Henry Cadmus Olney Diary 1886

A bunch more family pictures!

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As always click on the above image to enlarge it.

Much thanks to cousin Dave Olney for sending me 17 more family images from the years following the diary year. The above image is of an Olney Family reunion circa 1913 - 27 years later?

There are 16 other wonderful pictures of various of Henry and Sarah's kids, their wives and husbands, and their kids! Click here to view my Picassa Web album of these 17 images!

And be sure to check out my 2010 blog of my great uncle Bert's 1894 diary!

December 29 thru 31, 1886

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Wednesday, December 29, 1886 --- Henry says he is not feeling well, and does not do much. Bart continues to draw ice. Robert Stanton stayed overnight with the boys. Harmon Ingraham and Hattie (his daughter) and grand daughter Florence came to visit. They are well, and they have brought "butternuts" and popcorn for the kids. Henry sends them home with a couple of pullets and a rooster. (a pullet is a hen less than one year old)

Note: Butternuts are nuts in the Juglans genus, which also includes walnuts. The nuts strongly resemble walnuts, growing in sticky strongly scented pods which split open to reveal a knobbled husk with a shell inside. Butternuts are also sometimes called white walnuts, a nod to their resemblance to conventional walnuts, although they have a far richer, sweeter, flavor and more pale bark and wood. Unfortunately, true butternuts can be very difficult to obtain these days, because they are not cultivated on a wide scale and the butternut crop has been devastated by canker and fungal infections.

Thursday, December 30, 1886 --- Henry has the boys pack away the ice, and then Bart goes to get more ice blocks. John Babcock comes by looking to buy a horse. Henry offers him Old Kitt for $100. Cash, or a good note for 3 months. John stays until toward evening, but does not decide whether to buy Old Kit.

Note: John Babcock is my great great grandfather on my mother's side. This discussion represents two of my great great grandfather's doing business together! This is a good time to note that I bought another diary this past summer. The diary is that of John Babcock's son Bert Babcock. At the time of the diary Bert is 27 year's old. The year is 1894 - 8 years after Henry's diary. (I also have a transcript of a diary of John Babcock) Picture of Bert Babcock below.Bert Babcock is not in my direct line - he had no kids - He is the brother of my great grandfather Leman Babcock..... my grandmother's father.

Friday, December 31, 1886 --- Sarah goes to Naples. Henry and the boys pack the ice into the ice house, cutting the large blocks into thirds, and packing away all the ice that they have hauled so far. Henry sends the resolutions that the church voted on last week to Dayton, Ohio for publication. (This must mean that the church is part of a denomination or other type group based in Dayton.) Henry also writes a letter to Elder Childs. Bart, Mills, Lois, and Jen go to a surprise party. Nina Fox comes over, and goes to the party with Lois.

Henry notes that "it is foggy tonight". And thus ends the 1886 diary entries of Henry Cadmus Olney - my great great grandfather.

The lower part of the right page contains the record of Henry's agreement with Leicester Fox to hire Bart. See entry of March 12 - 15, 1886

December 25 thru 28, 1886

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Saturday, December 25, 1886 --- Henry makes no mention of today being Christmas? He does mention that it is Cad's birthday! Henry also notes that Sarah has "cups and saucers enough for two". (I have no idea what this comment is referring to?) Bart and Mills spend part of the day drawing manure. Sarah and Henry go to Ingleside to check the mail. They get a letter from H.F. Waddamus, and a post card from Addie. Omar goes to Bloods and gets hats for Lois and Ettie.

Sunday, December 26th, 1886 --- Sarah and Henry, and Jen, Bart, Mills and Ettie go to church. Elder Hibbard gives a very "applicable discourse". After church service, they have some sort of meeting and organize a Bible class, and appoint a committee to draft a resolution on the death of Isadore Graves. (she must have been a prominent person in their group) They attend an evening service, and Elder Hibbard comes home with them to spend the night.

Monday, December 27th, 1886 --- Henry spends the morning visiting with Elder Hibbard, and then takes him to the train in Bloods after lunch. He buys a broom at Cornishes, and a gallon of kerosene. Bart and Mills clean up some oats, and then clean the sawdust out of the ice house in preparation for harvesting more ice for the coming season. Henry arranges with Lee Manning for him to cut and help load ice cakes at the rate of $3.00 for 200 cakes.

Tuesday, December 28th, 1886 --- Bart draws 6 loads of 15 ice cakes in each load for a total of 90 cakes. ( based on the weight of loads of potatoes and grain from earlier in the year, I would guess the ice cakes at about 100 pounds each? Ice weighs 92% of the weight of the same volume of water. A cubic foot of ice weighs about 57 pounds. Thus the cakes were probably around 2 cubic feet - give or take a bit? One dimension of course would be the thickness of the ice.) They also cut and stored ice back in late February/ early March. Click here. Mills and Henry pack the ice into the ice house as Bart delivers it. They get 5 of the 6 loads packed away. There must have been some sort of event at church this week, because they go to church in the evening to hear a sermon by Elder Lawton. They meet after the service, and examine the resolutions that have been prepared, and decide which to adopt.

(Don's notes --- I can't believe this year with Henry and his family and neighbors is almost over. I'm feeling very odd about not getting my daily dose of family history! - one more entry to go, and that one only 3 days instead of the usual 4!)

December 21 thru 24, 1886

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Tuesday, December 22, 1886 --- (Note - Henry reversed entries for Monday and Tuesday, so go back to the previous entry to see Tuesdays original copy.) Henry does the chores, and Henry Tenney comes to get some buttermilk, and to invite Henry and Sarah over to visit with them and with Amasa Warren and his wife. They go, and stay until around 9PM.

Wednesday, December 23, 1886 --- Henry does some writing - not sure what - maybe more work on transcribing the church records? He make some arrangements for killing hogs tomorrow. Henry draws some firewood towards evening. Sarah is working on a dress, and Jen goes to see Mrs. George C. Lewis about cutting and making a couple of dresses for her. Bart comes home to stay until after the holidays. (Note: I guess he is staying with Aunt Harriet in Naples, but I'm still not sure who she is, or why Bart is staying in Naples..... maybe going to school there?) (Another note - Henry does not seem to make any mention of Easter or Christmas, but here he does mention "the holidays"?)

Thursday, December 24, 1886 --- Henry and the boys butcher the hogs - starting around 9AM, and finishing around noon. Henry notes that they are good, but not as large as last year. They boys cut up the meat, including sausage meat. Mills grinds the meat, and they get 49 pounds of sausage made. They also get the lard rendered. See note on rendering lard below:

Rendering Lard

"A 225-pound hog will yield about 30 pounds of fat that can be rendered into fine shortening for pastries, biscuits, and frying. The sheet of fat just inside the ribs makes the best quality, snowy-white lard. This “leaf” fat renders most easily, too -- and is ninety percent fat. The “back” fat, a thick layer just under the skin, is almost as good, giving about eighty percent of its weight in lard.

A slow fire and a heavy pot that conducts heat evenly are most important in making lard. Put ¼” of water in the pot to keep the fat from scortching at first. Remove any fibers, lean meat, and bloody spots from the fat, and cut into very small pieces. It’s not necessary to remove pieces of skin, but many people prefer to. Put a shallow layer of fat in the pot. When the first layer of fat has started to melt, add more. Do not fill the kettle to the top -- it can boil over too easily. Stir frequently and keep fire low.

The temperature of the lard will be 212F at first, but as the water evaporates, the temperature will rise. Be forwarned that this will take a long time at low heat and that you must stir the lard frequently to prevent scortching. As the lard renders, the cracklings will float to the surface. When the lard is almost done and the cracklings have lost the rest of their moisture, they will sink to the bottom. At this point turn off the heat and allow the lard to settle and cool slightly. Then carefully dip the liquid off the top into clean containers. Strain the cracklings and residual liquid through cheese cloth. Fill containers to the top -- the lard will contract quite a bit while cooling. Chill as quickly as possible for a fine-grained shortening.

Air, light, and moisture can make lard rancid and sour. So after it has been thoroughly cooled, cover the containers tightly and store them in a dark, cool area.

The residual of cracklings are a favorite country treat. Drain them, add salt, and eat the crispy bits as they are. Or make a spread by chopping them finely with onion, pepper, and other seasonings and simmering them in a ½ cup broth until they are thick and bubbly.

Cracklings can be used like bacon bits to season eggs and vegetables. You can also add ½ cup to your favorite recipes to make “cracklings” biscuits, cornbread, or other quick breads."

Henry Tenney comes to visit in the evening.

Friday, December 24, 1886 --- They had an ice storm overnight - very slippery! Bart takes John to the blacksmith in Ingleside for new shoes on all 4 feet. Henry works on the butchering the meat from the hogs. He cuts up the side meat and salts it. He then prepares the hams and shoulders. Sarah makes head cheese. (Head cheese is basically made by boiling the hog's head until the meat comes loose. Cut up or grind the meat, and mix with the gelatin from the boiled head bones and spices, and allow to set up.) Omar and Henry go to Naples in the afternoon.

December 17 thru 20, 1886

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Friday, December 17, 1886 --- Henry says he does some odds and ends, and then puts up 2 bushels of wheat to be ground for flour for Aunt Harriett. He goes to Naples and leaves the wheat at the Red Mill. He stops at the Photograph Gallery to see if the proofs are done from the photo he had done the other day. He evidently takes the two choices home to decide because hte goes to the photographer on Tuesday with his choice. He also gets a gallon can of Kerosene and some bolts at Jordan's. Bart came home. (Not sure where he was?)

Saturday, December 18, 1886 --- Bart and Mills cut wood, and Henry sharpens the crosscut saw. Henry copies the church records from his notes into the official church book, but does not get quite done. Sarah and Henry attend the Grange meeting. It is the annual election of officers an also delivery night for the items they have ordered through the Grange. Henry pays his 60 cents dues, and $2.52 for his ordered goods.

Sunday, December 19, 1886 --- Sarah and Henry, Jen, Mills, and Lois go to church. Lois goes home with Stephen Stanton. They stay after church for a funeral service for Daniel Eldred's child. Elder Masten preaches. They also attend the evening service. Aaron Drake and Frank Simmons "have unfriendly words" after the morning service.

Monday, December 20, 1886 --- (Henry reverses Monday and Tuesday's entries) Henry puts up a grist of feed for the pigs and takes it to the Red Mill in Naples. (I'm not sure why Henry seems to have switched from Lyon's Mill to Red Mill?) He buys some drill shafts (drill bits?) from Jordan's. He discovers an error on the bill - should have been charged 60 cents, but there is 75 cents on the bill? He stops at the photo gallery to indicate his choice, and is told the pictures will be ready at the end of the week. He also buys a pair of boots at Storey's. (See the next entry for the original copy)

December 13 thru 16, 1886

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Monday, December 13, 1886 --- Funeral service for Isadore Graves at the Ingleside Christian Church. Omar, Jennie, Sarah, and Henry go to the service which is read by Elder Waite, and a prayer is offered by Elder Hibbard. "There was a full house, and many were deeply moved with sympathy."

Tuesday, December 14, 1886 --- Mills does chores and goes to school. (Two things that don't get mentioned often - Henry does not use the word "chores" very often, and in fact does not mention the day to day repeated things like milking, gathering eggs, feeding the pigs, etc. Also, going to school is not something Henry mentions much.) Henry draws some firewood for (?) Polmateer. He sharpens the hand saw and the buck saw and cuts some wood. Jen does the washing, and Sarah bakes, and the children go to school. Sarah rips her old black dress, and prepares to rebuild it. They have beef steak for dinner. (another thing Henry does not mention much - the actual things they eat.)

Wednesday, December 15, 1886 --- Henry takes 4 bags of grist to Naples to be ground for feed for the horses. He goes to the Photography Gallery and sits for a photo. He is to get 12 photos for $2.00. He pays Mr. Saunders $1 deposit. The photographer will send two proofs to choose from. He pays Reed and Tobey $12 for the overcoat, and gets 10 cents worth of bolts at Jordan's Hardware. He also goes to Granby's and gets 1 yard of wigging for 10 cents. As I understand it, wigging is an open canvas-like fabric, used for stiffening and protecting the lower inside surface of skirts, sleeves, etc.

Thursday, December 16, 1886 --- Henry repairs and sharpens the crosscut saw. Sarah and Henry go to Ingleside to visit Vern Drake. Henry settles accounts with the blacksmith Avery, for $5.96. They also see Augustus Weld and his wife. Augustus is Sarah's mother's youngest brother. They go to prayer meeting in the evening.

December 9 thru 12, 1886

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Thursday, December 9, 1886 --- Henry makes the rave for the long sleigh from the wood he bought from Nickles yesterday. He also puts a roller in the sleigh, but I'm not sure what that is? Sarah and Henry to to prayer meeting in the evening.

Friday, December 10, 1886 --- Henry continues working on the sleigh, putting the "tung" in it. I presume this is the piece on the front to attach to the horses? They have some visitors - Charles Conley and his wife Susie and Mary Vantuyl (sp?). Henry heads for Bloods to meet Jen part way and bring her home. There is a "donation" for Elder Hibbard. (a donation is a sort of fund raiser event - usually to raise money for the minister?) Henry has a fine time, and there is a good turnout! They raise $104 - a goodly some. Henry gets paid by Briglin for the barley - $169.84. Henry pays $1.40 on his school taxes.

Saturday, December 11, 1886 --- Henry goes to Avery's to pick up Brother J.D. Childs. Elder Hibbard and his wife stayed overnight with Henry and Sarah. They have quite a group over for dinner. In addition to the Hibbards, and Brother Childs, Frank Simmons and his wife, and Stephen Stanton and his wife and brother, and Sister Tenney (Jane?). Henry says that Elder Childs stays overnight. (I had thought that "Brother" and "Elder" were different terms, but Henry refers to Mr. Childs by both terms?) Henry pays Omar $135 on the Note. I presume this is Omar's wages. Henry gets 50 cents back on his school taxes from Owen Pressler because of an error on the school books.

Sunday, December 12, 1886 --- The Sunday service is led by Elder J.D.Childs. Sarah, Henry, Bart, and Mills go to church in Ingleside. Isadore Graves is buried today, but the funeral service is tomorrow morning at the church. They go to visit Sister Hibbard after the service. She is at the Tenney's where she stayed this morning because she was feeling ill. Elder Childs preaches again in the evening.

December 5 thru 8, 1886

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Sunday, December 5, 1886 --- Henry, Sarah, Lois, Ettie, and Mills go to church in the forenoon. The young folks go back in the evening, but Henry and Sarah stay home. Henry comments that Omar was home for dinner. I'm not sure where he had been? Winter has set in good! Temperature is 6 below at night!

Monday, December 6, 1886 --- Henry takes a grist of feed for the hogs to Naples to be ground. He takes his overcoat back to Tobey and Reed for alterations. He looks at other coats, but does not find anything he likes better. The ledger in the back indicates that he buys next year's diaries for himself and Sarah - one at 60 cents, and one at 40 cents - from George Watrous? He then goes to Bloods and sells the beef hide from the other day to Cornish - I'm not completely sure what this entry means, but the ledger in the back of the diary indicates that he gets $2.80 plus an 85 cent barrel of salt for the hide - total value of $3.65. He then settles accounts with D. Weld - $5.00. He then buys 18 board feet of lumber from him at 2 cents a foot! He checks with Briglin on the balance due on the barley, but does not get paid.

Tuesday, December 7, 1886 --- Henry goes to visit Henry Tenney, and tries to get some lumber to make raves (One of the upper side pieces of the frame of a wagon body or a sleigh) for the sleigh, but does not find anything suitable. Jane Tenney sends 65 cents -- 40 cents for lard, and 25 cents she had borrowed. Omar comes by in the afternoon on the way to Naples, and takes the Democrat waggon and horses, and brings home the grist from the mill. Henry pays Omar $5 on what he owes him. (More evidence that Omar is staying somewhere else??)

Wednesday, December 8, 1886 --- Henry goes to John Nickles to check on wood for the sleigh raves. John has suitable oak, and Henry buys 20 feet at 2 cents a foot. Henry then finishes banking the house for the winter, and also banks the south end of the barn, and puts a roof over the banking material? Jane Tenney comes by and Sarah cuts pieces for a dress for her. Mart Lawyer comes by and borrows a big kettle.

December 1 thru 4, 1886

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Wednesday, December 1, 1886 --- Bart takes another load of Barley to Briglin in Bloods. Jen goes to Bell Glover's wedding at noon. Henry goes to Ingleside and has blacksmith Avery set 4 shoes on Kitt, and also gets 2 1/4 gallons of kerosene. Sarah's oldest brother Harvey Hill comes to visit and stay overnight. Ira (?) Hines comes to visit too.

Thursday, December 2, 1886 --- Bart takes another load of barley - 1550 pounds - to Bloods. Sarah's brother stays until around 11 AM. Bart and Henry bank the house in the afternoon - (when I was a kid we banked the house with hay bales around the foundation -- not sure how they would have banked the house then?) Jen is altering her brown dress, and Mills has evidently had an encounter with a skunk! Mills and Cad move the chickens into the barn.

Friday, December 3, 1886 --- Bart takes another load of barley to Bloods - a total of 112 bushels of number 1 barley, for a total due of $67.50. Henry records that he is to get the $ tomorrow? (The #1 barley reference probably explains the two tier price system by which Henry was paid for the barley) Henry sends Bart with the balance due of $2.07 on the threshing to Ad Robinson. Henry and Bart clean up the barley screenings - chaff left over from the cleaning process --- yielding about 10 bushels that will be used for feed for the animals over the winter.

Saturday, December 4, 1886 --- Henry, with help from Bart and Mills, dress a beef in the forenoon. Sarah goes to Naples to arrange for Bart to room with Aunt Harriet. (Not sure who this is or why Bart will be rooming in Naples?) Sarah and Henry go to fellowship in the afternoon with a "goodly number' in attendance, and go visit Sister Simons afterward. In the evening they go to Grange.

November 27 thru 30, 1886

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Saturday, November 27, 1886 --- Bart takes two loads of barley to Bloods to Briglin. First load goes by waggon at 2435 pounds, and the second load by sleigh - 2100 pounds. Omar finishes the ditch, and then Omar and Jen go to Naples. Omar buys a robe at Granby's for $7. Bart gets receipts for the two loads of barley, but does not get paid.

Sunday, November 28, 1886 --- Sarah, Jen, Mills, and Henry go to church and hear Elder Hibbard preach a sermon on the First Epistle of John, Chapter 4. Sarah and Henry go to meeting in the evening too. Jen goes with Fred Tyler to Wheeler Hill. (There is a Wheeler Hill Church in Wheeler, NY - about 14 miles southeast of Ingleside.) Henry notes that Omar goes to the North, and Bart goes to the South -- "They must have a change of climate in view". I'm not at all sure what that means???

Monday, November 29, 1886 --- Bart takes a load of barley to Briglin in Bloods -- 22 bags same as the first load --- but has to leave the bags because the train engine is broken. They can't take another load that afternoon. Bart and Henry clean about 60 bushels of barley in the afternoon. Sarah does the wash and Jen helps. Sarah is not feeling well. Prudie stays home (from school ?) because she does not feel well from a fall yesterday. (I think this is the only time Henry mentions his 8 year old daughter)

Tuesday, November 30, 1886 --- Bart takes another load of barley to Briglin in Bloods, and they finish cleaning the barley in the afternoon. Omar, Jen, and Bart go to a surprise party at Lou Maxfields. Sarah and Heney go to visit Frank Drake in the evening. William and Phoebe Blodgett are there too.

November 23 thru 26, 1886

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Tuesday, November 23, 1886 --- Sarah and Henry mend bags - presumably grain/feed bags - maybe for transporting the barley to Bloods. They need 23 bags and while they recently bought some new ones, they only have 6 new ones. Jen goes to spend the night at Julia Marsh's house. Henry gathers teasel to make ointment. Picture of teasel below. The first picture was taken in my yard in mid July. The second picture is what they look like in late November. According to what I can find, the ointment would be made from the roots.... not sure what else is added to make the ointment, but the ointment was believed to soothe rheumatic pain, and to help heal warts, and open sores on the fingers. ( I remember my Dad having lots of problems with cracked and sore hands from farm work when I was a kid.)They also put up a grist of feed for the horses and the hogs.

Wednesday, November 24, 1886 --- Henry goes to Naples with the grist of grain to be ground for the horses and the hogs. While in Naples, Henry gets his watch fixed for 10 cents. He then settles a lot of accounts in Naples with the money earned from the seasons crops.
Jordan Brothers - $31.48 - hardware items
He also buys some strap hinges and nails for 45 cents.

Granby Brothers - $48.69 - clothing
Granby's also seems to take some butter at 20 cents a pound.. not sure of the accounting - maybe 59 pounds?

Reed and Tobey - $16.20 - clothing

Lewis Brothers - $3.41 - clothing

Storey Brothers - $14.00 - shoes and clothing

He also goes to Morgans for some sundries including a sponge - 30 cents.

Thursday, November 25, 1886 ---- Henry and Sarah go to Wayland to visit daughter Hattie, and her husband Harm and their granddaughter Florence. They find them well. They get three roosters from Harm and Hattie - probably dinner tonight? The boys begin to fill the ditch - an indication that these are covered drainage ditches. They have to quit because of snow storm and they all clean about 60 bushels of Barley for the order of 300 bushels going to Briglin.

(Note - while November 25th was officially Thanksgiving Day, there is no mention of any particular celebration, church service, special meal, or other event. Similarly, no mention is made of anything special about Christmas Day a month from now??? The only special mention of December 25th is that it is Cad's 10 birthday! I wonder if their religious practices include not celebrating holidays??? There was no mention of the 4th of July either, or Easter?? I know that some fundamentalist Christian groups specifically do not celebrate Christmas, and perhaps the Olney Family traditions include not celebrating Christmas and other holidays?? Again imput is requested!)

Friday - November 26, 1886 --- Omar takes Old Kitt to Clark Avery's. Bart takes John to James Avery for new shoes all around. Henry makes "stammonioum" ointment. I'm not sure of correct spelling, and can't find any reference to it. Possibly the ointment made from the teasel he harvested last week? Bart and Henry clean and bag some more barley for the big order. Omar works on the ditch some more and gets "nearly done".

November 19 thru 22, 1886

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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.)

November 15 thru 18, 1886

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Monday, November 15, 1885 --- Omar goes on with ditching. (Note: This extensive "ditching" that Omar has been doing over the past weeks is probably done to drain wet areas of land that they grow crops on. Henry mentions putting stones in the ditches, and there is probably a layer of soil put back over the top to make all the land usable, but with the "ditches" acting like drainage tiles to carry away excess water) Bart helps Sarah do the washing, and also takes the kids to school, and picks them up in the evening. (School does not get mentioned too often in the diary) Henry fixes a meal box for storing feed for the cattle? He mixes meal with bran for a total of about 12 bushels. Bart, Mills, and Lois go to Perry Borden's for a party. Jen goes to the party later on.

