As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Additional information can be checked out with the links to the right.Friday - November 19, 1886 --- Omar works at lining the ditch with stones, and gets the main part done. Henry breaks up stones for lining the ditch. Sarah does the washing, and Jen takes up the sitting room carpet, cleans it (I presume) and puts it back down.
Saturday - November 20, 1886 --- Henry builds the bridge to the upper level workshop in the upstairs of the new hog house. Omar goes on with the ditching, and Bart and Mills gather more corn. Bart does some plowing in the afternoon. Someone named Bardeen comes by for help. He has gotten stuck in the road beyond the Marshes. Bart goes to help him. Mr. Bardeen pays Henry 25cents for the help. ( This seems unusual - This seems like the kind of help that neighbors would offer each other without money changing hands? -- Maybe he is a stranger?) Bart and Omar go to see Harm and Hattie in Wayland. Sarah and Henry to to Lodge meeting in the evening. Henry pays $2.71 for goods. They initiate William Borden and his wife into the Grange.
Sunday - November 21, 1886 --- The family goes to church in the forenoon, and then to Charles Conley's to visit. George and Belle Pulver and Deloss Hill and his wife are there too. An inquiry to my Dad reveals that Deloss is Sarah's nephew - son of Sarah's oldest brother Harvey Hill. They stay until around 5PM, and then go to visit Vernon Drake whom they found suffering from "neuralgia from the effects of a bad tooth causing a fever. Same as in the case of a boil of any other like swelling." They go to meeting in the evening.
Monday - November 22, 1886 --- Henry makes some stairs for the hog house. Sarah and Henry go to Bloods later and get $65 on the potatoes from D. Weld. and Company - leaving a balance of 98 cents. Henry sends $15 to his mother in Mansfield, PA. along with the box of dried and canned fruit that he prepared the other day. Cost of shipping - by train? - 40 cents. Cost of the registered letter with the $15 - 15 cents. Henry negotiates with Harrison Briglin to sell his barley crop at 58 cents a bushel for 200 bushels, and 60 cents a bushel for 100 more bushels. Henry get paid $10 toward the barley.. balance due of $166. Henry pays Ad Robinson $15 for the threshing he did. (I'm wondering about the economics of grain vs. potatoes. Which is more work? Which yields more money per acre? Are there different soil or land requirements? Etc?? Henry seems to get more money per bushel for grain, but I don't know the other factors? I do know that both in topography and soil quality, the area Henry and family live it is not the best for farming - although a lot better for horses than for modern techniques! That area of New York State was well known in those days as one of the biggest potato growing areas of the country.)
Saturday - November 20, 1886 --- Henry builds the bridge to the upper level workshop in the upstairs of the new hog house. Omar goes on with the ditching, and Bart and Mills gather more corn. Bart does some plowing in the afternoon. Someone named Bardeen comes by for help. He has gotten stuck in the road beyond the Marshes. Bart goes to help him. Mr. Bardeen pays Henry 25cents for the help. ( This seems unusual - This seems like the kind of help that neighbors would offer each other without money changing hands? -- Maybe he is a stranger?) Bart and Omar go to see Harm and Hattie in Wayland. Sarah and Henry to to Lodge meeting in the evening. Henry pays $2.71 for goods. They initiate William Borden and his wife into the Grange.
Sunday - November 21, 1886 --- The family goes to church in the forenoon, and then to Charles Conley's to visit. George and Belle Pulver and Deloss Hill and his wife are there too. An inquiry to my Dad reveals that Deloss is Sarah's nephew - son of Sarah's oldest brother Harvey Hill. They stay until around 5PM, and then go to visit Vernon Drake whom they found suffering from "neuralgia from the effects of a bad tooth causing a fever. Same as in the case of a boil of any other like swelling." They go to meeting in the evening.
Monday - November 22, 1886 --- Henry makes some stairs for the hog house. Sarah and Henry go to Bloods later and get $65 on the potatoes from D. Weld. and Company - leaving a balance of 98 cents. Henry sends $15 to his mother in Mansfield, PA. along with the box of dried and canned fruit that he prepared the other day. Cost of shipping - by train? - 40 cents. Cost of the registered letter with the $15 - 15 cents. Henry negotiates with Harrison Briglin to sell his barley crop at 58 cents a bushel for 200 bushels, and 60 cents a bushel for 100 more bushels. Henry get paid $10 toward the barley.. balance due of $166. Henry pays Ad Robinson $15 for the threshing he did. (I'm wondering about the economics of grain vs. potatoes. Which is more work? Which yields more money per acre? Are there different soil or land requirements? Etc?? Henry seems to get more money per bushel for grain, but I don't know the other factors? I do know that both in topography and soil quality, the area Henry and family live it is not the best for farming - although a lot better for horses than for modern techniques! That area of New York State was well known in those days as one of the biggest potato growing areas of the country.)
