Hometown Tales

Written by Tina Ordone

Though this site's main focus is Stephentown, NY, for most of my live I was raised in New Lebanon, which isn't that far away. It is another area of upstate New York which is filled with a rich history, and one that I would like to share. Rev. Ernest D. Smith wrote wonderful stories, which appeared in the weekly paper, The Echo, and eventually ended up in books called Valley Tales. Though Rev. Smith can't write his wonderful stories any longer, due to ill health, I wrote him to ask if I could share them with an internet audience. He was very gracious in giving me his permission, careful to say that the books weren't available any longer, except for a few copies that might be found in stores around the town of New Lebanon.

From all of this, my "Hometown Tales" was born. Unless it says otherwise, these stories are from Rev. Smith and his Valley Tales.

Cite these stories:
Author: Rev. Ernest D. Smith
Originally published in The Echo
Compiled in Valley Tales (a book)
Shared by Tina Ordone on StephentownGenealogy.com

Please note: pictures accompanied the original webpage but they are not included here.

New Lebanon's Favorite Son

Samuel Tilden
Born February 9, 1814 in New Lebanon, NY
Died August 4, 1886 in New York City
Buried in The Cemetery of the Evergreens in New Lebanon, NY

In 1914, the New Lebanon Town Council passed the following resolution with regards to Samuel Tilden:

"Resolution: Whereas in the death of our distinguished fellow townsman, Samuel J. Tilden, New Lebanon has lost a citizen whose worth and services in public life were appreciated and sought after by his fellow citizens generally throughout the state and Whereas his neighbors in this town, we were deeply sensible of his many and find endearing traits of character and will ever hold them in loving memory and Whereas during his lifetime he was always deeply and loyally interested in any project for the betterment and advancement of the interests of his native town; Now therefore be it resolved That this board are keenly sensible of the loss of the Town of New Lebanon occasioned by his death and That we hereby express our appreciation for his work for the town betterment and for his loyal devotion to the best interests of our town. "

March 10, 1914
Town Clerk - Arthur (See First Bread Wrapper)
Supervisor - C.A. Early
Town Board - Boughton, R. Gillett, James Dunne

Quick facts about Samuel J. Tilden

• He was a Democrat
• He was governor of New York State from 1874 to 1876
• He ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1876
• He lost by one Electoral Vote to Rutherford B. Hayes
• He was a driving force behind The Tilden Pharmaceutical Company
• He fought organized crime while governor

Samuel J. Tilden died in New York City on August 4, 1886. He is buried in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in New Lebanon, New York, the town that he was born in. As you enter the cemetery, look straight ahead a little to the left. You will see the cemetery's largest gravesite. It honors Tilden and all that he did for the State of New York and New Lebanon. The sarcophagus, designed by the great architect Ernest Flagg was not installed over the tomb until 1895. Through the years, the monument deteriorated and was restored in 1984, paid for by funds raised by a group of concerned New Lebanon citizens. The town raised $20,000 and received matching funds from the state. The incription on the side of the monument still reads, "I Still Trust In The People".

Samuel Tilden's monument as it appears today
Crowds gathered outside of Tilden's New York City mansion upon his death.
Circle shows the home Tilden grew up in in New Lebanon.

Tilden's grave as it appeared in 1886.
From "Harper's Weekly"

The disputed 1876 Hayes-Tilden Presidential Election. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes ran as the Republican candidate for President against Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. Tilden won the popular vote with 4,284.020 votes to Hayes' 4,036,572; however, Tilden was short one electoral vote for a majority. The returns of South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, and Oregon were disputed, and the controversy dragged on until Congress created an electoral commission to decide the result. The commission was made up of eith Republicans and seven Democrats, who voted along party lines. Hayes was awared all the disputed returns, thus giving him a majority of one in the electoral college. Hayes made a behind-closed doors deal with Southern Democrats to end Reconstruction, thus ensuring white control and reversing the gains that blacks had made during Reconstruction.

The letters above are: 1. A folio manuscript document with notation on verso signed "Acting Secretary, Treasury Department (Charles F. Conant), February 24, 1887," and reading, "This paper was handed to me by Mr. Z. Moses, Clerk to Mr. Ferry, Vice President, with the statement that the names appearing thereon were those of the messengers bringing the electoral votes from the several states mentioned which were allowed and counted, but to whom the President of the Senate could not, on account of complications, give the certificates." Inside are the names of messengers from Oregon, Florida, and Louisiana, the last two being among the four Southern states that submitted two sets of electoral votes. It was Florida's final vote that turned the election to Hayes 2) A letter dated March 2, 1977, 5:30 am, (the day the electoral commission gave the vote to Hayes) from John P. Bigelow, on Willard's Hotel stationery, Wash. D.C., addressed to the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, Charles f. Conant, with a "you are there" account fo the final tally. In part, "At 4:40 this morning I cabled to our London office count completed 4:10, Hayes declared elected...I have been on the floor of the House sixteen hours and as it is now after five o'clock, will probably be late at the Dept..."

I found this item of ebay, with a price tag a bit out of my range, but none the less fascinating.

Gail Bordon and New Lebanon's Role in the Creation of Evaporated Milk

Everyone has heard of Elsie the Cow and the Borden Milk Company, but did you know that Evaporated Milk got it start in New Lebanon, New York? Thanks to Mr. Gail Borden, the man who invented Evaporated Milk and the Shaker Community that existed in New Lebanon back in 1853, Mr. Borden succeeded in "producing concentrated sweet milk by evaporation in vacuum, the same having no sugar or other foreign matter mixed with it." Here is his story.

