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 33
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Near the road is the home of George Stubley, English born, as is his wife, Elizabeth Ranson, both from Lincolnshire. They have two sons and two daughters-William, Fred, Cora and Rose. Mr. Stubley, who is a worker in stone and general laborer, bought of John Gage, a brother of Wesley. William is now with the 10th U. S. Infantry, and Fred is in the employ of the New York Central Railroad. In the brick house near (owned by a Mrs. Brewster of Wolcott), lives James W. Colborn. In the Valley he is better known as " Jim " or "Judge." The Colborn family was met in District No. 8, where James was born and where he lived till about twenty years since, when he moved into the Valley. For some time he was on Main street, near the corner of Thomas. His wife's maiden name was Martha M. Worden, a daughter of Alanson, formerly of the Jeffers neighborhood. Their children are : Irving Worden, married and living in Newark ; Edwin Douglas, who married Adaline Doremus, and lives in North Rose; Rosa Belle, the wife of Arthur T. Barless, of Rose ; Abbie M. and Clarence Clifford, at home. (Douglas Colborn, a painter by trade, lives now in Newark. He has children, Earl and Glen. )
A vacant lot stands in the name of E. T. Pimm and then we find a small structure, used at times for a feed mill, belonging to Collins Wood.
On the corner, for a narrow street runs southerly by the school-house grounds, is Mrs. Mary Cleveland. Alfred Harmon once owned the place and built the house.
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Still further south owns the widow of C. M. Shaver. Then comes Thomas Hamm, whose house, formerly owned by Byron Crandall, was partly at one time the shoe shop of Jonathan Wilson, and stood on Main street, three doors south of Pimm's Hotel. Mr. Hamm is from Columbia Co .; his wife was Charlotte Van Dusen. They have two children, William and Augusta. He came to Rose twenty-three years since. Finally, Mrs. Jane Sweet resides, and here the street ends.
Coming back to Thomas street, the school-house is next, to be noticed at length hereafter. No residences intervene till we come to that of William Matthews. This was built by William Holbrook. Mr. Matthews is English born, coming to America forty years since. His first wife he married in England; her name was Sarah Steele. Three children died in the old country, and three came to this land, viz .: William, who married Ida Birdsall, and lives in Clyde ; Melicent, who married John Viele, of Rose; both are dead ; and Mary, who married William Bofinger, and lives in Clyde. His second wife was Rachel Viele, of Rose, and their children are Richard and Louis, twins, who, with Joseph, the next son, are married and living in Madison county ; Charles, in Union Springs, and John, who married Emma D. Hamm, and lives south of the Valley. In addition to this place, Mr. M. owns the house on Main street, in which William A. Mix resides. He will also be met as a former resident in other places.
The street to which we have come is called Church, from the Methodist Episcopal edifice, past which it would run if continued. At present it stops at Thomas street. On the southwest corner is the home of Josiah Streeter, whose mother was a Winchell ; his wife a Bovee. He was a soldier during the Rebellion, and has several children. Eron Thomas built the house for a select school, about 1860. Afterward it was made over into a dwelling house, and was occupied by Charles Jennison, a tinner, working for L. H. Dudley. The widow Cummings, a sister of William Haney, formerly of District No. 7, lived and died here. W. R. Winchell also held it, till an adventitious arrearage of pensions allowed Mr. Streeter to purchase.
Returning to the north side of Thomas street, for were we to go beyond Streeter's we should reach Main street, we shall find only vacant lots, till we come to the place now held by William Weed, but was built by a Mr. Blood, who sold to Mr. Weed, who is a brother of Oscar, of the Glenmark neighborhood. He came to this site in 1879, and has kept a livery and horse-training stable. His wife, Anna Walker, is a native of Wyoming county ; a brother was the late Rev. Ellis Walker, of the Troy Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and her grandfather, Major James Smith, of Canajoharie, Montgomery county, was a Revolutionary officer. She is herself a writer of no little note, having published, in 1886, a novel entitled "Isadore, or the Day Star of Hope."
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A very small house, belonging to C. S. Wright, is found next, and in it lives widow Ackerman, having several children, one of whom is a soldier in the United States army.
