Joel Kimball Diary - February 1874

Colonel Moore's farm was midway up Johnston Mountain, on the road that led from James Sprague's to Beaverkill. Well, you know that is not exactly true, because the boundaries of his farm were not actually on the road, but along a tributary brook that ran parallel with the road and to gain access to the road from his farm, he needed to ford the brook, which he did by way of a pole bridge, and, for a short distance, cross the lands of Thomas Collins. Now that had never been a problem before, I mean crossing Collins' land, since Thomas was married to the Colonel's daughter and, to keep peace in the family, never objected to that particular use of his land by his in-laws. But now, in 1874, Collins, the Civil War hero, though he had yet to be honored as such and whose pension was considered meager at best, was beginning to have difficulties in keeping up with the payments on his own farm and soon would eventually lose it.

Realizing the predicament he was in, Moore decided to rectify his problem with the hopes that it would not cost him a cent. On June 9, 1880, Moore invited the town highway commissioner, James Sprague, to his house where he proposed that the town lay out a private road, a distance of sixty feet, which happened to be the same road that went over Collins' land and which Moore had been using ever since 1857, which was well before Collins owned the land, Now, it is unclear just what the final outcome of this meeting was, but the town did act on Moore's petition and have the sixty foot road surveyed, and the family has been using this same road ever since that meeting, even up to this very day.  -  Fred

As Joel's daily journal entries suggest, he enjoyed reading. William Wallace was a Scottish patriot who led the fight against King Edward's invasion during the war for Scottish independence at the end of the thirteenth century. Over the succeeding centuries, Wallace's achievements have become legendary to his fellow countrymen, leading Jane Porter, in 1810, to write the historical fiction "Scottish Chiefs". This romanticized version of Wallace's achievements, to some contemporaries, seemed to have been greatly exaggerated, but the legends Porter helped expand persists to this day, being depicted in the recent, highly acclaimed film, "Braveheart". - Fred
 

The New York and Oswego Midland Railroad's line was completed on the evening of July 9th, 1873, with the laying of the last rail being driven by the last spike along the route west of Westfield Flats. The joining of the eastern and western sections of the trunk line brought out the road's dignitaries, newspaper reporters and a brass band, all accompanied with a blast from a howitzer in celebration of the occasion.

The celebration was short-lived for the company experienced finacial difficulties during the project, unable to pay off the interest on the bonds and back-pay due to the contractors, who created work stoppages and delayed the road's completion. On September 18th, after only two months in full operation and with employees not receiveing wages for nearly five months, the company bacame bankrupt and was put into the hands of a receiver. Still maintaining rail operations under these financial hardships, labor unrest against the company continued to mount going into the month of February. - Fred
 

Five freight trains were being held up at Summitville by the unemployed railroad workers who were demanding back wages, and whose actions were now generating excitement up and down the line. New York and Oswego Midland officials, the company's receiver and the United States Marshal with a posse of men, rushed to the scene on February 3, where a confrontation was avoided when the men were promised back-pay in the form of receiver's certificates. Trains were again moving by the next morning. Though the immediate crises was over, the company and the workers would soon discover that the problem had yet to be solved. - Fred
 

The spiritual needs of these early settlers, before they had any churches, were administered by "Circuit Riders", ministers who traveled from community to community, delivering their message wherever a congregation could be assembled; the school house, living room parlors or an outdoor "camp meeting". In 1869, the residents of Westfield Flats banded together and erected their first church building, of the Methodist denomination, on lands donated by Austin Dodge. To help pay the salary of the church's resident minister, donation parties were held on a regular basis.