Tuesday, November 16, 1886 --- Henry works on the hog house. More confirmation that this is a two story building. Henry makes and hangs a door for the "lower part". He puts two "buttons" on the door to latch it. Mrs. S. Stanton comes by with a bird for Sarah... I presume a chicken or turkey for food? William Boggs comes by and pays Henry $3.60 for the wheat he purchased last spring. (I don't remember any earlier reference to this?) Omar continues work on the ditching, and Jen and Lois iron clothes.

Wednesday, November 17, 1886 --- Henry packs a box of canned and dried fruit for his mother in Mansfield, PA. Bart goes to Leicester Fox's and gets his trunk and clothes. Mr. Fox sends another $50 on Bart's wages to Henry, making a total of $100 paid, and a balance due of $12.50.

Thursday, November 18, 1886 --- Henry works on a door for the upper -workshop - part of the hog house, and sets some posts for the bridge to the shop door. (The hog house must be set against a steep hill.) Bart husks corn in the forenoon, and draws stones for the ditch Omar is working on in the afternoon. Henry Terney and his wife come visit and stay until evening. It is Henry Terney's 50th birthday! Henry comments that he "feels as young as ever, or nearly". Jen has spent the day cleaning.

November 11 thru 14, 1886

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Thursday, November 11, 1886 - Omar, Mills, and Henry finish putting all their potatoes in the cellar by noon. In the afterenoon, Omar does some plowing, and Mills pulls beets. Henry works on the hog house some more. A peddlar stops by and Sarah buys some cuff buttons and collar buttons to make a shirt for Mills. Henry buys 3 Rogers Brothers plated spoons for $1.75. No way to know what pattern these spoons might have been, but below is a common Rogers Brothers setting from 1847?
Henry records the spoon purchase in his ledger in the back of the diary, but not Sarah's purchase of the buttons - an indication that Sarah has her own money from egg sales, etc??? Sarah goes to W.E. Welds and from there to prayer meeting. (W.E.Weld family is Henry's younger sister Ellen and her husband William Eber Weld.)

Friday, November 12, 1886 - Wild geese fly over. Bart came home last night from his 7 1/2 month stint of working for Leicester Fox. Omar starts working on a ditch by the road on the Terney lot that they rent. Mills husks corn, and Henry works some more on the hog house. Sarah is making a dress for Lois. Toward night, Omar, Bart, Mills, and Henry transfer the pigs into the new hog house.

Saturday, November 13, 1886 --- The first big snowfall - snows all day and drifts! Henry works inside on fixing shoes for Bart and Ettie. Bart must have worn his shoes out while working for Leicester Fox. Bart and Mills husk corn, and Omar splits some wood for winter fuel, and does some chores (another mention of chores?) The boys - Bart and Mills - carry 45 bushels of husked and sorted corn to the corn house. A corn house would be a sort of slatted building that would allow air to move through to dry the corn -- see below. Omar, Bart, and Sarah go to Naples and buy some clothes for Bart at Tobeys - including an overcoat, some underwear, and some socks? A full foot of snow has fallen today!

Sunday, November 14, 1886 ---- Henry comments that it is "clearing off fine but cold and looks like winter for good." Sarah and Bart go to Ingleside to church, but church is canceled due to the weather - the roads are badly drifted in. Omar goes to "see somebody across the fields". Henry comments that it is "probably something of an interesting nature". Henry also comments that Bart goes to see somebody too - "lots of business to be done". Henry seems to making some more of his comments on Omar's behavior, but this time includes Bart in his comments? Being off on his own at Leicester Fox's for most of the past year has probably made Bart a bit more independent and grown up?

November 7 thru 10, 1886

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Sunday, Novemb er 7, 1886 --- Sarah, Henry, Omar, Bart, and Mills go to church. Bart must be home visiting - he still has 4 or 5 days left to work for Leicester Fox. Henry comments that Elder Hibbard preaches a good sermon from Romans, Chapter 8, verse 28 ( in Roman numerals VIII- XXVIII) "For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Henry comments that they had a very interesting Bible class lesson, and altogether profitable sermon.

Monday, November 8, 1886 --- Henry goes to Naples with a grist of last year's corn and barley. He buys two "bags" at Granby's - I presume feed sacks? He then goes to Wayland to visit Hattie and Harm and his granddaughter. He takes along some fresh meat from the hog they butchered the other day to pay them back for some meat they "borrowed" some time ago. - 28 3/4 pounds. He stopped in Bloods on the way back home, and collected $100 from D. Weld as partial payment on the potatoes they have been hauling to Bloods over the past several days. I'm not sure what the phrase "I drawed to that firm $100" means? Bart and Mills go to Frank Weld's surprise party. Jane Tenny buys 3 3/4 pounds of meat.

Tuesday, November 9, 1886 --- Frank Marsh borrows Henry's lumber waggon for the day. Omar does some plowing, and Mills husks more corn. Henry works some more on finishing off the Hog house, and Sarah does the washing. Henry writes a letter to Elder Alderman.

Wednesday, November 10, 1886 --- Henry does chores in the forenoon. I think that is the first time I've heard him use the term "chores". "I chore around in the forenoon." Sarah is working on a dress for Sarah. Fowler and Prudie come by to visit. Omar let Prudie have the $100 that Henry paid him for his wages yesterday - the $100 from the potatoes. Henry finishes the letter to Elder Alderman. Bradley Graves comes by and gives Henry $5 in gold to send with the letter to Elder Alderman. Henry goes to Bloods Depot Post Office and sends the letter by registered mail.

November 3 thru 6, 1886

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Wednesday, November 3, 1886 --- Omar takes a large load of potatoes to Bloods in the morning, and the last load in the afternoon. A grand total of 551 bushels and 44 pounds. A bushel of potatoes is about 60 pounds. Thirty three thousand one hundred and four pounds of potatoes... all dug by hand, loaded by hand, and drawn by horse and wagon for 33 cents a bushel - about a penny for every 2 pounds. Henry notes that that they took a total of 13 loads...... about 1 1/2 tons per load! Seems like it must have been a pretty strong wagon, and pretty strong horses.... at least it is downhill most of the way to Bloods, but holding back that kind of load must have been pretty much as hard on the horses as pulling it up! Upon his return from Bloods, Omar starts plowing under some stubble - could be grain or corn stubble (the part left after cutting down what you want) Sarah goes to Bloods for something, and the first snow of the season falls!

Thursday, November 4, 1886 --- Henry goes to visit Leicester Fox, and settle up accounts on Bart's work for the season. My great grandfather Bart has been working for Leicester Fox since March 17th, except for the few days in September when he was very ill with "cholera morbus" and missed 12 days. Bart needs to make up the time he missed, and they figure he owes Mr. Fox 12 days to make the time up. Bart has evidently worked a extra 5 days already, and they arrange for Bart to work until next Thursday - November 11 (Maybe Friday November 12th - Sunday would not count - Bart does appear in the diary entry next Friday - helping put the pigs in the new hog house at home.) Mr. Fox pays Henry $50 on account for Bart's work, and owes $62.50 balance to be paid in a week or ten days. The total money arranged for the seasons work was $112.50 for 7 1/2 months work. (You can see the "value" of a large family. Henry has extra hands he does not need, and can "rent" out Bart for cash. My Fox either has a smaller family, or a bigger farm, and must pay Henry for the help he needs. While we have seen lots of examples of neighbors helping neighbors, exchanging and bartering, etc. this is very much a business transaction with no leeway for "sick time". When you figure in the value of not feeding Bart for the 7 1/2 months, Bart's labor has profited the family almost as much as the cash value of the potato crop sold to Welds!)

Omar draws potatoes to the cellar for storage.

Friday, November 5, 1886 --- Henry is sick and does not do anything until around noon. Omar goes on with plowing - preparing fields for spring planting. Sarah and Lois go to Naples in the forenoon. Omar and Mills continue putting Comfort potatoes into the cellar for a total of about 90 bushels. Total potato crop is up to about 650 bushels so far?

Saturday, November 6, 1886 --- They butcher and dress the "fat hog" in the morning. Omar and Mills husk corn in the afternoon. Henry and Sarah go to Fellowship Meeting in the afternoon. "The meeting was an important one in many respects, and a good Spirit seemed to pervade the majority of those present, and an important resolution was past (sic)"

October 30 thru November 2, 1886

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Saturday, October 30, 1886 --- Omar and Mills husk corn in the barn all morning. Henry cuts sleepers for the hog house. Omar draws them to the hog house, and Henry hews them and installs them. (I'm not sure what the sleepers are. This term usually refers to supports under the floor.) Omar takes another load of potatoes to Bloods in the afternoon. Sarah and Jen go to visit Jane Tenney.

Sunday, October 31, 1886 --- Bart is home to visit. Omar, Bart, Sarah and Henry go to church, and Henry and Sarah go to visit Bradley Graves after church. William Blodgett and his wife also go. Omar goes out at night, and Mills and Jen to to Bloods. Their oldest calf died today.

Monday, November 1, 1886 --- Omar takes another load of potatoes to Bloods, and Mills, Cad, and Henry pick up another 20 bushels of potatoes from the field. Mills buries the calf that died yesterday. Henry goes on working on the hog house floor, and "commences to lay plank". Susie Conley and Charles Conley visit in the afternoon/evening. Omar takes a second load of potatoes to Bloods, and gets back around 8PM.

Tuesday, November 2, 1886 --- Omar takes a "large" load of potatoes to Bloods in the forenoon, and draws corn to the barn in the afternoon. Henry finishes the hog house floor, and then moves his tool chest and his work bench into a shop that is upstairs over the hog house. (The hog house turns out to be a two story structure! The floor laid previously was probably the upstairs floor, and the sleepers are the support under the ground level floor)

October 26 thru 29, 1886

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Tuesday, October 26, 1886 --- Omar takes two loads of potatoes to Bloods to D. Weld. He does not get a weigh bill to prove how many bushels of potatoes he delivered on the first load, so they try their best to duplicate the first load for the second trip to get an idea of how much has been delivered! Jen goes to visit the Darwin Marsh family with Old Molly and the buggy.

Wednesday, October 27, 1886 --- Henry lays a floor in the hog house. Omar takes two more loads of potatoes to Welds in Bloods. Jen takes Old Molly to the blacksmith (Avery) to get four shoes. Sarah is making a coat for Cad, and Mills works on husking corn.

Thursday, October 28, 1886 --- Omar takes one more load of potatoes to Bloods. Mills, Cad, and Henry, (with help from Omar when he gets back) pick cider apples and put them in one of the wagons.

Friday, October 29, 1886 --- Omar takes the cider apples to Bloods - 2125 pounds! He gets $4.25 for the load. That is about 35 bushels of apples. Omar takes another load of potatoes to Bloods in the afternoon. Henry works on mending shoes for Bart, and boots for Cad. Henry then puts a ridge board on the hog house, and trims the shingles along the edge of the roof. (Since the roof is finished, I'm not sure what the ridge board is... it would normally be a vertical board at the peak of the roof where the rafters join, but would surely need to be installed during the framing stage of the roof construction - not afterward?) Sarah goes to Naples to get dresses for Lois and Ettie.

October 22 thru 25, 1886

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Friday October 22, 1886 -- Henry, with Cad's help, goes on shingling the hog house. Omar helps Ansel Tyler do threshing, and Mills husks corn. Sarah goes to Bloods and checks the price of potatoes - 31 cents a bushel from Briglin.

Saturday, October 23, 1886 --- Omar starts plowing the North East field. He also helps with shingling some after dinner. He then takes a grist of feed for the horses to Naples for grinding. Jen goes to Bloods to pick up Elder Hibbard at the train station. Henry works on the hog house "nearly all day" and gets it pretty much done except for one course of shingles. Elder Hibbard stays overnight with them.

Sunday, October 24, 1886 --- They go to meeting in the morning and evening - not much additional detail.

Monday, October 25, 1886 --- Omar and Mills put up firewood in the wood house for the winter until around noon. They then put up a load of potatoes for Weld and Company. Henry has arranged to sell them 500 bushels to be delivered as soon as they can haul them to Bloods. According the the ledger entries from later in November, Henry has sold the 500 bushels at 33 cents a bushel -rather than the 31 cents a bushel offered by Briglin. He collects $165 from Weld and Co. for the potatoes - $100 on November 9th, and $65 on November 22nd. Sarah and Henry go to a surprise (party) in the evening at James Chapman's.

October 18 thru 21, 1886

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Monday, October 18, 1886 --- Omar and Mills husk corn, and Henry works on repairing shoes until around noon when Aunt Catherine Weld comes by and wants him to go to Ira Polmateer's in Ingleside. He takes along a tank, and gets 5 gallons of oil at James Avery's blacksmith shop. Henry's sister Prudence and her husband Arnold Fowler came to visit in the afternoon. Omar went to Naples at night.

Tuesday, October 19, 1886 --- Omar, Mills, and Cad dig potatoes, and Henry works on the roof of the hog house, getting the rafters up and half the roof boards done. Henry sorts corn after lunch, and carries it to the corn house - about 20 bushels. Henry goes to Naples in the afternoon, with a grist of corn and wheat. He buys a pair of boots for Mills for $3.25, and gets a piece of sole leather for 60 cents for shoe repair. He returns home and continues work on the hog house.

Wednesday, October 20, 1886 --- Henry finishes the roof boards on the hog house, and trims the ends flush for the cornice. The cornice is a board along the top edge of the wall where the roof meets the walls. Omar and Mills continue digging potatoes - 105 bushels - all done but the Jumbos (?). Henry husks more corn. Ellen (Henry's sister?) came by and bought a sac of peaches and pears for drying.

Thursday, October 21, 1886 --- Omar and Mills dig potatoes - 69 bushels of Jumbos. They also cover all the heaps of potatoes but one of Callum's Superb potatoes (presumably these are the ones referred to as Jumbos? - see note below - could not find picture.)

Callum's Superb. — Excellent potato, large and oblong, smooth, regular and sound

flesh color, resembling Early Rose, with well marked eyes, very few culls

Oman and Mills draw corn into the barn in the afternoon, and also take shingles to the hog house. Henry gets the hog house nearly ready for shingling.

October 14 thru 17, 1886

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Thursday, October 14, 1886 --- Omar and Mills dig and pick up 75 bushels of potatoes in the forenoon. Henry husks some corn, and picks up apples. Sarah goes to visit Catharine Weld but does not get any further than the Blodgett's place. Henry fixes the hog pen, and moves the small pigs.

Friday, October 15, 1886 --- Omar and Mills dig potatoes again, and Henry husks more corn. Sarah goes to Wayland to her daughter's place and gets 28 3/4 pounds of fresh shoulder meat - pork. Aaron Putnam and his wife visit. He goes on to Naples, and his wife Adah stays to visit. She and Sarah go to Nickleses toward evening. Henry goes to Ingleside, and buys some boot blacking from Wyman Drake for 6 cents. ( 59 years before the birth of his great great grandson Donald - Me!)

Saturday, October 16, 1886 --- First hard frost of the year. Omar digs potatoes, and Mills piles them. Henry covers them - presumably to prevent frost damage? Omar digs 97 bushels. Omar and Mills draw pumpkins in the afternoon - presumably for food in those days. Sarah and Henry go to Lodge meeting in the evening.

Sunday, October 17, 1886 --- Even harder frost - 26 degrees, and snow! Bart is home to visit, and they have sweet potatoes. Henry stays home from church because of the storm, and "a tendency to neuralgia in (his) face" He notes that there was no meeting or Sunday School due to the storm.

October 10 thru 13, 1886

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Sunday, October 10, 1886 --- Sarah and Henry go to church in the morning and the evening. They go home with W.E.Weld after the morning service. Preaching at both services by Elder Childs. Henry declares both sermons "very good", but "in some respects a little short of that clearness and definite style usually adopted by him." Emphasis mine - Henry has some "clear and definite" ideas about all things religious - a trait passed on to his descendants. Omar takes Susie Conley on a drive to George Pulver's. (a date?)

Monday, October 11, 1886 --- Sarah does washing in the forenoon. Henry is not feeling well, but along with Omar and Mills, they work on the siding for the hog house. They get the north side, the east side, and the upper part of the west side done. Sarah takes some peaches to Bloods to Slatterys, and balances the accounts with them. Henry notes that Addamus did not give them a receipt, but did "tear the bill to pieces". Sarah also takes a half bushel of peaches to D.D.Clark who pays her for them.

Tuesday, October 12, 1886 --- Sarah goes to Wayland to visit Harm and Hattie and granddaughter Florence. She finds them well - recovered from their recent illness - and she bring Lois home. Omar and Mills dig potatoes all day, and Henry takes 213 feet of lumber to Griswold's mill, and has it planed and matched for a total cost of 64 cents. He visits "Asel"(?) Tyler to get money for his sister Prudence Fowler, but he is not at home. Henry goes home and continues work on the siding for the hog house.

Wednesday, October 13, 1886 --- Henry finishes the siding, and cuts "ganes" in the plates for the rafters. Omar and Mills dig 108 bushels of potatoes, and pile them for drying. Henry goes to Bloods and gets 213 feet of Hemlock lumber at $1 per hundred feet, and put it on account. He also took a sample of his barley to Briglins, and shows it to Booon, but they are not buying barley.

October 6 thru 8, 1886

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Wednesday - October 6, 1886 --- First light frost! Omar and Mills dig potatoes in the forenoon, and dig out an area for foundation for a new hog house in the afternoon. Henry has laid out the position for the hog house and gets the abutments partially laid. I suspect abutments would be masonry or stone corners to support the wood structure? Omar and Mills draw the lumber for the frame to the site.... possibly the lumber Henry bought a few days ago? Sarah takes 1/2 bushel of peaches to Mrs. Darwin Marsh and gets 75 cents for them. Henry has 4 new shoes put on Old Kitt - one of the horses. Ettie returns home from somewhere?

Thursday - October 7, 1886 --- Omar, Mills, and Henry frame up the hog house. Omar and Mills then pick apples in the "old orchard". Henry goes on working on the hog house till nearly dark, and then he and Sarah go to prayer meeting. Henry buys a box of matches from Wyman Drake for 6 cents. He also gets a "postal" from his brother Robert, and another from his sister Prudie. The post office was in Ingleside - the original post office boxes are in display at the Rochester Museum and Science Center in Rochester, NY.

Friday - October 8, 1886 --- Omar and Mills store the apples in the cellar, and then draw some scantling for the frame of the hog house. (Scantling is an old term for what we would currently call a 2x4 - used as a stud or rafter in framing.) Sarah goes to Bloods and sells a half bushel of Blood Peaches to Slatterys for $2 per bushel... the Crawford peaches sell for $1.50/bushel. (Blood peaches have a more reddish color to the skin and fruit.) Henry finishes framing the hog house, and gets part of the siding on. Omar goes to Naples, and takes 72 cents to pay Doughty for the canning jars, and buys 6 pounds of 30 penny nails. (a 30 penny nail is about 4 1/2" long)

Saturday - October 9, 1886 --- Henry finishes siding the hog house. Omar and Mills draw corn to the barn in the forenoon, and Omar goes to the Fair in Naples in the afternoon. Sarah has some sewing to do, so Henry and Sarah do not go to the Fair, but they go to Ingleside in the evening to a "Special". I have no idea what a "Special" is?? Omar goes to Charles Conley's in the evening. After a light frost on Wednesday morning, it goes up to 78 today! (Good old upstate New York weather)

October 2 thru 5, 1886

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Saturday, October 2, 1886 -- Omar and Mills dig potatoes. Henry goes to Naples with a grist of old corn (last year's crop) for the old sow, and 4 bushels of feed for the cows and horses, and 2 bushels of wheat for flour for the family. (Sounds like a lot of flour, but remember they are making bread, cake, cookies, etc. for 12 people plus lots of guests.) Sarah and Henry go to fellowship meeting in the afternoon, and take tea with Brother William Borden - probably a visiting preacher. They go to Grange meeting in the evening - "full meeting and interesting."

Sunday, October 3, 1886 --- Omar, Bart, and Mills walk to Ingleside to church. Sarah and Henry drive a buggy with John (horse). Elder Hibbard preached a good sermon on the last chapter of Ecclesiastes. (Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone" (12:13).) Uncle Augustus Weld (Sarah's uncle) and wife Mary, and Charles Conley and family come home with them for dinner. Charles Conley pays $4 he owes Henry. In the evening Henry and Sarah go to church.

Monday, October 4, 1886 --- Henry picks and crates a bushel of peaches to send to his brother Robert in Mansfield, PA. He takes John (horse) to Ingleside for two shoes, and gets a ring put into the clasp on the whiffletree. (I've put a picture of a whiffletree on here before, but here it is again - also called a swingltree or a singletree .... a pivoting system for hitching horses to buggies, wagons, plows, etc.)
Henry takes the peaches to Bloods to the train depot to ship to Mansfield for his brother.... cost to ship them - 60 cents. He also buys some lumber from D. Weld, and a basket from Cornishes. Sarah does the wash, and Ettie is helping Julia Marsh.

Tuesday, October 5,1886 --- Henry goes to Naples to the mill for grinding his grain for animal feed. He buys 6 two quart jars at J. Doughty's. He then goes to Bloods with a half bushel of peaches for D. Borden, and buys some lumber from D. Weld. Henry has D. Weld credit him with $1.50 from D.D.Clark's account. Account of lumber transaction in memo section of diary - see picture below. This lumber purchase information is evidently carried over from yesterday. (click on picture for bigger easier to read version)

September 28 thru October 1, 1886

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Tuesday - September 28, 1886 --- Omar and Mills go on fixing the fence - presumably the one the cows got out through a few days ago? Henry and Sarah go to Wayland to check on his daughter Hattie, husband Harm, and granddaughter Florence who were very sick. Florence is feeling better, and Harm is still sick, but much better. They return home to find that Frank Simmons and his wife had been there and got a half bushel of peaches, and had left just before Henry and Sarah got home. Henry works some on the road work that he does in lieu of taxes. Waddamus stays overnight again, and he and Henry do some trading. Waddamus gets a bushel of peaches, and Henry gets a pair of suspenders, and one necktie? Waddamus must be a traveling peddler?

Wednesday - September 29, 1886 --- Henry finishes his roadwork, and comments that Mrs. Lawyer, and Robert Smith still have some roadwork to complete? Henry goes to Bloods, and takes Jen to help Aunt Fanny for a few days. He buys a half pint of butter color from H.C.Pierce for 35 cents. He goes to see D. Weld about some boards for the fence, but he doesn't have any. He also sends his sister Prudie a letter about the peaches he has.

