THE LIFE OF A PLODDER

FRED GORTON'S 95 YEARS

Part Two

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 Two of the memoirs of Fred Gorton, consisting of Chapter Three and Chapter Four 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, and APPENDIX 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

CHAPTER THREE: THE MARRIED MAN

Just before his marriage, Fred boarded with Ann Hall, who rented rooms of Seth Annis (d. March 19, 1938 @ 79) on Clements Street in Liberty. Fred worked for B.F. Crawford, paid $1.25 for a ten hour day spent building the William Feitner house on Dwyer Avenue.[There were two William Feitners. William Sr. d. Oct. 25, 1936 @ 75; he owned the movie house and was an elder in the church; William Jr. d. Sept. 10, 1961 @ 82) After the wedding, Fred moved into the Randall house with Daisy and her mother, paying $6 a month for their lodgings at 24 Orchard Street. Daisy worked in Van Fredenberg's Laundry and Fred continued to work as a carpenter. Ma Steenrod, as a condition of the marriage, was to live with them until her death.

During that summer and fall, Fred worked for Crawford, then for Thaddeus Jackson (d. May 24, 1915). Jackson hired him at $1.75 a day but he later cut the pay back to $1.50. While working for him, Fred built Lew Bennet's (d. Nov. 9, 1941) house and a large barn on the Abel Gregory place in Upper Frog Hollow. [There were two Abel Gregorys. Abel Sr. (1875-1900) and Abel Jr. (d. Jan. 18, 1919)] Fred also did some work for Ada Moffett (Ada Ernhout Moffett, d. April 22, 1917) on the White Sulphur Springs House. Unfortunately, Jackson was often late with his payroll, and when he ended up owing Fred $60.00, the young carpenter threatened to quit. Jackson paid off but Fred went to work for James Dice anyway.

James Dice built a cottage for Charles Syreen with two bay windows. Fred lathed some of the rooms and carried hod for Fred Sebold to lay the chimney. A relative of Mr. Dice's, Fred Bailey, came to work after the subfloor was laid over the cellar. Dice left Bailey in charge to put up one side of the 2x4s. They were using shipslap for stays, but Bailey didn't know to spike 2x4s for the corners or how to stay them, so the crew did all the work. They had two sides up and stayed when Dice returned and told Bailey "he done a fine job." [Editor's Note: elsewhere Fred says a James D. Bailey (d. Jan. 17, 1958 @ 68) sold sand and used to work for James Dice.]

One day Dice asked Fred if he could butcher a veal calf. For butchering and skinning the calf, Fred earned a four or five pound piece of veal.

Archie Dice [Archie G. Dice (July 14, 1890-Feb. 27, 1954) married Daisy May Stanton (July 9, 1893-April 30, 1961) on April 26, 1916] was in charge of building a cottage next to the later site of WVOS. It was very cold by then, only ten degrees above zero, but Fred showed up for work as usual and shingled the front porch in that weather. That was the end of the building season for the year, however.

In 1902, Fred saw his first automobile go by. He heard it first, when it was nearly a half mile away. Gould Barlow [d. 1914; m. Jennie Messiter (d. March 21, 1917); worked for Young, Messiter and Dodge) was the first Liberty man to own a power auto. It was two feet high and eight or nine feet long and had no back up lever. To turn it around, he lifted the back end up and swung it the opposite way. Barlow took Gill Gorton to Cold Spring and home again in this peculiar machine.

Dr. Whitcomb (Dr. H. C. L. Whitcomb, who died before 1916) bought a car called a steamer. He had his office in the Solomon Royce home. In 1902 there were very few autos. There were dirt roads and when a horse met an auto it was so scared it would rear up and give a jump to get by.

In November of 1902, Fred and Daisy rented the James Gray farm in Ferndale--forty acres, a horse, two cows, and a few starved chickens. Fred paid the taxes and agreed that the Gray family could spend three months of every year there and have the use of the horse, Old Nell, to do their shopping when convenient. James Gray (d. c. 1937 @ 78) was a printer in Brooklyn, where he had a thriving business, but he sold out to study law. After he passed the bar he was flat broke and had six children to support. The farm was run down, Fred was not permitted to cut wood on the land, half the hay had been sold to Billy Bartholomew, and one year Mrs.Gray stayed on almost all of one year, crowding the Gortons into three rooms. This was Rose Gould Gray, who d. Nov. 8, 1947 @ 80. "The last survivor of the Grays" was daughter Rose Gray, who died Aug. 26, 1966.

In spite of all these annoyances, Fred did all right for himself while the family lived on the Gray farm. He fatted up the horse, made the place into a working farm, and did odd jobs.

In the year 1902, two brothers, Frank and Fred Webster (see Appendix III), and Chauncey Rowe, their uncle, started building a turning mill in Ferndale near Gregorys' boarding house. The dam on the West Mongaup was only four feet high but there was plenty of water before the boarding season to turn out souvenirs to sell to the city people. One job they let out and I got the contract to make little chairs seven inches high of rustic yellow pine. I made them for six cents each in the form of an arm chair, using twenty-seven pieces. I drove the beads and Daisy put them together in the evenings. I cut the little sticks at Websters' turning mill. I went to Black Lake to get the yellow pine boughs. William Bert gave the trees to me free as the Mongaup Falls Power Plant was to flood the land up to his place the next season. I started out at five o'clock one morning and returned home about sundown.

I decided to also make easels to hold pictures. The yellow pine has burs on it and I used them both above and below the picture with a strip of white birch at the top with "Liberty, NY" written on it in red paint. I did the lettering too. I could make three in an evening and sold them for twenty-five cents each. I also learned to nail on a bur to look like it grew there.

I made match boxes in the shape of a log cabin. James Goodsir (1858-1923; married Mary Edmons, who d. 1938 @ 81) took twenty-five at twenty-five cents each on my promise I would sell to no one else in Liberty. I made fifty large chairs, thirteen inches high, at twenty-five cents each for the Hope Souvenir Shop in Hurleyville. At one time I had $75 worth of souvenirs on the bed upstairs. The next year I made the same chairs, seven inches high, with white birch, heart shaped, with "Liberty, NY" printed in red at the top of the chair.

All this time I worked the Gray farm and cut all my wood for fuel from part of the Gorton farm across the Mongaup. I snaked it up to the Gregory Road and drawed it home in big chunks and sawed it into stove lengths when I got home. I left the horses, Kit and Old Nell, at the Henry Bohlen place while I cut the trees down. Fifteen hours a day was nothing for me to work.

The souvenir business run out and I raised calves and made butter. I took 1^st premium on my ten pound pail of butter at the Monticello County Fair. I also entered three Jersey cows, one Jersey calf, and one belted calf and took 1^st premium on the Jersey calf. Each premium carried a prize of $3.00. The three cows standing in stansions were nearly dried up eating hay furnished by the Fair Association. I sold the two calves for $10.00 and sold the butter to Ben Gerow for twenty cents a pound. I made butter that summer on the Gray place. The largest output for one week was forty-nine pounds. I also peddled buttermilk in Liberty Village at 2½ cents a quart. I also bought 300 pounds of onions and peddled them at fifty cents for a half bushel. I plowed gardens that summer for fifty cents and seventy-five cents per garden and let out Old Nell for a lady to ride at $1.50 for one afternoon. I drawed rhododendron with my team for George Taylor (December 12, 1854-May 16, 1933). They were dug up roots and dirt intact and shipped to different parks in and around New York and Long Island.

George Taylor was a meat peddler, who married five times. His third wife was Fred's sister, Janette. The others were Sarah Ann Farquhar, Helen Davis (Mrs. Jake Tompkins), Jennie Benedict, and Sally Knapburg. Janette married George when he was fifty and she was thirty-eight. Eight months later she had a miscarriage with pneumonia and died March 4^th, 1910 at the age of thirty-nine years and five months.

I took a contract to furnish ice for the DeBoyce Brothers at Strongtown Creamery at 2½ cents for a cake of ice18x24 and a foot thick. Ma Steenrod was living with us and objected to me taking the big ice house to fill. I hired two other teams, Bruce Frazier's and DeBoyce Brothers', at $2.50 per eight hour day and bought the ice in a little pond next to the creamery from Mrs. Wickes for $5.00. I got ice from my father's pond, which was much larger, to finish the job. DeBoyce used a power contraption to hoist the cakes of ice off our sleighs. I received an $107.00 contract but they only paid me $95.00 as the ice was thicker and didn't take as much as we expected.

I also filled Charles Hosie's (Frendale postmaster) ice house from Manion's pond with George Hutchinson and John Gray and I filled Frank Carr's for $7.00 and Ed Baker's for $7.00 the same winter. Charles Crispell bought ice from me at one cent a cake and demanded we should furnish two men to lift it on his sleighs. When I found out, I offered one man to help lift it. He quit. Father wanted me to put some ice in his ice house, which I did at my own expense.

