Davy Crockett and Hervey Smith Hall

 The other day, I needed to get into a trunk that I have some things stored in. It's more like a box with a lid. It was always in my room as a child. I called it the Davy Crockett Trunk because of the fabric Mom had used to make a padded cover for it. (And there was a chair covered in the same fabric.) Incidentally, you can see some older sort of blanket beneath the worn fabric that was used for the padding.

I was a genuine Davy Crockett fan back then. Dad cut a rifle shape from a board, and I woodburned "Betsy" on it. Yes, I still have it. I would sing the Davy Crockett song until I'm sure I drove the adults crazy. Of course I watched the TV show starring Fess Parker.

Here's the motif from the fabric that got it nicknamed for my hero. I don't think the fabric company had any such thing in mind. It was various general pioneer-type scenes.

But the more interesting thing about that trunk, now that I'm an adult, is where the boards came from. Here is the inside of the lid.

So, who the heck is H.S. Hall? It is Hervey Smith Hall. He is my great-grandmother's father, my great-great grandfather. This is the mutual ancestor of my cousin Jean and I. I have not been able to find a picture of him, although I may have one, and one of his wife Cornelia Lucinda, if I ever find an album that is somewhere. I have a couple of items that belonged to Lucinda.

Here is my great-grandmother, the youngest of his nine children, Catherine Louisa Hall (Fisher)



And here is Jean's great-grandfather, the oldest of his nine children, Henry Hervey Hall.

Now for the really fun part. This was apparently a railroad packing crate. The address is clearly Candor, Tioga County, NY. So, now we know that Hervey lived in or near Candor. (He lived in Spencer, the next stop on the rail line, so I'm not sure why it was delivered to Candor.)

What railroad was this shipped on? Here's the answer to that although I had to do some serious digging to figure it out.

What is NY & E railroad? It turns out that this was the early name of the Erie Railroad. In 1832, William Redfield and Eleazor Lord incorporated the New York & Erie Railroad. It was proposed to run from just north of New York City to Dunkirk, southwest of Buffalo on the shore of Lake Erie. The idea was to directly compete with the Erie Canal. By 1841, it had only 46 miles of track. Interestingly, this was wide gage- 6 feet between the rails. In the early days, various lines would use different gages to try to maintain a monopoly on the trade. It took a while before they figured out that being able to transfer actual train cars, rather than the freight from line to line made more economic sense.

Those of you who are familiar with New York's Southern Tier know how hilly it is. They even considered using stationary engines to pull cars up the hills! By 1848, the NY&E had only made it as far as Binghamton. It was completed to Dunkirk in 1851, making it at the time, the longest railroad in the nation. President Millard Filmore, and Secretary of State Daniel Webster rode the first through train.

A lot of big names in railroading got involved with this line, and there was plenty of wheeling and dealing. It went bankrupt and was reorganized as the Erie Railroad, a much more familiar name, in 1861.

So... we know that this had to be delivered to Candor between 1848 (probably more like 1850) and 1861. Hervey Smith was born in 1810, so he would have been between 40 and 51 years of age. Henry Hervey was born in 1840, and Catherine Louisa in 1858, so Catherine would have been a small child, and Henry a teen or young adult. You have to wonder what might have been shipped. Household goods? Some sort of machinery? Toys?

So much fun to contemplate!

I edited, I wrote, I went to bell choir practice.

See Jean Hall and Joan Hall

Fun Stuff and a Great-Grandmother

I went out this morning to do some trail blazing. Well, it is trail, but it's also a road walk. The blazes had gotten pretty bad. Some one, trying to be helpful had created some dark blue spray painted blazes. Actually, this is NOT helpful. I was unable to scrape or wire-brush the dark blue off this sign, so I had to just paint over it.

The same was true on this utility pole. I was unable to scrape the old paint off, and my can of gray spray paint (specifically to cover stuff like this) decided to clog. Anyway, the blazes are now the right color. Ones are added where they were needed. There were quite a few missing, including turn blazes on one of the other corners (Yikes!).

