USA > New York > Wayne County > Rose > Rose neightborhood sketches, Wayne County, New York; with glimpses of the adjacent towns: Butler, Wolcott, Huron, Sodus, Lyons and Savannah > Part 12
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Next came Thomas Henderson, son of Eustace and grandson of that sturdy early settler, Gideon. His wife was Georgie Waring, whom he married in Wolcott; but it is not a little interesting to find that she is descended from the Lovejoys, her great grandmother, who early went to Illinois, having been one of that group of nine sisters whom our pioneer left in Massachusetts. Very aged, she some years ago made inquiries, through Mrs. H.'s mother, about that only brother who so long before had made his home in the wilderness. The inquiries prosecuted by Miss Waring, then a school teacher in the district, resulted in tracing the relationship. It seems very meet that some one of the Lovejoy race should continue to hold the old estate.
The next place, across the road and a little further north, is the home of the widow of James Lovejoy. It is on the old Lovejoy purchase and makes a very pleasant home for Mrs. L. and for her aged mother, Mrs. Tupper, once Mrs. Ira Lake. From this place she can make visits, long or short, as she likes, to her children, whom we have found scattered from New Hampshire to Wisconsin. (Widow Sarah Jones has come back from Illinois, and holds the place. Her son, Alfred, married Nellie E. Lovejoy ; Charles, Eva and Frank are at home. Mrs. J. is a daughter of Richard Garratt. Mrs. Lovejoy continues to live here much of the time. )
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Proceeding northward, at our right, we shall find the home of Darius Lovejoy, whose father, Daniel, lived nearly opposite, and here his trade, that of a carpenter and joiner, enabled him to erect a comfortable home. His wife is Sally Sampson, a daughter of Gamaliel and Harriet Sampson, formerly of Butler. There are no children to be recorded in this narrative, though one epitaph in the cemetery tells of the loss of a child years ago. The Lovejoy characteristic of large families seems, in this generation, to be in abeyance.
On the corner is a home long conspicuous in the neighborhood. Here, years ago, Daniel Lovejoy, son of Parmer, erected his house, and here brought his wife, Sophia Bassett. The usual transition from log to frame house was had ; the farmer living comfortably and finally dying in 1861, nearly sixty-nine years old. His wife survived him until 1867, when she, too, passed away, at the age of nearly sixty-four years. Of their children we have already accounted for the oldest, Darius. Besides, there were David, who married Parisade, daughter of Horace Peck, of the old Savan- nah family, and went to Michigan ; John, who married Jane Weeks, from New Hampshire, and lives in Glenmark ; Daniel married Jane Potter, of Rose, and lives in Cayuga county ; and Phoebe, the wife of Martin Darling. After the Lovejoys, the place was occupied for a while by John Briggs, son of Jonathan Briggs, of North Rose. His wife was an Otto, [and after the death of her father they moved to the Otto farm, just over the Huron line, and the place passed into possession of Harvey Mason, of whom we have already heard as the husband of Julia, the youngest of the Lovejoy chil- dren. Mr. Mason's history is an entertaining one. Long past the four score years of the Psalmist, he says he is not conscious of any pains nor aches, though we are told that such years are to be labor and sorrow. He was born in Castleton, Rutland Co., Vermont. His father, Robert, was from Sheffield, Mass., whence he had migrated to the Green Mountain State, but like many other early New York settlers, he was dissatisfied, and so pushed on to the then west. His wife was Ruth Calender, both names being of most excellent reputation in the Bay State. Here, i. e., in Vermont, Harvey Mason was born, on the 18th of June, 1805. In 1814 the westward march was made, and Robert Mason first settled on the farm long known as the Carrier place, but now occupied by Isaac Cole. He built near here a log house. His companion in this western move was Jonathan Nichols, who lived for a while on the place now held by Halsey Smith. Afterward he lived on the farm known as the Chaddock place, now that of Wm. H. Cole. For a time the elder Masons made their home with Harvey, but they afterward went to Ohio, where their last days were passed with their daughters, Eveline and Delia. Besides Harvey there were children : Amos, who was drowned in Lake Erie, his wife, Susan Wilcox ; Robert, who died in Michigan ; Alvin, who died in Steuben county ; Eveline, who