It was sometime in 1903 when Fred had a conversation with Reverend Seward about dreams. He asked the Free Methodist preacher if he could interpret them, for Fred had dreamed that he had been lying under a hemlock tree asleep when a large turkey buzzard with a six foot wing spread hovered over him. He raised his head and it flew away. Rev. Seward wouldn't tell Fred the meaning of this dream until he promised not to take offense at it. Then he explained that a turkey buzzard is never after anything but a dead carcass. His advice to Fred was to stay alive.

Once, while living at the Gray place, Fred did nearly lose his life. He and James Gray Jr. were out with Old Nell. They had just passed a straw load carrying a number of children whose legs were hanging outside the rigging; suddenly they saw a runaway horse coming at them, two wagon wheels up in the air. Fred told James to drive into the field for safety while he ran out to save the children. He ran alongside the strange horse, missed the bridle but caught one line back of the turrets and fell under the horse. He could feel the horse's hind legs kicking him as he hung onto the line. When the horse fell, Fred came out on the other side, barely saving himself from being crushed. He unhooked the horse, righted the wagon, and was waiting with it when the owner came along and took over. James called him a hero. Daisy said he was a fool. He had a bump on his head the size of half an egg.

One year in the Coaching Parade in Liberty, Fred rode Kit and let Mrs. Ben Hasbrouck ride sidesaddle on Old Nell:

I represented Rip Van Winkle. I was dressed in an old scarecrow suit I borrowed from a neighbor and for whiskers I shredded a piece of rope 1½ " thick and 12" long. I used some red dye on my cheeks, which was hard to remove. The prize was worth fifty cents. The judges was a man and a young woman. The young woman was offered a good steak supper at the new Liberty Hotel if she would give the prize to someone not an equestrian, so I lost out. A coaching parade was largely attended each summer for many years. One time, perhaps 1907, the Bengel family were blacked up like niggers eating watermelons on a hay ride. All four girls were in it.

In 1904 the Gorton family expanded to include a son, Edwin Leslie.

Ma Steenrod still lived with them and not one of her other nine children and step-children contributed a cent to her support.

She applied for a Widow's Pension from service of her first husband. She married Steenrod six years after James Bonney died at the Battle of Fair Oaks. She received $105.00 as back pay from the time she applied until the next payment due of $12.00 a month until she died. Ma Steenrod gave me $25.00 to buy a Jersey cow of Bill Ryder. The next year I bought Blossom, a mulley cow three years old, and she had a heifer calf every year until I had the auction and sold out all six cows and the wagon canopy top (for $6.00). No one bid on Kit the horse, so I bought Sookie from Charles Crispell's auction for $26.00 and drove team all winter. In the next spring I sold Sookie for $25.00 and Kit for $60.00.

After the auction they moved to Mary Carrier's farm for the winter. Alice May Gorton was born there on November 13, 1905. She was a pretty baby except for a hair lip, which Ma Steenrod blamed on an incident which took place while Daisy was pregnant. Fred had brought a pig into the house to doctor a bite on its back. As he made stitches and drew the string together, Daisy saw what he was doing and yelled and put her finger to her mouth. Her mother said that marked the child she was carrying. Daisy did feel a sore spot within until Alice was born.

The last two weeks of her life, Ma Steenrod had to have Sophia Strasser as a live-in nurse. One night Fred went to call Sophia to wait on his mother-in-law and had a hard time waking her. He was reprimanded for staying too long in her bedroom. Cordelia Steenrod died on March 16, 1906. At the funeral her son, Sam Bonney (Samuel J. Bonney, d. June 29, 1930 @ 75; married to Avis Benson, who d. Jan. 29, 1943 @ 90), contributed $10.00, her son Jim Bonney gave $20.00, and Levi Steenrod (see Appendix III under Roy Steenrod), a step-son, added $15.00. The undertaker charged $65.00 and the pension money only paid the doctor bills. Over sixty years later, Fred was still bitter about the matter, since all three of her sons--Sam, Jim, and Ed Steenrod--had gotten "rewards" at the time of the retroactive pension payment.

The doctor told Fred and Daisy that one year was a safe time to operate on Alice's lip, but she was so healthy at five months that they took her to a Methodist free clinic in New York then. The surgeons cut her gums and drew the front together and left only a little 1/8" deep V in her upper lip. Tragically, Alice caught whooping cough at the hospital and at seven months and one day old died of convulsions. Fred remembered that she waved her hands from side to side thirty-eight times, but the doctor believed she died in no pain.

The undertaker used a two-seated surrey and put the little casket on the back seat. Fred and Daisy spent $105.00 to bury their daughter, $18.00 for expenses and the remainder for four corner posts to mark the plot in the Old Cemetery in Liberty.

In the spring of 1906, the Gortons moved to Bill Gerow's (William J. Gerow, who d. July 4, 1907; his wife Amelia d. June 14, 1924) house at 368 South Main Street and Fred went to work for Sherman Ernhout (see Appendix III). Sherman sold lumber and coal and feed. He had an engine to grind corn and used a buzz saw to chop up refuse lumber and old ties into kindling. Fred's job had many facets. He mixed feed, split kindling, which was delivered for twenty-five cents a barrel, shoveled coal up to the chute when it got low in the large bin, and emptied the spittoon. He got $30.00 a month for ten hour days but at Christmas he got a barrel of flour as a bonus. He quit that job to do more carpenter work and worked for Gurnsey Rampe on the George Stoddard (married Fanny R. Steenrod, who d. May, 1924) cottage. Rampe was pleased with Fred's work and told him that a man who could whistle or sing while at work was the kind of man to have. Fred also carried hod for the Stoddard job but Stoddard and Will Clark (see Appendix III) trimmed the house. In the winters Fred did any job he could get, even taking up carpet for a woman to clean it and then putting it back down. He also lathed the Jim Cusator house for O. P. Davis. Osmer P. Davis d. Aug. 20, 1934, his wife Caroline on June 17, 1947 @ 79. Davis was a butcher, storekeeper, and hardware merchant.

On October 21, 1906, Fred revisited his childhood home and was moved, upon his return, to write a lengthy account of his journey. This "essay" is quoted below without corrections to Fred's spelling or punctuation. Any other discrepancies are due to the editor's failure to correctly interpret Fred's handwriting.

Essay October 21, 1906. Liberty, N.Y.

I started from Mountain View Farm southward once more to make Old Hickory a visit. I crossed two iron bridges, went up a hill the road being covered with leaves, passed Simon Kahn's a retired butcher who had a wagon in his front yard with the inscription "for sale" on it, still I journeyed through Ferndale, had a chat with Frank Webster, crossed the arch bridge and next I met Chas. Hosie coming down from the depot with his daughter in the wagon with one yoke broken. I passed the butcher shop met a little dog which acted very friendly, he put his fore paws against me which got my Sunday pants quite dirty following close behind came a tall lady asking where the station agent could be found, I quickly pointed with my umbrella to a house just below the bank, here I turned my back, passed some box cars which stood on the track and walked down the track, the next object met my gaze was a rat which crossed the track before me, and run under the mail bag catcher on I went toward Bulls Cut, kicking up suitable washers and nuts that may come to use on the farm presently I heard a freight train coming at a great rate of speed. I stepped aside so it could pass, next I passed after I got through the cut was the signal block which had dropped down, then I came to Frazier's crossing where those potatoes are said to be so large as to stick out of the hills on one side, to my surprise such rows were already dug, the remaining rows were free from weeds, thanks to Mr. Frasier for his example in the care of potatoes. I walked on soon found myself in an unmown meadow one I mowed last season whistling and singing between the clatter of the old Buckey(?) machine, here I change my course directly west for the hemlocks which stand too thick to ever make heavy timber, as I am nearing the Mongaup River I see eight fine hemlock trees large enough for nice timber standing on Old Hickory Farm too! here I inscribe my name on a large beech tree "F.G. 10,06"(meaning Fred Gorton October 1906). I went to the water's edge, there I saw a barrel without any head yet it hadn't lost its hooped skirts, then and there I disputed the northern line was two rods too far toward the south with a light heart I scrambled up the rivers bank until I reached the path, where the "Gorton boys" used to tread when going in swimming, next I went down a steep rock to a cave below where we boys used to take corn and roast it, this cave is said to be a place where a crazy man stayed and lived forty days and nights, read the Bible through in that time and was cured when I was a boy in knee breeches I saw the corn cobs down the bank from the cave, I walked on counting hemlock trees until I came out into an open space there I saw a partridge after passing the old chestnut tree, on and on I went through the laurel bushes until I came to the South West corner of Old Hickory my first knowledge of ever being there, now I had counted fifty trees that would make nice logs to take to the sawmill hemlock lumber being worth twenty two to twenty four dollars per thousand feet. presently I heard the crack of a gun thundering down through the woods soon a hunter passed in sight of me with his coat sticking out as though it were full of some kind of game. I watched him until he went out of sight then I changed my course eastward toward those hickory trees one of which I used to call mine just north of the old black cherry tree, I passed sixteen cords of wood piled in four ranks just outside the woods next through the nine acre lot and so on through the Storey-lonesome (?) lot where my father used to keep the old black sow while in suspense waiting to find a litter of pigs, the hog pen was in order the swill barrel was there also the hog troth even the outside door was buttoned shut, I passed between the wind-mill and the birch lot saw a man with a hunters coat coming through the meadow, perhaps to help carry the game home of his friend I met in the woods, I now climb over the wall into the lot called Italy where a family of Italians lived in a barn while the Strongtown trussel was being filled. I well remember "Big Mike" the steam shovel and the little steam engine No. 34 called Little Annie with those little self dump cars and how the Irishman cured me of the hiccoughs a little baby girl was born there, Dr. Payne brought it from Liberty in his medical case. I left Italy and went down the hill filled in with stones and was surprised to find a new pasture-gate crotched on the little end, I struck the road went to the barn found my spring tooth harrow, saw the two pigs I sold last spring to Millard Carr, instead of being little pigs twenty pounds each I found they weighed ten times as much, he had them in the pen where father kept the black steers, I went out of the barn, but had no sooner left when Millard came to feed those nice porkers of course I turned on my heal had a chat with him, bragged up the pigs a little, passed the old ice house, went in the other barn went up the long ladder into the hay loft saw the Gardner "hay fork." I went back down the ladder on the barn floor where the hay wagon stood the mowing machine and roler (?) wine (?) there, out I went down the road in search of hickory nuts I found one for a souvenir Then I went down in the little orchard but found no apples there, I saw three trees in the lower meadow one of them had apples on, so I took my umbrella and knocked one off the tree picked two from the ground eating one as I went over the well into the land of Sodom here I passed a pond where I spent three weeks hard labor the old boat half full of water it looked tattered and torn the chute belonging to Debois Bros laid out on the bank waiting for next ice season I went across the dam found it leaked a little near the top, down below the pond runs a little stream of water which I crossed with some difficulty into the land of Gomorrah here I saw another partridge, and plucked a bunch of winter-greens. I ate some leaves but went back to my apple eating again as I was standing in the winter green leaves I saw near by a dead-fall used to trap rabbits I now cross the line from Old Hickory into the Linden Farm the first thing in crossing the swamp was to get one foot wet, I journeyed on until I came to the path that leads to the sapbush (?) until I come to the old hemlock close to the path, I count that No. 1 and start west to the sap-bush counting ten big hemlocks on my way, arriving at the sap house I go in see two brick furnaces, a lot of sap buckets, and the spiles and sap-pan. Also a pile of dry wood inside ready for next spring. I pass between the Linden house and barn strike the Strongtown road again Howard Smith just passed by before I struck the road, along comes Archie Comfort he is going to walk to the creamery with me, I've just arrived at the creamery, Archie went down the track Hallo Phil. how are you? hallo to young Waterbury also, in comes young Ostram with a news paper for me to read I read it carefully while he went up to the little station it was a column about himself and Fred Harris's courtship at the Loomis Saniterarium (sic), I was about to go home when he come back and said, what do you think of that? I said "outrageous" Ostram thinks he will push the editor's face, at that I came home without any further adventure worthy of mention.

