Echo Hill and Mountain Grove hopefully available in September.
Jennie Louisa Leavenworth and her future husband Charles
Mortimer Austin lived near brooks on opposite sides of the
charming village of Eldred, Town of Highland, Sullivan
County, New York.
The Leavenworth home near Blind Pond Brook on the
west, would become Echo Hill Farm House. The Austin
family would build Mountain Grove House near Halfway
Brook, on the east side.
Echo Hill and Mountain Grove is an account of the change
from lumbering, rafting, and bluestone quarrying, to that
of running boarding houses in the picturesque and healthy
hamlets of Barryville, Minisink Ford, Yulan, Eldred, and
Venoge, located near the Delaware River.
Echo Hill and Mountain Grove is bursting with anecdotes
and stories of townsfolk, boarding houses, occupations,
and events in the years 1880 to 1920. It includes accounts
on Shohola Glen, Shohola House, the Pelton Soda Factory,
the Roebling Bridge, the Congregational Church Centennial,
Zane Grey, two presidential assassinations, and World War I.
The narrative draws on information from many families,
censuses, church records, land documents, a diary, Erie
Railway booklets, newspapers, grocery books, scrapbooks,
as well as over 900 photos and postcards, maps, and
numerous letters, including 130 written during World War I.
Echo Hill and Mountain Grove is fully indexed, with names of
well over over 1500 people, places, and events. It is the second
book in the series, Memoirs from Eldred, New York, 1800–1950.
