The Colonial
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1922 Summer Season
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.
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1922 Halfway Brook News
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.
—Excerpt from Farewell to Eldred, p. 29.
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Winter of 1856–1857
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.
Summer Guests in the 1920s
Barryville-Shohola Bridge
In the 1920s some summer guests arrived at their favorite summer vacation place by automobile. Others still traveled by railway to the Shohola Station in Pennsylvania.
After disembarking from the train, the vacationers crossed the Barryville-Shohola Suspension Bridge (built in 1856) to get to the New York side, where chauffeurs waited to take them to their Boarding House location.
Barryville to Eldred
Mort Austin had been chauffering guests to and from the Shohola Station almost 30 years in 1920. From Shohola Mort drove to Barryville, and took Brook Road north past the Barryville
Schoolhouse and the Barryville Glass Factory.
Almost four miles north of Barryville, Mort passed through the village of Eldred. On the east side was the Parker Hotel. Set back behind the Parker Barn, south of Abel Myers’ Orchard Terrace House, was the home where Mort’s grandparents James and Hannah Hickok Eldred once lived—near the sawmill on Halfway Brook.
On the northwest corner of Brook and Proctor Roads was a structure built by Charles Wilson. Arthur Wilson’s A&P would be housed in his father’s building sometime in the 1920s.
The road to the west passed the Methodist Church (built in 1859) and headed towards Leavenworth’s Echo Hill Farm.
On the northeast corner of Eldred was the store of William H. Wilson, the brother of Charles Wilson.
East Eldred
At Eldred’s Four Corners, Mort Austin turned right (southeast) onto Proctor Road. On the right or south side was the schoolhouse, the Congregational Church, Sunshine Hall, and what would soon be the Sunshine Hall Free Library.
On the north side (left) of Proctor Road was the William H. Wilson Store, the Straub Hotel, the Von Ohlen Store, and (next to Halfway Brook) the home where Mort’s uncle C.C.P. Eldred had once lived.
After crossing Halfway Brook, Proctor Road continued southeast. Mort Austin continued a short distance after the Y to his Mountain Grove House.—Excerpt from “Chapter One: Most Pleasant Time of All,” Farewell to Eldred.
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Churches and Occupations
Congregational and Methodist Churches
In 1799 Isaac Sergeant helped establish what became the Eldred Congregational Church. Descendants of Rev. Isaac and his wife Mary Richards Sergeant resided in the Town of Highland in 1920. As did several relatives of Felix Kyte.
Rev. Felix Kyte was the well-respected pastor when the Barryville and Eldred Congregational Churches were built in 1835.
Five years earlier Mr. Grace and Mr. Street, Methodist circuit riders, had preached every two weeks in the Town of Lumberland. In 1859 the Methodists built a church in Eldred. Later, Barryville and Pond Eddy each had a Methodist Church.
St. Bernardine Catholic Church in Highland Lake and St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Yulan were conveniently located for summer boarders. Shohola, Pennsylvania was home to both a Lutheran and a Catholic Church.
Town of Highland Occupations
Boarding houses were the main “industry” in the area, but there were still sawmills (belonging to Harry Wormuth, John Love, and others) and bluestone quarries which needed workers. The Erie Railroad employed many men.
The Barryville Glass Factory employed some 15 local people. Earl Palmer (who also was the bridge tender for the Barryville and Pond Eddy bridges) was a polisher and his wife Kate worked in the Glass Factory Showroom showing glassware for sale. The glass cutters included Albert, Norm, and Frank Wolff, sons of Charles and Janette Kerr Wolff. (We first met the Wolff family in Echo Hill and Mountain Grove.)—Excerpt from “Chapter One: Most Pleasant Time of All,” Farewell to Eldred.
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Boarding Houses and Post Offices—Chapter 1 Continues
Original and New Owners
Some of the boarding houses had been in the area since around 1880. In the next twenty-seven years, new families (each with their own story) would move to the area. At least eight families would purchase and run established boarding houses. Several would be renamed.
Though brochures and ads touted each House as the best, there didn’t seem to be any rivalry. Owners helped each other out. If there was no vacancy, guests were referred to a nearby location.
Quite a number of folks met or would meet their future bride or groom during the summer at the various boarding houses.
Running a boarding house was an incredible amount of hard work, shared by the family and hired help, as well as children who carried water and helped with the dishes. But that still left lots of time for the youngsters to play.
Austin’s Mountain Grove House
Art, Bob, and Elizabeth’s parents Mort and Jennie Leavenworth Austin ran Mountain Grove House, a three-story boarding house on Proctor Road. Their Homestead Cottage on Collins Road had burned down around 1915 and they had moved to Mountain Grove House, the same house Mort and his brother Lon built around 1893.
As he had for many years, Mort picked their summer guests up at the lovely Shohola Railway Station in Pennsylvania, across the river from Barryville.
Post Offices and Schools
Each of the five hamlets: Eldred, Barryville, Highland Lake, Yulan, and Minisink Ford, had a Post Office. Since mail was not delivered to homes, residents picked their correspondence up at the local Post Office, which was (and continued to be) a general meeting place for news and gossip.
Postmasters were still required to have the same party affiliation as the U.S. President. Emily Parker Stevens, Eldred’s Postmaster in 1920, left when Warren Harding became president in 1921. Mr. Sparks, a Republican, served as Postmaster until 1933, when Emily Stevens returned as the Postmaster. (My father Art Austin would work for Mrs. Stevens in the 1930s.) When Emily Stevens was Postmaster, the Post Office was housed in the Parker Hotel that her father James Y. Parker had built around 1900.