Gail Borden was born in Norwich, Chenego County, New York on November 9, 1801, the son of Gail Borden and Philadelphia Wheeler, a great great granddaughter of Roger Williams. He had little more than a year of formal schooling and had no scientific training at all, but he was consumed with a passion for research and a desire to improve daily life. He lived in a time when many children died before reaching any maturity. Before Borden, milk was a child's food, difficult to keep fresh, likely to carry germs--as Louis Pasteur would prove--impossible to preserve safely for more than a day or two.

Years before Pasteur's experiments, Borden sensed that a relationship existed between dirt, freshness and the quality of milk. "Milk is a living fluid," Borden would write in 1856, which "as soon as drawn from the cow begins to die, change, and decompose." The perception sharpened in 1851 when, returning from a trip to England, he was devastated at seeing children die aboard his steamer apparently as a result of scanty milk from shipboard cows. He went back to a notion that he had long held that all sorts of foods could be condensed and preserved, which would make them safer.

Borden was not the only one who tried to keep milk from spoiling, but the others generally cooked it in the open air over a hot fire, and it always burned, became discolored or turned sour. Borden's better idea used a vacuum pan similar to the ones he had seen the Shaker's of New Lebanon, New York using as they condensed fruit juice. Inside his vacuum pan a heating coil warmed the milk slowly and evenly, allowing gradual evaporation without excessive heat and scalding. Milk is three-quarters water; after the water had vaporized, what was left was condensed milk.

"Milk will be as common as sugar" on shipboard, he wrote in 1855. After two false starts, he opened a milk condensing factory in Wassaic, New York, and soon was peddling condensed milk door-to-door. He pioneered in its sanitary handling by enforcing strict health guidelines on farmers. If they wanted to sell him milk, he insisted they wash udders thoroughly before milking, sweep barns clean, spread manure away from milking stalls, and scald and dry their wire-cloth strainers morning and night.

This oddly shaped copper kettle was officially designated as a "vacuum pan". It now sits in the corner of the Agricultural Hall at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History boomed. Though the patent office held up his patent for three years, until they were convinced that the important function of vacuum was to protect milk from air and keep it clean while being condensed, he was awarded the patent in 1856. In 1858, the Committee of the Academy of Medicine was quoted as declaring that Borden's milk was "unequaled" in purity, durability and economy.

When the Civil War came, the federal government ordered condensed milk as a field ration; soldiers home on leave told their families about milk that stayed fresh indefinitely. Borden's production of it for the Army never caught up with demand.

By the late 1860's condensed milk had changed the dairy business from a haphazard farmer-to-consumer business to a major industry. Condensed milk made Borden rich, respected and famous.

Borden died at 72, admired and liked by everyone who knew him, those who thought he was a genius and those who thought he had a screw loose. The Borden Family of Companies, named after Gail Borden, does nearly $3 billion of business a year. It sells industrial chemicals, consumer adhesives, housewares and packaged foods--and licenses other companies to sell milk, ice cream and cheese under the Borden name.

Next time you pick up a can of Borden's Evaporated Milk, think kindly of the Valley from whence it came, and the sickly man who was consumed with compassion for little tots everywhere.

Information for this story from:
Valley Tales by Rev. Ernest D. Smith
(I have no affiliation with the Borden Company, this is simply a story about the town I grew up in.)

Smithsonian Magazine Sept. 1999 issue

First Flag In New Lebanon

"News had come to New Lebanon that Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina had been taken by the rebels and that the United States flag had been lowered in surrender. A nine-year old boy in New Lebanon, his heart set aflame with patriotic passion as he heard the story, decided that the flag that had been lowered at Fort Sumter would be raised in New Lebanon. This little boy's name was Abner Hitchcock, and I got this particular story from his own writings. (He was the editor of a newspaper after the Civil War).

He couldn't of course, get the same flag for New Lebanon that had been lowered in South Carolina, so he scraped together all the money he had earned that summer selling herbs and roots to Deacon Everett up in New Lebanon Center and he went to one store after another trying to purchase an American flag. He had never seen one, and didn't even know what it looked like, and strange as it may seem, none of the stores in New Lebanon could furnish him with a flag. The first store keeper said, "Never had a glag in this store and never had any occasion to sell one." He went to a couple of storemen in Lebanon Springs and got the same response.

Returning home, he was in tears. Finally, his mother and older sister got it out of him what he was crying about and they were so taken with his intense desire to see an American flag fly over New Lebanon that they said, "We'll make you one, if you can't find one anywhere else." They took a white sheet and some red flannel that was going to be used for a shirt for Abner's father, Washington Hitchcock, and some blue cambric that was intended for a dress for his older sister. When they got these pieces of cloth all together, they realized that they didn't even know what a flag looked like. They had never seen one. In the generation of peace that had just preceded the Civil War, there had been no occasion for a flag in New Lebanon for public use. They went all over the town and finally they found a Webster's dictionary (and you remember how in the old Webster's Dictionary, in the front there were pictures of all the flags of the world) and they found a picture of an American Flag. They cut out their red stripes and the blue field and sewed them together on either side. The flag had a double thickness. They cut out all the stars and although they didn't know where to put them, it didn't make any difference. They sewed them on (according to the story) just where they thought the stars should go, and the flag was finished.

