Up Coming Memorial Day, Museum and History plus Fun

Well...while thinking about the upcoming Memorial Day Holiday I was struck by the fact that this year will really be unlike so many before.  Our little Museum crew was going to do a celebration for the 25th Anniversary of the Neighbors for Historic Eaton the group that started this whole history of Eaton gig.  Doesn't seem possible but its been 25 years. But the Covid 19 has ended these thoughts for this year.

What started as a parade and cake in 1995 has now expanded to two museum buildings, websites and history research area, as well as a place in the historical community of New York State.  There is much work to be done though, especially on getting our research work labeled, setting up cleaning for old documents and sorting etc, ...for this we will need volunteers,,,but that must wait just like the Memorial Day Celebration this year.

In a week I will start a series on the Revolutionary War and the early settlers of Eaton who served in that war and I am hoping to do a presentation on video of the cemetery and the man who we have chosen to honor this year.  He has a famous name... Myles Standish, and yes he is a direct descendent of Myles Standish of the Plymouth Colony.

So while wandering around the Cemetery I came across the grave of Melville Landon, better known as Eli Perkins.  He was a Civil War Veteran, a Major and helped set up defenses for Washington DC before the War.  His later life made him a lecturer and comedian.  So to cheer us up a bit I am going to include a piece of humor he wrote on one of Eaton's past residents...a real businesses man whose store was on Main Street across from today's gas mart.

Uncle Hank

Uncle Hank Allen was perhaps the smoothest and most accomplished liar in central New York. There were other ordinary country post-office liars in the beautiful village of Eaton, New York, where I was born but Uncle Hank could lie like a gifted metropolitan. 

Every night Uncle Hank’s grocery was filled with listening citizens, all paying the strictest attention whenever the good old man spoke. When Charley Campbell or John Whitney lied nobody paid much attention because they were clumsy workmen. Their lies would not hold water like Uncle Hank’s.

Why, the old man’s lies were so smooth, so artistic, that, while listening to them, you imagined you were listening to Elder Cleveland’s Bible stories.

One day they were talking about potato bugs in Uncle Hank’s grocery:

“Talk about potato bugs,” said Dr. Purdy, “why, up in my garden there are twenty bugs on a stalk.”

“Twenty bugs on a stalk! Only twenty!” mused Charley Campbell contemptuously, “Why..they ate my first crop of potatoes two weeks ago and they are now sitting all around the lot on trees and fences waiting for me to plant them all over again.”

“Why you don’t know anything about the ravenous nature of them potater bugs!” exclaimed Uncle Hank. “You may call me a liar, but I’ve had potater bugs walk right into my kitchen and yank red-hot potaters right out of the oven! ‘Waiting around for the second crop,” exclaimed Old Hank with sneer. “Waiting? Why, by gosh and blast your souls, I was up to Townsend’s store yesterday and I saw potater bugs up there looking over Townsend’s books to see who bought seed potaters for next year. I did, by gum!”

The whole grocery was still when Uncle Hank finished. You could have heard a pin drop. Finally, a long lean man from Woodman’s Pond raised himself up. The stranger, evidently a new-comer and not acquainted with Mr. Allen, pointed his long finger at Uncle Hank and exclaimed with a hiss “You are a liar!”

Uncle Hank looked over his glasses at the stranger long and earnestly. Then holding out his hand, he inquired with a puzzled look:

“Where did you get acquainted with me?”

Melville Landon - Known to the World as Eli Perkins

If traveling near Eaton in the late 1800’s, you might have gone out of your way to see an oddity as noted here in HOUSE BEAUTIFUL MAGAZINE. 

“Eli Perkins Japanese Bungalow at Eaton is a unique summer home. It looks up and down the Chenango Valley for miles, and it is so pretty that travelers go out of their way to see it. Outside and inside it looks as if it had been dropped down from feudal Japan. The lawn is dotted with huge Japanese vase and porcelain lanterns, and scampering around them were a half dozen sacred Japanese dogs. Inside are Japanese servants dressed in the costumes of old Japan, and when they walk around porcelain curios, bronze storks and ugly dragons from Kyoto, the visitors think they are in the “Flowery Kingdom” 

Melville Landon was born in Eaton, N.Y., 1839, he was known under the pen name of Eli Perkins. Landon attended Madison University (now Colgate) and graduated from Union College in what was called the ‘war class of 1861.’ 

After graduating from Union College, he went to Washington with other Union graduates. After Fort Sumpter was fired upon, he assisted in organizing and then serving in the famous Cassius M. Clay battalion, which bivouacked in the White House, War Department and Capitol until the Seventh New York Regiment and Fifth Massachusetts marched through Baltimore to Washington attaining the rank of Major. During the War he was asked to take over two seised plantations that he ran to prove that free men would work harder than slave labor.

It is recorded that he passed many an hour in a literary rendezvous, under a Fifth Avenue Hotel, with many of his celebrated friends, Atemus Ward, Petroleum V. Nasby, and Josh Billings.  

He became friends with the Emperor of Japan and was given 4 scared dogs that he bred in Eaton and gave away for fundraisers, one of which is buried in the Eaton Cemetery. The Eaton Museum has much information and artifacts on him, as well as a book I wrote as a fundraiser that contains his humor. 

Landon became the President of the New York News Association and attained much wealth, spending his later years traveling to raise money for the YMCA & Civil War Veterans and their wives, spending summers at his Eaton Bungalow. 

His family home and his Japanese Bungalow are still standing on Landon Road today, and he is buried in the Eaton Village Cemetery at the top of the steps that lead to Landon Road. His beautiful Coptic cross monument, erected by his wife has an hourglass carved into it with the words. 

“HE MIXED REASON WITH PLEASURE AND WISDOM WITH MIRTH”.