livestock and grain. One beneficial thing resulted from the terrible fire. Russel Cowan sold a good sized lot of land to the school. The Cowans moved to Fleming for two years and they haven't been heard of since, though there is a monument for Thomas in the Eddy Cemetery. E. R. Hoskins continues: Russel Cowan sold his farm to Thomas Murphy in 1898, thus making it one of the largest farm operations on the road. The Cowan fire of 1896 had much to do with changing the operation of several farms in the neighborhood. My father hired more help, bought more machinery, and expanded his business for two years. My dad should have bought the Cowan farm but he just had one scrawny five-year-old son when he was forty years old. Lots of people, looking at me, said, "Ned, you'll never raise that kid." But I fooled them! Eighty years have passed [1976] and even though there are only pine tree stubs that mark where the beautiful brick house once stood, there will always be memories of the terrible fire of 1896. THE WHITE SCHOOLHOUSE The little one-room school played an important part in the life of the neighborhood. The school stood very close to the Russel Cowan mansion and was used to store furniture at the time of the fire. The new white school had replaced the old red schoolhouse. It was built at the cost of $430 by Libeus Murray in 1878 and moved to its present site after the Cowan fire. One delightful day all of the children watched down the road as it was moved to the good-sized school ground on the west side of Black Street. Cowan wouldn't let any children step on his fields. The old red schoolhouse was moved to the Hoskins farm and served as a shop for many years. One door is still to be found in the Hoskins farm museum. See NOTES: pp. 58-65, "Hoskins Family Record." The little one-room schools often required two different teachers - one for the regular school year and a male teacher for winter, when the big boys went to school after the farm work was done. It is said that Will Hoskins, a cousin to my father, attained the highest wages ever paid to a teacher during that period when he received $25 per month for the four months of winter term. The famous school fight occurred in the 1890's when Tom Ringwood declared that he would hire a Catholic teacher and he did - a Miss Detrick - after he was voted in as trustee for one year. (See Hoskins Family Records.) Frank Curtis said that when the meeting got warm, my father, Ned Hoskins, and Day Chamberlain picked up their lanterns and went home, following which, Coot O'Hara picked up a stove poker and said, "Now, damn you, vote." Tom Ringwood was voted in. THE MURPHY FAMILY At that time, 1898, Thomas Murphy and family arrived on Black Street, where they bought their own farm place, adjoining the Hoskins farm on the south and also bought the Cowan farm on the north. He was the first big operator on the road, with a total operation of around 200 acres. This required a different type of operation which he carried on with two three-horse teams. His horses were cheap ones. Murphy was known to be quite a trader, especially with the gypsies. I remember him best as an eager man to get back to work and a man trotting his work horses back and forth in front of my home. He admitted that he didn't always get the best of the deal with the gypsies. He had cheap horses, balky horses, kicking horses and ugly horses, but they got the work done. When Murphy bought the Cowan farm, the family commenced a procession. First it was horses and steel-wheeled equipment; then tractors; and finally the large machinery on rubber. Annie, the oldest girl, was about my age and I liked her. She was a tall, slender, good-looking Irish girl. I can still see her raking the rakings with old blind Fan, a cheap horse worth about $20, using the straight-away rake. She married a man from Auburn. Her father didn't like it that her father-in-law owned a gravel bank: "Any daughter of mine should marry a man with a different kind of bank!" Thomas Murphy had lots of child labor. In order to have a driver for the second team, he kept his oldest boy, Jerry, out of school. This was illegal to keep him for work and Jerry always blamed him for it. The other younger brothers, as they grew up, worked on the farm, but only Jerry was kept from his schooling. Tom Murphy was a good manager and a bargainer even when he was known to have been drinking too much. His ability to get work done, such as building annexes on his barn, was accomplished through "Bees," - assemblies of Irish friends, with beer - on Sunday afternoons. It is said that he recruited his friends at church with a keg of beer and he would then have a barn raising in the afternoon. Tom's horses always brought him home when he had too