In the meantime, the boy had gone up to the woods behind his house which was on Route 22 and had cut down the straightest, longest pole he could find. It measured about 35 feet, so after he got it in the ground, there would be about 30 feet of it above ground. He cut that down, this little boy, all by himself and somehow he got it down to the road. Then he got a big rope and tied it to the pole and pulled it up to where he says there was a "limestone knoll that had a pot of earth in it" that he could scoop out. He dug the dirt out of the hole in the knoll, the exact location of which is unknown to me. Some people think it was on the Villiage Green, and if so, then the bulldozers of a later age dug it up when they were rebuilding Route 20. Perhaps it was down by young Abner's house. I am not sure where he put it, but he dug the great hole out of the middle of the limestone knoll and he set the pole up. He said he did it alone. It seems impossible, but working with all the ingenuity that this young fellow possessed, it seems he could do almost anything. He got the pole in the hole and straightened it out, packed the dirt around it with some pebbles and got it firm. Then he went in and got the flag and brought it out.

A big dilemma possessed him this time. He didn't know what to do, for it dawned on him that he couldn't get the flag up to the top of the pole. This young fellow spent all day long, first with old ladders, and then tacking cleats onto the pole and trying to climb it that way. He tried every way he could think of to get the flag up on the pole and finally he came to the conclusion that he just couldn't do it, so with tears in his eyes, he pulled out the dirt and stones and pulled the pole down to the ground. Then he went up to where a new house was being built and got some lathes and a few old nails and he nailed the flag with the lathes to the pole. He then proceeded to reset it and finally got it up again. This took him two or three days, but his determination and zeal never wavered.

After all of this hard work, he stepped back and in his own boyish way, not knowing really how it should be done, he took his cap off his head and saluted the flag as well as he knew how. After he had saluted the flag he put his cap back on and in his own words, looking as nearly as he could in the direction of Charleston, (as his geography lessons had indicated it would be) he lifted his nine-year old fist into the air and roared, "There, General Beauregard, damn you, shoot it down if you dare." And General Beauregard never did.

That flag, the first raised in New Lebanon after the fall of Fort Sumter, was never lowered. The elements finally destroyed it and after many, many years the pole rotted away. However, before the pole rotted away, many flags had come to New Lebanon and everyone had seen what an American flag looked like.

This being the first swear word that Abner had ever uttered in his life (and uttered with great emergency), Abner said that he often hoped that the recording angel, having heard him say that, had dropped a tear upon the word and had blotted it out forever and we all hope and trust that is what happened."

NOTE:
Abner Hitchcock died February 26, 1936 in his family home on Route 22, in the same room in which he was born. The house was bult in 1797. Abner was born December 23, 1851. His hobbies were geology and poetry. He began his career with the Springfield Republican and was later associated with the Boston Post and Boston Journal. He was later editor of the Norwich Bulletin. A voracious realder, he owned a fine library. He was a graduate of Williams College. When news of the final victory and the end of the Civil War was received there were no flags in town. His mother make one and flew it from the knoll in back of the house. His father was Washington and his mother was the former Mary Adams.

Lebanon Valley Historical Album Volume II 1986
Valley Tales Volume I Second Edition by Rev. Ernest D. Smith

Thermometers and Barometers

As written by Rev. Ernest D. Smith in Valley Tales

One day when I got up early and went to eat in the local diner, somebody told me that it was twenty-four degrees below zero. Why not stay in bed? It was a cold morning and my little care started, but it groaned a lot in doing so. I got the thinking about that remark, "twenty-four below". That statement could never have been made had it not been for a man in New Lebanon, about 1820, because it was right here in this little town of ours that the degrees on the thermometers were established. The weather might have been just as cold in this part of the world before 1820, but on one ever spoke of it as "twenty-four below."

In that year, a man by the name of Thomas Kendall, a machinist, constructed a machine which maintained a uniformity in the degrees of thermometers. He perfected his own standards of degrees and established that 32 degrees Fahrenheit is the freezing point of water, and 212 degrees Fahrenheit is the boiling point of water. He manufactured and sold these thermometers throughout the world and they were adopted by scientists as a standard article.

The Kendall factory used to stand beside the stream behind waht is now the Schell Esso Station. In 1859, Aneroid Barometers were invented there, and manufactured by the sons of Thomas Kendall. This delicate non-fluid barometer, recommended by scientists, was popular as a portable instrument, for it could be used in any weather conditions without any particular adjustment. The thermometer itself was devised by a French physicist who lived from 1686 to 1736 by the name of G.D. Fahrenheit. It was he who moved mercury up and down the inside of a tube as the weather changed, but Kendall put the graduating numbers on the thermometer making the little gadget the useful tool it is today.

Thomas Kendall, Jr., the only son of Rev. Thomas Kendall to arrive to maturity. He was born in Millbury, Massachusetts and marrived Olive Crane of Oxford, Mass., by whom he had six sons and one daughter. His wife Olive died young and Thomas married Martha Sparawk by whom he had two daughters and one son. They moved to New Lebanon, New York in June of 1820 and immediately built a factory and started producing all kinds of thermometers with the genius of his oldest son John, who was only ten years old.

Thomas was a mechanical genius and began early in life to experiment in machinery for his own amusement. His experiments led him to consider the principle of graduating the degrees on the scale of the thermometer and it was in 1820 that he invented a machine for that purpose, giving with great accuracy a division of degrees conforming to the variations of caliber of the tube. This was the great difficulty to overcome in the construction of the thermometer. By close and accurate mathematic study, Thomas Kendall perfected his own standard between the boiling and freezing points of pure water. His work was so exact that the degrees established by him conform to the best standards found anywhere in the scientific world.

After his move to New Lebanon, he established the manufacture of thermometers which he continued during his life and also constructed a barometer for his own use. He died at the age of forty-five in December, 1831.

