Please visit our Memorial Day Event in Eaton

I have been doing Memorial Day Events for 30 years.  I can't believe that I am still doing the history of Eaton and Madison County though I am not from here.  It seems do unreal all the things that have happened since I moved here in 1984.  All my friends for the most part have passed on...especially the members who wanted me to do a Museum for Eaton in the Stone Building that houses the Museum today!  I had to buy it for them.  Today we are a 501 c charity and are fortunate enough to have some of their grown children involved.

Funding for anything in our area is hard to get and I can no longer afford to pay for things including the drop off cats for which we have also formed a 501 charity for...4 Community Cats.

I have never had any Go Fund Me or pleas for fund drives I have only asked for your support at our events.  So this year as a fund raiser I will be speaking in July at the Book Barn.. to raise awareness of the importance of a Museum and Animal Charity in our rural...but also to raise funds.... Both Charities can receive donations of any sort including articles of goods.

Please come this Memorial Day Weekend, drop off a donation, join either of our groups for $5 a year and help me keep the history and community spirit of its ancestors and founders alive!

The Old Town of Eaton will be cerebrating its 230th year on Memorial Day Weekend.  The weekend follows a traditional cerebration held in the town each year, a town whose history is steeped in the time after the Revolutionary War.  

Settled by many veterans of the war and part of the original settlement of Madison County, it prides itself with history remembered and its roots as Madison County’s first clearing.  Once part of Chenango County, Eaton was separated off and boasts settlement by families moving west to stake their claim on the new America’s western frontier. The Eaton Village Cemetery has many Revolutionary War Soldiers buried in it! 

For this years event the Old Town of Eaton Museum will be hosting a large yard sale on Memorial Day Weekend on Sunday, May 25th and Monday May 26th, from 9 am until 3 pm both days. 

As usual the set up will be at the Old Auction Barn building next to the Eaton Post Office on Rt. 26 in the Hamlet of Eaton.  Though this years parade will be in Peterboro, the usual History Day Celebration will mark Eatons Memorial Day. The museum will be open from 10 am until 3 pm in honor of the Eaton Communities 230th Anniversary.

The Yard Sale will feature everything from furniture to gifts, household small appliances, gift items, books, kitchen items, figurines and more.  The Cat Gift Sale will benefit the Old Town of Eaton Museum and the not for profit charity - 4 Community Cats. There will also be a Bake Sale
!

The usual can drive to benefit both organizations will gladly take your holiday cans that can be dropped off at the weekend event, or left at 5823 Brooklyn Street, or given to one of our groups members.

So Mark this on your Calendar and visit!

People you can make a Difference!

I was thinking about this year in history and I ran across this old blog I wrote in 2014 about women writers and the impact they made on our history. With all that is happening now and knowing history always repeats itself...I thought I would post this and ask those who can to write about things today...to write..you can change things for the better and might become famous as well.

Most interesting to me is when a visitor to the old stone museum who  actually knows who Emily Chubbuck Judson was.  Of course the woman was a writer and journalist... but still…Emily dates back to 1817.

Born in Eaton Emily became a writer of children’s stories under the pen name Fanny Forrester.   She started writing articles for the newspapers and put them together as a book of famous short tales about the Eatonbrook .  The Eatonbrook is a little stream still runs today through Eaton and behind the Old Town Museum today.  Then it was call the Alderbrook and her stories of  “Alderbrook Tales” put together as book sold very well.  Emily of course became famous in the mid-1840s when she married Adoniram Judson the American Missionary to Burma.  Her life and her writings about Judson’s earlier wife made quite an impact on the Baptist world in her time.

Certainly the most famous woman writer of her time and a woman credited with moving America toward abolition was Harriet Beecher Stowe.  The Old Town Museum contains information on her family and her husband’s family as they are directly related to the Stowes and Morse-Bigelows who settled Eaton.

Harriet’s book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin, like Chubbuck’s “Alderbrook Tales”, was also a serial book first carried in the periodical "National Era".  Later as an actual book it was translated into different languages and became a best seller in many countries.  In the United States the only book that sold more copies in its day was the Bible.  In its first year it sold 300,000 copies here in the USA and 200,000 copies in England.  It effected a change that some feel led to the Civil War.  It certainly stirred the sentiment of a great swath of the country toward abolition.

Another woman later did the same thing with her only actual full-length novel, a book in part based on an actual experience that happened in her early life called “To Kill A Mocking Bird”.