much to drink. Tom always said, "I put the money under the town clock to pay for my farms." He was a great one for sneaking down stairs in anyone's house looking for hardening apple juice. He was a drinker. [A handwritten note adds: Jay Forkes said that Ned Hoskins took time to visit. You couldn't visit Tom Murphy - he was always too busy. My father [Ned] would let his horses stand idle all afternoon if he could find intelligent people to talk to, like Reverend LeBar, the Baptist minister. My father didn't go to church much but he like talking to Rev. LeBar. Dad felt sorry for a man only given $400 for a year; we asked him to come to preach at my father's funeral. ] The other sons, Bernard, Ed, Leo and Harold, all grew up together and helped on the farm when they were not in school, but Bernard became the best manager and the one who saved his money. He remained a bachelor for many years and became the owner of a wonderful team of work horses which he used on his upright haypress. Bernard became one of the best haypressers in the county, which he accomplished by using his excellent teams of horses and his good workmen. He used his horses on sweep and the farmers pitched the hay ten feet in the air. There were two jumpers, who came down heavy with their bodies. They were the so-called guys with a strong back and a weak mind. The horses would wind it up and then the men would wind it and would kick out the bale. The driver of the horses would then weigh the bale on a scale and tag it. The bale would ten be ready for market. Bernard could press 25 tons a day. He had a set rate per ton and it was cash money. I can hear the men yelling now, "Wire the bale, more wire for the bale. More wire for the next." The old uprights were hard work. The following are brief statements on the other Murphy children. Leo operated other farms, including the author's. Ed became a carpenter and repairman at Wells College. Harold had a permanent position for several years with a milling company. The two girls, Anna and Margaret, were married and had successful homes in Auburn. One of Margaret's sons is presently the County Treasurer. The Murphys were a very kind-hearted family. They were always willing to help their neighbors when help was needed. Our family had maintained friendly relations with the Murphy family. THE FORAN FAMILY The Forans were the next to the largest family on the road. The Irish clan had six boys and two girls. These boys were men when I remembered them, as they were my father's generation. He used to wrestle with them on the lawn when they were growing up together. My father was the only one in the neighborhood who seemed to understand the Forans and get along with them. They stuck to themselves most of the time. The father, Andrew, was an immigrant with a heavy brogue. He and his sons were very knowledgeable about horses. His boys worked out at other farms for room and board and cash. Andrew first had forty acres on the corner of Gully-Mosher Road, which might have cost $30 an acre. It was good farm land. The original house is long gone and it was used for a hay barn for a long time before it eventually disappeared. They may have sold the land or traded it for a larger farm to the south, for the purpose of raising horses. Sometimes the Forans had as many as thirty horses. Young Andy would follow the fairs around with his string of trotters. The Forans had a jogging track down in the back fields. They bought still another farm as their horse business expanded, the old Wright farm which adjoined their Black Street farm on the west. Andy Jr. used the barn during the winter to house his trotters. Mrs. Foran was a small poultry farmer besides mothering eight children. She raised turkeys, starting them in spring and having them roam the fields picking up a living during the summer. She brought them up at night, driving them up to the front of the house, where she shooed them into trees to roost for the night. People in those days sometimes walked flocks of turkeys into New York City, along the road, and often picked up other turkeys along the way in their procession. In the fall, the thrifty housewife sold them, all fattened up from the fall harvest grain that fell to the ground, to help pay the taxes. I also remember that she had a beautiful row of brilliant red peonies right across the lawn by the road. They are gone now and only maples are there. Mike was the son who went to Canada for an education. He was a veterinarian at first and he became a medical doctor, graduating from McGill University. I thought of going to McGill at one time to learn railroading. He was the head of the Medical Society in Tompkins County and practiced in Ithaca. Once, around 1915, when I had a bad cold and no