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

PAGE 88 APRIL 1978
Memories of Java and Strykersville (continued)
In 1909 my father's leg was broken when he
jumped from a buggy because the horses were
running away. Both bones below the knee were
twisted off. I had always assumed that he was taken
to a hospital in Buffalo because that is what would
have happened anytime in the last 50 years. I discussed
this with Dr. Anthony Sloand who was born
and raised in Java. He thinks they would have set
this locally because the transportation to a hospital
would have been difficult under any condition
and especially with a brokenleg. Itwouldhave been
by horse drawn vehicle to East Aurora and then by
train to Buffalo. He feels that even if he had been
in Buffalo, they would not have used X-ray. It had
been discovered in 1895 but was not used very
much because of the expense at that time. Only
the large bone ever mended. Had this happened
even 20 years later it probably would have been
medically possible to handle this problem.
WELLS AND PUMPS
At the house on the north edge of Java where
my grandmother lived for many years there was
a dug well, walled up with stone. This was in the
woodshed and had a wooden pump over it. One
time her boys came home and found the pump
frozen so they pulled it up and took it in and put
it on the top of the kitchen stove to thaw. Such a
pump was made from a square piece of wood about
6"x6" with about a 2" hole. Itstoodup about 4 1/2'
and probably extended down 6 or 8'. If this was not
deep enough to reach water a pump log was added.
They were joined by a male and female taper as was
a wooden check valve at the bottom. Kenneth Suttell
tells me that the checkvalve at the bottom was a
piece of weighted leather in a wooden housing. The
handle worked a wooden plunger wrapped with
leather. By the early 1900's the sucker rod going
to the plunger may have been steel but on the first
wooden pumps it was probably wood. On this pump
the outlet screwed to the side of the pump was
cast iron but earlier would have been wood. There
was another early type of pump with a crank which
was made of steel. A sprocket at the top engaged a
chain with a series of disks about 2" in diameter
which were pulled up through a cylinder which
could be wood or metal. This sytem required no
check valve and ran down after each time that it
was used; in fact the crank flew backwards and
hit you if you weren't careful. This pump was
housed in a wooden box about 5"xl5"x4' high.
THE HORSE THIEF
There have always been people who coveted
other people's property and sometimes took it.
Before the time of the car thief, there was stealing
of horses. There are stories of stolen horses
being dyed, etc. Sometime around 1915 a man who
had been imprisoned for stealing horses, escaped
or was released. When it was heard that he was
out of prison and headed back to the area, two
fellows moved a team of horses from a barn on
the west side of Route 78 near the Congregational
Church in Strykersville to a little used barn on the
east side of the road. Only one man saw them do it
and he didn't say anything to anyone. The news
spread like wildfire that the horse thief had struck
again. When it dragged on and the horses were
not found, the two fellows who had moved the
horses became quite worried because horses can
not go for as long periods without water as some
other animals.
STORIES MY FATHER TOLD
Life was harder in some ways 75 years ago than
today, but there was less traveling about and more
sitting and talking. One true story that my father
told always gets a laugh. The fellows were sitting
around talking at a store, blacksmith shop or what
have you. They were talking about having carbuncles
and how painful they were. One of the fellows
who was known for not sticking to the facts said,
"You can't tell me anything about how painful they
are, I had one right here on my arm and it was
terrible." He pulled up his sleeve and looked at his
arm top and bottom^ then said, "It must have been
the other arm," and after looking at that arm he
said, "Come to think of it, it was my brother Joe."
Another story my father told of his uncle who
had a rather sour outlook on most things, was regarding
his razor strop. This was after my grandfather
moved down to run the homestead farm. His
youngest brother stayed on there as he had before
his father died. It seems the boys didn't have a
razor strop or one as good a one as their uncle's,
so they borrowed his. Not being very experienced
yet at stropping a razor, they cut a nick in it.
When George noticed this he flew into one of his
spells and cut the strop in 2 or 3 pieces. Well, the
boys couldn't let it go at that so they cut the whole
strop in pieces about a half inch long and one
eighth inch wide (now we should say 13milimeters
long and 3 milimeters wide) and they put some in
every pocket of every piece of clothing he had.
THE ARMY WORMS
When army worms got started back in 1914 and
devoured one field after another, there was apparently
no way to stop them until their cycle ran
its course. All they left of a field of grain was a
stalk here and there. They marched across a dirt
road until there were no wagon tracks left, only
thousands of their tracks. Apparently this was not
solved for some time for I learn they struck as
late as 1963 up on Perry Hill Road. Farmers have
problems now but have not had that one for several
years, thanks to modern chemistry.
THE COMING OF THE AUTOMOBILE
(continued on page 89)