Historical Wyoming County Jan 1980 - Old Fulton History

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PAGE 60 JANUARY <strong>1980</strong> (The Warners Cont.) a time. The rows of chests which extended along the whole north end of the east side included Pa's old blue chest, Ma's little red chest and the hair trunk. The children would mount these chests, starting with the smallest, and then from the highest leap down on the bed. Contents in these chests consisted of the wardrobe for the family, sundry articles of provisions besides dried apples, berries and currants. In the blue chest Pa kept his razor and missionary money. In the "chamber" above the cabin's main floor was the place for rows of beds on each side -- the spare bed, the boys' bed, the girls' bed and the low beds. A family of nine children needed lots of space. This was the space for drying corn and butternuts. Yarn and herbs hung from the rafters and there was also the vinegar barrel. The way to the chamber was not a winding stair but a short ladder. Children used this ladder for their first gymnastics; you went up the ladder on the under side, on the top side and in many ways. Sometimes you came down forward and sometimes backward, sometimes feet first and sometimes head first. Quoting from Myron Warner, "Not long after the settlement a good-sized apple orchard was set out, some four or five acres. This was in good condition in 1850, and some stood as late as 1880. Father says that cider for drinking was more thought of than fruit, but by the time the orchard began to bear father had come to the conclusion that drinking hard cider or any intoxicants was injurious. As the trees were all natural fruit there was little of it that was good for eating and had to be grafted. This was done by contract and the selection of fruit was poor. There were a great many Pound Sweets, and member we would them in the barn from 1850 to 1855, I reput a good many loads of to feed the cows. When father moved to the farm in 1850, and years succeeding, he had much of it regrafted to more marketable kinds of fruit. There were Rhode Island Greenings,Spitzenbergs, Porters, Harvest Sweetings and Snows and some other varieties as good as we now have, and better than any they have anywhere outside the region around Lake Erie." Milo Warner taught the first school in the area, teaching winters. He also organized Sunday Schools in three or four places in adjoining neighborhoods and for a time was superintendent of all of them. Of his nine children that lived to adulthood, all but one taught school. An infant son, born in Dec. 1826, died less than a year later and it was necessary to locate a burial ground which became the pioneer Strykersville cemetery. Milo helped organize the Strykersville Congregational Church from the original body that had held religious services back to 1825 at Barber's Hill, between Johnsonburg and Humphrey's Hollow. In 1824, a Sabbath School was organized at Strykersville and known as the Union Sabbath School. Milo was the first superintendent and from that school the Congregational Church was born. At least four young men, including members of the Warner family, went out from the church as ministers. In 1867, when the present Strykersville cemetery association was formed, Mr. Warner was a trustee and first secretary. THE NEW HOUSE About 1830, Milo built a new house. Most of the timber for it was cut on the farm, but some came from elsewhere. The weather - boarding was of cucumber, a species of magnolia, and probably did not grow locally. The cornice on the front of the house together with the eavestrough, all in one piece, were of that timber. "The main building of the house was about 18 x 40 feet, with the eaves fronting on the road. It was divided in the middle by a hall about 3 1/2 feet wide, from which stairs ascended to the upper rooms. There was a small hall at the top of the stairs, with a door on each side to the two upper rooms, a door in each side of the lower hall to the two rooms below. To the rear of the main building was a one-story lean-to about 12 feet wide. From the north end of this lean-to was a small room, entered from the main north room, called the parlor bedroom; then a small closet; then a bedroom about 14 feet, with doors opening into both the north room and the south room, the latter used as a dining room. Lastly, there was a lean-to pantry about ten feet; this brought it even with the main building. At the south end of the main building was a wing; the east side of it even with the lean-to (the house faced west), about 16 feet from east to west and 18 feet from north to south. This was the kitchen and well room, the well being under the room near the east side. There was a door (continued on page 6T)
JANUARY <strong>1980</strong> PAGE 61 (The Warners Cont.) from the front and back of this room near the north end. "At the south end of the kitchen there was a large brick fireplace with a brick oven at the west side of it in which all of the baking used to be done; but after 1850 it was seldom used, as stoves were common and were considered more convenient. The fireplace was used for ten years or more for sugaring off the maple syrup. "Sometimes after the house was built, a room about 10 by 16 feet was added to the south end of the kitchen for the use of Great Grandfather Omri Warner's widow, who died about 1856, and that was my room from '56 as long as I lived at home. In the north and south ends of the main building there was a chimney with fireplaces on the lower and upper floors. . . . Open fireplaces seem pleasant in the evenings when it is not very cold, but are not comfortable in real cold weather. "Just east of the north end of the house was a building about 20 feet square used as a milk and cheese room. This was clapboarded and plastered. There were shelves on the east and west side and a double tier through the middle. At the south end of the wing there was a building about 16 by 40 feet running east, one and a half story. The lower part was open on the south side and was used for storing the winter's wood fuel, the upper part for storage. "Soon after the house was built a number of maple trees were set out in front of it. About 1870, these had become so large they were cramped in growth and more than half of them were cut. Father had one of them sawed into lumber and he had some light stands made as souvenirs, one of which I still have." In after years these trees suggested the name for "Shadow Nook", a name which was applied to the large homestead erected in 1880 by Cordelia Warner Morrill, daughter of Milo. The place still stands. C.O. Warner, writing many years later about the cabin and frame home, wrote that the original large fireplace had no jams and was large enough for a back-log and a forestick with brands between. In the cold corner, by the shop door, was the place where the oldest child usually sat and the warmest spot, at the end of the fireplace where the dye tub was usually, became the seat for the younger children. The large smooth hearth-stone had a little cavity that was the best place on earth for cracking butternuts. Also the stone had another deeper hole where the cat used to lap up its milk. Never did the puss find such conveniences in the newer frame house! Even the cat-hole had vanished! The Warner's House The stick chimney had a great trammel pole high above the blaze with its array of hooks, big and little, supporting one above the other, pots, dish kettle, and tea kettle. Warner remembers the long stout string that was let down occasionally on a Sunday morning and a great spare rib attached to it to spew and frizzle as you turned it all day till the parents got home from meeting. Then there were poles above that groaned with the weight of drying apples and pumpkins. What a place to dry sausages above the door! The old shop contained the warping bars, the noisy quill wheel, the little wheel and the great wheel, and the loom where mother spun the threads for the family's garments. Milo's fifth child and second son, Philetus, had two goslings given to him when he was a small child and he thought a great deal of them. When a traveling preacher offered to trade (in jest) his watch for them, the boy thought it not a fair deal since the goslings were a good deal bigger than the watch! A year later when the goslings grew up, they proved to be both ganders and very pugnacious and quarrelsome and once pitched upon the boy and bit him and whipped him with their wings. Luckily someone drove them off. The next time the parson came around, the boy was willing to trade for the watch. They were a terror to the cows and fought one another till neither could stand. They would catch a cow by the tail and compel the animal to drag them, but when the animal would stop from weariness, the ganders would strike them with their wings to drive them on. During the early years the family had a sled that they went to church on; made of two stoneboat planks about a foot wide, held in place the proper distance and apart by pieces of wood pinned with wooden pins across, and a box to sit on and drawn by a pair of oxen. Such a sled was drawn easily over snow or mud, but not on the dry ground. Such a conveyance was not (continued on page 62)
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Historical Wyoming County Jan 1980 - Old Fulton History

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