In the Methodist Episcopal parsonage, in August, 1890, and for the preceding five years, dwelt Rev. G. W. Reynolds, the first minister to profit by the extension of pastorate made by the General Conference of 1888. Mr. R. is a native of Ulster county ; his wife, who was Susan A. Griffin, was born in Orange county. They have three children, a son and two daughters, but only Alma R. has lived with them here, and she was married in the early days of their pastorate. The Methodist Episcopal Church, recently repaired, is next. Rev. George S. Transue is now the pastor.
Crossing to the beginning of Church street, we go down the same, finding, just south of Josiah Streeter's, a small house belonging to John Matthews. He bought of " Deck " Brewster.
East of the angle made by this street as it turns toward the west, are the extensive barns once belonging to the Thomas farm, which ran back and north and south. They belong to William Niles, whose home will be found on Main street, itself the old Thomas house.
On the south side of the way is the home of Postmaster Edgar F. Houghton, a native of Lyons, who came to Rose from Alton in 1876. His wife, Mary E., is a daughter of the late John Becket ; they have one child, Blanche E. Beside his post office duties, Mr. H. is a traveling salesman. His wife's parents have lived here for some time. John Becket came from Skillington, England, and had been for more than forty years a resident of this town. Besides Mrs. Houghton, a son, William, resides in Clyde. (Mr. Becket died January 16, 1893, and on the 29th following, his widow followed him. June 4, Mr. Houghton's mother, Mrs. Margery A. Snyder, died at his home.)
Across the way is a small house, lately bought by Mrs. Catharine Harper from Mrs. Viele.
We will next approach the village from the north, leaving behind us District No. 3, or the Lyman neighborhood. The first stop will be made at the home of Isaac Campbell, who was born in Newport, Herkimer county. His wife, Josephine Minott, was born in Schuyler, of the same county. He served during the War in the 34th New York, two years, and later was in the 16th Heavy Artillery, being the first man in Herkimer county to enlist. He came to this place in 1875. There are six children here, viz., Herbert M., Grace, Mabel, Florence, Ross and Nellie. The large cottonwood tree standing near the road is probably the largest in the county. When its twin was standing, they constituted a figure unexcelled in arboreal beauty in the whole section. It was a sad moment when one
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was cut down. Would that Morris' lines had been read to stay the woodman's axe :
"Woodman, spare that tree, Touch not a single bough."
These trees date back to the time of Samuel Southwick, more than seventy years. Within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, the house has changed little, if any. It is true that George Sherman once drew material for erecting a new dwelling, but nothing came of it. Probably this is the oldest framed building in the town. It certainly goes back to the days of Samuel Southwick, the very first occupant of this section, unless the honor be claimed by William Browning, whose record is lost. Mr. Southwick came originally from Massachusetts, where he was reared among the Shakers till he was sixteen years old. Coming to Seneca county, he married, first, Submit West, in Junius, where she died. Her burial was said to be the first for a white woman in that town. By this marriage, he had only one child, who became Mrs. Ellis Ellinwood, of Rose. It was in 1815 or 1816 that Mr. Southwick came to Rose, buying very extensively from the Rose-Nicholas tract. His second wife was Hannah Brown, also from Massachusetts. By this marriage, he had eight children. After becoming the parent of this numerous progeny, he became convinced that the principles of his early rearing were the correct rules for living, and accordingly sold out his possessions in Rose, and cast in his lot with the ยท Shakers, located in Sodus. All his family went with him, except Lydia, who married William Watkins, a Rose tanner, and the father of Mrs. Lawson Munsell. Southwick's oldest son, Lucius, was engaged to a fair young lady of Rose, but he broke the engagement to go with his father. In 1837 the Shakers went from Sodus to Mount Morris, Groveland, near Rochester. When he was between fifty and sixty years of age, Lucius left the Shakers, having married one of them, and passed the remainder of his life in East Rochester. The family was related to that of Ebenezer Pierce, father-in-law of Simeon Barrett. The Miricks, who succeeded Southwick, were from Saratoga county originally, but they came to Rose from Cazen- ovia. This name is invariably in Rose pronounced as though spelled Merrick. In Massachusetts, it is pronounced as spelled. Unquestionably the families are allied. Solomon Mirick, the progenitor of the family, had been an extensive contractor and builder. His first wife and the mother of his children was Elizabeth Underwood. His second wife was the widow of Joel Weed, the mother of the widely known Thurlow Weed. He married her in Syracuse, and she was a citizen of Rose till after Mr. Mirick's death, in 1839. After this event, she went to Kentucky, and there died. It was in 1828 that the family came to Rose and bought about 300 acres of land from Southwick and Collins. From that date to the time of George Mirick's going west, few names were more prominent in town