There are two Ostrams in Fred's notes. Elmer (d. Feb. 20, 1959 @ 75) was a restaurant owner. Shell (d. Dec. 5, 1915) was a tin peddler. According to Fred, Shell Ostram's daughter Grace taught at Huntington School, turned summersaults, and had twin daughters by March 1916.

Fred signed these eight pages "Fred S Gorton Oct. 21, 1906" and on sixteen later occasions also signed his name there with the date. The last is May 5, 1970. Fred added the initial S after his name (just S, not S.) to distinguish himself from Fred B. Gorton, a distant cousin, who also lived in Liberty. Fred implies the S stood for nothing in particular and says it was preferable to altering his first name to Alfred or Frederick. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that it stood for his old nickname--Fred "Scorcher" Gorton.

Fred's second son, Chester Frederick Gorton, was born October 24, 1907 but lived less than ten months before succumbing to a fever. During most of Chester's short life his father was out of a job. He also had another of those narrow escapes from death:

I was not employed but lived at 368 S. Main St. I went down the railroad tracks to Father's farm to cut wood and at Ferndale I started to go through Bull's Cut. I got about 300' in and heard train #9's whistle going north. Both sides of the cut was covered with ice. I ran back for my life the 300' and dodged in an open space big enough to stand in as the train went by. My wife warned me not to go on the railroad track, but I didn't listen. Only speed saved me.

One way he could earn money was by skinning horses. He already had experience in this trade:

James Gray had a horse which was lame when I rented his farm in 1902 and not much hay on the farm after Billy Bartholomew took half on shares. Gray gave me the horse to skin and use for chicken feed. One day six months later a man brought a dead horse on a stone boat for me to skin. Mary Carrier had me kill the old mare which raised colts, the mother of Thetus. I skinned her for the hide. In 1908, a short time before I took the RFD job (March 2), Mary Carrier gave me Thetus to skin. I got up at 4AM and walked over there (later the site of the Empire Hotel) with a lantern and a large knife and a 38 center fire revolver. I took Thetus out of her stall and on the barn floor gave her a bit of hay and as she reached for it I shot her in the temple. She fell and never moved. I skinned her and quartered the carcass, pushed the innards in the barnyard, sold the hide for $2.50. Mary's father, Albert Carrier, remarked "what a shame" as he raised her from a filly and felt bad about it. I shot a horse on the Cooper farm for them. They didn't have the heart to kill it.

In 1909, Fred started keeping account books. The first volume runs from January 1 of that year until March 1913. On April 4, 1910, his son William Russell was born. That is not recorded in the accounts (it is, however, in the family Bible) but there are the following entries for May 7:

Leslie play suit, hat, suspenders $1.35

stockings, dress good for Leslie $1.82

pie dish, 15 peanuts $ .20

Russell's carriage $6.00

In the back of the book, Fred wrote addresses. His father was in Jacksonville, Florida. His brothers were scattered--Osmer in South Carolina, Floyd and Leslie in Middletown, Ai in Walton, Osmer a second time in Poughkeepsie, Cecil in Chicago, where Daisy's brother Ed was also living. Grace was living in Hurleyville with her husband, Charles Farquhar, the Hurleyville constable. I'm not sure where George was at this time. He apparently did not want the farm.

Gill Gorton had bought W. M. Kilbourne's house at 9 Maple Street, later the site of the Telephone Company office in Liberty. He had first rented Old Hickory Farm, and then sold it, in October 1908, for $9,600.00 to a Mr. Waddler. Under Waddler's ownership the barn and Linden Cottage burned down, no hay was cut, the meadows filled with trees, and a rooming house and three little cottages were built for summer people. These were still in operation in the 1960s.

Fred and Daisy and their children moved to the Piney Woods Inn, owned by James I Gulnac of Canada, on February 1, 1911. Later it would be known as the Belmont.

The weather was zero most of the time. We used to sit next to the kitchen stove and Mama took Russell on her lap to keep warm. Leslie was sick with pneumonia. His mother let him play in the water tub next to the barn. Then she got sick and spit green. I employed a nurse for her, Helen Seifert. About that time Arch Armstrong lost his first wife, Mollie Whitaker, and married her nurse, Jennie Grant. One day Helen opened all the windows so Daisy would get pneumonia. Then she asked me if Daisy should die what would I do. I told her I didn't know, but in my mind I said, "I'd be damned if I'd marry you!" She had already told me Leslie was nasty but Russell was a nice boy. That cooked her goose.

Daisy, and Leslie, recovered, and with the future made more secure by Fred's job as a RFD carrier, they began to look for a place to build a house of their own. The Asa Carrier place belonged to a friend, Will Clark. It was a lot 75x300' and 130' 10" wide to the extreme southeast corner. Will and Ophelia Clark were willing to sell it for $300.00. Fred borrowed $252.00 on his $1000.00 Prudential Insurance policy, which he had taken out in 1898, and another $120.00 from Frank and Sarah Webster. E. L. Cooper then built a 20x24' barn on the lot where the family lived for the next thirteen months. On April 1, 1912, there are these entries in the account book:

Pd balance for lot $150.00

Dubin (Dobbin) 4 new shoes $ 1.25

sausage $ .30

2 front clips on wagon $ .20

We lived in our new barn to save paying rent while I was building our first house. I was putting the children to bed, my wife was out in the back yard, and along came Ralph Main, a former beau, to call on us. I could hear them talking but didn't go down until the children were asleep. He told her how disappointed he was to have married the woman he boarded with who was twenty years older than he was and had colored her hair jet black and was too old to have children, and how sorry he was to have lost Daisy. She shot right back, "You never asked me to be your wife. Anyway, you are five years younger than I. I love my husband and wouldn't trade him for any man, even though he was very rich." Ralph soon went back to the Pinney House, after having a chat with me. Ralph played around with the girls at E. E. Pinney's all summer. He told me the girls at E.E. Pinney's would stand naked before the upper windows in the evenings with the lights on. Ralph suggested I come up some night and see for myself. They had about twenty girls boarding there. I didn't go. I attended his funeral with my wife and Mrs. Ralph Main was very anxious to see Ralph's first love. He died April 29, 1932 at fifty.

