By C. Kihm Richardson Walking from Strykersville ... - Fulton History

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PAGE 106 Early Letters From Java (continued) week fit for loging and then 4 hands and 1 yoke of oxen will lay up one acre in one day. The land is generally of good quality; there is but very (little) waste land here. It is excellent for grass and any other thing that you want to put on it, it being so new a place that it looks rather hard to a new commer but several have been to Mishagun and Ohio and have come back and purchased here for they say that they think it is a better country here than it is there. The winters here is much milder here than they are with you but the summers is cool night but warm days which makes better for wheat but it is not country for corn. Fruit does well here and it will be very plenty here as everyone is trimming to see which one is first. According to the look now there will be some Swenmure kind this season, on trees that have been set out more then 3 years hung full. They don't pretend to keep any of th. . . cattle but they have oxen and horses and there is none of them that keep more than one yoke of oxen; most of them keep 3 or 4 horses, some keep 4 cows, some 8 and some 12, and young stock in preportion and one-half of them keeps on brouse through the winter. The grass and s . . . starts in the very early in the Spring. They turn their young cattle in the woods by the first of April and let them run till they get their fields clean of their crops. There is all kinds of roots and herbs over in the woods here Sometimes there is a flock of wolves come along that make the woods ring with their howling but they don't stay but a little while with us as there is no ledges here for them to burrow in and the Indians here about till they go off, and the owls give us a little musick in the evening so that we are not without musick if we are in the woods. The Indians come round to visit us once in awhile but they are very peaceable. Mr. Friend (Isaac) has got to be pretty forhanded; he has 200 hundred and 20 acres of land and 100 hundred under improvement, and keeps 60 head of horned cattle and 5 horse .... and 80 sheep and lambs and 10 hogs and he milks 12 cows and he presses his cheese in a 1/2 bushel every day. He killed 20 hogs. Last Fall he told me that he turned off 300 hundred dollars worth of sheep last fall for which he took part cash and part term in towards his land, and he says he can turn off this Fall 500 hundred worth of sheep and have enough left for his own use. My land lays joining him on two sides within forty rods of his house. He is a man that is much set by here in this place. The probability is that he will cut 100 hundred tons of the first rate of hay this season as there is now other kinds cut here. Wheat is coming in very heavy this season and there is gravel on the ground. Corn is rather low now but it has a good color so I am in hopes that we shall have a good crop yield. APRIL 1978 I have not room to write no more on this sheet. I have wrote to John Osgood and Murthuey Goutt and I want you should put your letters all together and sit down together and read them and one then some of you write to me as soon as convenient. Give my best respects to your family and Mr. Linevag (?) and Mr. Chandler. This from your friend, JACOB MORSE Artemas Stevens Little is known of his family or of his personal history. Capt. Artemas Stevens, native of Dracut, Massachusetts, came to Java in 1835, and resided there until his death in 1877. Isaac Friend, a neighbor and friend of Capt. Stevens in Dracut, moved to Java in 1821, died there in 1883, and was progeniture of a numerous family, some of whom still reside in the town. JACOB MORSE, JAVA, N.Y. LETTER WRITTEN JANUARY 5th, 1835, TO CAPT. ARTEMAS STE- VENS, SUNCOOK, NEW HAMPSHIRE, LETTER HAS BEEN EDITED. Java - January 5th, 1835 Dear Friend, I now take this opportunity to write a few lines to inform you that I received your letter this day, dated November the 2, and I received it with so much pleasure as I should 5 dollars in money as I began to think that you had all forgotten me. We are all in good health at present hoping these few lines will find you enjoying the same blessing. I am getting along here as well as can be expected considering how I came here. I have had a good run of Customers this winter at Shoemaking. 1 have made 42 pairs of -boots and 53 pairs of shoes in 3 months so you may guess whether I have worked or played. I have let out 2 1/4 acres of timber to chop this winter and have paid for it in shoemaking. I have made boots for one dollar and 25 cents . . . some made for 1 dollar and some have been one dollar and 50 cents. I bought (meadow?) land last Fall and give 15 dollars and then I took a job clearing 3 acres of land after it was chopped and burnt for 15 dollars and I done it in 13 days, and split the rails and put up 24 rods of fence on the same and I have bought four sheep, 2 of paid in shoemaking at 1 dollar and 50 cents per head. 2 I paid for in (geese?) that I raised last summer. And I have got 3 shotes. I have got 6 acres cleared on my place and 2 acres of wheat; (continued on page 107)