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married Levi Lewis, and Delia is unmarried. The latter two live in Cleveland, Ohio. Harvey Mason and wife began housekeeping or domestic life with Mrs. H.'s nephew, Daniel, on the corner, while Mr. M.'s farm lay further west upon the hill. Here, many years ago, he erected a commodious house, still standing; but he did not intend to occupy it at once. His wife, however, was anxious to have a home of her own, and wanted to move immediately. It was before the days of stoves and Mr. M. objected that there was no fireplace nor chimney. "I don't care," said the young woman, " I can cook against a stump." So said the veteran long afterward, "I thought if she was so eager as that for a home by her- self, I would fix up at once for moving in." And fix he did, making this their abode for many years, until 1871, when they moved to the corners. The children were three daughters : Laura, who married Dorman Munsell, 2d, and lives on what was the west end of her father's farm; Almanda, who was the first wife of Winfield Chaddock ; and Lucy, who married Henry Gillett, and died in Michigan. Both of these daughters are buried in the Lovejoy burial ground, within sight of the window at which sits many an hour the aged mother, who, as she knits, no doubt recalls from the buried past many a pleasant memory of the loved ones to whom she must one day go. Mrs. Chaddock died in 1859, at the early age of twenty-six. Mrs. Gillett died in 1880, aged nearly forty-four. In early life Mr. Mason learned the house builder's trade and so could not only build his own home, but he was the framer and builder of very many edifices in the vicinity. As he is prone to state, "It was my trade that gave me a start." Possessed of a goodly share of this world's goods, and through an upright life having a lively hope of the life to come, he calmly awaits the inevitable summons. Both he and his wife have long been members of the Rose Methodist Church. (D. 1889.) In the battle of life Mrs. Mason has been no ineffi- cient ally of her husband. Many years since, he made a carpet weaving loom for her, and on it she has woven many thousand yards of carpet. During the War, in one year, she wove more than eleven hundred yards ; but the loom is among the " has-beens "-sold and gone ; but many a foot in this and adjacent towns are pressing a surface which is due to the nimble hands and feet of Mrs. Mason. (Mr. H. W. Clapper, who married Angi- nette Munsell, Mrs. Mason's granddaughter, now manages the farm.)
Taking the road towards the east, a quarter of a mile along, we come to the cemetery frequently referred to. Just beyond are the large barns of the Toles farm, while across the way is the house. One of the first, if not the very first dweller here was Eli Ward, who had married Polly Lovejoy. After him came Silas Lovejoy, Polly's oldest brother. He built a log house somewhere between the Toles house and that of his son, Norman. As near as I can learn, Silas L. had more experience in log house architecture than any man of his day. To begin with, he helped his father erect the very
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first. Soon afterward, since the parent stock appeared to be very filling, he put up a structure for himself, quite near the original one. Then came a house on the road still further north, near a spring, and still marked by an orchard and some tansy. This third house was succeeded in time by the frame building, which preceded the house now in use. The old house is now Mr. Toles' carriage barn. It was in this vicinity and in these houses that his family grew up. Before leaving Massachusetts he had married Anna Nichols, a sister of Jonathan Nichols, the first man on the Halsey Smith farm. His oldest son, Norman, was a babe of nine months when the long journey was made. To this first farm succeeded Nelson, who married Charity Morey, and for a while lived nearly opposite in the house now occupied by Eson Young, and whose present home is north of Wolcott. He has a son, Eson, and a daughter, Ellen ; William and Harmon died early ; Harriet wedded, first, Elijah Morey, and second, Watson Dowd, of Huron-thus becoming the mother of several well-known citizens of that town; Perliette married Ira Lamb of North Rose, and moved to Michigan, where she reared a family of three daughters and one son, and there died many years ago. Maria married Albert Preston, of Huron, and died several years since in Minnesota, leaving one daughter ; Alvira became the wife of Warren Stone, of Victory, and died a number of years ago, leaving three daughters and a son ; Sophronia, the youngest, was the second wife of Winfield Chaddock, and is the mother of Winfield, second, and Edith, who married Ernest O. Seelye. With her children she has gone to Dakota. These children, nine in number, I have been told, heard their lullabys while rocked in a sap trough. Highly decorated cribs and cradles could not be afforded then. No doubt childhood's sleep was just as sweet as it would have been if robed in silk and cradled in down; manifestly, it was more healthy. After disposing of his place to the Toleses, Mr. Lovejoy made his home near that of Mrs. Chaddock, west of the Lake school-house, and finally with her. His death came in 1877, when he was eighty-six years old. His wife had died four years before, when she was in her eighty-first year. Ebenezer Toles, who succeeded Silas Lovejoy on this farm, was born in Otsego county, October 12th, 1805. His first wife was Polly Williams, whom he married in Auburn prison ; said to be the first couple ever wedded there. Mr. T. worked the overseer's farm and the latter was a great friend of the prison chaplain, hence the marriage as above. After bearing him four children, she died in 1838, at the age of thirty-three years, and lies in the North Rose cemetery. He next married in the same year Hannah Vincent, a native of Maine, born November 22d, 1804, who died in this house in 1879. When Mr. Toles came to the town he was first on the farm west of Carrier's corners, once held by C. C. Collins. Selling this, he moved to Wayne Center, but afterward came to this farm, where his earthly days ended in 1883. He and his second wife
