Halfway Brook

Remnants of a house in the Johnstown Flood. Photo Library of Congress: loc.pnp/cph.3b08648.

On May 31, 1889, the worst U.S. flood in the 19th century occurred. The Johnstown or Great Flood of 1889, took place in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, some 300 miles southwest of Eldred, New York.

There had been an extremely heavy rainfall, and when the South Fork Dam, 14 miles upstream of Johnstown, Pennsylvania failed, 20 million tons of water broke through.

Over 2,200 people were killed, including 99 entire families; 4 square miles of Johnstown were completely destroyed. Property damage was $17 million; and the clean up took years.

It took 7 days and nights to replace the huge stone railroad viaduct that had almost disappeared in the flood. By June 2, the Pennsylvania Railroad was able to provide service to Pittsburgh, and food, clothing, medicine, and other necessities began arriving.

Clara Barton, who led the American Red Cross in its relief effort, was in the area for over 5 months.

Help for the people of the area came from all over the U.S. and 18 foreign countries. There were up to 7,000 Relief workers.—Johnstown Flood.

Town of Highland students around 1890.

Top row, the tall girl with the arrow pointing to her head is Bertha Boyd Wilson. The girl next to her was Belle Boyd, a pretty girl, but her photo is torn out.

The girl in front of the teacher, Mr. Merritt, was Norah Bradley, later, Norah Avery.

The first boy in the second row from the bottom was Charles Myers, son of George W.T. and Martha Mills Myers.

The boy in the middle of the same row with the check on his shirt is Garfield Leavenworth.

The girl behind Garfield on the right, is my grandmother Jennie Leavenworth, I think.—Photo courtesy of my cousin, Cynthia.

Washington Lake House
Joseph Tether, Proprietor

4 Miles from Shohola; transportation $1. 2 single, 16 double rooms; Accommodate 30; 20 rooms; adults, $7 to $8; children, half price; transient, $1.25 per day. Discount for season.

Lake of 200 acres only two minutes’ walk. Perch, pickerel, bass; boats free; Surrounded by forest. Raises vegetables. Plenty milk, eggs, butter and poultry.—Erie Railway brochures of 1886 and 1889.

Joseph and Ann Barber Tether ran Washington Lake House, which was built around 1865, on Washington Lake.

At one point, Joseph Tether owned 220 acres on the east side of Washington Pond. In the early 1900s Joseph built Washington Beach House.

Washington Beach House was at the north part of the property; and the Washington Lake House was on the south.

Washington Lake House, would become the Nancy Lee. The Hensels would call the boarding house the Colonial in 1927 when they first owned it.

Joseph, his parents, Edward and Elizabeth Peat Tether, and several siblings arrived from England in 1850 and settled in Highland around 1860. They are shown on the 1870 map just south of Washington Pond.

Josephs’s sister, Elizabeth Tether Owen and her husband Robert Owen were ancestors of my Austin cousins.

Joseph and Ann Tether’s daughter Jessie would marry a son of Isaac M. and Joanna Brown Bradley. Their son Walter Tether would run the Washington Beach House.

It’s been busy crazy times here, but I am gradually working my way through the Echo Hill and Mountain Grove manuscript the 4th time, and 500 pages.

Above is my wonderful workspace powered by tea.

• 2 monitors, the left one shows 2 pages from Chapter 9 which I am currently working on

• tea, on stacked bins (not on computer table) as a safety precaution

• books used as resources and new Maier/Bosch info on my footstool

• tax and boarding house, census, and other information on the table

• lots of sticky notes to remind me what I want to include in the chapters

• calculator to compute ages

• spiral notebook with notes taken down from phone calls

• old postcards and maps with helpful information from cousin Cynthia

I have wonderful new photos and information from several families that make a great addition to the book.

Hopefully, Echo Hill and Mountain Grove will be ready to print by June 2011.

Mary DeVenoge Miller. Photo courtesy of M. Austin.

Dr. and Mrs. DeVenoge’s daughter, Mary DeVenoge married
Louis Miller. Louis and Mary Miller had a boarding house
around 1900. Perhaps it was the one Mary’s folks had had
that was featured in the Erie R.R. brochure in 1889.

My mom just happened to have a photo of Mary DeVenoge,
in her amazing collection.

L. DeVenoge, MD, Eldred, Sullivan County, N.Y.

7 miles from Shohola, transportation $1.60
double room, adults $8 to $12; servants $8; discount for season.
Good fishing; boats free.

Dr. Leon DeVenoge owned a lot of property around Round Pond, which would one day be called Lake DeVenoge. The DeVenoge Boarding House was featured in the 1889 Erie R.R. brochure.

Aida Austin mentioned Dr. DeVenoge several times in her 1881 Diary.

Dr. and Mrs. DeVenoge died before 1900. They were buried in the Old Eldred Cemetery.

DeVenoge Marker in Old Eldred Cemetery.
Photo courtesy of Cousin Cynthia.