Bovina (NY) History

Stories from Bovina Cemeteries - Thomas Elliott Hastings

2012-01-31T08:00:00.025-05:00

Thomas Elliott Hastings, the son of James Hastings and Elizabeth Elliott, was born in Bovina in 1829. He opened a store for general merchandise in 1852, in partnership with James Elliott. The store was located where Russells is now, but whether or not it was the same building is not clear. After only two years, Mr. Elliott sold out to W. D. Telford. Six years later, Hastings bought Mr. Telford's share and ran the business alone for five years. In 1866, Hastings took on a partner, Mr. J. K. Hood. Two years later, Hastings sold out his share to Mr. Hood and retired from the trade. His retirement did not last long. In 1870 he put up new buildings and opened a store on the same site as his earlier store, ie Russells. In Munsell's History of Delaware County, the lithograph of Hastings store is easily recognizable as Russells (See the June 14, 2009 Blog entry for the lithograph and further history of the store.)

This venture lasted considerably longer. Thomas sold out to A. T. Doig in 1893, but he never completely retired. He continued to be a dealer in agricultural implements, cattle feed, and land fertilizers. In the Biographical Review of Delaware County, published in 1895 (and from which much of this information derives), it was noted that Hastings "never kept a clerk, he and his partners preferring to do the work themselves." Doig ran the store until 1919, when he in turn sold it to Cecil Russell.

Hastings was married to Jane Blair, who predeceased him in 1887 when she was only forty-five years old. They had five children. The four sons all went to college or some other institution of higher learning. Their eldest son, James Blair Hastings, graduated from Hamilton College and was a professor in Franklin. Thomas Hastings was Town Clerk in Bovina for a number of years and was a member of the Bovina United Presbyterian Church.

Hastings generally was successful in life, but he was involved in one major business failure. He wasn't the only one and likely was not one of the reasons the venture failed. In 1898, Hastings and Alexander Hilson were two of the people who put their names on the charter for the Delaware Railroad Company which, if it had succeeded, would have brought the railroad into Bovina, as well as connecting Delhi and Andes. The venture failed that same year (see my series of blog entries from March 2011 for more about this railroad).

Hastings died in 1917, thirty-two years after losing his wife. He was 88 and had been suffering from heart disease for a number of years. His entry in the aforementioned Biographical Review, written when he was still alive, noted that "Thomas E. Hastings is a very self-reliant man, who might adopt as his own the saying of the celebrated author of "Don Quixote," 'He is best served who has no occasion to put the hands of others at the end of his arms.'"

Last Load at the Bovina Center Coop

2012-01-26T08:00:00.003-05:00

Recently, Mrs. William Elliott over in New Kingston contacted me because she had photographs of the last load of milk her husband's farm delivered to the Bovina Creamery on its last day of operation. I was thrilled to see these wonderful snapshots taken by Mrs. Elliot herself on March 31, 1973. They pretty much tell the story in the captions she wrote on the photos.

The last load from the Elliott farm arrives at the creamery.

This is Leonard Archibald emptying one of the milk cans.

Bea Thompson was the milk tester at the creamery for many years.

Brothers Marvin and Leonard Archibald

The empty cans being loaded back on the truck for their last trip home from the creamery.

The Elliott farmstead is in New Kingston, though it borders Bovina (and some of the farmland is in Bovina). The farm has been in the Elliott family for several generations. After the closing of the creamery, the Elliotts converted to a bulk tank operation. It is one of the very few dairy farms still operating in the area to this day, now run by Mrs. Elliott's son.

Many thanks to Mrs. Elliott for sharing these. And to her daughter Sally Elliott Scrimshaw for letting her mom know of my interest in photos like these.

"Bovina Center, My Home Town" - Part XII

2012-01-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

This is the ninth of a series of entries from the script used on April 21, 1955, when citizens of Bovina presented a pageant of the town's history - "Bovina Center, My Home Town." Though I'm not 100% sure, it appears the script was written by Vera Storie and her brother Fletcher Davidson. The items in brackets refer to the tableau of local citizens acting out parts of the story. [Sections I and II are in the May 21 blog entry, sections III and IV are in the June 21 blog entry, section V is in the July 21 entry, section VI is in the August 21 entry, section VII is in the September 21 entry, section VIII is in the October 21 entry, sections IX and X are in the November 21 entry, and section XI is in the December 21 entry.]

XII. Some Accomplishments of Later Years

At one time in town there were twenty cemeteries, many of them being private burial places, some of which are still to be found on the farms in [the town]. Later when the Reformed and the United Presbyterian Churches were built, a cemetery was built next to each of them. In 1853 our present cemetery, one of the most beautiful in this vicinity, was completed, the first burial being made on October 30, 1853. Elbridge T. Gerry donated the iron gate at the entrance. In the year 1910, many improvements were made, including the income of the cemetery; and in 1917 the vault was built, all of these improvements, largely due to the efforts of J.W. Coulter and Alexander Hilson.

The first library in town was located in the basement of the United Presbyterian Church and served for years the entire community. The present library occupies a building donated by J.W. Coulter and was opened in 1917. The Gerry family has donated money for books and still does furnish the library with the daily paper and several magazines.

The water system, promoted principally by J.W. Coulter, Andrew Doig, and Alexander Hilson, was built on 1913 and now supplies the town with pure spring water, all the water passing through a charcoal filter and chlorinal system.

The fire department was organized in 1915. [*19-Fire Dept] No engine was required for pumping or driving water through the hose system to extinguish fires as there was a 60-70 pound pressure to the square inch on each hydrant. Recently company has purchased a jeep and fire truck in order to serve all parts of the town in case of fire and to pump water from artificial pounds to be found in almost every farm. The first officers of the company were Alex Myers, chief engineer; John R. Aitken, the foreman of the Hose Company; and David Currie, the foreman of the Hook and Ladder Company. Today’s fire chief is Floyd Aitkens.

The Bovina Center Cooperative Creamery was established in 1902, milk that time coming from 67 dairies and totaling 22,000 pounds. It was rebuilt recently and includes all the modern conveniences.

Electricity, which did away with the kerosene lamps and lanterns in town, was introduced in the year 1927.

“All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.” – therefore, the hard working people of this town in 1928 felt that the time had come for them to make a reality a dream which had long been near to their hearts. They wanted a recreation hall where all could engage in any activity which they enjoyed. Therefore, everybody put himself to work. The ladies pieced quilts which they sold, they held bake sales, they sold subscriptions to the Delaware Express, they produced home talent shows, and they even helped the men to put on a clambake. And how the feathers flew for a day or so in Bovina! On the night of the bake the heavens opened and poured down rain, but the spirits of the Bovina folks were not crushed. On went the bake, and in came the dough. And finally after several years of hard work the hall was built and dedicated. Many of our form residents also assisted us in this project, donating large and small sums of money. Once again the Gerry family generously gave us their help. Anna Scott, who was born and spent her girlhood here, donated the money to build the dressing rooms, to put a floor in the cellar, and to equip the kitchen. Mrs. Sloan Archibald donated the velvet window drapes and stage curtain, and Mrs. Alexander Hilson and Mrs. John Irvine donated the track on which the state curtain moves. These are but a few of those who helped. The night of the dedication in the summer of 1930 was a gala affair, many of the former residents returning to celebrate with us. And so Strangeway’s Hall over Thomas’ Garage was left to dream of all the gay times that it so well remembered and to be forgotten just as had the hold town hall years before, the old hall that was once located in Lester Hoy’s house recently dismantled because the flash flood of 1953 had taken it from its foundation.

For a number of years each summer the town held an Old Home Day which was usually largely attended by her former citizens. A parade with floats was one of the big events of the forenoon; then a picnic dinner was served after which children’s contests and games were held. Then came talks from some of the former residents, always an enjoyable part of the day’s program. The last attraction of the daytime was a baseball game played by neighboring towns – usually Delhi and Andes. And last of all, the climax of the day came with the evening’s home talent entertainment. War, automobiles, movies, and the radio finally crowded out Old Home Day, much to the sorrow of many.

As long as any of the present citizens of Bovina can remember, thre has stood at the entrance of the village the picturesque single arch native stone bridge to welcome alike stranger and friend. [21 – Old Stone Bridge] In 1873 Arch Phyffe and Wm. Seacord built the bridge here during the term of Road Commissioner John R. Hoy, grandfather of Mrs. William Storie and Fletcher Davidson. After it had been completed for some three years, while they were repairing the foundation, which had weakened, the inhabitants one day were surprised to find their bridge fallen into the waters of the Little Delaware. Not discouraged by this mishap they set about rebuilding it, this time the work being done by William Cooke and George Currie, uncle and father of David Currie. And today it is still standing as sound and strong as ever, the arch still being in perfect condition. However, with the coming of automobiles, busses, and large trucks, the bridge, which was built for oxen and horse-drawn vehicles, has outlived its usefulness. Being only twelve feet wide and having curved approaches at either end, it has tested the skill of many a driver, some of whom have gouged and knocked off the sides of the bridge. Soon a large steel structure will carry the traffic in and out of Bovina, but never can it command the admiration for its beauty that the old single arch stone span has commanded for more than 75 years, it being about the only historical mark to be found in the village. Would that it might be preserved as a foot bridge and be restored to its former beauty to live on respected for the work it has done and loved and admired for its beauty.

Some Briefs from the Newspaper, January 1899

2012-01-20T19:12:00.002-05:00

The Delaware Republican for January 28, 1899, had two articles concerning butter and people from Bovina. For what it's worth:

Sometime since Milton Doig of Bovina Centre purchased of Miss Etta Palmater of New Kingston her butter, representing that he was acting under orders of M.T. Menzie, the Delhi grocer. Mr. Doig attempted to sell the butter to Mr. Menzie, but the latter refusing to purchase, shipped it to a New York Commission house in his own name. Later, Doig made an assignment and the consequent result is that Miss Palmatier fails to realize on her sale. A warrant was issued and Doig was brought before Justice Ives, Monday. He gave bonds to appear before the Grand Jury. (from the Messenger)

I need to see if there is anything in the court records on this.

The second article, apparently not related to the first:

James Mabon, one of Bovina's prominent farmers, passed through town on Tuesday en route for Scranton for the purpose of selling a portion of his dairy of butter. He returned on Thursday, having disposed of 3,200 pounds of butter, which he shipped this week. Mr. Mabone is a gentleman who believes that hte farmer is as capable of transacting business as any one. The result of his trip would indicate that this is true, and that he has no use fo rthe middleman. (from the Walton Times)

And totally unrelated to butter, I found this little entry:

S.A. LaFevre will give an exhibition and lecture on the Cuban War, using 52 views of all land and naval battles during the recent conflict, by means of a magic lantern, at Mackey's Hall, Meridale on Thursday evening next, Feb. 2d. Admission 25c; children 15c.

I am pretty sure that this is Sylvan Ackerman LaFever, my great grandfather. He was someone who spent years trying to find his niche in the world. He finally found it working for the railroad, after several failed attempts at farming. At the time of this article, he was trying to farm in Bovina. About a year later, he was facing foreclosure. Not long after the birth of his son (and my grandfather) Benson, he left Bovina with his wife and son.

Sylvan was not actually in the Spanish-American War. It is likely that these images were a standard set from the war designed for such shows as this. Showing these slides was one of his attempts to stay afloat financially.

Bovina in the Civil War - Soldier Biographies I

2012-01-12T08:00:00.011-05:00

With this entry, I am starting a series that will run a bit over a year of mini biographies of Bovina's Civil War soldiers. These will appear once a month on the 12th of each month, five or so biographies each month.

Born in 1836, James S. Adee was the son of Stephen B. Adee and Elizabeth Luddington. He enlisted on September 2, 1862 in the 144th New York Volunteers as a 2nd Sergeant. James was reported 'absent sick in hospital' in August 1863. He was promoted in May 1864 to 1st Lieutenant. Mustered out as a first lieutenant in 1865 at Hilton Head, South Carolina, he married Mary E. Witmore the following year. In 1866, he joined a large group of Civil War Veterans who opposed President Johnson and his policies that they saw as too lienient to the south and harmful to the recently emancipated slaves. In 1890, he reported suffering from 'disease of the lungs, rheumatism and malaria, measle and other afflictions.' He died in Delhi in 1899 and is buried in Bloomville.

John G. Atkin was born in 1833, the son of Charles Atkin and Rachael Miller. He was excused from the draft in 1863 because he was the father of a motherless child, but a year later, he enlisted in Company E of the 144th New York Volunteers. He was paid $700 for doing so. By this time, he appears to have remarried to Mrs. Dorcas Hamilton, who ran a hotel and tavern in Bovina. He mustered out as a private in Hilton Head, SC in June 1865. By 1870, John, Dorcas and their daughter had moved to Delhi. Dorcas died sometime before 1885. That year, John married as his third wife Mary Grantbury. He died in Delhi in 1914.

Though born in Scotland in 1838, Andrew Anderson came to the United States while still an infant. His time in Bovina was relatively brief but encompasses his service in the Civil War. In 1860, he was in Bovina as a servant in the household of Thomas Hamilton, his uncle. He enlisted in the 144th NY Volunteers as a private on September 1, 1862 and mustered out in Hilton Head, SC on June 25, 1865. He married Margaret Liddle in Delhi in 1866 and settled in Andes on Dingle Hill as a farmer. He and Margaret had nine children. Widowed in 1917, Andrew died November 6, 1929 from the effects of a fall the day before. He was almost 92 and had been in good health when the fall happened. The obituary in the Stamford Mirror noted that "He leaves very few comrades behind as the lines are growing thinner." He was buried in Andes with members of the American Legion as pall bearers. Note: Andrew Anderson's last name varies in the records, from Andrewson to Anderse to Anderson

Adam C. Biggar was born in 1840, the son of Walter Biggar and Jeanette Cowan. He enlisted in August 1862 in Bovina and mustered in as a private in Company E, New York 144th Volunteers. He died of typhoid fever on October 18, 1863 at Folly Island, S.C. and is buried there.

Samuel O. Blair, the son of Peter Blair and Margaret McCune, was born in Bovina in 1831, but he spent most of his life in Delhi. He was married to Elizabeth Atkin and had three children when he enlisted in 1864 and was mustered into Company E of the 144th New York Volunteers. He mustered out a year later at Hilton Head, S.C. He briefly lived in Bovina during the war, but by 1870 was living in Delhi. Samuel suffered from malarial poisoning of the bladder, a side effect of his war service. He died on December 11, 1890 and is buried in Bovina.

W. S. Gordon 1921

2012-01-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

During a recent, somewhat impromptu group hike to Indian Rocks on December 27, we found this carving on the top of the rocks:

So who was W. S. Gordon? William Scott Gordon was born in Bovina on April 22, 1903, the son of Thomas Gordon and his second wife, Mary Scott Gordon. William was joined a few years later by a sister, Margaret. Margaret was well know by anyone who went to local schools in the 40s to the 70s as a social studies teacher at Delaware Academy.

The timing of this carving is interesting, for it is the year that William turned 18. Unfortunately, William's 18th birthday was not a happy one for the Gordon family for on that day, William's father died. Thomas Gordon had been stricken with a heart attack the day before and died in the early morning of his son's birthday. Though he was 75, Gordon's death was unexpected. He was serving as the Town Clerk in Bovina when he died and was active in the Civil War veterans' organization, the Grand Army of the Republic. William finished high school and attended college at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He ultimately settled in Westchester County and was employed by the New York Central Railroad in their research division.

William was only 57 when on June 3, 1960, he suddenly died while on board a New York Central train traveling from Chicago to New York City. He had been returning from a business trip when he suffered a fatal heart attack. A porter discovered William on the floor of his bedroom on the train. He was pronounced dead and the body was removed from the train in Cleveland, where it was taken to a funeral home. Several days later, officials from the railroad accompanied the body to William's home in Croton-on-Hudson. The funeral was held there on June 7. He was survived by his wife Laura and his sister Margaret.William was buried in Bovina near his parents. Margaret survived her only brother by over 40 years, passing away in January 2001.

Did this young man take a walk up to Indian Rocks on that sad April day in 1921 to be alone with his thoughts? And while musing on the twist of fate that took his father on his 18th birthday did he carve his name there? We probably will never know, but it's a poignant story by which to remember William. And maybe that's what he hoped to do by carving his name on Indian Rocks.

Happy 2012

2012-01-01T00:01:00.006-05:00

Just a short blog entry to thank everyone for their continued support and interest in Bovina history. Specific thank yous to:

the Bovina town board for their support, financial and otherwise.
Chuck McIntosh and Hope Schumejda for allowing me to lead hikes up to Indian Rocks.
the Bovina Public Library, for providing me a venue for displays and talks.
Ed and Dick Davidson for their continued hard work documenting Bovina cemeteries.
Lynne Resch, Jane Mills and Andrew Ebenstein for taking me to two old farm foundations.
Chris Ingvordsen and Steve Burnett for sending me on an incredible research odyssey concerning the 1945 crash of a World War II fighter on Bramley Mountain.
Tom Groves for providing me a scanner that will do large sized negatives (I'm sharing it with the Delaware County Historical Association).
Jim and Tom Hoy for pictures that their father took around Bovina in the 30s and 40s.
And if I've missed anyone, smack me on the side of the head so I can rectify the error.

As Bovina enters its 193rd year as a town, I'll be reporting on that feisty couple, Horace and Clara Warren (she was charged with assaulting a constable when she was in her 70s - and it wasn't her first time!), as well as a slander case between two men of the cloth in Bovina in the 1870s. I'll be sharing monthly mini-biographies of Bovina's Civil War Soldiers and telling more stories from Bovina cemeteries. And I'm sure other stories about Bovina will surface as the year progresses.

And I close with a picture taken forty years ago New Year's Day - it's a shot out of my bedroom window on January 1, 1972.

A Happy New Year to you all!

Stories from Bovina Cemeteries - Epitaphs

2011-12-31T08:00:00.009-05:00

The Bovina Cemetery has a number of graves with more than just the name and date of the deceased. Epitaphs appear to have been particularly popular in the mid to late 19th century. Unfortunately, some of these are very hard to decipher, but with the aid of the Internet, I have been able to work out many of them. Below are a few samples from the Bovina Center Cemetery on Coulter Brook (I’ll be looking for and sharing epitaphs from other Bovina cemeteries in future blog entries).

The most popular source of gravestone epitaphs is, as would be expected, the Bible. Sometimes, the stone cites the Bible verse, but often it did not. The Bible quotes come from the King James version.