With the release of this book… Harper Lee became an overnight sensation.  The 1960 book won her the Pulitzer Prize and was rated in England by librarians as “a book every adult should read”.  The story in a way contributed to social change since it addressed race relations, equality and life in the “Deep South”... among other things.  A book used in classrooms and made into a movie…it has never been out of print.

So women…get out your pens…start writing…there are a whole lot of social issues that need to be addressed today.  Remember it only takes one book to make a difference.  Wish I could make a difference with my blog…but if I got someone else to write the big book…. I will have.  SO WRITE!

Eaton's Not for Profits on National Giving Tuesday!

This week brings us a National Event called GIVING TUESDAY, and so our little Eaton Community asks for your support for its two 503c groups, Friends of the Old Town of Eaton Museum which is attempting to gather funds to improve the museum building and put on a special 30th Memorial Day Monday to coincide with the Anniversary of our Bicentennial year .

Our other group is 4 Community Cats Inc. On a sad note more people have left their animals to run around town and we have been unfortunately stuck with some new beggars, including one who was set out to fend for himself blind and unable to breath, covered in snot and rolled over by a car… he is alive and recovering..he was found sitting in the middle of the cross road on Brooklyn Street. This is animal abuse! This is calling for treatment which costs money.

Unfortunately, we can’t do our cat gift shop this winter to raise funds..but we are hoping to have a special event for our 30th Bicentennial get together on Memorial Day, which will include the cat shop!  

The local cat food maker is no longer going to give us bags of their teat runs.  This leaves us really shy of funds.  

If you can donate any amount to either of these groups you can send a check to 4CommunityCats inc in care of 5823 Brooklynn Street in Eaton, NY 13334 or you can give your donation to any member of the groups, Backstreet Mary, Jen Caloia, Barbara Keough, or Michele Kelly!

Now some thank you.  MidYorkFoundation for a Museum grant, Jen Caloia for her donations of hard cat food, Michele Kelly for her donations and help, as well as Barb Keough… Please help us take care of drop off cats and the fixing of feral or stray cats…THAT IS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THIS PROBLEM!

A Special Tribute for Veteran's Day!

The Old Town of Eaton Museum is celebrating Veteran's Day by giving a " shout out" to one of our own Douglas Chilson!  Doug a founding member of our museum as was his mother before him, served in Viet Nam and won the Purple Heart.  He has helped me put on a display this year on Nam and we salute him and all of the veteran's from our town and the USA.

I have included this piece I wrote before on the Maria Dolens.  Please read and share and also wait if you view the video at the bottom, as it take forever to get it to ring.

November 11, is .known as Armistice Day, later known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States, it marks the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France,  for the cessation of hostilities.   I thought about the current wars. WWI was tagged..."The War to end all Wars".

I went online to find out what  has been said in the past...   Pope Francis...who signs everything just Francis…in his  New Years message a few years ago for the 48th anniversary of the Day of World Peace...he spoke in front of a screen that had the Maria Dolens bell ringing in the background.  The Maria Dolens? And so I was off on a history quest.

The Maria Dolens is the name of a bell that was cast from the bronze of many of the cannons - 19, one from each of the countries that participated in WWI.  It sits in Roverto, in today’s northern Italy and it rings 100 times each day in the evening to honor the fallen and to many to act  as a symbol for peace and an end to war.

The Bell was the idea of Don Antonio Rossaro,  called the Bell of the Fallen.  It was given the name Maria Dolens and placed on the Malipiero tower of Castello di Rovereto.  It has been recast many times because of fractures from ringing 100 times a day no doubt... but it has always been recast and returned to the tower where is nightly reminds the world of the price of war.  The latest recast was blessed by Pope Paul VI and on November 4^th, 1965 was placed on the Colle di Miravalle where it today rest above the city of Roverto.

On the bell, which is the second largest swinging bell in the world, were added at its recasting the statements of the Pontiff Pius XII "With peace nothing is lost. Everything is to be lost through war." John XXIII: "In pace hominum ordinata concordia et tranquilla libertas."

Today, as always, it rang 100 times at midday...in Italy as I am writing this..... just as it  was shown on the large screen in St. Peter’s square that day.

It is said that it tolls in the hope that Man, in the memory of the Fallen of every war and every nation in the world, may find the path that leads to Peace….

I say AMEN to that…! Sit and listen and think quietly...It is big it takes a bit or so to start ringing!

