Seventy Five Years Ago - the 20th Coulter Family Reunion

The descendants of Francis Coulter (1771-1846) and Nancy Glendenning (1766-1843) held their 20th reunion on August 17, 1938, seventy-five years ago.  It was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Gladstone, with 107 people attended.  In the minutes of the reunion, the treasurer reported a balance of $12.16.  An additional $11.95 was collected.  Officers for the following year were elected: President, Marshal Adee; Vice President: W.G. Coulter; Secretary, Helen McDivitt; Treasurer, Mrs. Thomas McGowan.  Mrs. John Hilson was made the dinner committee chair.  The Wilbur family of Arena offered their home for the 1939 reunion.  Talks were given by Re. Peter McKenzie, Rev. Donald Brush and Rev. David Murray.  The formal meeting ended with the taking of a family picture, which is below.  With the exception of the years during World War II, the Coulter reunions continued until 1967, when they were discontinued.

The people who attended in 1938:
Mrs. Marshall Adee, George Adee, William Armstrong, Frank Brown, Mrs. Nancy Brown, Mrs. Everett Brown, Edwin Burgin, Mrs. Edwin Burgin, Clifford Burgin, Mrs. John Bostwick, Russell Boggs, Mrs. Russell Boggs, William Boggs, Norris Boggs, Agnes Boggs, Margaret Boggs, May Boggs, Grace Coulter Roberts, Walter Coulter, Elmer Coulter, Mrs. Elmer Coulter, William Coulter, Mrs. William Coulter, Leroy Coulter, Mrs. Leroy Coulter, Jean Coulter, Mrs. James R. Coulter, Alvin Coulter, Mrs. Addie Cowan, Francis Decker, Virigina Decker, Frank Dickson, Belle Dickson, Howard Dickson, Mrs. H. Dickson, Robert Boggs Dickson, James Dickson, David Draffen, Mrs. D. (Aggie) Draffen, Christopher Gladstone, Mrs. Christopher Gladstone, Mrs. Helena Hilson, Jane Hilson, Lourhannah Jocelyn, Mrs. Mary Kelly, Malcolm Kelly, Mrs. Martena Kellam, Duane Kellam, Benson LaFever, Mrs. Benson (Anna Bell) LaFever, Howard LaFever, Charles LaFever, George LaFever, Mary D. McNaught, Mrs. Ruth McGowan, Robert McGowan, Elizabeth McGowan, Grant Maxwell, Mrs. G. Maxwell, Arthur Maxwell, Janet Maxwell, Henry Monroe, Mrs. Ruth Monroe, Frances Monroe, Isabel Monroe, Elinor Monroe, Lauren Monroe, James W. Monroe, Evelyn Monroe, Lawrence Monroe, Philip Monroe, Mrs. W. McDivitt, Helen McDivitt, Elizabeth Mabon, Valerie E. Mabon, Margaret A. Mabon, David Murray, Mrs. D. Marray, Alfed Neale, Mrs. Emma Neale, Ruth Parsons, Herbert Parsons, Jean Parsons, David Roberts, Anna Saxsour, Harold Schrier, Mrs. Mildred Schrier, Bruce H. Schrier, Henry Schrier, Carolyn Schrier, James Wilbur, Mrs. J. Wilbur.

Bovina Pioneers - Francis and Nancy Coulter

I will be starting a regular series in this blog highlighting some of the early families in Bovina. I'm starting with the Coulters, from whom I'm descended. Francis and Nancy Coulter are my five great grandparents and are ancestors of such Bovina families as Boggs, Burgins, Burns, Doigs, Gladstones, Hilsons, Millers, Monroes, Ormistons, Parsons, Roberts, and Russells.

Coulter was a major name in the Town of Bovina since the early 1800s. The road on which the founding Coulter ancestor lived still is known as Coulter Brook and there are many Coulter descendants, including those with the Coulter name, in Delaware County and throughout the United States. This makes it all the more ironic that Francis Coulter, ancestor of many of Bovina’s older families, was not born a Coulter. When Francis was christened 3 September 1771 in Roberton, Scotland , he was christened Francis Coltherd, the son of Walter Coltherd and Elizabeth Rae. Francis married Nancy Glendenning, daughter of James Glendenning and Isabel Hendry.

