Harry Hart and Stories of Old Eaton!

If you need a dose of local history please come and visit the Old town of Eaton Museum...we have been open an most Sundays this past month but much work has been going on and I am busy...if you would like to come call 315-684-8032 and leave a message and I will call you back...I am busy but we always try to accommodate  people...! WE also need volunteers to help us by volunteering to help sit the museum on a Sunday... with someone!

 Stories of "Old Eaton" are numerous and some of the best were written by Harry Hart who acted as the local historian for many years.  Harry had lived through a good number of years and he had the confidence of Mrs. Mott the last owner of the Stone House who loaned him Morse family papers to write from.  One of Harry's stories gave me more information on the Lower Hotel, Samuel Chubbucks property that became Fred Close's Gas Station.  This was the site of the Famous Tower Gas Station and today is Eaton's Lighthouse Post Office. The Hotel was owned by one of Eaton's well known characters, Sadie Hunt. But I thought I would let Harry tell the story for me.

From Harry Hart....

There are many stories about Sarah and as a friend told me recently, “The stories about Sarah are legend but I could vouch for none of them.”  There is one thing for sure she liked the hotel business and could tend bar as well as anyone.  It was

unusual for a woman to run a hotel in those days, but it was her business and the way she made her living.  She clung to her property through good times and bad times.  The coming of the prohibition era gave her a difficult time and she was hard pressed to make a living.  She went out picking peas to earn enough to live on, as indeed many others did.

The following is a little story about her in the pea-lot of neighbor Eli Tupper.  There was a hired man working for Eli by the name of Frank Cook, or as he was more commonly known as “the Battler” by all the neighborhood kids because of Frank’s prize fighting ambition.  A great row erupted when he accused Sarah of not filling her baskets full and there were some choice words passing between them.  All the rest of the pea pickers looked and listened much to their great amusement.  Pea picking came to a halt for a few minutes!

Sarah had an unusual way of talking, such as, “Says I to him…., says he to me…., Says I to him it looks like a bad storm.  Says he to me, it appears so.”  When she had a full stock of liquor on the shelves she would remark, “Says I, that looks good to me.”

Now, Norm often took to sampling the stock and if it were early in the day, Sarah would object.  “Sarah,” Norm would say, “I want my tea I tell you!”

 The following announcement was found in the Oneida Dispatch February 23, 1867, “Married in Georgetown by Reverend N. Mumford – Mr. Norman Hunt of DeRuyter to Miss Sarah Wood of Georgetown, New York.”

 Sarah and Norman kept the hotel for about twenty-five years together while the Exchange Hotel changed proprietors many times during this period.

 Sarah was already sixty years old when she married Will Stringer.  From all accounts Will was a very well liked man and the best trombone player in these parts.  The old porch on the old colonial style hotel made an excellent place for the Eaton band to play.  Here they were sure to gather and play on the Eaton Field Days, amid the sweat, the beer, and the cigar smoke, pausing only long enough to pour the spit from their horns.  The figures of the musicians were somewhat dwarfed by the enormous size of the hotel, but the music came forth loud and clear.  The Eaton folks were out for fun and fun they had on this special day.

Sarah in her younger days dressed very fashionably and she especially liked to drive her matched pair of road horses.  She had the carriage painted and shined up to a glass finish. There were many fancy plumes that were fastened up to the headstalls and above the horses back.  It was a sight to behold to see her driving up through West Eaton on her way to her parents home in Georgetown.

 Mr. Clifford Smith Sr., or better known to all his many friends as “Kip” remembers seeing her as a youngster.  Kip can recall all these incidents and the local people so vividly way back then.  In fact he is the only person who recognized Norman Hunt in the Eaton Hotel photograph.  Norm is the man with the bell and hat in hand standing out in front of the hotel.

In Sarah’s latter years it was her practice to dress all up in her best clothes, usually all black, and walk around the square in Eaton for exercise.  The clothes she wore were ten or fifteen years out of date.  Nobody thought anything about this except to say perhaps, “There goes Sate this morning.”  She was a town character of many, many years.

 The following story was relate d to me by Mrs. Matilda (Saunders) Pratt.  She and her family were residents of the village of Eaton at the turn of the century.  Her father, Leonard Saunders, often told this story about Sarah.

Sarah had one of the first automobiles around and she and her husband enjoyed riding about in their horseless carriage.  Sarah made the remark one day, “You know says I, my husband and I “driv” over to Hamilton to put some wind in the wheels.”

History of the Alderbrook (Eatonbrook) Mills....

The heat continues....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

 This mill is one of the old landmarks which our citizens will regret to see pass away.  Some 35 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.  

