29 Thursday Sep 2022
Posted in 19th Century, 20th Century, Genealogy
So, I’m still here, but I’ve been mostly enmired with book-related stuff. But! There are three new posts at the “book blog” with additional information and photos of people and things in the book contributed by folks I’ve met since publishing The 1903 Jackson Corners Signature Quilt.
Enjoy!
16 Wednesday Mar 2022
Posted in 20th Century, Books, Fiber Arts, Genealogy
Tags
books, genealogy, Hermans, jackson corners, quilt, signature quilt
Oh hey I forgot to post here as well…
I finished the book! You can buy it! It’s real!
Go to Oblong Books in Millerton or Rhinebeck to get a copy, or order it from their online store! I also have a separate blog for the book which you can check out here: jc.44parkave.com
I posted back in 2011 that I had gotten the quilt and was thinking that I should write a book about it. Took a decade, but it’s done. I’m speaking about it in various places and if I remember I’ll post about them. The first talk is tonight. I’m super nervous. If it doesn’t stink and they record it, I’ll try to remember to post a link here.
07 Wednesday Jul 2021
Posted in 20th Century, Books
I’m wrapping up the 1903 Jackson Corners Signature Quilt book hopefully by the end of the year.
I’m also working on a small booklet about the Red Hook Methodist Cemetery on Cherry St., TBA
And since 2012 I’ve had The Illustrated Life & Times of John Losee of Upper Red Hook on the backburner.
Once the Jackson Corners book is in my hands, I’ll pick the Losee book back up.
Happy Birthday, Grampa!
04 Monday Feb 2013
Posted in 20th Century, Fiber Arts
Of the 42 panels of the unfinished 1903 Northern Dutchess signature quilt in my possession, 14 panels do not have embroidered names, only embroidered flowers. Some have the ghosts of names once written in ink now lost forever.
Below is a gallery of those panels, showing flowers that may have been worked by the same woman as they are all worked in outline stitch for the most part and show a consistent skill-level. The designs, however vary greatly from an elegant calla lily to an amorphous cluster of what could be called flowers. I like to think that they let a young girl draw some of them.
I’m not sure if the women who made this quilt would have had a book or magazine or something similar, or if they just used existing images from wallpaper or other sources as a reference for the designs.
This 1892 quilt from Ohio has similar designs to the 1903 unfinished quilt, but is entirely done in redwork. Part of me is glad to not find anything like the 1903 quilt online because it makes it special, but is also frustrating to not be able to better define it.
07 Wednesday Nov 2012
Posted in 19th Century Photos, Genealogy
Tags
genealogy, jackson corners, milan, photography, Smith, victoriana
Looking through my Hermans family pictures, I found a memorial card and it inspired this entry. I don’t doubt that it has been more than 100 years since anyone has memorialized the subject of this post and that today no one remembers him at all.
The census is often the amateur (or armchair) genealogist’s first glimpse into a family they know little about. Through the lenses of the 1900 census, a little boy who was born after 1890 and died before 1900 would appear only as the difference in a pair of numbers. A column of data filled in after the mother of each household is labeled “Mother of how many children” and the one directly to the right of that is “Number of these children living”. For the 1900 listing for the family of Irving and Annie Smith of Milan, Dutchess County, NY, these numbers are 2 and 1, respectively (1900 Census Milan, Dutchess Co NY page 5, ed. 14, family 96). The one living child is their daughter, Ruth. The difference in the numbers is their little six-year-old son, Sterling Smith.
Sterling Smith 1892 – 1898
Irving and Annie Smith
Irving Smith, a farmer, and his wife Anna May “Annie” Edleman married c. 1890. Irving Smith was born 21 Jan 1869, son of Freeman Smith and Margaret E Hermans, daughter of Henry Hermans, my 3rd great-grandfather. Irving’s family also resided in Milan so he was most likely born there. Annie was born 16 Feb 1868 and was probably the daughter of Phillip (a child of German immigrants) and Margaret Edleman of Ancram, Columbia County, just to the north. In 1900, they lived in the area north of what is now Rt 199 in Milan, NY between Red Hook and Pine Plains called Jackson Corner, down the road from my grandparent’s farm. Now-a-days, we add an “S” and call it Jackson Corners.
Ruth Smith
At right is Sterling’s little sister Ruth Smith (later Mrs. Joseph Bruyette) 16 Sep 1893 – 29 May 1976. She would later be a member of the same DAR Chapter that I am regent of, today.
An online newspaper archive, like Old Fulton Post Cards is invaluable for its record of the goings-on in small country communities like the one that the Smiths called home. In these columns, a local “reporter” would note who had visited, who was born, married and who was ill, among other important social happenings.
Sterling Smith was “on the sick list” as announced in the March 18th 1898 Pine Plains Register which noted that “a number in this place (Jackson Corner) are sick, two of which have the pneumonia.” In the following week’s paper, it is announced that Sterling died Thursday, March 16th. Two weeks later, the local reporter had only one story to report for Jackson Corner.
Sterling was aged 6 years, 5 months and ten days. This sweet memorial card is the same size as the “cabinet card” photos found in one of our antique family photo albums.
Funeral services were held on Saturday, conducted by Rev. W. W. Wilcox and E. A. Bishop. Rev. Wilcox’s card is found in the same album as the memorial card.
Rest in peace, Sterling.
21 Friday Oct 2011
Posted in 19th Century Photos
As a follow-up to the previous post, here is a selection from The Pine Plains Register of Friday April 11, 1902, a year before the date on the section of quilt. This post started as an attempt to find Ward Bathrick mentioned in the social column of local newspapers and has become a post about getting around in the early 20th century.
Although cars were just becoming popular in 1902, most folks still used horses to get around or the very popular bicycle, I learned something from this paper from 1902; people of that era referred to a bicycle as simply as “wheel”. See the entries below for three examples from the same article.
First, a fun post from a place south and west of our area about someone getting a new car:
“There were great doings in the village of Walton one day last week. One of its prominent citizens purchased a fifteen hundred dollar horseless carriage in Philadelphia, and after it reached its destination and was unloaded from the cars, because of some defect in the machinery it could not be put in motion and the disappointed owner finally hitched his horses to it and drove to his home. His admiring friends accompanied him with drums, flags, horns, etc., and made the town lively for a while.”
Elizaville (the bit I had been searching for initially)
“Ward Bathrick and wife spent Saturday and Sunday with her sister, who is quite ill at Staatsburgh.”
Jackson Corners
“A few days ago Silas Lawrence lost a bag of corn between Nelson Bathrick’s and Pine Plains. Mr. Lawrence would be greatly pleased if the finder would notify him. His initials were on the bag.
The boys in this place have been getting their wheels out and are taking some lively spins.
James R. Wilbur went to Pine Plains one day last week on his wheel.
Harry H. Bathrick has a new wheel.”
The Pine Plains Register and countless other newspapers from NY State can be searched and viewed at Old Fulton Post Card.
Click to Enlarge
Red Hook children, c. 1890: Unknown girl on left, Leland 1874 – 1918 and Minnie Curtis 1880 – 1967 with their cousin Martha Fraleigh b. 1887. This image is part of my collection.