Fanny Taylor Coulter’s stone has a verse from Matthew: “Be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” Fanny, the wife of David Coulter, was 77 at her death in 1897. Helen Anderson Hamilton, the wife of Thomas Hamilton, was 60 at her death in 1868. Her stone has not one but two Bible verses. From Revelation: “And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” From Luke: “Weep not for me but weep for yourselves.” When eight year old James K. Miller died in 1860, his grieving parents chose a verse from Job: “The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more: thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.”

The grave of New Kingston resident and Civil War fatality James C. Elliott has not only two bible verses but text from a hymn. The hymn text is a paraphrase from a hymn written by William Cullen Bryant for Abraham Lincoln’s funeral:

Thy task is done the bond are free
We never saw thy honored grave
Whose proudest moment shall be
The broken fetters of the slave

Since Elliott’s body was never brought home, the family made a change to the hymn. The second line in the original hymn was “We bear thee to an honored grave.”

Several other war fatalities include information about their death. William Henry Stott's stone explains that he was a member of Company E, 3rd NYS Volunteers. The stone further explained that Stott “fell in battle in defence of his Country at Chula Bridge on the Richmond & Danville Rail Road, Va. May 24th, 1861, aged 22 years 2 mo and 1 day.”

Clark G. Miller (1894-1918) was one of two Bovina fatalities in World War I buried in Bovina. His stone states that he was “KILLED IN DEFENCE OF PARIS, FRANCE.” James D. Calhoun (1889-1918) died later the same year. His stone gives information on his company and simply states “THE SUPREME SACRIFICE.”

Several epitaphs wax poetically. Jennie Miller was 31 at her death in 1870. On her headstone is a slight paraphrase of a poem by Lydia H. Sigourney, published in 1842:

She’s gone where no dark sin is cherished
Where no woes nor fears invade
Gone are youth first bud had perished
To a youth that ne’er can fade

Though not consistently, flowery epitaphs often appear on graves of those who died young, such as Jennie Miller. When James Bryden died in 1899, he was 21. The poem on his headstone is a standard one for memorial cards and headstones in that era:

A precious one from us has gone,
A voice we loved is stilled.
A place is vacant in our home,
Which never can be filled.
God in his wisdom has recalled,
The boon his love had given;
And though the body slumbers here,
The soul is safe in heaven.

The family of Robbie Laidlaw, who was 14 at his death in 1888, used a hymn written by Margaret Mackay in 1832:

Asleep, in Jesus blessed sleep,
From which none ever wakes to weep;
A calm and undisturbed repose,
Unbroken by the last of foes.

Not all epitaphs were on graves of those who died young. When John R. Thomson died in 1892, age 82, his family put the following on his stone:

Farewell dear Father sweet thy rest
Weary with years and worn with pain
Farewell till in some happy place
We shall behold thy face again.

Into the 20th century, most graves did not have epitaphs, but it’s a tradition that in Bovina cemeteries is making a comeback. When my cousin John LaFever died in 1995, his family put the following on his headstone:

His courage, his smile,
his enthusiasm for life
brought joy to the hearts
of those who have the
privilege of loving him.

I close with the headstone of someone especially close to me, my dear old Dad. My mom and dad loved the poem ‘High Flight.’ Written by John Gillespie Magee, a young pilot who was killed in a training accident when only 19, the poem is especially favored by pilots like my dad. Mom particularly wanted a phrase from that poem, along with an engraving of a small airplane, similar to those that Dad flew.

Merry Christmas from 80 Years Ago

2011-12-24T22:08:00.000-05:00

In going through some of the Cecil Russell family papers, I found a lot of Christmas cards and thought I'd share a few from the early 1930s.

Here are three cards that were sent to Isabell Russell's mother, Elizabeth Richardson Irvine (1866-1940). The middle card is from Reverend William Samson. I do not know who Ida or Clara May were.

This is a card received by Cecil and Isabell Russell at Christmas 1931 from James Leiper Coulter and his wife Hattie Gladstone Coulter, who lived in Pennsylvania. I've included scans of the inside of the envelope and the back, which has a 1931 Christmas seal on it.

That same Christmas, Marjorie Russell, then aged 13, received this card from Helen and Marshall Thomson, who were then living on Long Island. Helen and Marshall later came back to Bovina.

A very Merry Christmas to all.

Thomas Miller and William S. Thomson

2011-12-22T08:00:00.000-05:00

What do these two Bovina gentlemen have in common? Not a lot, but they do have this date in common. William was born on this date. Fifty years later, Thomas died on this date. Here are the details:

One hundred and fifty years ago today, William Scott Thomson was born in Bovina, the son of Andrew Thomson and Margaret Isabella Scott. He spent his whole life in Bovina, marrying Jennie Alice Archibald in January 1890. They had three children, Andrew Ralph, Archibald Millard and Mozelle Elizabeth. William was widowed in March 1917 when his wife Jennie died of tuberculosis at the relatively young age of 46 years. He survived her by 4 years, dying in November 1921 of pneumonia

One hundred years ago today, Thomas Miller died at the age of 85. He was born on July 15, 1826 in Roberton, Scotland, the son of William Miller and Isabella Dickson. He came to Bovina when he was about 5 years old. In 1851, he married Elizabeth Thompson, the daughter of Andrew and Elizabeth Thompson. They had two children, Elizabeth Thomson Miller (1854-1885) and William R. Miller (1858-1916). Thomas was married two more times after being widowed in 1870. He married Margaret Campbell in 1872. Margaret died in 1882. Five years later, Thomas married for a third time, to Jane Elliott in Garrattsville, NY. Thomas was a farmer in Bovina, on the farm now at the end of Reinertsen Hill Road.

The death notice for Thomas Miller in the Catskill Mountain News of January 5, 1912 noted that Thomas was in robust health until July 1907, when "he suffered a stroke of paralysis and while his strong constitution enabled him to withstand the shock, he never fully recovered." The obituary noted that in July 1911 "he had a second shock which shattered body and mind." Miller was one of the longest continually serving Elders of the Bovina UP Church, serving 54 years.

This isn't the first time Thomas has been mentioned in this blog. See the blog entries for May 5 and 17, 2011 concerning a family squabble that involved Miller and his brother in law James Coulter.

"Bovina Center, My Home Town" - Part XI

2011-12-21T08:00:00.001-05:00

This is the eighth of a series of entries from the script used on April 21, 1955, when citizens of Bovina presented a pageant of the town's history - "Bovina Center, My Home Town." Though I'm not 100% sure, it appears the script was written by Vera Storie and her brother Fletcher Davidson. The items in brackets refer to the tableau of local citizens acting out parts of the story. [Sections I and II are in the May 21 blog entry, sections III and IV are in the June 21 blog entry, section V is in the July 21 entry, section VI is in the August 21 entry, section VII is in the September 21 entry, section VIII is in the October 21 entry and sections IX and X are in the November 21 entry.]

XI. Outstanding citizens

Through the years there have been a few names among our ancestors that I have often heard mentioned, names of people who were noted for one thing or another. I have found the following information about a few of those people who have particularly interested me.

Joseph Smith, the leader of the Mormans, once resided in this town and worked as a common day laborer. On the farm of Paul Rabeler there once stood a stone wall which Smith built between the years 1835 and 1840, a wall which perhaps may still be standing there.

Alexander Brush, who was seeking to improve the pasturage of his farm, obtained some seed of the common white daisy and planted it on his land, thus bringing the first white daisies into this locality. Today the farmers regarded the daisy as a weed and are, therefore, not very grateful to our second settler for this contribution.

The McFarland boys, who lived on the George Lingg farm, might today be thought of as capable building engineers. They planned and performed all the mechanical labor on their barn which, in their day, was considered to be the best barn in Delaware County. The foundation was made of native stone, cut by hand by the McFarland boys. In the cupola of the barn they kept a register of all the famous people who came to visit their barn because of its grandeur. The bar still stands, and no doubt the register is treasured by the family of these two brothers.

The Hastings, Tuttle, and Gerry families are today outstanding for the fact that they are the only families in town that have lived continuously on the land settled by their ancestors. Dora Hastings Barnhart and her one daughter and her grandchildren are still living on the land settled by the Hastings brothers [*17c-Hastings Farm projected] in 1798. Log buildings were first erected, and later the present buildings were built, the date 1798 being inscribed on the front of the house recalling the date of the coming of this family to the farm. The Tuttles boast of the fact that their ancestors built the first frame house in the town, a building which still stands on their farm and is still used as a tenant house.

The Gerry estate, the form Robert J. Livingston estate of 20,000 acres, has been in possession of the Livingston family since 1707, the patent, a part of the Hardenburgh patent, coming from Queen Anne. The original patent was for land 30 miles wide about 20 miles west of the Hudson River, extending back to the West Branch of the Delaware River. From time to time sections were sold from this tract of over 500,000 acres of land, of what is today more than half of Delaware County; but it is still the largest piece of land owned by a private family in this county. At the outlet of the lake on this property stood the first grist mill in the town of Bovina, built in 1796 for General Morgan Lewis of Revolutionary War farm, a son-in-law of Judge Robert Livingston, the son of the original owner. Later the mill was used for a store. In 1808 a fulling mill was run on the stream there, and at one time a distillery was also operated there. When the original mill burned, a new one was built in 1825; but it was taken down in 1881. The only daughter of General Morgan Lewis, who inherited this estate, became the wife of Robert J. Livingston 2nd. When this Robert J. Livingston died in 1891, the property was inherited by his only child, his daughter Louisa, who married Elbridge T. Gerry, a famous lawyer, the founder of the Children’s Society, a charity leader, and the grandson of Elbridge Gerry, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The lake was at first called Fish Lake because of the many native trout and perch to be found in it. Later the waters became known as Landon’s Lake from Thomas Landon who operated a tavern there and who for years was land agent for the Livingstons. Today the lake is called Lake Delaware [*18-Projection of Lake Delaware.] It covers 160 acres and has no surface inlet, but the outlet is a stream of sufficient size to have afforded a valuable water power for the early owners to operate their mills. Through the years the Gerry children have purchased hundreds of acres of adjoining land and, thus, have added to the estate of their mother Louisa, an estate which was one of the early manors.

[*18a-Project of P. Gerry’s house] Overlooking the lake is the summer mansion of Ex-Senator Peter Gerry, the second home built here by the Livingston family, this one being built in 1853. It is famous for its pillared verandas, it’s beautiful circular staircase in the main hall, its numerous fireplaces, and its wood paneling. In 1951 when this house was remodeled and surrendered its iron stoves and candles of pre-Civil War days, workers reported that the framework was of beech, a heavy, difficult-to-work wood that is seldom used in home construction and which was probably out from the lands around the lake.

At the main entrance of the estate standing at the edge of the pine and hemlock forest is the beautiful church of native stone, [*18b-Projection of Lake church] which Miss Angelica Gerry built in memory of her mother and father. Dedicated in 1924, the edifice is a monument of the pioneers who cleared the land in this vicinity as the stones used in the construction were field stones similar to those that the early settlers picked from their fields and laid up as stone walls.

The original Robert J. Livingston was born in 1654 in the little Scottish town of Ancrum, after which Miss Angelica Gerry no doubt named her summer home which was completed in the year 1928. [*18c-Projection of Angelica Gerry’s home] This beautiful mansion overlooks the Delaware Valley and is noted not only for its beautiful view but also for its expanse of lawn with its wealth of colorful flowers, shrubs, and trees. The son of this Robert J. Livingston was at one time a partner of Captain Kidd in a plan to despoil pirate ships operating off the coast of Malabar, but Captain Kidd failed to restrict his activities to pirate vessels and was subsequently hanged for his offense in London. Livingston emerged unhurt from the experience. It is also a rather interesting fact to know that Anna Eleanor Roosevelt is a great, great, great, great, great granddaughter of this Robert J. Livingston.

The third Gerry summer home is that of Robert L. Gerry, [*18d-Projection of Robert Gerry’s home] which was burned two years ago and is at present being rebuilt. It took overlooks the lake.
All through the years the Gerry family has in countless ways given aid to the town of Bovina and is held in great esteem by the citizens.

A Few Bovina News Briefs

2011-12-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

During various research projects, I often have need to consult old newspapers. Always on the alert for items about Bovina, I occasionally find unusual little items that cause one to speculate and hunger for more. A few interesting examples:

From the Delaware Republican, June 13, 1886: "There was a great commotion the other day in the Brushland school, when a revolver went off in a boy's hip pocket. The ball lodged in the seat and no harm was done except a hole in the boy's pants." I have not been able to identify who the armed student was. The school likely was the District 4 school located across from the Bovina UP Church (now the home of Joe and Connie Dibble).

From the Delaware Republican, August 21, 1886: "Robt. J. Forrest killed 66 wood chucks out of 72 shots in three days with a shot gun on his farm in Bovina. He is either a 'crack' shot or wood chucks are pretty tame in his neighborhood." Robert Forrest was born in 1824 in Scotland and died in April 1892 in Bovina.

From the Delaware Republican, September 7, 1889: "A horse, belonging to Douglas Davidson, Bovina, backed a buggy, containing Mrs. John R. Hoy and her son, over a steep bank near Mr. Davidson's wagon house, on Monday of last week. The occupants of the buggy were both thrown out, and Mrs. Hoy received several severe cuts about the mouth." Douglass Davidson was the father of Fletcher Davidson and lived in the house now occupied by Ed and Bonnie Dennison. Mrs. John R. Hoy (Isabella Miller Hoy) was Douglass's mother-in-law - actually twice. He was married to Mary Isabella Hoy in 1878. She died in 1883. He married her sister Margaret Jane in 1889, the same year the accident involving his mother-in-law took place. Douglass died in 1923, Margaret in 1930. Mrs. Hoy had three sons living in 1889, David, Milton and Wilson.

From the Catskill Mountain News, January 15, 1904: "The other day Robert Thomson of Bovina finished a comfortable smoke and put his pipe in his pocket. Pretty soon his coattails were afire." Unfortunately, there are five Robert Thomson's buried in Bovina's cemetery, all who were alive in 1904, so which Robert this was cannot be determined.

Bovina in the Civil War – To Care for Him Who Shall Have Borne the Battle

2011-12-12T18:00:00.000-05:00

In Abraham Lincoln’s eloquent second inaugural speech delivered on March 4, 1865, he talked about the approaching end of the Civil War and what was facing the nation, including the need “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan…” Twenty two years after the end of the war, the issue of soldier relief shows up in the Town of Bovina records. The Andes based Fletcher Post Number 221 of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Civil War veterans organization, notified the Town of Bovina that it was prepared to provide assistance to veterans and to families of deceased veterans in the town. Below is the text of the notice, dating from January 10, 1888:

To the Town Clerk of the Town of Bovina: Take Notice that Fletcher Post No 221 GAR have by a resolution adopted at a regular meeting of said Post determined to undertake the relief of indigent and suffering soldiers, sailors and marines who served in the war of the rebellion and their families and the families of those deceased who need assistance in said town of Bovina as provided by Chapter 706 of the session laws of 1887. The relief committee for the said town of Bovina duly appointed by said Post under said act is Henry Hogaboom, William Richardson and John R. Hoy which said committee shall hold office until their successors are appointed.

Hogaboom, Richardson and Hoy were all war veterans. The Relief for Indigent Soldiers and Sailors law, passed by the State Legislature in 1887, provided funds for indigent Civil War veterans and their dependents. The funds were to be provided by the town, drawn on by the commander of the local post of the GAR. If a town did not have a local post, the nearest post in a neighboring town would do so. Since Bovina did not have its own post, a committee of people from Bovina was created by the Andes-based Fletcher Post.

It appears from the available records that at least one Bovina soldier received assistance. In 1888, the year the law passed, assistance was given to veteran James ‘Jimmie’ McClure. McClure, a native of Dumfrieshire, Scotland, was admitted to the Delaware County Poorhouse in December 14, 1887. He was single and his habits were noted as ‘intemperate.’ The cause of his dependence was old age and destitution. The poor house record noted that he had not received public or private relief earlier. He was admitted to the poor house as he awaited transportation to a soldier’s home. That never happened. At some point the following year, he moved to Bovina and became a charge of the town. He received a pair of boots, a pair of socks, one shirt and a paper of tobacco, as well as one bottle of Janes Expectorant from the town overseer of the poor. The town also paid $21 to board McClure for seven weeks. The overseer was paid $5 for “care in sickness.” This may have been his final illness. McClure died in Bovina in November 1888 of heart disease. His death was reported in the Delaware Gazette: “Jimmie McClure , the eccentric character so well known here and in this vicinity, died in Bovina last Friday. " Though not recorded in the account books, McClure’s burial in Bovina likely was paid with some kind of public assistance. Below is his headstone.

Another Bovina Murder Case?

2011-12-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

A former colleague stumbled across this November 27, 1849 article in the Troy Daily Budget about a Bovina related murder:

Murder in Delaware County
Correspondence of the Prattsville Advocate
Broomville (sic), Nov. 21, 1849

Dear Sir – I have just heard of the shocking murder of a father by his son, near Bovina Centre on Friday last. The victim was Mr. Daniel Frazier, a respectable citizen, aged about 70 years. The son was named Daniel, a robust looking chap, about 35 years old, and of very uneven temper. It appears that the difficulty arose in regard to the feeding slop to a favorite cow of Mr. F.-the son ordering the father not to feed her.

The father replied that it was his cow, and he purchased the meal and should use it as he thought best. The son said he would be d—d if he should, and immediately picked up a billet of wood and struck his father over the head, breaking in the skull, and letting out the brains at the first blow. Not satisfied with this, he inflicted four more heavy blows on his person, left him for dead, fled for parts unknown, and has not yet been arrested. Mr. F. died on Monday. These are the facts as related to me this morning. There are, however, various versions of the transaction afloat.

There certainly were various versions. And further research questions whether there was any murder at all and whether it happened in Bovina, whatever the incident. On November 22, the day after this letter was written, Daniel Frazier was indicted for assault and battery in the Court of Oyer and Terminer in Delhi. In February, Ebenezer and James Frazier also were indicted for assault, but nothing further happened to them. In February 1850 the charges against Daniel were dismissed over the objections of the District Attorney, with Daniel agreeing to pay court costs. The DA objected to the dismissal because the "cases were ones of aggravated assault." Unfortunately, the actual case papers cannot be found, so we do not know who he was accused of assaulting - or why these were described as 'cases' (it might relate to the involvement of Ebenezer and James Frazier).

There is a Daniel Frazier with a Bovina connection whose age somewhat matches that in the news article, but his father was Andrew, not Daniel. Andrew emigrated from Scotland in 1805 and was an early pioneer of Delhi. He was the father of several children, including sons Daniel, Ebenezer, and James. Daniel was born in Delaware County in 1809. He was living in Bovina as late as 1848, but by the 1850 census, he was living in Delhi, with his wife Ellen and three children. I cannot determine where Andrew had a farm - nor can I find anything where the farm owned by Daniel in Bovina was located. Andrew died in 1853. Daniel is mentioned in Delhi section of Munsell's History of Delaware County. He was first married to Ellen Dougal, who died in 1861. Daniel later married Margaret Merritt, a prominent teacher in the county. Daniel lived into his 80s, dying in 1895. He is buried in the Old Presbyterian cemetery near Delhi. His father is buried in the same cemetery.