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sleep side by side in the adjacent burial ground. Mr. Toles was a member of the Rose Methodist Church ; his wife was a Presbyterian. The first wife's children were Matthew, who married Sarah A. Young, and lives now in Gratiot, Mich. ; Lucy, whom we met in District No. 5 as the wife of William Desmond ; Truman, who married Janette Baldwin. He died in Michigan in 1862, leaving a son, Truman ; Ebenezer, who was a member of the Ninth New York Heavy Artillery, and who died in February last, at the age of fifty-one. He was widely known in the town as "Eb" Toles, having a more extended reputation, perhaps, than many men of greater wealth and worth. The second Mrs. Toles was the mother of Ezra, who died at the homestead in January last, at the age of forty-six ; Julia, who married Henry Jones, son of Erving, and died in 1887, at the age of forty- four years, leaving a son, Erving ; Orson, who now resides upon the estate. His wife is Lettie Hoyt, of Weedsport. Their children are three, viz. : Willie V., Herbert H. and Orson. Mrs. Toles' brother, Adin, a wounded veteran of the Third New York Light Artillery, makes his home here. Mr. Toles has just erected a fine dry house, thus taking advantage of the march of improvement in farming. (Mr. Toles now lives in Wol- cott, and the farmer in charge is George Smith, reared in this district.)
The next place east on the south side of the road, is the home of Eson Young, a son-in-law of Norman Lovejoy. Crossing the road, we are again on familiar ground, for here we once more meet a Lovejoy, this time Norman, the oldest son of Silas, the only representative of the third generation of Parmer's family when they took up the line of march west- ward. He grew to manhood in sight of his present home, and the evening of his life is passed on acres every foot of which he has been over again and again. He went down into the Lyman neighborhood to find his wife who was Lydia Morey, from Saratoga county, originally. Both she and the neighbors familiarly refer to Mr. L. as "Dad." I think he doesn't resent the name. As we have seen, one brother, Nelson, and a sister, Harriet, married in the same family. He has had three children. His oldest, Eleanor, (died in 1893), was the wife of Eson Young, a Butler man, who, on his farm of forty-eight acres, lives opposite, and has one son named after his grandfather, Norman ; Silas married Eliza Lake, and lives south of the four corners. The youngest child, Anna, died at the age of twenty-three, in 1860. These old people have a pleasant home, endeared by long years of occupancy. "That quince bush," says Mr. L., "is the most thrifty one in the town." I fully agreed that to beat it, the bush would have to bear several bushels of fruit. His life can show the usual progress from a log house to the comfortable frame structure of to-day. To no other one person is the writer more indebted for family information than to the veteran farmer, Norman Lovejoy. (Silas Lovejoy and family have lived here several years. His mother died January 23d, 1892.) Our
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trip in this direction is over, for we now reach the farm of Eustace Henderson, whom we met in District No. 6.
To reach our next range of lots north we can go by Mr. Henderson's, and turning to our left, pass the homes of John Salisbury and Isaac Jones. Then reaching the lime kiln, we take the west road, but it is not until we have passed the houses of Augustus Lovejoy and Charles Hurter that we reach once more the confines of District No. 9. If we are on foot we shall save much time when we leave Norman Lovejoy's by going across lots through his lane and pasture to the parallel road north. However, taking the road after passing Hurter's, we find a comfortable house, having a sightly outlook from its position on a hill. The land hereabouts was first taken up by Caleb Drury. Of this particular portion, John Drury, of Huron, gives a very interesting history. He says the land was cleared by a Mr. Ferris, who, with his father and negro slaves, came from Virginia. To pay men for work done, orders were given on a store in Huron, managed by one Mudge. These accumulating, were traded by Mudge with a Williamson in Philadelphia for goods. Ferris was unable to redeem these orders, so the farm passed into W.'s possession, and from him John Drury, first, purchased. Then Mr. Drury sold to that omnivorous Sodus Canal Co. Afterward the place was bought by J. Gurnee, a Huron man, who built the house. Then came Henry Jones, son of John E., who lived here until 1885, when in April Nathan Knapp of Wolcott took possession. Mr. Knapp is a native of Columbia county, but has lived near Newark, and for several years in Wolcott, where he ran the foundry. His wife is Eliza Caton, from the city of Albany. They have only one son, Fred, who manages the foundry in Wolcott.