Frances W. Andrews, The Westfield Flats' forty-year-old minister, began his calling at the M.E. Church in the Delaware County community of Downsville, while still serving as a circuit rider. By 1870, he had relocated into the town of Neversink. He eventually took charge of the Westfield Flats' church, and was serving that congregation during the year of 1874. -  Fred
 

Joel has been in correspondence with "L.D." since the first of the year [presumedly Lydia Dodge, though Joel is not telling], but now, since his visit to Neversink last month, he has begun a new correspondence, one that will eventually be long-lasting, with "M.S.", Mary Schoonmaker, the daughter of Ben Schoonmaker from Krum's Settlement. Mary's great-grandfather, Garrett Van Benschoten, was one of the pioneers who settled in the Neversink Valley. A veteran of the Revolutionary War, he joined a company of volunteers and served in George Washington's rag-tag army throughout the war, participating in its military campaigns, including the bitter winter at Valley Forge.

After the war, Van Benschoten's military service was rewarded with the opportunity to receive a one-hundred acre lot under the Beekman and Schoonmaker grant titles of the Hardenburgh Patent [today near the hamlet of Hasbrouck]. Ownership of these grants was challenged by heirs to the Hardenburgh family and eventually, through questionable and devious means, came into the ownership of Gross Hardenburgh, who now became the new absentee landlord of the valley. - Fred

If anyone could be blamed for pouring fuel onto the fire of the Anti-Rent Wars, Gross Hardenburgh would probably be considered as being the one who struck the match. An aristrocratic blowhard and a drunkard with a fiery temper, he rode up and down his "serfdom" demanding excessive rents, threatening eviction and bullying the population. As the general temper of the tenants became hostile, resistance to Hardenburgh's tactics increased and it was no surprise to anyone when on a cold, November morning in 1808, Hardenburgh was found lying unconscious along-side the road from what at first appeared to be the result from a fall off of his horse.

Gross Hardenburgh was carried to the Van Benschoten tavern where he laid until death overcame him in the afternoon. Meanwhile, as news of the day's event spread through the valley, a large celebratory crowd assembled at the tavern. Examination of the body soon discovered a small bullet wound in the dead man's shoulder, the trajectory of which led to his spine and resulted in his instant paralysis and eventual death. Since many of his former tenants had expressed ill feelings toward the hated landlord, most everybody in the valley were considered suspect to the murderous deed. Though no witnesses were willing to testify as to the guilty party, all who were questioned denied taking part in the shooting, but expressed that they would have done it themselves if given the opportunity. The culprit to the murder was never identified.  -  Fred
 

Sunday, February 15, 1874

"Quite a pleasant day. Went to church at school house, heard sermon delivered by Andrews. Called at John Sheeley's, saw Sid and Charlie. Freight train came and stopped in cut near Sheeley's and engine went to Morsston for water, leaving train in cut. Mother and Adilie went to meeting at Purvis church and I went on hill."

Joel Kimball

Locomotives for the New York and Oswego Midland Railroad were driven by steam, generated within its boilers requiring the train to make numerous stops along its route to maintain sufficient water level. Since many of the small communities along the line had yet to have municipal water systems, adequate water for the railroad's use often was unreliable, especially in times of drought or in the dead of winter when the rivers, a chief source of water, were frozen solid.

The railroad line from East Branch to Morsston was a slight, but steady uphill grade. The locomotive hauling the freight train must have labored as it pulled its load up the grade, passing the small lumbering communities along the way until Westfield Flats, which had yet to have a water tower to serve locomotives. Pushing on to Morrston, gauges on the engine must have shown the water level to be at a critical level. When not enough water is in the boiler, the fire in the engine's firebox could eat through its chamber's walls causing the destruction of the locomotive with a catastrophic explosion. Knowing the danger that they may have been in, the crew unhooked the train of cars at the rock-cut behind the Sheeley farm, across from the school house about a mile below Kimball's, and continued on with the locomotive, now without the burden of the full train, to the water supply of the Midland's water tower at Morsston.  -  Fred
 