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affairs. There were eight children. Ira married Martha Lamb of North Rose, and till his moving to Lyons was a very important factor in the business of the town. His headquarters were in Glenmark, where he has already been named. In the days of the militia, he was the lieutenant colonel of the regiment of which George Seelye was the colonel. He died last spring at a great age. His children were : Hiram, Guilford, Jackson, and three daughters. Hiram, the second son of Solomon Mirick, will be met soon, in the south ; Nelson did not live in Rose, but married and died in Pennsylvania ; George lived long south of the Valley ; Thomas married Sophronia Dickson, a sister of Dr. D., and died in 1841, leaving one daughter ; Henry, the youngest son, was a young man of great promise, who died in 1841, at the age of twenty-four years. The daughters were Amanda and Charlotte. The latter married Ebenezer Tyler, and moved to Ohio. The former became Mrs. David Holmes, and formerly lived west of the Valley. The orchard, still so prominent on the hill east of the road north from Rose, is a memory of the Mirick planting. All the Mirick farm passed finally into the possession of Hiram, on whose going to Lyons, Charles B. Sherman came into possession, and this north part, including the old Southwick house, was passed over to his son, George, who had married Sybil Wilson. They worked here with a will, and finally held it unencumbered. At a comparatively early age, Mr. Sherman sold to one Burnham, and moved to the Valley. Burnham, who had grown mentally unbalanced in trying to keep his work train on the N. Y. Central R. R. out of the way of the regular trains, did not find farming to his liking, and so sold to Mordecai Cox. The latter did not hold it long, but sold and went to Rochester. He died in 1878, and is buried in Rose, as are also his wife Lovina, who died in 1863, and his son, George, in 1875. After Cox came Campbell. Over the way, opposite the house, is a field, known by the old settlers as the stone heap, an outcropping of the limestone ledge that has been successfully worked in North Rose. In this field was located the first Rose school-house, a log one, soon afterward burned. David Smith, the first Baptist minister in town, tanght in it. Stephen Collins was a pupil here.
A few rods south of Campbell's, a road runs toward the west. On the south side is a building, lately repaired, belonging to Levern Wilson. For years it was just a little red house, built by Sauford Lackey, who sold to Joseph Childs, of Ontario county, and he to Joseph Andrus, a brother- in-law of Ephraim Wilson. The widow of William Desmond owned it for a time, and in 1871 it was under the name of Edward Horn, whom the widow, who was Lucinda Winchell, had married. Mr. Horn was English born, and after leaving this place, lived in Marion.
Ephraim B. Wilson is the owner of the next house on the north side of the road, and the place is exceedingly interesting, in that Mr. Wilson has
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worked out all his possessions from the pristine wilderness. One of the best things that Ephraim ever did was his marrying Calista Flint, from Connecticut, a relative of "'Square" Flint, a neighbor on the north. In all the struggle for a competence, she has done all that could be expected of a wife. It was in 1835 that Mr. Wilson came to the town and bought his lot, one of the last to be taken from the Nicholas purchase. In the fall he put up a log house. In February following he was married. There were no roads and he went by marked trees. One side of his house was shingled, and when, later, he wished to shingle the other side, so deep was the snow he was able to carry the shingles up the roof, stepping from the banks. Snow lay three feet deep upon the level. The house was built like a cob pile, and the places for doors and windows were cut out afterward. The doors were boards simply, and the windows were not over numerous. There was no fireplace, and for three or four weeks cooking was done by a stump fire. A well was dug, and for curbing or wall Mr. Wilson went to the woods and cut two lengths of buttonwood, hollow, and set them in. A crotched stick was set up for a sweep, and the thing was complete. For a few days the waters may have had the bitterness of those of Marah, but sweetness followed. During the entire summer, he was fixing his house. Sand was found four feet down and this was used in making mortar. Boards for the floor were obtained at Solomon Allen's saw-mill, just south. Partitions and windows followed, having used blankets before. Finally, having obtained some brick, Silas Munsell built a chimney and brick oven. "'Square " Flint came over and arranged the interior woodwork. The first farm work was to plant potatoes. His first lot of fifty-eight acres cost him $5 per acre. The Winchell lot to the west, which he next bought, was the last remnant of the Nicholas tract. Children came to the log house rapidly, and