USA > New York > Greene County > Catskill > Reminiscences of Catskill : local sketches > Part 5
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His favorite resort, however, was the store of good old Major HAWLEY. I believe the Major really liked Simon, and he frequently gave him good advice, mixed with small change. Simon liked the Major, too, but most he liked to "arger," as he termed it. It mattered but little what was the subject-Politics, Religion, Law or Metaphysics were all the same to him, for he probably knew nothing of either. Yet, I have known him to hold an argument for hours together, to his own entire satisfaction, if not to the discomfiture of his antagonist ; and I well remember that once, when the Major gave him a silver quarter, and advised him to spend it for meat for his family, in- stead of liquor, Simon proposed to "arger the pint," insisting that "rum was cheaper than meat, because it had no bones in it."
Simon, at last, wasted away, slowly and lazily, as he had lived, and was gathered to his fathers. If he did no great good in the world, he did no great harm, and he left children who, I believe, have held respectable if not prominent positions in the communities in which they resided.
JOE WILLIAMS was, as long ago as I can remember, a resident of the town poor house, when that institution was located in the old Court House, near the Jail. I never knew him to pursue any other vocation than to peddle, from a basket, such commodities as shad, candies, bull heads, cakes, and cigars at two for a cent. He was an inoffensive man, and, to use his own expressive language, (the English a little twisted, ) he had "always tried to live a useless life, and if he did anything wrong he was willing to be recommended for it." (I shall speak more in extenso of this character hereafter.)
SAM. STEWART lived neighbor to Simon Smith, in Poverty Hollow. My recollection of him is not very clear, but I remember that he, like Williams, sometimes peddled, though in a more exalted range, and, like him too, sometimes wrenched the vernacular. He had a ricketty old horse and a crazy wagon, and carried fish and clams into the country. I remember but one important event in his life, which was an accident which befell him on one of his peddling tours. It seems Sam was quietly snoozing on his load, when the old horse, tempted by the grass which bordered the highway, strayed from the road and cap- sized the wagon. Sam's head struck a stone, or a clam struck his head, and he was brought
um, was subjected to the trepanning process, and, to the astonishment of everybody, recov- ered. Soon after he got about again, he gave me a full account of the accident, and avowed his belief that he would have died had not the doctor japanned him.
JOE GARRISH was also an inmate of the poor house, both in this town and after it was removed to Cairo, as a County institution. Joe was a sort of bird of passage, though his mi- grations were not very extensive. In the Spring he would haul a little upon the land- line of a fishing net; in the Fall he would inflate bladders at the slaughter-house, and when cold weather set in he would hibernate at the County House. One day, in the latter part of April, after the last snow had melted from the mountains, (a sure indication that Shad had begun to run up the River,) I met Joe in the street, and inquired what had brought him to town. He replied that he had got leave "for to come down, for to fish, for to get some money, for to buy some clothes, for to go to Newark, for to see his mother." Some of your readers will remember an attor- ney and, whilom, a Justice of the Peace, who sprinkled his speeches very liberally with these double prepositions, but I think Joe Garrish could "ring in" forty for tos to a dozen of the squire's.
SAM STEELE Was another original character, but of rather a higher grade. He would work, and work steadily, too, at his trade of tinker, for a long time, when he would suddenly cease from his labors, pack his old seal-skin portmanteau with his tools, and his skin with whisky, and perambulate the streets for about forty-eight hours, preparatory to his departure from the Village. He would, sometimes, be gone for a year, when he would re-appear as suddenly as he left, repeat his two days' per- egrinations between the Point and BROSNA- HAM's, and resume his work.
At one of these revisitations, I ventured to enquire where he had been during his absence. He said that he had been living with the Shakers at Niskayuna. To my further enquiry why he had not remained with them, he answered that he never left the community until sleeping on the Mohawk flats and drink- ing cold water, "caused the frogs to croak in his belly," excepting once, when he was ejected by the fraternity because he was so slow in hoeing corn that the shade of his broad-brimmed hat killed the plants.
The names of many others of this class come crowding upon my memory, but having quite filled up my privileged space in your paper, I must defer to some other time any notice of their characteristics or eccentricities.
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CATSKILL CEMETERY PAPERS .- SECOND SERIES. - No. V.
MARONI 3, 1863.
"Methinks it is good to be here ; If thon wilt, let us build"-but to whom ? Nor ELIAS nor MOSES appear,
But the shadows of Evening encompass, in gloom, The abode of the dead and the place of the tomb.