The house at 100 Carrier Street went up slowly, with Fred doing much of the work himself, running the risk of injury. At one point during construction he got a sliver in the third finger of his right hand that showed up past the nail.

I took a three-corned file and separated the nail and Clem Zeiss took my razor and slitted the inner skin. Then I squeezed the finger and Clem picked it out. We didn't call a doctor either. (Clement Zeiss married Daisy May Mansfield on April 14, 1928 in Ellenville.)

E. L. Cooper was the contractor at $2.50 per day and the two others got $1.50 per day of ten hours. They put up the sills (4x8' wide) and studding and plate and I sheeted it up to the plate. At this time the June 13, 1913 fire in Liberty took Charles Morton's livery stable and licked right into B.F. Green's store and north to Dr. Charles Payne's residence where there was an open space. Also the Baptist Church burned, the only building on the south side of Main Street to burn. Then the men came back and laid the floor beams and the garret floor and framed the rafters and put them up. Floyd and I sheeted the roof using one inch boards which I got from a hen house on Lake Street for $18.00. The garret floor was made of matched six inch flooring from the same hen house and there were also four windows used in the cellar.

I was the rural letter carrier from Liberty (working from 10:30 to 4:30) and used my horse to draw all the stone for the foundations and dug half the cellar using stone in the cement to save cement and sand. Mike Beseth and two sons poured the foundation at $1.50 per day each, using wheelbarrows to carry the dirt out front. We used eighty-six bags of cement which cost ninety cents a bag. E. L. Cooper made the forms for the masons. This was 24x28. Then Cooper's carpenters came again and laid eleven rows of shingles all around the four sides. Then Floyd and I finished shingling the roof. George Stoddard built the chimney in one day for $2.50. I carried hod and mixed the cement. George Stoddard and Ben Hasbrouck plastered the rooms on the first floor and one room above the kitchen. I trimmed the first floor. I also laid all the flooring and lathed the entire house. The carpenters came again and put on the three outside doors, made the porch, but I laid the porch floor. The carpenters also built my back porch and lavatory, and added a bay window not included in the house plans. We had no door upstairs except the bathroom door.

We moved in from the barn September 4, 1913. My brother Leslie and his wife Hazel at our first meal together in our new home.

I had William Sunderland (d. May 27, 1933 @ 73; wife Mary d. 1959 @ 97; Chief Engineer at the Power Plant; lived on Lincoln Place) install the knob and tube wires, cost $17.00, and I tapped a lead wire on and lathed the remainder of the upstairs by a twenty-five watt bulb. Some years later on the RFD vacation time Joe Delmarter (d. Nov. 2, 1951 @ 80; m. Violet Bell, who d. April 13, 1949 @ 72) plastered the upstairs one coat troweled down. I carried hod right over the back porch through the window to him. I paid him $18.00 for six days' work. I trimmed the upstairs rooms except the garret room which E. L. Cooper trimmed free as Daisy helped care for his mother as she was sick at that time.

George Messler (d. Sept. 24, 1949 @ 81) put on tar paper and mackerel bone shell wire for the stucco 11 ½ ' up to the green shingles, 4 ½ ' down from the cornice. Messler's bill was $45.00, time and material. I hung four doors.

The well on the Gulnac Place I was using run dry and I drew water from Lake Ophelia in two fifty gallon barrels with Roxy and my light lumber wagon.

Having created a home for his family, Fred began to consider a career move. On October 17, 1917, after serving his six hours on the twenty-seven mile RFD route, he started work as a fireman at the Liberty Power House. His adventures as a rural mail carrier and those in the power plant rate separate chapters in this account but one more event of importance must be considered here. In 1914, Fred began to keep a diary in addition to an account book. The first volume runs to 1920, but most of the entries fall in the years 1915 to 1917. He noted deaths, births, marriages, and the progress of crops. He also filled the 160 page composition book with details of his family life. It would be impossible to quote all the entries, but the most revealing are reproduced here:

September 6, 1914 I called on George [his brother] between Sunday School and Church. He was having gall stones. Martha had just got home from her Father's who was ill from a stroke. Floyd spent the evening with us. Went home at 8:30.

September 10, 1914 Russell and myself went to Grace's and Charley Farquhar's. 25^th anniversary of their wedding. Those present were Mr. and Mrs. N. G. Gorton, Ai Gorton, George Gorton and Martha, Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Benedict (Charles Benedict d. Aug. 30, 1925 @ 57, shot by George Raymond at his home by his own gun), Charles Taylor (d. Sept.20, 1944 @ 50; accidentally shot in barn), Matt Raymond's first wife (the cook), Grandma Farquhar (Mrs. James Farquhar who d. Dec. 22, 1915), Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Farquhar, Edna, Earl, Lucille, Alice, Leonard (Grace's five children), also Mrs. Andrew Farquhar. Met Charity Ernhout on Scoot on our return home. She was bound for Stevensville. [The train called the Scoot used to leave Liberty O&W at about 7:45 AM.]

September 20, 1914 Took Roxy (the horse), and Leslie and Russell and went to Ferndale through by Cooleys' back past Pine Grove Hotel today.

September 21, 1914 Made drive-way next to Atkins line. [Amenzo Atkins (d. July 4, 1962 @ 78 m. Minnie Morris (d. July 17, 1971 @ 85)]

September 27, 1914 Daisy fell out of wagon in front of Church. Bruised right arm. Skinned left knee.

October 10, 1914 Atkins house all sheeted and half of the roof sheeted for shingles.

October 17, 1914 Less [E.L.]Cooper trimmed garret door and hung both garret and pantry door today.

October 29, 1914 Got N.G. Gorton six hens of Jim Demerest ($3.30). Daisy and Russell went to Hutchinsons today.

November 26, 1914 We all spent Thanksgiving with Father and Mother.

December 6, 1914 Leslie, Russell & myself went calling on Coopers this afternoon (Sunday.)

December 14, 1914 I began running the sleigh again. I drove Kit and arrived back again to the P.O. at 3:35.

January 1, 1915 Father and Mother were here for supper. We had spare ribs and crullers.

February 21, 1915 Myself and family went to J. W. Brown to take dinner. Geo. Ackerly & wife were there also Joe Brown, Geo Ackerly, Fred S Gorton went over to the Liberty Park Preserve. We saw Chancy I. Smith in his one room "log cabin." He showed us a fish pole which some trespasser left, also the dagger which Mrs. Taylor murdered her husband and afterward cut him up and burned him in the cook stove, also a picture the title "a September Morn." He had a type writer a banjo, revolver, couch and chairs, gas lamp, center table and even rugs on the floor, a stuffed bird ten years old when it died and some kind of stuffed bird two feet high, a nice little sink, a hanging bird's nest, an army sword, also a common sword, the picture of his little spotted pony all framed. Wilbur Roosa was there in the cabin with us also. We then went to the big house and saw fish eggs and a few little trout just hatched with the feeding bag with 60 day rations with them. J. G. Smith said the eggs which he hatched would be 95% good where the trout only hatch 5%. [George Ackerly (July 15, 1881-May 26, 1940) was a police officer and a guard at the old bank; he married 1) Latta Porter (d. Aug. 22, 1936) and 2) Mrs. Myrtle Miller.]

February 22, 1915 Leslie, Russell & myself went to Fulton's Creamery to get skim milk. 2:45 is the time it took.

March 7, 1915 All of us went down to 368 S. Main for hen dinner at Mrs. Amelia Gerow's.

March 27, 1915 Ralph Main called and took supper.

June 15, 1915 I met Grace and Chas. Farquhar with their automobile just past Glen Porter's bridge today on the regular trip. Earl was with them.

June 28, 1915 Leslie went to T. L. Maltby's to spend a week. Afishing he caught three trout, 1 catfish, pickerel. We were very lonesome. It seemed like a death in the family to have him gone.[Theodore Maltby d. March 9, 1955 @ 74. He married Nellie Ray (d. 1918). He was a farmer at Hurd, NY and had a daughter Retta and a son Harold.]

July 23, 1915 Mrs. Daisy Gorton, Leslie & Russell started for Cortland. Fred stayed home & kept house for 2 weeks.

July 24, 1915 I took dinner with Father and Mother today.

August 5, 1915 I rode home for the first time an old auto Ford belonging to Ben Gerow. Walter Gerow went along.

August 9, 1915 I made all my RFD trip in my new automobile No. V8284. Nothing happened. Mr. Messler Jr. went with me to teach me how to drive. We started at 11 o'clock and got back at 4:25 then at 5:15 I drove the car down to Ben Gerow's place, backed up, and went home on Carrier Street by way of Hotel Reed. When I entered my driveway I ran the wheel on the bank a little. A thunder storm came up and the car got a good ducking.

August 16, 1915 I took Daisy, and the children to Websters and to Strongtown School house and returned for their first auto trip.

August 22, 1915 We all went for an automobile ride. Took Less Cooper along to Monticello. It took 45 minutes to come back as far as the railroad.

September 5, 1915 My family, Osmer & Grace went to Wm T. Ratcliff's in the afternoon by way of the Workmen's Circle Sanatarium. We got there at 3 o'clock. Then I had to go after Father and Mother at White Sulphur Springs House with the automobile. We got back about 8 o'clock.