money, he treated me without charge. Mike might have been married and had children; he came to the farm once in a while to see his mother. Jack was partially crippled in the neck. It might have been tubercular bones. My dad said he was the smartest of the bunch. He went to Denver once, that's where everyone went who had tuberculosis but he came back. He couldn't stand walking down the streets and not knowing anyone. He couldn't do much physical work. Once Andy said, "Jack, which carriage do you want to drive to Auburn?' Jack replied, "Bring out the rubber tire, Andy, there's nothing too good for the Irish." I had a rubber tire, too. I bought it my first year of teaching for $115. When I went to Jack's wake forty years ago (=/-1936), Agnes met my daughter, Angie, and me at the door with great warmth. She gave her bread pudding and took us to see Jack. Jack was in a black suit on a sofa, with a candle on the table behind the crucifix. I had told my young daughter that we were paying a visit to my old neighbors, but the Forans hadn't mentioned that Jack was dead. I didn't even know that he was in the house. Agnes said, "Jack looks so peaceful, doesn't he?" My little girl wondered about this man who slept on the sofa all dressed up, with candles burning in the day time, who didn't even say "Hello" as visitors stood there admiring him. No one seemed to work very long hours at the Forans. There were enough of them that they didn't have to. Some of them were always sitting on the porch in the big line of rockers, watching the neighbors. They would always have passing remarks concerning their neighbors such as, "Marriage is a great cure for the ting they call love." Andy had a stand in Venice where on certain days people could bring their mares to breed with his stallion. He owned two distinguished stock horses called "great Britain" and "Ossington Grand." My father had about five colts from "Ossington Grand," a French coach horse, but the colts were not that useful. "Great Britain" was finally sold to a remount station in Canada for $6,000, while "Ossington Grand" was owned by a stock company, but managed by Andy. Tim went to Rochester to work and met a beautiful Irish girl and married her. Tim was the odd one of the bunch - he didn't get along with the rest of the family. He came back from Rochester and had on a dirty shirt. One of the neighbors said, "Tim, you haven't changed a bit, you haven't even changed your shirt." While he was in Rochester, he had not been getting an cut of the profits, so he griped. As a result, the Forans said he could come home and operate the farm. Tim came for two years and most of the family cleared out while he was there. Then, the brothers decided that he should get out and they came back. One dark night, his wife ran to our farm and asked my father to come help her stop the Irishmen fighting in the barn. My father knew better than to mix in. Tim was cussing out the hired help that he picked up cheap in the saloons in Auburn. Tim said of his wife, "She's too damned young to come out here on a farm." Frank, the youngest lahd, died young. The two Foran ladies were Mary and Agnes, who never married. When Hattie Hoskins was married, Agnes said, "What a pity. What a pity. She would have made a wonderful harse woman." The two women owned a millinery shop and a house in Rochester. That must have been where the family went when they cleared out and let Tim manage the farm for the two years. My father didn't like the cooking of the Foran women and when he went there for threshing, he'd come home to eat. He didn't want to hurt their feelings, since they were so sensitive, but he couldn't stand their food. Big Ed was a farmer. Most of his activity was with work horses in the field rather than with stallions or harness horses or trotters. Sometimes he would go to the fairgrounds with his brother, Andy, and he died at one. The Foran house was located near the school house. One day my sister Irene and another girl were sent to get a bucket of water from the Forans, for their teacher. They were having a jolly time, and Mary Foran said, "All right, you young Hoskins, to coom here for water BUT don't be loffing and making fuwn. Irene was scared to go there for years. The Forans spent so much time criticizing and mocking others that they were most suspicious of whether someone was mocking them. In the sixties, my son Earl met Tim Foran's grandson at Hotel Wolcott. He was asking if anyone knew where the County of Scipio was. Earl said, "My father has a farm in the Town of Scipio. Ever hear of Forans? My dad's land borders on Foran land." They talked about horses and Earl said that I had a picture of "Great Britain." We had one made from it for Tim. On the back of the picture