Going a few rods west we reach the home of Charles Buchanan, standing on the corner of the road leading up or down into Huron, on the west side of which, half a mile away, we should find the home of John Drury, a grandson of the first settler here. Caleb Drury, the first comer, was a native of Eden, Orleans county, Vermont. His wife was Jane Hudson. The first home was, as usual, a log house, under the hill, where an orchard and a well mark the old location. To these people was born a large family. The oldest son, Holloway, we shall meet further west ; John married Jane McFarland, of Vermont, and had six children. He went to Michigan in 1843, and there died. Elihu married Lovina, daughter of Alverson Wade, and after living a while near the Wade home, went west ; Anson married Sophia Munsell and lived in Wolcott ; Caroline, the oldest daughter, never moved to Rose, but married in Vermont, Solomon Wood, and went to Pennsylvania ; Sally and Nancy married Alvin and Wallace Buck, respectively, brothers, of Huron, and both migrated to Michigan. John, a son of John, now lives just north, as has been noted, on the Wolcott road. Caleb Drury, at the age of eighty, died in 1843, and was buried in
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Huron. From the Drurys the place passed to Wolcott Blodgett, from Connecticut, who married Mary, daughter of Wooster Henderson, of Butler. He had three boys born here, but when they were small, the family went to Michigan. He sold to the Sodus Canal Co. Then for a time came one DeBow, from Canandaigua. His wife died here and he went back to Ontario county. To him succeeded David H. Town, son of Asa, of Dis- trict No. 5, and in 1857 we find it owned by Marvin D. Hart, who was born in Junius, Seneca county. His wife was Mary Jane Miner, of Butler, but born in Perry, Wyoming county. Mr. Hart made extensive repairs and additions, and as a leading member of the Rose Baptist Church, had a wide circle of friends in the vicinity. The writer recalls one festive occasion in the winter of 1865 and 1866, when a merry load of Rose and Butler young people made the welkin ring until a late hour. Then when we started away, and were going down the hill west of the house, the sleigh tongue fell down, and we were soon landed in the fence, luckily without broken bones. In the farm there are ninety acres, and with buildings in good condition, the place is particularly attractive. Mr. Hart left the farm about eighteen years ago, and after living in Marengo and Clyde, finally located on the Henry Rice place in the Valley, where he died, greatly respected and lamented, on the 21st of June last, aged fifty-eight. His children are Lycurgus S., who married widow Seaman, and lives in Wol- cott, and Alice M., who is at home with her mother. Mrs. Hart's father, Isaac Miner, long resident of Butler, also lives with her. He was born the 12th of April, 1792, in Stonington, Conn .; he is probably now the oldest person in town. To the Harts succeeded the Buchanans, who came directly from Huron, but remotely from Rochester. The father, Joseph, died in Galen. His widow, who as a girl was Rebecca Vance, from Pennsylvania, now occupies the old home. (Died February 13, 1890, in her eighty-first year.) Her oldest son, Charles, we have just passed at the corner of the road, where he has erected a house, in which, with his wife, Imogene Prescott, he is rearing his children, Robert and Hattie. Let us hope that this coming Robert may equal the reputation of that other and famous Robert Buchanan, whose verse has pleased so many. Mrs. B.'s second son, Robert, was a soldier in the 111th, and was killed before Petersburg, June 16th, 1864 ; Mary A. lives at home with her mother, while Louisa is Mrs. Landers, of Sodus.
Down the hill, eighty rods away, on the south side of the road, is a small farm owned now by Charles Peck and George Wellington, son and son-in-law of Betsey (Kellogg) Peck, whom we first met in Butler. The last owner, before them, was David Wood, who, a native of Vermont, dropped dead some years since, when on his way to Clyde. I am told that the house was built for Silas Lovejoy, oldest son of Norman, and that he lived here until he went to reside on the Lake farm. Mrs. Peck, well
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known to her friends as " Aunt Betsey," and her children have our best wishes in this new undertaking.
