Halfway Brook

Boarding Houses and Post Offices—Chapter 1 Continues

by Louise Smith Posted on March 11, 2023

On the right is the Eldred Post Office in the Parker Hotel around 1920. In the middle of the photo is William H. Wilson's Store on the NE corner of Eldred. Postcard in Austin Collection. — On the right is the Eldred Post Office in the Parker Hotel around 1920. In the middle of the photo is William H. Wilson’s Store on the NE corner of Eldred. Postcard in Austin Collection.

Mountain Grove House. C.M. Austin, Proprietor. Situated 5 miles from Shohola Station. Can accommodate 40 guests. Overlooks the Village. Two Daily mails. Telephone connection.

Original and New Owners
Some of the boarding houses had been in the area since around 1880. In the next twenty-seven years, new families (each with their own story) would move to the area. At least eight families would purchase and run established boarding houses. Several would be renamed.

Though brochures and ads touted each House as the best, there didn’t seem to be any rivalry. Owners helped each other out. If there was no vacancy, guests were referred to a nearby location.

Quite a number of folks met or would meet their future bride or groom during the summer at the various boarding houses.

Running a boarding house was an incredible amount of hard work, shared by the family and hired help, as well as children who carried water and helped with the dishes. But that still left lots of time for the youngsters to play.

Austin’s Mountain Grove House
Art, Bob, and Elizabeth’s parents Mort and Jennie Leavenworth Austin ran Mountain Grove House, a three-story boarding house on Proctor Road. Their Homestead Cottage on Collins Road had burned down around 1915 and they had moved to Mountain Grove House, the same house Mort and his brother Lon built around 1893.

As he had for many years, Mort picked their summer guests up at the lovely Shohola Railway Station in Pennsylvania, across the river from Barryville.

Post Offices and Schools
Each of the five hamlets: Eldred, Barryville, Highland Lake, Yulan, and Minisink Ford, had a Post Office. Since mail was not delivered to homes, residents picked their correspondence up at the local Post Office, which was (and continued to be) a general meeting place for news and gossip.

Postmasters were still required to have the same party affiliation as the U.S. President. Emily Parker Stevens, Eldred’s Postmaster in 1920, left when Warren Harding became president in 1921. Mr. Sparks, a Republican, served as Postmaster until 1933, when Emily Stevens returned as the Postmaster. (My father Art Austin would work for Mrs. Stevens in the 1930s.) When Emily Stevens was Postmaster, the Post Office was housed in the Parker Hotel that her father James Y. Parker had built around 1900.

Barryville, Yulan, and Eldred each had a two-room schoolhouse and at least one general store. Main shopping continued to be in Port Jervis, New York—even into the 1950s and 1960s. The scenic, winding Hawk’s Nest Road on the way to Port Jervis, was not yet paved in the 1920s. Barryville, Eldred, and Highland Lake had at least one gas station.

Posted in Book excerpts, Farewell to Eldred | Comments Off

Chapter 1 Most Pleasant Time of All

by Louise Smith Posted on March 6, 2023

Bob and Arthur Austin during the summer season.

I always looked forward to the time when school would be out, for I never was too fond of studying and, besides, my parents ran a small summer boarding house to which a few families brought their children year after year. The summer season was the most pleasant time of all, for then the school bell did not interrupt the baseball games or the hours spent swimming with my city friends.
—Arthur Austin.

It was the last day of school and the start of the anticipated summer season in the picturesque Town of Highland, New York.

Arthur Austin, seven, his sister Elizabeth, nine, and his brother Bob, five, walked home from the Eldred Schoolhouse near the southeast corner of Eldred. It was less than a half mile walk (Bob and Elizabeth probably ran) east towards the Austin Mountain Grove House.

Art, Elizabeth, and Bob Austin weren’t the only children looking forward to a time uninterrupted by the school bell. Youngsters in the Town of Highland’s five hamlets—Eldred, Highland Lake, Barryville, Yulan, and Minisink Ford—also had counted down the days to the best of all seasons and visits from their city friends.

They looked forward to fishing, boating, and swimming (called bathing); ice cream socials; church bazaars; fourth of July sparklers and fire crackers; catching lightning bugs; making slingshots; playing baseball; and countless other summer delights.

This is the view the Austins had on their way to school. Eldred Schoolhouse on the left. Von Ohlen’s store on the right. In the middle: Charles Wilson’s and later Arthur Wilson’s. Jack Myers’ store after Wilson’s. Slonek’s House is on the hill. Photo courtesy of C.M.

The adults were geared up for summer visitors. Reservations had been made ahead of time. (Some families continued to vacation in Highland for two and three generations.)

