THE LIFE OF A PLODDER

FRED GORTON'S 95 YEARS

Part One

an account compiled from his memoirs and diaries

by his granddaughter

Kathy Lynn Gorton Emerson

©1980 Kathy Lynn Gorton Emerson; revisions © 2005 Kathy Lynn Gorton Emerson

INTRODUCTION AND DISCLAIMER

You are reading Part One of the memoirs of Fred Gorton, consisting of the first two chapters of THE LIFE OF A PLODDER. Please see separate files for the remaining chapters and APPENDIX I, II, and III.

A pdf file is also available. I would appreciate acknowledgment of the source if you choose to reproduce any of this material elsewhere.

The complete LIFE OF A PLODDER contains the following: CHAPTER ONE: THE CHILD, CHAPTER TWO: THE YOUTH, CHAPTER THREE: THE MARRIED MAN, CHAPTER FOUR: THE R.F.D. CARRIER, CHAPTER FIVE: THE COMPANY MAN, CHAPTER SIX: THE SENIOR CITIZEN, APPENDIX I: EXCERPTS FROM DAVID HALL'S DIARY, APPENDIX II: ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY FRED GORTON ON MAY 2, 1963, andAPPENDIX III: MISCELLANEOUS NOTES ABOUT PEOPLE FRED GORTON KNEW.

I have tried to select those events in his life and those entries in his diaries which best show the man and his times. I hope he would have been pleased. The original version of this book was made for Fred's children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. There were five copies printed in 1980 and then thirty-five more including additional photographs. This new version is revised and expanded, with an attempt made to identify the people Fred Gorton wrote about. Unless I was certain of the correction, I have left the spelling of names as he wrote them. I've also left his spelling for "trashing buckwheat" and the like. Typographical errors are mine. Those involving dates may well have been missed in proofreading, since they wouldn't be caught without checking each one against the original. Please feel free to send corrections to me at emerson@megalink.net.

The opinions expressed in these pages are Fred Gorton's. He was not politically correct by modern standards. Neither was he concerned about libel or slander. He may have been wrong in some of his statements, but he believed he was recording nothing but the truth. I make no apology for him, nor for sharing these records of historical interest with a wider audience. If any of the descendants of those mentioned herein wish to dispute one of my grandfather's comments, I will be happy to add their side of the story to this document and put the revised version on line.

Kathy Lynn Gorton Emerson
emerson@megalink.net
Wilton, Maine
February, 2005

P.S. To those who have read my novels, in particular Julia's Mending and the forthcoming No Mortal Reason, some of this material will sound very familiar. For more information on my professional writing, as opposed to this project, which was a personal labor of love, please see my website at www.kathylynnemerson.com

This section of a map from the Sullivan County Atlas of 1875 shows the area of Liberty in Sullivan County, New York where Fred Gorton lived. "J. Gorton" underlined in red indicates Old Hickory Farm, at the time of this map in the possession of John Gorton, N.G. Gorton's father. The property is on Rt. 175. The point where Rt. 175 crosses the railroad tracks is Strongtown Crossing. The Strongtown Schoolhouse ( District #17) is just south of the area shown above.

CHAPTER ONE: THE CHILD

On September 17, 1878, while people in New York City were experimenting with early models of the telephone and the postal card was first being sent nationwide, twin boys were born to Nathaniel Gildersleeve Gorton and his wife Lucy. Gill Gorton was thirty-six. Lucy was thirty-four. Already there were four children--Janette, Grace, George, and Ai--but Gill was a prosperous farmer and welcomed a large family, especially one of boys. He had been the thirteenth child himself, but had inherited half of his father's farm, which he had previously leased from him, three years earlier. He had traded his house in Liberty Falls to his older brother John for the other half of Old Hickory Farm and owned a dairy herd, horses, and oxen.

The newest Gorton children were named Fred and Floyd, although Daniel and David had been briefly considered. Twins were not unexpected. John Gorton had been a twin too.

For clarity, I insert here a brief genealogical excerpt, starting with the first Gorton to settle in Sullivan County, John Gorton, who came to Liberty, according to the history of that town given in the Hamilton Child's Gazetteer and Business Directory of Sullivan County, N.Y. for 1872-3, "in 1795, having previously, in 1793, located with his cousins, Thomas and William Grant, in Fallsburgh." James Quinlan's History of Sullivan County (1873) adds "In 1797, John Gorton moved to the Blue Mountain settlement and located a short distance west of the present village of Liberty, on land since owned by his grandson, Elias Champlin." This is the present site of the Liberty Central Jr.-Sr. High School, which opened in 1963. At the first town meeting in Liberty, John Gorton and John Woodward were elected fence viewers, to be paid at the rate of 37½ ¢ a day.

John Gorton, born April 01, 1766 in New London, CT; died November 25, 1851 in Liberty, NY. He was the son of Samuel Gorton and Mercy Grant. He married Sarah Gates November 22, 1787 in Preston, CT.

Occupation: 1785, Sea captain between New London and Stonington

Residence 1: 1789, New London, CT

Residence 2: 1793, Fallsburgh, NY

Residence 3: 1795, Liberty, NY

Children of John Gorton and Sarah Gates are:

i. Phebe Gorton, born June 13, 1789 in New London, CT; died July 21, 1844 in Liberty, NY; married Dudley Champlin.

ii. Elizabeth Gorton, born November 19, 1791 in New London, CT; died February 02, 1834; married WilliamVan Benschotter 1811; born 1784; died 1833.

iii. Sarah (Sally) Gorton, born March 19, 1794 in Neversink, NY; married James Hubbell.

iv. John G. Gorton, born June 04, 1797 in Liberty, NY; died October 19, 1875 in Liberty Falls (now Ferndale), NY; married Sally Ann Gildersleeve December 30, 1819.

v. Mercy Gorton, born January 08, 1800.

vi. Grant Gorton, born August 16, 1803 in Liberty, NY; died March 01, 1892; married Emeline Buckley 1826 in Callicoon Depot; born Abt. 1807; died 1864.

vii. Elmira Gorton, born October 13, 1806; died September 20, 1827.

John G. Gorton, born June 04, 1797 in Liberty, NY; died October 19, 1875 in Liberty Falls (now Ferndale), NY. He was the son of John Gorton and Sarah Gates. He married Sally Ann Gildersleeve December 30, 1819.

Sally Ann Gildersleeve, born February 05, 1799 in Liberty, NY; died June 15, 1887 in Liberty, NY. She was the daughter of Nathaniel Gildersleeve and Jerusha Powell.

Occupation: Farmer, Liberty Falls, NY (161 acres); value of real estate in 1850 was $3700 and in 1870, $5000.

Children of John Gorton and Sally Gildersleeve are:

i. Alfred Gorton, born January 06, 1821; died June 04, 1872; married Margaret Tremper 1846; born December 17, 1828; died September 29, 1906. Occupation: farmer

ii. Sarah Gorton, born March 04, 1822; died October 11, 1879; married Daniel Hardenburgh 1842; born 1818; died 1891.

iii. Collins Gorton, born November 1823; died June 02, 1865; married Rebecca Palmatier 1847; born June 14, 1827; died June 28, 1885.

iv. Isaac Gorton, born April 15, 1825; died January 27, 1856.

v. George Gorton, born March 01, 1827; died April 09, 1855.

vi. Elmira Gorton, born October 26, 1828; died March 22, 1903.

vii. Phebe Gorton, born February 01, 1831; died February 1908; married George Kortright January 01, 1857; born 1829; died June 1908.

viii. Mary Gorton, born February 19, 1833; died March 01, 1863.

ix. James G. Gorton, born August 16, 1834; died September 18, 1836.

x. John G. Gorton, born August 16, 1834; died March 12, 1914 in Ferndale, NY; married Hannah Van Inwegen 1858; died January 1907.

xi. Jerusha Ann Gorton, born July 15, 1836; died October 29, 1910; married David Hall 1872; born 1827; died June 10, 1893.

xii. James P. Gorton, born April 04, 1838; died October 08, 1857.

xiii. Nathaniel Gildersleeve Gorton, born December 18, 1841 in Liberty Falls, NY; died December 21, 1922 in Liberty, NY; married Lucy Misner January 26, 1870.

Nathaniel Gildersleeve Gorton, born December 18, 1841 in Liberty Falls, NY; died December 21, 1922 in Liberty, NY. He was the son of John G. Gorton and Sally Ann Gildersleeve. He married Lucy Misner January 26, 1870.

Military service: went to Callicoon to train during the Civil War but was not called

Occupation 1: Farmer; inherited ½ of Old Hickory Farm; traded house in Liberty Falls with brother for the rest

Occupation 2: March 1872, postmaster at Liberty Falls

Lucy Misner, born March 16, 1844 in Hasbrouck, NY; died February 13, 1933 in Hurleyville, NY. She was the daughter of Tunis Misner (July 2, 1800-April 12, 1887) and Cynthia Brown (d. Aug. 29, 1891 @ 88).

Children of Nathaniel Gorton and Lucy Misner are:

i. Anna Jeanette Gorton, born October 19, 1871; died March 04, 1910; married George Taylor December 26, 1908; born 1855; died May 16, 1933. She was known as Janette to the family.

ii. Grace Gorton, born August 23, 1873; died March 17, 1966; married Charles Clark Farquhar September 10, 1889; born 1867; died July 08, 1933 in Hurleyville, NY.

iii. George Gorton, born October 03, 1874; died September 30, 1954 in Hartwick Seminary; married Martha Hand October 24, 1900; born September 04, 1877; died October 05, 1960.

iv. Ai Gildersleeve Gorton, born January 14, 1877; died May 15, 1947; married Emma Johnson October 01, 1898.

v. Floyd Gorton, born September 17, 1878; died August 20, 1962 in Oneonta, NY; married Alice Matteson November 22, 1919.

vi. Fred S Gorton, born September 17, 1878 in Strongtown, NY; died November 26, 1973 in Newtown, Fairfield Co., CT; married Daisy Cordelia Steenrod June 25, 1901 in Liberty, NY.

vii. Norman Leslie Gorton, born May 19, 1881; died November 25, 1957 in Middletown, NY; married Hazel Wood February 08, 1912; born 1896; died February 09, 1946.

viii. Cecil Hall Gorton, born April 14, 1887; died July 08, 1944; married (1) Orie Elizabeth Clark May 20, 1912; married (2) Florence Heckman November 29, 1922.

ix. Osmer Norwood Gorton, born September 09, 1890; died June 06, 1959 in Westwood, NJ; married Grace Foley January 24, 1913. Osmer Norwood Gorton was raised as the child of Nathaniel and Lucy Gorton, but he was actually born to Anna Jeanette Gorton, father unknown.