It seems likely that the Daniel charged with assault is the same Daniel mentioned in the news article. And it appears this Daniel is the son of Andrew Frazier. The fact that Ebenezer and James were also charged around the same time strongly connects them as related to Daniel - and Andrew had three sons with these names. What led to the 'assault' and the issues involved likely will remain a mystery. The fact that Daniel was mentioned in Munsell's history in 1880 tell us that by then he was a well regarded citizen of the area. That seems unlikely if he had murdered his father.

While the court records confirm that there was some kind of incident involving Daniel Frazier on or near the date mentioned in the news article, no murder charges were filed and the assault charge was dropped. And if Daniel's father was involved in the incident, he survived it by over three years. This article showed up in at least one other newspaper, but the fact that no follow-up article concerning the incident appears in any available newspaper provides further evidence that the original correspondent got his or her facts wrong. Like a game of gossip, it seems that as the story of the incident on the Frazier farm traveled from Bovina to Bloomville and on towards Prattsville, it was embellished considerably. So no, it appears that this is not a Bovina murder case - or even a case of murder period.

Note: The spelling of the last name varies. The newspaper had 'Frazier,' as did the court records and some census record, but Munsell's history uses 'Frasier.' Other sources use 'Fraser.'

Farm Feast on December 3

2011-12-02T09:21:00.000-05:00

The Friends of the Bovina Public Library are sponsoring a Farm Feast at the Bovina Community Hall, running from five until eight. The food that is being provided is mostly locally grown, including beef, pork, chicken and veggies, mostly through Farming Bovina. Advance tickets are $12 for adults, $6 for children under 12. They will be $15.00 & $7 at the door. Entertainment will begin at 6:30, featuring Hilt & Stella Kelly, Ira & Lori McIntosh. Tickets are still available at the library, Russell's Store and the Bovina Post Office. Call 607-832-4884 for more information.

If you are interested in knowing more about Bovina's Community Hall, built in 1930, look back at my March 19, 2011 blog posting.
The Bovina Public Library's official history goes back almost 95 years, when it was officially established, but it got its start before that through the Bovina United Presbyterian Church. The first library was in the basement of the church. It later was moved to a building donated by James and Elizabeth Coulter. The library moved to its present location, the Bovina District 4 school house, in 1971. The library will be celebrating its 95th birthday next year, so I'll share more history at that time. The library's website is at http://www.bovinalibrary.org/bovina/index.asp.
Farming Bovina is sort of the new kid on the block. Just created this year, Farming Bovina was formed to aid local farmers achieve sustainability and economic stability. It is a not-for-profit charitable and educational corporation working for the preservation, protection and stewardship of agricultural and cultural resources in and around the Town of Bovina, New York. Check out their website at http://farmingbovinany.org/.

Come on Saturday the 3rd to support your local library and taste what your community farmers have to offer.

Stories from Bovina's Cemeteries - the Cathels Family

2011-11-30T08:30:00.001-05:00

This will be the first in a series of monthly blog entries about people buried in Bovina cemeteries. This started from a presentation I did on October 29 called "I See Dead People-Stories from Bovina Cemeteries." The initial entries will be from that presentation, but there are many stories in Bovina's cemeteries. There are over 2500 people buried in Bovina. I can’t tell all the stories, but I’ll keep working on them.

The Cathels Family

Over the span of 13 days in the early fall of 1865, the life of Nancy Bailey Cathels was completely upended. Her life already had had challenges. She lost an infant daughter in June 1854 and a 12 year old daughter in 1862. And from reading the Bovina UP Church session records, it’s obvious that her life with her husband James was not without its bumps. The events of September and early October 1865, however, had to be the greatest challenge in her life.

Nancy was born in 1825, the daughter of William and Mary Bailey. Her husband James, the son of James and Isabella Dickson Cathells, was born in Scotland in 1819. James and Nancy lived on Scutt Mountain Road, about a quarter of a mile or so off Pink Street.

In the early 1860s, James shows up three times in the Bovina UP Church Session minutes. Each time, he was in some kind of trouble. In the fall of 1861, he was sued for slander by James Campbell. The Bovina UP Church session stepped in to arbitrate and after a few months, it was resolved, with Mr. Cathels withdrawing the statement against Mr. Campbell. Cathels said that he "did not intend to slander or injure him by said statements." The nature of the slanderous statement was not revealed.

In the fall of October 1862, James again was involved in a case of slander, but this time it also included some fists and liquor, and was related to the Civil War. James Cathels had claimed service exemption in July 1862 because of the after effects of fracturing his arm two years earlier. The following month, Alexander Hanford Gill (commonly known as Hanford), son of James Gill, enlisted in the 144^th New York Infantry. On October 6, while at Hamilton’s tavern (where the Jardine’s house is now located), Cathels made some remarks concerning the validity of someone's enlistment papers. What happened next is not clear, given the differing testimony. James Gill stated that Cathels specifically claimed that Hanford had forged or back-dated his enlistment papers in order to collect the bounty. Cathels claimed that he had made a statement that someone had “done a dishonorable act” in enlisting, without saying whether or not he had said who that was. Whatever was said or how the statement was made, a fight ensued. Gill claimed that Cathels proceeded to hit him seven or eight times. He also claimed that Cathels “took up a chair and swore he would split my head.” Cathels claimed that Gill took him “by the throat” and that he struck back in self defense. It wasn’t until April 1863 that the case was settled with Mr. Cathels receiving an official rebuke and being restored to membership in the congregation. [Note: Alexander Hanford Gill served in the 144^th from the time of his enlistment until the end of the war. There is no evidence that his right to a bounty payment was ever questioned by anyone other than Cathels.]

A year later, Cathels once again found himself before the Bovina UP Church session. This time, he was in trouble for having signed a license for the sale of liquor. James fully admitted having done so and in the knowledge of the rules of the church against the sale of liquor. His membership was suspended. It is not clear at the time of his death whether or not he had been restored to membership.

In the spring of 1865, James and Nancy Cathels reported to the state census taker that they had eight children, ranging from their eldest son, David, age nineteen, to their youngest son and child, James, age about one and a half. It was in the early fall of that year that Nancy Bailey Cathels’ world began to unravel. On September 27, her husband James died. Within two days of being widowed, Nancy lost her two youngest sons, John Steel, age three and James, who was almost two (though the newspaper indicates that John Steele Cathels died the same day as his father). Four days later, her youngest daughter Jane died, age five. Jane was followed in death by her eight year old sister Maggie on October 7. And three days later, Nancy’s mother, Mary Bailey, died, age 65. So Nancy’s life was totally changed in just two weeks. These deaths were reported in the local newspapers (except, for some reason, Maggie's). These are two clips from the Bloomville Mirror, which reported these deaths with no other information. We cannot determine what took Nancy's husband and children. Given this unusually large number of deaths in one family, it likely was the same disease. Any number of illnesses is possible - diphtheria is one strong candidate.

Nancy had little time to mourn. If a contagious disease is what took her family, some of the other children may have gotten the same illness but managed to survive. She also may have caught the illness - we just do not know. Nancy may have started out her widowhood by nursing some or all of her four remaining children, David, Mary, Hanna and William. It is possible by this time, however, that oldest son David had left Bovina. When Nancy filed her petition to become administrator of her late husband’s estate in February 1866, David was living in Patch Grove, Wisconsin. Whether David left before or after his father's death is not known.

And during this tragic and challenging time in her life, Nancy had another complication. She was pregnant. In May 1866, she gave birth to a son, James John Steele Cathels. Nancy continued farming at least into the 1880s, raising her surviving children. In 1880 she was still farming with her son James, now 14 and a hired laborer.

It appears likely that Nancy lost another child before her death. Her son William disappears from the records after the 1870 census and was not listed when her will was filed (even if not named in a will, estate files usually list all surviving children). He probably died before 1875, though if buried in Bovina, the grave is not marked. Nancy survived her husband and the children who died just after him by over 20 years, dying in July of 1888 at the age 63 of Brights disease.

She was survived by her sons David, living in Murray, Iowa, and James J.S., living in Bovina. Her daughters had married and settled in South Dakota. Mary B. Hyzer was in Madison, while Hannah Betts was in Franklin. In her will, written about a month before her death, Nancy bequeathed a number of things to her children, including a "feather bed, pillows, bolster and a full supply of sheets, blankets and quilts to make a good comfortable bed" to her son James. Her clothing went to her daughters. Mary also received a yarn carpet that had belonged to Nancy's mother. David was appointed the executor of the estate. James, the remaining child in Bovina at his mother's death, left Bovina and by 1900 also was living in Murray, Iowa.

The only reminder in Bovina of the Cathels family is the obelisk in the Bovina Cemetery erected shortly after the tragedy of the fall of 1865 at a cost of $100. The cemetery monument spells the name as Cathells while all of the records use Cathels, including at least two documents signed by James Cathels.

"Bovina Center, My Home Town" - Parts IX and X.

2011-11-21T08:00:00.002-05:00

This is the seventh of a series of entries from the script used on April 21, 1955, when citizens of Bovina presented a pageant of the town's history - "Bovina Center, My Home Town." Though I'm not 100% sure, it appears the script was written by Vera Storie and her brother Fletcher Davidson. The items in brackets refer to the tableau of local citizens acting out parts of the story. [Sections I and II are in the May 21 blog entry, sections III and IV are in the June 21 blog entry, section V is in the July 21 entry, section VI is in the August 21 entry, section VII is in the September 21 entry and section VIII is in the October 21 entry.]

IX.    Teunis

At the foot of Mt. Pisgah, the highest peak not only in Bovina but also in Delaware County, lies Tunis Lake, [*15 – Projection of Tunis Lake] a muddy little pond of a few acres, the only monument to the memory of a friendly old Indian, who was the last of his kind in this vicinity. The Indian trail in Bovina crossed the town from the section near Tunis Lake by the way of Robert Forrest over to the river past Jack Damgaard’s and up the valley to the Notch beyond Rema Hobbie’s home and on into Stamford. This was the trail by which in 1792 Elisha Maynard with his two yoke of oxen and cart reached the section where he made his first settlement in town. [#15A – Teunis, the Indian] Teunis, this old Indian, lived in a hut on the shore of Tunis Lake. Apple trees, which he planted, and a heap of stones marked for many years the spot where his hut had once stood. On several occasions he warned the early white settlers of the dangers of them from the more malicious of his tribesmen. Once when Teunis, after he had built his hut on the shore of the lake on the Doig farm, was being assaulted and beaten by two drunken white men, a Mr. Bassett of Andes came to his rescue and thus won the friendship of Teunis. Often Teunis with his hammer and sack would go away and after a short absence would return with pieces of rock from which he obtained lead to make bullets. On one occasion he blindfolded Mr. Bassett and led him through the woods for a short distance to the mine; and upon removing the blindfold and showing Bassett the mine, rich with lead ore, replaced the blindfold and led Bassett back home, promising that before his death he would reveal to Bassett the location of the mine. However, his secret was buried with him, for he died soon after this before revealing the whereabouts of the mine. Many years were spent trying to locate the mine but to no avail. However, the lake is still called Tunis and recalls to our memory the friendly old Indian who more than once saved our ancestors from death.

X.    Home Life

“Men’s work is from sun to sun, but women’s work is never done.” So it was with our early settlers. The woman of the house was always busy even in the evenings as she sat with the family before the open fire, busy spinning thread from flax her husband had grown or weaving woolen cloth to be used for clothes for her family or sewing new clothes or patching old, making them look like new, or perhaps knitting. [*16 – Family before fire] As we look at some of the handiwork of our great, great grandmothers, we marvel at their beauty, at the fine stitch at the many small tucks, at the wealth of beautiful, intricate embroidery, and at the interesting handmade lace trimming. In the daylight there were too few hours for the mother of the home; so she was up early about her many duties: washing the clothes, cleaning the house, making the butter, baking the bread, cooking the meals for their large family of thirteen or more, and making candles, the only source of artificial light in those days. In every home one would see lined up against the wall barrels of flour, kegs of salted fish, large jars of salted meats, barrels of maple sugar, for white sugar was a luxury in those days, and bags of dried corn, apples, and other fruits – all of which was largely due to the efforts of the wife.
The oldest children often hired out to work at neighbors, the daughter at the low wage of 75 cents a week or the son, at $8 a month.

There was no division of distinction among the settlers on account of wealth, for all were poor. Neighbors would drop in of an evening for a social chat and a drink of whiskey. Whiskey then seemed a necessity in almost every home.

The young people would often gather at neighbor’s and spend the night singing and playing games. But more often there would be a neighbor present who would saw off a tune on a fiddle and call off for a square dance. [*17 – Square Dance] Thus the evening would pass quickly, old and young dancing till the morning hours. The smaller children often busied themselves cracking nuts which they had gathered, popping corn, or baking apples over the coals in the fireplace.

For recreation, in the late 1800’s, a cooper by the name of Teller, organized a band for the young men. [*17A – Band member] There were about 20 in the band; they wore attractive uniforms; and, it is said, they learned to play well. Some of the members whom many will remember were Will Archibald, Will Black, Bob Foreman, Jim Foreman, John Gordon, Ad Laidlaw, George McNair, Al McPherson, Howard, McPherson, Dave Currie, and Alex Myers.

The neighbor men often were found working together, raising a barn, gathering the crops, or threshing; and at such bees there was always an abundance of whiskey. The women, too, worked together as they played [*17b – Quilting party and song “Seeing Nellie Home”]; for often they gathered at a neighbor’s to tie a quilt or quilt a pieced quilt, they enjoying the visit with one another as much as the work. In those days it was also quite customary to visit one’s closest friends or relatives, the family all going on the visit and often remaining for a few days. On one such occasion, an uncle and aunt went to visit their newly married nephew and his wife, taking as a gift a hen and her twelve chickens. The young wife was taken by surprise, and there were but three pieces of pie for dessert. She, however, always capable of handling any situation, said to her husband as she served the pie, “I’m sorry, Bill, that you don’t like blackberry pie.”

When anyone died, the neighbors attending the simple service at the burial of the dead, were served cake and wine.

Each day closed as it had begun with family workshop, the father reading from the Bible, praying as old and young knelt by their chairs, and leading the singing, all praising God, if not harmoniously, at least from their hearts. It was from Scenes like these that our ancestors were inspired to become the strong, God-fearing men and women we know them to have been, scenes that made our country great.

From 1939 - Bovina Center Couple Celebrate 60th Anniversary

2011-11-19T08:00:00.006-05:00

Alexander R. and Isabella Laing Myers celebrated their 60th anniversary 72 years ago today. Here's the article about the celebration from the November 24, 1939 Catskill Mountain News.

Bovina Center Couple Celebrate 60th Anniversary

More than 150 folks of Bovina Center and vicinity packed the United Presbyterian church parlors there Friday night to help Mr. and Mrs. A.R. Myers celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.

Mr. and Mrs. Myers were born and brought up in Andes. Their early married life was spent in that village but for the past 45 years they have been residents of Bovina where, until three years ago, when he had trouble with his eyes, Mr. Myers followed the trade of a house painter.

Mrs. Myers has daily contact with scores of Bovina folks through her duties as "central" at the Bovina Center telephone exchange.

When the phone service was started in Bovina Center, there was but one instrument in the community and only one wire to the outside worked, a line to New Kingston. Several farmers had phones, however. When a call came in from outside for one of the local residents, Mrs. Myers would dispatch a messenger she kept for the purpose to call the wanted one to the phone.

Mrs. Myers was born in the village of Andes June 8, 1861, a daughter of John and Margaret Laing. After residing in Andes for 14 years Mr. and Mrs. Myers lived in Margaretville one year and then moved to Bovina Center.

Mr. Myers is a son of Frank and Betty Myers who lived in Canada Hollow, town of Andes. He received his formal education in a school in the Hollow. He will be 84 Jan. 22.

The Myers were married in a house next door to the church where Friday's celebration was held. The ceremony was performed by Rev. James Lee, Nov. 19, 1879. Attending the wedding was Mrs. Lee, Mr. and Mrs. W.R. Miller and their three-month old son, Frank Miller. The couple's honeymoon consisted of a trip to Andes. The journey, by horse and wagon, required three hours.

Mr. and Mrs. Myers had five children, only two of whom are living. They are Jack Myers and Mrs. Anna Thompson, both of Endicott.

Mr. Myers was Alexander R. Myers. His wife was Isabella Laing Myers. As noted in the article, Mrs. Myers was Bovina's telephone operator for many years. Here's an article from the July 26, 1940 Walton Reporter about Mrs. Myers (click on the image for a larger version - you may need to right click after the image opens, then click view image in order to be able to zoom in on the text):

Mr. and Mrs. Myers lived to celebrate 67 years together. A.R. Myers died in 1947 - Isabella died in 1951.

Bovina in the Civil War - Bovina’s Old Soldiers

2011-11-12T08:00:00.049-05:00

Seems appropriate on the day after Veteran's Day, a holiday which did not exist until over 50 years after the Civil War ended, to remember those Bovina soldiers who survived the Civil War. Many of them returned to the life they were living before the war, though not without challenges. A number of them suffered from life long after-effects of the war. In a special census of Civil War veterans, conducted in 1890, John P. Dennis reported suffering from rupture and a disabled left hip. Henry Hogaboom suffered a ‘general disability’ that ‘is not overcome.’ Albert McPherson stated that he became deaf from his war service. Berry Shaw Miller reported that he had ‘neurology and rheumatism’ and that he was deaf in one ear. His brother Gilbert 'Gib' Miller suffered from chronic diarrhea.

A number of Bovina soldiers left New York State after the war. John Coulter left sometime in the 1860s and by 1870 was living in Cross Creek, Colorado, working as a lawyer. He married a widow, Anne Gaffney, and adopted her two children. When Coulter died on January 1, 1919, in Boulder, he was a judge.

In 1866, John's first cousin, Thomas, headed west, along with Thomas J. Liddle, another Bovina Civil War vet. They traveled by train as far as Omaha and then took a boat on the Missouri river for Fort Benton, Montana. Coulter settled in Lewis and Clark County in Montana and in 1870 was a gulch miner. What ultimately happened to him is not known, but he was named in his aunt Mary McGibbon’s will in 1889 and shows up on the 1890 Military census, still in Montana.