Ice had been cut and packed in sawdust in the winter months and stored in the ice house for the summer. In the spring the gardens had been planted as many of the boarding house owners also farmed—so there was fresh produce for the guests. Continue reading →

Posted in Boarding Houses, Farewell to Eldred | 1 Comment

Introduction to Farewell to Eldred, 1920–1950

by Louise Smith Posted on February 27, 2023

The next few posts will be from my book Farewell to Eldred. The Introduction:

Welcome to Eldred (at one time called Halfway Brook) circa 1814. Photo courtesy of CBL.

Farewell to Eldred resumes the narrative of Echo Hill and Mountain Grove, in the year 1920.

Over a hundred years have passed since Charles Mortimer (Mort) Austin’s grandparents James Eldred and Hannah Hickok first settled near Halfway Brook in what was then the Town of Lumberland.

Almost ninety years previous the Leavenworth grandparents of Jennie Austin had put down roots near Blind Pond Brook, west of Halfway Brook, in what became Eldred, in the Town of Highland.

Farewell to Eldred, the last book in the Memoirs from Eldred, New York, 1900–1950 Series, continues the story of the Town of Highland’s five hamlets: Eldred, Highland Lake, Yulan, Barryville, and Minisink Ford; and the descendants of the original settlers—relatives, friends, and neighbors—first read about in The Mill on Halfway Brook.

When Farewell to Eldred commences in 1920, Mort and Jennie Austin, my grandparents, managed Mountain Grove House on the east side of Eldred. Jennie’s father and three of her siblings resided at the Leavenworth’s Echo Hill Farm House on the west side of Eldred.

In the next thirty years newcomers, often from New York City, join the story. Some run Boarding Houses which continued to be the backbone of the area’s economy. Work was also available at the Erie Railroad, bluestone quarries, and private sawmills. And most unfortunately there is another war.

A phenomenal amount of photos, letters, postcards, diaries, old newspapers, and first hand stories from family and friends, tells the story of daily life—its joys and sorrows—in the Town of Highland from 1920 until 1950. Soon after 1950 my parents would depart from the home of my Hickok, Eldred, Leavenworth, Austin, and Myers ancestors.

Please join me as we return to Halfway Brook in 1920 and say a long farewell to the descendants of the original settlers and the newcomers in the Town we have come to love.

Posted in Farewell to Eldred, Stories of Halfway Brook | Comments Off

1765 Stamps for the Stamp Act

by Louise Smith Posted on February 6, 2023

Penny stamps on the proof sheet for the 1765 Stamp Act. The design consists of a mantle; St. Edward’s Crown encircled by the Order of the Garter; a scepter and sword. Created by the United Kingdom Government, 10 May 1765. Public Domain.

Discontent with Illegal Taxes
Britain was left with a tremendous debt when the French-Indian War ended in 1763. The English-powers-to-be thought the American Colonists had an obligation to help support the unasked for 10,000 British Troops the English sent (they said) to help protect the American frontier.

The English Parliament claimed the colonists had virtual representation, and passed the Sugar Act of 1764, the Currency Act (an extension from 1751) to regulate paper money issued by the Colonies, and the Stamp Act of 1765.

The 1764 Sugar Act, an update of the duties placed by the 1733 Molasses Act, was strictly enforced. But it was the 1765 Stamp Tax which made the American colonists especially angry.

The fee levied on every piece of printed paper—ship’s papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, even playing cards—had to be paid in British currency.

“Taxation without representation” was soon heard throughout the Colonies. Boston politician James Otis added, “is tyranny.” The British Colonists did not take lightly an unfair tax. Not in the 1630s with the illegal ship tax or the 1760s.

And not in the 1870s when Abby and Julia Smith faced an unfair tax with no representation. They often quoted, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”

The 1765 Quartering Act required colonists to provide housing and food to British troops stationed in towns. If there wasn’t enough space in barracks, then they were to be quartered in public houses and inns.

In 1766 New York City refused to house and feed the 1,500 British troops who showed up in the harbor.

Before Parliament could “punish” them, the New York Assembly contributed money for the soldiers. In 1766 the Stamp Act was repealed and the Sugar Tax was reduced to one penny per gallon on molasses imports. Even so, the taxation increased the Colonists’ desire for independence from England.

Though the Declaratory Act of 1766 upheld Parliament’s laws on the American Colonies as binding, the Americans still had no representation in Parliament.—from Abby, Laurilla, and Mary Ann, p. 35.

Posted in 1700s Sidebars, ALAMA | Comments Off