1880 was a census year and the "enumerator" (Victory Champlin) visited Old Hickory Farm, about a mile south of Liberty Falls depot in the area then known as Strongtown, on June 18th. I was surprised, when I looked back two pages, to find the name Cordelia Steenrod. A few pages after Old Hickory comes the entry for David Hall, Fred's uncle. To give a complete picture of the area, I've listed below the entries on Roll 936, Book 1, from the top of page 183a through David Hall's entry on page 185b. There is more information in the census entries, such as country of birth, but I've chosen instead to put only the essentials plus any information on these people to be found in Fred Gorton's memoirs.

#114 was occupied by Basley Gerow, 60, a farmer, his wife Barbara Ann, 60, Gertrude Gerow, 20 and James Gerow, 19, both listed as "adopted" and "servant" and Phillip Miller, 18, laborer. Basley Gerow died June 14, 1905 @ 85. Gertrude Gerow (1859-March 17, 1939) married Frank Delmarter (d. Oct. 25, 1932 @ 72).

#115 was occupied by Jane (or possibly Janet) D. Gerow, 75 and Henry, 27, her son.

[Editor's note: The copy of the census records I'm working from is difficult to read in places both because of the census taker's handwriting and the condition of the pages.]

#116 appears to be occupied by Linda Gorton, 32, servant, which seems odd. Head of household was usually listed first. Perhaps she belongs with #115. Listed next at #116 are William Comfort, 46, farmer, his wife Martha, 42, his daughter Ada, 15, his son Archie, 10, John Haddick, 19, servant and Archibald Ralston, 73, whose relationship is not given. William Comfort died October 29, 1915 @ 80. He married second Mrs. Philemon (Isabella) Young and lived on the Young Place, Loch Sheldrake Road. He had a stroke in 1914. Philemon Young died September 10, 1892 @ 59. Young's daughter Edith married Orville Ray Todd (October 13, 1877-October 3, 1940), and they made their home on the Philemon Young place. Archie Comfort died October 31, 1952 @ 82. He married Minnie Corwin and was a farmer in Bethel.

#117 was occupied by James G. Greening, 46, farmer and others in the family were wife Maria, 45 (d. May 19, 1916) and children William J., 18, Llewellan, 17, James G., 14, and Grace Ella, 5.

#118 was occupied by John Clements, 44, farmer, his wife Lizzie (?), 34, and children John R., 11, Thomas M., 9 and William A., 5.

#119 was occupied by W. D. (William Doll) Steenrod, 52, farmer [May 4, 1828-Jan. 20, 1882] and his wife Cordelia, 47 [d. Mar. 16, 1906 @ 73], together with his sons Amos G., 21 [d. Feb. 8, 1924 of pneumonia, White Sulphur Springs; m. Lucy Stoddard (d. Feb. 16, 1924)] and Julius G., 17 and their children Edwin D., 6 [d. Nov. 5, 1956 @ 82 Sharon WI; m. 1)Carrie Harmon 2) Mary Clottenburg (d. 1946) 3) Mary Jones] and Cordelia, 4, and Jennie A., eight months. Daisy Cordelia Steenrod would later marry Fred Gorton. Also living with W. D. Steenrod was his mother-in-law, Abigail [Dodge] Darbee, 83.

#120 was occupied by S. C. Jenkins, 76, shoemaker. S. Clark Jenkins died October 2, 1888 @ 84 when struck by the milk train at Gerow's Crossing. He lived on the corner next to Ferndale school. Living with Jenkins was Fanny, 33, listed as his daughter, but Fred's memoirs state she was his granddaughter, daughter of Clark Jenkins's daughter Emma Jean. Fanny later moved to California. By 1963 when most of Fred's memoirs were written, there was no trace left of the Jenkins house or barn.

#121 was occupied by Charles Ryder, 32, laborer, his wife Mary, 29, and son Warren (?). Also Henry Glood (?), 61, his wife Henrietta, 55, and their niece Ella, 16, Kitche (?), 10, and Orloff Doughty, 17, servant. The Charles Ryder place was at the southern end of the railroad trestle.

#122 was occupied by Benjamin O. Williams, 32, his wife Emma, 27 and their son Freddie B., 4.

#123 was occupied by Prudence Horton, 92 and her daughter Annie or Annis, 65.

#124 was occupied by John G. Gorton, 46, carpenter (Aug. 16, 1834-Mar. 12, 1914). His wife's name is listed as Emma J., 44, but this is a mistake. John married Hannah Van Inwegen (d. 1907 @ 71) Their children are listed as I. J., 20 [d. 1935; Irving James married Harriet Lenz and had Paul, Elmer, Vera, Clara & Gertrude], William J., 18 [d. 1941; m. Emma Schuler (d. April 5, 1954 @ 80)], Carrie O., 17 [Carrie or Caroline Ophelia; d. 1902; never married], Dora A., 14 [d. April 10, 1939 @ 61; m. Orrin Mould], Reuben M., 12 [d. March 15, 1949, Dudley, MA; m. Myra Terwilleger and had Edna and Helen], Henrietta A., 10 [Henrietta Augusta aka Retta; d. 1922; m. Alfred Broadway and had Inez and Mildred], Edith E., 8 [Edith Estella; d. March 15, 1954 @78; m. Melvin Blade (d. March 1, 1949 @ 78; ch: Leona, Evelyn, Melvin, Cyrus W.], and John V., 5 [John Van; d. Jan. 31, 1952; m. Mary Scott Purdy and had Anna, Lawrence, Kenneth, June, John, Walter and Edward]. John G. Gorton was N.G. Gorton's brother.

#125 was occupied by Peter G. Brochu, 57, blacksmith, his wife Mary, 45, and children Charles S., 19, Annie L., 11, Ambrose, 5, William J., 2, and Thomas, 1. Nellie Brochu (Mrs. Ambrose) died September 20, 1942 at 62. ("He used stocks to raise the oxen to be shod off their feet using two belts 4" wide and a hand crank to lift the ox up off its feet.")

#126 was occupied by Robert Gird, 54, who worked in tanning, his wife Elizabeth, 56, and his children Thomas, 22, George, 18, and Rose, 16. Fred lists the death of George Gird as January 13, 1937 and Sadie Gird on July 23, 1937 at 50.

#127 was occupied by John Raymond, 41, laborer, his wife Catherine, 32, and children (daughter), 10, Hattie, 7, Abram, 6, Elida, 4, John, 2 and Ernest, 3 months. See Appendix III under Hans Raymond.

#128 was occupied by Mark Meddaugh, 30, laborer, his wife Susan, 16, and Maggie Carpenter, 6. "Duke"died July 9, 1936 @ 83. He'd lost his right leg at 18 when he slipped between the cars of a moving train. See Appendix III for more.

#129 was occupied by Erskine (?) Thompson, 24, laborer, his wife Helen, 24 and a daughter age 2.

#130 was occupied by Jonah B. Davis, 73, shoemaker, his wife Olive, 60, their son Eugene, 28, their granddaughter Carrie, 5. Also listed are Peter Graves? Craven? 29, laborer, his wife Anna, 26 and children Susan, 9, Edith, 4, and Saddie, 2.

#131 was occupied by Edward or Edmund W. Fox, 46, his wife Marietta, 45 and his daughter Edith W., 12.

#132 was occupied by A___ Polhamus, 35, laborer, his wife Mary Ann, 30, and their children (son), 11, (Daughter), 8, and Henry, 2.

#133 was occupied by John McDonald, 55, laborer, his wife Margaret, 50, and their children Mary, 14 and Catherine, 18.

#134 was occupied by George Devine, 55, laborer, Catherine, 45, and Sopherina (?), 12.

#135 was occupied by John Manion, 50, who owned the store, and his children Marietta, 20, Lizzie, 17, Katie, 10, William 28, who worked in the store, Joseph, 21, station agent, and Henry, 14. Also in the household were William Gird, boarder and Michael Manion,65, John's brother.

#136 was occupied by Thomas W. Lane, 54, farmer [d.@ 96; lived at Ferndale hilltop], his wife Mary E., 51 [Mary Smith; d.@ 85] and their children Annie M. 23, Sarah, 20, Charles, 17, Lizzie (?), 15, and Fanny (?), 10.

#137 was occupied by Alexander Gildersleeve, 47, farmer, his wife Mary J., 45, and children H___ (son), 14, and George, 11. This was John Alexander (d. 1903), son of James Gildersleeve and nephew of Sally Ann Gildersleeve Gorton.

#138 was occupied by Lewis S. Wheeler, 47, farmer [d. Sept. 5, 1914 @ 81] and his wife Freelove B., 38 [Fred gives her given names as Anna Freelove; she d. May 6, 1914 @ 71], together with their children William W., 12 [d. Jan. 18, 1956 @ 87 in Oakland CA], Halla D., 10, Horace, 7 [Horace S. aka Racie d. July 29, 1942 @ 69; b. March 26, 1873], Emma C., 4 [Cassie?], and Fred G. (son), 2 [d. Nov. 2, 1958 @ 81 in Jersey City, N.J.]. Their daughter Angeline [d. March 4, 1968 @ 85] married Benjamin Ryal Gerow (December 13, 1880-December 16, 1961). He was the son of Joshua and Anna Kirk Gerow, sheriff, assemblyman, and postmaster and he and Angeline had sixteen children.

#139 was Old Hickory Farm, occupied by N. Gildersleeve Gorton, 38, farmer, Lucy, 36, his wife, and their children Janett, 8, Grace, 7, George, 5, Ai, 3, Freddie, 2, and Floyd, 2. Also in the household were George Cramer (?), 19 and Rosa Riyman, 17, servants.

#140 was occupied by Sally Ann Gildersleeve Gorton, 81, Fred's grandmother (Feb. 5, 1799-June 15, 1887), her daughter Elmira, 51, [Oct. 26, 1828-Mar. 22, 1903], and Sally Ann's grandson James, 15. This was James H Gorton [Dec. 7, 1864-April 11, 1950], youngest son of Collins Gorton and Rebecca Palmatier. Collins Gorton d. June 2, 1865 in the Civil War, James H. Gorton married 1) Hattie Sarvis (div) and 2) Margaret Blivin (d. 1931). See Appendix III for more on Sally Ann, James, and Collins Gorton.