His son, John Kendall, inherited much of his father's mechanical genius and after the death of his father, John inherite the business and followed it most of time afterward. He finished the shop and furnished a very well-equipped workplace where he gave work up to thirteen people, both men and women. His shop was located almost directly behind his house down on the banks of the Wyomanock Creek. The Kendall house is standing today with a historical marker in front of it. The Kendalls located at the junction of Routes 22 and 20 at the base of the mountain that houses the Shaker Community. When operating, John Kendall would produce between forty and forty-five dozen thermometers a day; and even though others made thermometers, the Kendalls supplied most of the items used in the country during the 19th century. The Kendall house is now on the National Historical Registry.

John was married in 1932 to Deborah Avery of New Lebanon and they had three children, all girls. For most of his life he was a deacon in the White Church and highly respected for his integrity. He never sought or desired public office for himself although he as a hard Republican worker in all elections. All who wrote about him in the newspapers of that day universally esteemed him for his honesty and uprightness of character and his genial disposition made him many warm friends.

There are Kendall thermometers all around the world today. Mostly they are to be found in antique auctions and at some flea markets. The command a very high price. On the other hand, the thermometer has outlived the Kendall name. The last generation was mostly females and as they married, the name was lost. The last Kendall girl married a Brown and the others left the area. The Kendall shop was demolished, the thermometer works were sold off to a man from New York City named Charles J. Taglibue and the thermometers were no longer made in this town. The barometer factory was rebuilt into a private home and still exists high on Pool Hill nearly on the level with Montepoole. The last residents in this home were Edward and Lucretia Koepp.

First Public

On March 12, 1804, a 17 year old Lebanon youth, the son of a Revolutionary War veteran, established "The Juvenile Society for the Acquistion of Knowledge". He was Jesse Torrey, born May 25, 1787 in the King's district, which later became the "Towns of New Lebanon and Canaan". His "library" was a free lending organization with 147 members. Just about everyone in the Lebanon Valley between the ages of 12 and 21 participated and the organization flourished. Emma Willard, whose Troy school today bears her name, helped out, and ex-president James Madison joined forces to establish libraries in schools, prisons, almshouses and cantonments - "not for the few but for the many". The library was moved from house to house with each elected librarian. Torrey, despite his youth, spearheaded this campaign from the home of his father-in-law, Dominie Aaron Booge. An historical marker, which had been incorrectly placed at the Joseph Hooper Memorial Library in Lebanon Springs, was moved to the site of the Booge-Torrey homestead. The old house on West Street, is gone today, except for its stone foundation and a lilac that grew by the front door. Jesse married Damaris Corintha, daughter of Aaron Jordan Booge and his wife Grace Thrall. . In 1808, the house was sold and the books had to be moved. Some of the books later showed up in the Wyomanock Seminary during the Civil War. Books were borrowed by people until the Seminary burned in 1867. The Seminary was located where the West Lebanon Firehouse how stands.

In 1882 the Rev. Joseph Hooper of The Church of Our Saviour, reorganized the Library. There was a small building at Lebanon Springs, which had once been a shoe repair shop, then the office of Dr. Cyrus Bates. The Rev. Hooper had the building moved in front of the Gay Block and it housed the library for years. The Torrey family is buried in the old part of the Cemetary of the Evergreens. Jesse, who died in Philadelphia, is also buried there. The Booge-Torrey House was built in 1797 by Abner Shumway for Judah and Civiah Rawley. It had a great gambrel roof and stood until 1930.

New Lebanon Central School

A Proud Beginning
THE UNION FREE SCHOOL

I attended classes at New Lebanon Central School for all grades except 5th through 8th, when our family moved to East Nassau. Though I did enjoy the years in East Nassau, and some of my enduring friendships are today with the "kids" I went to school with there, most of my memories are from the years at NLCS. I started out in Kindergarten with Miss Clapp, later she became Mrs. Fletcher, and ended when I graduated in 1968, having had Mr. Enfield, Mr. Robertson, Mr. Eaton and Mrs. Salls. However, one year, I had classes in what we called the "Little School", which at the time took the overflow from the elementary grades. The year was 1957, and I was in second grade with Mrs. Dorothy Sanford. Two memories I have of that year are, one, Mrs. Sanford could crack an apple in half with her bare hands and two, she caught me talking during classtime and threw a book at me from across the room. It didn't hit but it sure did cure my talking problem!

The following is the story of that "Little School", as related by Rev. Ernest D. Smith in Volume 2 of "Valley Tales" and in "Along the Wyomanock Creek".

"Some people in New Lebanon say that the spring of 1917 produced both good news and bad news. First the bad news: The United States had declared war on Germany on April 6 of that year. New Lebanon men were being called to Fort Devens and other points for battle training. Concern existed in almost every household.

There was also the good news: New Lebanon Central School was getting ready to graduate its first class. Never before had so much emphasis been placed on education in this small community. For 150 years, children had been taught in the little red schoolhouses that dotted the hills and valleys. Now they had the promise of four more years beyond the eight years of the little red schoolhouse.

The first high school building still stands, but vacant.

The Union Free School
Picture courtesy of Karl Butler
The good citizens of New Lebanon had built a sturdy building for those interested in going to the twelfth grade. This was located near the triangle in the road where one road went to Massachusetts, another to Vermont, and the third to Albany. It had been built with fireproof material, meeting all state safety laws and rules. It was a beautiful building for its day. The first eight grades of that school district met downstairs and the high school met on the second story.