Shall we build to AMBITION ? Ah, no ! Affrighted he shrinketh away, For see, they would pin him below, In a dark narrow cave, and begirt with cold elay, To the meanest of reptiles a peer and a prey.
Shall we build to the trappings of PRIDE, To the tinsel which dizens the proud ? Nay, now they are laid aside, And here's neither dress nor adornment allowed, Save the pale winding-sheet and the fringe of the shroud.
To BEAUTY ? alas! she forgets The charms which she wielded before. Nor knows the foul worm that he frets
The skin which, but yesterday, fools could adore For the smoothness it held, or the tint which it worc.
These lines, last read more than forty years ago, and now imperfectly quoted from mem- ory, have always recurred to me whenever I have visited "Our Cemetery" at the close of day. I have looked at the graves of those who coveted and attained worldly distinction, and it has saddened me to reflect that here is the end of all their schemes and hopes. I have looked at the monuments of those whom I remember as haughty and disdainful, who trod God's earth as though they spurned it, and have been humbled by the thought that all their majestic footsteps have but tended to the grave. I have leaned upon the tomb-stone of some once lovely girl, and have wondered at, and doubted the justice of that dispensation which sent the canker-worm to eat out the life of the bud, just as it was passing into the full-blown flower. I have sat by the narrow beds of some who were friends and school- mates, and have almost involuntarily called them to return and renew our pleasant associa- tions. But no answer has come back-the voice of friendship meets no response-and silence broods over the loved and lost.
"Friends, lovers, and kindred are laid side by side, Yet none have saluted, and none have replied."
Let, then, the frail tabernacles which I essay to build, be to those to whom death did not come to sever any ardent friendships, to mar any lustrous beauty, to prostrate any haughty spirit, nor to check any ambitious aspirations-but as a blessed minister of relief for all their griefs and sorrows.
Among the humble and stricken class who lived in Catskill in the olden time, were some who were bereft of reason, and who, I am
sorry to say, were made sport of by such thoughtless youngsters as myself.
Mother COONRAD is associated with my earli- est recollections, and will be remembered by many of your elder readers as "a lively old gal." Hers was a merry and, sometimes, a meddlesome madness. She used to sing all sorts of ditties to all sorts of tunes, and they were not always of the most refined or delicate form of expression. She danced, too, all manner of jigs, and pigeon-wings, with a looseness and display of limb which, in those days, (it was before the advent of Madame CELESTE,) was considered rather immodest. She had, too, a great and, sometimes, trouble- some inclination to "set things to rights." I have known her to enter a kitchen, seize the broom, drive out the inmates, and set herself busily at work to sweep every corner of the room and hearth, dust the furniture, arrange all the chairs in a row against the wall, and then depart, with one of her peculiar saltatory exhibitions, flinging back a charge of sluttish- ness against some of the neatest and tidiest housewives in the Village.
SALLY VAIL was the opposite of Mother Coonrad. Hers was a melancholy madness, and it was said that unrequited affection was the cause of her malady. (If she was always as homely as I remember her, I cannot find it in my heart to blame her swain for declining to swap loves with her. ) She moped about, OPHE- LIA-like, crooning over such dismal ballads as "Barbara Allen, " and begging pins, and seemed happiest when the sleeve of her linsey-woolsey gown was covered, from shoulder to wrist, with these shining little articles, arranged like the chevrons on an Orderly Sergeant's jacket.
But the one who will be freshest in the memory of your citizens, was JOSEPH WYMAN. Before my time he had taught a school in the Village, and I have heard that he was a most excellent teacher. He had been absent from Catskill for many years, and I don't know that I had ever heard of him, when, one cold afternoon, as I was sitting in the store of TERTULLUS LUDINGTON, at the foot of Main street, a tall, stout-built man, in butternut- colored clothes, and a snuffy nose, came in, followed by a short woman with a snuffier nose, and a moustache which would be envied by any of our young bucks in these hirsute days. The man called for some gin, and after dividing it with the woman, looked around upon the company, and asked : "Am I quite forgotten-does no one here know me ?" and then went off into a wild and inco- herent declamation. Suddenly ceasing, he singled out a man from the crowd which had
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gathered, and throwing his arms about him, ยก serious in its consequences. A gang of lads, exclaimed : "My old friend, TUNIS RYER, have you forgotten JOSEPH WYMAN ?" The scene was ludicrous. Tunis, who was troubled with a sort of string-halt, twitched and writhed, and wriggled in the lunatic's embrace, but he might as well have tried to extricate himself from the hug of a bear-while the woman, in sympathetic joy, made a similar tender demonstration on the whole crowd, from which I fortunately escaped by hiding in the cellar. Quiet being, after a while, restored, Wyman introduced his companion as his wife, ELIZABETHI ; Tunis, after some rubbing, ascer- tained that his bones were whole, and ELI LUDINGTON treated the company. In this way I became acquainted with Joseph Wyman, and Elizabeth, his wife.
