The Brothers-in-Law, Part II

In the May 5 installment of this blog, I started telling the story of James Coulter and Thomas Miller, brothers-in-law tied up in a squabble over their late father-in-law's estate.  Coulter sued Miller and got into trouble with the Bovina U.P. Church session for not coming to them to resolve the issue.  Coulter was asked to withdraw the suit, but he and his wife Nancy refused to do so.  In March 1867, they were suspended from membership in the church. 

On the third of June, the Session met and discussed the case of Mr. and Mrs. Coulter.  The Moderator reported that his meeting with Mr. Coulter to discuss the suspension was not successful.  Coulter would not withdraw his suit and refused to attend church.   “Mr. Coulter only manifested a spirit of bitterness against Session and charged them with doing him great injustice in a former difficulty with Mr. Edward O’Connor, and using his son John very badly.”  Coulter asked the Session to stop bothering him.  The Session adopted a resolution continuing the suspension of Mr. and Mrs. Coulter.

The case was further complicated by the fact that not only was Miller an elder, but so was Miller's and Coulter's mutual brother-in-law, William Thomson.  Miller had not been active as an elder because of the case. There had been a resolution in May asking Thomas Miller to resume his active duties as an Elder.  On June 15, the Session met where the resolution was discussed.  The invitation was opposed by some who felt it “would be offensive to Wm Thomson and others.”   Others said they had no personal disagreement with Mr. Miller but thought the invitation to resume his duties was premature.  Yet others felt that “Mr. Miller was an Elder in good standing with no charge, or scandal against his character, which this Session could entertain.”  It was further argued that Miller had obtained a leave of absence from Session meetings while Coulter’s case was being heard, but as far as the session was concerned now, the case was ended.  “Mr. Miller had rights and privileges which Session could not justly ignore.” 

In September 1867, Elder Thomson was granted his request of several months duration to resign as Elder.  The Session agreed “on the grounds of a felt personal inability to discharge his duties.”  In January 1868, Thomas Miller was invited once again to resume his duties as Elder. 

While the issue of Elders Miller and Thomson was being resolved, little had been heard from the Coulters.  But at a meeting of the Presbytery held on April 28 and 29, 1868 at the Bovina U.P. Church, James and Nancy took this opportunity to circulate a letter of complaint against the Bovina session.  The session was not pleased and requested James to appear before their next meeting on May 12.  James did appear and said that after circulating the letter they had withdrawn it.  He requested to have his church privileges restored.  The Moderator read the rules explaining that “the practice of Christian brethren going to law one with another is not only contrary to the spirit, but to the letter of the Holy Bible.”   Coulter explained that he agreed but two days later, a letter was received from James and Nancy Coulter:

We the undersigned ask of the Session of the U.P. Church of Bovina to remove the act of suspension dated March 5, 1867 depriving us of church privileges. For the following reasons:

1st We have not committed any crime against the church to our knowledge;

2nd We have reason to believe there was not a full meeting of Session at the time of suspension;

3rd And we cannot see that we have committed a crime in leaving a church where we could not enjoy ourselves and be benefited, and go to another;

4th We were not cited to the Session at the time of suspension and was attending church two weeks before the suspension.  Signed Jas and N.D. Coulter.

With regard to the paper presented to Presbytery I have not got that in possession as I expected and it is not necessary in the action of Session in this matter as the Session will see after due consideration.

You the Session of Bovina please give us certificates and restore to us the blessings of church privileges if you cannot do this act of kindness to us I give you notice that we must lay the matter before the Presbytery which we do not wish to do.  Bovina, May 13, 1868, Jas and N.D. Coulter.