Thomas Liddle, after two years of ranching, mining and carrying mail in Montana, set out for Puget Sound, but ended up settling in Walla Walla, Washington. Hiring out to a pack train, he went back to Montana and then returned to Walla Walla, the round trip occupying one month. In 1872, he settled in Colfax in Whitman County, Washington, where he remained for at least 50 years.

Some veterans stayed in Delaware County, though not necessarily in Bovina. John D. Ferguson learned the carpenter trade until moving to Delhi in 1881, where he was in the mercantile business. His firm changed names several times as partners came and left: Ferguson and Groat, Ferguson and Churchill, and Ferguson and Thomson. He retired in 1916 from the business. His obituary reported that Mr. Ferguson “was eminently successful, his foundation principles being integrity, courtesy and square dealing with all.” Ferguson was active in the England Post, GAR and was at the time of his death serving as Commander.

James S. Adee was promoted several times during his war service, first to the rank of Sergeant, then to Orderly, or First Sergeant, and finally to First Lieutenant, the rank he held at the time of his discharge. He returned to Bovina after the war. The year after the end of the war, he bought his fathers farm. He moved to Kortright in 1880, taking over the farm of his father-in-law and later purchased a farm about four and one-half miles from Delhi. Adee was noted in the Biographical Review as “a strong Republican and is a member of England Post, No.142, Grand Army of the Republic.” He died in 1899, having been widowed for 8 years.

The aforementioned Miller Brothers answered the call for soldiers in 1864 and both enlisted in the 144th. The brothers were honorably discharged on the 18th of July, 1865. Berry never fully recovered from the ill effects of the exposures and privations of the Civil War, though he did survive the war by over 40 years, dying in1906. Berry’s brother, Gib, was Bovina’s last surviving old soldier, dying 70 years after the war started. He was 87 when he died in Oneonta in 1931 from the effects of a fall a few days earlier. Delaware County's last Civil War soldier died in 1941 and the nation's last surviving soldier from the conflict died in 1956

This picture came from the Cecil Russell family collection. It dates from May 1910 and is a veterans gathering in Andes. The names that have been identified: Left to right: 1. James Elliott, 2. Unknown, 3. Matthew Lambert, 4. Unknown, 5. Unknown, 6. James G. Seath, 7. Thomas Gordon (father of Margaret Gordon, who taught Social Studies in Delhi for many years), 8. Alex White, 9. William Richardson (grandfather of Isabell Irvine Russell), 10. Andrew Anderson, 11. William Reside, 12. Simeon Goodman, 13. Gilbert D. Miller, 14. Joseph Hughes. Thank you to Tim Duerden and Rachel Thrasher for helping to identify more of the names.

The stories of these and other Civil War soldiers with Bovina connections will be a monthly feature of this blog starting in 2012.

Bovina Rowdies Rebuked

2011-11-08T07:41:00.000-05:00

In the course of reviewing on-line newspapers from over 100 years ago, I stumbled upon this poem that I will simply present. It comes from the Bloomville Mirror from 1860, likely February or March. Some of the type is hard to read, so I had to guess some of the words. The newspaper 'disguised' Brushland by removing one letter! I hope further research will at some point explain what this is all about.

Bovina Rowdies Rebuked

Ye men of morals hear my ditty!
One night as I passed Bru-hland City,
I saw the devils let lone to play,
For them I had to clear the way.

They order'd out both old and young,
The air with their swollen voices rung,
Like demons from the ?? below.
To the church gate that all did go.

The last that came, I wondering saw,
Carried old clothes and sheaves of straw;
This leg on then it was their plan,
Of the clothes and straw to make a man.

It was their object during the night,
Upon this man to vent their spite;
The most like human form I saw,
Was this same man composed of straw.

They then commenced their infernal gale,
The image was hoisted on a rail;
Their designs for to complete,
The rode it up and down the street.

At length they heard a groaning sound!
The demons started all around!
Who is it that groans so loud?
Or did that voice come from the clouds?

With trembling knees, o'ercome with fear,
A ghost in them did then appear;
Struck with horror, and confounded,
As if with pestilence surrounded.

The ghost then spoke to them and said,
I am John Armer*, from the dead;
And I am sent to end the strife.
Is this the mob that took my life?

Twas composed of such a hellish crew,
As now appears here in my view.
A pause ensued mute with fright;
Poor Johnny vanished from their sight.

Then with cautious steal by tread.
Shocked by their visit from the dead,
The spirit sad, disheartened them,
The demons staggard to their den.

MORALITY.

*Allusion is here made to a man by the name of John Armer, who was milled to death in Brushland some years ago. [Note-I have yet to figure out who John Armer was.]

Stories from Bovina's Cemeteries - Prepare to Die and Follow Me

2011-10-31T10:49:00.000-04:00

Seems appropriate on Halloween to start a new monthly feature of this blog, telling stories from Bovina’s cemeteries. This stems from a presentation I did on October 29 called "I See Dead People-Stories from Bovina Cemeteries" (it was supposed to be a walking tour, but the weird late October weather put the kibosh on that!). See the September 23, 2011 blog entry for information about that presentation - and the fact that thanks to Ed and Dick Davidson I can tell these stories in the first place.

Some of the stories are simply based on who the people were. Buried in the cemetery are pretty much all the owners of what is now Russell’s Store, including Thomas Hastings, who owned it from at least the 1870s to 1893, A.T. Doig, who bought it from Hastings and sold it to Cecil Russell in 1919, and, of course, the Russell family themselves – Cecil, his wife Isabell Irvine Russell, and their daughter Marjorie, who owned the store until her death on New Year’s Day 2000.

Some of the stories grow from the graves and monuments themselves. The first installment in November will be the Cathels family. My interest in that story began simply from noting that several members of the family died within two weeks of each other. There are some other such stories – the Stott family lost two children just as the Civil War started – and would later lose a son in the conflict (see the blog entry for April 12, 2011 about the Stotts).

Then there are the interesting stones themselves, a sample of which are below.

Solomon Coulter (above) and William Stott (below). Two fatalities in the Civil War. These stones are similar but not identical. These are memorial stones - Coulter was buried in South Carolina; Stott's body was never recovered.

Mary Baillie (above) and her husband William below. Note that the last name is spelled differently on these stones.

There are a number of these stones with a lamb on top - these are found on the graves of children. This is Thomas Lee Bryden, who died at age 11.

Hugh Clark (1774-1839) in the Associate Presbyterian Church Cemetery. One of the older headstones in Bovina.

These three stones use a weeping willow. This is 16 year old Thomas Archibald (1840-1856).

Betsey Cairns Thompson (1809-1846) from the Associate Presbyterian Church Cemetery.

Catherine Shaw Raitt (1788-1854)

And there are interesting epitaphs. My ancestor, Francis Coulter (1771-1846) has on his stone "There the wicked cease from trembling and there the weary be at rest." The quote is a slight paraphrase from John Wesley. I close this entry with a poetic epitaph from the grave of Francis' son David Coulter (1813-1877). The epitaph is a standard one used often on tombstones from this period.

Remember me as you pass by
As you are now so once was I
As I am now so you will be
Prepare to die and follow me.

"Bovina Center, My Home Town" - Part VIII.

2011-10-21T08:00:00.005-04:00

This is the sixth of a series of entries from the script used on April 21, 1955, when citizens of Bovina presented a pageant of the town's history - "Bovina Center, My Home Town." Though I'm not 100% sure, it appears the script was written by Vera Storie and her brother Fletcher Davidson. The items in brackets refer to the tableau of local citizens acting out parts of the story. [Sections I and II are in the May 21 blog entry, sections III and IV are in the June 21 blog entry, section V is in the July 21 entry, section VI is in the August 21 entry and section VII is in the September 21 entry.]

VIII. The Anti-Rent Trouble

Tracts of land in Delaware County were either given by grant or were purchased; and then the owners induced the settlers either to buy or to lease parts of this land from them. Some owners sold their lands to the settlers and made terms of payment such that they could be met. Others gave the settlers leases of their farms, granting the first five years’ use of the land without rent, and then requiring the payment of half of the permanent rent for the second five years, and then after that requiring the payment of full rent. In this way in New York State a few families, intricately intermarried, controlled the destiny of 300,000 people and ruled in almost kingly splendor over 2,000,000 acres of land. A large part of Delaware County was held under lease; and the evils of the lease-hold system bore heavily upon the farmers since much of the land was rough, rocky and difficult of cultivation. Farms were often unproductive, and settlers found they had a serious task to provide for their families and to make payments at the same time on their land. They, therefore, eagerly lent an ear to suggestions of relief; and in October 1844, this group met for the first time in Bovina at the hotel of John Seacord, the hotel located on the present site of Alex Hilson’s home. In imitation of their friends of Albany, Rennselaer, and Columbia Counties they formed an organization, which joined in disguised and armed bands of so-called Indians in warpaint and calico whenever it was necessary to resist an eviction. And they used their tin dinner horns to signal from farm to farm to bring to each eviction the jeering crowd of masked anti-renters [*Anti-renters]. Often too they would harass the landlord’s hirelings and sympathizers and engage in many pranks, an example of which occurred when some young roistering blades caught Timothy Corbin, stripped this dandy to his ruffled shirt, applied a bucket of tar and Dam Kelly’s best featherbed, and sent him homeward on his two mile walk in the frosty morning. However, the more serious object of these bands was, of course, to prevent the service of legal papers pertaining to the collection of rent and to interfere in the case of sales of property undertaken by officers of the law for the payment of back rent. Most of the persons engaged in these Indian bands were hot-blooded, reckless young men who were led into unlawful proceedings without due consideration. Therefore, in 1845 the legislature passed a law, making it unlawful for any person to appear in disguise; and armed as well as disguised, the person could be punished by imprisonment and fined. The fatal termination of these proceedings came in the summer of 1845.

Farmer Moses Earl lived on a leased farm in the town of Andes, three miles from the village, which carried a rent of $32 a year. The rent had not been paid for two years, and the agent was determined to collect it by sheriff’s sale. Under-Sheriff Steele and Constable Edgerton appeared on horseback to conduct the sale. About 200 disguised Indians were present and to hinder the sale, arranged themselves around the cattle to be sold. A pail of liquor, brought fro the house, was passed to each of the members of the Indian band; and the excitement reached a high pitch. As the officers of the law made ready to force the sale, an order was given by one of the disguised chiefs, “Shoot the horses! Shoot the horses!” A volley followed which wounded the horses upon which Steel and Edgerton rode. As Steele in return fired, almost instantly another order was given, “Shot him; shoot him.” Another volley followed; and three balls struck Steele, one of these wounds being fatal, causing his death five or six hours later. Intense excitement followed. Rewards were offered for the capture of the persons supposed to have been concerned in this regrettable affair. The hunt for murderers began, and Indians and witnesses fled. Indian dresses were burned or hidden in secret places; such as in the cookie jar. Men hid in the woods, in the haymows, and in far off places. Every house was ransacked in search of disguises, the only evidence needed to prove that someone in the house had been present at the murder. The men skulking in the woods didn’t dare to go home. Suspects let their crops rot in the fields. And homes were torn to pieces in the search; and often innocent people, sometimes old, were harmed. The governor declared the county in a state of insurrection and sent 300 troops to Delhi to maintain peace and to guard those who had been captured, many of whom were not even at the sale. Gradually hunger, the weary life of the hunted, and the betrayal of acquaintances drove the men in from their hiding places into the hands of their enemies.

A court convened in August for those who were brought before it; and 84 persons were, for the most part, unjustly convicted or confessed their guilt and were sentenced. Innocent or not, VanSteenburgh and O’Connor were found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hung on November 27th. In neither case, however, was it proved that the prisoner had fired any shot. O’Connor was a young resident of Bovina and lived on the Millard Russell farm. James Coulter, a Bovina farmer, took an active part in the anti-rent war and was on the spot when Steele was shot. Coulter Brook was named after the James Coulter family. As the date of the hanging of O’Connor and VanSteenburgh drew near, Governor Wright commuted their sentences to life imprisonment; and they were taken to Sing Sing Prison. All the other prisoners had been transported to Clinton State Prison in the Adirondacks where they remained in confinement until the winter of 1845. When these anti-renter were on their way to the Clinton Prison, streets and windows in every town through which they passed were crowded with curious people, seeking to get a glimpse of these anti-renters. Many women wept; and others shouted in a frenzy, “Down with the rent!” At Albany, too, people swarmed about to get a look at these men. Finally, after wearing chains for a week they, weary and jaded, reached Clinton Prison where days of hard, unending labor, laying walls, digging excavations, and mining iron faced them. After the excitement of the times had cooled, and Young had been elected the new governor of the state, at the request of 12,000 petitioners, he pardoned all of the anti-renters, who had suffered many hardships and insults both at the Delhi jail and the Clinton Prison. They were, indeed, glad to return to their families. Not long after, Edward O’Connor married his sweetheart Janet Scott; but the anxieties through which she had passed during his imprisonment had ruined her health and she soon died. O’Connor then left for the unsettled wilds of Michigan where he died of fever. He was hailed as a martyr and has come down in history as the champion of the Free Soil.

The result of the anti-rent agitation was that new laws were enacted, which cured some of the evils of the lease-hold system. The tenants were able to buy, at easy prices, the soil of the land they had tilled and occupied. But this affair created bitter feeling and animosities in the town of Bovina that took years to remove. Business men, in sympathy with the landlords, were boycotted and, thus, driven from town. Horace Greeley’s paper, in sympathy with anti-renters, was read by almost everybody in Bovina. It was jestingly said once that Bovina people read only the Bible and the Tribune.

Plane Crash on Moon Mountain - Update

2011-10-16T08:00:00.000-04:00

In my blog entries of April 29, May 30 and June 1, I reported on research I have been doing concerning the crash of a military training aircraft on Moon Mountain in the Bramley Mountain region of Bovina in April 1945. On September 25 and October 14, I made two more trips up to the site where we think the crash happened. The September 25th trek included Don Farley, who owns the land where the site is located; Chris Ingvordsen, who is making a film about the accident and my research into it; and Steve Burnett, who started this whole thing rolling by asking about it back in April. Along with the four of us were two people who saw the site not long after the accident - my Uncle George LaFever and his friend Ray Kearns. Ray's grandfather was the owner of the property at the time of the crash. Thanks to Don and his 'mule' we were able to drive them up to the site. Ray was able to pinpoint roughly where the fuselage came to rest. With this key bit of new information, along with George's description of where he could still see the debris field in 1963, we now think we can identify the line of the debris field.

Chris, Steve, George (half hidden), Ray and Don on Moon Mountain

Ray, George and Steve

Chris and Ray

Shortly after the September trek, Ray Kearns expressed concern as to whether or not that was the right cave. On a trek I made with Chris on October 14, we agree that the cave may not be the right one. The elevation of the cave is too high by about 200 feet. We worked our way back down from the cave site, noting an area of rock ledges as a promising place for a future trek. There was brief excitement when we found some metal, but turns out it was a collapsed metal tree stand, used for hunting.

Thanks to Don for providing the transport and to George and Ray for making the trek to the crash site in September. And thanks to Chris for his continuing interest. Stay tuned for further developments.

Note: 1) This entry was mostly written right after the September trek and I thought I had posted it that day. I only discovered this week that it never made it on-line, so I updated it a bit before posting to reflect the second trek. 2) In studying old and new maps of the Moon Mountain area, it appears that the town lines have shifted a bit over time. The peak of Moon Mountain, once in Delhi, now appears to be in Kortright. It also means that at least some parts of the crash site that were considered to be in Bovina in 1945 are probably now part of Delhi. Not a big deal, but interesting to see how the lines have shifted.

Bovina in the Civil War - The First Enlistments

2011-10-12T08:00:00.080-04:00

So who was the first soldier from Bovina to enlist in the Civil War? One of the earliest Bovina enlistees for whom we have documentation is William Stott, son of Walter and Mary Stott of Bovina. He enlisted on August 19, 1861, joining Company F of the 3rd New York Calvary. William became one of the eleven Bovina boys who died in the war, dying in action in May 1864. Joining the 3rd Calvary the same day were were brothers Robert P. and Daniel D. Tompkins, nephews of Robert Post of Bovina. The brothers were from Roxbury but were living with their uncle (or at least claiming their residence there) at the war’s end. It is not clear how long they actually lived in Bovina, but they are listed among Bovina's Civil War soldiers.

In October 1861, four Bovina men would join the 8th Independent Battery. Robert White joined on October 2, but would be discharged for disability less than a year later. Three men joined the battery on October 11. Darius Hadley, like White, also would be discharged for disability in February 1863. His disability arose from wounds received in battle the previous May. James K. Mills joined the same day as Hadley, but unlike Hadley and White, would serve the entire war in the battery, mustering out June 30, 1865. Edgar Seacord served his three years and mustered out October 28, 1864 in Norfolk, Virginia.

The last enlistment from Bovina in the war’s first year appears to be Charles Wycof. On December 12, 1861, he enlisted in the 72nd Infantry Regiment, company L. He transferred twice within the regiment and was discharged for disability on May 1862. From here, the record gets confusing. Some sources state he re-enlisted in the 144th, but there is no record of such service. There is a receipt dated November 15, 1863 for a bounty payment of $140 from the Town of Bovina made to Wycoff. Was this a long delayed payment for his 1861 enlistment or for the re-enlistment? The document doesn’t provide that information.

There were some Bovina soldiers who enlisted even earlier, though at the time of their enlistment, they were not Bovina residents. Edward Kennedy, who lived in Lake Delaware in 1890, enlisted in New York City on April 27, 1861. He started in the Fourth New York Volunteers, mustered out in May 1863, then appears to have re-enlisted in December of that year in the 16th Artillery. Kennedy deserted in February of 1865, though he later was able to collect a pension. Samuel Bouton, who was born in Roxbury, enlisted on May 16, 1861 in the 8th Pennsylvania Infantry for three months. By 1863, he shows up in Bovina's list of draft registrants, but he appears to have had no further service beyond the three months with the 8th Pennsylvania. He married Mary Ann Gillie in Andes in 1864 and they settled in Lake Delaware, where he died in 1912. He was buried in Bovina. James W. Clark’s Bovina connection came late in life. Born in Hamden, he was living in Delhi with his wife and children when he enlisted in the 72nd Infantry on June 4, 1861. Clark mustered out three years later. He lived in Delhi after the war but by the 1880 census was living in Downsville. In 1900, he was living in Bovina in 1900 with his son-in-law and daughter. Clark died in Bovina in 1902 and is buried there. James McNair is another Civil War soldier with a tenuous connection to Bovina. His Bovina connection appears to be solely that he was enumerated with his uncle, Walter Doig in the 1865 census. He enlisted December 20, 1861 in the 8th Independent Battery. He re-enlisted after his three year stint ended and mustered out with the battery on June 30, 1865.