The prime mover in this venture into secondary education was Mr. J.C. Johnson. Because of his great interest and dedication and work, he will always be known as "The father of New Lebanon Central School." He was elected president of the School Committee. In all of this, Mr. Johnson was ably assisted by E.S. Hemenway, the long time town clerk of thirty-four years. Mr. Hemenway owned a store in the building that stood where the Indian fountain now stands. which is now the Town Hall. Earl Hemenway was elected secretary to that early committee for higher learning.

Probably due to the war, the first graduating class was reduced to all girls by 1917, and only three graduated that year. They were Alice Adams, Marion Van Buren, and Emeline Sackett. Marion went on to college and became a school teacher. Emeline married Leo Cashman and moved out of town. Today they are gone from us. Alice Adams lived in Scotia. She married a Hammill and New Lebanon lost one of its most prized possessions, because Alice was the "life of the party" wherever people gathered.

The second class to graduate from this new Central School had only two in 1918. Because of the war, they too were girls. However, in 1915, when the class started as freshman, therehad been four and one was a boy. He was the son of the president of the school committee. He dropped out of school but later returned. Then there was Helen Hocter, as girl who died before graduation. So, only Gladys Chapin and Carrie Bateman were left to get diplomas. Gladys married Clinton Ford and moved to Connecticut where she died in 1977. That left only Carrie Bateman. Carrie married Walter Sykes and made her home in Stephentown where she operated a large old-fashioned country store with her husband and son Paul.

New Lebanon Central School met in the building pictured (above) for fourteen years until 1931, when the present high school was built and dedicated. During the time it had a steady and remarkable growth. In 1919 where were twenty-seven enrolled in the three grades. In 1929 there were fifty registered with three faculty members. In 1931, as the school transferred to the new building, a four year course was added and the faculty was increased to nine. Hot lunches were provided in the Union Free School years, as was bus transportation. No child had to walk more than one quarter of a mile to school according to a school survey made in 1931, and every boy or girl who ever graduated from Union Free School was gainfully employed in 1931 according to that same survey. This was a record unequaled by any other school in the State of New York.

In 1928, it became apparent that the school needed additional space and facilities. The school board was made up of five men. They studied the situation and accepted a visionary concept for those days - the idea of centralization. The old Union Free School became the New Lebanon Central School. This was the first central school Columbia County.

The new high school was built and dedicated in 1930. The keynote speaker that day was the Governor of New York State, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The date was August 14, 1930. There were other speakers, but Governor Roosevelt was to be the main speaker. One of the dignitaries taking part then was Mr. Joseph Salls, who for many years taught at the school, and who himself had received his cap and gown in 1928. Though Mr. Salls was trying to listen intently to what was being said, he could not really do so. He was thinking of the fact that Eleanor Roosevelt, the Governor's wife, had remembered him from a previous meeting that they had both been attending. Joe, who had quite a memory himself, couldn't get over the fact that with all the people she constantly met, she could remember him. Joe heard the District School Superintendent, Stanton Smith, speak. He heard the School Board introduced, and he herd Franklin Roosevelt speak, but it was Eleanor Roosevelt who captivated him on that day with her wonderful memory.

The Governor spoke well that day and the school still stands as a reality to a vision of great educators. The world would soon become aware of the charming personality of the Roosevelts as they communicated with us through their "fireside chats" after Franklin became President Roosevelt."

Eleanor Roosevelt on left side of photo; Franklin is on the right side. They are sitting on the stage of the new high school in 1930 at the dedication of the school. (Thirty-eight years later, my high school class would sit on that very stage to graduate, on June 23, 1968)

"Henry Green and His Bride of One Week!"

Young Henry Green was beside himself. Yes, sir, he was baffled, dismayed and frustrated. He had just gotten married. Now, this is enough to frustrate any yound man, but Henry had more reason for bewilderment. He had married the wrong girl.

Now, in the Bible when Jacob married the wrong girl and got Leah instead of Rachel, he solved his problem by working seven more years for Rachel and he then had two wives, but times had changed and so had the laws. Henry couldn't have two wives at one time. He had to get rid of one to get the other. Let's see what Henry did. First, let me tell you a little of the background.

In the Seventh-Day Baptist Cemetery in Berlin, New York, just off Route 22, can be found a large monument about ten feet tall and better kept than most of the other monuments in that cemetery. What makes this particular stone different is that it was erected by the citizens of Berlin and maintained by them so that the memory of a pretty, young girl who died in February of 1845 might always by kept alive. The girl was a dancer and an actress in the play, "The Reformed Drunkard" which was being put on by a wandering troupe. Her name was Mary Ann Wyatt. In those days, small towns could not believe that yound actresses could possess purity and virtue. Mothers and fathers certainly didn't want their sons marrying these "shady ladies", but Henry Green, a weathly young fellow in Berlin didn't care what his mother thought. He had met Mary and she was very beautiful, and he would marry her. Mary herself wasn't too keen on marrying Henry because she knew that a mother-in-law in a small town could spell real trouble. On the other hand, she did love Henry, so she consented and they married quietly in Stephentown on February 10, 1845.

Eight days later, she was dead. What really happened? In those days, sleigh rides in the winter were popular and full of fun, especially at night in the hard snow-packed roads with several young people of both sexes packed into the sleigh. There were no street lights or sand trucks to contend with and nothing disturbed the innocent action under the warmth of the heavy blankets. As a poem puts it, "The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh o'er the white and drifting snow."

Henry asked his new bride to go on one of these sleigh rides, but he also asked a former girl friend named Alzina Godfrey. Some of the old-timers in Berlin say her name was Priscilla Brownell. Well, you take your pick. There were others of the sleigh, and Alzina was heard to say to Henry, "Why did you marry Mary? I would have married you in the end." Apparently she had been asked but had said "No" once too often.