The session met again on Saturday May 16 to discuss the case of James Coulter.  The moderator explained that Mr. Coulter had promised but failed to produce the paper passed around at the Presbytery and yet had now “presented to this Session another paper signed by himself and wife asking Session to restore them to privilege for reasons which appear to us untrue [and] unwanted.  It was pointed out that Coulter admitted that what he was doing was contrary to the rules of the church, that he had disobeyed several citations to appear before the session, and that when Coulter and his wife were suspended, all but two members of the Session were present and that the vote was unanimous.  The Session resolved, however, that Mr. and Mrs. Coulter be granted a new trial and be allowed 20 days to notify the Clerk of the Session as to their response. The session also stated that it “is perfectly willing to have the whole matter brought before Presbytery in a proper and orderly way.”  

Unfortunately, here the story abruptly stops because the next volume of session minutes that would continue the narrative has not been found.  The ultimate resolution of the case cannot be determined.  Did James and Nancy get what they felt they deserved from her father’s estate?  Were they restored to church privileges? 

We do know that Thomas Miller continued as an elder until his death, having been one of the longest serving elders ever in the church.  Thomas’s wife did not long survive the case, dying in 1870. Miller married twice more before his death in 1911.  Nancy Thomson Coulter also predeceased her husband, dying in 1891.  James died seven years later.  William, the brother who was caught up in the squabble, died in 1884. 

And I have had no luck locating any civil court records of this case - so whether or not they really went to court has not been established.  But I keep my eyes open for any new sources that might help us find the final resolution of this family squabble that spilled over into the Bovina UP Church.

Bovina in the Civil War - The Supreme Sacrifice

Bovina officially lost eleven men in the Civil War.  The first death was that of John Sinclair Burns on April 4, 1863, age 21.  He died of that scourge that took so many soldiers – typhoid.  Typhoid was responsible for seven of Bovina’s eleven Civil War fatalities:  William T. Gillie, age 19; Robert Dysart, age 26; John Murray, Jr, age 24; Andrew G. Chisholm, age 23; Adam C. Biggar, age 23; and Solomon Coulter, age 22.  William Storie, age 22, also died of disease in 1864, though it is not known specifically what disease took him.  And an unspecified disease also took Francis Miller, who has the distinction of being Bovina’s youngest Civil War fatality.  He was 17 and may have been as young as 15 when he died. 

Bovina lost two men in action.  William H. Stott, age 22, was killed in action on May 14, 1864 while charging Chula Bridge in Virginia.  Bovina’s last Civil War fatality happened in December 1864 when Roman Palmer, age 24, was killed in action.

Palmer’s story is particularly poignant, for he had just settled in Bovina the year before and had been married barely five months at the time of his death. The son of Saunders and Cornelia Palmer, Roman spent his childhood in Colchester and then Hamden.  In 1860, he was living with William McLealand in Andes working as a cooper.   He decided to branch out on his own as cooper and by 1863 was in Bovina making butter firkins.  In March 1864 he bought a house in Bovina to start up a cooperage there.  That July, he brought to the house his new bride, Margaret K. Gladstone.  Two months later, he left his wife and home to enlist and was mustered into Company E of the 144th Infantry as a private (his enlistment paper is at the left - click on the image to see larger version).  On October 17, Roman signed an affidavit in Hilton Head, South Carolina, witnessed by James Adee, a Bovina native and a lieutenant in the 144th Infantry, empowering James Elliott to vote in his stead in the November 8 general election.  On December 9, 1864, Palmer was killed in action during a battle in Deveaux Neck, South Carolina and was buried near where he fell in Coosawatchie, SC.  His widow sold his home and possessions, including his cooperage tools, the following year to settle debts.  Margaret Palmer never remarried and was a widow for close to 60 years, dying in 1923. 

There are three other soldiers buried or memorialized in the Bovina cemetery who died in the war.  James T. Oliver of Delhi died March 20, 1864.  Brothers Thomas and James Elliott of New Kingston both died in November 1864.  Thomas Elliott was wounded on October 19 and died in a hospital in Baltimore on November 6.  His brother James was killed at Honey Hill, North Carolina on November 30.  Thomas’s body was returned home for burial in Bovina.  On the same monument is a memorial to James, who was buried on the battlefield. 

