"Remember the women!"

"Remember the women!" is the famous quote of Abigail Adams to her husband John when he was off setting up the new government for the country.    I don't have any women ancestors who were writing the constitution (there weren't any), but it important for us to "remember the women" in our own family -- even if this is a different interpretation of her phrase!  So today's post is about my mother's grandmother, Martha Elnora Worthington Richardson, a.k.a. Nora, a.k.a. Mattie.  My mother had fond memories of living first upstairs from, and then next door to, her grandparents.

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Martha Elnora WORTHINGTON was born in Chicago, 17 November 1865, daughter of Robert Searing WORTHINGTON (1830-1903) and Elnora Esther COBB (1839-1923). Her father Robert Worthington had come to Chicago in 1855 from the family farm in Wisconsin and taken a job as a clerk.  Her mother Elnora Cobb had come from Madison, New York with her parents either late in 1851 or early in 1852.  They married 12 February 1861 and had one child, Mattie.

Her father kept a scrapbook starting in 1865 (see the young man and the President, for an example).  Here is the back cover of his first volume.  The top article is from 5 August 1870 and the ad below is dated "4 Aug 1870."  I suspect these events, which I have transcribed, are linked.

LOST AND FOUND.
LOST -- LAST EVENING, FROM MY BUGGY,
near Union Park Congregational Church, an envel-
ope containing papers and currency.  The finder will
be rewarded by leaving the same at 574 Washington-st,
or at the office of Gibson, Chase & Co., 88 Market-st.
R.S.WORTHINGTON.
[hand written date of Aug. 6 1870]

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 1870,
  A little daughter of Robert S. Worth-
inton, Esq., had a providential escape
from death, on Wednesday evening. Mr.
W. was unhitching the horse before his
residence, No. 574 West Washington
street his daughter begin in the carriage,
when the animal ran away.  In turning a
corner the little girl was thrown out of the
vehicle upon a pile of stones, and but for a 
cushion falling under her, which was liter-
ally cut to pieces, she must have been
killed.  She received but a couple of
slight wounds on the head.


No seat-belts and child "car"seats in 1870!  It was fortuitous, our little Mattie survived her run-away-horse-wagon ride.

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After the Chicago Fire, Mattie's parents decided to build a home out in "the country" at the end of the train line in Oak Park.  There she met Harry Bogart Richardson who had come to Chicago from Belleville, Ontario with his family, after the Chicago Fire as part of the rebuilding effort.

Martha Elnora married Harry on 5 December 1889 in Oak Park, Illinois.  When they married, her  parents built a house next door for them to live, affectionally known as "Rotten Manor."  They had two sons, Robert (Bobbie) Worthington Richardson (1890-1951) and Harold Bogart Richardson (1894-1935) who grew up next door to their Worthington grandparents.  And when her mother's parents (Nathan and Elnora Esther Cobb) were elderly, they lived and died there too.  This extended to the next generation when my mother, Alice, and her sister Madelon & their parents moved into Rotten Manor when she was in grade school.  Her father was Bobbie Richardson and her mother was Adelaide Copeland Harvey (Grawa).

One can only imagine the usual ups and downs of childhood in the upstairs apartment in Rotten Manor with two girls and a bulldog named Mark that my mother had brought home from the schoolyard.  The vet cleaned it up and by it's license traced it back to it's original owner in Springfield, Iowa (the dog had jumped out of their car and run away when they were on a trip).  The old owners allowed the new family to keep the dog.

The envelop on the left is addressed:
For
Alice Jell Richardson, Girl Skoot.
From The Society Eddytor
of THE ROTTEN MANOR BULLYTIN.

Inside was the following news bulletin!

******JUST REVEELED ******

HORRABLE KRIME KOMMITTED ON WISKONSIN AVENOO

OAK PARK

A fearse Bull Dog lokated at 227 Wiskinsin Avenoo atacked a Pair

of Big Black Mules at that adres and litrly toad them to Shreds,

showing no Mersy.  After Komiting this Turrable Deed the Culprit

Slank away to a Nayboaring House where he lay on the Floor Lick-

ing his Pants-no- Panting his Chops-no-I shud say Licking his

Chops and Breething in Short Pants as if no thing Sinister had

O-curred.