was a "thank you" letter from Jack to show his appreciation to me for letting him have water. I let him run a pipe from a spring east of the road to his farm on the west side. It was about the only water he had. When Leo Murphy ran my farm, he quarreled with Forans and didn't want to let them have water. THE BODY FAMILY The old Hoskins Homestead [on the west side of Black Street] was said to have been built in 1827 or when my grandfather was 15 years old. Prior to the erection of this colonial house, the two Hoskins families, Samuel I and Samuel II, lived in a log cabin about 300 feet to the north of the present house. This sight has recently been marked as the original site for the erection of the first cabin. See NOTES: pp. 29-30, "Hoskins Fam. Rec." The Body family was a family of English immigrants with a rural background. The family, as I knew them, moved to Black Street in the 1880's. Jim was a rugged English farmer. He and his wife, Betsy, had three children: William, Harry, and Florence. Before moving to the Hoskins farm [west side of Black Street], they lived on the Allen Eddy farm, where there was a big bell on the house. When Jim was away, Betsy was alone when she gave birth to Florence. Betsy had to crawl out into the kitchen and ring the bell for help. Later, Betsy explained, "When Florence were barn, Jim Body and Jim Marsh were on a bit of a toot." Upon moving to the Hoskins farm, Jim Body made many changes, especially in the buildings. The big hay barn, known as one of the "thirty by forties," was expanded to the east by 25 feet, greatly increasing the capacity. The changes in the house were much more devastating, including making the huge room of the south end into two lower rooms and tearing down the big brick fireplace that extended across the house, thus using the brick as a new cellar bottom. Once when the writer was showing the old colonial house to an expert carpenter and builder, Tom Coulson, he asked, "Where was the small door to the west of the fireplace?" I showed him where a door had been filled in and he remarked, "Colonial houses of this type often were equipped with a long rope and a whipple tree to draw in the logs for the fireplace. The rope was passed out a front window, where a horse drew in an all-day log." The fireplace utensils and pot that were taken from the old farm have been given to the present owner, Earl Hoskins, for safe keeping. The changes may have fitted into Jim Body's desire for a butcher shop, but the renovations spoiled the home as a typical colonial home. Jim Body made other drastic changes. About 1901, he blasted a 30 by 10 foot well in the limestone rock. To the members of the historical society, the change in the appearance of the house was very bad due to the loss of the big chimney. When Jim put up a woodshed on the west side of the house, he said he was building a "wart" on the house. He and his sons did a great deal of hard work on the farm, such as picking stones from the fields. Besides remodeling buildings, Jim had put a bent on the big hay barn. Here is a story about the Bodies. Jim was fighting in the yard with Charlie Davis, who had him down and was thumping him. Jim said, "Got ya right where I want ya, Charlie. Sic him Smut!" Smut was a miserable black dog. The Body family did not continue to own the farm permanently. The property was acquired by the youngest son, Harry. His mother, Betsy, kept house for him. Betsy did all of the milking and would walk from the barn to the house with a full pail held in each hand and one on her head. The so-called "Body Farm" was restored to the Hoskins farm in 1920, when I purchased it from Harry Body. He was boastful of selling it for $9,200, which was double of what he paid for it. The other son, William, became a blacksmith. He worked for many years with Ed Britt of Mapleton. Though Will Body's lifetime operation was blacksmithing, he ended his working days by traveling around with a little blacksmith's shop on a truck to shoe the remaining horses left in the country. Gone were the days of sending the boys on rainy days with two or three horses to have their shoes reset. Florence married William Orchard and there are still members of the Body family in the larger community. THE CHAMBERLAIN FAMILY Day and Rebecca [Odell] Chamberlain, whose girlhood home was in Owasco, were married in 1884, the same fall that my mother and father were married. However, they did not become fast friends. While my family raised a group of three, my two sisters and myself, the Chamberlains raised nine, eight boys and one girl. My father brought my mother into the well-furnished and equipped Hoskins Homestead. My mother always had the help of Grandmother Hoskins while apparently Rebecca Chamberlain