Bovina also has one Civil War soldier who was missing in action, David S. Elliott.  The son of Robert Elliott from Bovina (it is not clear how he was related to the Elliott brothers), he enlisted in Bovina in February 1864.  David was missing in action at Ream’s Station, Virginia on June 29, 1864.  Some sources say he died in Andersonville prison but this has never been verified.

Only one of Bovina’s Civil War fatalities is buried in Bovina – Sinclair Burns.  Six more have memorial stones while four of them, including Roman Palmer, have no memorial in Bovina. Bovina has a total of twenty nine Civil War soldiers buried or memorialized in Bovina Cemetery (twenty eight are in the Bovina cemetery while one veteran, Robert Halstead, who died in 1874, is buried in the Burgin Cemetery). 

Note:  See the May 29, 2010 blog entry about Decoration Day, now known as Memorial Day.  Decoration day got its start after the Civil War as a way to remember those who lost their lives in the conflict.

Bovina Museum Opening for 2011

The Bovina Historical Society's Museum will be open on selected Saturdays starting May 21.  I will be staffing the museum on the following dates (10 to 1 each day): May 21, June 18, July 2, August 20, September 17 and October 8.

The museum also will be open for Bovina Day on July 16.

As well as the regular exhibits, I will be creating a display on the April 29, 1945 plane crash near Bramley Mountain that took the life of a West Point cadet.  I have copies of several newspaper articles and the accident report.  Also on display will be one of the cylinders from the plane, recovered by my father when he was a teenager.

The Brothers-in-Law, Part I

Andrew Thomson, a native of Scotland, died in Bovina on 12 May 1866, aged 87 years.  He had been a widower for more than 7 years, living with his daughter Eliza Miller and her husband, Thomas.   His death led to a family squabble that turned into one couple’s battle with the Bovina United Presbyterian Church. 

Andrew had seven children, including daughters Elizabeth or Eliza and Nancy and son William.  Elizabeth and Nancy got into a disagreement over their father’s estate after his death and their husbands joined in the dispute.  James Coulter, the husband of Nancy Thomson, instigated a suit against Thomas Miller, the husband of Elizabeth.  James claimed “my wife got the silver but did not get the gold that Grandfather told was up at Thomas’s.  My wife asked Thomas’s wife about it and Eliza told her she had got all the gold she should get now [so] what could I do.”

The Bovina U.P. Church got involved in the case because it was contrary to the rules of the church for one member to take another to court.  It first reached the ears of the church Session on October 9, 1866.  It was reported at a meeting of the Session “that a suit at law has been instigated against Mr. Thomas Miller a member of this congregation, and whereas it is reported that Mr. James Coulter who is also a member of this church has been active in having said suit instituted.”  It was pointed out that Mr. Coulter should have come to the Session for resolution of the issue.  The case was further complicated by the fact that Thomas Miller was a church elder and also on Session was his brother-in-law, William Thomson. 

James appeared before the Session on October 19.  He was asked “Are you willing to comply with the rules of the church and withdraw the suit you have been instrumental in bringing against Thomas Miller?”  He replied “I admit I did not take the scriptural mode of settlement, but I cannot withdraw the matter now.  I will withdraw the suit if Mr. Miller will pay us what we ask.”

Over the course of the next two years the Session made repeated attempts to get Mr. Coulter to withdraw his suit.  After his appearance before the Session in October, he declined several requests to make further appearances until February 1867. 

Intertwined with this was the fact that Coulter’s brother-in-law, William Thomson had not been attending Session meetings and tending to other duties as an Elder, likely because of the lawsuit.  On January 27, 1867, Thomson appeared before the Session and said he was incompetent to carry out his duties and wished to resign.  His brother-in-law, Thomas Miller, requested that the session not accept the resignation.  He “said he believed Mr. T’s reasons were personal to him (Miller).”  He said he would resign in Thomson’s place and that “perhaps never would again act as an elder in this congregation.”  Thomson said he had no feeling against Miller, and had “offered his resignation irrespective of all feeling or prejudices.”  Thomson said that since he did not uphold either party in the suit that he might bring his two brothers-in-law together to settle thing.   After a long discussion, Thomson agreed to withdraw his resignation. 

