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

APRIL 1978
Memories of Java and Strykersville (continued)
communication a system of four telephones is reported
to have connected Strykersville, Java, Wales
Center and Portageville in 1894.
If a farmer back around 1890 had boys or girls
of working age it was considered a big help. Of
course they had to be fed, but they did not spend
as much time as now going to school or watching
television and were considered an asset. Shortly
after my grandmother was widowed with three
boys old enough to work and had been moved back
to Strykersville, some man stopped and asked her
to marry him. She told him to get out and threatened
to throw boiling water on him if he bothered
her anymore. As I remember hearing this, he
didn't even get off his wagon to make this proposal,
but the boiling water incident suggests that he must
have been off the wagon.
Because my mother's father died when she was
only seven years old, life may have not been much
easier than for her mother, but I think she did get
more education and worked for someone when she
was sixteen to learn tailoring. At seventeen, she
did housework in Strykersville and later in East
Aurora. My father, Charles Gilbert Richardson
got to go away to the equivalent of high school in
the winter. Some of the time it was at Perry where
he could stay with an aunt. He never said much
about the school part but he had to go with his girl
cousin or cousins to dancing class. I can't believe
it was the dancing that he compained about, just
who he had to take because he later loved to dance,
driving quite some distances around the area.
MY FATHER'S FAMILY
When I worked on the history of Java for the
Bicentennial, I copied from the histories of several
families and did some interviewing on others but
did not put in about the Richardson who came to
Java, Strykersville area around 1820. This was
partly because I didn't want it to sound too personal
and partly because I didn't know very much about
them. Charles Richardson apparently articled land
where Leonard Holmes now lives and built the front
part of that house.
From what I read in Beers and old deeds he
also had his hand in other businesses such as the
grist mill at Java Village. As happened so much in
those times, his wife died young and he returned
two more times to New England to remarry. From
what Leonard Holmes' father told him, there was
evidence in the front center part of the house that
there had been three fireplaces downstairs and
two upstairs. This was probably the only means of
heating the house at that time. At the southeast
corner was a wing for processing milk, later
moved out back for storage. He must have articled
land running on north up into Strykersville in the
town of Sheldon as he donated land for the Baptist
Church, and as he sold off lots along the road, he
retained a strip of land so that he could walk to
PAGE 3
church on his own land. Sounds as though he were
a little something or other but that is what the
old deeds say.
His oldest son, Charles H. Richardson, was born
in 1823 (supposedly in that house). He apparently
was in business around Java Village. Either he
and/or his father had land other than the homestead
because some of his children were born in other
towns in the area.v He had married Mary Balcom
in 1845. They had 13 children born between 1846
and 1868. When his father died in 1867, he took
over the homestead farm. Since he had this large
family, I would assume that at that time, the large
addition was made at the rear but it could have been
earlier because his father liked to have meetings
of religious and political groups. In any case, when
the house was remodeled, probably around 1860
or 1870, apparently fireplaces were not the up-todate
thing to have, and all five were torn out and
also the chimneys so that the front area could be
used for a hall and a stairway to the second floor.
Leonard related that when he was doing some
remodeling, he found a letter in a partition written
in 1826. Someone was dunning my great-great
grandfather for money overdue on a mortgage or
note.
My grandfather, Fayette Richardson, also ran
the farm for a time before it was sold to Ernest
Holmes, but most of his life he had run a cheesebox
and barrel factory at Java Village in partnership
with his father and/or his brother. My father
operated the mill for the last several years before
it was abandoned. The last year that it amounted to
much was 1914. There were two or three reasons
that it was no longer practical to operate. It was
an old mill and was equipped to do the special
operations to make parts for cheeseboxes and
barrels. To just saw lumber wasn't economical.
A second reason which has always been a drawback
for the area was that although there was
still a market for cheeseboxes not being on a
railroad was a disadvantage and it wasn't possible
to compete with mills better located. Third, the
barrel business had all but disappeared for the
apple buyer wanted apples packed in baskets, not
barrels.
DOCTORING IN THE EARLY DAYS
At one time when he was young, my father had a
job driving for Dr. Fromholtzer in Strykersville.
As I remember, the doctor had two teams so that
with bad roads and a lot of territory to cover, they
could spell the horses. The doctor had a driver so
that he could get some rest between calls. What a
doctor could do to help people then seems small because
they had practically none of the many drugs
now available. As late as 1931, I remember a second
cousin died in his home of a certain type of influenza
for which the doctor had no type of treatment.
It was the later 30's when the drugs that really
gave the doctors some weapons came into use.
(continued on page 88)