Echo Hill and Mountain Grove has been uploaded, and I will soon have a proof copy. If that isn’t quite right, I will make corrections and hopefully by the end of September Echo Hill and Mountain Grove will be available!!
Thank you so much for your patience.
The summer cottages, hotels and boarding houses thickly planted on the mountain slopes and by the lakes and living streams of Sullivan, Delaware, and Western Ulster Counties, are now tenanted by a larger throng of city visitors than ever before.
…Sullivan County alone offered accommodations at the opening of this season for 8,000 guests, against 6,500 last year, and as a rule every available place of entertainment is filled with New York, Brooklyn and Newark guests.
Taking together Sullivan, Delaware, and the adjoining regions in Ulster west of the Catskills, the number of visitors now being entertained will exceed 15,000…
In the rugged, picturesque, and healthful highland region in question, which has a mean altitude of 1,500 feet above sea level, many city people of means have built for themselves handsome country seats or cozy cottages for Summer abodes.
Perhaps the most magnificent and costly of these country homes are those owned by Mr. George R. MacKenzie, President of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, and Mr. William F. Proctor, Treasurer of the same company, both situated in the town of Lumberland in Sullivan County.
In the same town, Mr. Leon DeVenoge, importer of New York, has a handsome Summer mansion and an estate of 2,000 acres…—The New York Times, “Some of the People Summering in the Catskills,” Middletown, N.Y., August 11, 1888.
1886 lithograph of a busy scene on Broadway in New York City titled: A glimpse of New York’s dry goods district; The largest in the world, covering a space of 135 acres; containing 4,500 firms; employing $800,000,000 capital.
—Source: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division:LC-USZ62-2662.
The Austins often spent the winter in New York City with their Eldred-Austin cousins, possibly through the 1880s. At the turn of the century (1900s) Mort and Jennie Austin and their family often received postcardswith New York City buildings or bridges from friends and boarders .
All this to say that Echo Hill and Mountain Grove is peppered with sidebars related to New York City.
“Echo Hill and Mountain Grove” update:
There are a few last minute changes happening and I am hoping the book can be uploaded for a proof copy within the next two days. I hope you will agree it was well worth your wait. It’s 512 pages jam packed with stories, postcards and photos, and includes a 41-page appendix, and a 20-page index.
In Chapter 4 of Echo Hill and Mountain Grove, Ell Austin marries Emma Parmenter, in Solomon City, Kansas. When Emma’s father Henry dies, she and her sister Sophronia Parmenter (how is that for a name?) inherit 220 acres on the Smoky Hill River.
Delaware House, 1882
Mrs. M.A. Holbert Proprietor; F.J. Holbert, Manager. 1/3 of a mile on banks of Delaware at junction of Lackawaxen. Conveyance free. Accommodates 100; 15 single rooms; 50 double rooms; $10 to $12; $2 per day. Discount for season. Two cottages attached. Boating for a mile on river. Black bass fishing in front of house. Boats free. Livery furnished; $5 per day. Best of references. Fresh vegetables, butter, eggs, milk, etc. from farm. Guides obtained.
—Summer Homes and Rambles Along the Erie Railway, 1882.
Delaware House, 1884
A popular Summer resort on the Erie Road and banks of the Delaware and Lackawaxen Rivers; everything first class; boating, bathing and fishing; boats free; reduced rates for June and September; circular. F.J. Holbert, Agent.
—Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 11, 1884.
Trivia note: Zane Grey, the author, met his wife Lina (Dolly) Roth at the Delaware House. Tthe Delaware House was built by William Holbert in 1852.
Menzo Quick, George Eckhart, George Mills, Alonzo A. Calkin and James K. Gardner and their successors as directors and all other persons who may hereafter be subscribers to or holders of the stock hereinafter mentioned are hereby constituted a body corporate by the name of the Barryville and Shohola Suspension Bridge Company for the purpose of purchasing, maintaining, reconstructing and managing the bridge across the Delaware River at Barryville…The corporation hereby created shall exist for fifty years…
Menzo Quick, George Eckhart, George Mills, Alonzo A. Calkin and James K. Gardner are hereby made directors of said company and shall continue in office until the first Monday of January 1908…
—Newtown Register, September 14, 1907
The district school at Barryville has been closed on account of the Scarlet Fever. There has been four deaths in that place from it, three of them were members of the school. The first was Mina Cortright, 16 years of age, who had just won a prize of $10 for the best attendance scholarship and deportment.
The teacher and scholars attended the funeral on the 2nd and the next night Lizzie, daughter of Jacob Beck, aged 7 years died, and she was not buried when Herbert, youngest son of Hon. S.St. John Gardner, died.—Republican Watchman, December 17, 1880.
“Echo Hill and Mountain Grove” update: Cousin Cynthia and I are doing the indexing—over 1,500 names. Gary has completed some super maps, 6 family trees in the Appendix, adjusted almost 1,000 photos in photoshop, printed out 2 hard copies (510 pages) and a set of pdfs for proofing (and made all the changes). The actual printing will hopefully happen in 2 or 3 weeks.
It was interesting to me to find a copy of the 1907 Town of Highland Officials. All the ones listed here are mentioned in the upcoming book.
Town Clerk: Wm. H. Wilson
Commissioner: H.C. Toaspern
Assessors: F.B. Owen, Frank Sergeant, George Mills
Inspectors: H.L. Eldred, Alvah Sergeant, George Sidwell, W.B. Styles, J.R. Myers, John Greening; Assistant: Chris Meyer
Truant officers: A.A. Austin, Walter Tether, J.R. Myers
Board Health: W. Whitney, C. Colville
Doctor: Frank I. Smith
Justice: Isaac Sergeant
Fighting fire: Jas. Boyd
Constables: Stephen Wormuth, Robt. Crandall
Fire Warden: M.O. Sergeant
Highway implements: Wm. H. Wilson
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow died March 24, 1882, at his home in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
My dad, Art Austin, often quoted three of Mr. Longfellow’s poems: The Children’s Hour, Paul Revere’s Ride, and The Song of Hiawatha.
The following newspaper article commemorating the famous poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was in Great-Grandma Mary Ann Austin’s scrapbook. [The first verse or so of Mr. Longfellow’s last poem is included at the end.]
The unexpected death of Mr. Longfellow, following so soon upon the remarkable honors paid to him on his seventy-fifth birthday, has called forth tributes of love and sorrow from all the countries to which his fame and works have extended, and has caused a profound sensation throughout the United States and England, where his name for so many years has been a household word.
“Mad River in the White Mountains” was Longfellow’s Last Poem. This poem, on a well-known White Mountain stream, was corrected, in proof by the poet only a day or two before his death, and is now printed in the May “Atlantic.”—“The Atlantic Monthly”.
Mad River in the White Mountains
Traveller
Why dost thou wildly rush and roar,
Mad River, O Mad River?
Wilt thou not pause and cease to pour
Thy hurrying, headlong waters o’er
This rocky shelf forever?
What secret trouble stirs thy breast?
Why all this fret and flurry?
Dost thou not know that what is best
In this too restless world is rest
From over-work and worry?
1883 front and back covers of New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad’s, Summer Homes and Rambles.
The New York and Erie Railroad originated in 1832, became the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad in 1878, and the Erie Railroad in 1895.