This did not resolve the suit between Miller and Coulter however.  Coulter appeared before the Session on February 4 and again on the 8th to argue his case.  Coulter thought he had been misused and that he always wanted to settle with Miller, but Miller had refused.  Coulter said "I spoke to some members of Session to speak to Miller, and try to get him to settle, and it seems they did not do it.”  He had asked Mr. Lee, the pastor, to speak to Miller.  He says that Lee said Session had no authority to make Miller settle with him.  Coulter “did not think he was doing wrong in trying to get his pay for keeping Grandfather” and that he was willing to let Miller have $3000 and he would take the balance.  The Session asked Mr. Coulter to use his influence to withdraw the suit but he made no reply.

When the session reconvened on February 8, Coulter was again asked to withdraw the suit.  Coulter responded at length:

I have had a great deal of trouble out this matter.  I feel as though there was a feeling against me.  I know I am a very poor unworthy man.  You can put me out of the Church if you want, I cannot feel like coming to church knowing there is a feeling against. When a member of Session says it was preposterous for me to ask 500 dollars for keeping Grandfather, I can’t feel right.  This matter has caused me the loss of many a nights sleep. I have prayed over it.  I wish to do right.  You can put me out of the church, but many an hour I have spent in prayer by myself.  In the woods alone I have an altar where I can pray.  I go to a big rock and over the rock are long red vines hanging, just like Jesus’ blood shed for me.  I think so, at least it appears so to me, and there I pray. 

The Session Moderator tried to convince Coulter “that there was no desire to put him out of the church, but rather as a contrary one, to have his difficulties settled.”  Coulter did not wish to be asked to appear before Session anymore. 

At the March 5, 1867 meeting, the Moderator reported on a meeting he had with Mr. and Mrs. Coulter.  It became obvious that Coulter’s wife, Nancy, was no passive player in this suit.  She explained to the Moderator that “I have the entire control of that suit and [that James] cannot settle it if he would, that if the Session wants to do anything they can proceed against her.”  The couple was “offended that [the] Session had noticed this matter.” 

After reporting this unsuccessful meeting, a motion was passed by the session: 

Whereas Mr. and Mrs. James Coulter have been instrumental in instituting a suit at law as they themselves admitted and whereas Mr. C has admitted before this Session that he acted contrary to the word of God in refusing to arbitrate said case and whereas Mrs. Coulter admits that she has the control of said difficulty so far as to prevent her husband from arbitrating said case and whereas Mr. James Coulter has informed the Moderator of this Session that he has applied to have an arbitrator grated by the court and this application is still pending, Therefore Resolved That Mr. and Mrs. James Coulter be suspended until the first Tuesday of June, when said court meets.

Subsequent actions taken by James and Nancy Coulter did not help increase their chances of having the suspension removed.  More of this story will appear in this blog on May 17.

1945 Plane Crash in Bovina

Sixty-six years ago this evening, at 9:00 P.M on April 29, 1945, Robert B. Clark, a young West Point cadet from Holdrege, Nebraska**, took off in an AT-6 Texan trainer from Bolling Field, Washington, DC on a regular training trick to Stewart Field in Newburgh, NY.  The weather conditions were poor as he progressed closer to New York State, with showers and clouds at 3000 feet near Newburgh.  Though the pilot was instructed to report his progress near Allentown, Pennsylvania, no such contact was made.