Thursday - September 30, 1886 --- Sarah goes to Wayland to check on Harm and Hattie and Florence, and finds them all doing better. Henry is not feeling to well again (or still) but still manages to put a window in the end of the barn. Omar and Mills dig 26 bushels of potatoes, and continue the fence repairs.

Friday - October 1, 1886 --- Omar and Mills continue digging potatoes. Susie Conley, Susan Hill (Sarah's niece), and Florence Addams come to visit. Henry picks a bushel of peaches and takes them to Stephen Stanton. He sells 1/4 bushel of peaches to Florence Addams, and a bushel and a half of Crawfords to D.D. Clark. Prudence Fowler comes by and gets a half bushel of peaches. Henry has sold a lot of peaches. Seems like peaches must not be too common in the area because Henry is selling them to a lot of his neighbors..... not shipping them off to other areas by train like the raspberries.

September 24 thru 27, 1886

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Friday - September 24, 1886 --- Omar and Mills put the cows out to pasture on the Terney place (this explains why they built a fence around the haystack a few days ago.) Then they plant raspberry tips, and Omar sharpens some fence posts. Henry, with Cad's help, finishes shingling the lean-to part of the house - probably used as a wood shed to keep the wood dry for heating the house. Sarah is sewing, and Jen is doing the wash. Henry says he is still quite sick.

Saturday - September 25, 1886 --- Omar goes on sharpening fence posts, and Mills goes on planting raspberry tips. Lois is mopping, Sarah is sewing, and Jen is "changing things up around". I've no idea what that means. Henry is still sick, and does not do much except dig some borers out of the apple trees. Sarah and Henry go to Ingleside in the afternoon to the cemetery meeting. Sarah takes some peaches to Phoebe Hill. Henry gets a letter from his daughter Hattie in Wayland telling him that Florence (his grandaughter) is very sick with diarrhea.

Sunday - September 26, 1886 --- Sarah and Henry go to Wayland to visit Hattie, Harm, and Florence. Harm is sick with the diarrhea thing too. Florence (2 years old) is very sick, and Henry uses the phrase "she may rally". The Doctor has told them she will be OK if nothing more serious sets in? Ellen (Henry's younger sister) has sent along some pills.

Monday - September 27, 1886 --- Sarah has stayed over in Wayland to take care of Harm, Hattie, and Florence. Henry goes home and takes a bushel of Crawford peaches to the Avery's.
Henry says he is feeling better, but does not feel much like working. Frank Simmons comes by and orders a bushel of peaches. C. Waddamus comes to visit and stays overnight. Henry and Mr. Waddamus don't do any trading?

September 20 thru 23, 1886

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Monday - September 20, 1886 --- Henry has two hind horseshoes put on John, and a clasp made for the whiffletree at the blacksmith's shop in Ingleside. He also places an order with the Grange purchasing agent for "goods". The members of the Grange evidently formed sort of a co-op for purchasing various farming related products. Omar and Mills cut corn. Jen and Sarah do the washing. Lois is feeling a bit better, but Henry is coming down with a cold.

Tuesday - September 21, 1886 --- Henry puts up a scaffold, and Omar removes old shingles from the roof of a "lean-to" attached to the house - probably a place to store firewood and coal to keep it dry. Henry replaces shingles, and Omar and Mills go on cutting corn. Henry's cold continues to bother him. Jen goes to visit Hattie Warren - Omar's girlfriend - with old Moll and the buggy. Ira Ingraham visits and stays to dinner. Ira is Henry's sister Harriet's brother-in-law.

Wednesday - September 22, 1886 --- Omar goes to help on the threshing crew at Frank Marsh's place. Henry has a bad headache, but he and Cad lay shingles on the lean-to roof, getting the long side nearly done, and the eave trough attached before it begins to rain. Henry sweeps the dirt off the new roof. Omar returns around 4PM. (according to the ledger, Henry paid $6.40 to Edward Drake for the shingles @ $1.25/bundle?)

Thursday - September 23, 1886 --- Jane Terney sends Jen and Lois each 25 cents.... not sure why? The cows get out, and get into the corn. Henry has Omar build a fence around the haystack at Terney's - presumably to prevent a similar problem there? Frank Gardner comes by and gets a quart of milk for 25 cents, and contracts to get a quart a day. Henry is still feeling pretty bad. Sarah and Henry go to visit the Terney's till mid afternoon, and then Sarah goes to Teal's in Ingleside and trades some eggs for 6 quart jars for canning, and 28 cents change.

September 16 thru 19, 1886

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Thursday - September 16, 1886 -- They go on working on the ditch. I have no idea what the function of this ditch is, or it's location. (Since they have been, and continue to be lining the ditch with stones - presumably to deter erosion - it should be possible to find it's location if we were to apply modern archeology techniques to the site. That would be fun!) Henry goes to visit Henry Polmateer and Henry Terney. In the evening, he and Sarah to to prayer meeting, where there was "a goodly number present and (they) had a good meeting".

Friday - September 17th, 1886 -- Omar goes to the fair in Prattsburgh, NY. Omar is of course the oldest child - age 24 - but he seems to be the one most likely to participate in more "worldly" activities.

"In 1884 the Union Agriculture Society of Prattsburgh, made up of local farmers and
businessmen, held an exhibition of farm and other products for a few days during the harvest
season. Encouraged by the success of the 1884 exhibit, the fairgrounds were prepared the
following year, and the great Prattsburgh Fair had begun. The grounds housed a large Fair
House, a grandstand, a bandstand and racetrack. The fair was a success, proven by the number of people who came from all around. The racetrack soon became known as the “Saratoga of Steuben,” and for twenty-five years, the Ag Society held the annual gathering. People of Prattsburgh and surrounding towns looked forward to this delightful occasion."
Above from a draft copy of Town of Prattsburgh Comprehensive Plan - 2008

Lois and Sarah are sick - maybe they caught Bart's illness? Henry comments that he has to do the housework. Bart is still home recovering, but is doing better, and he takes Old Molly and goes to Wayland to pick up Ettie who has been visiting her sister for a few days. Mrs. Miner stops by and has dinner with them. Sarah recovers a bit and is able to sit up. Mills continues work on the ditch - drawing stones with Old Kitt.

Saturday - September 18, 1886 -- Omar continues to line the ditch with stones. Mills and Henry fix the fence around the Old Orchard. Towards night, Henry takes a grist of feed for the animals, and some wheat for flour for the family to the mill in Naples. He and Sarah go to Grange in the evening, stopping by the Blodgett's place on the way. They take some peaches to Phoebe Blodgett, and to Mrs. Steven Stanton.

Sunday - September 19, 1886 -- Henry and Sarah to to church in the morning. Henry and Jane Terney come home with them and have dinner, and still till around 5PM. Bart heads back to Leicester Fox's to go back to work in the evening, and Jen returns home from her visit to Prattsburgh.

September 12 thru 15, 1886

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Sunday - September 12, 1886 -- Elder Hibbard is staying with them, and they take him to meeting. Omar and Jen are in Prattsburgh visiting - Jen stays over, and Omar returns home and goes to visit "his Hattie". (Hattie Warren whom he will marry in a couple of years) Henry goes to meeting in the evening. Bart has returned home. (He is working for Leicester Fox) Bart is very sick - "threatened with diarhea (sic) of a billious type".

Monday - September 13, 1886 -- Bart has been sick all night, and they have stayed up with him. "He vomits and purges like Cholera Morbus". ( A once popular name for an acute gastroenteritis with diarrhea, cramps, and vomiting, occurring in the summer or autumn. Also called summer cholera or summer complaint - this term does not refer to the cholera we normally think of.) Henry takes Elder Hibbard to Bloods in the morning to the train, and while there he gets 1 ounce Carbonate Ammonia at Dr. Carpenter's for Bart. Dr. Carpenter had a pharmacy in North Cohocton. (Ammonium carbonate is used when crushed as a smelling salt. It can be crushed when needed in order to revive someone who has fainted. It is also known as "baker's ammonia" and was a forerunner to the more modern leavening agents baking soda and baking powder.) Mills and Cad bury a calf that has died, and Omar is helping the threshing crew which has moved on down the road a bit to Mrs. Lawyer's place. Henry and Mills dig some potatoes to clear a roadway to get to another field so they can draw some hay. Even semi-level land is at a premium, so it appears they use every inch, and plan so they can harvest one crop first and then pass through that area to another. Sarah does some washing - Mills also helps with that. Even in a time when I'm sure they didn't change clothes as often as we do, laundry for 11 people must have been quite a chore with no washers and dryers? Drying would have been hanging the clothes out on a line outside. They might have had a washer like my grandmother Drake had - a wooden tub arrangement with a hand lever that rotated an agitator back and forth, and a hand crank wringer? Something like the one below would have been a luxury.

Today, believe it or not, there is an ordinance against hanging out clothes to dry in the village of Cohocton!Tuesday - September 14, 1886 -- They spend the day going to a Grange picnic at Linden Wood. I'm not sure where that is, but it is a 2 hour trip by horse and buggy. They hear a good speech by somebody. Linden Wood must be in the Wayland, Cohocton, Bloods direction because they stop at Slattery's and barter some eggs for their worth in sugar. They get back home around 6PM.

Wednesday - September 15th, 1886 -- Henry draws some hay. Henry also puts up a grist and takes it to the mill in Naples. Omar works for the Nickles all day cutting buckwheat, in exchange for the time Mr. Nickles worked on their threshing crew? Mills works at cleaning out the strawberry beds, and Sarah is canning fruit. Fall is upon us --- the temperature has been in 40's and 50's the past few days!

September 8 thru 11, 1886

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Wednesday - September 8, 1886 - Leicester Fox stops by to pick up 4 bushels of wheat for James Avery. Henry goes to Bloods, and gets 710 pounds of coal from VanWie for $1.24 - about $3.70 per ton! I would have thought they would have heated entirely with wood which would be "free" on their land, but coal would have been better for a longer lasting fire with less care. Sarah goes to Naples and gets molasses, kerosene oil, and something else I'm not sure of? D.D.Clark buys 2 bushels of Peaches at 75 cents a bushel, 20 pounds of butter, and he pays off the balance owed on the berries from last month. Henry also sells a half bushel of peaches to William Borden and wife.

Don's note: I noticed in the ledger pages that Henry sent his brother Robert $10 in currency as balance due on a watch and chain, on the 7th. According to the ledger, he bought a watch and chain, and some gold spectacles from Robert for $25 - a goodly sum. He also paid Charles Olney (his nephew) 89 cents for a gold pen while in Mansfield last week.

Thursday - September 9, 1886 -- They clear out the barn to get ready for the threshing crew to come, and then go to the Weld Family reunion at W.E. Welds place. Henry reports fair attendance, and "all seemed to enjoy themselves". This would be sort of a beginning of our current day Hill Reunion..... Weld being Sarah's mother's family, and the Hill reunion is descendants of Sarah Hill Olney. They see Foster Roberts and his wife Huldah - Huldah is Sarah's aunt - her mother's sister. They see a "goodly number of other relatives". Remarks were made by Augustus Weld - Sarah's uncle -- younger brother of Sarah's mother, and brother of Huldah.

Friday - September 10, 1886 -- They do some more preparation for the threshing crew, and they arrive around noon, and thresh grain all afternoon. A bunch of folks come to visit.... Charles Conley brings Uncle Foster Roberts and Hulda to visit. Julia Drake brings a cousin to visit - Iness Hubbell, and Hannah Conley comes by and towards evening Eber and Ellen Weld (Ellen is Henry's younger sister) come by. While all this was going on, the threshing crew got out 230 bushels of barley.

Saturday - September 11, 1886 -- Henry checks the clover hay, and finds it a bit wet, but not too bad. The corn is ripening "nicely", and the pumpkins are also doing well. Henry takes Uncle Roberts and Huldah and their daughter to Bloods, and while there, picks up Elder Hibbard at the train. The threshing crew finishes their work and leaves after dinner (noon meal). They end up with 336 bushels of Barley, 225 bushels of Oats, and 83 bushels of wheat.

September 4 thru 7, 1886

2009-09-04T02:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday - September 4, 1886 -- Henry and Sarah are back home, and head off to their Fellowship meeting in the afternoon. The folks necessary to do official business are evidently absent, so that is put off. They go the the Grange meeting in the evening. It looks like the Grange must do some cooperative buying? Henry comments that he does not pay his "bill of goods" for $2.61 because the goods were "of good quality" but not in good condition.

Sunday - September 5, 1886 --- Their daughter and son-in-law - Harm and Hattie, and I presume their daughter Florence --- come to visit, and join them for church services. Stephen Stanton and wife and daughter come home with them after church, and stay till the evening service. David Weld and his wife stop by for a while too. Sarah's Grandfather and Grandmother?
Several of the young people including Bart and Omar, go to Canandaigua lake for a ride. Daughter Ettie (Sarah Esther) goes back to Wayland with Harm and Hattie for a visit.

Monday - September 6, 1886 --- Henry goes to A. Robinson's to check on when the threshing crew will be coming to his place. They tell him Thursday night or Friday? Omar and Mills are still digging a ditch of some sort. Sarah and Jen are doing the washing and paring pears for drying. Sarah goes to visit Mrs. Robert Smith, and Jen goes to visit Mrs. Frank Marsh. Henry checks on the boy's work on the ditch. Uncle Eli Weld (Sarah's Uncle) and his wife come to visit and stay the night.

Tuesday - September 7, 1886 --- Omar borrows Robert Smith's mower, and cuts the clover on the Tenney place. Uncle Eli Weld and wife leave around 10AM with some plums and some peaches. The plums are a gift, the peaches are sold for $1.50/bushel. Sarah and Henry go to see some friends from Delaware (???) but "don't find them."

August 31 thru September 3, 1886

2009-08-31T06:01:00.000-07:00

Tuesday - August 31, 1886 -- Sarah and Henry are still visiting in Mansfield, PA. They go with Henry's brother Robert, and his wife Mary to visit Clarence Allen and family. Robert does not stay, but the others have dinner with the Allens. They then go back to Mansfield for tea with N.A.Ridgeway at their home. The Ridgeways evidently have a microscope, and are very interested in it. They share their love of the microscope, including giving them a book called "Half Hours with the Microscope". Image from the book below.

Don's note -

Half-hours with the Microscope; being a popular guide to the use of the microscope as a means of amusement and instruction (1863) by Edwin Lankester. Published in 1863, R. Hardwicke (London) Info on Edwin Lankester here -- read the whole book here

This book was evidently very popular at the time - Published in 1853, 1874, 1907, and a re-print in 2007! It might sound strange, but it seems really cool to know a specific book that Henry owned and read besides the Bible of course. Sort of the same sensation I get reading the "Neopolitan Record" from that year!

Wednesday - September 1, 1886 -- Sarah, Mary (Robert's wife). and Henry's mother, have dinner with Uncle Raymond Mills and his wife Lydia. Henry waxes poetic about how pleasant their retirement seems to be, and comments that they seem to be aging, and he is reminded that "we to are growing old". They leave for home and stay overnight in Tioga with Henry's nephew, James H Olney and his wife. This is probably Tioga, PA as this is on the way home. They go to prayer meeting with them.

Thursday - September 2, 1886 -- They head home about 8AM, and make it to Savona, and the home of Henry Shavers. They get there around 1PM, and stay overnight. They look over his farm, and go for a drive around the area.

Friday - September 3, 1886 -- They head home about 8AM, and stop for dinner with Mrs. A.G.Fowler - not sure where she lives, (based on the timing - probably around Prattsburgh - they leave her house around 3PM) They went back by the other route through Prattsburgh, etc. on what is now Route 53, since they pass through Ingleside around 6PM, and arrive home a half hour later. (just as a note, Ingleside to their house is about 2 miles?) They are glad to be home for a rest, but learn that they have visitors - Uncle Foster Roberts and his wife and daughter are there, but seem to be out, so they can rest a while before entertaining company. --- From Dad's records -- Foster Roberts is married to Hulda Weld and she is a sister of Lydia Matilda Weld, Sarah's mother. Thus these folks are Great Uncle / Aunt of Sarah.

August 27 thru August 30, 1886

2009-08-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

Friday - August 27, 1886 -- They continue their trip to Mansfield to visit Henry's older brother Robert and family. They leave Savona around 8AM after Henry showers. I'm not sure where they are staying... I presume with friends or relatives who are lucky enough to have a shower. Henry showers twice! They drive to Lawrenceville where they stop to feed the horses around 2PM. They stop at Tioga to visit James (Henry's younger brother?), and make it to Mansfield around 5:30. About a 40 mile trip in 9 hours minus stops to feed the horses and visit James. Henry notes that it is hot and very dusty! 90 degrees.

Saturday - August 28, 1886 --- They go to visit Henry's mother, Mary, and his younger sister Adelaide. Sarah and Henry to with his mother to the Baptist Society Meeting, but Henry leaves early because he is not feeling well, and does not feel like running around much.

Sunday - August 29, 1886 --- They go to the Baptist church again, and hear the farewell sermon of Elder Hodder. There is a full house for this event. I'll quote Henry here -- "Elder Hodder is a man of pleasant address and gentlemanly appearance, and will make his mark someday." Henry describes him as an "ellocutionist" (sic) Henry seems to disagree somewhat with his religious beliefs though because he says "Spiritually however, there is room for growth".

Monday - August 30, 1886. Henry and Sarah take tea at his Mother's place. They are joined by Mary (Henry's sister?), Uncle Raymond Mills (Henry's Mother's brother), and a Mrs. Ridgeway. It rains finally. Afterward, Henry takes Raymond Mills home. Henry says he is feeling better, but still not well.

August 23 thru August 26, 1886

2009-08-23T04:40:00.000-07:00

Monday, August 23, 1886 -- They "fix" the butter, and take it to Slatterys in Bloods, and get paid the agreed upon 16 cents a pound - in cash. They buy some goods, and settle up their account with him. (I'm not sure why the emphasis on cash when they appear to turn around and pay off their account with the cash? There is no mention of this transaction in Henry's August ledger pages. I wonder if the butter was part of Sarah's accounts? Her 1885 diary lists her own separate accounts for eggs, etc.) Henry also buy teeth for the rake from Spencer Hatch. Henry goes to Ingleside to the blacksmith -Avery- for a part to repair the buggy. Some sort of plate under the "circleblock" - I suspect part of the mechanism that would allow the front wheels to pivot? Delos Clark and his wife come to visit. I wonder if "Delos" is the other "D" in D.D. Clark (Devillo Clark) or if this is another Clark?

Tuesday, August 24, 1886 -- Henry and Sarah have stayed overnight in Wayland with daughter Hattie and her family, so I'm wondering if I've got the order of events right for yesterday? Their granddaughter Florence - about 2 years old - is sick, and Henry sends his son-in-law Harm to Wayland for two bottles of "Westlakes Ointment" - cost 50 cents. Westlakes Ointment is listed in a 1917 drug store catalog I found on the web, but I've no idea exactly what it is? They go to Naples on the way home, and pay Granby Brothers (clothing store) $30 in cash, and get a receipt. They buy a "brow piece" for a horse bridle for 35 cents. Lois must have been with them because Dr. Fulkerson pulls a tooth for her - cost 25 cents!

Wednesday, August 25, 1886 -- They all attend a church picnic at Maxwell's Point on the southern end of Canandaigua Lake. "There was a long train of waggons (sic) all loaded for the occasion and led by a Donations Barrel. All reached Maxwell's Point in good shape and spent the day in a social and pleasant way riding on the lake." They got home around dark. (somehow this was organized as a fund raiser for something?) Henry comments on the dust - probably kicked up by the wagon train?

Thursday, August 26, 1886 -- They leave for Mansfield, PA to visit family - Henry's brother Robert. They stop in Bloods to transact some business with Slattery, and then drive on to Wallace. Whoever they know in Wallace is not home, and they head on to Bath where they feed the horses, and head on to Savona, NY, arriving about 4PM. Today's time for this part of the trip (32 miles) would be about 45 minutes by the route they took through Bloods (Atlanta), Bath, etc. They stop a few times, but it takes about 7 or 8 hours all together by horse and buggy. The whole trip to Mansfield is about 70 miles. Not sure where they stay in Savona, but Henry notes that he got to shower, which he does again the next morning! He mentions that it is a warm and dusty day.

Don's note - While they have transacted some business along the way, this seems to be a week of not doing much farm work. They have gone to Bloods and Wayland to visit family (Monday and Tuesday), church picnic on Wednesday, and off on a trip to visit family in Mansfield, PA on Thursday. Omar and Mills are probably working on the farm during this time, but Henry does not know what they are doing... I suspect the older girls are taking care of the younger kids at home, and Henry and Sarah are off on their own?

August 19 thru August 22, 1886

2009-08-19T02:00:00.000-07:00

Thursday - August 19th -- Henry hitches up a horse and buggy for Jen to go visit Hattie in Wayland along with somebody named Shultz? Grace Weld goes back home. Omar and Henry finish raking and binding oats. Omar then does some more ditching - not sure where or why? Mills does some plowing. Henry and Sarah go to prayer meeting in the evening. The boys draw a load of oats from the rented land at Terneys in the evening. Henry pays W.E.Weld for some spring wheat seed- $5.50. A total of 7 bushels at $1 per bushel. He had previously paid $1.50.

Friday - 8/20/1886 -- Omar goes on ditching, and Mills goes on plowing. Henry goes to Terneys and sets up the oats to dry. He draws the oats in in the afternoon. Slattery - owner of the store in Bloods that they trade with a lot - had come by the Terneys in the morning, and wanted to buy some butter. He offers 16 cents a pound by the tub - 25 pounds. Slattery inspects the butter they have, and they are to deliver it on Monday - for cash.

Saturday - 8/21/1886 - Omar and Mills finish drawing the oats from the field on Terneys place. They also haul away some raspberry brush trimmings. Then Mills does some more plowing, and Omar digs more ditches. Sarah is making a dress. Henry washes the buggy in the afternoon, and in the evening he and Sarah go to Lodge meeting. While in Ingleside Henry gets a couple of shoes set on the horse at a different blacksmith shop? Somebody named Snyder? Could have been somebody who worked for Avery? Cost - 25 cents.

Sunday - 8/22/1886 -- Whole family goes to church for the funeral of Millie (?) Chapman - daughter of Esther Gibbons, by her first husband. Funeral sermon preached by Elder Hibbard. He spoke "at some length on the Doctrine of the Resurrection." After the funeral service, they made some arrangements for a picnic. (see next Wednesday's entry)

August 15 thru August 18, 1886

2009-08-15T02:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Sunday ---- Henry notes at the top of the page - above the date - giving W.E.Weld 25 cents. Again in the body of the day's entry, Henry notes the 25 cents - saying that this "makes us even again". He also notes on June 6th that he borrowed 25 cents from W.E. Weld, and paid it back. It looks like Henry, who keeps careful track of money transactions, even keeps track of who has loaned him money, and that he has returned the favor..... separate from actually paying in back. They attend church as always on Sunday - Elder Lawton preaches to an overflowing house. They go to visit the Charles Conley family after church along with George and Bell Pulver, and Matt and Julia (Sarah's sister?). They all go back to evening meeting!