September 10, 1915 We took the automobile and went to Stevensville Lake and took Mr. and Mrs. Geo. Cowell with us. A fishing this evening Russell caught three fish. One was a sun fish. 17 were caught in all. We got back at 10:20.

September 12, 1915 I took six boys of the Sunday School Leslie included to Monticello. We went through the Court House and Prison. I gave one of the prisoners some matches. (Edwin Young was one of the boys. The sheriff excorted us past all the prison cells. I think Buck Winner was sheriff in those days. A sheriff couldn't serve more than 2 years but he was elected after the 2^nd year term of another sheriff expired. Later Harry Borden served as sheriff for 12 years. I went through Frank Leslie's hotel the same day.) [Mrs. Elmer "Buck" Wimmer (Edith) (Jan. 20, 1879-Oct. 27, 1964)]

September 16, 1915 I left Leslie with Florence & George Gorton while Uncle George and Aunt Martha, Mildred, Russell, Daisy and myself went to Monticello for an evening ride. We got back at 8:35 to Liberty.

September 17, 1915 Russell went over my trip today. We had a hard shower when we were at Chas. Taylor's place.

October 2, 1915 The automobile balked at the bottom of the driveway and Geo. Drennon (d. April 8, 1954 @ 83) put the ropes on the car and took me to the corner. Then we got around the trip all O.K. It was very slippery and rainy. I got a cream colored kitten at Box 100 today.

October 10, 1915 We took the automobile and family, also Iva Gerow and May Ebert [May Coddington Ebert (Mrs. Lewis) d. June 25, 1968 @ 88] and went to Roscoe. At Denny Cook's the autumn leaves were just turning. The day was ideal. Got back at supper time. Went to church. Heard Mr. Conrad preach on women's rights. [Denny Cook of Cook's Falls d. Feb.1,1952; his wife was named Anna and he had a sister named Grace.]

October 17, 1915 Less Cooper called just as we were ready to go to Cooks Falls to see Carl Cook and wife go to Arizona for Carl's health. We saw Andy Cook & wife, Mr. Marvin Cook the father, and Denny Cook & wife. Also Burnette, the only son. At the depot we saw Moses Westbrook (d. July 21, 1951 @ 86) and Elias Champlin from Liberty. As we were coming back at the top of the hill above the Washington place an auto stopped very suddenly and our car hit it in behind and bent our left lamp a little inward, but the man found no fault. Didn't even speak. The day was warm. No overcoat needed.

October 27, 1915 I had my first "blow out" with the left hind tire near Divine's Corners. I put on a new tire and inner tube and it leaked by the time I got to Martha Grant's place so I left the car to Ben Gerow's house and got Roxy to finish the trip.

November 17, 1915 My right hind tire blowed out today ½ way between Greenspan's place and Frank Denman's. I put on a new tire and the inner tube blowed out at Levine Bros., one mile distant from the first blow out all the same trip.

November 25, 1915 We had Royce's 7lbs. Turkey as usual. Mrs. Cowell took dinner with us. I dug dirt next to the hen house and taught Leslie how to make his first "box trap." I put a window in the end of the hen house toward the east.

January 16, 1916 The family attended a temperance talk by Mrs. Maud Perkins at the Methodist Church of Liberty in which Mr. Rev. Chasey said that Liberty would be dry in two years. Rev. Conrad led by a prayer. The church was full. It snowed as we came home.

January 25, 1916 Father came and got a pullet for dinner to celebrate his 46^th anniversary of his wedding.

May 1, 1916 Father and Mother are visiting Cecil and Orie at Philadelphia this week. We expect them back about the 23^rd.

June 11, 1916 I took Mother and George to Hurleyville to day to see Dr. DeKay (d. March 31, 1935) concerning George's gallstones. I saw Grace & Chas. and Leonard Farquhar. Daisy and Archie Dice called this Sunday afternoon and took supper, all of us went to the Presbyterian Church exercises for Children's Day. Took them home in the car in the mud after six days rain without chains. Leslie and Russell got a geranium.

June 21, 1916 I took Leslie and Russell over the trip. It started to rain before we got back. We took lunch at the top of the Kenan Hill.

August 11, 1916 I took four people from Geo. E. Woods place at Hilldale. Started for Monticello. When I got up the 2^nd Mongaup Hill the crankshaft broke (price $7.50). Dr. Hasbrouck towed me in. We took the rope at 7:35, arrived at Gerow's Garage 8:10. Frank Scott got the four dollars and I paid out three to get towed in. 77666 chauffeur license number. [Frank Scott d. 1937; his wife Lena d. Dec. 23, 1961 @ 79]

Editor's Note: During this period Fred often took people in his car or in the wagon for a fee. It seems to have been $1.00 per person.

September 10, 1916 We all went to Aunt Paulina's funeral. She was buried from Cooks Falls M.E. Church. Rev. Lincoln preached, the subject being the children of Israel led through the wilderness and crossing the river Jordan on dry land coming in the Land of Canaan over against Jerico. Mrs. Paulina Steenrod was represented as going over to the Holy City. Lee Steenrod & wife, also Bessie went in his Ford. Ophelia Clark and shaneff (?) took Geo. and Fan. Stoddard up there. It took us 1 hr. 33 minutes to go up and 1 hour and 25 minutes to return. Mrs. Inez Crystal, Daisy's cousin, rode as far as her home in Livingston Manor with us. She gave us some sweet baked apples. We took dinner with Wm. Steenrod. [Aunt Paulina was Elizabeth Polina Misner Steenrod, widow of Daisy's uncle Ed Steenrod (1835-1912)]

September 22, 1916 We all went to T. L. Maltby's the 20^th and stayed all night and then Theodore and Nellie, Daisy & myself went to Port Jervis for an automobile ride. We went to Bethel to White Lake to Mongaup Valley to Monticello to Bridgeville to Mamakating. There we had four miles detour turned to right and went to Westbrookville and entered Port Jervis. Left the Ford in a garage and crossed the bridge in the State of Jersey into Matamoras where George Ray (d. Oct. 1968) lives. We came back the same way, leaving Matamoras at 4:30 and got home from Maltby's at nine o'clock to F. S. Gorton's place. Theodore bought some cabbage on the way home.

October 10, 1916 We took the Ford, Nellie & I, and went to Mrs. Celia Kortright Herbert's place after a pig 3 months old. We started about 6 o'clock AM got back at 5 minutes of 8. Pretty cold ride. Then after supper the family and Nellie and Reta and Harold motered to Maltby's place and brought back 20 pullets for Less Cooper. I drove Roxy over my trip. I rode about 65 miles all told today.

October 31, 1916 My family, Daisy, Russell & Leslie & Fred, also Mrs. C. M. Peck [Charles M. Peck d. Jan. 28, 1935 @ 62; his wife, Cora B. Pierce, d. Sept. 29, 1956 @ 82] & Mr. Goodsir went to Roscoe to the County Convention of Sunday Schools. Mrs. Randall, Mrs. Westbrook, Mrs. Holtslander, Mabel Clements (d. Feb. 26, 1964 @ 80), Mrs. Paul, Miss Chamberlain, Mrs. Gildersleeve, Mr. Conrad, Douglas Drennon. The speakers were Mr. Baker, Miss Bird.

November 12, 1916 I took in my Ford Margaret & James Gorton, also Father & Mother to W. T. Ratcliff's for a calf. Got back at 3:40 and took Jim & Margaret to the 4:10 train. Chas. & Grace come to Father's place after we got back.

November 14, 1916 I signed paper for Rural Carrier's Pension Bill. Answered 21 questions.

December 29, 1916 I rec'd check dated Dec. 28, 1916 of $48 back pay of year ending June 30, 1916. I got $6.00 off the Route this x'mas. Box nos. 37-61-84-93-94-88. Also no. 96 and no. 10. I got 2 cans fruit 28 ½ 1 qt. maple 613 1 bx. candy 29-1 shirt 61 (Carr's place) D. M. Bakam necktie fine shirt, Leslie gloves, Mama bureau cover, Russell mouth organ, and three handkerchiefs.

January 13, 1917 I've had Roxy 4 years today. The thermometer stood at 2 below zero today. Joe W. Brown went around the trip today to be my new substitute. I took dinner at Carr's today.

January 26, 1917 Otto Hillig (d. Sept. 12, 1954 @ 79) gave us, the 3 Leagues, a Magic Lantern views of his trip to California this evening. About 100 persons were present.

March 8, 1917 Russell is 3' 11" at nearly 7 years. Leslie is 5' tall.

March 24, 1917 This is the 1^st day I drove a wagon on my RFD route since December 13, 1916.

March 30, 1917 I traded horses, Old Nellie or so called Sukie for Prince "the man eater" and drove him the same day over the RFD. Traded with E.E. Pinney. $30.00. [Ellery E. Pinney d. April 23, 1939 @ 82; his wife was a niece of Webb Horton, who owned the tannery in Ferndale]

April 1, 1917 8 soldiers came to Liberty to guard the trussel [trestle] and 16 to Ferndale.