When the Owner of the Big Black Mules diskovered the Holly Cost

and saw the Entrayls of her Butefull Big Black Mules strued on

the Ground she Uttered a Peersing Shreek and Dashed next Door

were her Muther was visitin.  Casting her Short Frales Little

Figger on the Divan she Wrung her Hands and Skreemed threw her

Tears and Nose "Muther, Mark has Etten my Butefull Big Black Mules".

Her Muther, in a low Modulated Voice as usual, sed "My darling

Dotter you shud be more cairfull with youre Properte and other Im-

pedymenta speshly Big Mules.  They shud have Lockedup in a Box

Stawl or something.  Upon herring these Wurds the Owner of the

Big Black Mules in a Frensy shouted ( as tho her Muther was Deef)

"I dont Cair", axsent on the Cair, "Those Mules are Runned".

The Culprit, foaming at the Mouth utherwise Chops, lept on the

Owner of the Big Black Mules, but when she Shouted in a Hi Shril

Voice "No, No, you Notty Dog" he turned Tale and Slank or Slunk, I
forget which, to a Sitting Posishun on top of a Radyater and looked
out of the Windo as if he had not shortly Purpetrated a Holly Cost.
The Grandfawther of the Owner of the Big Black Mules who waz wurkin
on a X wurd puzzel was shocked to heer of the Catsafterme ansd sed
"Dogonit I can't think of a Sinnynim for Hollycost in three letters
begining with A and ending with Z"
Granmuther, her feet on the Radyater, remarked in a Strong Di-ossy-
sen Suprana "This is Possytively Harrying, I dont supose you will be
abel to find as Large or as Butefull a teem of Mules in the Loup
or outside of it".
Meenwile the Owner of the Big Butefull Black Mules retreated to
her Home folowed by the Culprit at Heal.
Wen the Polees herd of this Turrible Kalamity they took no intrust
on lerning from an inosent bistander that the Owner of the Big
Black Mules was alsow a part Owner in the Culprit.  Thasall.

February 1929 [handwritten]

Only one press release survived.
This press release must have been special to the girl whose dog chewed up her beautiful black mules -- once she calmed down.  It was found in her personal papers after she died in 2001, seventy-two years later.


For those not in the Chicago area, "the Loop" is the downtown shopping area; and in this case, the grandfather who was told "This is Possytively Harrying" was named Harry.


©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich

The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/03/remember-women.html

Ancestral Power Worthy!

When working on an upcoming post on my great grandmother Martha Elnora Richardson Worthington (1865 - 1939), I came across these his and her bookplates.

My first reaction was, isn't that nice, "his" and "her" bookplates.  Hers even came with her own name, Nora Worthington Richardson, and not "Mrs H B Richardson" as one might expect for the early 1900s.  The lower right hand corner has 1917, possibly the year they were printed or maybe the order/re-order number for the printer.

I found something odd on each, just above her name is "HBR," his initials.  Above his name is "Jr." and he wasn't a "Jr."

In the back of the scene on each is a "crest" with a Latin inscription.
Thanks to Googletranslate, I know what they say.

Hers:  "Virtute dignus avorm" = "ancestral power worthy"
His: "virtute acquirtur honos" = "virtues honor"

I agree, Martha Elnora Worthington Richardson is ancestral power worthy!

©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich
The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/03/ancestral-power-worthy.html

A Young Man Runs up to the President-elect ....

The President-elect of the United States travels to Chicago after the election, a  young man runs up to him ...
So what do you think happened to that  30-year-old man who no one knew who he was when he approached the President?

Did the president's body guards, a.k.a. the Secret Service, immediately arrest him?

Actually if it were our current President, the young man might not have gotten into the the Tremont House Hotel where the President-elect was staying or any where near the parlor of the hotel where the future President was meeting with his Vice President-elect. But this didn't occur when our last president from Illinois was elected in 2008, but rather when our first President from Illinois was elected in November 1860.