then the girls wanted a new house. It was built, and Mr. Wilson found himself in debt. To raise it, he rented his own place, and went to Lyons and worked Hiram Mirick's farm. When he returned, he had enough to make him square with the world. Surrounded by indications of his energy and honesty, Mr. Wilson is passing a very green old age, his capable and loving wife still by his side. As Mr. Wilson himself says, "she is a smart woman." Among other relics, Mr. W. has a bar still in use, which was hewn from or split from a black ash fifty-four years ago. By "bar "' is meant an instrument for stopping a hole or gap in a fence, an abbrevia- tion for barrier. It has nothing to do with hotel or restaurant bars. A total abstainer from stimulants and narcotics, Mr. Wilson has no use for such bars. Doubtless his life-long abstinence accounts for his vigorous age. The children in this family were many, and at one time there were seven of them in the Valley school. Their names are as follows : Sybil has already been met as the wife of George Sherman ; Augusta, also, was
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mentioned in District No. 6 as the wife of Lampson Allen; Caroline married William Colborn, formerly of Rose, but now of Wolcott; Harlan P. married Carrie Snow, and was encountered in District No. 7; Martha W. is Mrs. Alonzo Post, of Butler; Mary, deceased, was twice married, first, to Joseph Butler and, second, to Chester Ayers, of Clinton, Mass. ; Emily, who married Burton Walker, of Lancaster, Mass .; Ephraim B., Jr., who married Ella Armstrong ; Theron, unmarried, and a carpenter, lives in Rochester ( Davenport, Iowa ) ; Levern, the youngest, married Ida Osborn, a daughter of William, formerly of Rose, in District No. 8, but now in Lyons. They are at the old home and have one child, Mollie. ( Now in Levern's house, cast. )
The western boundary of the district is reached when we come to the home of the widow of Amos S. Wyckoff. It is a comfortable white house (nearly all houses in the country are painted thus), and it succeeded one of the last occupied log houses in this part of Rose. The Wyckoffs have been mentioned in the Griswold district as once living near the Finch place, north of the school-house. Amos S. Wyckoff was born in Hunting- ton, New Jersey, and the fact that he was a nephew of Jacob Ferguson, of the corners, may have been an inducement for his western migration. He married Susan, daughter of Orrin Lackey. After marriage he lived for a time in New Jersey. Returning, he bought the Milo Lyman lot, back in the fields, between the Wayne Centre and this road. There was a mill on the lot, through which ran the Thomas creek. The log house, back in the lots, will be recalled by many. Objections being made finally to entering the farm from the south, land was bought on the north from the widow of Nathan Jeffers, and the whole farm of ninety-three acres abutted on this road. Mr. Wyckoff died in 1868, at the age of sixty-four years, but his widow is still active in good works. On calling, in 1889, I found her engaged in making cushions for the Methodist Church, then undergoing repairs, and of which she had long been a member. The Wyckoff children were : Orrin, now in Herkimer county, who married Minnie Hughson, of Clyde ; Lyman in Lyons, who married Lucy Chambers, of Wayne Centre ; Sarah, at home, and William, who married Mary Dewey, of Butler, and now manages the farm. He has one child, Edith. The Lyman lot was taken up by the second Jonathan Wilson, who raised the log house. After him was Henry G. Lyman, whom Milo followed. Wilson traded his interest with Lyman for four acres off the west end of the Bassett lot, on Sodus street, in the Valley.
Returning to the main road and resuming our southerly course, we shall pass, at our left, the well-kept village of the dead, the most considerable cemetery in town. Till recently the old part has been very much neglected, but it now looks as well as the newer portions. This is one of the oldest burial grounds in Rose. At first, interments were made nearly opposite
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the present residence of Mrs. Harvey Closs. Afterwards these were removed to the grounds now used.
Even at the risk of mingling the grotesque and solemn, the story must be told that right here, years since, when a certain well-known Valley merchant, then young and brave, was courting a lady living just on the confines of the Lyman district, a ghost made its appearance. Possibly it was at the hour when churchyards yawn and spirits do walk abroad. At any rate, lest the love-lorn young man might lose the sight of "ye ghost," a clothes line had been strung across the road, over which the late traveller pitched headlong, and as he (W)righted himself he beheld the spook ; but his fear was not orthodox in the least. He picked up sundry convenient stones and let them fly in a way that put the white sheeted figure to ignominious flight. Then looking about for the rope, the gentle- man discovered, by certain marks, that it had been taken from his own store. He put it back in place and then had grace enough to ask no questions of a certain shame-faced clerk, a (s)Lyman, who bore evidence of having been out late the night before.