got along by herself, saying that she wouldn't want to live with old Mrs. Hoskins! Rebecca worked continuously before daylight 'til dark, doing everything she could to help her family. Needless to say, there was considerable jealousy on the part of the Chamberlains, who were having a struggle to exist with a big family. One of the Chamberlain boys explained to a friend how his family would use the minimum amount of utensils, a tin plate, cup and spoon for the meals of the day. When Day walked with a flock of his boys behind him and spotted a tree with ripe fruit, he would say, "Fill up your bellies, boys. Fill up you bellies." I think of the family as primarily carpenters and repairmen, with considerable military interest. Both Earl and Howard Chamberlain served in World War I and Earl was wounded. He was a local carpenter and his first marriage gave him the Clark property on Owasco Lake/Ensenore. Howard was also a carpenter. He lived at home with his father after his mother's death and became the community's sought-for repairman. Leslie, another World War I veteran, had an early death in California, while Clarence was thought to be holding a good position in the automobile tire business in Ohio. Harry, the eldest son, was a farmer, while Carleton was an interior painter, who married and had two children. He did some work on the Hoskins farm house. The youngest son, Smitty, was an excellent scholar. Odell married early when he married Lillian (Lily) Smith, one of my girl friends with whom I went barn-dancing. (Lily was my father's first choice for me to bring home to live with him and mother, and ranked all my girls as to his preference.) Odell sold insurance and had the experience of seeing the Wild West while working his way with Barton Smith. He and his wife were managers of the County Home. They had four stalwart sons: one of them, Smith, was a West Point graduate. [see NOTES.] Pauline, the only daughter, helped raise the large family. She married Robert Dill of Union Springs but had an early death due to burns from the stove. [Penned note:MORE] GOULD FAMILY Benjamin Gould was a Civil War veteran who came through the Battle of Gettysburg. He was badly wounded and suffered the loss of his hearing, one eye and one arm. In spite of these deficits, he was known to accomplish more work on his farm than any man he could hire. He bought the John and Porter White farm following the War. The house was square and frame, a full two stories. The following story was told to my father regarding the building of the house. John White was a great worker. He had two teams of horses and after working in the field all day, he would hitch up his two teams and leading one team, he would start for Long Hill, ten miles southeast, and load up his wagon with beautiful oak lumber to build his house. While the house was being built, he lived in the Chamberlain house, where his son Ray White and daughter Adella were born and reared. He usually got back with his loads about midnight and the next day got up and did another day's work. The farm consisted of approximately sixty acres. Ben Gould was known as a great feeder. He and John White had been in the same company in the Civil War. Ben came to see my father in 1913, just before he went to the 50th Reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg. His parting words were, "Ned, I'm an old man. I've lost one eye, I've lost my hearing and an arm, but those damn rebels better not start anything during our reunion at the camp grounds." A similar thing happened when his neighbor placed the big stones off his own field and rolled them over into Ben's woodlot. When Ben discovered the, he repeated the stolid waning, threatening dire consequences for any more thrusts into his territory. One day Ben was going to be away from home all day. Before leaving, he called the hired man aside and said, "While I'm gone today, I want you to put that pile of ashes over by the garden fence." Then he left. After his departure, his wife Amelia came out and informed the hired man that she didn't want the ashes there at all. She wanted them down in the poultry yard. The man had a problem of pleasing both Ben and Amelia. He finally took a measuring stick and measured off a spot just halfway between Ben's spot and Ameba's spot and dumped all the ashes on that spot. When Ben returned, the hired man got fired. Ben built the best and biggest barn in the neighborhood. The timbers for the structure were drawn in all winter long. They were drawn by sleigh to his farm, from the railroad, where they had been brought by flatcar. Tom Coulson, the greatest carpenter in the area, put the frame together in the summer months. The frame was built in sections which were then put up during