Envelopes from 1878 and 1879

by Louise Smith Posted on May 20, 2015
Envelopes from 1878 and 1879.

I continue to organize my Halfway Brook files, when I am not doing new research.

This is one of the many images which I scanned in color. I was on such a steep learning curve when I first began compiling information that I often scanned items in black and white and/or too small.

Of course the world was “black and white” in “olden days” so I didn’t really need to scan in color. I now have the option of creating books with color interiors at a more reasonable cost.

Some of my posts have included the images I did scan in color that were black and white in my Halfway Brook books.

Click on the image above twice to see the scan full size.

Posted in Austin letters, Letters and information, The Mill on Halfway Brook | Comments Off on Envelopes from 1878 and 1879

Henry Austin’s Ledger, 1879

by Louise Smith Posted on May 17, 2015
Pages from Henry Austin’s Ledger with mentions of 1879 through 1881.

Henry Austin kept a ledger. The page above shows what Henry sold to Abel Sprague Myers in November and December 1879 and mentions of 1880 and 1881. What follows are some earlier entries in Great-Grandfather Henry’s ledger.

1878, A.S. Myers
January: 700 hoops, $4.00
June 25: cash, $10.00
Nov. 6: 20 bushel ears corn at 37.5 cents per bushel=7.50

1879, A.S. Myers
Feb. 18: 6 doz. eggs, 1.25
Mar. 29: 11.55 pd. by check
May 26: 12 pounds of rugs
Oct. 13: 30.00, paid by cash
Oct. 23: two dozen eggs, .37
Oct. 24: 25 bushel ears corn, 9.38
Oct. 29: 30 bushel buckwheat, 15.00
Nov. 27: 18 bushel oats, $9.00 (50 cents/bushel)
Nov. 29: 20 bushel buckwheat,10.00;
6 bushel ears corn, 2.25 (37.5 cents/bushel)
Dec 4: bushel ears corn, 1.50

Posted in Book excerpts | Comments Off on Henry Austin’s Ledger, 1879

1917 The Sunny South I

by Louise Smith Posted on May 3, 2015

These postcards are from a Souvenir Folder of the Sunny South. They were sent to Aida Austin from Chattanooga, in October 1917. So I assume the folder was from Mortimer McKinley Austin, Aida’s nephew. The images were sent in 1917, but I don’t know when the original photos were taken.

A Southern Barbecue.

Sugar Cane.
Rosin ready for export.
Posted in Cards, World War I | Comments Off on 1917 The Sunny South I

The Bunk House

by Louise Smith Posted on April 26, 2015
Leavenworth home when it was Echo Hill Farm House.
Photo courtesy of C. Myers.

The early bunkhouses for lumbermen were small with dirt floors. Their later living quarters were usually in a larger building.

The ground floor contained a room for the cook (who could be a woman, as in the case of my great-great-grandmother Charlotte Ingram Leavenworth), and a dining room.

Meals were served on long board tables, and the crew were only allowed in the room at meal time. A “men’s room” was at the end of the room where the crew could relax, read, grind their axes, or tell stories in the evening.

A ladder went to the attic where there were tiers of bunks for sleeping. A one story log building was used as a barn for the horses and a storehouse for hay and oats.

In the above photo of the Leavenworth home, the larger building on the right (which is no longer there) and the small one story building in front, seem to match the description of the loggers’ living quarters just mentioned.

When it was in use, the first floor of the larger building (on the right) was the family’s summer kitchen and the upstairs was the servant quarters.—Louise Austin Smith.

Source: Fox, William Freeman, A History of the Lumber Industry in the State of New York, published in the Sixth Annual Report of the New York Forest, Fish, and Game Commission, 1901. —The Mill on Halfway Brook, p. 42.

An 1896 photo of the Leavenworth home does not include the two story building on the right. When I wrote “The Mill on Halfway Brook,” I had thought that at least the small one-story building might have been the early bunkhouse, but I am not so sure of that now. There would need to be more research.—Louise, April 2015.

Posted in Boarding Houses, Book excerpts, The Mill on Halfway Brook | Comments Off on The Bunk House