Now, Alzina (or Priscilla) was very beautiful herself and she was quite wealthy, high in society and loved to cuddle and "maul" her man. When Henry found out he could have married her, he began to have second thoughts about Mary. He really wanted to other girl.

Worse, however, was his mother, who started rumors about the bad morals of all actresses and inferred that Mary's morals were probably like the rest.

Poor, weak, rich, mindless, stupid Henry. He couldn't take it all, so the next day after the sleigh ride, he made a trip to the doctor, where he obtained some opium pills, for a "slight indispostion" of his wife. Somehow, without her knowledge, he placed in her food an overdose that was enough to settle the destinies of ten people. This would have served the bridegroom's purpose had not Mary gone into a fit of vomiting which rid her of the poison. Then Henry go some arsenic and on Monday, the eighth day of her marriage, Mary Ann died; but Henry never go to marry Alzina.

Henry was tried for murder in Troy in July of 1845 and being found guilty was hung on the gallows on September 10th. Only fifty people saw the hanging but thousands came from the Berlin-Stephentown area to cheer it on. Justice was done, but Berlin would never forget. They erected the beautful monument with the story engraved on it and someone wrote a ballad. It originally had twenty-eight verses, but all I could find are parts of twelve. The words seem lost as is the Green family and sweet little Alzina.

BALLAD

Come listen to my tragedy, you people young and old;
I'll tell you a story that will make your blood run cold.
Concerning a young lady, Miss Wyatt was her name,
Who was murdered by her husband, and he hung for the same.

This lady was beautiful, not of a high degree.
Young Henry Green was wealthy, as you shall plainly see.
He said, "My dearest Mary, if you will be my wife,
I'll guard you at my peril throughout this gloomy life."

She said, "My dearest Henry, I fear that ne'er can be;
It's you have rich relations; I'm not as rich as thee;
And when your parents come to know, they would spurn me from their door,
They'd rather you would wed someone had wealth laid up in store."

He said, "My dearest Mary, why thus torment me so?
For if you longer me deny, I vow I'll take my life,
For I no longer wish to live unless you are my wife."

Belieiving all he said was true, she thus became his wife.
Oh little did she think, poor girl, or e'er did she expect
He'd take away the life of one he'd just sworn to protect!

They had meen married scarce a week when she was taken ill,
Or was it e'er expected he meant his wife to kill.
Great doctors they were sent for, and none of them could say;
Soon it was proclaimed by them she must go to her grave.

Her brothers, hearing of the same straight unto her did go
Saying, "Sister dear, you're dying; the doctors tell me so."
Saying, "Sister dear, you're dying, your life is at an end.
Say, have you been murdered by the one you think your friend?"

"It's as I'm on my bed of death and know that I must die,
I'm going to my Maker, the truth shall not deny.
I know that Henry poisoned me, but brother, for him send,
For I do love him now as well as when he was my friend."

When Henry go the tidings, he sent his wife to see.
She said, "My dearest Henry, have I e'er deceived thee?"
Three times she said, "Dear Henry!" then sank into death's swoon,
He gazed on in indifference, and in silence left the room.

An inquest on her body held according to the law,
And soon it was proclaimed by them that arsenic was the cause.
Green was apprehended, lodged down in Troy jail,
There to await his trial-the courts could not give bail.

On the day of his trial, he was brought on the stand
To answer for the blackest crime committed on our land.
Judge Parker read the sentence, he 'peared to be unmoved;
He said he was not guilty, although it had been proved.
He said he was not guilty, and he did her friends defy;
He pled that he was innocent, although condemned to die.

Henry and Mary Ann and buried in Berlin. Henry is buried in the Reeve burying ground. Henry was the grandson of John Reeve. Henry's epitaph is simple:

Henry G. Green, Born Dec. 30, 1822, died Sept. 10, 1845
"Prepare to meet thy God"

Mary A. W. Green, Died Feb. 17, 1845, in the 23rd year of her age.
"This monument is erected by the citizens of Berlin in Memory of Mary Ann Wyatt, wife of Henry G. Green, who was married Feb. 9, 1845, and on the 14th day of the same month was poisoned by her husband with arsenic without any real or pretended cause.

Beautiful, intelligent, and virtuous, she was wept over by the community, and the violated law justly exacted the life of her murderer as a penalty for his crime?"

Mary Ann Wyatt's monument,
erected by the people of Berlin.

I did a brief genealogy of Henry, because of the Green family prominence in Berlin/Stephentown. For those interested, here is Henry's ancestry, minus dates:

Henry G. son of George and Sally or Sarah Reeves (daughter of John Reeves);
George, son of Langford and Abigail Thomas;
Langford, son of Joseph and Phebe Langford;
Joseph, son of John and Mary Allen;
John, son of James and Elizabeth Anthony
James, son of John (of Warwick) and Joan Tattersall.

America's First Bread Wrapper

As a child, I lived on Old Post Road, in Lebanon Springs, New York, in a two family house that was always referred to as "Clark's House". Our landlord was Arthur (Art) Clark, a very nice, older man, even then in the late 1950's. He lived upstairs and though friendly, he kept to himself. I was quite young at that time, and it never occurred to me to ask about the house, or the big building on the side of the house that we all called "The Bake Shop". I never even knew why it was called that until thirty years later. Here is the story of the bake shop:

Clark's Bakery was located a few feet east of the bridge that carries Old Post Road over Wyomanock Creek. It was built by Art Clark's father, Andrew, and was well equipped with ovens and all the equipment that is needed in a good and busy bakery. Art had been born and brought up on upper West Street, but lived on Old Post Road in a large square house just east of the bridge crossing for many years. Just before he died in 1976, he took Rev. Ernest D. Smith down to the Bake Shop, and told him the story of the bakery.