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…

Happy 4th....Read some History from the Fourth in Eaton in 1884

                                             First block of Eaton Main Street Stores

It is interesting to note that Eaton actually had a newspaper for a while; we are lucky to have a copy of one in the museum archives. Old newspapers are a great way to visit the past and give us much information on the people and businesses that once thrived in our rural communities.  I ran across an article taken from the Eaton Herald and was republish in the Madison County Leader under history.

 

The Eaton Herald brought to Eatonians the news of country, state, and village, and announced through its four-column, eight-page sheet much news.  Some of this was so interesting I thought I would include some of the information here. 

 

The publisher of this 1884 sheet was G. B. Greenfield whose office was the first door east of the Exchange Hotel.  The price per inch was twice that of the Leader’s, and got business for advertisers because the Leader’s advertisers were allowed to change their copy only four times a year. Unfortunately the editor took ill, ending its run.

 

 

From the EATON HERALD

 

“Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth is second only to the large and handsome display of fine stoves and ranges, for sale at G. E. Clark’s in the Blakeman Block, Eaton, N.Y.

 

“Paper, Sir - The Eaton Herald-just off the press-Wood, Taber and Morse will run on three-fourths time!”

 

 On the Fourth of July…The great day passed off very quietly at Log City save for the booming of the cannon, which jarred out nearly all of N. Bence’s windowpanes.

 

H. C. Holmes conducted his “Temple of Variety” under the slogan “Death to Large Profits”, and the Morse Brothers stepped out in bigger and bolder letters, “NOW IS THE TIME” and proceeded to tell of dry goods, shoes, boots, and celebrated corsets-all of which were advertised as being selected with great care as to quality, and which are for sale at the lowest living prices.

 

 L. L. Hamilton of West Eaton proclaimed in four inches, single column, that “For the Presidential year, we propose to sell more goods than ever before,” while downstream at Eaton A.D. Morton made the “Largest Stock of Furniture at the Lowest Prices in Madison County.”

 

B. Leavenworth offered bargains in clothing all the year around in men’s, youth’s and children’s clothing, and Jacob Dickson’s custom tailoring was warranted and guaranteed, especially the “Light Pants and White Vests,”  a specialty at this time of year.

 

Wooden Water Pipe was manufactured by Gardner Morse who also dealt in lumber and mill work.  On the corner of Main and Church St., Medbury’s Furniture and Undertaking House sold everything from Chamber Suites to cheap beds for hop picking.  And at that very date T. R. Jones was opening a meat market in the basement of the Blakeman Block.

 

 Under a section called local intelligence we find out that that season was very dry… and  “S. A. Curtis was the champion at the glass ball shoot Thursday.”

 

 “The editor of this paper is responsible for the assertion that Eaton has the best cornet band of any place in Madison County.” “J. Morey’s little boy fell from the milk wagon while going to the cheese factory yesterday, the wagon passed over his body.  The extent of his injuries we have not learned.” “Ed Wilcox, mail agent on the Central was quite seriously hurt at the collision between his train and a freight at Albany on Wednesday of this week.  He is able to be around, however, and will doubtless soon recover.” “The Stage Line was being operated between West Eaton and the O. & W. Station by E. Isebell three times daily.”

 

 

In Georgetown the Herald reports… “Fred Hill was hit by lightning for the second time in his life and still lives to tell the story. D. Whitmore was also getting his billiard parlor in running order to make way for wizards of the cue. “

 

It was a much more simple time when Eaton’s name had gone from “Log City” to its more sophisticated proper name of Eaton Village. The summer brought an influx of people from NYC while Wood, Taber & Morse put on much labor to run its machine shop night and day because of demand.  Eaton was also the site of the Madison County Home and vast agricultural fields that attracted large groups of pickers in the summer…a “Bustling Town”’

History Shines at the Eaton Museum

             This Sunday, June 29,  we will have our 30th Anniversary Celebration.

We are hoping the weather will cooperate this time.  To all those hit by the storms last Sunday like us... we wish you well.  The cake was frozen and will come out rain or shine....Please join us!

The Old Town of Eaton Museum will be hosting its 30th Anniversary on Sunday with a special treat.  Artist of note, Virginia Keith's portrait of Mary will be unveiled at the museum at 1:30 during an award ceremony.  The oil portrait will be donated to the museum by the artist.

Virginia Keith hails from the Town of Brookfield, also in Madison 

County, where both her parents served as Town Historians. Virginia has 

also served on the Board of the Brookfield Historical Society. She has 

painted as a hobby her whole life, but it wasn't until 2015 that she 

studied portrait painting.

During the initial COVID 19 shutdown, a group of five Mohawk Valley area 

women, who had studied portraiture together at Munson in Utica, won a 

commission from the Women's Fund of Central New York to Commemorate the 

100th anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment granting women 

the right to vote.

This effort was immediately followed up by a Commitment to paint a 

collection of portraits of significant and highly accomplished local 

women. The show called Women Paint Women hung in the public Library in 

Utica and in the Arts Center in little Falls, and was commemorated in a 

book by the same name.