The red house, nearly opposite, and well back from the road, is the home of Daniel Lewis. He is a son of P. T. Lewis, who lives further west. Daniel L. married Mary, daughter of Dorman Munsell, and has three children-Lloyd B., Lena and Lester. The alliterative succession of L's will be noted. Whether, had there been more children, there could be found more names beginning with the favorite letter, I can't tell. Mr. Lewis' home is well known in the vicinity as the old " Holl " Drury farm, for here, during a long life, resided Holloway Drury, the oldest son of that Caleb whom we met half a mile back. He was twice married ; once in Vermont, and, second, here, to Prudence Aldrich, a sister of Peter, of Stewart's district. He died in 1877, at the extreme age of ninety-two, and was buried with the Lovejoys. He was, I believe, a member of the Methodist Church. Though for some years residing with the Lewis family, he died with his nephew, John. By his first wife, he was the father of Adaline, 'now more than seventy-four years old, who has been all her life a most singularly afflicted being. From her childhood, she has had no use whatever of her hands, they and her face having a form of St. Vitus' dance. Had she been taught to read in her childhood, her later years might have been more pleasant, but in spite of all adversities, she has done what seems almost impossible. Seated upon the floor, with her toes she cuts out blocks of cloth and sews them together, having thus made several bedquilts. She threads her own needle, using her toes only. In fine, whatever she does must be done with these members. She cuts out, very deftly, little heart-shaped pieces of papers, which, with the bedquilt . blocks, she gives to visitors as mementoes ; no pun intended there. Her father's place passed into the hands of Mr. Lewis as compensation for the care of this life-long helpless person.
We next encounter the small house belonging to H. Garlic. For some years this was the home of Alfred Graham, a good soldier of Company A, Ninth Heavy Artillery, who died in 1874. His wife was Kate Eldred, of Rose. He was a nephew of Henry Graham of Rose, though reared in Huron. His father was Zachariah. A comrade of mine, I am glad to know that he was a good citizen as well as soldier. The place came into Graham's hands through his mother, who traded property in Huron with old Captain Sours. There were fifty-six acres in the farm. The house was probably built by a Wood, a relative of "Holl " Drury. H. M. Smith lived here for a while. Mr. Graham had one daughter, Ida, who married Millard Ward and died in Chicago.
Crossing the railroad we find a very fine white house, where lives. Philander T. Lewis, a native of the section of country near Rochester. Coming here many years ago, he married Anna, the only child of Daniel
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Tucker, the then owner. This farm was taken from the office by one John White, who built a log house. Then came one Murray, who sold to the Sodus Canal Company, and then came Mr. Tucker, a native of Derby, Connecticut. His wife was Anna Ryan, who, more than ninety-one years of age, lives with the Lewises. (She has since died. ) Mr. Tucker died October 12th, 1876, and is buried in Huron, where lies also Mr. Ryan, Mrs. Tucker's father, who accompanied her to this town. It is in this house that Adaline Drury finds a home. Mr. Lewis has one daughter only-Anna B., the wife of Benjamin Dowd, formerly of Huron, now of Oswego. (Mr. Lewis died August 15, 1890.)
This east and west road that we have followed for a mile and a half, terminates in one, north and south, and just opposite the end is the home of Halsey M. Smith. This place was pre-empted by Jonathan Nichols, who erected the customary log house. The succession of owners is not clear, but I find the names of Eddy, Havens, Wm. Hallenbeck, who built the framed house. Early in the century Robert Mason must have lived here, for in his own language Harvey M. says : "I have eaten no end of johnny-cake on that farm." It was johnny-cake eating and hard work that enabled the first comers to pay for their farms. After the Hallenbecks came Andrew Pearsall, then Melvin Knights, from Saratoga county, and finally the present owner, who is a son of Solomon Smith, whom we shall meet further north. He married Maria Wilson, of Butler, and is the father of four daughters, viz .: Elva, wife of David Doolittle, of Huron ; Lucy, who married Augustus Lovejoy ; Cora and Retta at home. (Cora is now Mrs. Harvey D. Munsell and Augustus Lovejoy works the farm.)
A few steps north is an old house belonging to the Tucker property, and long used as a tenant house. Of such it would be too great a task to recall the occupants.
There is one house, possibly twenty rods north, which lies or stands just on the line between Huron and Rose, and here I must remark that all the dwellers on the north side of this last Rose road have more belongings .in Huron than in Rose. In fact, Mr. Knapp's farm lies in Butler as well as in the other two. If the line had followed the last line of lots in Rose, some of this trouble might have been saved. As it is, for several miles, these farmers are in two towns. This house, which stands on the line, was built by Solomon Smith, and he slept regularly in one town and ate in another. Mr. S. was born in Wallingford, Conn., and married in Wood- bury, Conn., Miss Sarah Ryan, a sister of Mrs. Daniel Tucker. The Ryans were from Southbury, New Haven Co. They came to Wayne county soon after the opening of the Erie canal, and made their first stop at " 'Squire" Daniel Roe's, in Butler, whose family they had known in Connecticut. They soon came to this place, a farm of one hundred acres. Their children were William, who married Betsey, daughter of Jacob Wright, of Butler-
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