Monday --- They rake and bind oats in the morning - Henry notes that the oats have dried a bit too much on the ground, and are more difficult to bind into bundles for stacking. The bundles of oats are tied together with a few strands of oats.... if too dry, the grass like strands probably break easily making the tying difficult. It rains in the afternoon, ending the harvesting process. Omar works on the north wall of the barn, and Henry writes a letter to his brother Robert in Mansfield, PA. Henry seems pleased by the rain, but it makes for extra work on Tuesday.

Tuesday --- they have to reset up the oat sheaves which are very wet from the rain. Omar empties the privy vat - undoubtedly a not too pleasant job. Omar and Mills draw stones off a field, and Omar starts plowing. Henry gets 4 new shoes on Molly at the blacksmith in Ingleside. Sarah is making a dress, and Susie and Welly Conley visit in the evening.

Wednesday --- Omar continues plowing. Sarah and Henry go to Naples for several errands. They buy a pick and shovel at Jordan Brothers, and two large baskets - one 37 quart size, and one 40 quart size. They also take one of Omar's boots to the cobbler for repair - 50 cents. Omar and Henry rake and bind oats in the afternoon. Cora Shultz and Grace Weld come by in the evening and stay overnight.

August 11 thru August 14, 1886

2009-08-11T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right. My most recent added information is a link to the financial ledger entries in the back of the diary - links to the right of this. Some of the information just confirms diary entries, but sometimes additional information can be gleaned.

Wednesday ---- Henry churns some butter.... this is the first time he has mentioned churning butter. They have sold/bartered at lot of butter, but no previous mention of making it. Henry works in the oat field after churning, and Omar and Mills work in the berries. Aunt Dence is still there ( this probably means she is not Henry's sister Prudence because they saw Prudence and Fowler over the weekend? She was sick over night, but seems to be better today. Omar, Mills, and Henry finish drawing in the oats in the afternoon. Henry and Sarah visit the Terneys at suppertime.

Thursday --- Omar helps Richard Smith with threshing --- removing the grain from the chaff. Henry starts cutting the oats he planted earlier in the year on the 6 acres he rented from the Terneys. He gets about an acre cut with the cradle in the morning. He changes the scythe (blade) on the cradle, and it works much better after that. Sarah goes to Bloods to get sugar.

Friday --- Omar, Mills, and Henry cut, bind, and set up more oats on the Terney place. Sarah has to go back to Bloods to get something she forgot yesterday, and she returns the pail that the sugar came in. Their world was a lot more ecological in those days, and they probably didn't even think about it.

Saturday --- Omar and Mills work in the oats, and Sarah takes Aunt Dence back home. Henry works on repairs on the Democrat waggon and on the buggy. He takes dinner (noon) to the boys working on the Terney place. Sarah visits Jane Terney. Henry and Sarah attend a baptism in the afternoon.... Eber and Ellen Weld are baptized.

August 7 thru August 10, 1886

2009-08-07T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right. My most recent added information is a link to the financial ledger entries in the back of the diary - links to the right of this. Some of the information just confirms diary entries, but sometimes additional information can be gleaned.

Saturday ---- Sarah picks more raspberries. Henry rakes and binds oats. I'm assuming that the oats had been cut with a cradle - see previous entry - The cut oats would be lying fairly neatly lined up on the ground. They would be raked into small bundles, and tied -with a few strands of oats - and then several bundles stacked on end in a shock with the grain end up to facilitate drying. The bundles were called sheaves.

Henry's field would not have been this large!

Henry takes Old Molly to the blacksmith ? and finds her foot and ankle not well. He puts a poultice on her ankle. Sarah and Henry go to Fellowship meeting in Ingleside in the afternoon, and Grange in the evening.

Sunday ---- They go to church as always, and see Henry's sister Prudence and her husband Fowler there. They call on Abigail Polmateer after church - she is evidently still not doing well. They go home for dinner, and then to visit the Terney's. Jane Terney is not well, so they don't stay long. When they get home, they find Prudence and Fowler there, and they stay till evening. Omar and Bart go to Camp Meeting. I'm not sure where the Camp Meeting was, but Camp Meetings were outdoor religious gatherings with a series of people preaching, leading songs, etc. Often they were several days long with people coming from a wide area, and "camping" out for the duration?

Monday --- Henry takes grist to Lyons and Woodruff mill, and gets feed for the animals, and some flour. He also goes to Stoddard and Sons and gets some medicine to treat his lame horse, and pays $5 on his account with them. He also settles accounts with Storey Brothers, Polmateers, and Jordan Brothers, and goes to the Post Office for stationery.

Tuesday --- Omar does some plowing. Henry works in the berries, and Sarah does the washing. Henry rakes and binds some oats after dinner (noon meal) and draws a couple of loads, but finds them too green (not fully seasoned and dry). Jane sends the Polmateer boys to Henry and Sarah's for some "Cedar hemlore oil". Probably something used for medicine for Abigail Polmateer who is sick. Another young man calls on Jen..... F. Clark.

August 3 thru August 6, 1886

2009-08-03T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right. My most recent added information is a link to the financial ledger entries in the back of the diary - links to the right of this. Some of the information just confirms diary entries, but sometimes additional information can be gleaned.

Tuesday ---- They draw 7 loads of barley. Sarah goes to Naples, and brings home Aunt Dence home to visit for a few days. I'm not sure who this is? Note --- Henry's sister is Prudence, so maybe it is her? Henry's sister Prudence is married to Arnold Fowler. Weld Waite calls to see Jen. (a date?) Henry puts the cows into the wheat field to browse on the stubble.

Wednesday --- Henry finishes drawing the barley. He records that this makes a total of 19 loads. Bart is back home briefly. He evidently came home last night, and is going to Niagara Falls tomorrow.

Thursday --- Omar cradles some grain in the morning.
The cradle was the most efficient means of cutting grain before McCormick's invention of the reaper. The cradle consisted of a broad scythe with a light frame of four wood fingers attached to it. The advantage of the cradle was that by a turn to the left the operator could throw the grain into a swath, ready to be raked and bound into sheaves. This improvement was introduced in America about 1776, according to Professor Brewer of Yale, and was the common instrument of grain harvesting as late as 1840. For cradling grain, two acres was considered a day's work.

Note -- later in life Bart was evidently some sort of champion at cradling... somewhere we have 8mm film of him cradling?

Henry cuts brush growing in the berry patch, and also trims out extra berry canes. Bart and Mills have gone to Niagara Falls for the day... definitely on the train.... they return the same day. Omar picks them up in the evening in Bloods at the train station. The train station in Bloods (modern day Atlanta, NY) has been mentioned before, but below is a picture of the station as it looked yesterday when I was in the area.......Omar spent the afternoon shelling corn. Henry and Sarah go to prayer meeting in the evening.

Friday ---- Not sure what the process is, but they breed one of the cows today. Something about taking the cow to the neighbors for the day (Blodgetts), shutting the bull up all day, and then getting them together at night? Omar cuts oats all day. Henry, Mills and Cad spend another day gathering potato bugs! Aunt Dence is still visiting them, and "seems to enjoy herself".

July 30 thru August 2, 1886

2009-07-30T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right. My most recent added information is a link to the financial ledger entries in the back of the diary - links to the right of this. Some of the information just confirms diary entries, but sometimes additional information can be gleaned.

Friday --- It has rained heavily overnight, so that limits what they can do in the fields. They work at fence repair and trimming weeds around the fences. Henry helps Sarah pick another 40 quart crate of raspberries, and Jen takes them to D.D.Clark. Omar and Henry harvest some barley toward evening. Henry mentions that Mrs. Polmateer is failing.

Saturday --- Sarah is not feeling well today. She does not pick any berries today. Henry complains about his corns, but manages to cut barley nearly all day - finishing about 2 acres. Sarah, Jen, Mills, and Lois go to Ingleside - presumably for church. They pick up the mail. This indicates that they do not get mail delivery at the farm, and that their mail was held at the store in Ingleside. The set of mail boxes from Ingleside is on display in Rochester, NY at the Museum and Science Center, in a replica "country store" from the 1800's.

Sunday -- They all go to meeting on Sunday, and hear Elder Miller - a F W Baptist minister from Potter Center. (Freewill Baptist) They go to hear him speak again in the evening, and he "speaks many truths, and makes good proof of the Doctrine of Gospel Grace." Sarah "sits up" with Abigail Polmateer all night.

Monday -- They pick more raspberries, and stir out the barley to dry, and get it put up towards evening. D.D. Clark comes by and picks up 107 quarts of raspberries -- all unpaid ---- amount due on berries = $5.61 - 187 quarts total not paid for.

July 26 thru July 29, 1886

2009-07-26T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right. My most recent added information is a link to the financial ledger entries in the back of the diary - links to the right of this. Some of the information just confirms diary entries, but sometimes additional information can be gleaned.

Monday ---- Waddamus has been visiting since Saturday, and he and Sarah do some trading. I'm not sure what they traded, but Waddamus ends up owing Sarah 48 cents. Henry does some work on the hog pen, and weans some young pigs from their mother. Omar cultivates the beets, and he and Mills thin them - remove some of the ones growing too close together to develop to proper size. Beets is a crop I haven't heard mentioned yet. They pick three more 40 quart crates of raspberries, and also draw three loads of barley.

Tuesday --- They pick three more crates of berries, and D.D.Clark picks them up... he is up to 8 crates not paid for, with two more crates tomorrow making 10 crates - $12. The ledger entry in the back of the diary indicates that they are paid for tomorrow. Henry picks up 20 and 1/8th bundles of shingles. A little research indicates that would cover about 500 square feet. Henry stops in Ingleside at Avery the blacksmith, and gets two shoes set on John.

Wednesday --- The boys pick berries, and Omar and Henry mow the "south end of the west piece" of Barley. Henry stirs out the barley they cut, and they finish drawing the barley from the east piece. Clark comes by and picks up the two crates of berries, and pays for all - up to date. With this payment, they have collected a total of $92.92 for the month of July.

Thursday --- Omar plows and hoes in the berries - keeping the weeds down between the rows. Sarah picks 40 more quarts of berries, and takes them to Clark with the buggy and Old Moll. Mills, Cad, and Henry spend the whole day gathering potato bugs. Sarah does not get paid for the berries, so they are back to being behind on the berry payments by $1.20.

July 22 thru July 25, 1886

2009-07-22T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right. My most recent added information is a link to the financial ledger entries in the back of the diary - links to the right of this. Some of the information just confirms diary entries, but sometimes additional information can be gleaned - like my discovery below that Sue - who has been picking raspberries for them - is actually Sarah's niece.

Thursday --- Berry picking and selling continues. Sue picks 50 quarts today. Devillo Clark comes by and gets 140 quarts of berries. - Two 40 quart crates, a 32 quart crate, and an extra 28 quarts. He paid $15 owed on berries, and still owes Henry $24.10. Henry calls him Devillo Clark again instead of D.D. Clark. I'm wondering if this reflects how far behind he is on paying for the berries? Omar plows potatoes. Mills, Cad, and Henry pick potato bugs. If you are new here, I've posted the picture of a potato bug below. Organic farming before there was such a thing!
They cut barley in the afternoon.

Friday --- Sue picks 28 quarts of berries in the morning, working with Sarah and Lois to finish 2 crates of berries for Mr. Clark. In the afternoon the three of them go to visit daughter Hattie in Wayland. D. D. Clark picks up the two crates of berries, and pays Henry for all the past berries. Note the name goes back to D.D.Clark??? (The same name usage is reflected in the ledger portion of the diary - Devillo when he owes him quite a bit of money, and back to D.D. when he gets paid up later in the month.) Omar and Mills draw wheat in the morning, and Henry "stirs" the barley cut the day before --- raking and piling it to speed drying. They draw the barley in the afternoon in the field south of the berries. Sarah, Sue, and Lois have stayed overnight at Hattie's in Wayland.

Saturday ---- The ladies return from Wayland, and Sue picks 12 quarts of berries to take home. Jen takes her home in the afternoon. I just noticed in the ledger part of the diary that Sue is Susan Jane Hill (She is Sarah's niece - youngest daughter of Sarah's oldest brother Harvey Hill ) - not Sue Stanton as I had previously thought. Evidently Sue Stanton also picked berries ( she gets paid $0.64). Susan Hill gets paid $2.45 plus 12 quarts of berries for herself. Omar and Mills work in the potatoes. Henry goes to Naples and turns in the school taxes he collected earlier to Trustee Tyler. He takes a grist to Lyon's Mill, and gets paid for the wheat he has been delivering to them... $25.63. Their friend Waddamus comes to visit and stays over till Monday.

Sunday --- Henry comments again on the lack of rain -- it looks cloudy and rainy today, but "don't rain". They all go to church and get home for dinner around 3PM. Bart and his friends Robby Stanton and J(ames?) Merritt join them for dinner. This is the first time Bart has been mentioned in a while. Henry bought him a hat a while back, but otherwise not much mention since he went to work for Leicester Fox back in mid March. If you are new here, Bart is my great grandfather. Henry mentions that Jen has stayed over in Prattsburgh after taking Sue Hill back home.

July 18 thru July 21, 1886

2009-07-18T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886, and a picture of the whole family several years later - circa 1900 ???

Sunday --- Sarah, Lois, Ettie, and Mills go to church. (The younger kids don't seem to ever be mentioned as going to church. I wonder if they go, or stay home?) Bart stops by and gets his boots - I guess some of the boots Henry bought last week were for Bart? Sarah and Henry to to Blodgetts for dinner, along with Elder Hibbard, and Ellen Weld. Harrison Briglin is there too. Elder Hibbard comes home with them and stays overnight.

Monday --- Henry takes Elder Hibbard to the train on Monday, along with a gift of a crate of berries. Henry picks up three empty crates at the Lackawana Depot. They pick a lot of berries on Monday.... Sue Stanton picks 84 quarts! Probably a lot of berries ripened on Sunday even though they would not have picked on Sunday! D.D.Clark picks up 5 more crates of berries, and they pick 4 more crates after he leaves. With the crate for Elder Hibbard, that makes a total of 400 quarts of berries picked in one day! (a bit of research yields the information that each foot of a row of berries would yield about a quart of berries for the season?) Henry notes that Clark owes him for 20 crates not paid for at this point.... 800 quarts - $24.

Tuesday --- They finish picking berries in the "old part of the field", and have 5 40 quart crates of berries, and a 32 quart crate. Omar plows/cultivates the potatoes. Sarah and Sue do some laundry. D.D.Clark takes two crates of berries, but says the rest are too soft (over ripe) to ship. Omar takes 136 quarts of the "soft" berries to Clark's place for drying. Omar also takes a rake tooth to Hatches for exchange.

Wednesday -- Omar and Henry cut some barley in the field above the house, and also harvest some wheat in the forenoon. Omar plows/cultivates potatoes in the afternoon. Henry and Sue Stanton pick more berries. Devillo Clark (first mention of what one of the "D's in D.D.Clark stands for) Henry is up to 27 crates not paid for - $32.40 minus the cost for Clark to dry the 136 quarts of over ripe berries.

July 14 thru July 17, 1886

2009-07-14T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886, and a picture of the whole family several years later - circa 1900 ???

Wednesday --- The family picks more berries until around 2PM, and D.D.Clark comes by and gets 4 more crates, but does not pay for them. Henry then heads for Bloods, and buys a couple of pairs of boots at Slattery and Company, and a pair of shoes for Ettie at Cornishes.

Thursday --- Harm and Hattie Inghram (their daughter and son-in-law) and probably their granddaughter Florence, are there to visit. Henry collects school taxes from several neighbors. Addison Harley ($2.18), John Rector ($2.99), R. Smith ($1.55), and unlisted amounts from George Drake, and J.E. Lyon. I'm not sure if this was some sort of official duty to collect taxes, or if he was just doing his neighbors a favor. I'm guessing it was some sort of official duty?

Friday --- Henry collects school taxes from James Boggs, and William Polmateer. William Weld and his wife come to visit. They pick 7 crates of berries, and D.D. Clark picks them up -- a total of 11 crates picked up, but not paid for. He also gets school taxes from P. Whiting, and Issac Drake. He continues to record the baskets of berries picked by Sue Stanton - 35 on Wednesday, 65 on Friday, and 40 on Saturday.

Saturday --- They harvest more wheat, and pick 4 more crates of berries, which D.D.Clark picks up in the evening. Omar and Sue go to Naples in the evening, and Henry and Sarah go to Lodge meeting in Ingleside in the evening. They get home quite late - 11PM. Henry mentions a heavy shower... he earlier mentioned needing rain!

July 10 thru July 13, 1886

2009-07-10T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886, and a picture of the whole family several years later - circa 1900 ???

Saturday -- Henry pays Brother (Elder) Hibbard for the "Hearld of Gospel Liberty". This publication was first published in 1808. Henry pays $1.50 for this "Christian Paper" as he describes it in his financial records for July in the back of the diary.Henry takes grist to Naples, and goes to Jordans hardware to buy a fork handle, some horseshoes, and a pair of clinces? Not sure what the latter is.... possibly some sort of clamping or crimping device? I'm interested that he bought horseshoes. I thought Avery the blacksmith sold him that stuff, but maybe he shod his own horses and went to Avery for special stuff? Omar plows (cultivates?) the potatoes in the forenoon, and Mills mows thistles in the cow pasture. They cut some wheat in the afternoon. (it seems pretty early for wheat harvest, but they must be harvesting because they get almost $26 for wheat from Lyon's Mill later in the month.) A peddlar by the name of Williams came by and stayed overnight. They go to an ice cream social in the evening.

Sunday -- Henry mentions Williams the peddlar again, and that he works for DeLaney of Rochester, NY. Sarah and Henry go to church and Sunday school. R. Smith has evidently asked Sarah to get some change in exchange for bills from the collection plate money, but she doesn't get the change, and Henry returns the $13 to him that evening. Omar went to Prattsburgh during the day, and to Bloods in the evening. Somebody named Sue came back to their house from Prattsburgh to help with picking berries.

Monday --- The whole family, plus Sue, pick 250 quarts of raspberries on Monday. D.D. Clark takes 4 40quart crates of the berries at the agreed 3 cents a quart. (I thought the crates were 36 quarts, but these were 40 quarts.) He leaves them 800 1 qt. berry baskets.
Henry then lists how many quarts they each picked. Sue - 55, Sarah 57, Lois and Cad pick 58 quarts. Omar works for Richard Smith cutting wheat.

Tuesday --- They pick more berries on Tuesday, and D.D.Clark picks up another 4 crates. He records that Sue picked 40 quarts. (probably this is Sue Stanton --- Henry records payment of 64 cents to Mrs. Charles Stanton for picking berries on 19th of July) Omar and Henry cut wheat. They pick some strawberries for supper. Henry comments on the light rain during the day, and indicates that he hope they get some serious rain soon.

July 6 thru July 9, 1886

2009-07-06T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886, and a picture of the whole family several years later - circa 1900 ???

Tuesday --- Henry rakes and puts up more hay, and draws 6 loads. D. D. Clark comes by and arranges with Henry to pay him 3 cents/quart for his raspberries. He is acting as sort of a middle man, and will provide the baskets, and the crates, and will take them to the train in Bloods. Henry probably figures that is a better deal than doing the hauling and providing his own crates. He got 5 cents a quart last week at Slatterys.

Wednesday -- They draw more hay, and do more cultivating. Sarah and Lois continue picking berries for R. Smith. Mills mows thistles in the pasture. Don's note: I used to cut thistles in the pasture for my grandfather - William Olney - Bart's son. I got paid 50 cents for my work. The cows will eat the grass, etc. but will avoid the area near the large thistles that will poke them! Nate Polmateer comes by and borrows a rip saw, a bevel square, and a 1 inch chisel.

Thursday -- Mills, Cad, and Henry pick potato bugs off the potatoes again, and get them "nearly all off." Henry and Sarah go to Ingleside to the blacksmith - Avery - and get two shoes repaired, and they get Old John weighed - 1050 pounds with the harness. I'm not sure why they would do this. Possibly to subtrach his weight when weighing a load of goods like potatoes, hay, etc? They stay over for prayer meeting. Sarah goes to Bloods to get sugar from Slatterys.

Friday -- Sarah and Henry and the children pick the Tyler raspberries, and D. D. Clark comes by to pick up the berries - $1.92 for 64 quarts. He also buys some currants for 75 cents. Clark promises to bring by 10 crates for picking raspberries by Tuesday. Over the rest of the month they will sell a total of about 1200 quarts of raspberries to Mr. Clark. I can't find any information or pictures of Tyler Raspberries except that they are a common variety of raspberries at the time. Henry cuts some grass, and tops off the hay stack on the Tenny place. Omar works in the potatoes.

July 2 thru July 5, 1886

2009-07-02T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886, and a picture of the whole family several years later - circa 1900 ???

Friday --- Henry and Mills "stir out" some hay.... this would be sort of flipping it over and fluffing it a bit to dry faster. Omar cultivates potatoes and corn until noon. After lunch they rake and put up the hay - probably raking it into piles for easier loading onto the wagon later. They get two loads into the barn by evening, and a third load on the wagon, but not into the barn. Sarah, Jen, and Mills go to Ingleside for the Rehearsal. I'm not sure if that is just regular choir practice, or if they are rehearsing for something more special? Susie Conley comes home with Jen.

Saturday --- Susie and Jen go to Bloods to celebrate. That term often refers to a birthday party? Omar, Mills, and Henry draw some more hay. R. Smith comes by and Henry lets him have 4 bushels of oats and some basswood picket material. Earlier in the week, Henry had decided not to sell oats to Mr. Briglin.

Sunday --- They all go to church - Elder Hibbard preaches. Vern Drake brings some strangers to church - three little boys. Sarah takes them in her Sunday School class. I think this is the first mention of Sarah teaching Sunday School. Sarah stays in Ingleside for the evening service. Henry goes home and does not go to evening service, but Omar, Jen, and Susie Conley go.

Monday -- They finish mowing and return the mowing machine to Mr. Smith. (They seem to share more complex machinery often?) Mr. Demorest comes by to pick up some of the oats for Mr. Smith. Henry and Mills cut the grass and weeds from the berry patch, and Sarah and the children pick 2 1/2 crates of berries ( Variety - Tylers?) A crate of berries is 40 (correction) quarts. Henry takes the berries to Slatterey's in Bloods to sell. Slattery is away in Rochester, NY. Addamus tells Henry they will pay them 5 cents per quart for the berries. Omar works in the potatoes.

June 28 thru July 1, 1886

2009-06-28T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886, and a picture of the whole family several years later - circa 1900 ???