"An old Methodist Camp Meeting had been located in a grove of large pine trees across the Wyomanock from the bakery shortly after the Civil War. Arthur's father, being a wise businessman, noted that the people who came here on the nearby railroad stayed in the grove for several weeks each year. Most of them carried tents and lived under the trees doing their own cooking over open fires.

Andrew Clark

Old Mr. Clark got to know most of the people and asked if they would like him to bake their bread daily in his nearby ovens for a small fee. He got orders for hundreds of loaves the very first day and had to hire many people from the community to help him.

The only trouble with this business was that it didn't provide steady employment. When the camp meeting closed about September 1st, the bakery had to close.

Noting that the railroad passed near the bakery and realizing that the towns along the railroad had nothing in the way of bakeries, Andrew and Arthur decided to go south on the railroad to Chatham and north on the same line to Bennington, Vermont, to see if they could create a business. The demand was very great and Clark's Bakery became well known.

They shipped the bread in large trunk-like boxes with Clark's name printed on each. The bread was unwrapped at first, but train locomotives being what they were in those days, gave off great clouds of cinders which settled on the boxes and the dust got inside and settled on the loaves as the cars were in transit. Folks didn't seem to mind brushing a few cinders from their bread, so there were few, if any, complaints.

But the Clark's were not satisfied; Arthur said that they wanted their bread to be the best, with no cinders embedded in it. So Arthur took his father's team and went to a couple of places where newspapers were printed and bought all the old used and back copies that they could find. Back at the bakery, Arthur took a single sheet of the newsprint and wrapped each loaf separately, packed them in the boxes and sent them off on the train. This solved the cinder problem, but created a new one. Buyers at Chatham and Bennington would unwrap the bread only to find that last week's news was printed on the crust. Andrew Clark decided that he would have to buy plain paper.

Bakers from everywhere in American began to copy the Clark's idea. As far as we know, on one had ever wrapped a loaf of bread for sale before this tiem, which is why bread wrapping by Clark's Bakery had become know as a 'New Lebanon First'. As progress was made, it was found that waxed paper did a better job preserving the freshness of the loaves. Today's sliced bread comes to us often in plastic bags, and its makers brag and boast about the softness. We sometimes pay as much as a dollar for a loaf of air with a little dough in it.

Arthur was proud of his accomplishments in the bakery as he showed me around. He took over the business upon his father's death. After Arthur's death in 1976, the old and famous bakery was razed to the ground and is no more; but I still have a large box with all the printing on it in which the bread was shipped. It will be given soon to the Lebanon Valley Historical Society."

Clark's House on Old Post Road

It is still there, a bit worse for wear. I imagine that it was a pretty elegant house at one time.

By the time my family moved into the house, (pictured here on the left), in the mid-1950's, the old bake shop had been turned into a greasy garage, which Arthur used to fix things. He would let us play in there, which pleased all of the young children who lived around there at the time. There were alot of hiding places and funny looking old tools. I wonder now how many of those old shipping boxes we jumped over and never gave a second thought to!

We used to walk on the old railroad tracks, and throw cinders at each other, and though we knew that there hadn't been a train through there on any day that we could remember, we never asked about the days that there were trains. I think about it now, and I am amazed that such an important part of Lebanon's history took place there on Old Post Road. If only the walls of that old Bake Shop could talk.

Andrew and Carrie Clark, sitting on porch of house on Old Post Road, in 1930. The room to their right would eventually become my parent's bedroom.

Death of Carrie Clark

MRS. CARRIE CLARK
OLDEST RESIDENT
DIES AT HOME

Lebanon Springs, NY - Mrs. Carrie S. Clark, 90, widow of Andrew H. Clark, and the town's oldest resident, died this moring at her home following a long illness. She suffered a stroke Saturday.

She was born February 27, 1860, daughter of Arthur and Hannah Sennett in Darien, Wis. At the age of six she traveled with her parents across the palins to Virginia City, Montana, in the days of the gold rush. In 1880 she married Mr. Clark and 10 years later she settled in Lebanon Springs, where she lived until her death.

Surviving are one son, Arthur H. Clark, of Lebanon Springs, with whom she lived, and a niece, Mrs. Harry W. Decker of New Lebanon. The body rests at the home of Mrs. Decker where friends may call tomorrow afternoon and evening. The funeral will be held Thursday afternoon at 2 from the Congregational Church in New Lebanon with Rev. Raymond E. Gibson officiating.

Burial will be in the Cemetery of the Evergreens. - Printed in November 14, 1950 issue of Berkshire Eagle

Interesting note:

Andrew Clark also made ice cream and sold it to the same people every day except Sunday. No Methodist would buy ice cream on the sabbath.

Story from "Along the Wyomanock Creek" and "Valley Tales" vol. 2 by Rev. Ernest D. Smith

The Romance Of The Traveling Salesman and The Farmer's Daughter

By Rev. Ernest D. Smith

These darned ole mules are mightly independent today," thought Edwin Lawless as he tried to drive them through the little hamlet of Garfield in South Stephentown. "They seem to know where they want to go and it doesn't make much difference what I want." Edwin Lawless, being the kind of man he was and being in a new territory, decided that one road was as good as another and let the mules pick whatever road they would, it was all the same to him. He sat back in the wagon to enjoy the scenery and the few people about, not knowing that he had just made the greatest decision of his life. The mules kept on plodding slowly, seemingly knowing exactly where they wanted to go.