May 21, 1917 A big Pierce Arrow car was in the mud between us & Cowells last night at 12 o'clock. Walter Gerow hooted me out and I took the tie rope & a 2 hooked chain to help them out of the mud. (NOTE: this probably should be April 21, 1917)

May 14, 1917 Sold Prince the man-eater to Alf Broadard $15.00. Bought Mar. 30. Had him 45 days, drove 17 trips over RFD. 3 days later I was offered by Chas. Muhlig $25.00.[Charles Muhlig d. Nov. 29, 1960; he was Gladys Blade's father]

May 25, 1917 I took the measles from Russell after 22 years of relief from the same. Father and Mother went to Philadelphia this morning and will return in two weeks visiting Osmer in Jersey City on way home, after Cecil and Orie has 1 week.

I didn't go on RFD from Thursday until after Decoration Day the 30^th, six days rest.

June 6, 1917 Leslie has his new Scout suit.

July 3, 1917 Daisy & Russell has the red measles. They took to their beds Tuesday evening.

July 11, 1917 Daisy came downstairs after having the measles.

July 17, 1917 Leslie & Russell caught 16 catfish at Redington's Pond, when dressed they weighed 1½ lbs.

August 31, 1917 We went to see Leslie at the Boy Scout Camp at Silver Lake. We took him some plums and a chocolate cake. There were 20 boys including the two Durkind boys (colored).

September 11, 1917 The Mary Carrier place burned to the ground this morning at 4 o'clock.

October 19, 1917 To the Fourth Assistant P. M. General Wash. D.C. I Fred S. Gorton resign my position as Rural Letter Carrier to take effect immediately or as soon as possible. I name Mr. John Farenholtz as my successor. He is young and strong and of good habits. I cheerfully recommend him. Fred S. Gorton

Tuesday, October 16, 1917 (Editor's Note: This entry follows the previous one in the diary)

I took a job as Fireman at the Liberty Light and Power Plant beginning at $15 per week with one night off per week.

October 20, 1917 Leslie, Russell & myself went and picked the apples of Chas. K. Benedict. Cost $1.50 about 13 bushel.

October 26, 1917 Father, Mother and Aunt Grace Farquhar took dinner with us today.

November 6, 1917 Liberty was voted dry by a majority.

November 9, 1917 We had our first fire alarm. Davis Meat Market. I blew the alarm. Sunderland the call. 10 minutes of 12.

November 13, 1917 I blew the 7 o'clock whistle at the Power House for the first time. I've been there 4 weeks today.

November 17, 1917 I had my first lesson with the steam getting low. The lights went practically out at 17 after 8 o'clock.

November 22, 1917 I sold Roxy to Lew Halprin for $8.00. I bought her for $140.00 nearly 5 years ago. Halprin lives near Benton Hollow on the Lewis Place.

November 27, 1917 Russell's bantam hen laid an egg.

November 29, 1917 We got a 8 ½ lb. turkey of the Light and Power Company for Thanksgiving.

December 25, 1917 We celebrated x'mas by having a 20 lb. 6 oz. turkey from the Light and Power Co. Father and Mother were here with us. I got an Ingersoll Eclipse watch for xmas.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE R.F.D. CARRIER

(in his own words)

One winter there was caterpillars nests on trees and bushes everywhere I traveled. I collected several hundred and offered to give a box of candy in each of the three schools for the one who could collect the greatest number of those nests by cutting the little branch off with the next intact. I got 3000 of those nests, but the teachers divided the candy equally to the scholars so no one won. It cost me about three dollars. I put them in shoe boxes in my barn. One day I saw hundreds of them crawling out and hatching. I put boxes and all in the barrel where I burned old papers. That was the most lives I ever took in one day.

George Hutchinson was Rural Carrier starting from Ferndale at that time and that is where I conceived the idea I wanted to be the first carrier out of Liberty, which started March 2^nd, 1908. I furnished the conveyance (horse, wagon, and feed) and started at $67.50 per month. Father bought old Dobbin of a young fellow by the name of Howard Bartholomew--harness, halter & blanket for $65. Dobbin was a former race horse when they raced on Loch Sheldrake Pond. I kept her for five years and had her when I first lived in our barn and had a building 14' square I built all by myself. She got lame and I sold her to Chas. Benedict to be killed out of her misery for $1.50.

My hours was 10:30 to 4:30. I served a twenty-seven mile route. Upon returning to Liberty from my trip on the RFD route I was speeding with Old Dobbin when I met Mr. Rampe and a coach dog belonging to Dan Wickham's livery stable. He was extra large and a beauty but just as I came dashing along the dog stepped close to Mr. Rampe, with 4" wide tires on his wagon, and his front foot was crushed. I never told of it but was sorry I drove so fast past the heavy wagon and the dog scooted too near the wheel and got his foot run over.

My first wagon had no top but used an advertising umbrella for shelter. I owned a bay mare (bought from Mrs. Will Nichols) who tried to run away with me. I swung the umbrella handle a half turn and let it go in the air into Lake Ophelia. I never saw it again. I whipped the horse all the way to Bonnell's Mill and she was so winded she slowed down, so I turned around and finished the trip without further event.

W. F. Doll boarded at the Leslie farm house for a few weeks. He owned a large lake and a boarding house, Lake Liberty. The lake had fine pickerel and bass. Mr. Doll made his fortune in South America but never told what his vocation was. He wore cowboy laced boots with a side pocket containint a dagger 8 inches long, so I was told by our mailman, Mr. Kimball. One time he came out next to his little bungalow and introduced me to a girl about eighteen years old. He said if I wanted some "fun" to go in the bungalow with her, as she "is tops to give a good time." I told him I was married and didn't need any extra now or any time. Mr. Doll later got in a fight with another man in Liberty and he poked his opponent in his eye with his cane, which he always carried but didn't need. He was about sixty years old then. He was fined $15 but wouldn't pay so he went to the County Jail for fifteen days. While there the Sheriff let him have his cane and the prisoners were allowed to exercise in the long hall in front of the cells. Mr. Doll made use of his cane by poking out thirty-six windows before he was stopped. [It's thirty-seven in another account, written when Fred was 90.] It was told that Mr. Doll in winter would go naked to the lake, break a hole in the ice, and take a dip in the ice water. He opened the flood gate in the lake and netted a hundred fish. One day Mr. Doll had eight nice fish for me, about one pound each. They were suckers, but good. [Elsewhere Fred says it was six fish, 7½ pounds each. Perhaps this was a second present of fish?]

I used to serve mail on the rural delivery to Mr. Rosner. One day when I came along his daughter received the mail from my hand and got between the wheels of my wagon so I couldn't start up. So, in a joke, I told her I would like to spend an evening with her. She looked me right in the eye, said "all right." I was married and she knew it. I didn't do it. Later I learned Eva Rosner was having two boys staying all night with her in their barn. Arthur D. who lived on the next farm, and Willie D., two miles distant. Each one asked his father if he could spend the night with his friend. Request granted. This went on all summer. Mr. Rosner told me something would happen to Eva for her sin. The next boarding season she wasn't there anymore. I didn't ask why. Both boys got married. Willie's wife died and Arthur's wife left him after his grandfather's $3000 ran out. Arthur hit a procussion (sic) cap with a hammer so he had on his right hand a forefinger and a thumb since he was ten years old. Willie died. Arthur was still living in July 1950.

Some girls sitting on the bank with knee dresses wanted me to call that evening. One was married and had a girl six years old. I told her if there was something doing I would. She said, "I make no promises."

One time, near the Cosmolitan (sic) Hotel, I came upon a black-haired young woman lying with her back end on a large stump and her head down hill. She had very broad hips. As usual . . . I passed by. The day before a girl with as much on as could cover modestly piled in the RFD wagon beside me and it was quite a job to convince her I couldn't take passengers while on duty.

I cut Tom Devine's hay around his place while on the job while Old Dobbin ate her dinner, and drawed it home later. At Huntington School little Eva Stanton used to get in and ride from the school house to the David Hall place which was bought by Aaron Stanton. One time Aaron said, "Fred, would you like to have that little rooster?" I took him up and the next day, sure enough, he had him in a bag for me. Aaron was close-fisted and it tickled me to get a gift from him. I had seventy-five hens of my own which he didn't know of.

Many patrons on the RFD route thought I was single. One Sunday Daisy and I was out wheeling a baby carriage. A load of people from Hilldale came along and hollered, "Oh, you married mail man!" Ma thought I passed myself as single. I told her I didn't let strangers know whether I was single or not.

Two girls from the Leslie Farm came to the McIntosh School to get mail as their mailbox was at the schoolhouse. Mamie Rafferty got right in my wagon as I arrived and sat beside me, and grabbed me where my zipper closes. I told her "That thing sometimes raises its ugly head." She says, "Come behind the schoolhouse and I'll put it down." The other girl said, "I will hold the horse until you get back." Anything that comes that easy is dangerous, so I passed it up. A few days later Mrs. George Eltz, another patron, said, "Do you know Mamie?" I said, "I've met her." She said, "Keep away from her," and ran into her house. Her George, age sixty, got burnt. (George Eltz, a farmer on the Loch Sheldrake Road, d. Nov. 12, 1929 @ nearly 67)

C. P. Berylson had a chicken farm in sight of the McIntosh School and wrote a column in the Liberty paper. He was known as "Acid Drops." He didn't care whose toes he stepped on. When he wrote "beautiful eyes and charming ways; the mailman is necessarily delayed," I understood what he meant.