As the Civil War dragged on, more and more Bovina soldiers would enlist. The last enlistments from Bovina took place in September 1864. One of those was William R. Seacord. He was drafted in 1863 but was excused because his brother Edgar, one of Bovina's 1861 enlistees, was serving. Edgar was discharged in October 1864. About a month before, apparently learning that his brother was to be discharged, William enlisted in the 144th. He was mustered out nine months later. At the war's end, over 60 Bovina boys had served in the war.

Note: On November 6, I will be doing a presentation at the Delaware County Historical Association’s annual meeting about finding Delaware County’s Civil War soldiers – “Rally Round the Flag, Boys! Finding Delaware County's Civil War Soldiers.” The event starts at 1 pm with the Annual Meeting, Pot Luck Lunch and Award of Merit presentation. To attend the Pot Luck Lunch, please bring a side dish or desert to pass. Ham and turkey will be provided. My presentation starts at 2:45pm. You are welcome to simply come at that time for the presentation. Admission is free.

Bovina Submerged?

2011-10-09T20:04:00.000-04:00

Tim Mallery recently shared with me this news clipping from the June 26, 1936 Binghamton Press and it contained quite a surprise. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were a lot of surveys and discussions about where best to create reservoirs to supply water to the ever increasing population in New York City. I only found one brief reference in the early 20th century to Bovina ever being considered for submersion. Tim's find, however, put the debate still going on in the 1930s and 40s. The map from 1936 shows a number of smaller reservoirs being considered to feed into the larger reservoir. One option was to dam up the Little Delaware, which would have flooded Bovina Center and Lake Delaware (aka the Hook).

The Little Delaware still was being considered as a reservoir in the spring of 1948. The April 30, 1948 issue of the Catskill Mountain News carried an article from the Walton Reporter: "It is reported that New York city geologists have been in the Little Delaware valley the past week, looking over the soil and rock formations and that this summer New York city will again make a survey of the valley as a possible location for an additional reservoir." The damming of the Little Delaware never happened, but I've more research to do concerning how far along this idea went - and why it ultimately did not happen. So be looking for further developments. And thanks to Tim Mallery for passing this discovery on to me.

Bovina and Prohibition

2011-10-02T23:06:00.000-04:00

A quick blog entry commemorating the Ken Burns/Kim Novick Film 'Prohibition.' As noted in tonight's film, the first serious effort to impose the prohibition of the sale of alcohol was in the 1840s. In the spring of 1846, all 856 New York towns voted whether or not to ban the sale of alcohol - over 80% of them voted "no license," meaning that the sale of alcohol would be illegal. Bovina's vote on May 19, 1846 was to ban the sale, with 85 votes for no license against only 25 for license.

This temperance effort did not last long. Liquor dealers in 1847 won approval from the state legislature for a second vote. More than half of the towns that voted 'dry' in 1846 opted to go 'wet' a year later. Bovina's 1847 vote, though much closer than in the previous year, was still for 'no-license.' Here's the inspector of elections statement at the end of a series of tally sheets showing that Bovina voted no license in a close tally - 83 for no license, 72 to allow the sale of alcohol (with one blank ballot).

The state legislature later that year repealed the option law, reinstating state regulation of the sale of alcohol and taking the choice away from the towns and cities. By January 1848, Bovina was again issuing licenses to retail 'strong and spirituous liquors,' such as this one below to Alexander Kinmouth.

Note: In my May 10, 2010 blog entry about Bovina and the sale of alcohol, I reported on the 1847 vote, but I had the year wrong. I had it as 1841, not 1847.

I See Dead People - Stories from Bovina's Cemeteries

2011-09-23T09:44:00.000-04:00

On October 29, in commemoration of Halloween, I will be conducting a tour in a couple of Bovina's cemeteries, telling stories of the people memorialized or buried there. We'll meet at 11 am at the Bovina Cemetery, which is on Coulter Brook Road. After a brief visit to the old Associate Presbyterian Church cemetery on Reinertsen Hill Road, we'll go to the Brush cemetery next to the Bovina Public Library. The program will finish up in the Bovina Library where I'll explain some of the cemetery resources available. If it is raining or snowing, we'll meet at the Bovina Library where I've created a slide slow version from which to tell the stories. I'll be asking for a $2 donation, the proceeds to be given to the Bovina Public Library and the Bovina Historical Society.

What are these stories? There's the woman who lost her husband, four children and her mother in a 10 day period in the 1860s. There are a number of Civil War soldiers, those dying in the war and veterans of the war. And there was Close Light. Was he a Native American? I'll provide more detail on these and other stories during the program (and I will share these on the blog, too). We'll also look at some of the interesting stones in Bovina's cemeteries.

One of the reasons I'm able to do this is thanks to the hard work of Ed and Dick Davidson in documenting these cemeteries. They are in Bovina as of this posting continuing their work of locating all marked graves (go to http://www.dcnyhistory.org/Cemetery/bovina-all-burials.pdf on the Delaware County Genealogy website for the current list of the burials). And they recently attended the Delaware County Historical Association's gravestone cleaning workshop. On September 19, I helped them as we cleaned a couple of stones at the old Associate Presbyterian Church cemetery on Reinertsen Hill Road. The results were impressive (before and after pictures are below). The product they are using is not cheap but it has the advantage of not compromising the stone's integrity.

Dick and Ed cleaning a stone

The gravestone of John Elliott before cleaning.

The gravestone of John Elliott after cleaning.

Ed and Dick verifying stone location using GPS. The gentleman in the middle is Ed's son, Tom.

Thanks to the Davidson brothers, if you're dead in Bovina, we can find you.

"Bovina Center, My Home Town" - Part VII

2011-09-21T08:00:00.007-04:00

This is the fifth of a series of entries from the script used on April 21, 1955, when citizens of Bovina presented a pageant of the town's history - "Bovina Center, My Home Town." It appears the script was written by Vera Storie and her brother Fletcher Davidson. The items in brackets refer to the tableau of local citizens acting out parts of the story. [Sections I and II are in the May 21 blog entry, sections III and IV are in the June 21 blog entry, section V was in the July 21 entry and section VI was in the August 21 entry.]

VII. Industries

Bovina, sometimes called Delaware County’s Garden of Eden, covering one of the largest and most fertile areas in the state, was the pioneer town in the dairying business. No doubt the cold springs to e found in the town were a great help to this industry, and through the years Bovina earned the reputation of producing the finest flavored butter in the United States. In fact, on two occasions Bovina dairies supplied the tables of the presidential mansion at Washington with butter. In 1863 the first full-blooded Jersey stock was brought into town by John Hastings, who lived on the Jack Damgaard farm, and by Andrew Archibald who lived on the Mrs. Thomas Ormiston farm. In 1870 William Rutherford purchased a second herd of thoroughbred Jerseys at $250. a head for $5,000. In 1880 William Ruff purchased this herd, and in later transaction his calves brought him $200 apiece and his cows $350. each; and one of his cows produced 28 ¾ pounds of butter a week. Cattle from this town were considered to be of high quality and were sold into Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and all parts of New York State. In 1891 the Dairyman’s Assoc. took a cow Census in the town of Bovina, similar census ever having been taken. Bovina was selected because of the quantity and quality of its dairy products.

Great flocks of sheep were also raised and pastured by many of the farmers and sheepraising was one of the principal industries since the farmers found a ready home market at good prices for their wool at the Johnsons’ Mill at the Butt End.

For a quarter of a century asheries were numerous in town and was also an important industry. The burning of so much timber when the land was being cleared produced large quantities of ashes, which led to the first commercial industry, the converting of ashes into potash and pearl ash, which were used in the arts and in fertilizer. David Ballantine built one of the first asheries and ran it in connection with a small general store. Eight to ten cents a bushel was paid in trade for ashes delivered at the store, and by this easy means the settlers were able to get needed articles from the stores.

At one time there were six or more distilleries in town, the largest one being built on the Bloemeke farm by David Ballantine, the father of Duncan Ballantine, who was in later years one of the noted citizens of Andes. In 18XX the McFarlands, who lived on the present Rema Hobbie place, brought the first still from Albany to be operated in town. It was drawn by horses and carried on a four-wheeled vehicle, the first horses and the first four-wheeled vehicle to come into town. Before this oxen and sleds were all that the early settlers had used. Although there were so many distilleries in town, no liquor was ever sold outside of town since it was all consumed by Bovina’s own people.

The raising of wheat in the early days was also an important production. Although the land was not adapted to wheat raising, since land rents were payable in wheat, its culture was a necessity. “Other crops were rye, potatoes and flax. The women made shirts for the men and summer clothes from linen which they spun from the flax.

The first grist mill was erected in 1796 on the site of the Walter Coulter Mill at the end of the Bloomville Road. Later a distillery was built there, and still later a fulling mill. In the earliest times grist mills were often several miles from the farms; and when the bread supply had become nearly exhausted, the men would shoulder their grist and walk long distances to a mill to get it ground into flour. [*11-Men with grist over backs.] At first the nearest mill was at Kortright six miles away. The journey by foot there and back in one day was formidable, even dangerous, through lonely roads where the cry of a wolf or other wild animal might smite the ear of the belated traveler, who sometimes found it a flight for his life to get back within the sheltered precincts of his own home.

Another pioneer industry of the town, carried on by Thomas H. Johnson and his brother, the grandfather and great uncle of George Johnson, was a manufacturing of woolen cloth into garments of wearing apparel at their woolen mill, the weaving of cloth at their fulling mill, and the preparation of wool to be woven into cloth in their carding mill. These mills with their mill pond were located to the right of the small stone bridge you cross as you approach George Johnson’s farm, this location having been selected so that they could use for power the water from both the Maynard Brook and the Mountain Brook streams. Merchants and dealers in clothing came from different parts of the state to buy the high grade products of this firm. Besides, the Johnson brothers maintained two delivery wagons on the road selling and taking orders. They also established and operated a saw mill at the same time and later owned and operated a farm over which roamed great flocks of sheep, which yielded enormous quantities of wool for their mill. In later years Thomas H. Johnson, known as Barney Johnson, and his brother John H. built another mill behind Earl Smith’s farm buildings. Here they conducted a woolen mill, a cider mill, a saw mill, a feed mill, and a shingle mill. In their homes the women also card spun, and wove cloth, which they used to make clothing. [*12 – Woman spinning – Spinning Wheel Song]

Many of the early settlers were hunters and trappers; and since thee was much forest land, there was an abundance of deer, bears, wolves, and small game which furnished skins for traffic in the Catskill market. Journeymen crispin [I do not know what this word means - I welcome any suggestions] came around two or three times a year and made boots for the men from cowhide.

In the year 1837 all the goods that were sold in the stores of this town consisted of only three or four wagon loads of supplies drawn semi-annually from Catskill. As horses and wagons were used more and more by the settlers, the stroke of the anvil sounded within the village each day, sunshine or storm as the smithy had much work to do. There were three blacksmith shops, on in the Ernest Russell’s garage, one on the Marshall Thomson garden lot, and one on the site of Arthur Russell’s garage.

A large tannery was owned and operated by a Mr. Lull, the site of the tannery and dam being located along the stream in the village back of Arthur Russell’s garage. The stream furnished the motive power for driving and operating the bark grinding and certain other of the manufacturing processes. Mr. Lull also owned and conducted a fruit tree nursery at the same time and grew apple and other kinds of fruit trees on the farm now owned by Lester Hoy.

Firkins to put butter in were made in the four cooperages in the village, one located in David Currie’s home, one in the old coopershop which was located in the community House lot, one in the shop next to Clark Lay’s home and one in Norris Boggs’ barn.

Boot and shoe shops were also to be found in the village, one on Cecil Russell’s home lot, one in Arthur Russell’s home, and one on the lot through which the creamery road now runs.

There were many other businesses carried on in the village. In Arch Hunter’s home were to be found a meat market, a harness shop, and nursery for apple trees; in MacKenzie’s home was the first telegraph office. Stores did business on the same sites on which Hilson Bros. and Cecil Russell now do business; four other stores were operated, one in the Charles Fuller house, one in the Thomas Garage, one in the Thomas shop, and one in the Lester Hoy house that was recently taken down. A barber shop displayed its red and white striped pole in the creamery road lot and lent a gay bit of color to the town as did the American flag that floated from its flagpole, also situated on the creamery road lot. Hotels were operated on the site of Alex Hilson’s home and Ray Jardine’s home. The present library building was once part of the hardware shop. On the site of John Hilson’s home there was once a drug store, and many years later there was a drug store in the lower part of Milton Liddle’s home. At one time there was even a tailor shop in town, which was located in the little house between the Charlie Fuller house and the MacKenzie home.

As we think of the many types of work by which our ancestors made their living and the many places of business which were maintained in those early days, it seems that instead of progressing we have perhaps learned only to take life easier. [*13 – Miller, Dairyman, Cooper, Shoemaker, Blacksmith; with songs]

Bovina in the Civil War - Slavery in Bovina

2011-09-12T08:00:00.081-04:00

There were slaves throughout the United States during the colonial era and after independence, but northern states began to abolish slavery in the early 19th century. New York abolished it in 1827, but before then, did Bovina have any slaves? From what I can find, Bovina appears to have had one or two slaves. In the 1820 census, there was one slave owned by Alexander Johnson (or Johnston). Murray's Centennial History of Delaware County claims that when slavery was abolished, there were two slaves in Bovina - Johnson's and one slave owned by John Erkson. The census doesn't show this, however. And Murray's book has the wrong year for abolition of slavery. Before Bovina's creation but after its settlement, there could have been some other slave owners, but there appears to be no record of these slave holders.

Bovina was generally but not unanimously anti-slavery during the Civil War. Near the end of the war, the Bovina United Presbyterian Church took issue with one of its members for opposing the church's stand against slavery. The Presbyterian Church in the USA in the 1840s passed a resolution against slavery: "The system of slavery, as it exists in these United States, viewed either in the laws of the several States which sanction it, or in its actual operation and results in society, is intrinsically an unrighteous and oppressive system, and is opposed to the prescriptions of the law of God, to the spirit and precepts of the Gospel, and to the best interests of humanity." The church over the years continued to reaffirm its opposition to slavery.

In November 1864, word had been received that "Mrs Jane Maynard had been willfully opposing the principles of her solemn profession by uttering disloyal and unchristian sentiments." She felt that the article in the church's testimony on slavery was not in accordance with Scripture. Elder Thomas Miller was appointed to speak with her on this issue, which he did in late December or early January. During the conversation, Miller solicited money for missionary purposes. Mrs. Maynard responded that she had no money for such purpose but she did have for the southern people "whom we were persecuting..." She also cited the minister for injecting politics into his sermons. She did not feel she could stay a member while being criticized for her political opinions. Her membership was suspended but as the year progressed, passions cooled. Mrs. Maynard admitted that she said some things under excitement that she should not have said. And though she still felt the church's stand on slavery was wrong, she wished to be restored to membership. She was restored in October 1865.

One of the challenges in researching this story was trying to figure out which Jane Maynard this was. There are two candidates: Jane Falconer Maynard, married to Isaac Maynard and Jane McDonald Maynard, married to Elisha Maynard. There was only one Jane Maynard who was a member during this time and it appears to have been Mrs. Elisha Maynard. Jane McDonald was born in 1825 and married Elisha Maynard in 1852. She was widowed in 1907 and died in 1916.

9/11 Connections in Bovina

2011-09-10T22:20:00.001-04:00

Among the over 3000 victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, there were at least two people with a connection to Bovina.

Virginia Ormiston-Kenworthy was a descendant of William Ormiston (1780-1864), one of Bovina's original settlers. Her grandparents were Wendell (1891-1965) and Lillian Haller Ormiston (1893-1984). Wendell's sisters included Ruth Monroe and Lois Davidson. Virginia Ormiston was born in 1959, the daughter of Robert and Jeanette Hedman Ormiston. She attended Rutgers College of Engineering from 1977 to 1981. Virginia was married and living in the New York City area in 2001, working for Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc in the World Trade Center at the time of her tragic death.

This is Virginia's photo from Rutgers.

Go to http://www.legacy.com/guestbook/guestbook.aspx?n=virginia-ormiston-kenworthy&pid=100289 to see tributes to Virginia. To see where Virginia's name will be located on the 9/11 National Memorial at the World Trade Center, go to http://names.911memorial.org/#lang=en_US&page=person&id=3348

Another victim of 9/11, Jean Marie Collin, has impacted Bovina since her death. Her family has established the Jean Marie Collin Memorial Scholarship fund. One of the awards each year goes to a Bovina student - the award is managed through the Bovina Public Library. Here's "Beannie's" biography from the Voices of September 11 website: http://www.voicesofseptember11.org/dev/memorial_biography.php?idbio=34

On this 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, we remember "Ginger" and "Beannie" and all the victims of a day that we'll never forget.

American Success Story

2011-09-03T18:14:00.000-04:00

To celebrate the third annual Bovina Farm Day tomorrow, I've posted her an article from 1963 about Jack and Eleanor Damgaard's farm. The magazine is the Metropolitan Milk Producers' News. Click on the image to see a larger (and readable) version.

Be sure to come to Bovina Farm Day tomorrow from 10 to 5 on Crescent Valley Road (http://www.bovinafarmday.com/). Our local farmers took a hit from Hurricane Irene. Please come and show your support for them.

Bovina and Irene

2011-08-30T06:14:00.000-04:00

Hurricanes and tropical storms are not that common in the Catskills, so the impact of Hurricane Irene on Bovina and Delaware County is historic. Though a tropical storm by the time it passed over Bovina, it still packed quite the punch.

What other hurricanes have impacted Bovina? I recall that Hurricane Agnes caused considerable flooding in Central and Western New York in June 1972, but they are a rare occurrence in the area. Delaware County and Bovina are no strangers to floods, but they usually are not caused by hurricanes but by simply heavy rain, sometimes combined with snow melt. The two floods in 1996 and in 2006 were not hurricane related but were none-the-less devastating to the county.

Bovina has gotten through Irene relatively unscathed, though there has been some flooding, power outages, road damage and downed trees. A heavy rain last October caused Coulter Brook to rise higher than it did on Sunday. If you have pictures of the flooding in Bovina, please pass them along. Here are three pictures I took. The first two are of Coulter Brook near the Bovina Cemetery. The third picture is the 'ball field' by the library.

Unfortunately, our neighbors in Fleischmanns, Margaretville, and Arkville have not been so lucky. The scale of the damage there is overwhelming. And beyond those areas is the devastation in Schoharie and Greene Counties. The historic Old Blenheim Covered Bridge, the world's longest, was completely destroyed. There a numerous videos and photographs of the flooding and its aftermath on the Internet. The Weather Channel has a site specific to the damage in the Catskills at http://www.weather.com/weather/hurricanecentral/article/disaster-in-the-catskills-hurricane-irene_2011-08-28from. There also are a number of videos on You Tube. This disaster is of historic and epic proportions.