Virginia chose to portray Mary Messere for her contributions to the 

collection and preservation of local history. As this painting is done 

with the techniques of the European masters, it is hope to serve as a 

loving picture of Eaton's History Champion for many, many decades to come.

----------------------------------------

Virginia Keith currently lives in Waterville NY and can be reached at 

<vskeith@twcny.rr.com>

Memories, Life, Memorable Birthday Parties

I watched an old movie the other night, something I seldom do.  The movie was “The Way We Were” and what I found most interesting was the mini documentary that went along with the movie.  The most part that interested me most was the discussion of finding the right song.   They needed a song that would transport the viewer back to memories.  

                                                           Family Birthday Party!

The composer chosen for the job was Marvin Hamlisch and the wordsmiths… the Bergman’s.   They describe in the documentary their work to craft the perfect “vehicle” to set the mood.  They said the title, “The Way We Were” was wonderful all in itself, but that they had the first line originally “daydreams light the corners of my mind”.    When they presented the song to Barbra Streisand she changed… one note and one word, a word that became the most important change …  the word daydreams to “Memories”.

The song won the 1973 Academy Award for best song in a movie, a Golden Globe and became one of the songs of the century!   To this day I am sure many of us enter a little piece of reverie as we listen to it… since memories are a haunting part of our life; they are something that comes back to us …sometimes good, sometimes bad…sometimes happy…sometimes sad.

My memories seem to start in the  Spring, which is supposed to be a new beginning, a time of rebirth when the earth wakes from the sleep of winter.  The sap has started to run and the great giants on the hill have started to sprout buds that will soon bring leaves that will last until fall’s last call.  Added to this are my memories of the many summer days spent by the lake, by the glimmering water, with the brush of soft sand against my feet when I walked the shore dreaming of the future.  Never expecting it to be where I am today.

Spring for me brings both my best memories and my saddest memoires. 

My best are the many childhood weekends around Easter… since most members of my family shared April time birthdays.  Grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles, mom, dad, myself… these birthdays all turned into weekend parties, one after another.  Parties where everyone got together and cousins played at life.  Easter meant seeing some cousins from a long distance that came to the city to visit Grandma.  These were fun times to be sure.

Then things changed and I moved to the country where – ironically - all of the new neighbors shared April birthdays and the parties began again.  

Those times and people have all passed as well… and I am left here with only memories of them.  Lingering sad memories… as death end life.  In the past some of my best friends died on the three days around my birthday… and their memories though certainly fond ones, are wonderful… but they are sad.   They leave me with a feeling of being alone…. like sad memories all of my family who are no longer here.  

The wise man said that you can never go back… you can only go forward.  And so we must… we can only relive that past as “Memories” that light the corners of our mind.

A Special Sunday - 30 years & Leland History

The Old Town of Eaton Museum located on River Road in Eaton... will be open for Summer's first weekend..Sunday, June 22nd from 1to 3pm and will be celebrating 30 years of Eatons History group. For the occasion we will be sporting a new display with items belonging to the Leland Family and a copy of the deed signed by Col. William Smith and his wife.  Refreshments will be served and we will be honoring a couple of the groups hard workers.

Joshua Leland came to Eaton in 1792 - 1793 with friends Benjamin Morse and John Morris from Sherburne, Massachusetts.  The land that was opening up for sale in those days would have been the “frontier”, or “Indian Country.”  Leland made a shelter or rudimentary house and later returned with his wife and family. 

They became stuck in the mud at what would become his later home near today’s Leland Pond.  Mrs. Hammond writes that he had to fetch Benjamin and John to help him cross the Chenango, and come to today’s English Avenue in Eaton.  He and his family are recorded as living in a three-sided abode with their children and animals the first winter.

Mrs. Hammond’s History of Madison County claims that it was near what is today’s Caleb Dunbar’s House marked by a NYS Historic Marker.  Leland kept his house open to the public as a tavern and accommodation for travelers.  I believe he built the house that he sold to Samuel Sinclair and that it is Sinclair who sold the property to Caleb Dunbar. This would explain why it was hard to trace the original deed totally.

Humorously, the deed to most of the parcel of land known as Eaton today was found 131 years later (a sheepskin deed) and finally filed in Madison County.  The original deed would have been registered prior to 1806 in Chenango County, as this land was in Chenango County until when it was parceled off as a separate county.

The house was passed back and forth in the Dunbar Family to Thaxter, George and Henry until the 1900’s when it was sold on a tax deed. Many original papers that belonged to Col. Leland were found in the house including a parcel of information on the Kent family another of one of the earliest settlers who lived above this land on today’s Sanford Road.

Leland sold his interest in this area to Joseph Morse and moved to the location of the Leland Marker at the Ponds.  Leland had teased while living on English Avenue that his wife was the “fairest woman” east of the Chenango and of course… she was the first white woman.

