May and Memorial Day Monday Means Pies and History!

Old Town of Eaton Museum

Dreary as it has been the past few days, at least it is not SNOWING!  It is May 1 however, and so it is time to get out the information on Eaton Day! Once again our historical group will be hosting Eaton Day in the Hamlet of Eaton and as always ...invite everyone to come and join us in our history celebration. 

This year’s event is scheduled as always for May 29^th, Memorial Day Monday, from 9:00 am until 3:00 pm. It will be the 22^nd time the event has been held to honor Eaton’s rich history.  The event also brings the Town of Eaton together... in actuality it is like an “Old Hometown Day”!

As always the event will feature the Huge Museum Pie Sale, raffles, rummage sale, and the usual Hot Dogs and Soda with a whole lot of history thrown in.

The Old Town of Eaton Museum itself will be open from 1 pm until 3 pm, with its rich history on full display, much of it dating from 1797 forward!  Yes, Eaton is that old... and hence why the museum is called the “Old Town of Eaton Museum”.  Just a short hop down the road from the museum is the marker for the first clearing in Madison County dating to 1788.

 

The group that is putting the event on “Friends of the Old Town of Eaton Museum,” is excited because it has recently become a federally recognized charity, something the group has been working for a long time.

If any of the local societies or clubs would like to set up at the event… please email backstreetmary@yahoo.com.  If anyone would like to volunteer to bake or help sell please email backstreetmary@yahoo.com as well.

So come out and celebrate a history that started with Revolutionary Soldiers who came to the wilderness call New York to find homes....and to found communities for their children and the future!

This week, Pie & Bake Sales, Pecksport & the Chenango Canal

Steve & Cathy with some of our bake goods!

Finally except for the Christmas gathering, which is also the Birthday gathering for December, things are winding done.  The pie sale and the making of the pies provided some interesting moments and here I will mention our little group of Friends of the Old Town of Eaton Museum who came through…Pat Utter, Barbara Keough, Steve and Judy Goodfriend, Michele Kelly, Jen Caloia, Judy Oplinger, Cathy Nagle, and Bob Betz... who baked and baked up a storm.  When we got to the sale there were 45 pies and when we left there were none.

I am personally thankful for their help and sincerely thankful to the Eaton Community Bible Church and Pastor Pollock for allowing us to use the basement for the pie sale.  This made the parking so much easier and the building well well lit for the sale.

The week also provided for some interesting sidelights as we had interesting visitors also, Kevin Orr and I were able to film a section on the Chenango Canal video that we have been working on.  

The Canal is really an interesting part of Eaton’s history.  In reality only a small part of it is in Eaton…but that small part was probably the most important part as it, as it is through Eaton that all the water for the main section of the canal flowed.  The waters of the Leland Ponds, Woodman Pond, Lebanon Reservoir once know as Kingsley Brook Reservoir, Hatch’s Lake, Bradley Brook and Eatonbrook Reservoir met there.  Yes even Lebanon Reservoirs runoff makes a turn and runs north to join the canal at a spot near Pecksport. 

If you stop at the bridge on 12b over the fishing section of the canal, just off Wendover Road, and glance east you can see where it all enters.

The other interesting thing about the area was the ingenuity of Josiah Peck and his son Alonzo who dug out an area that would allow more than one canal boat to unload at the same time.  Alonzo who also ran the Chenango Canal Boat Lines erected a large warehouse at Pecksport to allowing an overflow of goods to be stored from either the northern or southern routes.

Today there is nothing to mark the spot as the signs and historic markers one by one have disappeared.  This isa sad actually as the vanished history was an important part of the canal which bought number of new towns and new families to our area.

Putting on Events, Eaton Day, doubting churches, swearing at friends and all the rest this Memorial Day!

Jim from M&M Press with the new history book 20 years
to the day from when they did the first!

This week is almost over, and the little event  “Eaton Day” that we are putting on is here and… I have broken the two most important rules that I have learned in putting events on.  

After putting on 8 Fall Festival History Weekends, 4 Archives Events and 16 Eaton History Days, 2 Bicentennials, a Fireman’s 50^th Anniversary & co directed the 170^th Madison County Fair…I did it…I swore at my volunteer helper and asked another who is a busy person to do two things. My rules are never swear at your helpers and never ask people to do impossible jobs… 20 years of experience left in the dust!

The helpers for the events have dwindled (death and moving away) to a few people, good people, who are trying hard for Eaton’s 220 Birthday and the Town of Eaton Community, but alas…the leader is tired…far too tired.

Barb Keough has run the gauntlet with me and as I tried to describe what I wanted her to do while holding up over 100 lb. weight… I snapped….the Big D…. Y… words came out…I was appalled at myself!!! The horror!!!!

Not a hour later my good friend Cathy came over and was as mad as I had seen her ever…. she had brought me the 10 chairs I requested.  Well she was also baking today as she had something to do all day tomorrow…so in the midst of cookie bake off she was trying to fill the shoes of Judy Lyrek who was out of town…and get me chairs.

Now we had borrowed 10 chairs from this church in Morrisville for many events…Judy and Cathy get them, bring them down the day before, and pick them up that day and bring them back…. Simple I thought… until Cathy showed up.

Seems people were off on their whatever’s, and the many she contacted wouldn’t take responsibility for loaning this (20 year community group that is putting on an event for the whole Town of Eaton on Memorial Day for the 20^th time) ten chairs. 

Undaunted and resolute she did not call me (she should have at what time I would have dug some up from a more cooperative group), but had to round up the ten chairs from her card playing friends (who I thank for believing they will be returned) and even taking one off a porch!!!  I was appalled!

I pointed out to her why I always say...”Putting on a community event with volunteers…is like stabbing yourself in the eye a hundred times with a sharp pencil!”

The person I sat with later with a drink, who forgave me for swearing at her, and poor Cathy... say they are still my friends, but I wonder?

And as events go, it is not very big…just a mark in time for a rural community that is still trying to protect its history for the coming generations…but perhaps for me the cost has become too high!  This is the last Eaton Memorial Day Monday Event I am doing…can’t do it again.

Here is a video clip of 20 years ago today...Another still friend I hope Owen Corpin!

So my plea is to you the reader…please come out and support the wonderful volunteers and neighbors in your town who are doing this for you… and for a little town museum …though I am prejudiced… that is one of the best little museums in upstate New York!