The year was 1915, and young Edwin Lawless, who had just turned twenty-two, had already made a reputation for himself as a very successful salesman of the Home Comfort Stove. It was his practice to load his wagon with two stoves from the railroad warehouse in Chatham and take off for the country. He would keep going until both stoves were sold, then he would go back for more. He had been doing this for several years already, since his father had died when Ed was little more than a baby, in Brooklyn, New York.

On this particular day when the mules were in utter revolt. Ed had loaded up as usual and had already sold one stove in Rensselaerwyck. He was now headed for Stephentown and the road was dry and dusty. He was feeling good because the stove had cost him $59.00 and he had sold it for $74.00. In fact, he felt as independent as a millionaire.

The mules came up to the old Methodist Church in Garfield, hesitated a moment, then turned left. Ed just relaxed. They wandered up the road until they came to Route 43. Here they consulted one another in mule language and again turned left, entering Stephentown Center, where they took a right and wandered down the road, coming eventually to West Road where another left was taken. Ed just didn't stop them. He sensed that they knew where he could unload the next stove. It was now beginning to draw toward evening and Ed like a good bed at night time. Somehow he conveyed this thought to his mules and they came to a stop on West Road in front of a farm where Ed jumped out. He was sure that the divinely-given wisdom of the mules had brought him to a good sale, and he was right.

But for the life of him, he couldn't sell the owner a stove. Mr. Carpenter, (Alton Carpenter) the man of the house, wouldn't buy. However, he told the young salesman he could stay the night and that his son, Fred, would care for the mules. He called his daughter, Ruth, to get some food for the stranger. Freddie liked mules and was giving them the best of care and Ed looked at the farmer's daughter and like what he saw and decided to give her the best of care.

Her name was Alice Ruth, but everyone called her Ruth. She loved music and was attending school in Poultney, Vermont, though right now she was visiting at home. Her seventh sense was warning her of the effect she was having on the traveling salesman. She looked him over and absolutely wanted no part of him at all, so she stayed out of sight all evening while Ed and brother Fred became fast friends.

Next morning, Edwin Lawless harnessed his mules and took off up the road, thinking only of Ruth.

The mules stopped. Ed didn't know it, but he was at the home of Frank Carr. He entered and sold the second stove for another $74.00. He doesn't know how he did it because he wasn't thinking of stoves at all. In his jubilation, he turned the mules around and headed back for Carpenters.' He was so excited that he feel off the wagon and so injured his foot that he had to stay another night with them.

"What's he hanging around for?" Ruth asked her father. She found out two years later when upon graduating from Poultney she invited Ed to the graduation. For some reason, the Carpenters were absent that day and Ed thought to himself, "Here's where I corner her. Her folks aren't here. I'll ask her to marry me." He did, but all he got for an answer was, "Thanks, but I'll ask my parents first."

No, Edwin Lawless was a true saleman and he never gave up. The farmer's daughter didn't have a chance once the traveling salesman saw her. It was ust a matter of time. The sooner she would say "Yes," the better it would be all around, so they were married on October 7, 1917.

The The neighbors on West Road were filled with despair. "I can't understand Ruth Carpenter marrying a salesman," they said. "It won't last. Why, he'll have someone else in the next town where he sells stoves." The neighbors are mostly all gone now, but after 61 years, Ed and Ruth are still happily together. (This was written in 1978, when Ruth was still living)

Ed Lawless on his wagan, selling the Home Comfort Stove. With him, on the right is Clarence Carpenter, Ruth's brother. The photo on the right is the Home Comfort Stove.

"What was the most interesting sale you ever made?" I asked Ed one day. Now, Ed has been selling for all his long life of 85 years. First it was stoves, then it was Hoyt's Cosmetics, then it was day-old bread and cake from Ward's Baking Company, then real estate - just about everything. Ed thought for just a moment and then he answered, "The most interesting sale I ever made in my life was when I sold myself to her," pointing to Ruth, "and the farmer's daughter got sixty years of faithful service." "Yes", said Ruth from her chair beside the oxygen tank that she needed almost constantly, "he would sell you anything, whether you wanted it or not. He was very convincing."

The years have come and gone but the romance of the saleman and the Farmer's daughter has been in constant bloom. While he made sales, she played the organ at her church for forty years. It all goes to show that the mules knew best.

Salute to Edwin Theodocius Lawless, Super Saleman of all Time

In 1915 there came a wonderful change,
To find sitting in our kitchen a
New Home Comfort Range.

Was brought on a horseless wagon,
the driver so bright and gay,
His name - Edwin T. Lawless - he drives both night and day.

Tell you how you'll know him as
he drives by your door.
He whistles and sings all the way-Home Comfort Range, forevermore.

He stops at every farmhouse - talks to you in vain.
To tell you Quality of the New Home Comfort Range.

His team resembles large rabbits - his wagon resembles a barn.
His tongue resembles a steam engine - and goes off like an alarm.

The mules' names are Topsey and Turvey, they could hit up quite a gait,
And the number of his wagon - 888.

Author unknown

(Story from "Valley Tales" Volume Two 1980)

Edwin T. Lawless was born September 24, 1893 and died on May 3, 1980 in Stephentown at the age of 86 years. Ruth Carpenter Lawless was born December 27, 1894 and died in 1978. She was the daughter of Alton Carpenter and Minnie Palmer Carpenter. They are both buried in Stephentown Association Cemetery. Photos are from Stephentown Heritage Album.