Emily Chubbuck Judson...AKA Fanny Forester

Well depending on where you read or get your information, today is Emily Chubbuck's birthday.  Of course Emily also has three very famous names and was born in 1818, which might account for any discrepancies.

Emily was born in 1818 ln Eaton, New York, and lived as a child in a cabin (Underhill Cottage)  built by her grandfather Simeon Chubbuck a Revolutionary War soldier.  The rustic cabin was located just off today's route 26 and the spot now sports a historic marker, though the cabin is long gone.

Emily's father never had much money and worked at a number of jobs including being a postman.  Her mother came from a fine family that most likely thought she had married beneath her.  So to help the family finances Emily was sent to work at a young age working for a woolen business, a silk thread business, and through need had to educate her self.

At 16 she walked to Nelson seeking the man who could hire her as a teacher, something that she did well, though in reality she made far less money as a teacher than as a worker. 

Emily managed to start writing little books of a religious nature.  Her mother, father & sister became stayed members of the Eaton 2nd Baptist Church thats pastor was Nathaniel Kendrick who became head of Madison University, today's Colgate. It is interesting to note however, that Emily did not join a church until later and she was chided by the locals who asked her, "When are you going to be saved?"

She eventually got a job at the Utica Seminary for woman where she bartered her education for teaching and made friends with the owners.  Taking a trip to New York with a friend she was struck by the difference and glamorousness of the city and wrote a tongue and check letter to N P Willis, editor of the New York Mirror - asking if he would hire her.  The letter was signed "Fanny Forester", which became a sensation for its day.  Willis never paid her for her writings, but he did make her famous, and her many articles about her hometown and life on the Eatonbrook became a book entitled Alderbrook Tales. or Musings and Trippings in Authorland.  These and her humorous pieces for the Mirror made Fanny Forester a well known name.

Fame did go to her head a bit, and she started enjoying spending time with friends in Philadelphia. It is there that she was introduced to a man 30 years her senior who was looking for someone to write a biography of his dead wife. The gentleman's name was Adoniram Judson, one of America's first Baptist Missionaries to Burma - a man who became a star in the Baptist circles that supported him. Emily ends up marrying him.

After the marriage she went back to Burma with Judson and becomes the missionary Emily C. Judson.  Emily bore Judson two children, a girl who lived and a boy that died at the same time as her husband.  After his death Emily returned to America and started writing poetry and pieces for  the missions.

Sick with Tuberculous, Emily died a short time later - after having been three famous people... teacher Emily Chubbuck, writer Fanny Forester, and the missionary  Emily C. Judson.

Her age at her death was only 37 years old... an interesting hometown woman that had been around the world and was an early woman writer of note!

Hilstory of the West Eaton Mills and another Famous Women Emily Chubbuck

Humorously I ran into one of the cashiers in the local grocery store who saw how hot and tired I was and commented that I was just as miserable when it was freezing cold...TRUE!  I did get to sit near the Alderbrook again and so this weeks blog came to mind...How many know the history of the West Eaton Mill area? Then this history blog is for you!

(Eatonbrook) -Alderbrook Mill History

When traveling down Route 26 today few people know of the great industrial Mill history of the West Eaton area so while going through some old clippings I found... I was able to piece together this information....so realize the years listed in it happen years ago and were written by a people who lived in the area!

This mill is one of the old landmarks which our citizens will regret to see pass away.  Some years ago, an old saw mill stood upon the site, which was purchased by Alpheus Morse and John Brown.  They also obtained land of Simeon Chubbuck , …land upon which to erect and build bogs and to flow water into the pond.  In 1849, they built and put into operation the well-known Alderbrook Woolen Mills.  (Simeon Chubbuck was the grandfather of famous women author Emily Chubbuck, Fanny Forester..she was born in his cabin)

It was a wooden structure four stories high.  They built a fine boarding house, a cottage or two and the Long Block, a long building.  The factory was in the shadow of the northern mill, a very pretty location.  The Mill employed some 75 employees and manufactured some of the best quality cashmere and doeskin.  

In 1856, the firm failed, after which Alpheus Morse effected an arrangement and continued the business.  During the war, he made the army and navy blues, his goods being in such demand in the early years of the war that much of the time the works were run night and day.  Mr. Morse ran the mill with the cooperation of different individuals with varied success until 1874 or ‘75, during which time he built three cottages on the terrace overlooking the sheet of water.  