With the continuous grade, the runaway train gained momentum as it rolled past the Roscoe station. It gathered speed as it whizzed past Cook's Falls and Horton. Those who happened to be near the track were startled with the site of the train flying by, approaching speeds of sixty miles an hour, sailing through Trout Brook and East Branch. Before approaching Fish's Eddy. the railroad bed reverses its grade which, fortunately, slowed the train's momentum and it eventually came to a stop without doing any real harm, except for maybe some heart palpitations of the railroad's employees and those who witnessed the train's harrowing journey.  -  Fred

One of the unanswered mysteries of Livingston Manor, one that probably will never be solved, is just who is buried in Mott Cemetery. Located on the flats across the river from Sprague's, it is the oldest burying grounds for this section of the town. Many members of the Mott family are buried in this cemetery but neighboring their burial plots are many of their neighbors, many of whose identities and burial locations have become lost over the passage of time. The few fortunate ones have stones of marble that have survived the years, inscriptions still able to be deciphered. Others are marked with slabs of sandstone, local rock cut and quarried from the hillside overlooking the valley, but whose inscriptions have long been worn away with the stone's slow disintegration. Those less fortunate, and probably with less means when in life, have their sites marked only by fieldstones, standing upright above the tall grass to mark the deceased individual's location. For many, these stones have all disappeared, the identity of the site of these buried souls now noted only by the elongated depression left in the ground's surface. For those least fortunate, perhaps the majority of the cemetery's inhabitants, are those whose stones are gone, washed away by floods, and the depression caused by their decomposition being filled in with the river's deposition.

Somewhere within the midst of these unmarked stones and tall grass are the remains of the ancestors and family of Hiram Edward Rose, the neighbor of Joel Kimball. John Rose, the grandfather whose life's journey wound its way Schoharie, Ulster and Delaware counties, came to live in the Willowemoc valley and died in March of 1833, buried in the Mott Cemetery on March 13. Next to him lies his grandson, Willard, a brother to Hiram, who died in 1892. Hiram's other brother and sister, George and Helen Louise, are also buried somewhere in the Mott Cemetery. Both died as young children within two weeks of each other in 1842. Their story of this family tragedy, as well as the final resting place for all of the family members, are buried and now lost within the tall grass of the old burying grounds of Mott Cemetery. Fred
 

Before the coming of the Midland railroad, the community surrounding the tannery enterprise of Henry Osborn and Medad Morss was them known as Morsston. Small businesses in this factory town served both the tannery and its employees. Easy access to leather allowed the shoemaker George Akins to flourish. The wagon and two blacksmith shops served the tannery, teamsters and local farmers. Both Bishop VanGaasbeck and John DuBois were the village's blacksmiths, the latter also operating the company store of dry goods and groceries. Besides selling Joel his neck-tie, the store's space also served as a general gathering place for the local residents; early meetings of the town board as well as court sessions of the local magistrate were held at the store. A combination of the building of the new railroad depot over a mile away near Purvis and the financial troubles of Morss's tannery all but doomed this tiny community.  Fred
 

Thursday, February 19, 1874

Cut some wood and read some in paper, do not feel very well. After noon went to Flats, called at Uncle Oliver Borden's and got directions for buying deer skins in New York, 36 Spruce Street, John R. Fosdick. Practiced with the band and attended dance at Green's.

"One meal at Green's."

Joel Kimball

The purchase of the deer-skin earlier, which resulted in a small profit, struck Joel's entrepreneur side with him getting directions from his uncle, who was a shoemaker, on contacting a New York leather merchant.

Charles B. Fosdick, who was to become one of the wealthiest and best-known leather merchants in New York City was, in 1874, a dealer of hides and skins. His success later led him to the founding of a commercial bank that benefited similar merchants. His success also led to other unwanted attention.

