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

A Long Ago and Late Veteran's Day Story

 
My family has not been known for generations of military service. That said, my grandmother joined the D.A.R. as a descendant of a Revolutionary War soldier. Maybe I'll write about that another day.

My dad was not in the service. He was too young in WWI and too old in WWII. My half brother was in the Seabees.

But today, I'm going to tell you about a woman. Her name was Susan E. Hall, and she's my great-great-great aunt. She was sister to Hervey Smith Hall, my great-great-great grandfather.

I only learned this story a couple of years ago when I came across this newspaper clipping in my grandmother's papers.

Although there is no newspaper banner or date, from reading the article I can tell it was probably a Spencer, NY paper, and was definitely in 1912. The column is a death notice for Mrs. Robert Barry, who was Susan E. Hall.

Here's how it begins: "When, in 1861, Dorothy Dix issued her call for women nurses to go to the front, the first woman of this state [New York] to respond was a 'woman doctor.' of the city of New York-- Miss Susan E. Hall.

"Though she was a graduated doctor, she said to her associates, 'this is not the time for us to stand on our rank.' She served until the close of the war and was one of the nurses who went with the ambulances to the battle field.

"She was at the first battle of Bull Run, at Shiloh, Lookout Mountain, and on many other bloody fields. Sometimes by the fortunes of war she was for days within the enemy's lines.

"She was a recipient of many honors. Possibly her most cherished possession was a gold badge, (only five were ever granted) which was given her for her distinguished service in connection with the Twelfth Army Corps.

"She never could forget the horrors of the civil war. With tears streaming down her face, she would sum up her stories of war times with 'There should be no more war. War is terrible.'"

It also tells that she nursed a wounded Chicago soldier, Robert Barry, whom she later married.

She lived until she was five days shy of her 86th birthday. That puts her dates at March 20, 1826- March 15, 1912.

The article also mentions that she had a "very notable" collection of autographed photos from soldiers and other tokens. I hope some museum has that, and I wonder if I could track it down.

Yet another really tough lady in my lineage. Wow.

	See Jean Hall and Joan Hall for another reference to Hervey Smith Hall
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Jean Hall and Joan Hall

 
You've seen this picture before, but it was a long way back, so I'll repeat it. On the left is my cousin Jean. We have the same middle name. I am about six months older, and I'm on the right. Her two younger sisters are between us, Lavina (Viney) and Wendy. This picture was taken in the summer of 1956.

I call us cousins loosely. We are related somehow, but had never actually figured it out. We both know that the documentation existed, but hadn't looked it up. Actually, Jean and I haven't seen each other since we were 14, but have connected by email in the past few years. So, now, we are getting interested in figuring this out. We speculated that our grandmothers were first cousins, but after some intensive searching of piles tonight, I now have the actual answer.

Since I scoured the family albums this week for any other childhood pictures I had of her family, I declare this "Family Friday" so I can post it on Chuck's linky. (Since I often have trouble remembering what day it is, I might as well embrace the confusion.)

First of all, here are Jean and me. She recently revealed her face on Facebook, and it's neat for me to see her. She looks like her grandfather's side of the family, but I look more like my mother's.


I have a picture of all our parents together, also taken in 1956. My dad is on the far left, then Jean's dad, George Kilquist. Next is my mom, Catherine Rowe Leary, and then Jean's mom, Nancy. Nancy is still alive and doing well. The blood connection is George and Catherine.



I can do one more generation back with pictures together. The lady on the far left is Mabel Hall Kilquist, Jean's grandmother. Then come her two siblings Mary and Gilbert (Bert). Jean thought there was another, Percy, and she was right. It's in the records, but he had died before this picture was taken, I believe. On the far right is my grandmother Emily Marquerite Fisher Rowe. Did you notice the re-appearance of the "Hall" name?



And that was as far as Jean and I could take it in our heads. But, drum roll, Jean, here is the answer. Percy, Bert, Mabel and Mary were the children of Henry Hervey Hall and Helen Leonard Williams.

Emily (and Lew, Ben and Charlie) were the children of Charles Alfred Fisher and Catherine Louisa Hall Fisher. There's "Hall" again.

Now, we have to go back once more. Henry Hervey and Catherine Louisa are both children of Hervey Smith Hall and Lucinda Cornelia Fisher. (Don't get too confused. It's the same Fisher family as Catherine Louisa later married into, but not a close cousin.)

So... yes, our grandmothers were first cousins, but the generations are a perfect match, so I think that makes us third cousins. Chuck will straighten me out if I'm wrong.

Whew... sorry, no interesting stories about the people, tonight's project was just to figure out the puzzle.

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