Mark Kortright (d. April 10, 1949 @ 84), a half-mile away, also had his mailbox at the school. His daughter Mabel was courted by a very nice looking Jewish boy but Old Kortright told Mabel he wouldn't let her marry him. To hurt her father, she said, "I'll marry the first man who asks me." Harvey McIntosh (d. January 5, 1945 @ 76), a thirty-five year old bachelor, got wind of it and went right up there and asked her to marry him. She accepted at once.This was about 1917. It made quite a stir in the neighborhood because Harvey wasn't thought of as a good catch, but they lived on a farm and reared eight children, all of whom turned out to be good citizens. As rural carrier, I heard all the news that got the tongues wagging.

A new school teacher from this same schoolhouse asked me to deliver a little sealed letter to Will Nicholson (d. June 20, 1947 @ 65; his 400 acre farm became Grossinger's airport). She was blushing real red. "And don't leave it in his mailbox, hand it to him if possible." Will happened to be there. I gave it to him. He smiled and thanked me. Later she married a nice man. They built a new home and lived near my home in Liberty.

In 1910, I was outside my home and a plane was heard running rather low and quite noisy. I heard a crash like trees being broken off. Two days later it was reported seven lives were lost in the woods six miles north of Livingston Manor. So many people went to the scene of the accident a beaten path was made. The cause of the plane crash was never known.

One time when Rev. Warren J. Conrad was our minister (it was perhaps 1910), the Bible Class had a supper at the Hall House, now the Lenape. James Cusator and Rev. Conrad arranged for a supper. They took care of all the details, menus and all, Eva Weed Ray (Mrs. Frank G. Ray) was cook. I believe I as Treasurer paid her $2.50. Each Sunday we were expected to pay 25¢. I paid if any member was absent on Sunday. We had perhaps $4 in the treasury. I could have stopped it by saying there will be no supper until the cost is in the treasury. We had six or eight members in the class which cost $1.25 each. After the supper I asked by mail for each member to pay $1.25. The next Sunday R. A. Monroe (Roswell A. Monroe, bank president; d. Oct. 26, 1945 @ 85) chided me by saying he never was asked before the pay the ante after the spree was over. I let this go through just to tell many years later how dumb the Rev. Conrad and James Cusator could be. Eva Weed Ray died February 4, 1964 at 88. Rev. Warren J. Conrad died April 10, 1964 at 76. James Cusator died December 14, 1966 at 85.

It was about 1910 [Editor's note: elsewhere Fred says it was about 1912] when I arrived at Liberty Post Office with my collected mail from the RFD route and as I was emptying it in the large tray some of the office force set a large firecracker behind me. The fuse was lit and sputtering. I looked around and spied it and watched until the fuse burned to its top, then kicked it right at the two men standing against the wall, Arch Armstrong and Jay Stewart. It exploded mid-air, half-way from me to them, with a loud roar. Solomon Royce was Postmaster and didn't seem to be scared in the least, but the two men whose heads might have been blown off turned very pale and decided not to try any more stunts on the rural carrier as he was a very dangerous character to deal with. Armon McPhilamy came in from the lobby to find out what happened. It gave the people in the lobby a scare. The weekly paper didn't print it. Andy Sirocco got smart and grabbed me when I returned from the route, so I came in the back door and hustled him across the floor, gave him the hip lock, and threw him heavily to the floor. He never bothered me after that. Archibald P. Armstrong died July 6, 1963 at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital, Cooperstown @ 79. He was county treasurer for twelve years and a printer and married five times: 1) Molly Whitaker (d. April 11, 1934); 2) Jennie Grant, his first wife's nurse; 3) Harriet McDonald (d. June 28, 1950 @ 65; widow of Milton J. McGibbon); 4) Mary Palmer Bailey (d. Aug. 13, 1961; daughter of Brundage and Mary Palmer Bailey and widow of Mr. Little of Kiamesha); and 5) Mrs. May Whitaker. Jay Stewart was 69 years old on Feb. 10, 1961. Solomon Royce died July 12, 1924.

I bought a large bay mare of Mrs. Nichols. Now The Grossinger owns the place. I hooked her up to the light lumber wagon to get a looking glass for a friend at the Liberty Freight House which stood where Killains' Transfer building now stands. As I just got the looking glass in the wagon, the horse switched her tail and caught the lines and it tangled under her feet. She started to run toward the Fulane Company Place. Sherman Ernhout had a Feed & Coal and Lumber combined. I was without the lines. We crossed a narrow bridge, the horse swayed as if to throw me out. Seth Annis was at the mill. I yelled and asked him to knock her down with the scoop shovel he had in his hand. He waved the scoop and the mare stopped. I was so upset I forgot to thank him. I have been told never to jump in a runaway. You will come out better if you stay in, as maybe someone may rescue you.

[Editor's Note: This incident, unlike the previous ones, did get written up in the newspaper. The clipping Fred saved reports a slightly different version of the story:

While at the station last Thursday evening after an express package, Freddy S. Gorton, the R. F. D. carrier had what might have been a serious runaway. While loading a mirror into the wagon a piece of paper blew in front of his pacer, which he recently purchased and which has a very fast mark. The pacer started down the hill toward Ernhout's mills. Freddy jumped into the back of the wagon and climbed over the seat. When he found his reins were under the pacer's feet, and having been taught in childhood to sit still and never jump during a runaway, he settled himself into the bottom of the R.F. D. wagon. On the street leading to Ernhout's mills is a creek about 40 feet deep, and when near this, men hearing Freddy saying "Whoa" in loud tones ran into the road and shook a sheet in front of the racing steed and in getting past it took Freddy off the bridge, but luck saved him. Just before he reached the mill, Seth Annis ran out and hit the runaway with a coal scoop and before the steed could get up he had him by the bridle and a serious accident was averted. In payment for the mad flight the pacer had to do fifty miles the next two days and wear hopples.]

One day about 1910 I decided to drive Old Dobbin the whole length of Hilldale Lake on the ice and get my name in the Liberty Gazette, but skipped two boarding houses by so doing.

A plaster mason boarded with my wife and I in winter about 1912. Will LaBarr (d. Dec. 16, 1969 @ 80) used to walk Lena Gerow (d. Aug. 13, 1963 @73) home from the store in Liberty village where she was a saleslady, about a half mile. One night he got fresh and insulted her. She told him never to call on her again. He really expected to marry her. He asked me to write a letter of apology which he would copy, so I did for him: "Dear Lena, I am heart sorry for the way I treated you Sunday night, and I promise I'll never let it happen again. I want to make up and still be friends." She forgave him and after they were married (on Sept. 12, 1916) she told me she couldn't believe he could word such an apology. I intended to tell her whose brain wrote the words for him to copy, but she died before him.

Amasa Prince asked me to leave his letters to Frank Denman's mailbox before I came to his home as his mother got his letters before he got home from work. He was courting a Jewish girl named Bessie Nabatoff. Both his mother and the Nabatoff parents objected to this courtship. I did his bidding and they got married and had three children. After he died I wrote her a nice letter. Told her I was sorry for her loss and about how I helped save her letters from his mother. She wrote me a nice latter and said they lived happily until his death (Feb. 23, 1968) at age seventy-eight. Fifty-six years of marriage.

In 1912 or 1914 we had a big snow storm. I went out each day and made part of the RFD route on foot, or used the horse part way, leaving the horse with someone while I made another loop, coming back again for the horse. One time I left the horse tied at the bottom of the hill near S. Duberoff's and walked to the Oliver Cooley (Sept. 1875-July 25, 1955) place and left five partrons' mail there, and returned to turn the horse around and go on Loch Sheldrake to serve some more patrons. This same winter I went in the fields off the road five times to serve the route. One day I walked maybe ten miles. The O&W train got through at Taylor's Crossing and I got on and rode to Liberty, the only time I carried mail by train.

At the Workman's Circle Sanatarium I met Dr. Rayvesky. He hooked his sleigh staves on mine and threw Old Dobbin down. I was pretty mad but done nothing about it.

Morris Seiken bought the Lake Liberty Farm of W. F. Doll and ran a boarding house in summer. He had a pump house to get water up to the house run by electricity. The pump stopped so he went in the pump house to start the pump. It was dark in there so he lit a match and was blown through the roof and killed. This was about 1912. I was rural carrier from Liberty at the time and a month later Mrs. Seiken asked me for my Liberty Register to get the printed account of his mishap and death. I didn't have it but referred her to the Liberty office. Morris Seiken Jr. didn't want to go in the army in 1917 so submitted to appendix operation and died. Liberty Village bought the above lake after the boarding house burned down March 26, 1955. I think the United States government paid about half of the purchase price and we made a dock for boating and a black top driveway with picnic tables.

