The Holidays in the Old Town of Eaton and a "Thank You".

Morse House

First I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who donated cans to our museum can drive…. thanks…it was a success. Another thank-you to the helpers – Michele Kelly, Barb Keough, Jen Caloia, Chris Klein and a special thank you to Steve Brown for hosting us.

The season is upon us… yes that time of year.  I often get questions on what the “Holidays” would have been like in the old days of Eaton when it was just a fledgling community with log or stone buildings and no access to a shopping center... except perhaps traveling to market in Albany one hundred miles away!.

So I thought on the information I had in my archives and came up with this…Old Town Eaton as we call it was not far removed in tradition from its home base of Sherburne & Natick, Massachusetts.   In her book Old Town Folks author Harriet Beecher Stowe talks about the family of Deacon Badger. Badger was really a Bigelow who was her husbands Grandfather and her own relation via the Stowe family ties. This couple in essence is the Grandfather and Great Aunt or relative of a number of the Eaton settlers at that time including Joseph Morse’s wife Eunice Bigelow, the Morse’s and the Stowe’s and others.  The book gives us insight into the family life and “Holiday” baking.

From Old Town Folks

On holiday food: “The pie is an English institution, which, planted on American soil, forthwith ran rampant and burst forth into an untold variety of species. Not merely the old traditional mince pie, but a thousand strictly American seedlings from those main institutions to new uses. Pumpkin pies, cranberry pies, peach pies, huckleberry pies, cherry pies, green-currant pies, pear pies, plum and custard pies, apple pies, Marlborough-pudding pies, pies of fanciful flutings and architectural strips laid across and around and otherwise varied, assisted the boundless fertility of the mind, when once let loose in a given direction.”

Morse House Kitchen

The piece goes on to describe hundreds of pies put into an open back room that allowed them to freeze an be bought out throughout the holiday season and sometimes up until April.”

* I guess this inspired our traditional Thanksgiving Pie Sale.

One of Eaton’s great little stories is of a preacher who was so long winded that in the “Holiday Season”  the women at the service would be totally unnerved by his dragging the “Holiday” sermon on and on while their wood-fired ovens could be burning the food set for the holiday dinner.

If any of us can picture cooking the family feast over a wood fire or in a wood fired Brick oven?

 Since many of the residents were relations I am sure you can picture large family gatherings and a bill of fare that was gathered from the collective families larder. A long cry from today’s  shopping at Price Chopper or Wegman’s.

Eunice Bigelow Morse, Deidamia Chase MD, and all the pioneer ladies who settled our land!

Eunice and Joseph Morse

This week working on the book for the Eaton Village Cemetery as a “fund Raiser” I had the opportunity to think about a great number of women who survived the arduous journeys from other Northeastern areas to Eaton in the times of settlement.  Women, who bore children, took care of the family and worked side by side with their husbands clearing land and starting a new life.

Certainly among the most famous is Eunice Bigelow Morse of the famous Stowe-Bigelow -Morse families of Natick, Massachusetts.  Eunice came with her husband Joseph, and young children to a place that would become not only home to her but to generations of her family.

A relative Harriet Beecher Stowe in a book titled “Old Town Folks”, forever immortalized Eunice’s family.  Many believed the story was written by Harriet's husband Calvin Ellis Stowe for his family… the Stowe’s… However, when Harriet married Callvin she married into the same family as her grandmother. * It is interesting to note that the Eaton Museum has the first edition of Hearth & Home with the first installment of that book inside…a newspaper kept untouched by Eunice Morse. 

The museum also has Eunice’s rocker and the cradle she used for what became the famous Morse brood.  The Natick crowd (Old Town Folks) also included other Morses…crab (Hezekiah Morse”, Grandpa Stowe of Eaton’s Stow Tavern…. and many more.

From Luna Hammond’s History in part:   

 Joseph (Eunice)  removed to Eaton in 1796 from Natick… Joseph Morse was the founder of Eaton village, and his sons have been identified with nearly all of its business interests. These sons were named as follows: Ellis,  whose biographical sketch appears in the chapter relating to Eaton, Joseph, who moved to Pennsylvania served in the Legislature of that State, and also became judge of the County Courts; Calvin, who was an elected member of the Legislature from Madison County in 1842, and has held municipal offices in town and county; Alpheus, who has been a merchant and scientific farmer, and for many years past, manufacturer, being proprietor of the Alderbrook Woolen Mill; and Bigelow, who was a respected citizen of Fabius, Onondaga County. Eunice, the eldest daughter of Joseph More, married Dr. James Pratt the pioneer physician of Eaton.   After her husband's death, she with her family removed and began pioneer life again in Palmyra, Mo.  She was a woman of indomitable will and great energy of character.

     The descendants of Joseph (and Eunice) Morse have, many of them, distinguished themselves in various positions. Gen. Henry B. Morse entered the late war as Captain of the 114th Reg. N. Y. V., was promoted to the office of Colonel, and subsequently, for meritorious services, was breveted Brigadier-General in the army of the southwest. He is grandson of Joseph Morse; as also is the Rev. Andrew Morse, who as a young man was a missionary to Siam and then become the Chaplain of the U S Treasury and friends with Abraham Lincoln,. Gardner Morse, who was member of the Legislature in 1866, Walter, a member of the manufacturing firm of Wood, Tabor & Morse, George E., a prominent citizen interested in the schools and who founded the Eaton Village Cemetery Association, and Alfred, who bravely gave his life for the Union cause at the battle of Winchester,Va. ; all these being sons of Ellis Morse. Darwin and Frank B. Morse, merchants at Eaton village, Allie Morse Burchard whose husband formed the Chenango Breeder’s Association, Children of Bigelow, are grandsons of Joseph Morse. Two grand-daughters, Belinda and Eliza, daughters of Calvin, have been conspicuous as teachers, the latter being now assistant Principal of Vassar Female College.

     Hezekiah Morse, the third of the pioneer brothers, came to Eaton in 1806. His children are scattered and many of them dead.   One of his sons. Alpha was for many years a prominent manufacturer of Eaton.  Another son, Elijah, who is now dead, was a wealthy farmer of Eaton. A grand-daughter is wife of  Rev. John Raymond, President of Vassar Female College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Albert H. Morse, a prominent citizen of Eaton is also a grandson, being son of Elijah. H. B. Morse, youngest son of Hezekiah, is a scientific and successful farmer of Norwich, N. Y. (and this is just and excerpt)

What a family… and that isn’t all of them and their accomplishments.  The very road today’s Eaton Village Cemetery is located on (Landon Road) was once the Great Skaneateles Turnpike a road that it is claimed would not have been built except for Joseph and Ellis who controlled 51 percent of the stock investment… an investment they made of $30,000 in 1810… think about it.

Come out to Eaton Day on Memorial, Day Monday… tour the cemetery…by a book, make a donation to support the Eaton Village Cemetery Association and help Eaton celebrate History and  “Happy Mother’s Day” to all of those pioneer women whose husbands and children made our area a wonderful piece of rural Americana! 

*Interestingly Luna Hammond the historian and her famous mother Deidamia Button Chase (the first female physician of Madison County) and her famous brood are also buried in the cemetery. Almost all of the Morse family is buried in the Eaton Cemetery including the Morse – Motts. Did you know that Luna's brother Julius was the historian for the US Treasury in Washington DC.