In 1876, the premises were purchased at a mortgage sale by Messrs. Lakey & Co., who sold to D.E. Darrow and Philo Walden in 1879.  Darrow and Walden soon after removed two stories of the upright part of the mill, putting in a new roof and otherwise repaired it.  The Long Block had become a ruin nearly ready to fall when they removed it. 

 

In 1883, they leased the mill to John Klock from St. Johnsville, N.Y., for paperboard manufacture.  Later, James Healey from the same place became associated with him.  Last year, Klock and Healey sold their interest to Messrs. Howe and Son.  

The cottages on the terrace have all been sold to different individuals, and now all of the buildings belonging to the mill property, all that is left, are the wool house and the boarding house.  

Fifty years ago, before there was ever sound of factory bell, hum of wheels or clash of looms in Alderbrook dell, it was the delightful home of Emily Chubbuck, the gifted “Fanny Forester.”  Here with her father and mother, her brothers and sisters, she lived her free joyous childhood – amid the wild picturesque beauty of nature, inhaled the breath of poetry…and wrote some of her most charming stories.  

The stories of busy enterprises silenced the Muse and for more than a third of a century held away.  The actors in the drama and their works are low in the dust; and should the pristine romantic beauty and poetic atmosphere of Alderbrook return to it, then this third of a century is simply bridged over by the force that evolves destiny; a period, a scene, fallen into oblivion…dead and buried.

**And so it is today...back to the wild pristine slumber of the ages…

Locust Grove and another Eaton Woman Ann Eliza Morse

I thought I would put this up as an addition to last weeks story on the women of the Morse family.  This is on Locust Hill and a spot that was located on Lebnon Hill Road just above Mill Street that was once the Skaneateles Turnpike.  It from a biography on her after her death.

Ann Eliza Morse, daughter of Calvin and Belinda (Gardiner) Morse, was born in Eaton, N.Y.

 Two favorite names of her early home, Locust Grove and The Vinery, bear witness to her healthy and happy surrounds, with her companionship of trees, birds and flowers.

Economy and industry, intelligence and piety, strength and intelligence pervaded by deep affection, were the molding influences of her young life. Her education was conducted at home, in private schools, and in Hamilton Academy until 1848, when at the age of seventeen, she became a pupil of Troy Seminary, in whose stimulating intellectual atmosphere she was an eager and responsive student, graduating in 1850.

 In the autumn of the same year she went as a teacher to Chestnut Street Seminary, where she continued eight years.  Carrying the enthusiasm of her school life into her new duties, her success in teaching was assured from the first.  Definite and clear in the classroom, her own interest awakened that of her pupils.

 At the opening of Vassar College, President Raymond, who had known her from childhood, (she being a favorite cousin of Mrs. Raymond), invited her to become a member of his family, as his assistant.

 She had an official connection with the College until the second year, when she was appointed assistant to Miss Lyman, the Lady Principal.  She retained this position during fourteen years, until her impaired health compelled her retirement in 1880.  Her subsequent life was that of an invalid, but her fortitude and Christian submission glorified even these years of discipline and suffering.

 Although the brief intervals she was literally “a shut in,” she was not  inactive.  Aided by her niece and constant companion, Miss Jessica Cone, editor of “Scenes from the Life of Christ,” (the fruit of their united labors), there was scarcely an interruption in their study of history, biography, literature, art, and current events.  A glimpse of their work may be found in the paragraph we quote from a letter written in 1892:

 “We have a very busy winter planned, one item of which is a ‘Ladies’ Reading Circle,’ for which careful preparation is indicated by program.  Our first month was devoted to Lowell, the second to George W. Curtis, to be followed by Whittier and Tennyson.  There is no monotony or dullness in our quiet, country-home lives.  These weekly readings are full of earnest interest, and when we hear the constant testimony, ‘How elevating they are,’ we are more than satisfied.”

 Of this torch of knowledge, kindled and kept burning in this little inland village, one can but say, “how far that little candle throws his beams.”

 Interwoven with all other reading and study was that of the Book of Books.  She rarely alluded to excluded enjoyments, but in one letter her full heart finds the following utterance: “I fear I must give up a Bible Class of young men, in which I am more interested than in any other work I am doing.”  Notwithstanding her physical limitations, the quiet home of Miss Morse was a cheerful one.

 In her pretty vine-covered cottage, the house in which her parents lived and died, she with her happy memories was an inspiration and benediction to others.