#141 was occupied by Ann E. Wickes, 60 and Hannah Wheat, 18, boarder. [References in Fred's memoirs always refer to his neighbor as Druscilla Wickes.] Also listed at #141 are Emilia or Cornelia Devine, 52, keeping house, and Fanny, 4 (or 11).

#142 was occupied by Moses B. Seargant, 63, farmer. Fred spells the name Sergeant and says he lived on a 20 acre farm just south of the N.G. Gorton farm with the house some distance from the road. The Sergeant farm was bought by Clark Gorton when the Sergeants and Frank Burnham and his wife Laura, who may have been a Sergeant, went west. Also living there in 1880 were Catherine, 53, Delia Knox or King, 33 (daughter), Hattie Seargant 12, and Retta C. Seargant, 10. Frank and Laura Burnham lived at one point in N. G. Gorton's tenant house and Laura took in washing. John and Lydia Burnham were born there.

#143 was occupied by David Carr, 40, farmer. Fred says he lived on the Squire Devine Place in Strongtown. With him were his wife Rosanna, 33 [Rose] and children Margery, 17, William, 15, Jane, 7. Carr's daughter Jennie married Joe Dobbs. Also listed at #143 are Albert Devine, 43, farmer, his wife, (name unreadable) 45, and children Gideon S., 20 and Joseph, 17.

#144 was occupied by Dewitt Bebee, 44, mason [d. March 1929 @ 94 in Harris] and his wife Elmira, 33. Also at #144 were Cyrus Strong, 75, farmer and his wife Mary, 70.

#145 was occupied by George Kilbourne, 72, farmer and his children (Daughter), 23 and Frank, 27, plus Etta Sutton, 19, servant and Archie Wood, 30, boarder.

#146 was occupied by Jane Wheat, 49 and children Alice, 15, Oscar, 11, Mary, 9, and Susan, 3. Jane Irons Wheat was the widow of Elbridge G. Wheat (1830-1879) and the mother of Gertrude, Mary, Edric, William, George, Edwin, Ella, Alice, Hannah, Oscar, Mamie, and Susie.

#147 was occupied by Simon Hornbeck, 67, farmer. Fred calls him Luke Hornbeck, which I believe is correct. Luke Hornbeck was born November 3, 1813. His wife Margaret, 50, was the widow of Alfred Gorton (1821-1872), oldest brother of N.G. Gorton. She was born Margaret Tremper (Dec. 17, 1828-Sept. 29, 1906). Living with them were her son Clark Gorton, 12 (May 20, 1868-Feb. 21, 1947), who married Mamie Carr (d. Feb. 24, 1958 @ 81), and their son Gideon Hornbeck, 11 (June 30, 1870-Mar. 25, 1942), who married Addie Holmes and was a farmer on Rt. 17 in Ferndale.

#148 was occupied by David Lounsberry, 73, farmer.

#149 was occupied by Seth Johnson, 28, laborer [buried July 12, 1917], his wife Harriet, 29, and their children Walter, 6, and Lewis, 3. Also listed at #149 were Lewis Burr, 56, farmer, his wife Ann, 55, and their children John, 24 and William, 22.

#150 was occupied by William A. Bebee, 43, carpenter, his wife Amelia, 30, and their children Steven (?), 15, William, 8, Charles, 6 and Gilbert, 2 (April 1878-Feb. 22, 1945).

#151 was occupied by William Ruforth (?), 21, tinsmith.

#152 was occupied by William Hornbeck, 72, farmer and his wife Anne H., 66, together with Catherine (?) Knapp, 63, a boarder

#153 was occupied by Caleb (?) Dewitt, 33, farmer. Later the site of the Queen Mountain House, this property was ½ mile east of School District #17 schoolhouse in Strongtown. Also in residence were wife Eliza, 44 and children George W., 10 (Oct. 16, 1869-Mar. 3, 1958), who went to work on the railroad at an early age, Miles, 8 (Dec. 4, 1871-July 12, 1942), and Frank, 6. Also living there was Horatio Smith, identified as Dewitt's stepson, 22. Fred identifies him as an uncle who lived to be 84. See Appendix III for more on Horatio. The household also included Mary Smith, stepdaughter, 20 and William (?) Peck, 52, servant.

#154 was occupied by Benjamin Van Inwegen, 49, farmer, known as "Stingy Ben" to Fred and his schoolmates, and his daughter Emma, 15.

#155 was occupied by William Bartholomew, 33, laborer. Billy Bartholomew was buried in Homer, NY on May 4, 1924. Also in the household were his wife Anthea, 26, called Anthy by Fred, who died Feb. 4, 1939 @ 86, and children Metta Ann, 7 [m. Stephen Harrison; d. Feb. 15, 1939 @ 67; see Appendix III for more information] and William G., 4 [Will; Jan. 7, 1876-Dec. 15, 1951; m. Emily (d. April 17, 1942)]. Also listed at #155 were George Smith, 40, laborer, his wife Sarah E., 29, and daughter Annie E., 3.

#156 was occupied by George Hill, 65, farmer, his wife Jerusha, 63, and their adopted children Jason Hill, 24, and Rebecca Hutchinson, 30, together with George Hutchinson, grandson, 5. See Appendix III for more.

#157 was occupied by Elias Raymond, 24, laborer, his wife Mary, 17 and his mother (or perhaps hers), Jane Slack, 64. Clark Meddaugh, 39, boarder, also lived there.

#158 was occupied by Joseph Raymond, 28, laborer [d. Jan. 15, 1936 @ 85 of stroke; lived in the woods near Mongaup Stream], his wife Emma, 22, and children George J., 2 [b. May 10, 1878; d. May 16, 1963; m. 1) Helen Sampson 2) Grace Gardner] and Ira, 4 months

#159 was occupied by Fredric Shaffer, 36, shoemaker, his wife Margaret, 33, and children Henrietta, 13, Julia, 10, Louisa, 4, and Ralf, 2.

#160 was occupied by John Slater, 43, blacksmith, his wife Sarah, 35, their children Austin E., 16, Charles, 14, (Son), 12, Ann (?), 9, Carrie, 4, Dora, 1, and Slater's father in law, 63.

#161 was occupied by Peter ____, 44, works in tannery, his wife Bridget, 35, and their children John, 17, Mary, 15, Ellen, 14, Kate, 12, Michael, 10, Martin, 7, Thomas, 2 and William, 2 months.

#162 was occupied by Joel Blackman, 42, farmer, his wife Eliza, 41, their daughter Carrie, 14, and Blackman's parents, Austin, 78, and Hurdy, 75.

#163 was occupied by Daniel T. Ratcliff, 55, farmer [Daniel Thomas Ratcliff d. Mar. 2, 1897 @ 72], his wife Margaret, 55 [93 on Dec. 14, 1908; died at 94] and their sons Charles, 20 and William, 17, and their daughter Mary, 13. William T. Ratcliff (April 5, 1863-Oct. 27, 1959) married Celia Hall on June 30, 1898. He was a cattle dealer. Mary died September 12, 1947 @ 81. She was a dressmaker.

#164 was occupied by David Hall, 52, farmer [d. June 10, 1893 @ 66], his wife Ann, 43 [Jerusha Ann Gorton; 1836-1910; sister of N.G. Gorton] and their daughter Celia, 7 [d. May 24, 1951 @ 77]. Also in residence were Reuben Huntington, 20, laborer [d. Sept. 1, 1933 @ 75 in Ferndale] Huntington was a policeman later in life. His wife Margie d. April 5, 1950 @ 86.

To Gill's sister, Jerusha Ann, we owe a debt of gratitude. Ann married David Hall.

He wasn't a bit religious, so Ann would not marry him unless he sought religion, so at a protracted service he pretended to accept Christ as his savior and a little later Ann and David were married. Soon he lost faith, and Celia was born in due time. Then Ann started family devotion in the home. He knelt in morning worship but she done all the praying and read a chapter in the Bible. He was a good provider.

David Hall also kept a diary, in which the activities of the Gortons played a large part. All of the entries Fred copied from the diary are in Appendix I. On February 12, 1879:

N.G. Gorton traded his white Kate mare to Ike Gorton for a sorrel four year old mare.

And on August 11, 1880:

Jacob Becker traded the oxen he got of Gill Gorton for a white mare and got $25 to boot.

On June 20, 1882, when his twins were not quite four years old, Gill raised a new barn. It was framed with wooden braces on each corner which had wooden pins to hold them fast. All the framing was done by Grant Gorton, Gill's uncle, but at least a dozen men with pike poles came to raise up the bents. When they were done, Lucy served crullers and cider, the earliest event her son Fred would later be able to remember. David Hall was there too, and recorded in his diary that Gill got the barn finished "so as to put hay in."

Young Freddy's second earliest memory was of an event later that same year. Mrs. Lewis Wheeler, a neighbor, came to Old Hickory with her baby daughter, Angeline. During the course of their visit it became necessary to change Angie's diaper. Freddy, being an inquisitive child, decided to take a peek when Angie's long-skirted dress was pulled up. "Look and you will see all," his mother remarked. He was so embarrassed that his face turned a bright red.

In February of 1883, Gill bought Major, a chestnut sorrel colt with white feet and a star on his forehead. He paid $100. It is likely that this was the same colt who figured in Freddy's next adventure. It was summer when David Hall wrote:

Fred Gorton broke his right leg on July 19, 1883 toward night by falling through the pitch hole from the barn floor to the basement floor and it was set by Doctor Perry and Doctor Robertson the afternoon of the 20^th.

Freddy had been playing with the other Gorton children in the new hay in the hay mow and had grown thirsty, but when he started toward the house to get a drink, he slipped and slid through the hay hole. His leg struck the manger pole and when he tried to stand up he found he could not. He called for help, but none of the children would come to his rescue. Only his oldest sister, Janette, by then nearly twelve, had sense enough to run and fetch their father. Many years later, Fred could still recall what happened next:

Father came and I told him I couldn't get up. He felt of my leg. He picked me up, letting the right leg hang down, and carried me into the house. The broken leg acted like it had an extra joint and it began to hurt, but if I laid very still on Mother's bed it didn't hurt at all. Father went to Liberty to see if Doctor Webster would set the leg, but the doctor said, "Since you found fault with the way I set your wrist when your colt kicked you and broke it, I won't set your boy's leg, but if you want it amputated, I'll cut it off for him."

Fortunately, Gill decided to find another doctor and heard about Doctor Perry and Doctor Robertson of Woodbourne. They agreed to come the next day, a Sunday afternoon, and set the leg.

The doctor poured something from a bottle into a handkerchief and put it on my nose. I could smell something unusual. I started to count but by the time I counted thirty I was asleep.