a "barn raising" . Gould had a pension from the Civil War); therefore people said of him, "Oh he can do it. He has a pension, steady income. If we had steady income we could do that." By the end of the summer of 1905 there was the biggest barn dance ever held in the community. The biggest event was the square dance and I took a local girl, Lillian Smith, to her first dance. They sang," We won't go home, we won't go home, we won't go till morning, till daylight does appear!" Ben Gould had one daughter, Libby, who married Louellen Becker, a machinist. They had three children, two still residing in the neighborhood: Charlotte Becker Hill and Gavin Becker. My father called Gavin "gabbin' Gavin." Gavin farmed there all his like and retired and Charlotte occupies the first modern house to be built on the road in a long time. Charlotte's son, Ralph Cuatt, has established one of the largest dairy farms in the community, consisting of over a hundred Jersey cattle. There are two dairy farms left - Cuatts and Redmonds on the Murphy Farm. Every farm used to have its own little dairy. Ralph Cuatt's daughter, Dawn is now married to John Van Ormond, who had taken over the whole Gould-Becker operation including a pre-Civil War house across the road from the big Ben Gould barn. John and Dawn have three young husky boys who play o the farm built by their forebearers. The family's living is made off the dairy farm. Today Cuatt rents my land. A street which was once filled with teeming small farms is now transformed into a street in which a couple of working farmers rent the usable land of unworked small farms. THE POWERS FAMILY Ed and Martha Powers had a family that paralleled my own as far as size and ages are concerned. The oldest girl was Grace, who was the same age as my sister Harriet. Ethel was about the age of my sister, Irene, and Wilson, long deceased, was about my own age. Wilson died young during an operation. Grace and Ethel graduated from high school in Auburn. Grace became a teacher and taught at the Black Street school for two years while I was a young boy in attendance. Grace married William Wyant, of Scipio, raised a family, and lived on Route 34B, on the former Hoxie Farm, while Ethel continued with her nursing profession the rest of her like and also wrote some historical information. Though the Hoskins three and the Powers three were companionable, the Powers Family was considered a family with money (came from Mrs. Powers' Wilson side of the family.) For example, one spring the Powers three had brand new bikes while the Hoskins three never had bikes. However, Ed and Martha Powers were not companionable much of the time. He lived with the Dones, who were neighbors north of the Curtis place. One Christmas Day, Ed, after a quarrel with his wife, while he was lonely for his family, visited a rough saloon in Auburn, quarreled, was hit over the head with a bottle, and died. One of the local ministers wrote an article for the local paper. He showed a sketch of three children and a mother standing by a coffin with the big headline as follows: "What Killed Powers' Christmas Day?" and in large letters: "WHISKEY!" THE DAVIS FAMILY Mr. and Mrs. Charles Davis moved to Black Street in ___, bringing with them two Shaw men, one an uncle and the other a grandfather. In the judgment of the writer, this was the only family that brought craftsmanship to the neighborhood. One of the Shaws was a cooper, making barrels in the days that apples were plentiful in the neighborhood. One of the Shaw ladies had a loom and wove rolled rag rugs with the other ladies in the neighborhood. One Shaw man built the house that they lived in for many years. He also built the Murphy/Redmond house and the Howard Chamberlain house. Mr. and Mrs. Davis had a family of four children, three girls - Maude, Alma and Gentry - and one boy, Walter. Walter was about my age and I enjoyed his company. I have already spoken about his trips to Auburn on Saturday nights to sell my sister Irene's butter to customers in Auburn, and the horse and buggy songs (?) This I also covered in the letter in the spring of 1980 concerning Gentry's death. The Davis Family was a long-lived family. Maude Davis Arliss is still living at this writing, while her sister Gentry died recently. During the last three years of her life, gentry sold the farm and enjoyed her newly-acquired manufactured home on a reserved corner of her farm. THE ELLIOT FAMILY Little is known about the Elliot family, though the Cayuga County History showed that the original Elliots to settle to settle on their site came to the highway in the same ox cart that brought Revolutionary War soldier Samuel (1778.) One bit of information indicated that a Charles Elliot stroked the Cornell