That young man was Robert S Worthington, my great great grandfather.  He moved to Chicago from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin in 1855 at age 25.  In 1855, he is listed in a Chicago directory as a clerk for American Transportation Co.; in 1859, as a cashier.  In the 1860 Census in Chicago, he is listed as a bookkeeper and living in a resident hotel.  Definitely not a political wheeler-dealer in the world of Chicago and national politics who would be expected to be meeting with the soon-to-be sworn in president of the United States.

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Fast forward 140 years, to 2001, when my mother died and I inherited Robert's two scrapbooks.  They are chocked full of newspaper clippings, page after page, corner to corner.  There are interesting articles and obituaries.  I've actually spent time over the years working on making sure I've identified all the obituaries related to the family (some actually led to solving some genealogical problems); and when a genea-friend came to visit, we scanned and she posted information from the others on Find-a-Grave so that people seeking might find the information.

Inside the front cover of Robert S Worthington's scrapbook 

-- notice he even used the lightweight pages that were not 

meant for gluing stuff on to them.

Looking closer at the first page:

It is an article describing the assassination of the President and Secretary of State, "THE PRESIDENT EXPIRED THIS MORNING" and Robert has added the year 1865 to the page.  This is April 1865, just four and a half years after Lincoln was elected the first time, now he was dead.

Our young man, a month shy of 35, has started his scrapbook with the assassination of the President.  By now Robert is growing up.  He is married, and his wife Elnora is expecting a baby in November.  He works for the freight-fowarding company of Gibson, Chase & Co. and will do so until it goes out of business after the Chicago Fire when he re-invents himself again.

I had assumed that the enormity of the assassination of the president is what spurred him to start the scrapbook, not realizing that he, Robert, a clerk/cashier had actually met the president on that fateful day in 1860, just over four years before.

What I learned a couple of years ago, was that thirty years after Robert's encounter with the President-elect, he told someone the story and it made it into the local paper.  By then he was no longer a clerk/cashier in a freight-forwarding business, but rather the assistant secretary to the Chicago Board of Trade who had supervised the construction of the new building after the Chicago Fire. He worked as the Secretary for the Real Estate Board for the Board of Trade and basically seemed to be a "clerk of the works" managing the details of the construction [finished in 1885].

So, what did happen to 30-year-old Robert when he ran up to President-elect Lincoln back in 1860?

He got Lincoln's autograph!  No one questioned Robert's being there.  My how have times changed.
If someone had run up to Obama in a Chicago hotel, he probably would have been hauled off to jail--definitely not given an autograph.

So, do I have that autograph.  Nope, no idea what happened to that black book.  Never even knew about it until I read it in the paper.  Besides, we all know that everything we read in the paper is correct.



The link for this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-young-man-runs-up-to-president-elect.html

©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich

I Remember Grawa

Adelaide, age 3 (earliest picture I have)

When I was growing up, one grandmother lived with us all the time, the other for 6 months of the year.  I don't think I really appreciated all that they did -- for starters, they took care of all four of my parents' children in an era when mothers were expected to be home.  No lunchroom at school: kids had an hour and a quarter to walk home, eat, and return for the afternoon.   She was there to nurture us and feed us every day, 24-7.

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Adelaide Copeland Harvey was born 3 a.m., 4 November 1893 in Lake Mills, Jefferson County, Wisconsin.  Her birth certificate lists her name as "Miss Harvey" daughter of Joe Harvey and Alice Copeland and siblings of "Riley, Cathy and Copeland."  The doctor recorded the birth the same day but no one ever went back and filled in the name.   She told me she was so sickly as a baby that she was carried around on a pillow -- maybe no one thought when she did live, to go back and tell the town clerk that she had a first name.

