One-room Barryville Schoolhouse built in 1867. Barryville Schoolhouse, year unknown.
1866 Halfway Brook Village School
On July 29, 1866 Tina Austin, in New York City wrote her cousin in the Village (Halfway Brook/Eldred).
Dear Cousin Emma, So you are going to School in the village? Do you like it as well as you did going here?
1867 Barryville Schoolhouse
In 1867 a one-roomed schoolhouse was built in Barryville. Behind the schoolhouse were falls known at one time as Fish Cabin Falls. Grades one through eight were taught there from 1867 until 1949. My mother attended school there in the mid-1930s. The building is still in use, but not as a school.
—The Mill on Halfway Brook, pp. 136 and 137.
Note: My great-aunt Aida Austin saved a number of color postcards and the Barryville Schoolhouse is one of my many favorites.
Parents in Halfway Brook sometimes sent their children to school to live with relatives, as Libby Kyte mentioned in the last post. At some point there was an Academy in Monticello.
Mary Ann Eldred (later Austin) had lived with her sister in Middletown while she attended school, in 1848. In January 1864, Henry and Mary Ann Austin’s daughter, Emma Austin, age thirteen, lived with her Eldred-Austin cousins in New York City, while she attended school there.
January 31, 1864, New York City, Nettie Austin to her aunt Mary Ann Emma gets along first rate at school. She is at the head of her class.
The school teachers in the 1800s often lived with a family in the community where they taught. From Sherman Leavenworth’s letter home, it sounds like the school teacher would board with his family.
May 17, 1864 Sherman Leavenworth, U.S. Transport Arago Write if the school teacher has been to board with you yet.
In these next three letters, Sherman wrote to his brother John, to encourage him to take school seriously.
June 21, 1864, Beaufort, South Carolina, Sherman Leavenworth
Dear Brother John, You wrote that you was going to school. You must learn all you can.
August 1864, Beaufort SC, Sherman to his brother John Work good while at home and when you go to school, learn and [don’t be] excited by amusements and you will accomplish more than it ever lay in the power of one of them to do, and if us boys live, you will get a present for being persevering.
October 24, 1864 Morris Island, SC, Sherman to his brother John I suppose that you will go to school this winter. If you do, I shall look for a good deal of improvement in your writing, spelling, and composing.
If you should be in the army a while, you would see the use of learning. So study as diligently this winter as you must have worked this summer and you will get rewarded for it.
—The Mill on Halfway Brook, pp. 113, 116, 117, 119.S.S. Arago.
Note: In the late 1700’s and the 1800’s letters, I have often read the phrase, “you was.” Some writers were well educated. Since “you” is both singular and plural, I wonder if at the time it was correct to say “you was” if one was referring to a specific person.
Libby Kyte, daughter of Rev. Felix Kyte. I went to school at home until 1861.
Then for two or three years I attended at Shohola and Barryville.
My teachers were Miss Ellen Beakey, George and Albert Stage, George Dubois of Bethel, Harriet Leavenworth, George Egbert Mapes and Theodore Mapes. I attended school here until I was 9 years old. I boarded with Mrs. C.P. Fuller.
I went to New York City to live with my brother Francis to go to school, but stayed only three months when I was taken with the measles.
In the fall of 1865, I went to see my brother Joseph who then lived at Waterford, Maine.—Elizabeth (Libby) Kyte, daughter of Rev. Felix Kyte.
Excerpt from The Mill on Halfway Brook, p. 90.
Note: The next few posts are about the early schools and scholars in Halfway Brook.
Early view of Highland Cottage from Washington Lake.
The season at Highland Cottage on Washington Lake, Yulan, this year, is the most successful in the history of that establishment.
Probably the greatest night was an ambitious show and lawn party held at the end of last week…Estella Waterman performed the diving Venus act from the center cupola on the cottage roof.
At Eldred, the whortleberry season is on and thousands of the summer vacationers spend their time in picking the delicious fruit from the blue
laden bushes.
Although the season is just beginning, so plentiful is the crop that it is drawing hosts of summer folk who otherwise would not go to the wooded region.
—The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sunday, July 30, 1922.
Yulan Cottage, 1921.Yulan Social Club
Last Saturday night the Yulan Social Club held its regular monthly dance and supper at the Yulan Cottage.
The affair was well attended and was a large success both socially and financially. Dancing, singing and games were played. The feature of the evening was the elaborate supper which was served at midnight…
Much credit is due Chef Cantwell and his able assistants, the young ladies of the Club…The people started for home at 2 a.m. All…eagerly looking forward to the next social event…in May.—Republican Watchman, April 25, 1922.
Eldred Retaliates over Yulan in Second Game this Spring
The Eldred baseball team, undaunted by their defeat at the hand of the Yulan team on April 16, again met the Yulan team on the Eldred diamond and defeated them 12–8.
Although the day was raw and chilly, with occasional snow flurries, many spectators turned out to root for both teams. The game featured the fast base running of Johnny Steward of the Eldreds.
Both teams now have won a game from each other this season. Yulan’s star pitcher “Speed B. Hazen,” having left his speed home, retired early in the game.
Louis Hensel, having thoughtfully brought his speed with him, took to pitching, making a creditable showing and would no doubt have won the game had the rules permitted more than eight men to assist him.
Eldred Pitcher Timmerhoff and Catcher Myers, did splendid work considering this was the first game together.—Republican Watchman.
James Fuller Queen. Souvenir of the Coldest Winter on Record. Scene on the Delaware River at Philadelphia during the Severe Winter of Pennsylvania, 1856. LOC:2021670393.
In searching for my husband’s ancestors who arrived from Prussia in the 1850s, I found this image on the Library of Congress site. When I checked The Mill on Halfway Brook for the terrible winter, I found a sidebar titled, “Winter 1857,” on page 77, which I assume referred to the Winter of 1856 to 1857.
Winter 1857
The winter of 1857 was particularly disastrous to the Erie Railroad on the Delaware Division. There were extraordinarily deep snows and heavy ice in the Delaware River.
“On February second the ice went out with a big flood, and carried away the railroad bridge east of Narrowsburg, New York.
“The river froze up again and another flood came February 18th. The railroad bridge that the previous flood had demolished was well along toward restoration, but most of the new one was carried away by the second flood.
“J. Hardenbergh, bridge foreman, was working next to the Pennsylvania bank when the flood came, and the timber broke up and crashed away behind him as he ran for the shore, his feet being scarcely lifted from one timber before that timber would fall before the flood. His escape was miraculous.
“Pending the replacing of the railroad bridge below Narrowsburg, through traffic over the Erie was virtually suspended. Local passengers were ferried across the Delaware.
“Livestock was a great item of traffic on the Erie in those days.
“While the bridge was gone, cattle, sheep and hogs were unloaded at Narrowsburg and driven through Wayne County, Pennsylvania, to the junction of Honesdale and Mast Hope turnpike, sixteen miles, and thence back over the turnpike to Mast Hope, a total distance of thirty-five miles, where they were reloaded on cars in waiting at that place for them.”—Edward H. Mott, Between the Ocean and the Lakes: The Story of the Erie, 1899, p. 441.