He awoke with a loud holler, according to his brothers and sisters.

The convalescence was uncomfortable. The doctor tied a seven pound weight on his ankle with a rope hung over the footboard. Then, the next time Doctor Robertson came, he put on a cast, but in those days it was a wooden splint that looked like a big tray and encased the leg from thigh to ankle. It made getting up without help impossible. One time, when the entire family was at dinner, Freddy was "taken short and couldn't wait" and when his mother, who didn't want to be disturbed while eating, failed to respond to his calls, he "let fly right in the sheets." "I was sorry," he later wrote, "and so, I think, was my mother."

Overall, Freddy was accorded special treatment during his time in bed. Someone gave him a color picture book. One illustration showed a large dog, and under it was a rhyme which read:

Erastus Bush, who had come to see Gill, gave Freddy his first six-square red pencil. (Bush died in 1910 at the age of 73.) When Gill bought four little black pigs, the invalid was carried out to see them. This was, however, only because his cousin James got tired of all the "noise about the pigs." By this time, James H. Gorton was living with N.G. and Lucy Gorton

Eventually, the doctor took off the wooden case and replaced it with a bandage wound around the broken part some twenty times and held together by a flour-like paste. This cast was about three-quarters of an inch thick and allowed Freddy to get up. By the time the doctor came on his fifth visit, the patient was out running, cast and all, in the orchard. The bandages came off then to reveal a pure white area where the cast had been. The healing process had taken three weeks. [Editor's Note: This story was the inspiration for my children's historical novel, Julia's Mending (1987)]

In the 1880s children died from injuries and disease far more frequently than they do today. The Gortons were extraordinarily lucky, but two of Fred's earliest memories were of funerals for children. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Snyder Morris, who lived a half mile east of the Strongtown school, died shortly after Fred and Floyd acquired new matched suits. They wore them for the first time to serve as pall bearers. Together with two other boys, they bore the small coffin from the schoolhouse, where the funeral had been held, to the wagon that would take it to the cemetery, probably the one in Liberty. They were told to place their hats on the casket while they carried it. What impressed Freddy, however, was the fact that the bereaved mother yelled "Glenna! Glenna!" all through the service and "never let up to take a breath."

The second funeral was that of one of the Sergeant children, a little girl who lived on the twenty acre farm just south of Old Hickory and had been ill for a long time. The family was very poor so when she died all the neighbors helped out. Gill Gorton used his light lumber wagon for a hearse, sitting atop the box coffin when he took it to the cemetery for burial.

Liberty Falls, later renamed Ferndale, was described in the 1872-3 Gazetteer of Towns as: "situated in the south-east part, on the Middle Mongaup . . . a station on the NY. & O. Midland RR and contains one hotel, a school house, two stores, two groceries, one grist mill, one upper and one sole leather tannery, three saw mills, one wagon shop, a blacksmith shop, a shoe shop, and about one hundred inhabitants." A note adds that the railroad, when completed, would cross the creek at this place on a bridge 1,100 feet long and 100 feet high. On October 8, 1882 the new iron railroad trestle was completed. It rose 102 feet into the air above the stream. The depot building was completed by September 1887.

The Gorton children attended school in the Strongtown schoolhouse, however, in District #17, south of the farm. On the twins' first day the teacher asked them their names and then wrote them on tablets. When she wrote "Fred Gorton" and told him that was his name he told her he didn't believe it. He had never seen his name written down before.

The school had desks all around its sides and a stove in the middle. It took sticks of wood about 3' in length and was used to toast bread at noon. The pupils sat on backless benches when Fred first went to school but later the district acquired patent seats with desks to write on.

At noon the children usually went outdoors to play. They engaged in such games as "dog and fox in the woods" and "dog and deer" and the boys played baseball in a field belonging to Ben Van Inwegan, known as "Stingy Ben." Fred was not allowed to join in because he liked to step out of line and hit every ball the pitcher threw.

One boy, Charles Crispell [see Appendix III], came to Strongtown School after starting school in another district. He gave Freddy a black eye and this probably led to some boxing lessons for all the Gorton boys. By the last fight between them, Freddy was capable of clobbering Charlie, but he had hit him in the face so many times that he grew ashamed of himself and let the fight be called a draw.

Across the road from the schoolhouse was a stone wall four feet high over which the children placed a plank to use as a teeter totter. Freddy used to teeter with Minnie Tompkins and some others. Young Fred also played house. A few of the boys had favorite girls with whom them kept house. They would pace off spaces ten feet square and gather moss from logs to put down as carpet. Hattie Crispell (Mrs. Paul Richter; d. Nov. 8, 1962 @ 79; had 14 children) was Fred's first "wife" but later he kept house with Angie Wheeler. Angie and Freddy also played "horse" in which Freddy took a bit in his mouth or a line under his arms and Angie "drove" him. He could run faster than any of the other boys, so Angie called him Black Beauty after the horse in a newly published book.

Freddy's younger brother Leslie was also interested in little girls. He would sit in the second seat in the schoolroom and use a looking glass to watch them in the back row. One day the teacher, Floyd Kinney (d. July 1963 @ 87), caught him and got so mad that he pulled Leslie out of his seat by his collar, pinned him to the wall, and nearly choked him.

Some time later Floyd Kinney was replaced by John Robison. One day Robison was seen coming out of the girls' privy by Floyd and Ai Gorton. They started a story going around that he had been in there with one of the girls. It took three days for the gossip to get back to Robison, but when it did he dismissed all the girls from school and kept the boys. Then he called them out one by one to question them. Freddy was first. Fortunately, he knew nothing about it and convinced the teacher of his innocence. It was Floyd who got a well-deserved thrashing. When Robison came to Ai, however, he told the older Gorton boy that he was too big to thrash. Ai agreed and escaped punishment.

Every year on Arbor Day, "Stingy Ben" Van Inwegan allowed the older children from Strongtown School to take up trees from his property and transplant them in the schoolyard. When Fred was five feet tall and old enough to be allowed to participate he chose a spruce tree the same height as himself and planted it next to the woodhouse. He was always to have a green thumb. The next year he dug up some mayflowers, reset them dirt and all, and landscaped his tree. The tree, which was given the name Benjamin Franklin, survived four others planted at the same time, including Cassie Wheeler's Martha Washington and Charlie Crispell's George Washington.

The Strongtown School closed three weeks earlier than the Huntington School, so Gill Gorton arranged for three of his sons to attend the latter during those weeks. Fred did not last. He made a false face out of black oilcloth with holes cut in it for his eyes, nose, and mouth, and used it to scare Johnny Loder (d. Jan. 28, 1935 @ about 48). Johnny's father (Harrison Loder, who d. Jan. 31, 1924 @ 80 while on an ice pond laughing at a fellow putting a cake of ice through a hole) was a trustee of the Huntington School and when his little boy declared that he would not go to school as long as Fred Gorton was there, Loder had Fred turned out. Fred showed him the black face and tried to prove he hadn't done anything so terrible, but Loder would not change his mind.

Gill Gorton's determination to have his sons well educated is shown by another incident too. During the year of the great blizzard, 1888, he constructed a "covered wagon" of blankets on a box four feet by twelve and used it to take the children back and forth to school. He and Will Wheeler took turns driving the team of oxen.

The Gorton and Wheeler boys did not share their parents' fervor. The Charles Kilbourne Pond was near the school (a saw mill with a bull wheel to draw logs out was located there) and the boys often went there on their lunch hours in winter to skate. One day they cut some holes in the ice and while two or three of them skated to the dam and drove sucker fish up the pond the others snared them as they passed. In the course of the afternoon they caught about a dozen one pound suckers and got back to the school at about three o'clock. The teacher refused to let any of them back inside except Leslie, the youngest of their number, but he did not tell their parents. The older boys waited in Clark Gorton's barn near the school until it was time to go home, but the Wheelers were afraid to take any fish. The young Gortons convinced their parents that the entire catch had been made during lunch hour.

When he was about seven, Freddy made himself a pipe by scraping out a corn cob for a bowl and adding a stem made from a piece of second growth maple with a pith in the middle. In this he smoked dried corn silk and the dried blossom tops of hard tack. The latter made a good deal of smoke but also made Freddy's tongue sore. A schoolmate, Gilbert Beebe, chewed tobacco, and gave Freddy some, which he tried and liked, but he was afraid that either smoking or chewing tobacco would prove habit forming and so refrained from using it altogether.

Fred had assigned chores at home from an early age. The first was to split the kindling for the next day's cook stove fire. Later he milked a short legged cow named Peanut morning and night. By the time he was eight he was also milking one called Topsy. There was always something to keep the boys busy on the farm. They raked hay after the hay wagon and loaded hay in the field. They picked up stones off the meadow and were sent to turn the steers, Tom and Jerry, out to pasture. This had an element of danger. The pair, who were dark red in color, fought every time they were turned loose. The pair of oxen, Ike and Lazarus, were fattened up and butchered when they got too old to work.

One year the boys shingled the woodhouse with hemlock shingles made on the spot by an expert named Bill Davidson. He used a special bench he had designed himself, a contraption somewhat like a vise, which he operated with his feet while using a drawing knife to smooth the sides of the wood. Another year the Gorton boys dug a cellar on the Lane Lot, a thirteen acre property Gill bought from Thomas Lane. Later, with Fred's help, he would build a cottage there, but the first year he had it he planted the land with buckwheat. Tunis Misner, Gill's father in law, gave him his five foot hay rake at that time. The head was a foot across and had fifteen evenly spaced teeth. The boys used it to rake after the hay wagon and found it a great time saver compared to the little hand rakes they had been using.

The buckwheat on the Lane Lot proved popular with the chickens belonging to Druscilla Wickes, who lived across the road. It was legal to shoot such trespassers, but not to keep and eat them, so the Gorton boys had target practice and then threw the dead birds into their owner's dooryard. The Gortons did not do well by Druscilla. On another occasion, when her cow got an apple caught in her throat, she called Gill to dislodge it. He tried everything he knew, including throwing the cow on the barn floor and hitting it in the neck with a mallet. This probably did smash the apple, but it also killed the cow. She was buried in a special burying area for horses and cows on the Gorton farm.

When Freddy reached nine he was considered old enough to walk the three and a half miles to Liberty on errands. One frequent destination was an elderly cobbler on Church Street. Casper Liedman put half soles on their leather boots. On such trips, Fred, Floyd, and Leslie were usually given five cents each to spend. Fred bought marbles (ten for a nickel) or gum, but Floyd and Leslie always bought candy.