Crews on or about 1911, when the writer attended Spring Day via Auburn-Ithaca Shortline Railroad. It was said that young Charles Elliot and his Cornell bride tried to farm for a year after Cornell graduation. They also tried what the neighbors thought were foolish experiments. After a year they gave up farming. I believe this Charles Elliot was a successful businessman in Auburn or Syracuse. I shall always remember the Elliot house for its historical relationship to my forefather, Samuel. THE WOOD FARM The Wood farm was a six-generation neighborhood farm that consisted of approximately 180 acres. The first generation known to me was Henry Marsh and his wife, who was a Wycoff. They had a daughter, Jess, who with her husband, Fred, had a son Floyd Wood. Floyd and his wife Edna had a daughter named Marion, who still lives on Black St. The last two generations I knew were Marion Wood Hammond's daughter and granddaughter. Marion Wood's sister, Mildred, raised a big family. She had two children by her marriage to Carl Chapin and seven sons from her second marriage to Thomas Murphy. This Murphy branch of the family is in the village of Owasco and the boys are doing well, according to their grandmother Edna. The farm bordered on the corner of Manchester Road and extended northward along Quarry Road. It was recently sold and purchased by Ted Dunn. The original Wood family owned a beautiful colonial house which ranked with the Cowan home, the Hoskins home, the Elliot home, and the Cobblestone house at the corner of Center Road. THE WARD/ORCHARD HOUSE This place is across the road from the Elliot place. It is a good example of the pre-Civil War architecture common to the area and quite similar in type to the house in which I lived. The area of the farm is approximately 40 acres and is usually rented out to other operators. One time it was owned by Mr. William Orchard, a blacksmith whose sons and grandsons are still in the area. I believe that it was also a former home of the mother of the Wheat Brothers. THE COBBLESTONE LANDMARK(LOVELAND) At the south end of Black Street stands a beautiful cobblestone house. The story concerning the construction follows. It is known that the cobblestones were drawn from the shores of Lake Ontario, near Rochester by teams of Oxen in the colonial days. It is also known that special masons constructed them. Five houses were to be erected in one season. The houses that were undoubtedly constructed with the Loveland house were the King house at Scipio Center, the Burlew house at Owasco Lake, one house east of Aurora (Rafferty) and the fifth house was north of King Ferry in Ledyard (VanOrman.) Apparently the five were constructed during one open season. The roundest and smallest stones were saved for the front of the house while the irregular stones were added to the walls in back. The first four or five layers of cobblestone were laid on the wall, bound with a special lime (cement was not available), left to be dried while the special masons moved to another site and started another cobblestone structure. The masons rotated with the houses from one to five, while the lime mixture hardened. This process is explained in detail by several books in the Rochester Library, where such houses are common. The same special masons were said to have also built the locks on the Erie Canal. Historic reports show the cobblestone to be among the oldest colonials. The report show the usual erection of five cobblestones undertaken in the same area and at the same time. The best cobblestones were found on the shores of Lake Ontario. Apparently the stones ere rolled over and rounded off by the action of the waves. Se3lected stones were loaded on carts and sleighs in the winter time and drawn to the sites of the homes to be erected. The Loveland Cobblestone house has been known to me, though I only knew the Loveland family from what I heard of them. The father's name was Hin Loveland. He had a beautiful and clever daughter and a talented son named Floyd. Both had good voices and sang at community gatherings. Floyd Loveland was the first commercial poultryman in the area to use electric lights in his poultry house to encourage winter production of eggs. I was the laughing stock in West Virginia in 1920 when I told this story of the use of lights. During the past twenty years, the Loveland house was bought by two parties who understood how to beautify it, which they surely did. The house is now owned by Mr. and Mrs. Corey. Mr. Corey is an engineer with the county highway department. Mrs. Corey is very willing to show the house to people who are interested in the cobblestones.
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GOOD NEIGHBORS BLACK
ST., SCIPIO CENTER, NY - C.
1900