Monday --- Henry takes a 25 pound tub of butter to Slatterey & Co. and he gets paid $3.75 - 15 cents a pound. He buys 2 hand rakes, and something else I can't decipher at Hatches. He stops by to visit D.D. Clark on the way home. Omar cuts clover at the Terney's. Henry "grinds the sections" - sharpens the cutting knives on the mowing machine. Henry does the hand cutting of the clover near the fences where the horse drawn mower won't go easily. Sarah and Lois are still picking strawberries.

Note: It takes about 1 quart of heavy cream to make a pound of butter. In other terms, it takes about 3.5 gallons of high fat content milk to make a pound of butter. A single cow would give between 3 and 8 gallons of milk a day according to an 1870 Journal of the New York State Agricultural Society. Thus a 25 pound tub of butter was about the output of 7 or 8 cows in one day, or two days output from 4 cows? I'm not sure how much they used the ice they cut back in the winter, but they certainly did not have good refrigeration. Remember they were using some portion of the milk as part of the food eaten by 11 people, plus guests.

Tuesday --- (Henry reverses the next two day's entries - dates switched) Henry has Omar cultivate the corn. Mills and Henry stir up the hay to help it dry, and rake and stack it. Sarah goes to visit Mrs. Gard Waite with the Tennys, and Mrs. Wm Blodgett. They find her not feeling well, but they all stay to dinner. Henry and the boys put up the rest of the hay.

Wednesday --- They draw the hay they put up yesterday. Probably that means they brought the hay back to their place. 12 loads are put into a stack, and a small load is taken to the barn. T. Briglin stops by to purchase some oats, but Henry does not sell him any. Lois goes to visit Nate Polmateer. Lois and Ettie pick raspberries for R. Smith. Same place Sarah and Lois have been picking strawberries.

Thursday --- Henry finishes stacking the hay from the Terney lot, and puts on a top layer of oat straw. The top layer of a hay stack can "spoil" before the hay is used. Using oat straw keeps more of the the hay preserved well. The stack ends up taking 14 loads, and Henry declares the condition of the hay in the stack "fine". Henry puts "hangers" on the sides of the hay stack... probably ropes to help keep the hay from blowing away? The upper/outer layer of the stack acts much the same way a thatched roof would work, keeping the inside dry. Omar mows about half of another field of hay in the morning, and cultivates more corn and potatoes in the afternoon. Mills and Henry plant some beans.

A couple of pictures of horse drawn mowers and hay stacks below.

June 24 thru June 27, 1886

2009-06-24T02:00:00.000-07:00

If you are new to this blog, the paragraph below appears in every entry to let folks know some basic information. If you are a regular, I've added a line at the end about a new picture of the Olney family that looks to be about 10-20 years later than the time of the diary... link is at the right! As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886, and a picture of the whole family several years later - circa 1900 ???

Just another quick note --- I've added another link to the right with some pictures taken on a sort of genealogy field trip to sites from the diary - and some other things. Lou Olney, and Dave Olney - descendants of Omar, and myself - descendant of Bart - had a great time. Pictures from the trip can be seen here.

Thursday -- The Polmateers finish the masonry work on the barn, and get most of the "pointing" done. The total cost of the work is $7.00. Henry pays them $5.00 and owes them $2.00. Stephen Stanton comes by and gets 3 bushels of wheat. Henry owes him 3 more bushels. Sarah and Henry go to prayer meeting in the evening.

Friday -- Henry and Omar do some finishing work on the barn. They plow, scrape, grade and bank in the new west wall of the barn. Henry builds a "jamb" on the high wall, and they also grade in the road on the house side of the barn. They also lay a "rough wall" on the North end of the barn.

Saturday --- Omar goes on "landscaping" around the barn. Henry "fixes a couple of sticks to fill in against the door" and grades to the top of the sticks. I'm thinking they built a dirt ramp up to the doors on the upper level of the barn, with a wood transition between the earthen ramp and the wood floor of the barn? Omar draws more stones out of some field, and cultivates the potatoes. Sarah and Henry go to visit the Stantons, and then on to choir practice in the evening.

Sunday ---- They go to Sunday School, with some singing before Sunday School opens. Weld Graves spoke at the Baptist House. Not sure if they went there instead of their own church, or in addition. Henry gives his Sunday School class an exam on the last quarter of lessons. William Blodgett and his wife, along with Aunt Fannie Shepard, and Weld Waite come home with them after church. Bart takes Kittie Blodgett to Bloods for "Children's Day". Children's day was a very widespread celebration begun in the mid 1800's A Sunday set apart for the dedication of children to the Christian life, and for the re-dedication of parents and guardians to bringing-up their children in Christian nurture.

Don's Notes -- Bart will marry Catherine (Kittie) Blodgett in a couple of years? - family records show them married on January 18th 1886, but this would not match with the information in this diary. Their first child was my uncle Walter Varion Olney born in 1890. My line begins with their second son William Henry Olney - my grandfather - born June 15th, 1895 A third son - Willard Addison Olney was born in 1903 and died at age 18 months or so. I did not know Bart, but I remember visiting Kittie in Naples when I was a small kid.... she died at the age of 84 when I was four. They are buried in the New Ingleside Cemetery.

June 20 thru June 23, 1886

2009-06-20T02:00:00.000-07:00

June 16 thru June 19, 1886

2009-06-16T02:00:00.000-07:00

If you are new to this blog, this paragraph appears in every entry to let folks know some basic information. Click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Please use the comment feature to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886 - the year of this diary, and a picture of the whole family several years later - circa 1900 ???

Wednesday ---- Henry comments twice on the hot weather today -- temp 88. He notes the weather every day as the opening lines of each entry, but today he closes with "a fine day but very warm". Omar cultivates the rest of the potatoes. If you aren't from a farm background, cultivating is the process of running a digging device down between the rows of corn, potatoes, or other crop to dislodge and kill any weeds. The weeds (anything growing in a field or garden that you don't want) "steal" water and nutrients from the crop you want. "Weed" is an often misunderstood term. One person's weed may well be another person's highly desired plant!
Cad and Henry spend the day picking potato bugs off the potato plants -- net take of "between 6 and 8 quarts" of these critters, and they "still don't get them all".

Thursday --- Henry goes to the blacksmith shop in Ingleside to get the water pump repaired, and he gets two "irons" made for the side of the lumber wagon. He attaches them, and gets the wagon ready for hauling sand. Omar draws manure from under the north end of the basement, and corn cobs away from the cornhouse. Henry goes to meeting in the evening. Sarah goes to visit her daughter Hattie and her husband, and granddaughter Florence in Wayland.

Friday --- Henry admits getting up late after being out late to meeting last night. Omar draws three loads of sand from the Terneys. When I was a kid there was a gravel/sand pit near where I understand the Terneys lived. Sarah is still in Wayland. Someone named Shaver has come to visit, and leaves around 5PM. Mrs. Stephen Stanton comes to see if Henry and Sarah can go to Middlesex, NY to a church meeting tomorrow night.

Saturday --- Henry and Omar wedge up the barn? (Maybe a process of using wedges to raise up part of the barn and was sagging... possibly the sand was used to fill in under the raised area?) Stephen Stanton and his wife come by around 11AM, and they all go to Middlesex, NY for a Freewill Baptist Church Conference after Sarah gets back home from Wayland. They get to Middlesex around 6PM. For the time, this is a fairly long trip - about 14 miles. They stay overnight with a fellow Grange member - Mr. Stebbins..... apparently not someone they knew, but someone willing to offer housing to someone attending the church event.

June 12 thru June 15, 1886

2009-06-12T05:13:00.000-07:00

If you are new to this blog, the paragraph below appears in every entry to let folks know some basic information. If you are a regular, I've added a line at the end about a new picture of the Olney family that looks to be about 10-20 years later than the time of the diary... link is at the right!

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886, and a picture of the whole family several years later - circa 1900 ???

Saturday -- The big week at the church continues. They go to meeting at 8AM again, and have another business meeting, with the business "nearly concluded" in the forenoon. Henry refers to the event as the "conference". They had refreshments in the hall around noon, and another conference meeting in the afternoon that lasted between two and three hours! Refreshments served again in the afternoon, and the men of the "Freewill Baptists" come to greet them. No mention of an evening service, but I would assume there was one.

(Don's note - The Ingleside Christian Conference was still being held in the late 1950's when I was a kid. Lots of sermons and meetings, with many guest preachers, dish to pass meals, etc. over several days as I remember. I remember them being great fun - you had to sit quietly through the church services, but the dish to pass meals were wonderful, and social stuff between meetings was great, including dozens of cousins and neighbor kids to play with! The tradition of guest preachers staying with church families was still going on then -- I remember in particular Reverend Wright who stayed at my Aunt Theresa's house, and took my cousin Leslie and I fishing! The only mention I can find when I Google "Ingleside Christian Conference" is a previous blog entry in this blog back in February. Possibly that was a meeting to plan the big summer event? I'll have to see if the church still has a summer conference?)

Sunday --- Brother Seers and his wife spent Saturday night with them, and they all go to meeting Sunday morning. The sermon is preached by Elder Jones in the forenoon service, followed by a short discourse by Elder Childs. Henry mentions that "there seems to be a little feeling concerning wine for communion which will be served tonight". I'm guessing that Elder Jones' sermon expressed support for wine for communion, and that Elder Childs discourse expressed a different point of view? (or visa versa?) I remember the discussion of wine vs. grape juice going on 70 years later when I was a kid! Elder Moore came home with them after the service, and then preached the evening service, with communion. By my count Henry has mentioned 7 Elders and a Brother in attendance at the conference. "Brother" might just be a term for fellow male church member?

Monday -- Back to business as ususal --- Omar cultivates corn and potatoes. Sarah is quite sick, with an attack of "cholera morbus". Sounds very drastic, but some research reveals this as a term used for what we call "flu" today. Taking out the "morbus" and "cholera" sort of makes it sound better? Sarah vomits about a dozen times, and Henry gives her cayenne pepper, and peach leaf tea. Henry sent for Dr. Fulkerson who came about 10PM. By then Sarah was feeling better, but the doctor fixed her some medicine, and she felt better by Tuesday.

Tuesday --- Sarah is feeling better. Jen goes to Naples to get a dress fitted, and takes a corn to the mill. Henry, Mills, and Cad hunt potato bugs. Cad doesn't get mentioned much. He is Henry Cadmus Olney Jr. The boys except for Omar, all use their middle names instead of their first names. As a 10 year old, he probably has regular chores that he does, but doesn't specifically help Henry with the "work" very much, and thus doesn't get mentioned in the diary often. However I suspect hunting potato bugs was perfect work for a 10 year old.

Don's note --- "Organic farming" techniques, like hand picking the potato bugs, were undoubtedly pretty much normal for the time. Farms were small, families were big, and chemical pesticides were not common!

Jen buys a pair of shoes at Storeys for $2.50.

June 8 thru June 11, 1886

2009-06-08T02:00:00.000-07:00

June 4 thru June 7, 1886

2009-06-04T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886, and NEW -picture of the whole family circa 1900-1910???

Friday - Sarah and Henry go to Ingleside to help clean the meeting house. I had wondered if they met for church at people's homes, or had a "church" building. Now we have an answer. I'll have to do some research to see if I can find the location..... maybe it was at the current location of the Ingleside Christian Church? Sarah stays longer and later walks back home from the Blodgetts. Henry goes home and helps the boys plant more corn. Henry finishes "blacking" the buggy. Sarah varnishes the buggy, and the Democrat buggy (waggon).

Saturday -- Sarah goes to Bloods - presumably to the train station - to pick up Elder Hibbard to preach on Sunday. Henry stays home and paints the well room. Again - more information - looks like there was a hand pump in the house on the well located under the house? Early form of indoor plumbing! Omar and Mills clean out daisies from the knoll field. Sarah and Henry go to fellowship meeting in Ingleside in the afternoon, and Lodge in the evening.

Sunday -- Sarah, Jen, Omar and Ettie go to meeting in the morning. Sarah and Henry go in the evening. Henry comments that Elder Hibbard preached a good sermon in the evening, "but not so good as in the forenoon". Omar drives John (horse) "somewhere". I'm not sure if this is another of Henry's odd comments about Omar? They get home pretty late - 11PM, and are "tired and sleepy". Henry borrows 25 cents from W.E.Weld. His ledger entry notes "(paid back to him)" next to this entry. Henry keeps pretty close track of accounts... he actually notes this 25 cents loan twice - once in the body of the day's entry, and once scrunched in at the top of the page above the date. No indication of why he needed to borrow 25 cents? Maybe to put into the collection plate?

Monday --- Henry goes to Ingleside in the forenoon, and returns a mare to Horse -- after some discussion with Dad we concluded this was probably taking one of their female horses to be bred with a stallion owned by somebody in Ingleside? There was a similar reference earlier - Monday May 17th Omar took "Old Moll" to Horse in Ingleside. (Horse is capitalized in both cases.) Gestation period for horses is aroung 340 days, so we won't know if there is a colt born next May - this diary ends in December. There are 3 weeks between the two attempts at breeding..... probably arranged in a definite time frame to insure pregnancy?

Omar cultivates the corn. Mills works in the berries, and Sarah and Henry go to Naples in the afternoon. They take the last of the wheat they have to Lyons & Woodruff mill - 11 bushels - 8 pounds. They pay him $26 on a balance for wheat of $55.05. This leaves a balance of $25.68 due to Henry - this ovbiously includes other stuff? They use the money to pay $7.00 to Stoddard & Son on their drug bill, and $10.50 on their balance at Storey Brothers. Henry also notes an error of $1 on a transaction at Reed & Tobey. According to his ledger entries, they paid $7.38 for a suit of clothes and a hat. Not sure if this is a new purchase or a payment on the bill from a few days ago? According to the ledger entry and Thursday's diary entry, they get the $1 back on Thursday - June 10th.

May 31 thru June 3, 1886

2009-05-31T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886, and NEW -picture of the whole family circa 1900-1910???

Monday - Henry takes a grist to Naples, and also buys paint and oil at Jordan Brothers to paint the barn. Jordan Brothers was pretty much a full service hardware type place with most everything needed on a working farm? See ad from The Neopolitan Record below.
Omar plants some Snowflake potatoes - see picture below... they are a large variety of potato with only about 20 required to make a bushel! Individual potatoes could weigh up to 5 pounds!

Don's Note --- The Snowflake Potato was developed by famous American botanist Cyrus Guernsey Pringle in 1870. He was also one of three Vermont Quaker pacifists who were imprisoned and tortured during the civil war for refusing to serve in the Union army, and were later released on orders of President Lincoln! I presume his name was used for the now even more famous potato product, though I can't confirm that.

Omar also plants some beet seed and draws some manure to the fields. Sarah goes to bed with a sore eye.

Tuesday - Omar draws manure all day. Jen is visiting the Charles Conley's. Mills took her there yesterday with the horse and buggy. Henry washes the buggy, and starts painting the barn. Mills and Henry cultivate the garden with Old Moll - one of the horses. Mills also hoes in the garden, and they also take down a fence along the road south of the house. The present day road runs pretty much East/West, so I'm wondering if the house might have been on the North side of the road instead of on the South as we have been thinking? Correction from Dad - the house was on the North side of the road - I've had it wrong in my head - just assuming that the current little cabin there was in the same location as the original.

Wednesday - Omar mulches the peach trees (evidently pretty much all peach trees in NY were wiped out by a major frost in the 1930's), and then goes to Naples to Lyons & Woodruff with a load of wheat, along with a grist of feed for the animals, and 4 bushels of wheat for family food use. Henry goes to Ingleside to get some seed corn from Mart Drake, and Sarah goes to Bloods to Slatterys with 4 tubs of butter - 56 pounds at 16 cents a pound. $8.96.

Thursday - Henry and Sarah go to Naples to Granbys --- Henry gets a pair of pants, and Sarah gets a shawl. They also go to Reed & Tobeys and get a suit of clothes for Cad - $4.50 , a pair of shoes for Bart - $3.25 , and two hats - one for Mills - $1.75, and one for Cad for $0.75. They also get a hat for Jen, and some ribbon at Mrs. Miner's for $3.50. They then go to Storeys for shoes for Cad - $1.70. Quite a spending spree! No amount noted here, or in the ledger pages for the pants and shawl at Granbys.

May 27 thru May 30, 1886

2009-05-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Thursday - Belle Pulver and Vern (?) Drake come to visit on the way to Naples. Omar and Mills clean about 30 bushels of wheat. Henry hoes the grapes between rain showers, and they also set cabbages and cauliflower plants in the late afternoon. The language would indicate that they had some way of starting plants in some sort of hot house?

Friday - Henry and the boys mulch the berries with straw, and Omar draws manure out to the fields. Mills and Henry plant some corn. Sarah goes with Belle Pulver to visit the Conleys. C. Waddamus comes to visit, and brings a "bonnet" for Sarah. The bonnet costs $3.25 - a goodly sum for the time! Henry comments that "it becomes her well - all but the price".

Saturday - Waddamus and Henry do some trading - leaving Henry owing Waddamus $1.19. Omar plows some more land to plant corn. Henry Terney comes by and purchases all of Henry's remaining corn. Henry pays Omar $5.00 for his work, and also pays $1.81 in Grange dues. He (and Sarah?) go to choir "school" in the evening. Henry washes the Democrat buggy!

Sunday - Henry and Sarah to to church today, and go to visit George and Belle Pulver and Mart and Julia Drake after church, and then stop to see Frank Simmons and family on the way back to church for the evening. Sarah has a sore eye?

May 23 thru May 26, 1886

2009-05-23T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Sunday -- Omar brought Susie (Conley?) home last night, and she and Jen are going to go visit Hattie in Wayland later in the day. Sarah and Henry went to choir practice last night - Henry calls it "singing school". I think this is the first mention of music at church. Note - I keep thinking I'll run out of interesting or new things, but I guess not! Sarah, Henry, Omar, Bart, and Mills all to to church - Mills must be feeling better! Elder Hibbard preaches. Sarah stays to dinner at Mrs. Polmateer's. I'm thinking maybe she is the wife of George Polmateer who passed away back in Janaury? He mentions Aunt Abbie - probably Abigail Polmateer - daughter of Henry Polmateer. She got married back in March... no mention of her new last name?

Monday - Omar goes to Bloods with a load of 17 bushels of potatoes, and picks up a load of plaster that he then sows in the afternoon on the oat and barley fields. Plaster is a source of lime to adjust the pH of the acidic soil. Sarah and Mills are painting and whitewashing in the house. Whitewash is a sort of low cost "paint" made of slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) and chalk. A chemical reaction with carbon dioxide from the air, forms calcium carbonate which protects wood and other building materials and has some antimicrobial properties. I remember whitewashing various surfaces in the barn when I was a kid.

Tuesday - Omar spreads plaster on barley and corn fields - about 300 pounds! They also mulch the berries with oat straw. Sarah is still on the decorating detail, and paints the kitchen floor, and papers the sitting room. Frank Marsh comes to visit in the evening.

Wednesday - Omar cleans out the cellar, and goes to Nickleses to get some wood. Henry makes a "splatter board" for the well sink. I'm thinking some sort of sink in the kitchen with a hand pump? It seems like an outdoor sink would not have needed a "splatter board"? My grandparents had a sink in the kitchen with a handpump... the well was directly under the kitchen. An electric pump was added many years later! Henry works on the Delaware grapes. Grapes vines are attached to wires strung between posts. In the spring the posts and the wires are checked for damage, and repaired as necessary, and then the vines are "tied" to the wires with smaller wires. Spring is the best time for this before the foliage makes seeing what you are doing difficult. Sarah continues fixing up the house - she went to Naples in the forenoon to get wallpaper border for the sitting room. She also picked up some wire for the grape tying process. I remember my grandpa Drake working for other farmers around the Naples area tying grapes. Nate Polmateer drops by to visit. Picture of grapes trained along wires and posts below.It looks like one of the younger kids may have gotten to these pages to do some scribbling?

May 19 thru May 22, 1886

2009-05-19T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Wednesday - They plant potatoes all day... the person Henry hired is evidently Salem Marsh (son of Frank Marsh?) Willie Polmateer helps too, and they get "nearly done" dropping potatoes. D. Weld (not sure if this is the potato dealer from North Cohocton?) brings by 12 bushels of potatoes for planting, and trades for 12 bushels of "Comforts" - a variety of potatoes grown in the area.

Thursday - Omar covers the potatoes with some sort of implement borrowed from W.E. Weld. He gets done about 4PM, goes to Ingleside to return the "coverer" to Mr. Weld along with 2 bushels of corn for Mr. Weld to plant. He gets a total of 5 shoes set on two horses - John and Molly. Henry finishes up dropping potatoes and covering around stumps, and at the "headlands" -- the area at the end of the field where the horses can't maneuver to cover the turn around cleanly.

Friday - Henry takes "Aggie" to the Blodgetts - Aggie is one of their cows? She had a calf back on April 5th - about 6 weeks ago. Maybe he took Aggie to Blodgetts for breeding for a new calf? Omar takes the rest of the potatoes out of the cellar for the season. Sarah goes to Naples. Henry pays Salem's dad - Frank Marsh - for his day's work dropping potatoes. Like Bart, Dad gets the money, not the boy! Omar cultivates berries, and Henry rolls the barley field. It is a very busy season with lots of preparing land for planting, and planting. Henry "finds some pigs this morning" - not sure what this means.

Saturday - Omar goes to Naples to Lyons and Woodruff with 25 bushels plus 48 pounds of wheat. Henry works in the grapes. Omar finishes rolling the barley and oat fields. Henry and Sarah take tub butter to Slattery & Company in Bloods to barter, and get 4 more tins to fill with butter. Henry sells the remaining potatoes from yesterday for 35 cents a bushel. They also pay off the balance on the horse they bought from A. Addams back in April - $35 - just over a month ago.... a month early on the 60 day note Henry signed.

May 15 thru May 18, 1886

2009-05-15T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Saturday - Omar and Henry borrow two corn row markers from Frank Marsh, and mark the ground in a field for planting corn in regular rows. They both mark with Molly and Kit - two of the family horses - Molly is usually used for pulling the buggy. I suspect that pulling the corn row markers was not heavy work? Then with the help of neighbor Willie Polmateer, they plant corn for 5 hours till it starts to rain about 3PM.

An old corn row marker ... the large wooden implement with 4 vertical
posts on the wall - the triangular piece below is probably the draw bar
for hooking it up to a horse? . Drug both ways behind the stock this would
mark the rows of corn for planting. Then the farmer would go back
over those same marked rows with a planter to plant his corn seed.

Sunday they go to church and Sabbath school - I think this is the first time I've seen him use the term "Sabbath school". His sister Prudence, and her husband Fowler come to visit Sunday afternoon. Omar and Jen go to meeting in the evening.