After this, he became a fixture in the town, and his senses becoming more and more hope- lessly impaired, he was made the butt for all the wild pranks of all the vagabond boys of the Village. By the aid of some good-hearted persons, he managed to build a little shanty, about the size of a dry-goods box, on the site afterwards occupied by the Cholera Hospital, and here all sorts of annoyance was practiced upon him. The spring, where he obtained his little supply of water (his principal drink was Gin) was roiled, dead cats were thrown into his window, and living cats were let down his chimney. On such occasions he would rush out, and failing to find his tor- mentors, would indulge in the most uncouth oaths and hideous blasphemies which I ever heard issue from mortal lips. I have some- times thought that his sin would not, at last, be charged so much to the account of the poor old man as to that of his persecutors.
The last trick which I remember to have been played upon him, came nigh to being
some of them old enough to know better, supplied themselves with long levers, and at the hour of midnight went to work to disturb the perpendicularity of Joe's domicile. Slow- ly, inch by inch, one side was elevated, until the floor described an angle of forty-five degrees with the horizon, when down slid the table, the stools, the stove, the kettles, and bed with its inmates, in one mass, against the door, barring all egress, and the coals igniting the bedding, it seemed, for a few minutes, that a holocaust would be made of poor Joe and Betty Wyman. After the fire was quenched, Joe stood in perfect silence-not an oath, not even an ejaculation escaped him. Like the man who lost his ashies, he seemed to lack expletives to "do justice to the subject."
Not long after this, the couple left the town, and I presume long ere this found a refuge from all earthly annoyances, and mayhap, in a better world than this, have recovered that reason of which, by the inscrutable providence of God, they were here deprived.
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At this moment the tap of a muffled drum arrests my attention, and looking from my window, I see the coffin of a dead soldier car- ried past. The mournful strains of the Dead March, the reversed arms, and the saddened faces of his late associates, as they bear him on his way to some other "Village Cemetery," causes me to feel low insignificant are my attempts to revive the memories of the very few who are laid in our own burial grounds, as contrasted with the labor which will be required to write the individual history of the hecatombs which have been sacrificed in this War.
CATSKILL CEMETERY PAPERS .- SECOND SERIES .- NO. VI.
MAROH 17, 1865.
The mild weather which has prevailed for the last week, gives promise of an early return of Spring. The deep snows which have so long hidden from sight the graves in "Our Cemetery" are wasting away, under the alter- nating influence of warm rains and a bright sun, and passing off, in rapid flow, to join the waters of the Hudson. Very soon the trees and shrubbery will germinate and put forth their green leaves, the bright grass will spring from the earth, flowers will bloom, and
the migratory birds will return to build their Summer dwellings in this hallowed spot, and, with gleeful songs, to greet the liberation of Nature from the chill thraldom of Winter.
But, alas! in all this pleasant change, the sleepers around us will bear, as yet, no part ; their slumbers are unbroken; and to the realities of this life
"The breezy voice of incense-breathing morn, The swallow tittering in her grass-built shed ; The lark's shrill clarion, or the shepherd's horn, No more shall ronse them from their lowly bed."
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They rest from their labors, and here "they alike in trembling hope repose, " awaiting that vernal season promised by Him who triumphs over the grave; when those who were here bowed to the earth by the weight of years, shall rise rejuvenated ; when those who were weary with pain and sickness here, shall come forth refreshed ; when "beauty, immortal, shall wake from the tomb ;" and when those who sowed in sorrow here, shall reap in joy, in that land
"Where everlasting SPRING abides, And never-fading flowers."