Luckily that wasn't as much a problem as I thought it might be when I tried years later to correct her death certificate.  Adelaide H Richardson died 6 August 1971 in Houston, Harris County, Texas, at age 87.  Only, a bit of arithmetic shows that she wasn't 87 but really only 77.  I decided that I should tell the folks in the State of Vital Records office that her death certificate was incorrect.  It took a number of months with notarized letters back and forth, copies of her birth certificate and certificates identifying her parents to finally get her death certificate amended.  Now, if you order a copy, at the bottom, is the "AMENDMENT TO CERTIFICATE OF DEATH" listing her mother's name as "Alice Copeland" instead of "Alice (don't know)" and date of birth as November 4, 1893" instead of "1883" --- type of document: "affidavit of granddaughter..." not mentioning any of the vital records I had sent.

So who was this Adelaide Harvey who married Robert W Richardson?  Definitely more than just someone who was 77 when she died from pneumonia, carcinoma of the lung, with contributing conditions of chronic bronchitis and asthma and carcinoma of the face.  To me, she was "Grawa," the name I gave her when I first tried talking.  She was the person who would always have treats for us children at lunch such as a homemake cake with butter cream frosting or send one of us out to buy one package of Paul Malls for her along with Hersey with almonds or Nutty buddies for everyone -- depending upon the season.

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Adelaide grew up the youngest of 4 children.  Her early years were near relatives in Wisconsin.  One day her aunt, Isabel Harvey Wegemann was minding her while making angel food cakes for the church supper.  Addie watched as her aunt carefully separated a dozen egg whites for each cake.  This became an all-day project as Isabel baked a dozen angel food cakes, all for the church supper -- no tasting!  Addie was devastated that she could not even have a little taste.  At the end of the day, Isabel made one more angel food cake for Addie to take home for dinner.  Every year thereafter, her sister Katherine made her an angel food cake for her birthday.  In later years, Auntie Kath would mail an angel food cake and we would look forward to the treat of eating of that very special cake.  It always looked somewhat battered and mishapened, but oh did it taste good.
[Katherine Harvey Rhodes, died 1964]
[Stories told to me both by Adelaide and by my mother]

Her family moved from Lake Mills, to Madison Wisconsin so two of her siblings could go to college.  Her mother ran a boarding house nearby while Kath and Riley attended the University of Wisconsin.  Then her family moved to Oak Park, Illinois.  After graduating from Oak Park High School, she married Robert Worthington Richardson on 15 January 1916.

This gorgeous wedding photo belies some of her challenges ahead.  When her second daughter was born, her mother moved in to help take care of the children and then died suddenly.  After her mother's death, depression set in and she was sent to the Kellog Institute in Battle Creek where they thought grains and special diet could cure many ills.  Her two daughters were cared for by her brothers and their wives while she was gone.  There was a comedy movie made about this health sanitarium, "On the Road to Wellville."  Years later, whenever we had popcorn, she always ate hers with milk on it -- "It's a cereal," she'd explain.  

She had asthma all her life, I remember her sitting on the side of her bed and wheezing and using her atomizer.  She developed sores all over her face as a young adult.  She saw doctors who never figured out what caused it, one even tried treating it with x-rays.  It think the sores all over her face probably itched.  Sometimes, she'd sit on the side of her bed and clap her two hands on her cheeks of her face.  It wasn't until the early 1950s that someone figured out that those sores were a staph infection, and they responded to treatment.

As a young mother, she developed cataracts in both eyes and ended up having surgery twice.  This was in the days when the patient couldn't move her head for a couple of weeks and would lie in bed with her head sandbagged in place.  Her first surgery was semi-successful, the second was a failure.  So, she lost the sight in one eye from an allergic reaction to the medication.  Not only did she lose her sight, but her brown eye turned blue.   

We grew up, knowing Grawa had different colored eyes and didn't see too well with her "good eye."  I didn't stop her from preparing meals, but it did lead to many things dropped.  Whenever she would drop something, she would yell "Nothing fell!"  If my mother was home, she would send a child to "see what nothing is this time."  We had a high-breakage rate for dishes dropped by Grawa, and so the first Christmas when Corning had "unbreakable" dishes, that was the family Christmas present.  My slightly unusual father, loved the fact that Corning would replace any dishes that broke.  When visitors came to our house, Dad loved to ask if they had seen these new unbreakable plates before and he would then "frisbee-toss" a plate to the usually horrified startled guest.