Monday morning they wake to a frost in low places, and "nearly a freeze" but not much damage to early crops. Sarah and Jen clean house, and do the washing. Prudie and Fowler have stayed over night, and leave to visit W. E. Weld. As I recall, Henry's sister is married to one of Sarah's cousins? Omar and Henry low in the marsh land. Later Henry plants some corn with a corn planter that the Frank Marsh has sent over for Henry to try. Omar takes "Old Moll" - one of their horses - to Horse in Ingleside. Some discussion with Dad about a similar entry coming up on June 7th, we concluded that the mare was taken to be bred with a stallion owned by somebody in Ingleside? There are 3 weeks between the two attempts at breeding.

Tuesday Omar prepares a potato field, including marking rows. Henry finishes up the corn planting and returns the corn planter to Frank Marsh. Charles Conley and his wife come by to visit, and to get some corn seed for planting. Henry "engages a hand to drop potatoes" tomorrow. Potatoes are propagated from pieces of potato cut to insure that each piece has at least one "eye" -- the spot where they sprout if you leave them in the basement too long. This is the first time Henry has mentioned hiring anyone outside the family -- he does pay Omar, but Omar is the oldest son. I'm not sure if he just needs to get the potatoes in quicker than the family can get it done, or if potato planting is particularly hard work? It does seem like there would be a lot of bending over involved!

May 11 thru May 14, 1886

2009-05-11T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Tuesday - Henry and Omar finish up the 6 acres of oats on the rented land at Terneys..... a total of 16 bushels of oats planted! Sarah goes to Naples to get oil, and some fabric. Henry sells some seed corn to Mr. Tyler. One of their heifers has a calf around 6PM. Henry notes that "Mills is hungry all the time" , but is evidently still not well .... he "sits up a little" on Wednesday.

Wednesday - Henry and Omar clear stones off a field for corn and potatoes - not sure if they plant them together? Omar prepares the field, and Henry sends some potatoes to Henry Polmateer, and Richard Smith drops by to buy a half a ton of hay at $10/ton. ( this is a higher price than others have paid earlier in the year) He also gets 10 bushels of oats at 36 cents a bushel to be paid later - maybe when he harvests the oats in the fall? Henry plants some sweet corn in the garden.

Thursday - Omar prepares some land for planting corn, and Henry fixes the fence between their place and Levi Strong's place. I think this is the first time he has mentioned their direct neighbor. Omar and Henry clean the 10 bushels of oats for Richard Smith, and also clean about 37 bushels of wheat. He mentions that they run through the wheat -- maybe some sort of mechanical device - a fanning mill or winnowing machine? Omar plows the berry patch, and Richard Smith stops by to get his oats and pays for them $3.60

The fanning mill is a square or rectangular shaped box with a crank handle that is used to clean small grains like oats prior to planting. When the handle is cranked, the paddle wheel rotates, creating an artificial breeze while the sieves rock from side to side. Grain is dumped into the fanning mill from the top and the chaff is blown out the front by the artificial breeze created by the paddle wheel. The grain works through the sieves and comes out of the machine into a bucket on the ground. Many farmers used thresher-separators by 1875 to thresh and clean grain, but kept fanning mills to “super clean” the grain before planting.
Friday -- Sarah goes to Bloods with the money due on the spring drag they purchased earlier in the year - $20. Omar plows some of the marsh land with Kitt and John. Henry buys a corn planter from Frank Marsh. Evidently Mr. Marsh owed Henry some money, so they settle accounts with Mr. Marsh giving Henry 50 cents to balance things. Sarah and Jen clean house.

May 7 thru May 10, 1886

2009-05-07T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Friday - Jen goes to Naples to get medicine or other stuff for Mills, who is feeling better, but obviously still not well. Darwin Tyler sends his two sons (?) Fred and Howard over to get a heifer and a calf for which they pay $25.50 as agreed. This was probably arranged when Fred was here yesterday? Fred and Howard drive them home -- sort of a mini cattle drive. A heifer is a female cow - usually under a year old - who has not yet had a calf.

They move Mills to a different bed, and it "don't seem to make him worse". The Terneys had stayed over night Thursday night.

Saturday --- Omar goes on working on the oat field at Terneys. Mills is "a great deal better" today. Henry Terney brings Hattie home. Frank Simmons and family, and Elder Hibbard visit. Stephen Stanton buys 4 bushels of wheat. Mr. Sturdevant and wife also visit. A very busy day! Omar goes to Naples for more stuff for Mills, so he is not totally well yet?

Sunday - They have a light frost! Mills continues to improve. Harmon Ingram and Hattie, and granddaughter Florence staid over night last night, and Omar and Harm go to meeting. I assume Elder Hibbard is the guest speaker at Ingleside church. He and somebody named Borden come by about 5PM. More visitors - William Blodgett and wife, Julia Marsh, and somebody else (?). Harm and Hattie take Henry and Sarah's daughter Stella (5 yr. old) back to Wayland with them.... a very busy weekend. I'm guessing everyone came to hear Elder Hibbard speak at church.

Monday - Omar and Henry start sowing oats on the Terney land, but they get rained out. Omar takes John the horse to the blacksmith to have a couple of shoes fixed. Omar plows the berry patch after supper, and Dr. Fulkerson comes again in the evening to see Mills. This is quite a bout of sickness for Mills - I think this is the 4th time Dr. Fulkerson has made a house call. Henry sends a "postal" to Robert - his brother in Mansfield, PA.

May 3 thru May 6, 1886

2009-05-03T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Monday - Omar goes on preparing the barley field - using a roller (see picture below). Nephews Will and Charles head for Naples, and on to Canandaigua on their high wheel "bicycles". Mills seems to be doing better, but gets worse later in the day... Henry sends for the Doctor again.Tuesday - Omar finishes rolling the barley field, and starts drilling the barley seed. Henry's brother Robert comes around dinner time, expecting to find his sons Will and Charles, but they have left for Canandaigua. Dr. Fulkerson comes by to see Mills. Henry goes to Naples and sells his remaining extra wheat to Woodruff and Lyon for 88 cents a bushel.

Wednesday - Henry sends Omar to Naples with the wheat for Woodruff and Lyon. Henry's brother goes with him. Mills gets even worse, and Henry stops giving him Quinine. I can't find any information about Quinine as a treatment for anything other than malaria, and leg cramps. I'm guessing that Doctors may have thought that it would treat other ailments that caused chills, etc. similar to malaria. Henry treats Mills with hot "applications" - compresses?, and an "injection". A little research revealed that "injection" was the 1886 term for emema. The tool used for this looked much like a big syringe. See below -- sorry -- I couldn't resist!
Henry takes his brother Robert to see the Welds, and then part way to Bloods.

Thursday -- Omar is plowing the oat field they've rented from Terneys. Henry takes Omar his lunch, and trades out John for Old Kitt for the afternoon plowing. Mills continues to be sick, and Henry applies flax seed poultices ( Topical application of crushed flax seed poultice can be beneficial in the treatment of chronic coughs, in treating problems such as bronchitis, in patients), and gives him "injections" every three hours! Dr. Fulkerson stops by again, and replenishes their supply of medicine. Frank Marsh stops by and gets a bushel of corn for seed.

Note: Medicine in 1886 is clearly not very advanced. One source says for example that during the Civil war - only 20 years earlier - 75% of bullet wounds were treated by amputation - without any anesthetic, and without benefit of even rudimentary cleaning of the instruments or the wound! On the other hand, other than the "convenience" of throwing it out afterwards, the "injection" appears to have not changed much? I wonder how much landfill space would be saved by nice brass and ivory implements instead of disposable plastic?

April 29 thru May 2, 1886

2009-04-29T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Thursday - Omar drills some oats. David Strong and his wife come to visit, and Henry gives them some Kentucky variety Strawberry plants, and some Gregg raspberries. (Gregg raspberries were probably what we know today as Black Raspberries --- they used to grow very abundantly on my grandparents place just up the road from where Henry and Sarah lived! I remember well the damage caused to my skin as I picked them, and the delicious taste of the ones that didn't make it back to the house!)Friday - Omar finishes plowing the barley field, and then goes to plow on the 6 acres they rented from Henry Terney for oats. Henry finishes to stone boat ready to clear stones from the barley field. Will and Charles arrive from Mansfield on their "wheels". Will, age 24, and Charles, age 19, are Henry's nephews - sons of his older brother Robert. Wheels would have been "bicycles" similar to the one in the picture below. "Safety" bicycles as we know them are a later invention. While a 70 mile trip on a "pennyfarthing" seems very difficult, people did do long rides on them.

"In 1884 Thomas Stevens struck out across the country, carrying socks, a spare shirt and a slicker that doubled as tent and bedroll. Leaving San Francisco at 8 o'clock on April 22, 1884, he traveled eastward, reaching Boston after 3700 wagon trail miles, to complete the first transcontinental bicycle ride on August 4, 1884." Another side note --- the pneumatic tire was invented in 1888 -- two years in the future as of 1886! Thomas Stevens wrote about his trip here.
Mills is still sick.

Saturday - May 1st. -- Omar takes grist to Naples. Cad and Henry draw stones and roots (stumps) off the barley field. Omar plows some more on the Terney land in the afternoon. In the afternoon, Henry and Sarah to to fellowship meeting, and have Tea with the family of Brother T. Simmons, and then go to Grange in the evening.

Sunday -- Omar, Will, and Charles go to visit Hattie Warren. Henry and Sarah go to church. Henry "calls" Dr. Fulkereson and he comes to see Mills who is worse today. Dr. Fulkerson leaves some medicine. Omar, Will, and Charles report all is well at the Warrens. Omar goes out in the evening. Bart goes to Ingleside. Will and Charles to to Ingleside on their wheels --- quite a feat -- Wyatt and I drove up that hill on Saturday, and it is quite a climb!

Note - It looks like Henry may have used a phone to "call" Dr. Fulkerson? According to a little note in the Neopolitan Record, they were considering extending the phone line from Ingleside to Prattsburg in 1886, so somebody in Ingleside had a phone.... don't know if the Olneys had a phone? Henry might have called the doctor from somewhere in Ingleside after church?

April 25 thru April 28, 1886

2009-04-25T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Sunday - Henry and Sarah have stayed over night with the Aaron Putnam family. They all go to the funeral of Mrs. William Johnson, and then stay for Sunday school. Omar and Jen go to visit the Conleys. Bart comes home and gets his new hat. Mills is sick again! (according to my info, today is Sarah Esther's birthday - but no mention of it in the diary?)

Monday - Omar plows with three horses. I think they now have 4 horses - Molly - used for buggy more? Kitt -(old Kitt) John, and the new horse they got last week. Omar plants all but one and a half acres of the oats. Mills get sicker, and Sarah is not feeling well now.

Tuesday - Omar works on the oats, but it rains, and he and Henry build a "stone boat".... see picture below. A "stone boat" is sort of a skid thing made of wood - possibly metal layer on bottom of runners? This tool was used basically for hauling stones out of the fields. They were also used to haul other things too heavy to lift into a normal wagon. Henry sells $9.00 worth of wheat to Mrs. S. Stanton.. the Terney's come to vist with Mrs. Stanton. Henry sows some oats late in the day, but now he has the family illness too!
Wednesday - Omar finishes the oats, and also finishes a field for barley. Henry Terney buys a half a ton of hay - does not pay the $5.00 due. Omar gets the "drill" ready for sowing the barley. Sarah works in the strawberry bed, and sets out Jumbo and Kentucky strawberries.

I'm not sure if the drill below is from the right era, but a drill is a device that spreads or plants seeds mechanically.

April 21 thru April 24, 1886

2009-04-21T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Wednesday -- Another warm day! Henry uses a double "rr" in the "verry warm" weather comment for the day! Omar spreads manure on the barley field, and plows with their new horse. Mr. Dutcher comes by and gets 1550 pounds of hay for $7.75 -- Henry figures the price wrong - should have been $8.52. He rents 6 acres of land from Mr. Terney. The rent is 1/2 of the crop - "in the field" - i.e. Henry only needs to harvest his half, and Mr. Terney will harvest his part.... seems like a pretty good deal for Henry.

Thursday - They plant the barley on the field Omar had plowed. Henry grafts a Bellflower apple onto a Tolman Sweet apple root stock.

Bellflower apples in a graphic above - Tolman Sweet below.

Henry gets a book in the mail.

Friday Henry and Sarah go to Naples. They have 8 bushels of grist for feed, and they go to Reed and Tobey and get hats for Bart and Cad. This is the first mention of my great grandfather Bart in a while. He is off working for Leicester Fox. His hat costs $1.75! Close to 4 days wages! --- Henry is making $15/month from Bart's work. Mr. Tobey gives Henry a gift of a straw hat! Omar plows the garden plot while they are gone.

Ad in Neopolitan Record for Reed and Tobey below. Mr. Reed and Mr. Tobey have recently joined forces... one is a tailor - making clothing, and the other is a clothing store owner. I'm not sure which is which.

On Saturday, they burn brush, fix fences and gates, and turn the cows out to pasture. They also sow early peas, and then go to the David Strong's house for a surprise party!

April 17 thru April 20, 1886

2009-04-17T02:00:00.000-07:00

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Saturday - Omar goes on with plowing. Mills continues working of berry roots for sale. They've done 1300 in all! Henry is still quite sick, and just rests all day. Mills takes over the plowing later in the day, while Omar washes his buggy. Sarah goes to visit her sister Julia. Jen catches a ride with Jane Terney to the Blodgetts.

Sunday - Henry is still very sick. He manages to go to church, but gets Elder Hibbard to cover his Sunday school class. Henry describes himself as feeling "rather weak", but thinks he'll feel better in a few days?

Monday - Henry feels a bit better, but "nothing extra". Sarah and Jen do the washing. Omar is still plowing, and Mills digs more berry roots for the Lawyer family. Mr. Stone comes by and gets a half a ton of hay. Omar spreads manure on the barley field. Mills and Henry pack some more sawdust in the ice house. Sarah and Jen clean up the sawdust left in the yard.

Tuesday - Henry and Sarah go to Bloods with butter and eggs for Slatterys. They stop and get the money for the last load of potatoes from D. Weld. They also pay Harrison Briglin for 960 pounds of plaster they got a while back. Henry buys a horse from A. Addams for $80. He pays $45 cash, and signs a 60 day note for the balance of $35. He also gets a spring tooth harrow from Briglin - An implement pulled over plowed soil that has long curved teeth of spring steel, used to break clods, level the surface, and destroy weeds.

April 13 thru April 16, 1886

2009-04-13T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Tuesday - Henry has the family cold now, but manages to work on trimming the berry bushes. Cad is feeling better, but they give him and injection for good measure? Not sure what that means? Jen and Sarah go to Terney's to help with making a dress for Jane Terney.

Wednesday - Omar goes on plowing on the lot above the house, and also takes a load of rails to fix the fence along the road by Terneys. Mills goes on working on the berry patch, and carrying off the trimmings. Sarah goes back to Terneys to go on working on Jane's dress. Jen has stayed overnight with the Terneys.

Thursday - April 15th - I've been pretty much skipping over Henry's daily comments on the weather, but must note that it goes up to 80 degrees today! Omar takes "shingle timber" to Ed Drakes mill. Making wooden shingles is quite an industry in the Ingleside area. Henry takes some iron to the blacksmith (Avery) in Ingleside to have the metal parts made for the whiffletree he has been working on. He also has Avery fix one of John's horseshoes. Henry goes to Teal's store, and gets quite a list of stuff.... I think he is paying on a bill he already has for a whip, a pair of mittens, some tobacco papers, and a knife for Cad.

Friday - Omar goes on plowing, and Henry and Mills sort 100 berry roots to sell to the Lawyer family down the road. He also prunes some Apple trees. Henry is still feeling sick.

April 9 thru April 12, 1886

2009-04-09T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Friday - Henry Terney comes over and gets lumber to make a cupboard. Hall Bessinnett leaves - trading for his night's stay. Henry and Sarah go to Naples to Jordan Brothers. They buy 10 cents worth of round iron, 35 cents worth of green paint, and a part for the jointer ( a wood working tool) - total 70 cents. Jordan Brothers is a pretty full service hardware place, selling Stoves, Horse Blankets, Japanese Robes, Doors, Windows, Sash, Glass Putty, Gas Pipes, Hubbard Curbs, and Rubber Pumps. No idea what Hubbard Curbs, Japanese Robes, and Rubber Pumps are? I'm thinking it is a possibility that a rubber pump might have been a water pump with a rubber valve flap instead of leather? Omar and Mills clean wheat for grist. Omar, Mills, and Jen go to a Sugar party --- Maple Sugar/Syrup celebration. I'd been wondering why there had been no mention of maple sugaring yet? Lots of sugar maple trees in the area.

Ad in the Neopolitan Record in February 1886 for Jordan Brothers.

Saturday - Omar does plowing, and sows plaster on winter wheat. I'm guessing plaster could have been a source of lime to adjust the pH of acidic soil. Charles Crowley comes and buys 6 bushels of wheat at 90 cents a bushel.. "he don't pay for it" -- a favorite Henry line! Omar is plowing with a sidehill plow. The plow can be flipped over at the end of the row to cast all the furrows in one direction when plowing on hills. After another visit to the site of the Olney place last week, it looks like a sidehill plow would have been necessary on pretty much all of the land around their place! Omar also finished taking the winter insulation/banking away from the foundation of the house. I'm guessing that banking the house for the winter would have been more for keeping the cellar from freezing to protect the potatoes and apples stored there, than for keeping the living areas warm? Sarah makes soap, Jen does some baking, and Henry trims berry bushes.

One version of a "sidehill" plow.

Sunday - Henry stays home to "thoroughly" doctor Cad who now seems to have whatever has been making pretty much the whole family sick. Jane and Henry Terney come over after church. Elder Hibbard has covered Henry's Sunday school class. Cad feels better by night but remains ill for a few days.

Monday - Omar continues plowing. Mills feeds the cattle, and sets new berry roots in the places where they have died off over the winter. John Hoyt comes by to pick up the cow sold to the Washington Market in Naples last week - he pays the balance of $25 -- $32 total price for a "fatted" cow. Henry works on the berries, Jen does the wash, and now Sarah has the family cold!

April 5 thru April 8, 1886

2009-04-05T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Monday - They sell more hay. Must be the season for it! Henry is sowing grass seed, and Mills is plowing. Mr. Myers from Washington Market comes, and buys a cow -- probably to butcher to sell the meat? Total price of $32.

Tuesday - Aggie cow has a calf.... the birth goes well. It has been raining a while, and the cistern overflows. They all spend most of the day indoors with the bad weather... the creek is full, and rising. Omar, Lois, and Ettie are all feeling bad.

Wednesday - Stern Lyon picks up the hay they arranged on Monday ... 1200 pounds for $6.00. Sarah and Henry go visit the Terneys - they have a new baby colt. Omar, Lois, and Ettie are still not feeling well.

Thursday - Mills gets the wagon stuck while spreading manure. Mills and Henry move the "banking" away from the house. Probably hay piled up around the foundation to help insulate for the winter. I remember we still piled hay bales around the house for the winter when I was a kid. A peddlar (sic) from Rochester -Hall Bessinnett - stays with them overnight. Omar is feeling better, but Henry is getting sick now. Henry write a letter to somebody for Mr. Terney and himself.

April 1 thru April 4, 1886

2009-04-01T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Thursday, April 1st. Omar takes 33 bushels of potatoes to Bloods to sell to D. Weld at $0.30 per bushel. He does not collect the money. He gets 60 pounds of plaster from Briglin at $5.00 per ton? The plaster was put on account. Jen still seems to have a bad cold, and Henry treats her with a Sweat. I'm not sure how this might have been done - can't find any info on it except that lots of folks seem to think you can sweat out a cold, while others treat this as an old wives tale? Waddamus stays another night -- a balance of due of $1.53 is mentioned. Perhaps Waddamus is working for Henry to work on a debt?

Friday, they take grist to Naples - wheat for flour, corn for the cow, and corn and oats for the horses. They also settle up with several businesses... $23.90 to Reed and Tobey (no idea what they do or sell) and $16.69 to the Jordan Brothers (a hardware?) leaving a balance of $5.00. They get 20 pounds of nails, a pack of some kind of seeds, 2 pails, and other stuff, on account. Sarah pays up her account with the hat shop woman for $3.13

Saturday Omar burns trash, and starts spring plowing. Henry goes to the Terneys, and tries to rent a field, but it has already been let. Henry Terney says he wants to buy a ton of hay, and a Mr. Stone comes by and buys 800 pounds of hay for $4.00. (This would make the $5.00 worth of hay sold earlier 1000 pounds) Omar and Mills weigh it out -- not sure how? Henry and Sarah go to a lodge meeting in the evening.

Sunday, Sarah and Henry go to church. Omar is sick, but Jen is better - maybe the Sweat worked? Church goes well, with good attendance, despite the absence of the preacher - Elder Hibbard. The service was one of "prayer, testimony, praise, and conferring"?

March 28 thru March 31, 1886

2009-03-28T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Sunday - Henry and Sarah, and W.E. Weld and wife, are united with the church. Henry notes that the event of much interest to all, and the house walls are full to overflowing! I'm wondering if the "house" reference means that they met at someone's home rather than at a separate church building? Again, I'm amazed that they are not already church members in their mid to late 40's.

Monday, Omar and Mills go on with wood sawing, and also sort a few potatoes. Henry cuts and draw shaves parts to make two whiffletrees..... part of the system for attaching two horses to a wagon, plow, etc. "The pivoted horizontal crossbar to which the harness traces of a draft animal are attached and which is in turn attached to a wagon or an implement. Also called singletree, swingletree; also called regionally whippletree."
Jen does the washing, but it is too windy to hang the clothes outside to dry.

Tuesday, Old Kate (cow) has a calf and both are healthy. Omar goes to Bloods to do something for Sarah, and to pick up potato sacks, and the money for the potatoes they delivered before - $14.50. C. Waddamus comes to visit. Henry sends a bushel of apples to somebody.

Wednesday, Mills takes Old Kitt - one of the horses - to the blacksmith for front shoes. It is rainy in the afternoon, and Henry and Omar sort potatoes - a common rainy day job. W.E.Weld comes to visit, and pays $36.49 to pay off a note owed by A.G. Fowler. Henry gives him the note which he had held.. I don't know if this was a matter of buying the note, so that A.G.Fowler now owes the money to W.E.Weld, or if Weld owed Fowler money and pays off his note with Henry as an indirect way of paying Fowler? C. Waddamus stays overnight.

March 24 thru March 27, 1886

2009-03-24T02:00:00.000-07:00

Below is a memorandum from the back of the diary that relates to the repayment of seed wheat by Bradley Graves on March 24th.