Francis and his family came to the United States around 1798. Francis and Nancy were in Albany a year or so, then headed to Stamford for a couple of more before settling in Bovina. At the time he settled in Bovina, it was still part of the town of Delhi. He settled on lot 56 of Great Lot 40 of the Hardenburgh Patent in 1805. It was 156 acres. He never owned it, but rented it from Louisa Livingston. His rent was 28 3/4 bushels of grain. The farm eventually came to be owned by his son David in 1858.

The Coulters had nine children. They all lived to adulthood and most stayed in Bovina except their daughter Ellen, who moved to Horseheads with her husband John Ormiston and their son William, who married his cousin Isabella Glendenning and moved to Janesville, Wisconsin in 1848 and where they lived for the rest of their lives.

Nancy Glendenning Coulter died on 6 March 1843. Her husband Francis died three years later on 6 June 1846 in Bovina, Delaware Co, NY. Both are buried in the old United Presbyterian churchyard in Bovina. They are buried near their daughter Elizabeth and three of their grandchildren, children of their son James.

A fuller version of this story can be found at the Delaware County Genealogy website at http://www.dcnyhistory.org/biocoulterfrancis.html.

Bovina 100 Years Ago - the 1910 Census

In this census year, I have been doing a series of blog entries about Bovina censuses. I've been focusing on the censuses from 1860 and 1910 - 150 and 100 years ago. After a couple of entries about the 1860 census, I'm ready to review the 1910 census.

Bovina's population from 1860-1910 continued the drop that started after 1840. The 1910 population of Bovina was at 912, down over 300 from 1860's number of 1242 (it should be noted that the biggest drop took place between 1860 and 1870, when the Bovina's population fell by over 200). The population of Delaware County over that same period went up slightly, while New York State's population more than doubled. The US Population in 1860 was 31,443,321. By 1910, it was 92,228,496, almost triple the 1860 figure.

And while the numbers in Bovina were down, the information being collected was more detailed. Information collected in 1910 that was not being collected in 1860 included the number of children of each mother (and the number still living), number of years of current marriage, employment status at time of the census, did they own or rent, was the property mortgaged and were they a Civil War veteran.

During my initial skim of the census records, one thing that struck me is in this census, unlike the 1860 one, there are people that I recall from my childhood and young adulthood. Some of them included:

• Grace Coulter, who later married Dave Roberts and lived on Maple Avenue, was less than a year old in 1910. She was a school teacher at the Bovina school and in other area schools. I remember Grace and Dave later in their lives - I would visit them almost every time I came to Bovina. Grace was 83 when she passed away.
  
• Another Coulter I remember was Ruth Coulter, who later married Bill Parsons. Ruth was five years old and living with her parents and a couple of aunts in 1910. Ruth passed away in 2000.
• Fletcher Davidson, one of my predecessors as Bovina Town Historian, was a teenager living with his parents and his sister Vera. (See my blog entry from August 23, 2009 for more about Fletcher.)
  
• Fred and Nell Henderson were my neighbors when I was a child until they sold their home to Jim and Mary Haran in 1963. They were in their late 20s at the time of the 1910 census and had been married for 4 years. Fred and Nell would go on to celebrate 75 years of marriage before Fred's death in 1971. Nell died the following year.
  
• James Hilson, who I remember as the old gentleman who worked in Hilson's Store across the street from where he lived, was a teenager living with his parents and siblings. Jim died in 1984.
  
• Helena Strangeway was 22 at the time of this census, living with her parents and sister. She became the sister-in-law of James Hilson when she married his brother John in 1913. Helena died in 1976 at age 89.
• Bob Boggs, who became my uncle when he married my mom's sister Geraldine Edwards, was 4 months old at the time of the census. He had an older brother Don. Bob passed away in 1991.
  

Both of my paternal grandparents also are in the census:

• Anna Bell Barnhart, my dad's mom, was 16, living with her parents and three siblings at their farm on Pink Street. Grandma married James Calhoun (also in this census) in 1917 and was widowed a year later when James died in the First World War. She married grandpa in 1923 and died in 1980.
  
• My grandfather, Ben LaFever, was 10 years old and living with his uncle and aunt, Dave and Aggie (Burns) Draffen up on Crescent Valley Road (his younger brother, Clarence, was living with their grandparents, Alex and Nancy Burns, right next door). Grandpa's mother had died in 1908 so he and his brother were shipped off to his mother's relatives back in Bovina. Grandpa died in 1982.