There are a number of efforts to help those impacted by the flooding. This morning, the Central New York Radio Group stations - WZOZ - WDOS - WSRK - WDLA - WDHI - WTBD (wzozfm.com) will team up with The United Way of Delaware and Otsego Counties to take donations from 7 am to noon. You can tune in to any one of the stations listed above, or wzozfm.com, and click the "LISTEN LIVE" button. Call 607-432-1030 to pledge, or 888-432-1030. NBT Bank in Hobart is collecting urgently needed supplies, including canned goods, bottled water, diapers, blankets and clothing.

Bovina residents are grateful to have avoided major damage but are grieved by what has happened to our neighbors. Many are volunteering their services to help in the recovery. Our sympathies to all who lost their homes and businesses.

Charlie LaFever - A Remembrance of a Bovina Boy

2011-08-27T07:11:00.001-04:00

Today would have been my dear ole Dad's 80th birthday, so I thought I'd present a brief biography about Charlie LaFever in pictures (click on each image to see a larger version of it).

Ironically, though he lived in Bovina all his life, he was not born there. Dad was born in Delhi on August 27, 1931, at the Delhi Hospital, at that time located on Franklin Street. He was the first member of his family to have been born in a hospital.

This picture was a surprise when I found it - it's the only photograph that I've found of my dad with his great grandfather Burns. Left to right: Howard LaFever (his brother); Alex Burns (about aged 84 in this photo); John Burns (Alex's son and the father of Agnes Burns); my dad; and the man holding him is his father Ben LaFever.

This is a first day of school picture dating from 1937.

This is dad's senior portrait. He seems kind of somber in this one, as compared to his first day of school picture. He told me years later that he was tired of school by the time he graduated. His mother offered to pay for him to go to college, but he declined because he didn't relish more schooling! The text from the yearbook under his picture:

One of those Bovina boys--industrious--goes out for rifle club--pleasant--D.A.'s Einstein--pretty fair shot--gun or firecrackers.
Slice Rule Club (3); Cross Country (3); Junior Play; Rifle Club (4)

For whatever reason, he did not choose this picture for the yearbook - but I like that grin!

My dad started dating my mom, Leona Edwards, a month or so before he graduated high school. He wanted to get married but his parents wanted him to be 19 before he did so. Two days after his 19th birthday, on August 29, 1950, he married my mom at his parents house in Bovina. In this picture are mom's mom, Dulcy Edwards; my mom; my dad; and dad's parents, Anna Bell and Ben LaFever. Note the wall of ferns behind everyone. Anytime we were in the woods where there were ferns, he said the smell reminded him of his wedding day.

Mom and Dad celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary in 2000 at a party at Lake Jillienne in Bovina. Left to right - Patrick Hughes, Ray LaFever, Diane LaFever, Adam Hughes, Leona LaFever, Charlie LaFever, Susan Hughes, Gary Hughes.

Dad's love of tinkering led him to study TV and Radio repair. He received his certification from the National Radio Institute in "Television and Radio Servicing" on August 19, 1954. He ran Bovina Video, which provided very basic cable television service to residents of the Bovina Center hamlet. He sold it to Delhi Telephone in 2000.

Dad had another passion from an early age - aviation. He soloed when he was 16 and got his license in the late 50's. He usually flew from Cooperstown-Westfield airport and made regular flights until the late 70s, when the press of business as town supervisor prevented him from flying.

Dad worked for 40 years for LaFever Excavating, founded by his brother Howard. He retired in 1994, with a party hosted by his nephew and President of LaFever Excavating, John LaFever, on August 21.

Dad got involved with the town of Bovina in the 70s, when he was appointed to the town planning board. He was elected to the Town Board in 1975 and in 1977, he was elected Town Supervisor. He would be supervisor for the next 24 years, retiring at the end of 2001.

As Town Supervisor, Dad also served on the County Board of Supervisors. He was chair of the public works committee for many years and was Vice Chairman of the board later in his term and at his retirement. He was instrumental in the development of the county's state of the art co-composting facility, which opened in 2005.

Delaware County's Board of Supervisors gives a "hats off" to the ARC Bike-A-Thon by donning the biker's caps of the non-profits 18th annual event held May 4, 1991. Town Supervisors (left to right) Howard J. Nichols (Stamford), Thomas S. Hynes (Roxbury), Walter Johnson (Sidney), Perry Shelton (Tompkins), Gary L. Manning (Hamden), Lee W. Conklin (Deposit), Raymond M. Christensen (Davenport), F. Gerald Mackin (Hancock), Velma J. Clark (Delhi), Alan L. Rose (Middletown), Frank Bachler (Meredith), William Sunkenberg (Andes), Richard T. Little (Harpersfield), Charles R. LaFever (Bovina,) Donald L. Kerr (Kortright), John F. Thomas (Masonville), Donald Smith (Franklin), William I. Hammond (Walton), Robert A. Homovich (Colchester)

Dad retired as Town Supervisor at the end of 2001. He was diagnosed with colon cancer in April 2002 and after a valiant fight, passed away on January 24, 2004. This is the last picture of me with my folks, taken at the end of December 2003. The chairs were a Christmas gift that year from my folks' dear neighbor and friends, Brian and Marcia Olenych.

At the time of his passing, Dad was Bovina's town historian. I was honored to assume the position in the spring of 2004 and have enjoyed it very much, but there are times when a historical question or issue comes up that I really wish I had my dear ole Pa around to help.

He always will be sorely missed but fondly remembered.

"Bovina Center, My Home Town" - Part VI

2011-08-21T08:00:00.020-04:00

This is the fourth of a series of entries from the script used on April 21, 1955, when citizens of Bovina presented a pageant of the town's history - "Bovina Center, My Home Town." Though I'm not 100% sure, it appears the script was written by Vera Storie and her brother Fletcher Davidson. The items in brackets refer to the tableau of local citizens acting out parts of the story. [Sections I and II are in the May 21 blog entry, sections III and IV are in the June 21 blog entry and section V is in the July 21 entry.]

VI. The Forming of the Town

The countryside, now known as the town of Bovina, was once included in the townships of Delhi, Middletown, and Stamford. Having cleared their lands and built their homes, their schools, and their churches, these early settlers then sought to establish their own township; so on February, 1820, an act was passed erecting the town and providng that the first town meeting and election beheld on the first Tuesday of March, 1820. Therefore, in an inn, kept by John Hastings two miles from the village on land, which is still known as the Hastings Farm, the first town meeting was held. The name of the town, derived from the Latin word bovinus, meaning “pertaining to cattle”, was suggested by General Erastus Root of Delhi because Bovina was a pioneer in the dairying business. With the exception of Harpersfield, Bovina is the smallest town in the county, it consisting of 27,300 acres. The population in 1820 was 1,267; in 1840 it was 1403, the highest peak; from then on it has steadily decreased until today it is less than 1,000.

The Delaware River rises in Bovina and runs westerly, giving along its course one of the most beautiful and fertile farming valleys in the entire county. The elevations of this valley are not too abrupt, and from the highest peaks one can see the finest views afforded from any point of observation in the county.

Bovina has from the beginning been one of the richest towns in the county; it has never had a debt of any kind; for many years it never had a pauper within its limits; and the bounty debt of Bovina was all paid in one tax. In 1827 at one of the town meetings they voted that they would auction off any man who could not financially take care of himself, selling him to the person who would keep him the cheapest; and this they did on one occasion a fellow townsman being paid $2.28 a week for the care of a poor man for one year, this being done instead of sending him to the almshouse. In 1832 at a town meeting they passed a resolution that the County Poor House in the town of Delhi be abolished; for they could see no use for such an institution. No application was every made in Bovina for a liquor license of any kind until 1947, although there were six or more distilleries at one time in town. The distiller paid revenue to the government for the privilege of manufacturing his product, but so far as is known no license was ever exacted of the retailers. [Note: The Bovina town clerk files contain a number of such licenses up to the late 1870s. Bovina went dry around 1880.]

The first mill was opened on January 27, 1821, on the shore of Livingston’s Lake; the office, situated in Thomas Landon’s mill house, was called Fish Lake Office. The Bovina Post Office was established in April of the same year, John Hastings being the first postmaster. It was not until October, 1831, twenty years later, that the Bovina Center Post Office was established on the lot now occupied by the library [now the Bovina Museum], the same year in which the name of the village was changed from Bovina Center to Brushland. At first the settlers had to go over the hill by trail to Stamford for their mail. Once a month some one in the neighborhood would go and bring all the mail to the community and upon returning, when within one mile of the village, he would blow a horn every few minutes to let the people know that the mail was coming. [*10-Mailman]

Previous to 1820 there was no resident physician, but in 1822 Dr. Leal settled on the side of the mountain between Bovina and Stamford and took care of both communities. The last full time physician to serve this community was Dr. Whitcomb, who came to Bovina in 1915 and left in 1919 to go as a missionary to Egypt. Since then the doctors in the adjoining towns have cared for the residents of Bovina.

The people of this town were divided into three groups: those of the Hook; those of the Butt End; and those of Brushland. The Hook was so called because of the shape of the road there. The Butt End was larger than the village or the Hook and on one occasion wanted the town meeting in that part of town. Thomas Hamilton, who favored this northeast part, used in his argument a striking simile, alluding to the big end of the log, with which they were all familiar, saying that the northeastern end, the larger end of town, was the butt end. This homely simile was ridiculed by the faction which the argument had defeated; but the name Butt End has always stuck to that northeast section of town. In the Hook, at that time, one inn, one distillery, and one store did business; in the village, one barbershop, one grist mill, two cooper shops, two blacksmith shops, the largest school, one hotel, one hardware shop, one drug store, and three general stores were operated; and in the Butt End the people boasted of one store, one sawmill, one hop house, on distillery, one blacksmith shop, one shoemaker shop, and one grist mill, woolen mill and cider mill. The first general store at the Butt End was located in the present home of George Johnson, Billy Archibald being the store keeper. The blacksmith shop stood at the turn by James Crosier’s home on the small corner of land located between the Mountain Brook and the Maynard Brook roads. The smithy was John Johnson, the grandfather of James Crosier from who Jim perhaps inherited his inclination toward dentistry since this smithy kept in his shop a pair of forceps and a chair and on many an occasion pulled the teeth for the various residents of that northeast part of town. The Foreman, Currie, Archibald and other boys of that part of town, always watching for a chance to have a little fun and play a joke on someone, were a constant source of trouble, especially to the Center boys, who seemed to like the girls who lived up there. On one evening when a young man was about to start for his home, he found that his wagon had disappeared. In the morning as the Center folks were about to eat their breakfasts a rather bedraggled-looking young man walked into town leading his horse behind him. If there were time, much could be told about the early times in that very busy section of Bovina, but at least anyone can spend an interesting afternoon at the Butt End visiting the small stone arch bridge below George Johnson’s home, the old stone house on the Maynard road, and the McFarland barn so famous in the past.

Pictures from Fifty-eight Years Ago this Morning in Bovina

2011-08-14T08:00:00.006-04:00

Citizens in Bovina woke up on August 14, 1953 to a major clean-up job. The night before, the town was hit by a flash flood. The storm wiped out five bridges on Bramley Mountain and inundated Clayton Thomas's garage in Bovina Center. Bob Hall had just brought his car into Thomas's garage when the water hit. He spent 45 minutes perched on top of his car before it was safe to get down. An unoccupied house owned by Lester Hoy was moved completely off its foundation. It would have moved even further had its progress not been stayed by a tree. The damage from the flood was estimated to cost around $200,000 (equal to about $1.5 million in today's dollars). At the time of the flood, Bovina native Walter (Watt) Coulter noted that the last such flood to hit Bovina happened in 1894.

Photojournalist, Bob Wyer, was on the scene the night of the flood and the next morning to document the clean-up. Here are some of the photos he took of that event, courtesy of the Delaware County Historical Association (click on each image to see a larger version of it):

House along Brush's Brook the evening of the flood. The house was moved completely off its foundation (see next photograph) and had to be demolished. Note the high level of water in Brush's Brook.

The morning after.

Bridge at the lower end of the hamlet. Note the logs propped up on the bridge. This bridge was demolished two years later.

Cleaning up the damage by the bridge at Brush's Brook, looking 'downtown.'

Another view of the hamlet at Brush's Brook, looking 'uptown.'

Clayton Thomas pointing out the damage in his garage.

Bovina in the Civil War - Honoring the Dead

2011-08-12T08:00:00.006-04:00

There are twenty eight Civil War soldiers buried or memorialized in Bovina (see the May 12, 2011 blog entry concerning Bovina's Civil War dead). Thanks to Ed and Dick Davidson, most of these stones have been photographed. Here are a few samples:

John Sinclair Burns was Bovina's first Civil War fatality, dying of typhoid fever at Fairfax Seminary on April 4, 1863. Unlike most of his comrades from Bovina who fell in the war, his body was brought back home for burial. Included on his stone are these words: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

William Stott's headstone is one of two in this style in Bovina - note the military cap (called a Kepi) sitting on a Bible on top of the stone. Stott was killed in action on May 14, 1864 in Chula Bridge, Virginia. This stone is a memorial stone, as Stott's body was not recovered.

Solomon Coulter's is the other Civil War headstone in Bovina in this style. Coulter died of typhoid on September 23, 1864 at Hilton Head, South Carolina. The records are not clear as to whether or not his body was brought home. One record says he was buried at Hilton Head, SC, while another says his body was removed and re-interred here.

Robert Dysart was another victim of typhoid, dying October 14, 1863 on Folly Island, SC. He is buried in Beaufort, SC, as noted on his memorial stone.

William Gillie was yet another victim of typhoid, dying at Carver Hospital, VA. He was buried near the hospital where he died. When his father died 10 years later, his headstone included a memorial to his fallen son, though it does not mention his son's Civil War service.

Samuel Stott was one of the first veterans of the war from Bovina to die, surviving his service by only five years. During the war, he was wounded at Stoney Creek and was a prisoner of war for five months when he was exchanged. At his death, he wasn't yet 25 years old. We do not know the cause of his death, but it could have been the effects of his wound and imprisonment.

Martin Reynolds was older than the average Civil War soldier. He was 36 when he enlisted and 70 at his death in 1892.

John R. Hoy, like his Civil War comrade Martin Reynolds, was 70 at his death in 1901. Hoy's stone does not reflect his service in the 144th New York Volunteer Infantry.

William Richardson was the grandfather of Isabell Irvine Russell, wife of Cecil Russell. A naturalized native of Scotland, he was almost 90 at his death in 1917.

Gilbert D. Miller was Bovina's last surviving Civil War soldier, surviving his service in the 144th by over 65 years. One reminder of his service in the war was Chronic Diarrhea. Miller was active in the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the Civil War veterans organization. He died at age 87 from the effects of a fall sustained a few days earlier.

What Happened to Jane McDonald Post Stafford?

2011-08-06T08:00:00.001-04:00

Ok, the question you might have is "Who is Jane McDonald Post Stafford?"Jane showed up in several blog entries in late 2009 and early 2010 as the woman from Bovina accused of murdering her father. John McDonald, who lived near Cabin Hill, just over the line from Bovina, died in the winter of 1819. His daughter Jane, along with her brother Cornelius, was arrested in April 1821 after a coroner's inquest determined the death was not accidental. The siblings accused each other of the crime. In July, Cornelius admitted that he lied about his sister murdering their father and she was released. Cornelius was not convicted of murder but was convicted of perjury.

At the time of the murder, Jane was the wife of Robert Post and had an infant son, also named Robert. At some point in the 1820s, she apparently was widowed. Around the same time as her brother went to prison, Barber Stafford also went to the same prison for theft. It appears that Jane and Barber met at some point, maybe during visits to her brother (though if my brother had tried to finger me for murder, I wonder if I would have really felt like visiting him). It's also possible they knew each other before he went to prison. However they met, Jane and Barber were married and had a son, also named Barber, around 1830. They may also have had a daughter.

Jane and Barber moved around. They were in Roxbury in 1840, Gilboa in 1850 and back in Roxbury in 1860. By 1867, Jane was on her own, possibly widowed and destitute. In July 1867, the Overseers of the Poor for the town of Bovina ruled that her son from her first marriage, Robert Post, was to provide care for her. This is the whole document below (click on the image for a larger version), with a transcript:

We the undersigned overseers of the poor of the town of Bovina in the County of Delaware do certify that Jane Stafford is a poor person, old incompetent so as to be unable to work to maintain herself – that she has a son residing in said town by the name of Robert Post who is of sufficient ability to support his mother and the only relative of sufficient means residing in said county to support or to contribute to her support and who has heretofore supported his mother in his family which has been done in a manner suitable to his circumstances and condition in life and according to the ability and circumstances of the said Robert Post and which is hereby approved by us – and we do further order and direct the said Robert Post to support and maintain his said mother in his family furnishing her with the same board and nourishment as he and his family have and to keep her in all respects in the manner he has heretofore.

Dated at Bovina this 20th day of July 1867.

Alexander Kinmouth and John Murray, Overseers of the Poor of the Town of Bovina

So poor Jane did not have the happiest life. She was accused of murdering her father, was widowed with a young child, and then marries a convicted felon for her second husband. She was to have further stress in 1845 when her son from her second marriage was arrested and convicted in the shooting of Sheriff Osman Steele during the Anti-Rent War (he was later released due to his extreme youth - he was around 15). Near the end of her life, she finds herself destitute and has to get the town to make her son carry out his filial duty to her. We don't know exactly when Jane died, but it likely was before 1870. She is buried in the Nichols Cemetery on Cape Horn.