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Henry sends Omar to Naples to Lewis Brothers to sell 196 pounds of ham - 8 hams.... average of about 24 pounds each? Bigger than any ham I ever saw in the grocery store! Note that Lewis Brothers evidently takes hams from anyone. They have also taken eggs, and I think I remember butter? to stores to be re-sold to others. Evidently they weren't as worried about inspections, etc. in 1886! Note that the buyers weighed the hams to 191 pounds.... not Henry's weight of 196. They get $0.09 cents a pound for the hams - $17.19.

Another weights and measures discrepency comes up today. Bradley Graves comes to visit, and returns some wheat that he owes Henry for some seed wheat he had "borrowed" earlier. Henry measures the wheat, and finds it comes up 14 quarts short? See memorandum from the back of the diary above. Henry seems generally pretty concerned with keeping all accounts with others correct, paid on time, etc.

Thursday, Henry goes on with soap making, and Sarah and Jen do some more quilting. (not sure if this is Sarah -Henry's wife, or Sarah Henry's daughter?) Omar and Mills saw some wood after weighing out some hay for James Demmarest --- Not sure how much - the diary says 1000 CWT (hundred weight) which would be 50 tons??? I'm thinking it was probably more like 1000 pounds? 1/2 ton, but he gets $5.00 for it which sounds like too much for 1/2 ton? The soap seems to be for sale or trade to Frank Marsh. Henry also sharpens the crosscut saw.

Friday, Henry goes on with soap making, and also helps Omar and Mills cut more wood. Sarah finishes the quilt, Jen does ironing.

Saturday, Omar draws more wood from the woods, and Henry and Mills saw wood on the skidway. A skidway is a "platform, usually inclined, for piling logs to be sawed or to be loaded onto a vehicle" --- according to the dictionary. Maybe sort of a big sawhorse?

Afternoon, Sarah and Henry go to the Christian Fellowship Meeting, and offer themselves for membership and are accepted. (I find it amazing that they are not already members, though I'm not sure if this is the same thing as church membership?) They also give William Blodgett for "ch" (sic) purposes -- not sure if this is a contribution to the church budget, or payment on money owed to William Blodgett?

March 20 thru March 23, 1886

2009-03-20T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Saturday Henry gets things ready to smoke hams, and Omar and Mills continue cutting and skidding wood ready to saw. Jane Terney has stayed overnight, and helps Jen (Jennie) quilt. Henry Terney comes over in the afternoon, and they all go to meeting. They take 7 and 1/3 dozen eggs to Teall's store, and barter for 5 gallons of Kerosene at $0.12/ gallon, and a 25 cent bar of soap, and 9 cents cash. Eggs were valued at $0.13/ dozen.

Sunday - Sarah has stayed overnight with the Hills, and goes to church. Omar and Jen go to church - Henry stays home. Mills goes to visit Robbie Stanton. John (the horse) is feeling better!

Monday, Mills finishes smoking the hams, and keeps the leech running -- with the repaired kettle I presume, leeching lye from wood ash is my guess ... a key element in soap making which they are also doing. Omar sorts "Home Comfort" potatoes and ends up with about 24 bushels. Omar also sorts some apples, while Sarah and Jen do the laundry, and Henry mends shoes and boots.

Tuesday, Henry goes on mending shoes. Omar and Mills go on cutting wood , including a Chestnut tree that they evidently cut down to get at a coon that was probably raiding their food stores? Cad and Henry continue running the leech - for soap making. Cad hasn't been mentioned much till now. Perhaps even though he is only about 10 years old, he has been moved up in the work order since Bart is off working for Mr. Fox?

Note - directions for leeching lye from wood ash ---

Drill a lot of holes in the bottom of a small wooden barrel, make sure it's waterproof before you drill the holes!

Stand the barrel on blocks leaving space beneath the barrel for a container. Use a waterproof wood or glass container. Lye can burn through some metals.

Put a layer of gravel in the bottom of the barrel over the holes, then put a layer of straw over the gravel. Fill the rest of the barrel with hardwood ash (NOTE: hardwood -- NOT softwood), leaving a couple of inches at the top clear. Then pour rainwater into the barrel. After a long time the water in the barrel will start to drip into the container. Leave it until it stops, then replace the container with another in case of odd drips.

Use an old iron pot, or a steel pan (One you will not be using for anything else!). Boil the liquid until it is so concentrated that a fresh egg (still in it's shell please!) will float on top. Then destroy the egg. Remember to take all precautions not the let the liquid touch your skin or clothing.

March 16 thru March 19, 1886

2009-03-16T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Tuesday, Omar takes some white potatoes to Bloods, and gets paid for the red potatoes delivered last week -- $29.85 @ $0.40/bushel. A bit under 75 bushels. He gets more than the originally agreed $0.38/bushel --- must be based on some sort of variable commodity pricing? Sarah goes to a funeral of Mrs. Eli Northrup, and to the "Donation" for Elder Lawton --- some sort of fund raiser for paying the preacher? A wedding occurs in the evening - Abigail Polmateer.

Wednesday Bart goes to work for Leicester Fox. Omar draws manure to one of the fields. Henry feels so bad that he soaks his feet, and goes to bed. Sarah joins him for a knapp (sic). Daughters Jen and Sarah quilt most of the day.

Thursday, Omar and Mills cut blanks for making shingles. Henry mends the "chaldron" kettle mentioned last week, with a piece of metal riveted in place. (I remember various pots, pails, etc. repaired with riveted metal patches when I was a kid - you didn't just go buy new ones!) Jen and Sarah go on quilting. Mills goes to meeting in the evening.

Friday, Omar and Mills continue cutting shingle blanks. They sort potatoes later while it is raining, and then go to skidding wood out of the woods. Henry and Jane Terney come visit in the afternoon. Jane helps quilt. Henry is still feeling bad.

Note that Bart isn't mentioned in the chores listed on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, so I assume he will be living with the Foxes for his new job.

March 12 thru March 15, 1886

2009-03-12T02:00:00.000-07:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

They start to sort potatoes and take them to Bloods to fulfill the deal they made on Thursday to supply potatoes by 10AM Monday. Henry goes to visit the Terneys, and Bart goes to Litterary? I assume this might have been some sort of book club - discussion group?

The next item is of great interest to me! Henry goes to visit Leicester Fox to discuss hiring Bart (my great grandfather - age 17) to work for him. Mr. Fox promises an answer by Saturday evening.

Saturday, they take more potatoes to Bloods. Bart and Mills cut wood. Sarah takes eggs to the store in Ingleside. Henry goes to Ingleside later, and they go to the Christian Church meeting in the afternoon, then to Grange meeting, followed by meeting at their church. Henry complains of a bad cold, and almost as an after thought, he says "I hire Bart". Leicester Fox has agreed to hire Bart to work for him for 7 1/2 months at $15 per month - see small note at end of Monday's entry.... I think the line indicates that this little note goes with Saturday's entry. Below is the Memorandum from the back of the diary that lists the terms of Bart's employment. Picture below.Henry had asked for $16 per month, but Mr. Fox has countered with a lighter work load, including letting Bart cut the grain with a reaper? I'm thinking that perhaps Bart worked for Mr. Fox last year - 1885? Perhaps Bart had to harvest grain with a scythe and cradle last summer, and now Liecester Fox has a mechanical reaper of some sort? Henry has negotiated for Mrs. Fox to do Bart's laundry and mending... final deal is for $15 per month with Henry getting all Bart's wages within 3 weeks of the end of the 7 and one half months. It looks like all the money goes to Henry.

Henry continues to fight his cold on Sunday and stays home from church. The rest of the family goes to church.

Monday Bart and Jen go to Wallace. Omar and Mills cut wood. Henry also has them fill the "leech" and they find the chaldron kettle broken? My first thought was that the "leech" might have to do with the outhouse -- we currently refer to a leach field where the liquid drains from a septic system. Filling the leech might have referred to moving the outhouse, and filling the old hole??? The reference to the kettle, might refer to leaching lye (alkali) from ashes. Omar goes to Naples in the afternoon to get Bart a pair of overalls and some rubber boots -- preperation for his new job? It will be interesting to see if Bart dissappears from daily enties soon? Not sure if he will be staying with the Fox family, or if he just goes there to work each day?

March 8 thru March 11, 1886 - republished in order?

2009-03-07T16:45:00.000-08:00

This is an attempt to republish this in the correct order... if it works, I'll go back and delete the version that got published out of order?

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Monday - Henry goes to Wayland to visit Harm and Hattie and granddaughter Florence who has a bad cold. He takes Mills, Lois, and Ettie (Sarah Esther) with him. They head home around 4PM - still daylight?

Omar goes to Naples on Tuesday - Sarah sends a suit she got at Tobeys for Cad for Omar to return. (I wonder if they are getting ready for the photo?) Omar, Bart, and Jen had spent the previous evening at the Lawyers for a surprise party. Oate (sic) Baldwin comes to visit. Also Elder Lawton and family come to visit, and stay overnight. Jane Tenney is there too - helping quilt. Henry takes the Lawtons to visit the Nickles on Wednesday. Aaron Drake's folks are there too.

Another of Henry's asides??? - "Mr. Nickles don't put in an appearance." Henry seems to use the word "don't" when he is expressing an opinion? I've read a couple of "He don't pay" mentions for example, and now another one?

Note: I'm wondering if the Lawtons live in the area, or if Elder Lawton is a visiting preacher from somewhere else who stays with various families while in the area? Henry seems to be their transportation for a few days?

Thursday Henry takes the Lawtons to Bloods to visit the Deloss Clarks.. Elder G.B.Fuller is there too. Henry makes a deal with D. Weld to sell red potatoes for 38 cents a bushel... delivery by Monday next at 10AM... maybe to meet a train schedule? The train station is in Bloods (present day Atlanta, NY) They make it back to Ingleside with Elder Lawton for evening services.

March 4 thru March 7, 1886

2009-03-04T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Thursday they cut and pack more ice and finish filling the ice house. All but about a half dozen cakes fit in. No idea how big a cake of ice was? Mills shells some corn, along with packing more sawdust in the ice house.

Friday, Omar and Mills get more sawdust from Clark's Mill in Ingleside. Sarah and Bart take a grist of wheat, and corn to Naples, and get 25 pound sac (sic) of flour. Sarah gets a "suit of clothes" each for Bart and Mills - cost $12 for one and $8 for the other - plus 90 cents worth of underwear, at Tobeys.

W.E. Weld comes to visit on Saturday morning. He rides back to Ingleside with Sarah and Henry when they go to visit Charles Conley in the afternoon. Charles Conley has been to the city with a load of potatoes, and evidently has money because he settles up with Henry - the 75 cents owed. Not sure what city Mr. Conley went to with the potatoes. I would assume Bath, NY. When I was a kid, a trip to Bath (County Seat of Steuben County) was still sort of a big deal. Rochester, or Corning would be a possibility, but not likely given the distance involved.

Sunday is the usual meeting in the morning and evening. Elder Lawton preaches on Isaiah 55, verse 6 - "Seek ye the lord, while he may be found". I think this is the first specific Bible reference from Henry. Henry uses Roman Numerals for the Chapter and Verse, with the number listed first..... "LV Chapter, VI Verse". I remember learning and being tested on Roman Numerals when I was a kid. I wonder if they are still taught? I sort of doubt it? I'm sure that particular passage from Isaiah is still used regularly! I remember many sermons on that theme at the Ingleside Christian Church in my own youth!

February 28 thru March 3, 1886

2009-02-28T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Sunday Sarah and Henry go to church in the morning and in the evening. Omar and Hattie Warren also go in the evening, along with Jen and Hiram Avarrey (sic). There is a conference meeting after the evening preaching. Note: Ingleside Christian Conference was a big sort of revival meeting with special guest preachers, etc. held in the summer when I was a kid - 1950's. Not sure if it is still held, but I would suspect it is.

Monday, Omar, Bart, Mills, and Henry all work on cutting and storing ice from Ingleside - probably Evergreen Farm? Sarah makes fried cakes and pies. Frost gets into the cellar - probably a sign of a pretty good cold stretch.

Just for fun I went looking for evidence of the pond on Evergreen Farm, and have created a link to an aerial view of the farm... the pond is quite large, and near the road - present day Route 53. It is pretty much exactly 4 miles between their place and the pond. Click here to see the aerial view, or the link to the right in the collection of relevant links. Cutting and storing ice was the normal cold storage system in 1886. Even large cities relied on ice cut from lakes, ponds, etc. and stored for later use. In 1886, there were around 200 commercial ice plants in the US - all cutting and storing ice. Believe it or not, refrigeration technology on any large scale would not exist for another 20 years or so. Railroad cars, and trucks were still cooled with ice into the early 1940's!

Tuesday and Wednesday the ice work continues - cutting, drawing, and packing in the ice house which is about half full by Tuesday evening. Looks like a total of 8 loads of ice by Wednesday afternoon. Mrs. Nickles sends Sarah a line canceling a planned visit to them by the Lawtons and others. Maybe she caught Omar on the way by with a load of ice? Omar and Jen go visit the Warrens Wednesday evening, and Sarah and Bart go to meeting. Looks like Omar and Jen went to meeting too with the horse... probably took Hattie Warren.

I've been wondering about how they found their way around at night in those days? We've seen lots of night time visiting! Dad says the horses knew their way around, and would find their own way home even at night - even if the "driver" were asleep! Wednesday night March 3rd 1886 was for example a waning crescent moon -- less than 3% moonlight even on a totally clear night! And based on Henry's weather comments on Wednesday and Thursday - light snow both days - it probably wasn't a clear night! For the truly demented among you, the moon phases for any month from 3999 BC to 3999 AD, can be found here. I just love the internet!

February 24 thru 27, 1886

2009-02-24T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Note--- I've added the location of the school house to the map, probably the Tenney place too since Henry refers to the Tenney schoolhouse.

Another note --- Dad says the folks I've been calling the Terneys, are the Tenneys ----- my bad! I've gone back and corrected all the previous entries.

Wednesday -- Sarah and Henry go visiting again -- this time to the W.E. Weld family - Evergreen Farm. David Strong family is there, along with the T. Simons family. They get home around 6PM, and have a surprise birthday party for Omar. I assume it is a birthday party because Omar turns 24 on Friday -- Not sure why the party wouldn't be on Friday.... maybe the date I have for Omar's birthday is wrong?? The party is organized by Hattie Warren - his girlfriend, and future wife.

Thursday --- Omar takes grist to Naples. Bart and Mills cut wood. Jen cleans up from the party, and Sarah makes collars for shirts and dresses. Henry works some more on the lumber wagon -- putting springs on the seat.

Friday - Sarah and Henry go to Aaron Drakes. The Lawton's are there too.

Saturday Omar and Bart pull limbs and small poles (saplings) out of the woods, and pile them on something???? Mills goes up to Ingleside to the blacksmith, to get hardware to hang the seat on the lumber waggon (sic). Bart takes 7 1/2 dozen eggs to Teals for cash at 18 cents/dozen. - $1.35 I think Teals is the store in Ingleside?? No Grange meeting that night.

March 8 thru March 11, 1886 - revised

2009-02-22T05:10:00.000-08:00

My apologies for accidentally publishing "March 8 - 11" out of sequence. --- "Mother Goose". I tried to un-publish the original, and re-publish in the correct sequence, but it is not working! Uttering Henry's "Mother Goose" thing isn't working! I guess that like Henry, I just need to add this note, and go on. Click here if you missed Henry's reversal of days back in January. Check the comments too.

March 8 thru March 11, 1886

2009-02-21T11:45:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Monday - Henry goes to Wayland to visit Harm and Hattie and granddaughter Florence who has a bad cold. He takes Mills, Lois, and Ettie (Sarah Esther) with him. They head home around 4PM - still daylight?

Omar goes to Naples on Tuesday - Sarah sends a suit she got at Tobeys for Cad for Omar to return. (I wonder if they are getting ready for the photo?) Omar, Bart, and Jen had spent the previous evening at the Lawyers for a surprise party. Oate (sic) Baldwin comes to visit. Also Elder Lawton and family come to visit, and stay overnight. Jane Tenney is there too - helping quilt. Henry takes the Lawtons to visit the Nickles on Wednesday. Aaron Drake's folks are there too.

Another of Henry's asides??? - "Mr. Nickles don't put in an appearance." Henry seems to use the word "don't" when he is expressing an opinion? I've read a couple of "He don't pay" mentions for example, and now another one?

Note: I'm wondering if the Lawtons live in the area, or if Elder Lawton is a visiting preacher from somewhere else who stays with various families while in the area? Henry seems to be their transportation for a few days?

Thursday Henry takes the Lawtons to Bloods to visit the Deloss Clarks.. Elder G.B.Fuller is there too. Henry makes a deal with D. Weld to sell red potatoes for 38 cents a bushel... delivery by Monday next at 10AM... maybe to meet a train schedule? The train station is in Bloods (present day Atlanta, NY) They make it back to Ingleside with Elder Lawton for evening services.

February 20 thru 23, 1886

2009-02-20T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886!

Dave Olney has sent along a great picture of the Olney family circa 1886. Click on the link to the right to access the picture, or click here. I think I've got all the names correct- or at least good guesses. Not sure why, but hover your mouse right about where each person's feet would be to see the names, or click on the names to the right on the Picassa page. I can't tell you how exciting it is to have a picture of what they all looked like within a year of the time of the diary. This would have been quite a production -- everyone is in their Sunday best, and the picture would have been planned well in advance, and taken by a professional photographer (the first Kodak box camera - The Eastman Cossitt - was produced in 1886, so home photography was not yet available to regular folks). It looks like it is taken in front of their house, giving us some sense of what the house was like!

More mysteries! Saturday, Sarah and Omar go to Naples to pick up grist, and they take the "road warrant" to the town clerk. I can't find anything about what a road warrant is except that it might be a legal document related to taxes for road maintenance? No money seems to be involved, so I'm stumped? Dad says that sometimes local people did work on the roads, hauled gravel, etc. in lieu of taxes -- sort of an official barter system.

They also pay $1 for The Neapolitan Record for 1 year. Some research reveals that
The Neapolitan Record was published weekly from 1884 to 1887. The Naples Library evidently has all but a couple of issues for 1886 on microfilm! How easily excited I am! This will hopefully give me lots more info on the businesses that the Olneys traded with in Naples, etc. The Naples Record - successor to The Neapolitan Record - is still being published. Naples is named for the city in Italy, so the term Neapolitan might well apply! My handy dictionary says:

Ne⋅a⋅pol⋅i⋅tan–adjective

1.	of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Naples: a Neapolitan love song.

–noun

2.	a native or inhabitant of Naples.

Sarah gets 3 pair of slippers for $1.90 and has them "chd"??? Possibly she charged them --- no mention of this $ in the ledger section, though Sarah might have spent some of her own money? I seem to recall her recording some purchases from her own money in her 1885 diary. Bart takes cider to the Marshes, and trades for vinegar. Maybe they kept apples through the winter? Cider would have long since turned to vinegar if pressed in the fall? Possibly the Marshes made especially good vinegar - maybe a secret recipe?

Sunday, Sarah and Omar take the buggy and John (one of the horses) to church, but Bart and Mills walk to Ingleside. Jen and Omar go to meeting in the evening - again John is mentioned. A very light day on diary entry. Note that it has been warm long enough to make use of the buggy feasible rather than the sleigh.

Monday lots of chores get done. Omar draws wood, Bart and Mills cut it up. Jen washes clothes, and Sarah does some baking. Omar also takes 17 dozen eggs to Cornishes in Bloods, and gets $2.56 in cash and balance in trade. Uncle Agustus and Aunt Mary visit....Agustus is Sarah's mother's younger brother.

Tuesday Henry and Sarah go visiting again -- they go to Catherine Welds, and are joined by Harmon Drake's folks and Stephen Stanton's folks (not sure if this is those families, or if it is their parents??) Also Mrs. T. Simons is there. Then there is the first mention of how visiting got arranged ... they are invited to the Drakes to visit with the Lawtons on Friday. (Friday's entry confirms that they went)

February 16 thru 19, 1886

2009-02-16T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are.

Tuesday - Omar and Bart skidd up wood for sawing. I'm thinking this would refer to sliding actual logs out of the woods -probably by pulling the logs with one of the horses - possibly for sawing into lumber later rather that cut into short sections for firewood? Mills goes to school -- another indication that going to school may have been something to do when not needed for chores, etc?? Henry has a lame shoulder again..... probably a real problem when the whole family livelihood depended on hard physical work.... probably had what we call a torn rotator cuff?

Wednesday - Jane Tenney comes to help quilt again -- I guess she is not the school teacher. A neighbor - William Blodgett, comes to buy wheat at $1 per bushel. He says he will get 16 bushel in about 30 days, but will want 4 bushels sooner for grist. Cash transactions are not real common. They grow a lot of their food, and barter a lot, but not a lot of cash.

I'll try to get the money ledger entries from the back of the diary on a web page soon - I just went looking at them, and don't find any reference to William Blodgett actually getting wheat later. In looking through the ledger entries, I notice that Henry actually pays Omar for at least some of his work. Omar is 23 years old - 24th birthday next week. Bart is 17 (turns 18 in August) and does not seem to get paid. Soon, Henry will "rent" out Bart's services to a neighbor.

Sarah and Henry go to visit the Nickleses (sic) in the evening.

Thursday - Sarah and Jane are still quilting. Mart and Julia Drake come to visit. I'll have to try to figure out who Mart and Julia are. I'm related to the Drakes on my mother's side, so they are probably relatives of mine. Julia helps quilt, and they finish the quilt. They all have a social chat. Everybody goes home, and Henry and Sarah go visit the Frank Marsh family. Daughter Hattie and Harm and granddaughter Florence are there too. I wonder how these visit are planned? No phones!

Friday Hattie, Harm and Florence come to visit, but leave their horse at the Marshes? Henry doesn't "think much of that". William Blodgett sends his son to get the grist of wheat mentioned earlier. Henry gave him the 4 bushels, but mentions that he "didn't pay for it". Sarah and Henry go to visit the Blodgetts in the evening.

Note: Catherine Blodgett - descendent of William Blodgett - was a big Naples/Prattsburg area history buff till she passed away recently, and was the one who got this diary from one of Lois's descendants. ... James Robinson. I sure wish she was still around to talk about all these folks with. She lived on the Blodgett place - probably less than a mile from Henry and Sarah's place as the crow flies.

Note: Talked a bit more with friends about the frequency of getting grist ground into flour or cattle feed recently, and got two more theories. 1. A possible way of limiting those pesky little moths that infest flour --- if you've ever had them you know you don't want them in the flour! That could have been an even bigger factor than spoilage. A Cornell Entomology web page notes --- "Long term storage of flour and meal products often leads to infestation, therefore, such products should be purchased in quantities suitable for early use, unless adequate containers are employed." It just occurred to me that dry storage of a lot of flour might have been an issue too.... no plastic bags, etc in those days! Large crocks or metal bins would have been about the only option. 2. Given transportation - i.e. buggy or sleigh - it may have just been a lot easier to haul a few bags at a time when going to Naples for other things, rather than hauling a big load.

