“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.
Cattle fording the Smoky Hill River at Ellsworth, Kansas, on the old Sante Fe crossing, 508 miles west of St. Louis, Missouri (1860–1870). Photo: Alexander Gardner. Library of Congress: LC-USZ62-8087.
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
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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
Woodcut of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in my great- grandmother’s scrapbook.
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,
The Last Resting Place
In accordance with a wish often expressed of late years, President Garfield will be buried in Lake View Cemetery, at Cleveland, Ohio. This cemetery lies upon a high wooded ridge in the outskirts of that city, overlooking the waters of Lake Erie.
It possessed peculiar attractions for President Garfield, says a writer in the New York Tribune: “Within the sight of the highest ground in the cemetery is the place where the farmer boy whom destiny had marked for great achievements and great suffering first saw the lake while chopping wood to earn money to educate himself, and was fitted by the sight of its restless shining waves to know the great world and mingle in its large affairs.
About 10 miles to the south is the site of the log cabin where he was born and there is still standing the plain little frame house which he and his brother built with their own hands for their widowed mother when their sturdy toil had lifted the family out of the pinching straits in which it was left by the death of their father.
Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio. Photographed by Thomas S. Sweeny. Page in Mary Ann Austin’s Scrapbook courtesy of Cousin Melva.
The following newspaper article about President Garfield was in Mary Ann Austin’s scrapbook.
The Dead President
Tomorrow will be laid in his eternal bed one of the noblest of American citizens. James A. Garfield, after struggling patiently, calmly and heroically with death for 80 days, was beaten in the contest, and he now takes his place with our well-loved Lincoln in the affection and reverence of the American people.
It is strange that these two men—Lincoln and Garfield—should have been chosen by assassins as victims. They both sprung from the very poorest of our people, by the hardest endeavor achieved education and position in life, and were chosen by their fellow-countrymen to rule over them.
There was nothing in the character of these two men of the people to arouse enmity or create hatred. The honors which they had fairly won they wore with gentle humility and they were kindly, generous and charitable in all their ways. Toward their bitterest opponents they exhibited no animosity, and when they had occasion to rebuke they did so as to leave no sting behind.
They will remain forever among the most revered and loved of American citizens. Page in Mary Ann Austin’s Scrapbook courtesy of Cousin Melva.
I am still hoping that Echo Hill and Mountain Grove will be available the first part of September. There are still a number of things to check off while we do the final editing. Besides the wonderful cover, Gary has made some super maps which show locations of the places we know about in the Town of Highland and nearby Shohola, Pennsylvania.
I have taken over the kitchen table once again. On the right in the back are 2 of my major resources: Johnston’s, Reminiscences, and Richard Eldred’s, The Eldred Family.