To the happy fruition, in God's own time, of these trenibling hopes, we leave our buried dead, lingering only to rescue some of their memories from utter forgetfulness. And here allow me to say, that I have not given, and do not propose to give, any extended biography of those whose names present themselves to my mind. The pressure of daily labor, and a precarious state of health, prevent me from doing more than to remind your readers that certain individuals lived and died ; and even this I have only undertaken in the hope that some one of your old citizens, with more time and talent than myself, might become suffi- ciently interested to take the task out of my hands.
Not far from the abode of JOSEPH WYMAN, lived WILLIE SCOTT, the cartman, ABRAM FONDA and MATTHEW GRAVES. Of the first I will not now speak, as I intend to introduce him hereafter in a different connection ; and of Abram Fonda, I have but space to make brief mention. Gifted with talents far above mediocrity, to which were added a good edu- cation and a fund of humor, he had, in his early youth and manhood, occupied a social position higher than when I first became ac- quainted with him. By what adverse circum- stances he became reduced to the level of a day laborer, which he was, as long as I knew him, I have never heard. He resided for many years, and until his death, at the foot of Main street, on premises leased from GEO. CLARK, where he cultivated a garden which was the envy of his neighbors, and where I used frequently to resort, to listen to his stories of Old Times, for he had a happy knack of relating them, and was, in every respect, even in his old age, an intelligent and genial com- panion. I could repeat many of his "yarns," but I suspect they would be a little too broad to suit the tastes of some of your readers. One incident of his life I will endeavor to give you, as an evidence of his ingenuity and tact in getting over an apparently insurmountable difficulty, although, to those who have heard the story from his own lips, it will doubtless seem insipid in the repetition :
In early life he had been half office-boy and half student with PHILIP HOFFMAN, then an attorney of some considerable repute, in the town of Livingston. Among the many cases in which Hoffman was engaged, was one in which a pig-headed Dutchman occupied the position of defendant, without a defense .- Hoffman had looked into it, around it, and through it, but could find no ground upon which to stand before a Justice or a jury, and resolved to abandon it. At this juncture, Fonda came to the rescue. Stimulated by the promise of the entire fees, and a bonus to boot, if he should be successful in non-suiting the plaintiff, he appeared with his client before a Dutch justice in Johnstown. The attorney for the complainant was a young lawyer from Hudson, who had before won the favor of the magistrate by a show of great respect, and by addressing him by the flattering titles of "Your Honor, " "Your Worship, " "this Hon- orable Court, " &c. Abram realized the ad- vantage of his antagonist, and the hopelessness of his cause, unless he could manage to free the mind of the Justice from the unlucky bias. Accordingly, he invited the old gentleman to take a drink at the bar, when he began to in- sinuate that the opposing counsel had been in the habit of poking fun at the magistrate. "Have you not noticed, " said lie, "that upon all occasions he has addressed you with epithets such as are only befitting or pleasant to a Tory ? He styles you 'his Honor, ' 'his Worship,' 'his Mightiness,' and 'his Royal Highness,' when there are no such titles on this side of the Atlantic, since the Revolution, and this Hud- son pettifogger knows it. Depend upon it, he is ridiculing you."
"Waal," says the old Whig, "I will let the d-d Yankee see whether I am to be insulted in my own Court." The trial was called on, and testimony adduced on the part of the plaintiff. Abram declined to call his witnesses, (in fact he had none,) and also waived his right to the first summing up. As the op- posing counsel rose to make the closing speech, the Court peremptorily ordered him to take his seat : "For, " said he, "I gives shudgment for de tefendant." "But, your Honor-" interposed the counsel. "Sit town !" roared the Justice. "If you open your d-d Yan- kee jaws again, I will give you a permit for Claverack Jail. I dells you I gives shudgment for de tefendant, und de Court is adjourned." And so Abram won the hopeless case.
MAT. GRAVES lived adjacent to Fonda's garden-indeed, Abram sometimes thought in rather too close proximity. In front of his shanty, stretched Eastwardly and Southerly an extensive plain, where company drills and regimental reviews were held-the Champs de Mars of Catskill. As the military spirit
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was rife in those days, and these gatherings | of his Scotch neighbors. He also brought frequent, Mat. and his wife managed to pick with him what he declared was the veritable muster-roll of a militia company in one of the towns of that county, peopled by an extensive family of GRANTS. As near as I can remem- ber, it ran somewhat as follows : up a good many shillings ; he by firing salutes with a swivel, she by the sale of ginger-bread, molasses candy and spruce beer. Outside of this, Mat. did not perform any more work than the law allows. Mrs. Graves had the reputation of being a very industrious and tidy woman ; in illustration of which latter quality I will state that, meeting Mat. one day, carry- ing a pot of green paint, I enquired what he intended to do with it, when he very gravely answered that his wife had become so excess- ively fastidious in her neatness that she wanted her oven-wood painted.