Other names I remember from my youth include Cecil and Isabell Russell, Bill Burns, Les Hoy, Leroy Worden (another neighbor from my childhood), Helen Gladstone (Mrs. Robert Hall), Henry Monroe, and Margaret Gordon, who was my social studies teacher in 7th grade.

There will be more coming about this census once I get the data into a database so I can do some analysis. How many of the 912 people in Bovina were going to school? How many were employed? And at what occupation? Were family sizes bigger or smaller compared to 1860?

So watch this space for further developments.

Welcoming the New Year -- 1886

This article comes from the January 9, 1886 Delaware Express. It's an 'anonymous' review of an event in Bovina, a New Year's Night event held January 1, 1886 at Hastings Hall, which I believe is now Russell's Store. So here's a look at an event in Bovina from 124 years ago:

Bovina is a town of steady habits; her people always move along in the even tenor of their ways, undisturbed by any of those great events which ruffle the social life of her sister towns, such as lecture courses, opera houses, skating rinks, etc. You can hardly imagine the surprise it created when it was announced that the Y.P.C.A. of Bovina, would give a lecture and entertainment course this winter. Some laughed at the idea, a good many shook their heads and said it would be a fizzle; why, they said, we have had some of the best lecturers here that can be found on the platform, and they did not draw a corporal's guard. But the managers of the Y.P.C.A. had their course tickets printed and went to work to sell them, with a determination that was bound to succeed. Now what has been the result? Why every course ticket they had printed has been sold, all the single tickets that were offered for sale were taken in less than an hour after they were placed on sale and many more could have been sold but the seating capacity of the Hall was exhausted. One of the posters we saw in the Post Office excited our curiosity; we give it as a novel method of advertising.

Y.P.C.A.
Hastings Hall, New Year's Night. Bovina String Band. College Boys' Orations. Music - Acting Charades - Tableaux - International Quartette.

Come and See, Hear, Laugh.

We accepted the invitation and started for the Hall. The door keeper passed us in on our good looks and we settled down in a seat ready to take notes. The first thing we saw was a Bovina company of young people. It is evident if the famous lecturers can't command an audience in this place, the young people of Bovina can. The programme was well rendered, well received, and at a late hour the company left the audience - not the audience the company. Every person who took part deserves honorable mention; but space forbids us only to give a brief report. The music was well received judging from the moving of the feet in keeping time to the same. The songs sung by Misses Maggie Coulter and Maggie Miller, were among the best we ever listened to. A character sketch of Mark Twain by E.C. was received with ripples of laughter, which plainly said, the writer had hit his mark. The acting charades were plainly represented. Misses Bena Gow and Libbie Miller, represented their part remarkably well. A laughable scene in French pantomime was given by Miss Bena Gow and Mr. Wm. Ormiston, representing the first attempt of a green country boy at 'Sparking,' when from behind the scene was heard that song, "One night I went to see her - O how ashamed I was." There was only two persons in the Hall who were not convulsed with laughter and those were the actors. The International Quartette deserves notice; their gestures were immense. One of the best efforts of the evening was a recitation - The Polish Boy, by Miss Gussie M. Hastings. Miss Hastings is gifted with a remarkably fine voice, and the easy and graceful manner in which she gave this recitation won the deserved applause which she was received. Then came the college boys. Mr. J.B. Lee, Jr., has often spoken in Bovina, and the audience expected a fine oration from him, and they were not disappointed. Mr. Lee is a fine speaker, in fact it is hard to find a better orator on the platform today; his oration was extracts from a speech of Senator Fry, and was delivered in a manner that held the audience all the way through. The orations of Messrs. Doig and Young, were a surprise. This was the first time they had ever spoken in Bovina. Mr. Doig is a young speaker but he is a natural orator he has a fine heavy voice and he carries his audience with him; we only hope that we may be favored to hear from him again in the future. Mr. Young gave us Garfields's speech at Chicago, when he nominated John Sherman for the Presidency. I could see the fire of enthusiasm gleam in the eyes of many in the audience as he rolled out those fine sentences of Garfield. Thus closed the first entertainment on the course. One peculiarity of this course is that it is Bovina all the way through. The next entertainment will be by the Y.P.C.A., assisted by home talent. The third entertainment will be a lecture by a Bovina boy, Rev. J.J. Dean. And the fourth will be a literary paper by the Bovina girls and a debate by the Bovina boys.

Yours, X.