A little before midnight, Clark apparently realized that he had overshot Newburgh and was trying to get his bearings.  He circled over the Bramley Mountain area of Bovina and flew under the cloud ceiling in order to get some visual sighting.  Shortly after the plane's left wing tip struck a tree and then crashed into the side of Moon Mountain, just east of Bramley Mountain.  Perry Craft and Stanley Crank from Bloomville heard the crash, as did Howard LaFever (my uncle) who was on Bramley Mountain.  Craft and LaFever both contacted the State Police.  Trooper J.F. Taylor from the New York State Police received the call and immediately went to Stanley Cronk's home.  Taylor and Cronk, along with Craft and LaFever, set out in the fog and drizzle to search for the plane.  At 1:50 am on April 30th, LaFever and Taylor, using strong police flashlights and following the odor of airplane fuel, found the first signs of the craft and a few minutes later found the fuselage and the body of the pilot in the cockpit.  Clark had been killed instantly.  LaFever was sent to a near-by phone to call the authorities.  Sargent W.M. Waldron from Troop "C" in Sidney arrived to guard the plane until the Army authorities arrived. 

The army did send soldiers to secure the site.  Nonetheless, a number of Bovina people got souvenirs of the plane, including Dick Davidson and my dad, Charlie LaFever.  Dad was 13 when the crash happened.  He got one of the cylinders from the plane's Pratt Whitney radial engine.  I still have the piece - it weights 43 pounds.  George LaFever recalled hearing that some of the wreck was removed using horses. 

The accident was investigated by the Army.  Investigators noted that the pilot had both radios on and that the throttle was full forward when he crashed.  The altimeter read 2460 feet - Moon Mountain is 2665 feet high. The crash site was heavily wooded, with a debris field about 300 feet long from point of first impact to the final resting place of the cockpit. The investigators determined that pilot error was the main cause of the crash, noting that the he flew closer than 2000 feet laterally and 500 feet vertically to a cloud formation. 

I remember my dad mentioning the crash - the piece he retrieved from the plane was in our back yard for years - but I started actively pursuing this after inquires from Steve Burnett and Chris Ingvordsen.  I checked with some folks who were in Bovina in the 40s, including Ed and Dick Davidson and my uncle, George LaFever.  One of my early challenges was pinpointing the date so I could find something in the newspapers.  I submitted an inquiry to the Delaware County Genealogy listserv and within a half hour, I had a response from Rhonda, who had located the news article on the Old Fulton Postcards website.  She found it in the Binghamton Press.  None of the newspapers available on-line included any mention of Bovina, though they did mention Bramley Mountain.  That may explain why I was not successful in locating the article. Once I had that article, I had the pilot name.  That led me to reports of the crash in the New York Times, Poughkeepsie Journal and Gloversville Morning Herald.  Locally, I found a short article in the Delaware Republican and a more detailed article in Oneonta Daily Star, which accurately included Bovina and Moon Mountain as the site of the crash. I still need to check the Walton Reporter, Stamford Mirror and Catskill Mountain News. I hope one of these may include a photograph of the pilot.  With the date of the crash and some details in hand, I was able to request a copy of the army's investigation of the crash from Aviation Archaeological Investigation & Research, a California based organization studying and documenting airplane crash sites throughout the United States. 

Today, in conditions that may have resembled those 66 years ago, I attempted to more accurately locate the crash site.  I met up with my uncle, George LaFever, who pointed out about where he believed the site was.  George was 9 when the crash happened and in the 1960s recalls still being able to see some debris.  Chris Ingvordsen and I went to Don Farley's place off Reagan Road and the three of us set off with a metal detector, altimeter, and GPS to see if we could find any remnant of the crash.  We are pretty sure we were near or at the site, but had no success in finding any debris to confirm this.  But we will try again.  And I continue to seek more information - I'm hoping to do an exhibit at the Bovina Museum this summer that includes the cylinder that my dad recovered years ago, along with more information about the unfortunate victim, Cadet Clark.  So stay tuned for further developments.  And if you remember hearing about this crash and have some details to share, please let me know.

**The original entry said Norton, Kansas, but I have since learned this was not correct, so I updated this on the blog.  See the May 30 entry for further information about Cadet Clark.  

Census Figures for Bovina

Recently released census numbers show that Bovina's population dropped slightly in the 2010 census to 633, down from 664 in 2000.  The fact that Bovina still is above 600 is noteworthy.  Bovina's population dropped below 600 in 1960 and stayed there until 2000. 