On the Fourth of July the boys walked to Liberty because the merchants always had something going on to entertain young folks. One year, on Charles Young's front lawn, there were two peacocks. The male was strutting and showing off his feathers, one of the wonders of the world as far as a small boy was concerned. Another Fourth, Freddy won two dollars in a wheelbarrow race. His brother Ai was also in the race, but he crashed, and Freddy ran around him to win. The same day he took second in the sack race in spite of a fall of his own. Often there were parades with soldiers and bands marching. Fife and drum corps were considered fine music in those days before radio.

Circuses and other traveling shows also made frequent appearances in Liberty. In 1883 it was the Bonnell & Company Circus. One year a show was coming to the Liberty House lawn and the Gorton children were to go to the parade, but their father had chores to do first andputtered about so long with them that they missed all but two show wagons with animals in them. That year money must have been tight because Gill refused the pleading of seven children and would not buy tickets to get them into the show. He was not ungenerous. In 1887, he bought an organ for Janette, and the same year he took his daughter Grace along when he and Will Carr and Will Ratcliff went to the fair at Newburgh.

When Fred was about eleven he did get to go to the circus. Again it was held at the Liberty House. This was a well known hotel, located next to the Methodist Church.

It being our first show we laughed so loud that a woman "blew her top" but it didn't stop us in the least. It cost perhaps ten cents. Another time Liberty had a tent show on the Mansion House lawn that cost five cents. They put up wooden seats. I don't remember the name of the show. Later a horse show located on Mill Street. One man handled eight horses and it was a sight to see the different things he made them do.

Lucy Gorton's opinions had a great influence on those formed by her son. She told him, for example, that Abe Lincoln freed the slaves because so many of them had white blood, the result of plantation owners fathering "the wenches' children." John Newton Clements (d. July 9, 1937 @ 84) told him that the north couldn't make the south surrender until they burned their wheat fields and starved the southerners into submission. "The northern soldiers even smashed up their pianos, a wanton destruction for no cause at all."

Lucy joined the Free Methodist Church at Strongtown, built in 1887. It was dedicated for worship on April 26, 1888. At one point she tried to convince Fred to become a minister. He declined. In contrast to Lucy, Gill refused to join any church and vowed to die the way he had lived.

Fred attended preaching by a minister named Thicket who had a long black beard and was rumored to have fathered a child by a fourteen-year-old girl. Sometimes, when he was preaching, tears fell from his eyes onto the floor. Chances are the gossip grew from knowledge of an infamous case in Boston where a minister got a pretty choir girl with child and poisoned her trying to abort the pregnancy.

1888 was the year of the blizzard. A record low temperature was reached on February 10^th when the mercury hit -24. Then, on March 12^th, the snows came. There were drifts up to twelve feet deep and they lasted until April 18^th. The railroad was tied up for a week and on the Gorton farm the drifts were so high that the boys had to melt water for their twenty-five cows to drink. They could not get through to the spring on the back lot. This experience prompted Gill to put a windmill over the spring which pumped water into a cistern above the orchard. From then on there was a good force of water both in the barn and in the house, where Lucy soon installed a bathtub.

On October 12, 1888, Samuel Clark Jenkins, who lived next to the Liberty Falls School, was returning home from a trip to Liberty when he was hit by the milk train at Gerow's Crossing. He was thrown up into the air and landed stradling the engine boiler. His buckboard wagon was demolished and both Jenkins and the horse died of their injuries. He was eighty-four.

While Fred took a natural interest in such local disasters he also had milder interests. One was watching swallows. After the tannery in Liberty Falls was discontinued, chimney swallows moved into the forty foot high chimney. One time the boys counted fifty swallows entering the chimney in the early evening. There were also swallows in the Gorton barn. It was fifty feet wide and at one time there were a dozen nests under the eaves on the west side.

Fred considered himself more responsible than his brothers. In apple season the boys had to gather apples and put them in the wagon and then load some thirty bushels of them onto the train. This brought in four dollars. One year, when their parents had gone to Liberty to do some trading, four of the boys spent the entire afternoon having apple fights. Only Fred kept gathering apples, but when the money was divided this dedication got no reward. Gill heard Fred's complaint but his decision was "share and share alike."

Fred and Floyd had a harrowing experience on their way home from school one day. They decided to cut through David Carr's orchard, a walled-in one acre lot occupied by three cows and a bull. They got over the wall and were halfway to the far side when the bull bellowed and charged. Fred was encumbered by a 12' fishpole, a bait can, and a lunch pail, but he managed to get a toe hold in the five foot wall and throw himself over. He landed in a heap in the Carr garden. The bull, right behind him, stuck his head over the wall and bellowed again, but Fred was safe. He does not record how Floyd escaped. Although they were twins, they were not identical and do not seem to have spent any more time together than non-twin brothers.

On September 9, 1889, Fred was picking pears on the farm when a man came along and asked him if it was true his sister Grace was getting married that day. It was the first Fred had heard of it, and Grace had just turned sixteen, but she did in fact marry Charles Farquhar on that date. If they were married without Gill's consent, he soon forgave them, for he built a cottage for them on the Lane Lot. Fred helped, using a wooden lathe 4' long and 1½ ' wide.

A year later, Grace lost her first baby, a little boy, and the funeral was held at Old Hickory. It was the custom then to have singing at funerals, but the Gorton children cried so hard at this one that the singers got too choked up to continue. At a later funeral, that of their Uncle David Hall, Fred and Floyd shared a handkerchief between them and shed many tears during the service.

Fred was still quite young, not yet a teenager, but he was leaving childhood behind him at a rapid pace. At twelve, he was expected to earn money on his own.

CHAPTER TWO: THE YOUTH

The Gorton boys, all except George, who couldn't saw a board off straight, built rabbit traps out of old boards at the farm and used them to trap rabbits that they sold to Fred Sanford at ten cents each. When the season was over, Fred sold the traps, too, five of them to Charlie Crispell for fifty cents.

A bit more about the Sanford family: Fred Sanford (d. May 28, 1951 @ 81) married Nellie Buchanan, a school teacher. They also took in summer boarders. Irving Sanford committed suicide while living with his brother Fred, on September 25, 1935 @ 64. Carrie Sanford (Mrs. Henry W. Ackerly) died on May 1, 1933 @ 71 at her girlhood home on Smith Hill.

Fred Gorton almost lost his life before he ever had a chance to go off and work, as he recounts:

Father borrowed a horse of Clark Gorton in haying time to rake hay. When I was returning it after supper, riding bareback and bare footed, all at once the horse bolted, lowering its head. I went flying over the horse's head. If I had landed on my head, it might have been fatal, a broken neck, but I lit on my feet in the road and didn't get hurt at all. I walked the rest of the way.

One day Fred spent eight hours holding bags while buffalo feed from a railroad car at the switch at the Strongtown crossing was shoveled into them. Orlando Monroe was in charge and when they were done he asked Fred if fifty cents was enough. Unfortunately, "Father was present and said twenty-five cents was plenty for a boy of thirteen years. Don't ask me if I was mad!"

Later Orlando Monroe (d. 1938) married Anna L. Mould (Aug.15, 1865-Dec. 3, 1962), daughter of Charles and Charlotte Bennett Mould. Her first husband was Charles Phillips (d. Dec. 7, 1924).

Earning money was never easy. Another time Will Ratcliff lost a new born calf and said Fred could have the skin if he went over and skinned it himself. Fred walked the two miles and back to do it and sold the skin for twenty-five cents.

In 1891, the Tig Tag Tunnel near Fallsburgh was finished and the first passenger train passed through on June 25^th. The tunnel cost $300.00, a great sum in those days. There always seemed to be work being done on the railroad. Fred's father "stabled three teams of horses while the Strongtown trestle was being filled. They made a tunnel under the trestle six feet high and four feet wide and I went through it at that time."

Like many people in the area, Gill Gorton took in renters and boarders when he could.

Gid Young and his wife lived in part of our home and when his alarm went off it would wake us up as Floyd and I slept just over their rooms. Tony Meek and his wife rented the Little Barn next to our spring in the north pasture and his wife used to carry water in a wash tub on her head and a pail of water in each hand besides.

In 1893, the cottage on the next lot was rented to Willis Meyer, the Free Methodist minister who preached in Liberty Falls and in Briscoe, eight miles away.

One night he hadn't gotten home by one o'clock. His wife began to pray at the top of her voice. Our home was 400' away so it woke all of us up. Father threatened to shoot the gun off but the minister got home safely.

This was the era of the large boarding house. In 1886, Summer Homes listed three farmhouses in the Liberty Falls area with guest accommodations: W. K. Loder, Mrs. W. W. Bartholomew, and John Clements. As former Sullivan County Historian Manville B. Wakefield puts it: "Ferndale, Liberty Falls in those bucolic years, was a microcosm of the pioneer farm boarding house industry in Sullivan County. By 1910 four 'classic' farm boarding houses were located more or less within walking distance of John T. Clark's famous pavilion on Lake Ophelia--the Clements Lake Farm House, the Nichols Boarding House, the Pinney House, and the Ferndale Villa." The Nichols Boarding House later gained worldwide fame as Grossinger's Hotel.

Fred's first real job was working for Cynthia Ernhout, his mother's sister, at her house in Liberty. [Cynthia Misner Ernhout (May 27, 1833-Nov. 19, 1903)]He earned $3.00 for ten days work plus a tip of fifty cents. Cynthia's husband, Henry Ernhout, built the White Sulphur Springs House in what was then called Robertsonville. According to Fred, Uncle Henry was responsible for changing Robertsonville to White Sulphur Springs because he made a pond in the brook, put in four barrels of sulphur, and began to sell baths to the city people for twenty-five cents a bath.

Fred's next job was with Aaron Stanton.[d. Nov. 30, 1941 @ 76; m. Lillie Beebe, daughter of Richard; she d. Sept. 16, 1964 @ 94] He spent two weeks haying for him, earned $9.00, and boarded with his Aunt Ann Hall. This was in July, 1893. David Hall had died in June. Ann kept up his diary. In October of that year his brother Ai left home for good and took Fred's place at their Aunt Cynthia's.

Living in Liberty village, even for brief periods, would have been very different from life on the farm. There was no electric power yet but there was a man named Harry Atkins who drove a two-wheeled gig and lit kerosine street lights at nightfall. Fred saw his first moving picture in the Music Hall over B.F. Green's store.

It was hard to believe in a picture where the horses stopped for a drink in the brook. I think I attended a clam bake in the Schaeffer and Lennon Grove the same day. Later my brother Cecil rented the hall but made a failure. He couldn't get the good shows as he didn't have connections with the right people.