February 12 thru 15, 1886

2009-02-12T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are.

The Tenneys are there to visit again... Jane and Sarah quilt. They go to Peter Johnson's funeral?? Omar cuts wood, Henry sorts a few potatoes again. Jane Tenney goes home at night. Bart goes to Tenney's schoolhouse??? Not sure what that means. Maybe Jane was a school teacher? Maybe not? Jane is at their house all day. Maybe the Tenneys owned the school house but somebody else taught. I'm not sure how the school system was organized at that time?

Saturday, Henry Tenney asks Henry to come over to help with a sick cow, but he gets there too late - the cow is dead. Henry helps Henry Tenney and Henry Polmeteer skin the cow. Three Henrys! They probably don't use the meat of a sick cow, but they certainly don't let the skin/leather go to waste! Omar and Jen don't go to see Susie (probably Susie Conley) because it is stormy.

Sunday Bart goes to church - sounds like Sarah and Henry stay home - Sarah is sick. Omar and Mills go to church in the evening, taking "Old Kitt" and the buggy. It appears to have been warm long enough to not be able to use the sleigh? It has been 40 or 50 everyday for a while. This is the first mention of one of the horses by name. I know from later entries that there are at least 3 horses --- Molly, Old Kitt, and John?

Monday - Various chores -- washing, quilting, potato sorting --- most mentions of potato sorting seem to use the pharse - "a few potatoes" - obviously not a favorite task! Henry mends shoes... they used to fix stuff! -- you didn't just go buy a new pair. Henry may have even made the shoes originally? ( note: Thomas Olney - the original Olney in this country - 1635 - was a shoe maker among other things - Henry is 9th generation in this country) Bart and Mills don't go to school. Friday's mention of Tenney's Schoolhouse must have referred to going to school.... maybe school attendance was sporadic depending on weather, work that needed doing, etc??

February 8 thru 11, 1886

2009-02-08T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are.

Some more interesting information... Omar and Bart to to Evergreen Farm for a load of ice, while Mills and Henry shovel sawdust out of the ice house to get ready... sawdust was used to insulate the ice to make it last as long as possible into the summer..... possibly even into the following winter according to some.

Evergreen Farm is the home of Henry's sister Ellen, who is married to William Eber Weld. If I've got it worked out right, William E. Weld is also Sarah's 1st cousin? (They previously checked the ice on William Johnson's pond?) Evergreen Farm is located on the hill on the road between Ingleside (Riker's Hollow), and Prattsburg. Location noted on the map. (link to the right) The row of evergreens is still there according to notes from my Dad. Sarah's parents (Eber Hill and Lydia Matilda Weld) live on a farm near Evergreen Farm.... also noted on the map.

Omar and Jen go to Wayland to visit their sister Hattie and husband Harmon (Harm) and their neice Florence. Bart and Mills go to visit Salem I. Cloun (sp?)

Note: Wonderful story of how Sarah's grandparents - David and Hannah Weld - happened to end up in this area here.

Tuesday Henry fixes a whiffletree to the Democrat wagon. I knew what a whiffletree is, but a Democrat wagon??? --- " a light flat bed farm wagon or ranch wagon that has two or more seats and is usually drawn by one or sometimes two horses". One source says you have seen one if you ever saw a western movie. I'm not sure how fancy their Democrat wagon was? The one below is a restored pretty fancy one. The term Democrat was often capitalized as Henry does.
A whiffletree is a system of cross bars hooked together to harness two horses to a single wagon, sleigh, plow, etc. The wagon above is set up for one horse. The Olney's Democrat wagon must have been fitted for two horses. With such a large family, maybe their's had more than two seats? Again, you've seen a whiffletree if you've ever watched the hero climb over the runaway horses pulling the stagecoach to sure destruction in one of those western movies. My dad and mom both remember Democrat wagons still in use when they were kids. According to Dad, the seats were probably removable .... sort of like the modern day family mini-van? Seats in to haul the kids, or out to haul lumber? I did find a reference on the internet to some kids falling out of a Democrat Wagon because the seat was not fastened.

Omar and Jen return from Wayland -- I guess they stayed overnight. Omar and Sarah head to Naples to pick up 2 bags of feed from the grist taken to the mill last week. Grist is grain that has been separated from its chaff in preparation for grinding. I'm not sure why so many trips to Red Mill and Lyon's Mill. Seems like bigger batches would have been better? Maybe grain kept better whole than when ground into flour or cattle/horse feed?

Wednesday is a bit hard to read... for some reason Henry writes over the original entry at a right angle. Henry goes to Tenney's to get Sarah, and he and Omar draw wood. Henry and Jane Tenney are there to visit. Jane and Sarah are quilting. Omar and Bart haul wood. Henry sorts Potatoes. (note - sorting potatoes was a constant task to get rid of the ones that might be going bad so the rest would last longer - bad ones probably went to the animals - remind me to tell you Dad's "Decisions" story one day) Mills finishes husking corn and puts it in the cornhouse. ( Note: We now have two more structures on the farm in addition to the house and barn -- an Icehouse, and a Cornhouse.) Sarah and Bart go to Peter Johnson's funeral.

On Thursday, Jen bakes. Henry sorts potatoes again. Omar goes to Naples takes more grist to Lyon's mill and picks up previous grist. (Note: does this indicate that Lyon's Mill is in Naples rather than at the Blodgett place as previously thought???) Sarah and Jane continue quilting. Henry Tenney and Jane stay overnight. A midwinter thaw --- it has been 50-60 degrees for a few days.

I think we've located the blacksmith shop mentioned earlier - Avery's - probably located in Ingleside - near the church and the Grange Hall -- location on the map --- click link to the right.

February 4 thru 7, 1886

2009-02-04T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are.

Very interesting entries. Omar goes to Red Mill in Naples for horse feed and flour - ground from their own grain. Omar goes to Stoddards to get a thermometer. Henry lists some people, but doesn't mention anything about why -- were they there to visit? Some are just first names? Orva (sp?) Weld and wife, Aunt Catherine, Ella (?) and E?leanor Ca???, and Frank and Erma or Emma? Any suggestions on reading this gratefully received.... maybe some later entries will clarify some of these names. (later note - I think that light word might be "came". Maybe these are folks who came over to visit?)

Friday - A lot of visiting today! -- Henry and Sarah go to visit the John Averys -- William Blodgett and wife and Mrs. J.W. Lawton (preacher's wife) were there too. They head home early because some young people are expected at their house for the evening. Six couples spend the evening playing and engaging in "social chit chat". Not sure what "playing" would refer to. Playing cards would not have been a proper Christian thing to do --- perhaps board games, charades?? Dad says there might well have been music involved. Bart played fiddle, clarinet, and coronet later in life, and was an avid member of the Ingleside Band as an adult. Just a side note that I wish I knew more about their house, and the homes of their friends and neighbors. 6 couples, plus Henry and Sarah, plus the younger folks in the family, could add up to about 20 or 21 folks in the house that night? Omar, Jen, and Bart might have been included in the 6 couples - older "kids" in the family who might have had dates? Mills is 16 -- he might have had a date, but that still leaves Lois (14), Esther (13), Cad (10), Prudence (8), Stella (5), and Kent (3) What sort of house could host such a gang? Remember the bathroom was definitely an outhouse! Even with Hattie married and living in Wayland, there are 13 or 14 people living there all the time.

Saturday Omar and Henry go to Avery's shop -- a blacksmith -- and have the horse's hooves sharpened and shoed, at the cost of $1.00, and order some ice tongs made for 50 cents! They try the ice on William Johnson's pond, and find no water - frozen solid all the way! Henry and Sarah go to visit Mart and Julia in the afternoon, and to Grange in Ingleside in the evening. More visiting! While in Ingleside, they pay $5.67 on their bill at the store, and barter 10 dozen eggs for $1.90 off the bill - 19 cents a dozen.

Sarah, Henry, Jen, Ettie (Hattie), Omar, and Bart to to church. (Bart is my great grandfather) Ettie must be visiting? She lives in Wayland. Elder Hibbard gives the sermon. I'm not sure how leadership of the church is organized... several folks seem to give sermons, lead services, etc?? The church still is in Ingleside - not the same building - I wonder if I can find old records?? Omar and Jen go to church in the evening with dates - Omar with Hattie (Warren) and Jen with Hiram Warren. Omar will marry Hattie later (not sure of date). Henry throws in another little comment about Omar -- "Omar takes Hattie I guess". If I were counting, I'd say this makes three little asides about Omar so far this year.

January 31 through February 3, 1886

2009-01-31T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are.

Sunday is a full day of church... looks like they go to their regular church, then go to Methodist meeting in the afternoon, stay for some sort of class, and to to prayer meeting in the evening. I'm not sure where the Methodist's meet. Dad said something about another church there in Ingleside? They go to visit Aunt Catherine Weld between the Methodist Meeting and the evening prayer meeting.

Monday Henry fixes the harness and harnesses the horses to go the George Pulver's to visit... they don't go until Tuesday, so I'm thinking it was a process of making sure the harness was in good shape for a longer than usual trip? Eber Weld and wife stop by. Eber goes on the Bloods and returns. His wife stays to visit, and they all visit into the evening on his return. The children have colds.

Tuesday, Sarah and Henry go to visit the Pulver family (George and Belle) -- about 2 hours away by the "new road" - a much shorter route Henry notes. They stay overnight, and return home the next day a bit after noon. The kids still have bad colds.... note there are "kids" ranging in age from 3 to 22, so they aren't being irresponsible in leaving overnight. Omar is back from Mansfield, PA. Everyone there is well, and Uncle Robert (Henry's older brother) got baptized on Sunday. (Note: The family's Christian faith would have made this baptism -fairly late in life - a pretty big deal... maybe Omar went to Mansfield specifically for the baptism?)

Note that Mansfield is about 75 miles away - quite a trip by horse! One reference suggests about 25 miles per day as an average distance traveled by horseback? Another suggests 15-25 miles per day. Omar must have pushed it since he was in church in Mansfield area on Sunday morning and got home Tuesday night. I wonder who he stayed with along the way - Sunday and Monday nights?? Definitely no Motel 6 along the way, though there might have been small Inns or boarding houses, or taverns with rooms to let and a place to stable the horse? Maybe he just slept under a tree?

January 27 through 30, 1886

2009-01-27T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. NEW --- I've added a map link that will help you see where things are in the neighborhood where this story takes place. Click on the Map link to the right of the title of each page. Zoom out to see where Naples is located in New York State. Zoom in to see Ingleside and exactly where the Grange Hall, and the Church were. I'll add pictures and more locations as I can.

On Wednesday Henry finishes up some steps in preserving the meat prepared last week, including "pickling". Pickling is not a vinegar process like we do with cucumbers, but involves, salt, sugar, salt petre, and water to cover the meat. Click here for a civil war era recipe that is probably similar to what Henry would have done.

Henry also cuts a board for a wagon seat. This may have involved cutting a board from a section of log? I'm pretty sure they didn't just buy lumber the way we do now. Waddamus came to visit at night. No idea who this is? Not sure if this is a first name or a last name? Henry usually uses full names or at least initials. Henry still has a lame shoulder - several days now.

Thursday, Sarah is still working on Jen's dress. With all the day to day activity of feeding and caring for 13 people with no "modern conveniences", there probably isn't a lot of extra time in the day for projects like this? Henry is working on the seat still - for the lumber wagon. Omar harnesses up the horses to go to prayer meeting (Thursday nights), but they don't go because of heavy rain. Grange meetings are Saturday night.

Friday the weather cools off again, but there isn't much snow for using the sleigh. Sarah finishes Jen's dress!

Saturday they draw manure.... a process of hauling manure from the cows, horses, and pigs out to the fields and spreading it around. They go to Christian Fellowship Meeting in the afternoon, and draw a load of firewood to the woodhouse at night. Cutting, gathering and storing firewood is a big winter time activity. There aren't crops to tend to, and the trees will dry much better when cut in the winter when they aren't growing, and there is a much lower moisture content.

January 23 through 26, 1886

2009-01-23T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. NEW --- I've added a map link that will help you see where things are in the neighborhood where this story takes place. Zoom out to see where Naples is located in New York State. Zoom in to see Ingleside and exactly where the Grange Hall, and the Church were. I'll add pictures and more locations as I can. Click on the Map link to the right of the title of each page. Feedback or questions appreciated!

Saturday Aunt Jayne (different spelling) goes home... she has visited several days, helping with dress making. I'm not sure who Aunt Jayne is. Henry has a sister with a middle initial of J. but she only lived to the age of 3. Sarah has no sisters by that name.

Henry mentions Omar sleeping in till 11AM. On another occasion he mentions Omar feeling "moderate" because of being out late. I'm not sure Henry totally approves of Omar's behavior??

On Sunday they go to church, which seems to include the funeral service for a George Polmateer. I'm thinking maybe they combined things because of the difficulty of travel?

On Monday Henry and Omar go to Bloods to see about selling potatoes. Bloods (present day Atlanta / North Cohocton) continued to be a major center of potato growing for many years. I can't remember the name of the machine, but a major innovation in potato sorting by mechanical means was invented there. In 1917, 30 years later, a promotional pamphlet for the area states that Stuben County is the second largest potato growing county in the whole country. They don't sell any potatos because of a lack of "carrs". Possible a misspelling referring to railroad cars? Henry makes a "bottom to sleigh". Horse drawn sleighs were the major form of local transportation in the winter. Henry has a lame shoulder for a second day. Son Cad has to be punished - no mention of what for. A note at the end of the day's entry referring to 34 cts. worth - this amount is not listed in the ledger at the end of the diary.

Tuesday Henry and Sarah go with William Blodgett and wife to visit the Charles Couleys.... I'm struck by how much visiting goes on at a time when that wasn't just a matter of hopping in the car! They go by "long sleigh", and encounter quite a bit of drifting snow. It must have been quite a gathering, because 4 other couples are there, along with a Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Elder Lawton and her two daughters. That's a total of at least 18, not including any children of the Couleys?

January 19 through 22, 1886

2009-01-19T02:00:00.000-08:00

As always, click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments.

Temperatures begin to appear next to the dates printed in the diary. (actually I just noticed a couple of earlier dates that have temperature entries)

On Wednesday the 20th, Jen gets a dress cut --- is this another dress, or is Henry repeating information from Saturday - the 16th ---- or is she picking up the dress? Sarah gets a hat - $2.00. Not inexpensive! Omar gets grist - cow feed - from Lyons Mill --- a second mill - previously they went to Red Mill. Dad suggests that Lyon's Mill may have been on the Blodgett place - just up the hill a bit from their place?

Note at end of the entry for the 19th --- "Wednesday's happenings" ... matching note at end of the entry for the 20th indicates that the information was reversed. I can't figure out why Henry writes "Mother Goose" after "Wednesday's happenings" Anyone out there got any theories? "Wednesday's happenings" sounds like it could be a Mother Goose line, but I can't find anything on Google.

On Tuesday, Hattie (Henry's daughter) and little Florence are there visiting. Florence is Henry and Sarah's granddaughter. Also visiting is Mrs. S.H. Ingraham - relative of Hattie and Harmon - can't find any info on exact relationship. Frank Marsh and wife are there too - quite a party for a Tuesday. Omar takes Nora Lawton riding till 10PM ;-)

On Thursday Sarah makes her dress, with help from Aunt Jane (not sure who this is) who came home with them from Naples on Wednesday. Aunt Jane makes button holes. This is confirmation that Miss Arnold measures and cuts fabric, and the actual sewing is completed at home. Omar and Jen shovel the road --- no plowing service I guess!

Dress making and button hole making continue on Friday. They go to a Grange fundraiser. Omar and Jen go to something at high point. Can anybody figure out that word? Looks like "surprise" to me, but that doesn't make much sense?? There is a High Point Hill, and a High Point Cliff listed as 2 of 31 Mountain Peaks and Summits in Ontario County, NY. Location Center: 42.6459°N 77.4447°W Elevation at center: 2,159 feet (658 meters) 1.8 miles from Naples, so it is in the neighborhood! Google maps puts High Point northwest of Naples.... the Olney's live about the same distance south of Naples. That puts High Point closer than Bloods (Atlanta) and they have made that trip several times already this year! Now ..... what is that word "s ----- at high point" ???????

January 15 through 18, 1886

2009-01-15T02:00:00.000-08:00

Click on picture to enlarge for easier reading of original.

They go to visit the H. M. Ingraham family. This is actually his daughter Harriet Amelia, her husband Harmon M. Ingraham, and their daughter Florence J. who was about 2 years old at the time. By the end of the year she will be pregnant with Charles Byron. As far as I know, Henry always refers to them as the H. M. Ingraham family, and never mentions his granddaughter? They live in Wayland, NY - about 8 or 9 miles. Not sure how the roads went in those days. They stop in North Cohocton on the way home, and purchase Salt Petre, and "Tobacco Slim Jim". He mentions paying for both, indicating they probably had accounts at both places -- perhaps even bartered for some things? Salt Petre may have been for meat preservation, or possibly stump removal (I'm not sure they would have spent money on stump removal?) Can't find any info on the tobacco product. Maybe Henry smoked or chewed? Salt Petre was purchased at Carpenter's -- a store/drugstore run by Ezra S. Carpenter - Physician , Surgeon --- their family doctor.

Saturday, Jen gets a dress cut at Miss Arnold's - same place Sarah got a dress earlier in the week. Thinking back, I wonder if Miss Arnold knew how to measure and cut for clothing, but maybe folks sewed the clothes themselves? Probably commercial patterns weren't available. Cows are mentioned - another food source / product. They go to Grange later in the day, and get crackers, soda (baking soda I'm sure - definitely not Coca Cola!), and sugar somewhere. I think the Grange Hall was in Ingleside, and I think there was a general store there - corner of Maple and Babcock Rd? (Sarah's diary from the previous year mentions bartering eggs and butter for canning jars there.)

Note: Membership in the Grange organization is available to anyone who is interested in participating in making better communities. The Grange began as an agricultural organization at a time when agriculture was the primary occupation of rural citizens. Today the Grange still closely mirrors the makeup of our rural communities. Agriculture is still important to the Grange and its members in that the economic welfare of rural communities is still strongly influenced by the economic stability of agriculture.

They go to church on Sunday. Sermon on Luke 20 - render unto Caesar. Elder Lawton took a vote of congregation on whether they preferred responsive readings, or a scripture lesson. Not sure if that was just for the day, or was a vote on changing the order of service?

Monday, Henry helps Jen with the washing... he does the "pounding" and carrys out the water afterward. There would have been no machines to help --- water would have been heated in a big pot/boiler on the wood stove. Omar checks ice somewhere nearby -- finds it too thin for cutting and storing yet. I'm not sure exactly what Henry is thinking about when he mentions that "Omar was out last night. He is feeling very moderate" Maybe he thinks Omar was out drinking and had a bit of a hangover????? I'm sure he would have never mentioned it directly.

January 11 through 14, 1886

2009-01-11T02:00:00.000-08:00

Click on picture to enlarge for easier reading.

More wheat taken to the mill for flour and feed. Sarah picks up the dress she was measured for last week. A check of the accounts at the end of this diary shows the dress cost 75 cents. I'll try to get the account pages posted to a separate web page for reference as we go along.

Tuesday, they butcher pigs - not sure how many --- lightest was 262 pounds, heaviest was 290. They get Head cheese, Sausage, Ham, Shoulder, Lard, Hocks, and I'm sure lots of stuff not mentioned, from the pigs. The actual butchering only takes 3 1/2 hours, but making the sausage, head cheese, etc. takes place over the next couple of days, along with preservation in barrels with salt.

Mart (?) Lawyer buys 1800 raspberry roots for $5. The Olney's lived on what is present day Lawyer Road.

They make sausage, etc on Wednesday... put up a cask of side meat, and 195 pounds of ham! Henry scalds a barrel for the hams and shoulders. While it is cold in January, this meat probably will last into warmer weather. 13 people probably go through food pretty fast though.

On Thursday, they go visit Aunt Mary and Uncle Augustus Weld. Augustus is Sarah's uncle - her Mother's younger brother. Sarah's Mother is Julia (Lydia) Matilda Weld Hill. Looks like Sarah is an only child, but Sarah's Mother is one of 14 children. Lots of aunts and uncles for these kids!

Just a quick person note ------ This is fun!!!!!

January 7 through 10, 1886

2009-01-07T02:00:00.000-08:00

Another thing you don't just go to the store for... Sarah colors some yarn for socks. Both yarn and socks are not store bought! Next day - some preparation for butchering a hog for meat. Borrow a proper knife from a neighbor, and put hoops on a barrel for scalding the pig to remove the hair. When Lois gets sick, she gets Ealsworth pills (no idea), and a dose of Quinine. These days doctors seem to avoid Quinine! ..... followed by "one dose of Veratrum" -- still a standard Homeopathic medication today - intended for high blood pressure. They also apply hot flannel cloths. Lois recovers despite the treatments? This won't be the last odd medical treatment by methods considered to be incorrect, or even dangerous by today's standards. Note: Henry and Sarah sleep upstairs - presumably to let Lois stay warmer in their bed? This indicates they live in a two story home.

The pump freezes up on Sunday, and Omar goes to Bloods for a repair part. Just for the record, the pump would be a hand pump, probably outdoors? Bloods is a nearby community currently known as Atlanta, NY. Origin of the name seems to be unknown - possibly from a family name of the folks who ran the train depot there??? The depot is still standing today. My mother left for college from that same depot in 1944?

Click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments.

January 3 through 6, 1886

2009-01-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

Weather will be a big part of every day's entry. On a farm weather is very important. Henry stays home on Sunday instead of going to "meeting" because of the inclement weather.

On Monday, Henry works at "cobling and mending" things... Shoe repair for Bart, Stella, and Jen, and repair of a horse harness. A lot of things are made or repaired right at home. No quick trip to the store to buy a new one!

On Tuesday, Sarah and Henry go to town (Naples). 4 bushels of wheat gets them two bags of feed, and a bag of flour at Red Mill. Sarah gets button hole shears, and gets measured for a dress. Henry buys this diary for 45 cents!

Wednesday he and Sarah go visiting. Visiting is a common activity even though it involves pretty much the whole day or sometimes even overnight because transportation is horse and buggy, and even fairly short distances by today's standards involve a few hours of effort.

Click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments.

January 1-2, 1886

2009-01-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

You'll notice Henry will give a brief summary of the weather every day. As a farm family, pretty much all income, food, and other stuff, like heat, comes from the farm, and the weather is critical! The 4 cords of wood cut on New Year's Day, will heat their home. January 1 is definitely not a day off! Omar (24 years old), Bart (18 years old), and Mills (16 years old) are the three oldest sons. Bart is my great grandfather!

Click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Feel free to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments.