I have a vast, immense, large, big, great, massive, colossal, prodigious, gigantic, gargantuan, mammoth, monumental; giant, towering, elephantine, mountainous, monstrous…(you get the idea) amount of information collected for book 2.
Included in my collection is an assortment of postcards, mostly from the first decade of the 1900s. I have a number of postcards in Echo Hill and Mountain Grove, but there just was not room for most of the holiday ones.
Happy and safe July 4th!!
Slow but steady progress is being made on Echo Hill and Mountain Grove. But it could be up to six or more weeks until it will be printed. The cover is done and I will post it soon. Here are the chapters.
Chapter 1: Lumber and Bluestone
The Town of Highland, New York, 1880
Chapter 2: Dear Diary
Aida Austin’s 1881 Diary
Chapter 3: Picturesque Highlands
Boarding Houses of Highland, 1880s
Chapter 4: Paths Diverge
The Austins of Highland, 1883–1889
Chapter 5: Sublime Scenery
Highland Boarding Houses, 1890s
Chapter 6: An Old Bachelor
The Austins of Highland, 1890–1899
Chapter 7: Turn of the Century
1900–1905
Chapter 8: Homestead Cottage
Mort and Jennie L. Austin, 1906–1910
Chapter 9: Echo Hill Farm House
1910–1916
Chapter 10: Dear Soldier Boy
World War I: April 1917–to May 1918
Chapter 11: Another Soldier Boy
World War I: May 1918 to the end of the year
Chapter 12: Mountain Grove
The Austin Family, 1919–1920
It has been over a month since I last posted. I have continued to get information and photos from very helpful people and I recently was given a link to a site and remembered 2 other sites that are sources for information on the boarding houses from 1870s on up.
These sources (newspapers and Erie Railway booklets) have corrected some of my assumptions, confirmed others, and added new information.
All this to say, though I continue to work almost non stop on Echo Hill and Mountain Grove, I am realizing that I can not project the date that the book will be available. I hope to start posting more on this site in a couple weeks
For those of you who know I live in Arizona, we are safe from the horrid fire on the east side of the state.
Hello Halfway Brook friends,
Just a note to say I am hoping that Echo Hill and Mountain Grove (484 packed pages right now) will be ready to print by the end of June.
That means that there may not be many new posts for the next month or so.
Until next post,
Louise
Ever a friend of 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.
Beers 1870 map of Eldred.
Hello Halfway Brook Friends,
I am in need of a photo of James Eldred’s House built around 1830. George and Jennie Crandall were living in the house in 1939.
It was located between “Ayers” and “Store” (to the south) on the 1870 map above. An unknown lady and little boy partially cover the house in the photo I have.
Also:
“Eldred Inn” 2007.
Does anyone know when the “Eldred House” on the northwest corner of Eldred was built? Or who built it?
I think Charles Wilson may have owned it around 1900. I don’t know if the house was there earlier.
I don’t know if it was called “Eldred House” because it was built in Eldred, or because someone with the last name of Eldred built it.
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
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.
Myers, Mills & Co., Jane Ann Myers
Lake in front of house; five others within 1 mile. Boats free and to let; others, 25 cents a day. Raise vegetables. Plenty of fresh milk, eggs and poultry.
The above ad was in the 1886 Erie Railway Brochure.
Jane Ann Myers’s home had been built in the early 1850s. Possibly in the 1880s, there were two houses. The laundry area and summer kitchen were between the houses.
Jane Ann Myers and her son Augustus (Gus) lived in one house. George Washington Taylor Myers and his wife Martha Mills lived in the other, until George and Martha built their huge, beautiful home, Lakeview on Highland Lake.
I received the above photo from my mom a couple summers ago. We didn’t know what house it was, but eventually discovered it was the home of my great-great-grandmother, Jane Ann Myers.
This letter from Helen Hamilton is one of the many letters written to my uncle McKinley (Mac) Austin, who had enlisted when the U.S. entered WWI. Mac’s brother Raymond Austin had put a request in the Lone Scout magazine for people to write McKinley (Mac) when he was in training in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Dear Friend Mac,
How is everything down in Chattanooga? Everything is alright up here, but the weather. Do you have any snow? If you don’t, you can have some of ours. I believe we have enough to last until the 4th of July.
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