APRIL 1978 PAGE 107 Early Letters From Java (continued) have the rest of it sowed with wheat and oats and rye. Last Spring I have got 51 apple trees sat out. It is (a) great place for trees in this place although we had no fruit last season on the account of a lot of frost. Our crops was very good last season except potatoes which were light in some places. You wanted I should write to you about the climate and production of the place and I will try to inform you as well as I can. The soil is as good as in any other place; it will produce from 20 to 25 bushels of wheat per acre on new land, and on old land we don't have what it will produce but I think it will be first rate of land for wheat when the stumps get rotten out so we can plow it well; corn in good seasons will yield on new ground from 25 to 40 bushels to the acre and on old ground considerable more. Oats from 40 to 60 bushels per acre; potatoes from 3 to 4 hundred bushels to the acre; grass from one to 2 tons per acre. The climate differs from yours; our summers are not so very hot and our winters not for all it set in about the first of November and continues till the middle of March. . . . have never known the ground to freeze more than 4 inches deep. Since I have been here we put our potatoes in a pile of 50 to one hundred bushels and then put on a little straw and then put on 4 or 5 inches of dirt and they will lay all winter without freezing. Wheat is worth 1 dollar with the farmers; oats 18 to 25; apples when plenty from 13 to 18 per bushel; corn 50 cents. Salt in buffalo 150 cents per . . . which has 5 bushels in Tea 50 cents per pound; maple ; molasses 62 1/2 cents per gallon; shirting 10 cents ... the land is uneven here it has been selling for 3 1/2 per acre on 4 years credit. We expect it will come down to 2 dollars this spring. It is very healthy here, the water is as good as it ever was then and a plenty of it. I want you to be sure to come here before you go any further. We have a good market at buffalo which is 28 miles from us; we can get the cash for any that we have to sell at some price or other, potatoes are selling at 34 cents; oats at 26 cents; pork at 3 1/2 and 4 1/2; beef at 3 1/4 and Dale Cemetery Association was organized November 29, 1873 with the following trustees: Isaac Chase, Zadock Nichols, Howel Jones, Charles Thomson, E.S. Smith and Orrin Smith. A right-of-way leads from the Pflaum Road to the cemetery grounds. It is less than a half mile from the Dale Pioneer Cemetery, which is on the main Dale Road. The present directors are: Elmer DALE CEMETERY Bagg, president; Frank Kessler, Lewis Gay, Velma Thomson, Wayne Dersam, Bernita Wombwell, and Mildred Belt. We sire indebted to Lewis Gay, secretary, for up-dating these records, which include the 1955 records compiled by Charles Pflaum. Some interments from the Pioneer Cemetery in Dale have been removed to the present cemetery. ANDREWS 4 dollars; poultry fetches a good price at any time of the year; butter various prices, cheap grade 8 cents. I have nothing more that I can enclose here. Tell Esq. Goult that if he goes to the west to be sure to come here before he goes any further. Give our best respects G. . . and family; give our best respects to J. H. Osgood & Mr. Morgan & Mr. Leanon, Miss Parker and all other . . . friends. This from your friend, A, StEVENS J. MORSE Note: I think that if you are prudent that you can come here for about 50 or 55 dollars with your family if you come in the way I did. MOTHER SHIPTON'S PROPHECY East Aurora, May 2 Carriages without horses shall go And accidents fill the world with woe. Around the world thoughts will fly In the twinkling of an eye. Water shall yet more wonders do, Now strange, yet shall be true. The world upside down shall be And gold be found at root of tree. Through hills man shall ride And no horse or ass be by his side Under water men shall walk Shall ride, shall sleep, shall talk. In the air men shall be seen, In white, in black, in green. Iron in the water shall float As easy as a wooden boat. Gold shall be found 'mid stone In alland that's no unknown Fire and water shall wonders do, England shall at last admit a Jew, And this world to an end shall come In eighteen hundred and eighty-one. These lines are said to have been published in England in 1486. Gus, no dates ATWATER Eugene, 1850-1923 Rosetta J., 1852-1929 ARMSTRONG Thomas, 8/24/1797-7/18/1853 Betsey, 1804-1897 Sylvester, 1820-9/22/1901 Sophia, 4/21/1825-12/30/1900 James, 1850-4/24/1936 (continued on page 108)
Page 1 and 2: VOL. XXIV NO. 4 Cheesebox and Barre
Page 3 and 4: APRIL 1978 Memories of Java and Str
Page 5 and 6: APRIL 1978 . Memories of Java and S
Page 7 and 8: APRIL 1978 Memories of Java and Str
Page 9 and 10: APRIL 1978 THOUGHTS ON PIONEER LIVI
Page 11 and 12: APRIL 1978 Thoughts on Pioneer Livi
Page 13 and 14: APRIL 1978 AMONG OUR SOCIETIES THE
Page 15 and 16: APRIL 1978 PAGE 99
Page 17 and 18: APRIL 1978 PAGE 101 A HISTORICAL SK
Page 19 and 20: PAGE 103 APRIL 1978 A Historical Sk
Page 21: APRIL 1978 Supplement to the Origin
Page 25 and 26: APRIL 1978 PAGE 109 Dale Cemetery (
Page 27 and 28: Dale Cemetery (continued) Elizabeth

By C. Kihm Richardson Walking from Strykersville ... - Fulton History

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