Bovina Resorts

2011-08-01T08:00:00.002-04:00

It's summertime - time for many people to find ways to escape the heat. Folks from the New York City area were particularly anxious to get away for the temperature and noise of the city. One place that over the decades has been and continues to be a popular destination for this urban climate refugees is Bovina. During my childhood, there were several places that offered farm vacations. Here's a brief summary of some of them:

Red Pine Farm was run by George and Wanda Lingg up on Bovina road (what is now the Schumann farm). In 1964, the rate, according to their ad in the New York Times, was $45 a week, with children under 12 costing $30. They boasted an 80 head dairy farm, a 50 x 50 pool, and farm animals, including ponies and donkeys. Emma Rosenthal and Andy Griggs have shared pictures and memories of their stays at Red Pine Farm at http://inbedwithfridakahlo.wordpress.com/2006/08/11/my-travels-with-charley-boston-or-bust-part-v/. Also note that a number of other people shared their memories in the comments field. Linggs sold the property in the late 1960s to TV star Bob Denver.
Crescent Valley Farm was a 275 acre dairy farm run by George and Anna Trimbell and their sons. Located on Crescent Valley Road, their rates were $55 to $35 per week. Their New York Times ad from 1966 offered "good home cooking and baking" with historical places nearby. The ad also noted that "We have three sons."
Elms Farm was on Coulter Brook (where Isabell Irvine Russell spent her childhood). Cliff and Gert Hall ran this as a vacation farm in the 60s and 70s. Joan Townsend recalled working there and that Gert's sister Millie Reinertsen did a lot of the cooking.
Suits-Us Farm on Pink Street was owned and run as a resort by the family of Alex and Elisabeth Sellhorn Rabeler from 1956 until 2005. In their New York Times ad from 1966, they noted that the farm had a heated filtered pool, tennis court, horseback riding and "cookouts followed by moonlit hayrides." Their ad also said "Families only." Felicia (Bunny) Campbell has a blog which includes photos and memories of Suits-Us Farm over the year. Go to http://www.bunnybrowse.com/memories-suits-us.htm to see her pictures. And thanks to Bunny for sharing. And if you're on Facebook, there is a Suits Us Farm group that you can join.
Ferris and Wilhemina Sellhorn Todd ran a vacation farm on Pink Street called Buena Vista for 11 years in the 1960s and early 1970s. Joan Archibald Townsend recalled working there in her teens and remembered what a great cook Mrs. Todd was. Mrs. Todd's sister was the Elisabeth Rabeler who, with her husband Alex, ran Suits-Us Farm.
Burn-Lou Century farm was run by Harold Lounsbury and his first wife, Mary Burns Lounsbury and later for a time with his second wife, Anna Boggs Hobbie Lounsbury. The farm had been in the Burns family for over 100 years.

I have further research to do on these resorts and on some others, including one run by Mr. and Mrs. Lorenz Bloemeke and another on Russell Hill. And I'm always looking for pictures and ephemera from these resorts.

Here's a brochure from Suits-Us:

Red Pine Farm

2011-07-25T11:45:00.000-04:00

In the course of researching for a blog entry about Bovina resorts this morning, I was startled to find a reference to one such farm in today's Daily Star (Oneonta). In the paper's 'Step Back in Time' feature for fifty years ago today, there was an article about George and Wanda Lingg's place on Bovina Road, known as Red Pine Farm. Here's the link to the feature from the Star: http://thedailystar.com/community/x1100994359/Step-Back-in-Time-July-25-2011

I just found this very article last week in my late grandmother's news clippings (missing the date unfortunately, but the Star's item today rectified this omission). Here is the complete article, including a couple of photographs, from the July 25, 1961 issue of the Oneonta Daily Star (click on the image, opening it in a new window. Then you'll need to click again to magnify it so it's easier to read and view).

I will be doing more detailed blog entries on the various resorts in Bovina, but I couldn't resist taking advantage of the timing of this article to do a brief entry about one such place today.

"Bovina Center, My Home Town" - Part V

2011-07-21T08:00:00.006-04:00

This is the third of a series of entries from the script used on April 21, 1955, when citizens of Bovina presented a pageant of the town's history - "Bovina Center, My Home Town." Though I'm not 100% sure, it appears the script was written by Vera Storie and her brother Fletcher Davidson. The items in brackets refer to the tableau of local citizens acting out parts of the story. [Sections I and II are in the May 21 blog entry, sections III and IV are in the June 21 blog entry.]

V. The Churches

The settlers of the town of Bovina, mostly from Scotland, were an extremely religious people; so as soon as they had provided themselves with homes and schools, they then became concerned with the affairs of the soul. In the days there was not a family in Bovina without a Bible; every family had family workshop in the home; and although there were not churches, they also surmounted this need by using, until 1815, barns, schools, taverns, and private dwellings as places of worship. The first sermon preached in Bovina was preached by Dr. Bullion in 1795 in the bar room of the Red House, a hotel kept by Thomas Landon at Landon’s Lake, today known as Lake Delaware. Dr. Bullion stood behind the bar, using the counter for his pulpit desk, and preached the word of God. Often amusing incidents occurred during the services in these crude places of worship, but even these did not dampen the religious fervor of these early settlers. Once when they were meeting in the barn of the former Frank Coulter farm, a hen flew off her nest with an unusually loud sort of cackling to the merriment of the children and the less sedate members. The minister stopped preaching and told someone to get her; whereupon a 240-pound Scotchman grabbed her and sat on her. Needless to say she gave but one squawk, and then worship continued as though noting had happened.

In 1809 the United Presbyterian Society, consisting of eleven members, was organized by Dr. Bullion at a meeting held at the J.G. Ormiston place, now occupied by Howard Conklin. Here Dr. Bullion baptized the first three children baptized in town. At first they had traveling preachers; then they called their first pastor, Rev. Laing, who received a salary of $250. a year to preach to a congregation of about 36 members. In 1815 the United Presbyterians started to build the first church in town on the south side of the old graveyard at the end of Reinertsen’s road. The building 36 feet by 30 feet was completed in 1824 except for some method of heating. For the nine years during the construction of the church Rev. Laing held services in this building with neither stove, pulpit, nor pews. He used a carpenter’s work-bench for a pulpit, and the congregation used blocks and benches for pews. In the winter when it was cold, the women brought food stoves with coals in them to keep the feet warm. Here the gospel was preached, and the psalms were sung with as much sincerity as though the church had been a towering cathedral [*7-Church and song “Old Hundred.”] In 1823 Rev. Laing died and was buried in the old churchyard cemetery a few feet from where he had preached. Rev. Graham, who preached for 21 years in Bovina, succeeded Rev. Laing; and a manse was built for him on the Robert F. Thomson farm on Coulter Brook [where Jeff and Jill Craver now live], which was the old Associate Presbyterian Farm. In about 1803 a fulling mill was also built on this farm by Rev. Richie to help to defray his expenses. The present church in Bovina Center was built in 1849, and 10 years later it was enlarged by adding galleries. Since then it has been remodeled several times. The parsonage during Dr. Lee’s pastorate was the present MacKenzie home [now the home of Amy Burns]; and then in 1906 the present parsonage was purchased.

Even though these early settlers were stern and serious people, there was also a fun-loving spirit to be found in them. One Sunday in the early days a Mr. Smith went to church; and falling asleep, he leaned against the door at the end of his pew. The main sitting behind him, wanting to see some fun, reached around and turn the button, allowing the door to open and Mr. Smith to fall in the aisle. Feeling chagrined, Mr. Smith pretended he had fainted and allowed himself to be carried from the building. What he said when once outside I am told, was not very becoming to the Sabbath day. Dr. James Lee, who was the next pastor for the 23 years from 1856 to 1879 [Lee actually was pastor for 32 years, until 1888], did much to building up the church and increased the membership from 162 to 339. In later years he returned to Bovina to spend his last days in this community in which he had spent so many of his working years. During his pastorate in Bovina he served as a Civil War chaplain. In later years two other Bovina pastors, Rev. McClellan and Rev. McMaster, left Bovina to serve as chaplains in the Armed Forces. Two pastors who followed Dr. Lee and are still well remembered and loved by many were Rev. Samson and Rev. Speer, both of whom spent several years preaching in Bovina. During Rev. Speer’s stay the Presbyterian Church celebrated its 100th anniversary.

The Covenanters or Reformed Presbyterian Society was informally organized in 1814, and in 1825 they erected a stone church, 34 feet by 24 feet, with a gallery by the old cemetery near the Butt End Schoolhouse. Later in 1861 they built a new church in Bovina Center next to the Milton Hastings home [now the home of Tim and Donna Bray]. Two of their early ministers who many remember and revere were Rev. Robb and Rev. Slater. In 1943 as their membership decreased, their church was dismantled; and the members joined in worship with other denominations.

Although the Methodist Church, which stood where Emily Archibald’s home now stands, was not dedicated till 1849, the Methodists were the pioneers of the preaching in town. Many years before thee was a church, there was a Methodist Society, which worshiped in schoolhouses, barns and private dwellings. Before they built their church, they were disliked by the Presbyterians. On one occasion the schoolhouse in Brushland was locked so that they could not hold services there. The Maynard School was also locked against them. One woman turned them out of her barn because she had heard the Methodists were great smokers, and she was afraid they would burn it up. After Alexander Brush’s death in 1840, the Methodist started building a church on the site given them by Mr. Brush; and in 1849 it was dedicated. The incident caused no little stir among those who thought Methodism was a fearful disease and should be dealt with as such. Andes and Bovina comprised one charge until 1871 when Bovina was set off by itself. In 1925 after their membership had dwindled to only a few members, they decided to disband and take down their church. It is a rather interesting fact that both the Methodist and Reformed Churches, when torn down, were taken to Howard Conklin’s farm to be built up again as barns.

The settlers, children and all, in the early days always attended services on Sunday, carrying their lunches with them so that they could attend both of the long services, the one in the forenoon and the one in the afternoon. Rain or shine, they would walk, each Sunday, to church. Their thrift is well illustrated by the fact that the children would patter along in bare feet until within a short distance of the church, their shoes slung over their shoulders in order to keep them clean and to save the shoe leather. Then they would discreetly stop and put on their shoes. Shoes were expensive and hard to obtain in those days [*8-Family on way to church.], a fact that made the settlers appreciate them. In later years, in the horse and buggy days, on a Sunday morning one would see from all directions on every highway the wagons or sleights of the settlers making their ways over the narrow, rough, winding dirt roads, sometimes deep with mud, sometimes deep with snow, carrying mother, father, children, and all to church. Such as the love of God in the hearts of these our pious, God-fearing ancestors.

Bovina Day 2011

2011-07-17T22:00:00.000-04:00

Bovina had a busy weekend. Friday night was the first Bovina Talent Under the Tent. A number of folks came forward to share their entertaining skills. Mary Hetterich, soon to be a vocal music major at Ithaca College, sang, accompanied by a friend (sorry, I didn't get his name). Janet Stewart and her grandchildren told a story in music about a bear. Two groups of Bovina's young women showed off their dance skills to great acclaim. Harlo Bray, Chico Finn and Matt and Andy Pelletier, all musicians of the 'Bovina Rock' school, also performed. And Bovina's librarian, Marjorie Miller, shared her vocal talents honed on Broadway.

Matt and Andy Pelletier (with unknown participant)

Saturday was the actual Bovina Day - traffic in town was quite impressive. Traffic jams are not the norm in Bovina. Both Russell's Store and Heaven on Main Street were doing a booming business, as was the ice cream truck, driven by June Burns (sales benefiting the UP Church). The museum was open in the morning to about 25 visitors. There were yard sales about as far as the eye could see. And the Bovina Library was doing a booming business in used books.

The afternoon saw the Bovina Day's 3rd annual vintage base ball game between the Bovina Dairymen and the Fleischmann's Mountain Athletic Club. As Harlo Bray succinctly described the game "Up 6-1, after 3, and down 13-6, after 8-1/2, the good-guys scored 8 in the bottom of the ninth for a 14-13 victory! We played 1898-rules without an umpire."

Image from Tim Harlo Bray

The day wrapped up with the Town Picnic, which included a pie eating contest and several tugs of war (between the boys and girls and between the men and women).

Bovina Day is coming

2011-07-13T09:17:00.000-04:00

Here's the schedule for Bovina Day:

BOVINA DAY EVE - FRIDAY JULY 15

Bovina UP Church, Bovina Public Library and Bovina Historical Society are teaming up to present…..

TALENT UNDER THE TENT

SHOWCASING BOVINA’S PREMIERE TALENT

7pm - On the ball field next to the library

Come and enjoy an evening of entertainment and lite refreshments

*****free will donations accepted*****

BOVINA DAY - SATURDAY, JULY 16

9:00 to 3:00 - Lawn Sales throughout Town
9:00 to 3:00 - Huge Tag Sale Featuring Gently Used Children's Toys and Clothes at the Bovina UP Church
9:00 to 3:00 - Book Sale at the Library
10:30 to 12:00 - Kid's Activity Tent on the Ball Field by the Library
12:00 - Vintage Baseball on the field by the Creamery
6:00 - Town Picnic on the Ball Field followed by the famous Women vs. Men Tug of War

The Bovina Museum will be open all day!
Look for the Ice Cream Truck!

Bovina Center Ladies softball team, 1920s. Isabell Russell is second from the right. And I think Ruth Coulter Parsons is in the back row.

Bovina in the Civil War - Exemption from Service

2011-07-12T08:00:00.021-04:00

Though all men between 18 and 45 in Bovina during the Civil War were liable for military duty, not all of them served. I reported in last month’s entry about one soldier who appears to have evaded the draft by going to Canada, but there were legal approaches to and legitimate reasons for being exempted from service. There was a process for claiming exemption due to health or circumstances. The Bovina town clerk files have claims for exemption from military service made during the Civil War from forty Bovina men. Thirty three claims were made in 1862, with another six men filing claims in 1864. Four of the claimants from 1862 filed new claims in 1864. There also is in the files one claim that dates back to 1859.

The claims usually were related to health issues, especially those involving the feet and legs. Given that the Civil War soldier moved predominately on his feet, healthy lower limbs were essential. Robert R. Scott said he had “thickening of the periosteum or periostitis of the head of the tibia connected with the inner side of the right knee joint.” James Laughran had cut his knee so as to produce a permanent injury to the joint. He suffered from lameness after extra exertion. Elisha B. Maynard not only had webbed toes, but could not ride on horseback without considerable pain. Elijah Nichols reported that he was “not sound in limbs (to wit) two of his toes are on the right foot the other on the left foot is turned under so that he walks on the end of his toes the nail resting upon the sole of his shoe or boot which causes lameness at times so he can not walk without causing great pain and causes nuisance in traveling.”

Other health claims included asthma, rheumatism, deafness, and partial blindness. Some complaints were somewhat obscure in today’s language. James T. McFarland simply reported “being ruptured” - maybe he was referring to a hernia. Thomas Dickson had a “tendency to spontaneous hemorrhage" (possibly nosebleeds) while George Close reported that ten years earlier he got caught between two trees which “broke in his right side.” There were two claims in the files not related to health. William Seacord and Edward Boggs claimed exemptions because they were teachers. And Robert Post, who had claimed an exemption for himself in 1862 because of health, filed one for his son Elijah in 1864, claiming that he was only 16 years old and too young to serve.

As noted above, four Bovina men filed exemption claims twice – in 1862 and again in 1864. Archibald Maynard (Elijah Maynard’s brother) submitted a lengthier claim in 1864 on the same issues that afflicted him in 1862, namely the fact that he was blind in the left eye and limited in vision in the right eye. Jonathan Adee, who claimed that he was not able bodied and broken down in health in 1862, more specifically stated that he had what his doctors called “hepatization of the left lung” which caused him frequent pain (hepatization is when lung tissue changes into a solid mass like the liver). Wilson McFarland, who claimed in 1862 to be exempt because of “bronchial affections of the throat of long standing,” claimed two years later to be exempt because he had “lost all his upper teeth.”

There possibly were other exemptions filed that have simply over time disappeared. And the claims do not include information on whether or not the claim was accepted. A review of the military rolls from 1862 and 1864 does not clarify the information. Some men who filed in 1862 do not show up on the 1864 roll while others do. There’s no pattern as to the condition for which they claim exemption. It could be a sign that some claims were believed and others were not – or it could simply be poor record keeping. Regardless of what can be found in the records, none of the men for whom we have exemption claims ultimately served in the war.

Below are two of the 40 exemptions in the town files - Edward Bogg's exemption claim because he is a teacher and that of Robert Post, claiming an exemption due to ill health. Further examples are available on the Bovina NY Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/30793716@N06/sets/72157625959037085/.

Bovina Schools Exhibit

2011-07-10T18:50:00.000-04:00

I set up a display at the Bovina Public Library on Saturday on the Bovina Common School Districts. It will be up for several months - I hope you visit the library to take a look at it (go to the Bovina Public Library's website at http://www.bovinalibrary.org/bovina/hours.asp for the library's hours). With the display is a small binder with pictures of school children - including several for which I do not have all the names. Feel free to look at this and add any names of children that you think you can identify.

The opening on Saturday saw a few visitors, including Amy Burns, whose mother attended the Bovina Center School, Joan Archibald Townsend, who was a student at the school in the 50s and Marion Jardine, who not only attended the school but whose mother, Mary Jardine, was the last teacher at the school. Joan and Marion shared some stories of the school, as did some people who couldn't attend, such as Marcia McPherson Lichtman and my sister, Susan LaFever Hughes. Susan and my sister Diane were in the last class to attend public school in Bovina.

As I've noted before, I just missed my opportunity to attend a one-room school by a year. I do recall making a couple of visits to the school. Once, my mom dropped me off and I recall getting upset until my cousin Alan started drawing some funny cartoons that made me laugh. I also remember going for what probably was the last Christmas in the school - and being torn about with which sister I should sit.

Speaking of sisters, Susan vividly remembered her first day of school. She kept getting her Mickey Mouse lunchbox thinking it was time to go home when it wasn't. Mrs. Jardine finally had to put the lunch box on a high shelf to stop Susan from taking it. She explained that it would be time to go home when she saw her mother coming to pick her up.

I'll close with this picture that you've probably seen before, but not on my blog. It was taken in December 1959:
Row 1: Nancy Hilson, Richard Mercadante, Diane LaFever, John Hilson, Gary Robson
Row 2: Tim McIntosh, Marcia McPherson, Tom Hilson, Kenneth Mercadante, Marcia Lay
Row 3: Barbara Hammond, Mike Hall, Marlene Lay, Lois Quackenbush, Leonard Gould, Susan LaFever

The Bovina Reservoir

2011-07-03T08:00:00.001-04:00

Did you know that Bovina has a reservoir? It supplies the water for the Bovina Center hamlet. The Bovina Centre Water Company was established in 1913, with construction of the reservoir taking place a year later. The water company was taken over by the town in 1983.

On July 1, I took a hike to the reservoir and took this picture.

Compare this with a picture taken probably in the late 1930s or early 1940s by James Hoy. Thanks to Jim and Tom Hoy for sharing their dad's photograph.

I need to take another picture to match the time period of the Hoy photograph, probably late fall or early spring. I'll share that picture when I get it.

Some Pictures from the Last Public School in Bovina

2011-06-28T08:00:00.025-04:00

Thanks to Joan Archibald Townsend, I have some new pictures to share of the Bovina District 4 school in its last years (see the June 15 blog entry about the closing of this school 50 years ago). Joan graciously shared with me a number of family pictures (which I will be sharing on the Bovina NY History Flickr page in the next couple of weeks) and some pictures from when she attended the Bovina school. The set below were taken probably in the spring of 1957 and all on the same day. The pictures were mounted on some card board, probably by Joan's mother, Eleanor Burns Archibald. There are names on some of the pictures but not all of them. You are welcome to add names that you recognize. Click on the image to get a larger version.