The year the town of Bovina was created in 1820 was also a census year.  Bovina's population was double (plus one) today's figure - 1267.  The town's population reached a peak of 1403 in 1840.  It started to drop in 1850 and dropped steadily through the 19th and into the 20th century.  The biggest single drop happened in 1870 when the town's population was down 17% from 1860.  That year, Bovina had just over 1000 people at 1022.  By 1890, the number had dropped below 1000 and never went above that figure again.  Bovina's population was at its lowest in 1970, when 506 people were counted.  In 2000, the number of people in Bovina went above 600, hitting 664.  This was a 20% increase over 1990.

Here's the census numbers for each federal census since 1820:

1820    1,267

1830    1,348

1840    1,403

1850    1,316

1860    1,242

1870    1,022

1880    1,020

1890    926

1900    932

1910    912

1920    858

1930    771

1940    806

1950    711

1960    594

1970    506

1980    562

1990    550

2000    664

2010    633

56 Years Ago Today

The Delaware Republican Express in its April 28, 1955 issue reported that "The Bovina Community Hall was filled to capacity last Thursday evening, April 21, when friends and neighbors assembled with residents of the town itself to see 'Bovina Center, My Home Town,' portrayed by members of the Bovina Center Recreational Club.  Presented by pantomime, narrative and the projection of colored slides on a movie screen, the story was unfolded."

Vera Storie and her brother Fletcher Davidson were the promoters of this pageant and likely wrote the script. [NOTE added January 17, 2015: further research has disclosed that the script likely was written by Jane Hilson (1891-1967), not Vera or Fletcher, though they may have contributed.] Vera played the role of a grandmother, Rachel Scott, telling her granddaughter (played by Vera's real granddaughter, Judy Vandenbord) the story of Bovina while local residents donned costumes and acted out scenes from the story.  Music was provided by Mrs. Fletcher Davidson, Mrs. Marian Spear and Mrs. Richard Crosley.  Partway into the show, the Community Hall was plunged into darkness.  The audience did a group sing for a while, but when it was realized that the power was not coming back on any time soon, a fire department jeep was driven to the front of the community hall.  The headlights were focused onto the stage and the pageant resumed.

In my Bovina town files are the notes from the presentation, including the participants, so here's a rough list of the people who participated (in no particular order):

Bill Inman, Norton Forest, Margaret Hilson, Leonard Cairns, Dick Roberts, Emily Archibald, Christine Hilson, Ruth Anne McPherson, Janet Hoy, Marilyn Hall, Mary Vandenbord, Anne Cairns, Marianne Hilson, Jimmy Hilson, Jim Hilson, Barbara Boggs, Bobby Boggs, Gladys Lay, Richard Jardine, Beulah Decker, Mrs. Reinertsen (probably Sophie Reinertsen, but they also could mean Millie Reinertsen), Mrs. Oelsner, Marie Reinertsen, Ron Russell, Dave Russell, June Reinertsen, Ruth Monroe, Jane Hilson, Helena Hilson, Mary Jardine

And here's how the program broke down:

I - My Home Town - To My Children - Rachel Scott
II - The First Settlers
III - The First Settler of the Present Village
IV - Early Education
V - The Churches
VI - The Forming of the Town
VII - Industries
VIII - The Anti-Rent Trouble
IX - Teunis
X - Home Life
XI - Outstanding Citizens
XII - Some Accomplishments of Later Years
XIII - Dates Not Easily Forgotten
XIV - War

The program ended with a salute to soldiers of the Second World War and the audience singing "God Bless America."

Over the next year on the 21st of each month, I will post on this blog sections of the script that was used for the program.

A final note:  Unfortunately, my parents were among the absentees for this pageant.  They woke up early that morning and made a mad dash to the Delhi Hospital.  They got a flat tire just as they arrived and a few minutes later, while my dad was changing the tire,  my mom gave birth - to me, as it so happens.  Sort of explains my absence too.