Mat. sometimes, too, became confused in his ideas of meum and tuum. One day Mr. APOLLOS COOKE handed him a fine turkey, and directed him to take it home and tell the folks to cook it for dinner. At the usual dinner hour, Mr. Cooke went home, but no turkey had been left, and consequently none had been roasted. He went in search of Mat. to learn the cause of the mistake, when that vagabond averred that he had obeyed orders literally by taking the turkey home, and that he knew it was properly cooked, for Mrs. Graves and himself had just made a most excellent meal of it.
Mat. Graves came to Catskill from Delaware 3 County, and he used to relate many anecdotes | sketches.
Among the officers were-Captain Sandy Grant, Lieutenant Sandy Grant, Sergeant San- dy Grant, Corporal Sandy Grant. Among the privates were Muckle Sandy Grant, Wec Sandy Grant, Lame Sandy Grant, One-eyed Sandy Grant, Red-headed Sandy Grant, Left-handed Sandy Grant, and a score of others whose dis- tinctive prefixes I cannot remember, but which all went to show that Alexander was a favor- ite name in the Grant family. Mat. would call this roll, and make the responses, with all the variations of the Scottish brogue, and in that inimitable manner of which paper and ink can convey no adequate idea.
The last time I remember to have seen Mat- thew Graves, he was busily engaged in digging up bricks from the side-walk, in search of imaginary rats ! Poor fellow ! Whisky had about finished its work, and he died soon after of delirium tremens.
I have not quite finished with this characer, but must defer further notice of him, and others, to another number of these imperfect
CATSKILL CEMETERY PAPERS .- SECOND SERIES .- No. VII.
MARCH 21, 1865.
For most of the past week I have been oc- cupied in sitting up of nights, to watch, like CANUTE, the advancing waters, * which threat- ened to invade my domicil. The consequence is a general disarrangement of pots, kettles and pans, and a most villainous attack of rheumatism. To this must be attributed the brevity and defects of the Sketch which I attempt, this evening, to furnish you. Your readers will doubtless find comfort in the assurance which GOLDSMITHI offered, in his "Elegy on a Mad Dog," that
"If they find it wondrous short, It will not hold them long."
WEEDS, I have but an indistinet personal remembrance. Though in humble walks of life, they were both, I believe, esteemed as honest, industrious men, and one of them (I do not know which) has acquired some posthu- mous celebrity as being the progenitor of the well-known THURLOW WEED, of political no- toriety and editorial renown, and who has so well exemplified the truism that "Honor and shame from no condition rise." And here I am reminded of the somewhat remarkable fact, that the two most distinguished editors of the rival parties of the State, EDWIN CROS- WELL and THURLOW WEED, Were boys together in the same little Village.
The earliest draymen of Catskill, of whom I have any recollection, were WILLIAM (or "Wooley") SCOTT, the two JOE WEEDS, (JOEL and JOSEPH, ) and HUGH DOUGHERTY. Of the I have heard some anecdotes of Mr. Weed's carly life, from the old inhabitants of Catskill, but as they do not come immediately into connection with the subject of the present latter there is nothing to relate, unless it may paper, I refrain from relating them ; and I be of interest to know that he was a little, should not even now venture to allude to his cross-grained, testy Irishman. Of the two : birth-place or hoyhood, if (in reply to a recent
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invitation of the city of New York to accept a public dinner) he had not himself referred to his early life, and to his first entrance into that city, as cabin boy of a Catskill sloop ; nor if I had not been told, by those intimate with him, that he now, in his old age, cherishes fond recollections of our Village, and those friends of his youth who have passed away forever.
My first, and indeed only individual ac- quaintance with Mr. Weed, consists in an introduction to him, by himself, in a stage coach, somewhere between Canandaigua and Albany, in the Summer of 1828. That was the very year in which I became a voter, and it is pretty well known that I have never since that time cast my ballot with any of the po- litical parties of which he has been the ac- knowledged leader ; yet I am sure there are none who entertain a deeper personal respect for him than I do, nor who more highly esti- mate his talents, and admire his social qualities and generous disposition. Long may he be spared to his many zealous and devoted friends.
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