The sassafras trees are just getting their leaves. They are one of my favorite spring trees. Also, I had occasion to scrape a rather large one (they don't get huge) to paint a blaze on it, and I discovered that the bark is aromatic. The flavoring comes from the roots usually, so I was mildly surprised.

It felt good to get this little section of trail/roadwalk spruced up. Our chapter used to have really, really good blazing. However, that is no longer the case. We were in sort of a transition period from an older set of volunteers to younger ones. I think things are going to improve greatly, quite soon.

I did another of my favorite things on the way home- taking any old back road that goes the right direction. Much to my astonishment, I found a road I'd never been on. That was a lot of fun! Perhaps even more astonishing was that it had a bridge over the Big Sable River. I live in the land of many rivers and few bridges.

In honor of Mother's Day, I was going to share a 3-generation picture of me, my mom, and grandmother. Do you think I can find it? Of course not. However, I did find a picture I haven't shared of my grandmother's mother, great-grandmother Fisher. This is Catherine Louisa Hall Fisher in 1903. That was the year my grandmother turned 21, and she was the oldest of four children, so Catherine L H Fisher would still have had teenagers at home when this was taken. My mother is named for her.

This great-grandmother died in 1923, so I never knew her. I did know one great-grandmother, but that was my grandfather's mother.

I want you to know that I cleaned out half of a stuffed closet trying to find the other picture because that's where I thought it was. Nope. Best result... well, I cleaned half a closet. I got rid of 2 boxes of stuff. The box of pictures I did find will get put away with other family pictures. I'm trying to at least collect like things in proximity to each other.

See The Charles Alfred Fisher Family

The Charles Alfred Fisher Family

 


Once again, I'm going to play along with Chuck's Family Friday. I don't think I'll be doing this every week. However, on my recent visit to Chuck & Sylvia's I asked him to show me how his genealogy notebook was organized. He introduced me to the Ahnentafel numbering system for tracing a family tree backwards.

I can't afford to get hooked just yet. Why, you ask? Because when I start, I'm going to want to really be serious about this. I already know quite a bit about some of my ancestors, but I'd like to learn more, and get all the pictures and memorabilia I have organized.

Meanwhile, I share a picture with you that I treasure, even though I only have a small digital scan of the original. It was sent to me by the daughter of one of my mother's cousins. I have no idea what that is called. I just Googled it and of the top ten answers, I got three choices: second cousin, second cousin once removed, and third cousin. So, she's one of those! I haven't seen her since we were children. (This is not the even more distant cousin that I am in touch with.)

Anyway, here's the picture.


It was taken in 1907. I can figure that out because the woman standing is my grandmother (Granny), Emily Marguerite Fisher Rowe, and the baby she is holding is my uncle Jacques. We have lots of pictures of those people. However, the rest of the picture is quite remarkable.

First of all, notice that it's quite a casual pose. Snapshots that were less than formal occasions were just coming into vogue.

The seated man with the newspaper is Granny's father, Charles Alfred Fisher, and his wife (also seated) is Catherine Louisa Hall Fisher. She was an amazing woman. If I get hooked on this, I'll share more about her. The boy at the table is Lewis A. Fisher. My grandmother was the oldest of four children. She was born in 1882, and Lew in 1886. That would make him about 21 here. Ben, next born, is not in the picture because he ran away from home when he was 14. The youngest is Charlie, Charles Henry Fisher, born 1888, so he's 19.

I don't know for sure, but I think the picture might have been taken in a house in Spencer, New York that is still standing. I'm guessing it's Charles and Catherine's home, since they look as if they belong there, and because the boys are also there.

Lew is the grandfather of the cousin who sent me the picture.

Charles Alfred would have been 56, and Catherine 49 when this was taken. I have some unlabeled family pictures, and I'm hoping maybe this photo will help me ID this couple in some of the others.

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