One really cold winter night, I was sitting in the living room and there was a loud crash in the kitchen, "Nothing fell!"  I went out to find Grawa had somehow dropped a gallon of root beer syrup [a Christmas gift from my best friend].  The glass jug hit the back edge of the washing machine, broke and there was root beer syrup going down the wall in the pantry behind and under the machine. While I spent the evening trying to clean it up [we eventually had to disconnect and move the machine to clean it up], my brother was in the basement with my father trying to thaw the frozen water pipes.  Dad came up for a break.  My brother came up and joyfully announced the pipes were dripping.  "If they're dripping, they're leaking and they're broken!"  Dad went downstairs to find root beer syrup leaking through the pantry floor into the basement.

Later in life, Grawa decided to get a glass eye that would cover her blue eye.  Each night Grawa would take her teeth out and put them on the dresser and then take out her eye and put it in an eye cup next to the teeth.  My youngest sister always assumed that's what everyone's grandmother did.  When she put the eye back in, it didn't always line up "just right" and she would need us kids to tell her if she appeared to be looking at the ceiling with one eye.  

Early Sunday morning before Christmas 1963, Grawa got up to go to the bathroom and couldn't seem to focus as well with her "good eye."  She woke my mother, "Alice, I can't decide if the house is on fire or if I can't focus" -- I heard my mother yell -- "Ted, wake up, the house is on fire!"  Once outside, my mother was checking to see that everyone was there -- the only one missing was my father. When she asked a fireman if he had seen her husband he replied, "Is he the stark-naked guy inside telling us how to fight the fire?"  

The fire chief had told us that the fire had smoldered all night, possibly started by something as simple as a mouse running in the walls--static electricity.  It started in the wall below the fire-break between the basement and kitchen.  It had just broken through the wall into the kitchen and was filling the house with smoke when Grawa woke us.  The chief said if we had slept another 10 minutes, no one would have gotten out.  

Thank you Grawa for saving our lives!

The grandmothers at our wedding reception:  Helen Markovich (Nona),
Adelaide Richardson (Grawa), Marion Dakin (Nana).  Before we left, I
tossed my bouquet and Grawa caught it.  She was always hopeful to remarry.
As kids we teased Grawa that when a workman left a ladder against the house
near her bedroom, it was so that she could elope with Mr. Reeves, the widower
who lived down the street!  When we got in the car to drive away after the
reception, Nana was in the back seat asking for a ride to where she was staying.

The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/02/i-remember-grawa.html

©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich

"Photoshop" Early 1900's Style

Edward Olmstead and his wife Grace Alice Evans were married in 1892 and five years later started their family.   They had a family portrait taken after their four children were born:

Left to right are Charles Allen, Edward (Ed, father), Helen Elizabeth, Alice Sarah, Grace Alice (mother), Wilber Evans (Bill).

Fast forward, seven years after Alice was born, they had another child, Grace Louise.  So, how do you solve the problem of that wonderful family photo  hanging on the wall being incomplete?
Well, you "photoshop it" early 1900's style.

Pretty good job of photoshopping for an amateur long before computers, wasn't it?!
Except for Grace looking forward instead of at the photographer off to stage right, whoever did the cutting and pasting of the picture did a nice job of editing the family portrait, even lining up the shadows nicely.

Years later, one of Ed and Grace Olmstead's grandsons was showing me a copy of this picture and he mentioned that Grace Louise, the daughter, wasn't originally there and that he had a copy of that original.

Well, the scans of the two photographs arrived yesterday and with his generous permission, I am sharing them here.

Now, in our updated family portrait, left to right, we have:
Charles Allen Olmstead (1901-?), Grace Louise Olmstead (1909-1995), Edward Olmstead (1868-1959), Helen Elizabeth Olmstead (1899-1979), Alice Sarah Olmstead (1902-1996), Grace Alice Evans Olmstead (1868), Wilber Evans Olmstead (1897-1972)




The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/01/photoshop-early-1900s-style.html
©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich

My Regrets and Redemption Lead to a Present for my Family

I am sure that all good family historians have moments that they regret ... I wish I knew what questions to have asked my grandmother, Nana, Marian Evans Dakin, before she died in 1974.  As a result of not knowing ANYTHING about the DAKIN family back then, my work was extensive to piece together the story. I only knew my grandfather's name (he died when my father was 2 years old) and that he had died in the 1918 flu pandemic, along with his son and mother-in-law in less than one week.