Another brother, Leslie, got into some trouble at about this time.

Three boys at Ferndale about twelve years old got some blasting powder at the blacksmith's shop and put it in the anvil in a hole 3" square. They covered it up and set it off, making a loud noise. The second time they tried it a little spark was left in the hole and when the powder was put in an explosion burned brother Leslie's eyebrows and eye lashes off. He was blinded for three days.

When Fred was fourteen and his brother George eighteen, they took two jobs together. They strung telephone poles from Ferndale to the Strongtown Church.

With Father's team we tied a rag on the hind wheel of the wagon and counted the revolutions to measure the distance between one pole location to another. Lewis Wheeler refused to let them put any poles on his property as he owned both sides of the road. Cassie and Mrs. Wheeler sat over the holes dug on his roadside. Old Lew pushed one of the men, and they arrested him and took him to Monticello. The men dug two extra holes while the women sat over the first two and set two poles while Old Wheeler was in Monticello and strung a wire from one new pole to the other. Mr. Wheeler threatened to chop them down but he got counsel and decided not to get his fingers burned.

In August, when the dust on the road was thick, Fred and George drove twenty-three head of cows from a half mile above Liberty village to Warwick in Orange County, a distance of thirty-eight miles. They spent one night in Middletown, where the maid told them they ought to get a bath but neither would. They took the O&W train home. The drover paid for their tickets, but their father didn't give them anything for two days of driving cattle.

The Gorton boys dug a round pond on Old Hickory in August of 1893. It took three weeks to finish because they had to dig black muck out of an area 100' across and 7' deep. It was a very dry season and the weather hot, so while the boys dug their father held and filled the scraper and between times sat under a 5' umbrella used for advertising by the Liberty merchant whose name was on it. The boys drove a yoke of bulls, Dan and Noten, and a team of horses, Topsy and Daisy, to help them, and spread potters clay on the bottom until it was as smooth as a house floor. The pond was filled with surface water.

We started to build a dam across the gully below the pond, but Father said the water backing up would kill the trees above. I still think with a boat we would have a better and longer ride and running water besides, but Father was the boss. We went swimming naked and it was in sight of the highway. Later we stocked the pond with bullheads or catfish from the Hilldale or Jackson Smith Pond. The Hilldale Lake was at one time a sawmill owned by Jackson Smith. This place was formerly known as Jockey Hollow. This pond is a half mile long and reaches nearly to the Brown Hotel on Loch Sheldrake Road. Many fine pickerel have been caught in a tip up through the ice and in summer catfish are good eating.

The boys often caught fish in the pond with a bob. A bob was "fish worms strung and tied together like a ball." In winter they cut ice and sold it to neighbors who came with bobsleds to draw it home. Their father gave them a cent a cake for cutting it. Sad to say, the Rt. 17 Quickway now runs right through the Gorton pond and "destroyed it and many good meadows."

In January of 1894, four of the Gorton boys were at home with the measles. Horace Wheeler caught them and they rapidly spread through the entire school. On one occasion they were left alone while Gill went to Joel Crispell's [Joel Crispell (1845-1898) m. Anna Salina Sparling (d. Nov. 4, 1914 @60)] to turn a calf that was coming wrong end to. Fred was put in charge. This meant he had to fetch water for his brothers and comfort Leslie, who was cold and convinced that he was dying. All in all, however, the boys had the time of their lives while they were recovering. They didn't have to work, and one day they found some chunks of blasting powder the size of kernels of corn.

We made a cannon out of a piece of wood 4" in diameter and bored an inch hole about 10" deep and made a small hole for a fuse used in blasting rocks. We ground the blasting powder in an old coffee grinder with a crank. To try it out we just put in one or two kernels of powder and it didn't spark so we put in a half handful at a time and ground it up ready to use. We put some powder in the cannon and used paper tamped in tight over the powder, then inserted a bolt. I touched a match to the fuse in the little hole and it blew the bolt out with a loud bang. It sure was fun. I still wonder why the coffee mill didn't blow up and maybe blow our heads off.

Young Fred was relatively free of illness. Only one man in Liberty caught the dread smallpox, around 1890, because fear of the disease had led to vaccination. In the Liberty area the serum was provided by the Crispell family but Fred refused to be vaccinated because he believed the Crispells had scrofula of the blood. He was also reluctant because he had heard of another boy who had the serum in the arm, then in the leg because it didn't take, then in both the arm and the leg, and had ended up laid up for a week when it finally worked. The doctors worked twenty hours a day trying to vaccinate everyone, but Fred eluded them. Fortunately, he did not catch smallpox. The next epidemic was chicken pox. He did catch that, but suffered no ill effects.

On Saturday nights the young men of Liberty Falls congregated at the Manion store. There was no dance hall, no radio, no television. The middle class had victrolas, but farm boys did not. In the 1890s platform dances came into vogue. The first in the area was in part of Jim Wheeler's house in Stevensville (now Swan Lake). Its music was provided by someone playing accordion or violin and passing the hat after. From 9PM until 1AM, eight couples at a time could dance. Another dance platform was built near the Liberty Depot in Schaeffer and Lennon Grove, where the Conductors' Clambakes were held until 1898.

Fred was still in school at this time but he, Floyd, and Leslie went to Liberty, where they paid tuition of $5.00 as non-residents. One year the professor gave Fred a receipt but forgot to enter it on the stub. Later Frank Dodge (Frank M. Dodge d. March 14, 1955 @ 88; m. Nettie Chapman (d. Dec. 12, 1936); of Young, Messiter and Dodge) of the school board came to the farm to collect but Fred's father had always told him to save receipts, so he was able to find it in his trunk and save having to pay twice.

Because they had not been taught grammar at Strongtown school, the Gortons had to take fifth grade grammar in Liberty, but Fred did excel in drawing and was also in an advanced class with four girls. He walked home for a time with Edna Baker, who lived on his way.

Her father thought I wasn't the right kind of boy to be in his daughter's company. I never asked her why she didn't walk along with me anymore but many years after he bragged about it and told me she never went along with me after that. Had I known how he felt about it, I would have made an effort to see her on the sly. She never married and he denied himself a grandchild.

Before long, Fred was commuting by bicycle. He bought his first bike from his brother Ai when he was fourteen for $1.25, never learned to ride it, and sold it to Leslie for $2.00 ten months later. This was his first speculation. When he did learn to ride he got the nickname Scorcher because he could cover the distance between Liberty school and the farm in eleven minutes.

One day when I was scorching through the village just past the Steenrod Bridge, two boys were playing horse with lines on. They passed right in front of me and I was going so fast I couldn't stop and hit John Ernhout (d. Feb. 13, 1954 @ 63; m. Edna Grant, who d. May 15, 1966 @77) and skinned his leg. I came back to see if he was hurt but he denied it. Some years later he told me he got an ugly gash on his leg.

The second winter the boys boarded with their Aunt Cynthia from Monday night to Friday and their father came for them on Friday after school. They still did a lot of traveling on foot, however. One day Fred decided to go to Stevensville to visit Eunice Wheeler, a girl who had kissed him after a Free Methodist service.

The Jim Wheeler farm was 1½ miles south of Stevensville store (Stevensville was 5½ miles south of Liberty) and all of them thought I had a horse in Stevensville. I was very tired in school the next day.

One day as I came along to Hoos bakery there was a boy with a bag of evergreen. It was just before Christmas. Ralph Fisk (d. Oct. 25, 1938 @ 55; lineman) grabbed the heavy bag and tried to hit me with it. I ducked and the plate glass in Hoos's window was smashed. It cost his mother $25. The Hoos family had a set of twins, too, Fred and Hank. Fred had two fingers off which he got caught in his father's ice cream freezer. The Hoos boys used to tread the bread dough with their bare feet.

On August 31, 1894, David Hall's diary (at that point being kept by his widow, Ann) contains the following note, amended by Fred:

We with brother Gill came home on the way to the Falls. He fell from the wagon and was quite bad hurt. (Fred Gorton witnessed the fall and grabbed the wheel to prevent his getting run over. We were taking Celia to the train for New Paltz College.)

There is some discrepancy here as Fred elsewhere lists her as one of his teachers in Strongtown. He does not mention his father's injury again.

Aaron Stanton bought the Hall farm, which he had been working before, in 1894, and hired Fred and Floyd to cut twenty-four cords of stove wood that winter. By then the Halls were in Liberty.

Also in Liberty was a girl named Abbie Bengel. At sixteen, Fred took her to a camp meeting in Gerow Grove, later the site of the Triangle Diner. There were large maple trees there. He owned no overcoat and it was late fall so when they stopped on the way back to her home to sit on a large rock she generously gave him part of her long skirt to sit on. Back at her house, since her parents were then in Germany, her sisters Rose and Libbie chaperoned. [see Appendix III for more on the Bengel family.]

A stuffed tabby cat about 15" high was sitting on the floor next to Abbie. I sat across the room so when I looked in another direction she grabbed tabby and socked me, throwing it very hard so it knocked my wind out. She said she was sorry but I think it delighted her to get the best of me. I went to Orange County to work and never called on her again.

For awhile, however, he didn't think he was going to make it home. He took a short cut through the woods in back of her home that led to the Free Methodist Church and halfway there, on a night so dark he had to look at the stars to find his direction, he heard a bobcat cry out.

A shrill scream, and then a sobbing noise, like a baby after being spanked. My hat raised up and nearly fell off. I was never so scared in my life. I expected the bobcat would scratch out my eyes. These cats, sometimes called wildcats, reach up to thirty pounds when grown and will pounce on a deer's head, cut the jugular vein, and have venison for a week. I reached the highway safely and never went through that woods again.

While Fred had remained on the farm, his brother Floyd had taken a job with Clark Gorton. He got $15 and board for three months' work. Clark owned land by the Strongtown school but also bought the Sergeant place and Floyd used to come there with the team to plow and put in crops. One day he left the team for a moment and they ran home.

We used to have a green box to put our savings in when we were growing up. Floyd spent most of his money. I saved mine and Father would always make up the difference at New Years because we were twins. But when Floyd brought home the $45 it was too much for Father to give me to match. I got nothing.

It was this sort of thing that prompted Fred to leave home. It was an accepted fact that the farm would go to George, the oldest son. In fact, as his father had done with him before, Gill made an arrangement to lease the farm to George, give him a quarter of the milk check, and give him board. The younger brothers "milked all the cows and all George did was fodder them." While George drove cows for Will Ratcliff, "we foolishly washed his milk cans for ten cents." George cut no wood, nor did he help Fred and Leslie draw out the thirty-nine loads of manure using Maud and Daisy for a team.

