More Local History to Share while at Home....First on our Historic Markers!

Located equidistant from both Eaton Village and Hamilton, the ponds today are a vibrant part of NYS Fishing areas and are also a very early and important part of the Town of Eaton’s history. A NYS Historic Marker denoting its famous founding family, the family of Joshua Leland, today marks the site but of course, a marker cannot tell the full story.

Born in Massachusetts in 1741, “the Colonel” as he was always referred to, moved to the town of Eaton, then a part of Chenango County and a large tract of land called Hamilton. Leland settled first on English Avenue near today’s Eaton Village, but then moved to the current site of today’s Leland’s Ponds, then called Leland’s Lakes.

The Col. was a Revolutionary War Militia soldier and ventured out with family to find a new home and a fortune. Their removal to Eaton was not without troubles as when the Colonel after clearing land, went back home to get his wife and five children and their wagon got stuck in the mud at the very location they would eventually move to. The Leland’s also arrived so late in the year that they are recorded as spending their first winter in a three side hut with their animals.

An avid astronomer, hotel owner and miller, Leland was a favorite of the many Native Americans who fished the ponds and who regarded the Col. and his wife Waitstil with great esteem. The Leland Family also ran an ashery that made potash and in fact it is how the Col. died. When on a trip to Albany with this much needed commodity, Leland was killed when the barrel of potash they were carry on a wagon rolled off and fell on him as he was ascending a steep hill on the Cherry Valley Turnpike.

Leland is mentioned as Hamilton’s first Supervisor but at that time Eaton was part of Hamilton breaking off in 1795. At that time Leland became and important part of Eaton’s history and he actually owned one seventh of the landmass of Town of Eaton at one time. His heirs continued in their father’s footsteps’ becoming businessmen and the Leland family name is well remembered.

Leland’s Ponds was also the early fisheries of the Oneida Nation, and later was the site of the largest port on the Chenango Canal, Peck’s Port. Today its waters are a vacationers paradise and allow fisherman to revisit the quiet haunts of native fishermen.

For those who like cemeteries, the family cemetery lays 

near Mosher Farms, a short distance from the site of his home. Crow’s Hill, his property that he once gazed at the stars from, is today dotted with wind turbines, proving that Eaton is still a place where “history meets progress!”.

For Pauline...Bullhead fishing...Bob Rollins...and the good times in Eaton..Think Spring!

My good fishing buddy Pauline Brown...miss her!

With all the snow that fell everywhere but here in Eaton. (Thank God) I thought about Spring and how I wished we were coming on to it instead of Winter.  I got and email today from someone from the area and this story popped into my head...so for Harold.

One year my good friend Pauline and I went up to Jack Ass and were frustrated at catch- ing no bullhead; as a matter of fact we had few bites. Pauline had talked to our neighbor Bob Rollins, and he said we should use crabs. Well, this particular night when we didn‟t even get one bite we were camping on the hill where Pauline had a trailer. The next morning over a cup of coffee she ordered me to town to find her daughter Judy in order to get her to get us some crabs (crayfish) to fish with that night.

So I drove back to town and got Judy, telling her of her mother‟s request. I had a pail and asked her if we needed cans or a net to catch the crabs with. Judy laughed at me with that city slicker type of laugh of hers and said, “You just reach down and grab them”. So, reinforced with that information, I followed her across the cow pasture behind the house to the place where she and her friend Cindy used to catch them. There were these “crabs”. I yelled, “You mean crayfish are your crabs?” She looked at me and said, “Yes, why?” “I eat these things, I do not fish with them!”

Judy reached down and tried to grab one, and it bit her. She dropped it and looked at me. After losing a bunch of them that way I took my baseball cap off, and we used that as a scoop! My poor hat! This ball cap was my prize possession since it was bought the day the Liverpool Library became the first library in the United States to bar- code, and it had a barcode on the front for Liverpool! It worked well, but unfortunately the hat never recovered!

That night I took the “crabs” up to Pauline, and we fished. While being novices at fishing with crabs, we did not know we were supposed to break the poor thing‟s legs or it would crawl under a rock. Well, to say the least, we were not successful, and that week I had to go out and buy hooks and sinkers to replace the ones that were under what must have been every rock in the Eatonbrook Reservoir in our casting area!
After some thought on this I wrote the poem “Crabbin‟ .

 

Crabbin ’
(For the bullheads)

On a hot day in May,
Thought of going fishin’ at the end of the day. 
So I asked my neighbor what bait he’d use, 
If he were fishin’ in my shoes.
He said t’wer crabs they would bite best, 
Not knowing crabbin’ would be a test, 

With pail and helper I shuffled along, 
Across the cow pasture and further beyond.
Just as the creek went ‘round the bend,
They were spotted by my crabbin’ friend.

It seems in her youth she had caught them by hand, 
As they scooted backwards across the sand.
But now as adults we found it quite clear, 
‘Twas more than a hand that was needed here. 

So using my ball cap as a net,
Up to the crabs we slowly crept.
Two hours of crabbin’ and soaked to the skin, 
We made it back to my lawn again.


That evening, exhausted, I went to fish, 
Picturing them fried, lying on my dish.
But each time I threw a crab in the lake, 
A quick walk under a rock it would take.

Now with reticence I sit and think,
With not a fish to clean in my sink; 
‘Though they wiggle, and they do squirm, 
There’s nothing’ like fishin’ with a worm. 

A video of Jack Ass...

Have you hugged a newspaper today??? Why not!

I am becoming very skeptical about the future of newspapers in print!

You know this is going to be terrible for historians and writers if the newspapers in print continue to slip away.  I myself prefer a newspaper, even though I dash around to all of the on-line new sites during the day and night.

In the past local history, national history, and world history, have been clipped and snipped and pasted into scrapbooks for future generations to view in museums and archives. 

History hoarders tell me that have kept every one of my local history articles for their children’s children.  Right now I have 2 over 100 year old newspapers on my desk to read and get information from, information that really can’t be gleaned in many cases from a history book written on the subject.

It is said all of the news will be scanned and saved for the future…but in what form?  Will someone have to continually update its form to be viewed on new software as the old is discontinued?

Obituaries of the past are so useful in locating relatives when doing genealogy, some of the information is of course a little tilted or skewed…but overall it is there…dates, places, relatives, reasons for death...all of it.  Museums are filled with this kind of thing.

To truly know about your area in the past the old newsprint is vital…let alone know what's going on locally.  Think of those famous newspapermen of the past like Ben Franklin and Mark Twain..we have actual copies of what they wrote!

I really wonder how many people are going to print things out to clip and save...and if they do…is the ink they use going to survive or will it fade???? Good question…

So support your local historian and museum…buy a newspaper…enjoy holding it while you sip your coffee or tea….and remember  newspapers have been around for a long time……and I hope it stays that way!