Barryville, Yulan, and Eldred each had a two-room schoolhouse and at least one general store. Main shopping continued to be in Port Jervis, New York—even into the 1950s and 1960s. The scenic, winding Hawk’s Nest Road on the way to Port Jervis, was not yet paved in the 1920s. Barryville, Eldred, and Highland Lake had at least one gas station.
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Chapter 1 Most Pleasant Time of All
—Arthur Austin.
It was the last day of school and the start of the anticipated summer season in the picturesque Town of Highland, New York.
Arthur Austin, seven, his sister Elizabeth, nine, and his brother Bob, five, walked home from the Eldred Schoolhouse near the southeast corner of Eldred. It was less than a half mile walk (Bob and Elizabeth probably ran) east towards the Austin Mountain Grove House.
Art, Elizabeth, and Bob Austin weren’t the only children looking forward to a time uninterrupted by the school bell. Youngsters in the Town of Highland’s five hamlets—Eldred, Highland Lake, Barryville, Yulan, and Minisink Ford—also had counted down the days to the best of all seasons and visits from their city friends.
They looked forward to fishing, boating, and swimming (called bathing); ice cream socials; church bazaars; fourth of July sparklers and fire crackers; catching lightning bugs; making slingshots; playing baseball; and countless other summer delights.
The adults were geared up for summer visitors. Reservations had been made ahead of time. (Some families continued to vacation in Highland for two and three generations.)
Ice had been cut and packed in sawdust in the winter months and stored in the ice house for the summer. In the spring the gardens had been planted as many of the boarding house owners also farmed—so there was fresh produce for the guests. Continue reading
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Introduction to Farewell to Eldred, 1920–1950
The next few posts will be from my book Farewell to Eldred. The Introduction:
Over a hundred years have passed since Charles Mortimer (Mort) Austin’s grandparents James Eldred and Hannah Hickok first settled near Halfway Brook in what was then the Town of Lumberland.
Almost ninety years previous the Leavenworth grandparents of Jennie Austin had put down roots near Blind Pond Brook, west of Halfway Brook, in what became Eldred, in the Town of Highland.
Farewell to Eldred, the last book in the Memoirs from Eldred, New York, 1900–1950 Series, continues the story of the Town of Highland’s five hamlets: Eldred, Highland Lake, Yulan, Barryville, and Minisink Ford; and the descendants of the original settlers—relatives, friends, and neighbors—first read about in The Mill on Halfway Brook.
When Farewell to Eldred commences in 1920, Mort and Jennie Austin, my grandparents, managed Mountain Grove House on the east side of Eldred. Jennie’s father and three of her siblings resided at the Leavenworth’s Echo Hill Farm House on the west side of Eldred.
In the next thirty years newcomers, often from New York City, join the story. Some run Boarding Houses which continued to be the backbone of the area’s economy. Work was also available at the Erie Railroad, bluestone quarries, and private sawmills. And most unfortunately there is another war.
A phenomenal amount of photos, letters, postcards, diaries, old newspapers, and first hand stories from family and friends, tells the story of daily life—its joys and sorrows—in the Town of Highland from 1920 until 1950. Soon after 1950 my parents would depart from the home of my Hickok, Eldred, Leavenworth, Austin, and Myers ancestors.
Please join me as we return to Halfway Brook in 1920 and say a long farewell to the descendants of the original settlers and the newcomers in the Town we have come to love.
1765 Stamps for the Stamp Act
Discontent with Illegal Taxes
Britain was left with a tremendous debt when the French-Indian War ended in 1763. The English-powers-to-be thought the American Colonists had an obligation to help support the unasked for 10,000 British Troops the English sent (they said) to help protect the American frontier.
The English Parliament claimed the colonists had virtual representation, and passed the Sugar Act of 1764, the Currency Act (an extension from 1751) to regulate paper money issued by the Colonies, and the Stamp Act of 1765.
The 1764 Sugar Act, an update of the duties placed by the 1733 Molasses Act, was strictly enforced. But it was the 1765 Stamp Tax which made the American colonists especially angry.
The fee levied on every piece of printed paper—ship’s papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, even playing cards—had to be paid in British currency.
“Taxation without representation” was soon heard throughout the Colonies. Boston politician James Otis added, “is tyranny.” The British Colonists did not take lightly an unfair tax. Not in the 1630s with the illegal ship tax or the 1760s.
And not in the 1870s when Abby and Julia Smith faced an unfair tax with no representation. They often quoted, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”
The 1765 Quartering Act required colonists to provide housing and food to British troops stationed in towns. If there wasn’t enough space in barracks, then they were to be quartered in public houses and inns.
In 1766 New York City refused to house and feed the 1,500 British troops who showed up in the harbor.
Before Parliament could “punish” them, the New York Assembly contributed money for the soldiers. In 1766 the Stamp Act was repealed and the Sugar Tax was reduced to one penny per gallon on molasses imports. Even so, the taxation increased the Colonists’ desire for independence from England.
Though the Declaratory Act of 1766 upheld Parliament’s laws on the American Colonies as binding, the Americans still had no representation in Parliament.—from Abby, Laurilla, and Mary Ann, p. 35.
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