On the east side of the road, before reaching the stone house, perhaps in the garden thereof, was formerly a small framed house, afterward removed and used as a tool house, opposite. This building is intimately connected with one of the best families ever identified with Rose, viz., that of Alpheus Collins, the eldest son of Thaddeus, 1st, whose purchases were about as early as any in Rose. The farm, of 130 acres, was a part of the large number of acres bought by the pioneer, that he might have his children about him. His sons, some of them, went west, that they might have their children about them, and, in this widening process, descendants have reached Dakota. After all, the sons do not stay as fathers wish and calculate. The age is too uneasy and stirring. Alpheus Collins was born in Vermont, September 30th, 1790. When a boy, his parents removed to Phelps, Ontario county, where in 1811, October 31st, he married Betsey Hall, born in New Jersey, October 5th, 1790. Shortly afterward, they came to this town, where they lived till 1829. Here their children, save one, were born ; one son, born in the west, died in infancy. The oldest son, Selah Baxter, was born November 12th, 1812, and he married Pamela Green, December 26, 1833. He was a farmer, and resided, in 1888, in New Richmond, Allegan county, Michigan. His wife died in 1886. Josiah H. was born May 30th, 1814, and was married December 26, 1835, to Mary Brown, who died several years since. In 1888 he also was a farmer, in Lindon, Michigan. Wellington H., born May 12th, 1816, married Mary Ann Ward, of Butler, September 2d, 1840. Early in life he taught school, was a surveyor, and finally became a Methodist minister. In his denomination he held many important positions. He was twice a delegate to the General Conference, was a
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presiding elder, a powerful preacher and much beloved by his people. He was presiding elder of the Detroit district at the time of his death, in 1848. His wife died two or three years later. Walter D. was born December 14th, 1817, and became a Methodist minister and a missionary to the Cherokee Indians, in Indian Territory. His wife was Lodoweskei (called Lodi) Baker, a sister of the famous war detective ; he returned to Michigan in 1855, and died at his father's the same year ; his wife went to Texas, where she had property, and there died, in 1886. Isaac F. was born August 24th, 1819, and was also a Methodist minister and missionary to the Cherokees. December 22d, 1843, he married Mary Wolf, a daughter of the Cherokee chief. Coming back to civilization, he preached in Michi- gan for several years and then returned to the south, where his wife died. Marrying again, he went to Nebraska and died soon after. The only daughter, Esther D., born June 4th, 1821, was a cripple from birth, although a bright, intelligent girl. She died June 10th, 1849. Judson D., who was born February 12th, 1823, was graduated with first honors from Michigan University, was a professor in Albion College, and became a Methodist minister. As such, he was the first Methodist missionary to China. For five years he was the superintendent of missions in that country, but his health failing, he came back to America, by way of Cali- fornia, in 1851, hoping to regain his health, but he died in 1852, at his father's home. He was never married. William W., who was born May 3d, 1825, has been a farmer, a surveyor and a machinist, and, having been graduated from the medical department of Michigan University in 1852, is now a physician in Albion, Michigan. He married Maria K. Palmer, July 5th, 1849. Being a seventh son, he is very properly a doctor. Sidney A., who was born May 8th, 1828, is a farmer, living in Lindon. His wife is Sylvia A. Reed, whom he married November 15th, 1850. This record has been given thus at length, because I think it one that Rose may well be proud of. What has been the loss of the town in sturdy, manly worth, has obviously been the gain of the country; for we see that the Collins lines have gone out through all the world. On leaving Rose in 1829, Alpheus Collins went, with his family, to Washtenaw county, in the then Territory of Michigan, near Ann Arbor. He took up an extensive farm, and became prominent in town and state affairs, having been supervisor, justice of the peace, etc., and a member of the convention that framed the Constitution for the state. In 1841 he went to a farm in the town of Lindon, on which he died, in 1871. His wife, a most devoted and helpful woman, died in 1870. Both were deeply pious and consistent members of the Methodist Church. To this farm came, after the Collinses, Hiram Mirick ; his wife was Mary B. Fuller, of the east part of this same school district. For many years this was his home, and here his children were reared. He was the builder of the stone house and barn opposite.
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