Milk was a profitable source of income most years. Gill kept twenty-five cows and shipped four forty-quart cans of milk a day to New York City on the O&W. They charged ten cents a can freight and half the milk bill was depleted for feed during the year, so one year farmers got only forty-seven cents a can for milk. A good milk cow sold for $35 and a newly born calf for $1.00.

Fred worked for Will Ratcliff for two months, receiving $17.00 plus board. One evening they had two or three loads of hay all cocked up ready to draw in and a thunder shower came up. Will asked Fred to help get a load of hay in after supper and by dark they drove into the barn just as it began to pour. He gave Fred ten cents. If he had given him twenty-five cents, Fred would have been pleased, but as it was his discontent was growing.

He did get one day off during that summer, to go to Hurleyville for the grand opening of a hotel that had just changed management. It was July 2^nd and they had a greased pig race. Fred caught the pig, but Ben Kyle (who later married Emma Van Inwegen) took it away from him. In a wheelbarrow race he won over Link Lawrence and got a silver watch, but it wouldn't run unless the case was open.

On July 7, 1896, Fred's opportunity to escape came. One Charles Calkins (Jan. 1, 1872-Nov. 22, 1956; Harris, N.Y.), farmhand for Miss Martha Reeves, came to Old Hickory to ask Gill if he had a boy who wanted a job. Fred was quick to offer himself at $17.00 a month for four months if washing as well as board was included. The farm was in Orange County, between Middletown and the little hamlet of Slate Hill, and Fred got on the train at the Strongtown crossing without saying goodbye to anyone, not even his sister Janette, who had put a little Testament in his luggage. She wrote to him quite often while he was away, but he didn't pay much attention to her advice or her Bible.

Miss Reeves was about fifty years old and owned the 110 acre farm and a locked shed in Middletown. Fred tied the horse there when he took her into the town to do her shopping. The farm, which was known for its chestnut, black walnut, and butternut trees, housed thirty cows and a dog named Hubert who helped herd. Most of the work, however, was done by the three hired men--Fred, Calkins, and Will Freeman. They were up at 5AM to milk, did the haying, cut corn, and raised wheat which they took to the mill to be ground into flour. They were rarely done until 7 at night.

The David Reeves farm cornered with Martha Reeves's place and for a time Fred called on Cora Calkins there, but Cora called him a little fraud and laughed at him. She never went out with him and later married Fred Bengel. Martha Reeves's hired girl was Grace McIntosh (m. John Van Allen of Middletown), a redhead, and when her sister Hattie (d. Sept. 18, 1963 @ 88; Mrs. George Alexandria), who had glaring black hair, and a friend, came to visit her, Fred and Will Freeman took them to Midway Park to a show that evening. Afterwards

the girls suggested we go for a walk out in the woods apart from anyone, which we did. Hattie suggested we separate, but both of us being timid souls didn't know the score, so we stood around for awhile and took the girls back to their homes in Middletown in the trolley, then returned to the farm, about two miles out of Middletown. The girls must have thought we were either dumb or afraid of the outcome.

David Reeves hired a colored girl, Milly Hardy, from the South. One evening, she and Fred were alone in the kitchen and she told him he was very hard to get acquainted with. Then, as Fred puts it, "Milly rolled all over the floor." [Editor's Note: I haven't got a clue whether that's supposed to be a euphemism for something kinky or not. Fred never explained.]

He bought a Columbia bicycle for $11.00. All the farm hands had bicycles and used them to go to different villages on Sunday afternoons. The Columbia weighed forty-four pounds, however, as opposed to the twenty-six pound weight of most of the other bikes. One Sunday they went to Westtown and on the way back Fred got lost and had to ask directions. It was his first trip and he got cramps in his legs from all that pedaling. Later, in the fall, he bought a second hand Rambler with inner tubes, clincher tires, and 63 gears. To compute the gear, he had to use the diameter in inches of the hind wheel (28") times the front sprockets (18 teeth) and divide by seven teeth in the hind sprocket.

As the summer wore on, Fred became quite attached to Grace McIntosh. He called her "Huckleberry" because once, when Miss Reeves sent him to find out why she hadn't returned, he met her by the berry patch and grabbed her.

I used to hug her front to front when no one was looking. I was eighteen and never had but one girl I was intimate with. I liked Grace very much but was too shy to ask her my heart's desire and she mostly pushed me away if I got too fresh. She was too strong to be pushed over so I realized nothing doing. As she was the age of marriage she was after a husband and kept herself straight. She expected to get one of the three young men who worked at the farm.

She had a pet name for him, too, and her girlfriends called him "beautiful teeth" behind his back. Fred and Grace had their picture taken together, but then, on September 11, 1896

Will Freeman and I went on an excursion to Coney Island. It cost $1.00 for the round trip. We rode in the chute and landed in a pond below. When we came on the grounds we met two women with bare legs clear up. You can guess what that done to me! We had our picture taken for twenty-five cents with two strange girls.

They were all in bathing suits. When Grace saw that photo she was offended and that was the end of her friendship with Fred. She wouldn't have anything more to do with Will Freeman, either. Fred kept both the photograph of himself and Grace and the one with the two "pickups."

While he was at the Reeves farm, Fred also corresponded with a girl back home, Lizzie MacKay, but when he returned to Sullivan County he didn't even call on her. He did not really want to return home. He answered an advertisement in the Middletown paper the next spring for a young man to live in and do all work. They had hired someone else the day before, but the man had a brother, a banker, who wanted a boy. He had a fine residence but he wanted a slave, not a servant. Fred would have had to

get up at four o'clock in the morning, clean up the bank, exercise the pony, wait on his wife, do her dishes and do my own washing. I must not be on the street at night, or see girls. I would get $10.00 per month and if I stayed until Christmas I would get $25.00 as a present.

Instead, Fred hired out to David Reeves at $15.00 a month for seven months. There he bought a new bicycle, an Arlington, which he rode across the single track railroad to go after the cows. It cost $25.00 and when Fred took out an insurance policy with Prudential in 1898, he included the bike on it. It was that same policy, which cost him $24.33 a year, on which he borrowed money fifteen years later to buy the lot on which he built his house.

Meanwhile, in Liberty Falls, the Gorton boys were scouting around to get the signatures required to change the name of the post office to Ferndale. The change became official on July 5. In Liberty, a power plant was built in 1896 under the supervision of William Sunderland and in 1897 Main Street had electric service under the auspices of Liberty Light and Power Company. It would be several more years, however, before there were electric streetlights.

Fred had a narrow escape while working for David Reeves. He had loaded a 22 rifle, ready to shoot some chipmunks, and left it, already cocked, behind the feed box in the barn. A neighbor boy by the name of Van Norwick came in, found it, and aimed it at him for a joke. Fortunately, it didn't go off.

By the turn of the century, railroads were booming. Not only did trains carry milk and passengers, but also coal. At nineteen, Fred went to work for a few months for Doug Eronimous, Section Boss at Liberty. He earned $1.05 a day for a ten our day. One day he had his head down, scraping cinders at the Ernhout Switch, when a shout from the brakeman warned him that a boxcar was headed straight at him. If he had been any slower it would have butted him in the head and very likely killed him. He jumped just in time.

In spite of his experience as a section hand, Fred soon returned to the O&W, together with his brother Floyd, to lay down new rails. They were putting in rails thirty feet long and weighing 950 pounds each to replace rails of the same length that only weighted 750 pounds. The twins were part of a gang of seven men supervised by Frank Root. The other five were Italians. They got $1.20 a day for their work, but it was hard and tempers flared. Once one of the Italians, called Skinny, provoked Fred into telling him to go to Hell. This upset Skinny, who lifted the rail tongs as if to strike him and told him to shut up. "You told me to go to Hell!" he shouted. "You told me to shut up!" Fred yelled back. Before they could come to blows another member of the section gang, Pete, who was a large man, intervened and quieted them down. Recalling the incident in 1963, Fred remarked that "from that time until now I never told anyone to go to Hell. I came very near getting clobbered over the head."

Fred's next job was with Charles Carpenter, another farmer (d. Sept. 13, 1925 @ 67 in Middletown; wife Mary d. Nov. 1, 1961 @ 91). Carpenter put him to work digging a ditch from the spring to his barn so the water would run by gravity through 1½" galvanized pipe some 300' down a hillside.

I used to swear a lot when at the Reeves farm and at Carpenter's I moved a large flat stone but slipped and the stone caught my first finger and I jerked loose and it took off my nail. I swore bloody murder. Mrs. Carpenter heard me and said she had no idea I was such a profane man. Since then I have taken the name of God very little in vain, as I am ashamed of such language.

In 1899, Fred went to work at the Hall House, later the Lenape Hotel, in Liberty, for John Hall (d. July, 1937 @ 90). Fred was there three months at $16.00 a month but got no wages until the end of that time. He did get tips, however, and an all-time high of $2.00 from a lady who sent him to take her wooden leg to the blacksmith to be repaired. Most of the tips were twenty-five or fifty cents and some jobs, like carrying trunks up two or three flights of stairs from the wagons that brought them from the depot, brought no tips at all.

While working at the Hall House from 5AM to 7PM every day, Fred took a second job tending bar at the Mansion Hotel that lasted until 2:30 AM. The next day he was so sleepy that when he went to work in the garden he dozed off. Still half asleep, he thought a strange girl came up and talked to him. It could have been a dream, or she could have been one of the city girls he met at the platform dances. He went to Eureka Park on upper Chestnut Street, where it cost five cents a corner to dance and eight couples could be on the floor at a time.

Mr. Kaye, the manager, would get a partner for you, ask any girl whether a stranger or not to dance, so we had no trouble to get a partner to dance with. We wasn't even introduced. Most were city girls anyway.

There was a masquerade dance one time where the men wore false faces and the girls old fashioned dresses. Another time there was a cake walk where the prize was a whole cake, complete with candles, which the Killion sisters won.

A fellow and a girl came on the dance floor and he began picking something off of her dress called the devil's pitchfork or cuckler. Everybody started to laugh. They knew what they must have been up to.

Fred went out walking with quite a few of the young women who worked at the Hall House (a seven day week for $4.00). He took Grace Hosier out one night and when he left her at the door next to the Halls' bedroom on the first floor, she kissed him on the lips. Mrs. Hall knew about it and laughed at him.