Mired in New York society, and the accompanied gossip, Fosdick and his family's life were tabloid front page news. His son's recent marriage was far less than perfect, resulting in an ugly divorce that had newspapers readers, both within the New York daily's and from weekly's of the surrounding countryside, transfixed with every detail. His claim of infidelity was countered by his wife's claim of abuse, the legal proceedings resulting in bringing out the skeletons from New York society's closets.  -  Fred

During this era, young boys often did not finish their schooling; the obligation of earning wages to help the family or the lure of adventure enticing the lads away from the classroom. Perhaps this was also the case for Joel, but now, being older and wiser at the age of 28, sought to improve his education, as noted in his dairy this day and earlier in the week as he states that he was attending "spelling school". Or maybe it was just that he, along with the Moore boys, were sweet on the new young teacher.

As more and more early families settled in the valley between Westfield Flats and Purvis, the increase of school-age children warranted a separate school district. In 1848, Amos Sheeley, whose farm was less than a mile from the Kimball place, donated, for rental purposes, a small lot of land off of his farm to the trustees of the newly formed school district [Elam Rose, James Wright and Joel Hodge], allowing them the use of the premises as long as the district maintained a school-house. Eventually, in 1862, the trustees bought the Sheeley lot and built a new schoolhouse on the site. This one-room school house would later become known as the Hazel school, but not until well over thirty years have passed.  -  Fred
 

The Kimballs were now receiving the New York Weekly, a weekly newspaper, or more accurately put, a "story-paper," that featured serialized stories, poems and current events. First published in 1859, it now [1874] had over 350,000 subscribers. Many of the scrapbooks that were put together by these families, and which few still survive today, often had poetry and stories from the Weekly pasted onto the scrapbook pages amongst the local news articles and obituaries.

Joel Hodge was the grandfather to Joel Kimball, his mother's father. The original Hodge farm in the valley of the Willowemoc, located in the Buck Eddy section [Hazel] sat at the base of Burnt Hill. In 1859, Hodge and other woodlot owners up the hill, petitioned the town to build a road, which was to begin below Hodge's wagon house, pass up and over Burnt Hill and down to the Beaverkill valley, to Kimball Flats, where Hodge's cousin, George Kimball, operated a sawmill. This road, today, is now known as the Burnt Hill Road.  -  Fred
 

Jeffrey Campbell and Lafayette Sprague, young men who were about Joel's age, were cousins; Catherine Campbell, Jeffrey's mother, being the sister to James Emmett Sprague, of Purvis Post Office, and Erastus Sprague, whose farm was next to the Mott covered bridge.

Archibald Campbell emigrated to America from Scotland in 1800, eventually settling in the Town of Colchester, Delaware County, his family becoming one of the largest lumbering operations along the East Branch of the Delaware. Robert, the second oldest son and well-known raft-steersman, continued the large operation. He also became a leader in the Anti-Rent War rebellion and, like Colonel Moore's younger years at Neversink, was a captain of general training amongst the Colchester home-guard.

Archie Campbell's younger son, John, married Catherine Sprague and moved to a farm in the lower Willowemoc valley, east of Westfield Flats. He died on January of 1867, leaving his widow with the farm and three young sons, Jeffrey being the oldest at thirteen years of age.  -  Fred

Lafayette spent two years employed by the new railroad, working on building the wooden trestles and bridges along its route; the railway's passage through the tortuous, rough terrain of the Catskills providing plenty of work. Besides the numerous river crossings, especially along the Willowemoc, deep valley ravines had to be crossed which were done by use of trestles, connecting the valley walls with ribbons of iron rails. These lofty structures required skill in engineering to build as well as nerves of steel to cross.