*The dead is restored and is located at the Madison Country Courthouse and is signed by Col. William Smith and his wife Abigail Adams Smith,  President Adams daughter. See previous articles.

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!

Wisconsin and Madison County History!

With the Republican Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this week I remembered another piece of Eaton History! The young man who lived in the Eaton - Munnsvill-Pratts Hollow area with his family and became one of the most remembered men of Wisconsin....William Dempster Hoard.

So.... when traveling on Route 46 from Oneida to Hamilton you might pass a beautiful, now deserted stone building on the side of the road. Missing windows and doors… it sits as reminder of Eaton & Munnsville’s past, a past that included many famous people and famous products. One such man was born in the building and passed his childhood there observing the area and interested in its development, his name was William Dempster Hoard.

Hoard spent many hours observing the growing of hops that was a mainstay crop during his formative years; a crop that depleted the already thin soil of this hilly Madison County, NY area. The farmers who lost their fortunes and farms to this fickle crop, wiped out by blight and the commodity market, changed to milk production and Holstein–Friesian cattle that were imported from Holland.

The cows were a needed agricultural addition that was - with its bi-product of manure - an enhancement of the soil and a new way of life for this Madison county, NY area. Hoard as a young man moved to Wisconsin in the westward exodus of the 1800’s and landed in an area that also had agricultural problems much like his former home. One day siting on a hillside noting the farmers going out of business or struggling, he came up with the idea of making the same change to cows, an idea that made Wisconsin the “Dairy State” for many years.

Hoard also started Hoard’s Dairyman’s Journal that gave information to farmers on dairy practices. He is considered the father of the refrigerated railcar that was needed to ship milk to markets at a great distance and today his drawings of the perfect barn have been copied by Cornell University. His motto was that happy cows produced more milk and that entering his dairy you were to treat his cows like “mothers” with kindness and respect.

In his lifetime he became the Governor of Wisconsin and helped bring abolition to the state, staunchly supporting legislation to accompany his beliefs.Today Madison County, NY is still an agricultural county and much of what was learned by our founding dairy farmer’s came out of Hoard’s Journal! 

I Have at the museum a wonderful letter he wrote about attending school at Eaton's Pine Woods School.  Charming remembrance of the one room school.

Enjoy the Fourth of July!

I realize that I have been tardy in getting some new history blogs out...but I have also been struggling along trying to repair my house after the fire and get our new 501 3c started.  

This week has been good for my brain and while watching the TV about the rising "White Nationalism" and Civil War era legislation with voter suppression .. I was reminded of an old story about Eaton.  The story actually revolves around the house next to the museum on River Road, the road that was once called Water Street. The building is one of the oldest in town and was owned during the period before and after the Civil War by the Leach family. It is "Henry" I believe who served in the Confederate Army while the rest of the town for the most part was pro North.

Small towns in those days stuck together in a more cohesive way than today I guess... and after the War had passed, it is said that on all holidays and during parades old Mr. Leach would don his Confederate uniform and march in the parade with the many members of the GAR.  Both sides it is noted paraded up and down the streets with pride.  As a matter of fact... it wrote Mr. Leach into history and he has become part of the "Tales told of Old Eaton"... ones that you can enjoy.

Curiously, when redoing the museum we held a very large opening day celebration... and Chris Staudt with whom I bought the building and refurbished it to become  the museum for Eaton... invited friends and family down for the occasion. 

Chris' dad came down and toured...after the crowd had gone home and as he was leaving, he looked up at the American flag flying over the door, he glanced across the yard to the Leach house and said... "You really need a Confederate Flg flying here also".  To this day I wonder if old  Mr. Leach was around giving us a hint of his past... could be I guess.... after all it was Memorial Day!

The concept of Eaton Day arose from Eaton's traditional 4th July Celebration which had been taken over by Hamilton recent years. In "the Old Days" it was a celebration of honoring the dead warriors, remembering the past and enjoying community, today Eaton's little history group has tried to keep that spirit alive on Memorial Day Monday's.

I hope everyone will come out and visit what has become the Old Town of Eaton Museum, currently owned and run by the not- for- profit museum group Old Town Folks.  Of great interest... the new group that has formed to help support it is...Friends of the Old Town of Eaton Museum. 

The group has officially become a recognized charity so all donations to it are are tax deductible. The museum is open on very other Sunday most of the year , with a sign board giving the dates and times. of the year until October  and we are currently seeking Docents who will help, or anyone interested in giving a hand. Donations may be sent to Friends of the Old Town of Eaton Museum care of 5823 Brooklyn Street, Eaton, NY 13334.

You can contact backstreetmary@ yahoo.com for more information.

Attached is a video I did  for  Memorial Day honoring the many Revolutionary War Soldiers  buried in Eaton Village Cemetery.