Other lady friends included Anna Zarick, Christine Muhlig (m Horton Parks who d. Feb. 4, 1945 @ 75), Edna DeBoyce, Clara Kenworthy, Mattie DePuy, and two others whose names he could not afterward recall. One was the girl who peeled potatoes and helped the cook, a big fat Dutch widow who used to give Fred pumpkin jack, what was left over from the pie filling. There were also three girls named Ida--Ida Johnson, Ida Cooley (d. Dec. 1934; m. Floyd Randall), and Ida Kirby. The latter jilted Fred. He had begun to carry a bottle of apple wine about with him and when he offered her some she was convinced he was a toper. She refused to go out walking with him again. Seeing his mistake, Fred threw the nearly full bottle against a stone wall and never indulged in spirits again. [Editor's Note: In spite of this claim, there was one instance when he did. See the diary entry for Sept. 17, 1937.]

It was during this time at the Hall House that Fred rode his bicycle out to a gypsy camp and had his fortune told. The gypsy said that two girls lived very near him. One, with big blue eyes, wouldn't have him. The other, if he married her, would drag him through the dirt. He stayed away from Grace Hosier ("the kissing dame") because of this warning. He was also warned to stay away from gambling because he would lose. He'd had little experience with that. When he was about fourteen, he'd tried for a chance on one of the ten turkeys at a turkey raffle at the blacksmith shop in Liberty Falls. He sold his rematch at dice to Bill Manion, making a profit of forty cents for a ten cent investment, but Manion won the turkey by throwing three aces and it was worth about a dollar. After the gypsy warning, Fred once won twelve cents in a dice game but he took her seriously and did not indulge again.

The other Gorton brothers were not so temperate. George won a black sheep in the same raffle where Fred lost a turkey. Another time three of the brothers were playing cards at home on a Sunday. When their sister Janette told their father that they shouldn't and he made them stop, they picked up their game and moved to Charles Farquhar's hotel across the Falls Brook from the blacksmith shop to finish. Their mother concluded that nothing had been gained by sending them to a hotel to finish a card game.

When Fred left the Hall House on October 6, 1899, John Hall gave him a letter of recommendation. He then worked for the Ferncliff Hotel for a month, taking the team to draw manure from the livery stables and setting shrubs and doing general handyman work. He drew the line, however, at getting up once he had gone to bed to put away his employer's horse. The man had taken his daughter to the theater and came home late expecting Fred to be at his beck and call. When Fred refused to get up, he was fired.

In the fall of 1899, Fred went to Fallsburgh to visit his Uncle Jim (James B. Misner; Jan. 1, 1822-Dec. 15, 1908) and Aunt Wealthy (Palmer) Misner and to Woodbourne to visit his Uncle Billy Misner (William A. Misner; Feb. 1, 1824-Feb. 1, 1907; m. Mary Loder). Uncle Billy's son Norman took him hunting rabbits and told him to stand where the dog started on the scent because a rabbit would circle in the woods and come right back to where it started from. Sure enough, in about twenty minutes, the rabbit appeared, but as Fred raised his gun to fire, "Norman ran right in range of my fire, laying down his gun, and chased the rabbit into a woodchuck hole. I could have shot the rabbit if Norman had stayed put. I was so mad I swore I would never go hunting again. I kept my word."

In 1900, Fred went to work for Mary Carrier (see Appendix III) on her farm. One day he was sent to Liberty with Old Prince and the buckboard to pick up the new girl and her trunk. Her name was Daisy Steenrod. On June 7^th, he asked her to go to the singing school the Free Methodists had at Billy Bartholomew's home. He had no faith she would go with him, but she said yes.

I bought a red letter Testament of them, and we walked back to the Carrier place. I didn't even kiss her goodnight. At that time, Daisy was just another girl. I liked Gertrude Evans quiet well, but one Sunday afternoon she and I were together and Will Bartholomew came into the orchard where Gertie and I were sitting in a hammock and she went to another hammock with Will. Soon Daisy came there. I grabbed her and set her down in the Rabbi Silverstein's hammock and forced her to lie down. In spite of her protest, I slipped her ankle-length dress to her knees and put my leg between them. Later we said we "got crossed."

When he walked her back to the house he kissed her lips and never courted another girl. They sat in the hammock in the orchard every evening and one time when some of the young people were "jumping around in the hay bay . . . by some freak accident my hand went under her clothes much higher than was proper and I felt bare skin. The old maid, Mary Carrier, said 'she being there' witnessed the affair, and told Daisy it was an insult, and that she should have nothing to do with such a bold young man."

Fred, however, did not apologize. One night when they were in their hammock, two women, Mrs. Wahr and Mrs. Waldren, sneaked up on them to spy, but the hammock was near a stone wall and they gave themselves away by dislodging a stone.

Daisy was scared so I had to hold her tight and explain that skunks always travel at night. When we got back to the Carrier kitchen in came Mrs. Wahr and Mrs. Waldren and I explained how a skunk had pushed a stone off the wall. The two women's faces were red.

Fred had two narrow escapes while working for Mary Carrier. She had a foolish boy working for her who helped Fred saw wood and one day he was helping in the barn. When Fred asked him to go up into the hay mow and throw down some straw, however, he refused, saying he would fall down.

So I went up there myself on a scaffold on one side with boards on it. I stepped on one board and it broke and let me fall to the barn floor on my head. My head felt as if it was cracked open but I lay still to see if Henry would say anything. Pretty soon he said, "I'm glad it wasn't me."

Later, because it was a very dry season, Fred was sent to draw water from a brook south of the farm.

I loaded two large barrels on the stone boat and drove down to the brook. I let the team trot down the hill, but the bolt which held the chain to the whiffletree slid out and I saw the whiffletree up in the air. I was still holding the lines, and was jerked in the air as high as the horses' backs. I let loose and landed on my face in the road. My face was so skinned I couldn't shave for a week. The team ran down to the brook and crossed the barbed wire fence where one of them, Thetus, got a foot caught between two wires. I got her out and drove them back to the stone boat and got the two barrels of water.

When he brought them home, Daisy saw his face and washed it very gently for him. It was then he knew she loved him, but just how much was determined when he decided to put her to a test.

I stepped in some fresh cow dung and came to the table for dinner. She always sat straight across from me and our feet sometimes touched. I dabbed some of the filth on her shoes and long skirt. To my surprise, she didn't blow up about it. I said to myself, what a good wife she would make. She could make her dresses, trim a hat, cook a meal, and enjoyed the same religion.

In fact, while working at the Carrier place, they went to Arrat Camp Meeting together.

We had to change from the railroad and walk quite a distance to the campground. There was a large tent with seats where the service was held. I slept in a tent with eight other men. Our meals cost $3.50 for the week. A short, stocky woman got up to testify what the Lord had done for her and jumped up and down and hollered "Glory! Glory! Glory!" until she was out of breath. After the evening service all the people would march around the place and sometimes someone would fall because they were overcome with the Spirit and you couldn't feel any pulse for possibly five minutes. Reverend Tamblyn was the preacher. Daisy took a large valise along with much clothing and on the return it got mislaid. Two weeks later it was returned with nothing missing. The Reverand John Cavanew, the one armed rebel, preached part time.

All through their courtship, Daisy also had a second beau. Every Sunday Ralph Main hired a horse and took her for a drive. He had no idea Fred sat with Daisy in the orchard every night. He found out when the two of them stood up for Jenny Main and George Hutchinson at their wedding and the minister offered to tie the knot for them too. Daisy primly announced that she was engaged to another man.

Daisy Steenrod had not had an easy life before she met Fred. Her father died when she was four, leaving her mother with two boys from her previous marriage, two by Steenrod, and eight Steenrod stepchildren. Fortunately, most were grown, but Daisy's brother Edwin soon became a problem and had to be sent to his Uncle Charles in Wisconsin to be brought up. As for Daisy, she was hired out at the age of ten to a couple who expected her to wash dishes, churn, keep house, and sleep in a garret where rats ran over her at night. When, two weeks later, her mother came for a visit, she learned the facts and took Daisy away with her. Later Daisy went to work at the Meeker Hotel, a boarding house. Her brother came back from Wisconsin and worked there too while their mother lived on the widow's pension she had because her first husband was killed in the Civil War.

On March 7, 1889, Daisy's mother wrote in her autograph album:

On June 8, 1895, when she was nineteen, Daisy did the right thing by turning down a marriage proposal from George Brendon, a dairy farmer who told her she would have to milk cows if she married him. She replied that her hands were too small.

What probably strengthened Fred's desire to marry Daisy was his brother George's wedding on October 24, 1900. Fred drove the wedding party to the train using George's horse Pete and a horse borrowed from Clark Gorton. The boys had tied tin cans and old shoes to the hind axle which made such a clatter that George ordered his brother to cut loose the excess baggage. George began keeping house in the cottage originally built for Grace.

Meanwhile, Fred went to work for Clark Gorton, planting apples and thrashing buckwheat and oats. They cradled their own grain in those days using a four fingered cradle with a broad blade and laid it in rows with the grain or heads to one side. This was raked by hand into shieves or bunches for buckwheat and bundles for oats. Fred thrashed many bushels of grain on the barn floor with a flail and cleaned it with a fanning mill turned by hand with a blower to remove the chaff from the grain.

All the time he was at Clark Gorton's, Fred walked to Liberty (about five miles) twice a week to call on Daisy. His cousin had three horses in the barn but Fred was too proud to ask to borrow one, even in winter. On March 24, 1901, he wrote in Daisy's autograph book:

He worked, briefly, at the Buckley Hotel, but left Liberty, and indeed the state, to go to Torrington, Connecticut and work for James Bonney (d. May 27, 1940 @ 80) as a carpenter. When the carpentry work ran out, Fred got a job with Charles Kirsch but was laid off. He came home and straight to Daisy. He stayed with his aunt in Liberty until their wedding on June 25.

They were married at the Randall home on Orchard Street, where Daisy and her mother lived and where Fred would live for a time after the wedding.[Walter Randall died June 11, 1952 @ 81. He was married to Ellen M. Hall (1871-Oct. 26, 1940)] Mr. and Mrs. Randall were witnesses and when Fred asked Walter Randall to get a box of cigars to celebrate, he also returned with a lot of people, some of whom Fred didn't even know. Some turned out to be Daisy's relatives. In any event, he gave out forty-one cigars. At the wedding itself there had been, in addition to the Randalls, only his mother and father and Daisy's mother. To Fred's relief,

when the wedding vows were said, "If anybody objects to this union speak now or forever hold your piece," Ma Steenrod kept still.

© 2005 Kathy Lynn Gorton Emerson. All rights reserved.
Last updated 2/19/2005