Perhaps the grandest of these structures was the trestle that crossed the branch of the Mongaup Creek at Liberty Falls. The iron bridge over the creek was over a thousand feet in length, exclusive of the trestle work at each end. Trains passing over would find themselves precariously perched one hundred feet high above the valley's floor below, its weight supported only by the skeleton of timber and iron.  -  Fred
 

Though the introduction of the Midland Railroad is considered to have brought these isolated communities into the modern world, by 1874 standards, perhaps just as important, and seldom mentioned, was the telegraph wires that ran along the railroad's right-of-way allowing these rural folks to be able to instantly communicate with the rest of the world with just .- .. . - .. .. . -.- . . .-. - .... . - . -- . --. . .. .- ..... .... -.-. .. .. ... - . . ..... (Morse Code)

Montgomery Dodge and Abram Rockwell were merchants at Westfield Flats. Since both men were also leaders in the town's Republican Party, the reason for the telegraph message from the Morsston depot's office was most likely for political purposes. Political party caucuses for the township were soon going to be held with the selection of party candidates for the upcoming general election, and with Rockwell the current supervisor of the Town of Rockland and Dodge as a potential candidate, final preparations for the upcoming vote ran over the wires. -  Fred
 

Again, trouble erupted along the route of the New York and Oswego Midland when the unemployed workers, who were given company script instead of back wages owed, found out that the paper was unredeemable and worthless. As before, the aggrieved men assembled at the Summittville station, spiked switches and lock up cars in an effort to delay the passage of trains.

The disruption was more serious than before since the striking workmen carried revolvers with them, in an effort to intimidate the company and the law enforcement agents sent to reopen the road. Fortunately, no violence took place even though three of the men were arrested. -  Fred
 

It is not much different today in our community than it was one hundred and thirty-five years ago; when a family suffers through a tragedy, the town-folks gather, raise funds and offers their support to the stricken family. Though no area newspapers have survived from this particular time period, the John Cotter family appear to have suffered some problem, perhaps a devastating fire. Before fire protection became organized with the formation of local fire companies, little could be done to save a rural homestead when a fire was discovered, except to save as much of the furnishings and household goods as possible before the family was driven back by the heat and flames and the structure turned into a pile of smoldering embers.

The John Cotter family lived at the Little Ireland section, an isolated valley within an isolated town, located on the hill above Purvis Post Office. The wooded trail following the tributary leading up from the Willowemoc Valley was a steep climb, but once on top, at the James Vernooy homestead, the picturesque valley known as Little Ireland opens up. Fields established where virgin forests once stood, the timber cut off twenty-five years before, the stumps pulled and rocks cleared, now were pastures for grazing sheep. Numerous cabins dot the valley's landscape, the homes of early immigrants who settled in the valley over twenty years before; most of Irish ancestry with names such as Dougherty, Donahue, Waters, Woods and Cotter. The Bernard Cotter family moved to the valley in 1848, by way of Dover, New Hampshire. The youngest son, John, would take over the homestead when he became old enough, along with his new bride, Johanna Collins, the older sister of the Collins brothers, Tom and John. -  Fred
 

Joel Kimball's mention of "Captain Davis" is probably in reference to James Wals Davis. Some correspondents to local newspapers, writing during this period, also, on occasion, referred to him as "Captain", though he never received this rank while serving with the 143rd NYV. - fred
 

The candidates for the upcoming general election have been chosen by both parties and Joel has thrown his hat into the ring, seeking the position of town clerk. The current supervisor for the Town of Rockland, Abram Rockwell, the Westfield Flat merchant, is not seeking re-election so his neighbor and fellow Flat's merchant Montgomery Dodge, is running in his place on the Republican ticket.

Joel will be running against Aaron Royston Purvis, who is the incumbent town clerk. Often, elections in our township become family affairs; the larger the family and number of relatives, the larger number of votes you receive (though on occasion it works in just the opposite way). A.R. Purvis, a young man like Joel at the age of thirty-four years, is the son of Manley Purvis whose farm was along the road to Woolseyville. The Purvis family, being amongst the earliest settlers in the township, extended into many of the area's other pioneer families, especially in and around the community of Purvis. Likewise, Joel's family extended into many of the pioneer families in and around the Westfield Flats section. Just as it would seem, many folks within the township were somehow related in some fashion to either one or the other candidate, and in some cases, to both young men. - Fred