When I was in high school, Nana brought some small brownish pictures of something [she said it was a power plant that her husband Rob worked on] to share one year when she came for her annual visit.  Of course, I was the uninterested teenager.  I'm not sure anyone else in my family was much interested either.  I think she brought them out just once during her annual six-month visit.

Years later, I was a 20-something who would drive down to visit her in Connecticut.  I helped her go through various things in her house, and made note of who she wanted them to go to and what things were.  Of course, we didn't find EVERYTHING since there still were surprises when I was her executrix cleaning out her home.  By then, I had enough sense to start asking some questions about the family -- clearly not all of the ones I should have, but I made a start.  On one visit, I asked her about those pictures of the power plant.  "Of, those, I gave them to the power company."

I contacted the power company and was told they did not know where the pictures were, but they did share some information on the power plant which helped me to understand how it worked along with some of the history of the Bulls Bridge Power Plant in Gaylordsville, Connecticut.

What I never asked my grandmother was the "rest of the story" which turned out to be quite interesting.
This year's Christmas present for my family is what I learned about this story AND about the DAKIN family.

In my grandmother's desk, when she died, was one of the surprises for this executrix -- the negatives for the pictures my grandfather, Rob Dakin took of the building of the addition to the power plant.  This book, Bulls Bridge:  The Story of a dreamer, a family farmer, a camera and the building of a power plant, is the result of much research.  It is not only the story of the power plant but includes information on the DAKIN family line, all the way back to Thomas Dakin, the immigrant settler in Concord, Massachusetts by 1652.

The "Readers Digest" version of the story of the power plant is about a politician with a dream to harness the Housatonic River, a farmer who sells a convoluted part of his farm for the canal to be dug right across the fields and past his house, a farm boy who watches the canal and power plant emerge, and then, the power plant is finished and does NOT bring any power to the surrounding neighborhood!  The high school boy, goes off to college (first in family), comes back as an assistant engineer and works on the addition to the plan which brings power to the neighborhood and documents it all with his camera. His pictures from 1912 are included in the book.

I learned a lot about my ancestors as people as I researched this book -- this was not a compilation of just dates.  Oh how I wish I had the sense to talk to my grandmother about this before she died in 1974.

The link for this post is: http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-regrets-and-redemption-lead-to.html
©2013, Erica Dakin Voolich

Oh, What a Difference a Couple Hundred Years Make! ... The Sequel

Thomas was born “at Concord,MA 29 March 1723 and m. 1st before 10 3rd month 1744 (OS), prob. in Philips, Lydia, dau. of Thomas and Mercy (Coggeshall) Fish.  Lydia Fish was b. 10 Nov. 1725 and came to Beekman with her father and brothers Preserved and John Fish. [The Fish Family 37-8]

  Timothy came to Quaker Hill where he was taxed from Feb. 1744/5 through Feb. 1762 but we have not found h im taxed after that.  The will of Reuben Peckham written 19 July 1770 mentions “friend Ruth Dakin, dau. of Timothy Dakin of New Fairfield, Ct.” which would indicate that he had gone there [WN-YHS  VIII:43].  Timothy was assessed in Beekman in 1744/5 at £1 and the same in 1746/7, 1753 and June 1758.

   He was a customer at the Merrit store from 1767 on and traded with his son Thomas, Alexander Stewart, Amos Osborn, Ebenezer Hoag, Elihu Russell,  Joshua Sherman, Preserved Dakin, Robert Reynolds and Thomas Douglas.  [DCSB II: 56;; B:34; C:23; D: 20; E:10; etc.].