Bovina District 4, 1957

Note: Joan has noted that the photographer might have been Carolyn Keefer, wife of the Bovina UP Church minister.

Two School Pictures I Need Help Identifying

2011-06-25T23:18:00.001-04:00

Here are two pictures that I'm pretty sure are from the same school - but I'm not sure which one - nor am I sure it's a Bovina school.

The first shot was found in my late grandmother's pictures. I recognize one of the children - James Calhoun (1889-1918), grandma's first husband. The Calhouns lived in Bovina, but not far from Andes. I thought it might be Biggar Hollow, but the building doesn't match images I have of that particular school.

Jeanne Flye sent this picture discovered in an album of her grandmother's, Mary Ann Raitt. It certainly looks to me to be the same building. But where? And who are the kids? (Click on the image for a larger version)

So any help with either of these would be greatly appreciated.

"Bovina Center, My Home Town" - Parts III and IV

2011-06-21T08:00:00.005-04:00

This is the second of a series of entries from the script used on April 21, 1955, when citizens of Bovina presented a pageant of the town's history - "Bovina Center, My Home Town." Though I'm not 100% sure, it appears the script was written by Vera Storie and her brother Fletcher Davidson. The items in brackets refer to the tableau of local citizens acting out parts of the story. [The first two sections are in the May 21 blog entry.]

III. The First Settler of the Present Village

In 1794, just four years after Elisha Maynard had chosen for his homeland in what is today the town of Bovina, a second energetic and progressive young man, Alexander Brush, came from Long Island and settled in that part of the same town, which is today known as the village. He built himself the home which is at present owned and occupied by Lester Hoy [now Tim McIntosh] and purchased himself about 400 acres of land which included the present site of the village, parts of which he later sold to new settlers Alexander Brush, like Elisha Maynard, had a large family of nine children, all of whom were also given Bible names. In 1796 he erected the first large grist mill in town on the site of the Dennis Grist Mill, more lately known as the site of the Walter Coulter Saw Mill. His son-in-law is said to have constructed the first distillery in town, where Parmenter’s house now stands.

In the early years when Methodism was in its infancy, Alexander Brush was the mainstay of the Methodist Society in Bovina and preached for the Methodists, either in his own home or in that of a neighbor. When he later became blind, his wife would read to him from the Bible, and he would then preach from the text to the people. When he became old and too feeble to stand, he sat in an easy rocking chair as he preached. [*5-Brush and wife] A year or two before his death he partially recovered his sight and declared that if he could but live a couple of years longer, he would see a Methodist church erected in town; but he did not live to see one of his greatest desires gratified. He died in 1840 and was buried in the cemetery located in the central part of the village of Bovina Center. The next year in 1841 the name of the village was changed from Bovina Center to Brushland in honor of Alexander Brush and was so called until the year 1889.

IV. Early Education

In importance to these Scotch settlers, learning walked hand in hand with religion. Therefore, one of their first accomplishments was the making possible of an education for their children. The first school was established in 1808, and all the children from five to fifteen were legally compelled to attend to study the Bible, arithmetic, writing, spelling and English. In 1820 when the town was organized, there were in town 400 children of school age; and the total expense for the maintenance of school for one year for that number of students was $221.87. The wages of the teacher in those days was about $10 or $12 a month and board, since the teachers “boarded around”, spending about a week at each of the families in the district.

The first schoolhouse in town stood where the United Presbyterian Church now stands and was later moved to the site of the William Elliott home. It was a frame building with slab benches and writing desks around the sides of the room and heated by an open fire. [*6-School and pupils and teacher with song] In 1855 there were twelve schools in town, the last school district to be organized being the Coulter Brook District. In 1833 a log schoolhouse was built on Coulter Brook with a round chimney, Thomas Liddle, a very fat man, standing on the top of the building while the chimney was built around him, he climbing up on the stones as they built them up higher and higher until they finally took him out at the top. The present school building in the village was built in 1893.

Through the years many of the town’s children pursued higher education, some of whom became famous. To illustrate, I might mention the following few sons of Bovina: William Murray, a Supreme Court Justice; David Murray, a college professor who was appointed to take charge of the organization of education in Japan; Isaac H. Maynard, an Assistant Secretary in the United States Treasury; John Lee, a noted minister; John Black, a pioneer missionary in Canada; James Black, a minister; Andrew Archibald, a minister; David Hoy, a Registrar of Cornell University; William Clark, an editor of the Delaware Express for many years; William Ormiston, one of the finest physicians in this section for years; Ed. C. Dean, one of Delhi’s most successful business men; and James Foreman, one of Delaware County’s outstanding politicians.

Perhaps the outstanding teacher of those early days was the Scotchman Thomas Gordon, one of the most successful and best known public school teachers in the county. All those whom he taught can be identified by their beautiful handwriting, a distinguishing mark of each and every one of them. He was one of Bovina’s richest citizens, not because of wealth he had hoarded but because of his ability to give – to give of himself and of his homely counsel. In the hour of his adopted country’s need he volunteered to fight for her freedom, and in after years he freely gave to his townsmen hours of his time with no thought of recompense. If a deed was to be drawn, a will to be written, a business venture to be undertaken, the man who carried out such a project without the kindly, shrewd advice of this wise Scotchman was indeed a reckless citizen.

So What if You Don't Have a Computer or do the Internet?

2011-06-19T08:00:00.003-04:00

It was pointed out to me recently that my blog postings are not available to those who don't have a computer or simply don't spent time on the Internet. It was suggested I need to find a way to get these postings out to folks in this position. Mailing them out would be time consuming and financially prohibitive. I do put postings into the Bovina UP Church's Community Newsletter, but since it comes out only quarterly, it limits my sharing the blog that way.

I've come up with a solution that wasn't too expensive. I've put two copies of the Bovina NY History blog postings from 2009 and 2010 in the Bovina Library (one to stay in the library as reference, the other available to be checked out) and a copy in Russell's Store. In July, I'll print out and make available the blog entries from the first half of 2011.

So if you have friends and family who would like to read the blog but not on a computer screen, please alert them to the availability of the printed copies. Thanks.

Bovina's Last Public School

2011-06-17T08:00:00.002-04:00

Bovina's "little school" held its last class 50 years ago this month. The trustees of district number four, the last common school district in Bovina to operate a school, had made a decision at their May 2, 1961 meeting, to start sending all of their students to central school districts in Delhi, Andes or South Kortright after the 1960/61 school year. That district, and a few others in Bovina, continued to contract to send their students to other schools. In June 1967, all of the remaining Bovina school districts were dissolved by order of the State Education Department (as were all common school districts in the state that no longer operated schools). Trustees of district number four sold their building to the town of Bovina in June 1967, just before the district was dissolved. The town, in turn, and sold it to the Bovina Library Association in 1969. It continues to serve as the town library.

On Saturday, July 9, at 11 am, I will unveil an exhibit about Bovina schools at the Bovina library, where the town's last school room was located. I'm hoping some of the children from that last class will come and share their memories of the 'little school' and Mrs. Jardine. [NOTE: This is a change of date - we had scheduled for June 25, but it's graduation day in area schools and didn't want to conflict with that.]

Here are pictures from the June 2, 1961 issue of the Walton Reporter. My thanks to Terry Rogers at the Walton Historical Society for making this copy for me. It is much appreciated.

Bovina in the Civil War – Recruiting

2011-06-12T08:00:00.090-04:00

As did most communities in the country, Bovina made its contribution to the War of the Rebellion. Bovina ultimately furnished 94 men, out of quota that totaled 109. Eleven men volunteered between June 1861 and July 1862. Another 33 were furnished in the summer of 1862, under the President’s call for 600,000 men. Six more enlisted in 1863, 24 in the summer of 1864 and 20 enlisted in December of that year.

Forty two of Bovina’s men in blue served in the 144th New York Infantry Regiment – and most of these were in Company E, which was predominately made up of men from Bovina and Andes. The 144th was created in 1862 after President Lincoln issued a call for an additional 300,000 men. New York Governor Edwin D. Morgan issued a proclamation for volunteers on 2 July 1862. Originally, the counties of Delaware, Schoharie and Schenectady were grouped to form one regiment, but a rally held on August 6, 1862 in Delhi was so successful that Delaware County raised enough men for an entire regiment. Robert S. Hughston was appointed Colonel.

As the war progressed and President Lincoln issued more calls for soldiers, more enticements were needed to get young men to enlist. In the fall of 1863, the President issued a call for 300,000 men, followed a few months later by a call for 200,000 more. Communities were given a quota which they had to meet through enlistments or the hiring of substitutes. The men did not have to be from the community in which they lived - towns could meet their quota with any willing and able volunteer. To entice soldiers to enlist, communities would offer a bounty. In Bovina, the bounty for 1864, voted on at the end of 1863, was $300, with 112 supporting the bounty and 63 against. Apparently, this wasn’t sufficient to attract enough volunteers to meet the quota. In February of 1864, a vote was held to increase the bounty by $100 to $400. The increase passed but by a tighter margin – 98 for to 85 against. The amount was raised again in June, but the vote was even tighter, with 68 for and 67 against. Subsequent votes in August and September to raise the bounty yet again passed by wider margins. By the last vote in early 1865, the bounty was up to $800. Bovina raised a total of $42,204 during the war to meet its bounty requirements and other expenses related to the war. Of that, $39,650 was paid in actual bounties, $807 for recruiting fees and $1747 was paid for interest on town loans.

When enlistments still lagged, a draft came into being. Even before the Civil War, all men between 20 and 45 were required to enroll as being eligible for military service. Bovina had 188 men who were on this list. It was from this list that the names of draftees were drawn. Bovina had a quota of 22 men to be furnished under the 1863 draft, with another 6 in March 1864. Out of these 28, 26 did not have to go because they paid $300. One draftee, Reverend John E. Taylor, was the pastor of the Cabin Hill Presbyterian Church in Andes (and later the Presbyterian Church in Delancey). Taylor, a Bovina resident, furnished a substitute.

Bovina appears to have had at least one draft evader. The final report on Bovina's participation in the war noted that one of the 1863 draftees absconded. The name was not provided, but circumstantial evidence points to Elijah Fuller, the son of Richard Fuller and Ann Nichols. First, there is no information about Fuller's status in the draft documentation (it is provided for all other draftees). Second, he does not show up in any future New York or Federal census records. Third, he does not show up in the 1864 or 1866 military roll (he was on the 1862 one). Fourth, he does not show up in any New York Civil War service (though, of course, he could have served in another state). Fifth, and the strongest piece of evidence, is that Fuller moved to Canada sometime in the 1860s and stayed there the rest of his life. He married Eva Metland in Canada in 1867. All of his children were born in Canada and he died there in 1918. Going to Canada to avoid the draft did happen in the Civil War. It is possible that Fuller took this action to avoid the horrors of the war.

Young men in Bovina took a variety of paths during the Civil War. Some went to war eagerly, some reluctantly and some, for various reasons and using various approaches, such as Elijah Fuller, opted not to serve. In July's blog entry about the war, I'll talk about Bovina's 33 men who claimed exemption from service.

Delaware Railroad Company - Follow-up

2011-06-08T08:00:00.006-04:00

On June 4, I attended a talk and book signing by Dr. Michael Kudish for his new book, Where Did the Tracks Go in the Catskills? It's the fourth volume in his series called Mountain Railroads of New York State (available from Purple Mountain Press). As Mike emphasized in his talk, the focus of his series on railroads is on the geography, not the detailed history of the railroads themselves. His series covers railroads that were built and those that were only partially built and never completed. One of those uncompleted railroads was the Delaware Railroad Company - the strongest attempt to bring the trains into Bovina.

I've reported on the Delaware Railroad Company, created in 1898, in several blog entries. I reported on Mike's work to identify where the rail bed was located in entries on May 12 and November 8, 2009 and April 26, 2010. This past March, I did a four part series about the railroad.

Just this month, Tom Hilson shared with me a recently unearthed cache of materials in his family papers related to the railroad. The materials included the prospectus for the Delaware Railroad Company. He also has lists of subscribers for buying the right of way and lists of stockholders (which I will share these in future blog entries). Here's the text of the prospectus. Note that the prospectus calls the railroad the Delaware Valley Railroad, though that is not the name that was in the incorporation papers.

Delaware Valley Railroad Prospectus

   The proposed DELAWARE VALLEY RAILROAD is to be built from the village of Delhi, the county seat of Delaware County, N.Y., from the terminal for the Delhi branch of the New York, Ontario & Western Railroad, to the villages of Andes and Bovina Centre, a total distance of 15 miles.
   The consent of the property owners along the line has all be secured, permitting the construction of the railway along the highway, or the so called Delhi and Middletown turnpike.
   The villages of Andes and Bovina Centre have no outlet to a railroad, the nearest being 12 miles over a long and steep hill to the Ulster & Delaware Railroad, at Arkville, or 12 miles to the New York, Ontario & Western Railroad, at Delhi, over this proposed route.
   The people for at least 7 miles beyond Andes will haul freight to and from the proposed railroad at Andes. To reach Bovina Centre, a branch will be run intersecting the main line, reaching people for at least 7 miles beyond Bovina Centre who will haul freight to and from this terminus, making the length of territory covered by this railroad over 30 miles.
   The territory to be covered by this railroad is as fertile as any in the State of New York, and a noted dairying section. The milk and freight traffic on this proposed railroad will be a large and profitable one, and the company will at once obtain a large business from this item of freight alone.
   The proposed railroad follows the Little Delaware, a branch of the Delaware river, and the grades encountered are comparatively easy, costing less than $3,000 per mile in the construction of the road bed.
   We are positive that a personal examination of the route will prove conclusively the correctness of this statement, and the prospective earnings hereto attached, and would invite examination as to the correctness of our statements.
   This statement does not include the villages of New Kingston, Margaretville, Arena, Union Grove, and Shavertown, all of which are within a distance of ten miles from the road.

The second page of the prospectus provided information on the cost of the railroad. An image of that page is above.

I will provide a list of people who bought stock and subscribers to the right of way in future blog entries. Many thanks to Tom for sharing this with me and allowing me to share it with you.

Bovina Honor Roll

2011-06-03T08:00:00.005-04:00

During World War II, the Town of Bovina created this Honor Roll of its men and women who were serving in the war. It stood by the Bovina Public Library (now the Bovina Historical Society museum). The roll was taken down sometime in the 1960s to protect it from the elements. Below are two pictures that both date from the 1940s. Compare them with each other and with the roll as it looks today and you'll see that names were regularly being added during the war.

Photo from 1940s by James Hoy, courtesy of Jim and Tom Hoy.

Photo courtesy of family of Jack Hilson - click on image to see larger view

Photo by Ray LaFever, May 21, 2011 - click on image to see larger view

Here's an alphabetical list of the names on the Honor Roll, courtesy of Ed Davidson:

HAROLD AITKENS

HERMAN ARCHIBALD

LEONARD ARCHIBALD

LYNN ARMSTRONG

HAROLD BARBOUR

SAMUEL BARLOW

EDWARD BARNES

DONALD BARNHART

HERBERT BARNHART

PAUL BELLINO

JOHN BIGGAR

JOSEPH BIRDSALL

JOHN BURDICK

AMOS CHASE

EDWIN CHASE

LESTER CHASE

FREDERIC COLE

GLENN COLE

KENNETH CURTIS

ALLAN DAVIDSON

EDWIN DAVIDSON

FRANCES DECKER

DONALD DeSILVA

ETHEL DeSILVA

FRED DeSILVA

JACK DITTY

WARREN EITNER

ODE EKSETH

ROBERT ERKSON

FLOYD ESTUS

ROBERT FINKLE

EDWARD GERRY

ELBRIDGE GERRY

HENRY GERRY

ROBERT GERRY

CRAIGHTON GONYO

NOEL GONYO

LeROY GRAHAN

RICHARD GRUNDY

LAUREN HEWITT

STANLEY HEWITT

ALEX HILSON

JACK HILSON

ROBERT HOAGLAND

ROBERT HOY

WILLIAM HOY

DONALD HOYT

RUDOLPH HUNT

EVERETT HYATT

RALPH HYATT

ALLAN JOHNSTON

ARTHUR JONES

RAY JOSCELYN

SYLVAN LaFEVER

CLARK LAY

ROBERT LEE

LAWRENCE LEWIS

ROBERT LEWIS

ROY LEWIS

ROBERT LIDDLE

ARTHUR MAYHEW

DAVID MAYHEW

DONALD MAYHEW

HARVEY McCLELLAN

BOYDEN McCUMBER

CHARLES McINTOSH

FORREST MEADE

ERNIST MILLER

LEORA MILLER

ARNOLD PERRY

BERNARD PERRY

GORDON RABELER

HENRY RABELER

PAUL RABELER

RUTH RABELER

ARTHUR REINERTSEN

ROBERT REINERTSEN

SEGARD REINERTSEN

CLIFTON RUSSELL

EVAN RUSSELL

ARNOLD SCHNEIDER

CARL SCHNEIDER

ALBERT SIMONSON

ADRIAN SLIUTER

ROBERT TODD

CARL TUTTLE

ARTHUR VanALSTINE

HARVEY VanBUREN

WILBUR VanNOOY

THOMAS WALLIS, Jr

PALMER WATERMAN

ROBERT WATERMAN

WILLIAM WILSON

MARCUS YOUNG

I would love to hear from anyone who knows the history of this roll or of the names on it. As far as I know, there are two people on this roll who are still with us: Ed Davidson and Stanley (Stub) Hewitt. If there are others, let me know. I am pursuing getting funding to stabilize the honor roll and erect it somewhere in town where it can be seen. So stay tuned for further developments.

Bramley Mountain Plane Crash - Quick update

2011-06-01T20:24:00.000-04:00

This is a quick note, mostly of excitement, as I continue to research the 1945 plane crash near Bramley Mountain that took the life of a West Point cadet (see my April 29 and May 30 blog postings). I've established contact with someone in Cadet Clark's hometown of Holdrege, Nebraska and tonight spoke with his sister-in-law - the first person I've had any contact with who actually knew him. She recalled him being a very nice young man who did well in spite of coming from what was then known as a broken home. When he came home on leave from West Point, it amused her that he was not very neat during his leave - his clothes were all over the furniture in his room. It probably was a nice change from what he had to do when at the Academy. I'm now working to establish contact with some of his high school and West Point classmates.

So from a simple question in Russell's Store about a plane crash this has grown into quite the enterprise. More to come.