The boys of Liberty on Sundays used to go to Ferndale to get the Sunday papers. They either used a horse or a bicycle and rushed to White Lake with the Sunday News and sold them to the city people boarding there. By coming to Ferndale, a two mile distance, they got the jump on other boys who got their papers from Train #9. This saved ten minutes time. The O&W railroad was in full swing at that time and did a thriving business carrying city folks to Sullivan County in the summer season. The Ontario and Western railroad had as high as nine coaches on one train and every seat was generally filled. The Liberty depot had two wings and at train time two or three hundred waited under this long roof. The Liberty stables had as high as 20 horses in summer. We had three livery stables in the business and a few private folks doing livery work too.

In 1912 Teddy Roosevelt made a speech from the upper porch of the New Liberty House. He was running for President on the Bull Moose ticket against Wm. Taft. I, Fred Gorton, and twin Floyd, ate dinner in the Old Liberty House by invitation of Mrs. Payne, who ran a boarding house across from Old Hornbeck's place. Also Fred Payne, her son, was with her.

Rev. George Murry Colville came to Liberty as Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in 1914. He had lost his wife just before he came here. He preached at three different churches in Binghamton before he came to Liberty. Our Presbyterian church paid him $1200 a year but Chandler Young, our first bank president, paid $500, making his income $1700. He boarded with the Newton Clements, met a maiden lady thirty-five years old there, and married her. He was the best Gospel preacher we ever had. At a men's meeting he told of some travels in foreign lands. One time in Egypt he stayed with a man who had five wives. He asked Rev. Colville if he would like to see his latest bride. She was eighteen years old and came out naked and well built too. A dear friend of Rev. Colville's lost his wife and three days after the funeral wanted Rev. Colville to marry him to her sister. He said she looked so much like his late wife. After due explanation, Rev. Colville married them. The sister lived with them, so he thought it better that way. Rev. Colville was stricken with encephalitis and died twenty months after he came to Liberty, on February 10, 1915, at sixty-three.

I bought a Model T Ford July 7, 1915 for $467.50 delivered. Charles Crawford (d. Nov. 8, 1955 @ 92; blacksmith at Stone Ridge near Newburgh) got one at the same car load. The automobiles came in a box car on the O&W. Ben Gerow sold the car to me and Lee Crook (d. May 30, 1965 @ 73; m Elsie Helbig, who d. Sept 25, 1947 @ 55) loaned me $250 to pay for it. I paid a man who knew how to drive to go with me for two days and expected him the third day but he didn't show up so I drove alone after that. My first license number was 8482, next number was V5284, next A-51-966 and last one A64-112. I sold to Jim Manion of Livingston Manor for $175 cash.

My first blow out occurred near the Tom Deviny place. We had to crank the car as self-starters didn't exist. One couldn't take the wheel off as now with six nuts and bolts, but had to jack the car up, take the shoe off, and patch the inner tube and blow it up with a foot pump. It took me half an hour before I got started again. Will Nicholson bought a Ford and I taught him how to take the shoe off and patch the inner tube. It was on my regular trip too. On my vacation I dug potatoes and helped the Nicholson boys thrash oats and buckwheat on the farm. I received $1.50 a day.

My horse Roxy was in pasture in the old Jim Schoonmaker place on the Loch Sheldrake Road. When I went to catch Roxy to use her for the winter she would turn around tail first at me, so I took her by the tail and came up beside her and put the halter on and we came home. I hired a livery horse every Thursday to spell Roxy but she made the trip five days per week nearly all winter.

I drove my Model T Ford three summers over the RFD route, but never got stuck so bad as to have anyone help me out. But sometimes I had to get stones from the stone wall to block up the hind wheels when I got stuck. About four months in winter I used horses to make the trip. They didn't plow the roads in those days. We generally had good sleighing from Christmas until March 15^th or April 1^st. I used a single horse. The staves was shifted so as to let the horse travel in the left side path as there was a comb between the two paths

February 19, 1916: I served the RFD trip with difficulty. I sent Wm. Green's (d. Jan. 9, 1951 @ 78; m Alice Deviny) to Crary's from Devine Corners and upset twice in going to Clements'. Lost my horse feed in the field. Met Mr. Drennon at Clements'. Roxy the horse wouldn't stand so I jerked her and broke the turret on the saddle of the harness. I arrived to Alvin Brown's (d. May 18, 1967 @88) and the road was closed with a ladder so I put Roxy in his barn and put all the mail in the sack and traveled on to Cooley's. It was 12:30 PM. I took dinner at Cooley's and left eight patrons' mail there--C. Taylor, Annie Devine, Frank Carr, Chas. Benedict, Dewey Carr, Morris Seigel, Aaron Stanton, Jas. Osterhout (James H. Osterhout was buried June 17, 1935?). I went to Geo. Earl's (George Earl married Lillie Hankins; she d. Feb. 2, 1945 @ 80). There I met him with the ox sled below Max Keller's place, breaking the road for me. Then to Pshonick's [Mrs. Israel (Rose) Pshonick d. March 19, 1948 @ 66], then to Prince's, and left Frank Denman's mail there. I met Glenn and Ernest Porter (d. May 2, 1956 @ 66). At Levine's place left Kalmanson's paper. It took forty-five minutes to reach Chas. Spitzer's place from Tony Vantran's. Next stop Myer Abramson. The bull pup came out and I called him a son of a bitch for chasing me. I went to Bonney's Corner. Sold 20¢ of stamps to McIntosh up to the McIntosh School. Two boxes there and on to C. P. Berylson's place to get signature for the special delivery letter for Mr. Kahn. They offered me coffee. Went on to Joe Bonnell's. Saw Fred Beseth. Went to Nicholson's Corner. Sat down, put Beseth's mail in his box. The drift was high. Next stop Bushlovitz. Here I went in their house and cleared my felt boots of snow and ice. They offered me some tea but it looked like liquor in a glass. I took none. I passed on through Workman's Circle to Howard's place. Here I asked him to take Wm. Abplanalp's (d. Dec. 24, 1954 @ 84?) mail to him. I had no mail for Abe Zeller so I went to Den Brock's, box 102. Took a cup of tea there and then to Alvin Brown's to get Roxy. They had unharnessed her and they hooked her up while I rested and visited with his wife. I got in Liberty Post Office at 7:05 PM so lame from walking I felt it for two days. I presume I walked seventeen miles over the route. Quite a long walk when one is used to riding. The snow was perhaps two feet deep.

March 9, 1916: I started over my trip on RFD. I skipped 11 to 16 but went to Mr. Robt. Smith's box and returned to Joe Brown's. Took dinner and left there just as the clock struck twelve. Thence to Crary's and Newton Clements'. They offered me dinner. I got a signature for the special delivery at P.A. O'Malley's (lived next to Nichols School) and when I got to J.R. Gerow's she asked me to dinner and coffee and Jas.Wyncoop (James Wyncoop d. Oct. 4, 1934) asked me to eat. I stopped and took tea. Dewey Carr and wife also offered me dinner. Mr. Tripps was there. Also Dewey's sixteen month little girl. Aaron Stanton met me halfway to the corner. Took his mail and Jas. Osterhout's. I retraced back to Geo. Earl's place. Mr. Earl was at Cooley's Corner to meet me but I went past Earl's to Arch Kirschbaum (d. April 6, 1949) and Prince's and Fred Vantran (Frederick M. Vantran d. April 18, 1962 @ 73 in Livingston Manor; married DeliaO'Keefe, who d. Oct. 4, 1958 @ 76; farmer)met me at the corner by Two Bridges and I gave him Levine Bros. mail, Kalmanson #72, also Chas. Spitzer. I turned for Liberty, went past Pshonick's to Alvin Brown's. Brown hooked up the cream colored horse while I went in their house and heard four phonograph records. They had a live hen in a pail with two sticks of wood to keep her in. She could stick her head out. I was taken to the post office by Elu, the son, with his covered sleigh. Otherwise I walked or ran all the way. It was 5:30 PM.

March 25, 1916: I went out in the field all these places to serve the RFD route: Crary's road was blocked with snow from Mrs. Mary Simmons' to Crary's Corner; took the field at Morton's to J.N. Clements'; went in the woods next to Martha Grant's; next blockade was A.B. Stanton's and Prince by Mauer's Corner. Retrace to Seigel's through Geo. Earl's place; Prince place to Geo. Eltz, W.E. Porter. No road from the Rexford place. We went in the field to the left from Levine's place through his barn yard to Tony Vantran's; up in the field to Spitzer place; in the gully halfway to Abramson's place; at the top of Nicholson's Hill; in the meadow to the Workman's Circle. Here we dash out of the road to the Cold Spring House. Four roads past Seiken's we go into John Nicholson'sfield, left past his barn, and come out at the bars. We cross Den Brock's lot to the sand bank by Howard Rowe place, the last place in the field making twelve places apart from the regular road traversed by the RFD route from Liberty.

October 17, 1917: I served a twenty-seven mile route and the same night served as fireman thirteen hours in the Liberty Power House.