   He was mentioned on a road of 10 Oct. 1758 on a lot in the Oblong and also in the 1761 Oblong Quaker list.  [SBP 1:348, 113].  He was on the list of Quakers who enrolled 22 April 1755 and had to give a horse in 1757 and a steer and a heifer worth £9 in 1759 for not training in the Colonial militia.  [SBP 1:382, 383].  A deed of 1 April 1790, concerns land in lots 29 and 30 in the Oblong and mentions land Josiah Akin bought of Timothy Dakin [D 11:144].  This would be quite close to the Oblong Meeting House and in fact the Oblong quit rent list for 1761 has his name on a farm in lot 30, the same lot the Meeting House was in.  His farm was 48 acres and his quit rent was £2/2/1.  (His name was crossed out in this record, possibly because Akin had bought it by 1761).  He was very active in the Oblong Meteing and his name is on many pages of the Meeting’s records.  [FHL MF 17315, 1 through 527].

   In 1790 a Timothy Dakin was 3-1-3 in Pawling (listing between Ezra Sherman and William Russel) and in 1800 he was 1-1-0-0-1 and 1-0-0-0-1 between David Denton and Nathaniel Worden.  In 1799 Timothy Dakin of Pawling was assessed on a house and farm worth $423.75 and personal property valued at $40.  His ch. were  prob. all b. Pawling.  Lydia Dakin died on Saturday the 6th day of June at 9 o’clock AM 1812.  [PR 42].  She was probably the widow Dakin noted as a boundary in May 1810 in a mortgage on land in Pawling. [M 15: 494]”
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The Oblong, Quaker Hill: "The eastern side of the country had been settled by Presbyterians from  Connecticut, and the western side along the Hudson River by the Dutch.   The feeling between them was far from friendly.  Their disputes had been  very bitter, and Rye and Bedfore had revolted from New York's  jurisdiction.  Their whipping posts stood ready for the punishment of any  from the river settlements who committed even slight offenses within  their limits.  As these two peoples naturally repelled each other they  had left a strip of land, comparatively unoccupied, between them... Into  and through this strip of land the Quaker stream flowed. ..."  [from  Quaker Hill by Warren H Wilson]

In April 1755, Timothy was one of the thirty-eight Quakers in Oblong  who claimed exemption from military duty.  His occupation listed on the  application is farmer. In 1779, a year after Lydia died, all the slaves had been freed on  Quaker Hill.  This was preceded by a querie at New York Yearly Meeting  (May 30, 1767) brought by Oblong Monthly Meeting:  "It is not consistant  with Christianity to buy and sell our Fellowmen for Slaves during their  Lives, and their Posterities after them, then whether it is consistant  with a Christian Spirit to keep those in slavery that we have already in  possession by Purchase, Gift or any otherways."  In 1775 Yearly Meeting  was in favor of emancipation without conditions.  The final slave owned  by a Meeting member was freed in 1777 (a newcomer freed his slave in  1779).  Since Timothy and Lydia were a members of the meeting when the  querie was originally sent to the Yearly Meeting and since such queries  would only be sent if there was concensus in the Meeting (Quaker decisions  are made by consensus and women participated in Meeting decisions), we  know Timothy and Lydia supported the abolition of slavery.  Timothy was still living in Oblong in 1778: "On his arrival, September 19, 1778, Washington, with his bodyguard,  were entertained for six days at the home of Reed Ferris, in the  Oblong.... His letters written during his residence were all dated from  "Fredericksburgh," the name at that time of the western and older part of  the town of Patterson. ... The Meeting House was appropriated by the army officers for a  hospital, because it was the largest available building. ... the use of  the building for a hospital continued three and perhaps five months.  Meantime the Friends' Meetings were held in the barn at Site 21... There is no mention, even by inference, in the records of Oblong  Meeting that proves this occupation of their building by soldiers.  It  was not voluntarily surrendered; other records show that the use of the  building was supported by force; its surrender was grudging, not a matter  to be recorded in the Meeting.  It is characteristic of the Friends that  they ignored it. This toleration of the Hospital was never sympathetic.  A letter...  to the Governor of the State of New York, Hon. George Clinton, by Dr.  James Fallon, ... He could get no one to draw wood for his hospital in  the dead of winter..." [from Quaker Hill]

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