‘I would gladly give up all of my interest in a rocket to the moon to go back again to 1910 and ride once more behind that old horse in the dust of the Fair Haven Road.’

By Doug Farley, Cobblestone Museum Director – Vol. 2 No. 31

Sanford B. Church, family photo

GAINES – The Hamlet of Childs was by its very location, front and center, during the celebration of the Sesquicentennial of the Town of Gaines in 1959.  The milestone of the passage of 150 years of time from 1809-1959 was indeed cause for celebration amongst locals and onlookers, alike.  As part of the Sesqui, a 32-page publication was produced that talked about the overall history of the town and reflected on many of the changes that have taken place in the town over the years.

This week’s installment of “Historic Childs” takes a look at an article that was included in the Sesquicentennial publication that featured the reflections of one of its citizens, Sanford B. Church (1904-1976).  In his lifetime, Mr. Church practiced law for 40 years and was a founding director of Albion Federal Savings and Loan Association.

He was the owner of the Orleans Republican newspaper, a member of Christ Episcopal Church and Renovations Lodge of Masons. Mr. Church was also the grandfather of current Orleans County Judge Sanford A. Church. The photos included this week were not part of the original essay, but have been included to bring additional understanding to Mr. Church’s remarks.

“Requiescat (Prayer) in Limbo,” by Sanford B. Church, 1959.

This is a chronicle, of sorts, designed with the intention of recalling to the minds of those who read it, some of the customs, practices, institutions which have ceased to be a part of our way of life here in the Town of Gaines during the past fifty years. “Limbo’, according to Webster, is a place or condition of neglect or oblivion, and it is into oblivion that many things we have all known well have passed since 1909. While the loss of some of these causes us no regret, others give a nostalgic tug at our heartstrings and bring back fond memories of a bygone era.

Thompson Farm, Ridge Road, Gaines, late 1800s, showing unpaved Ridge Road. Paving of Ridge Road was not complete until the 1920s.

First and foremost on my list is the passing (or almost) of the dirt road in our town. Certainly, with one exception I can think of, the dirt road as it was fifty years ago has completely ceased to exist. Frankly, I’m sorry. While the modern highways bearing their streams of automobiles from farms to town and maybe still farther away, are an essential part of our current way of life, the little dirt road had a definite charm of its own, and I have always had a special fondness for it in my heart.

In this connection, it is interesting to note that the end of the era of the dirt road was just beginning in Gaines fifty years ago right now. In 1908 the “macadam” road to Gaines was built, and two years later the blacktop road to Fair Haven and beyond was under construction.

Democrat Wagon from Coloney Farm, Gaines Centennial Parade, 1909

Although I was pretty small back in those days, I can well remember coming home from Oak Orchard in my father’s ‘‘democrat wagon’’ (I suppose it was the station wagon of the time) on a summer’s evening in 1910. At that time there was a large camp for the road workers, and as I recall it was on the west side of the Oak Orchard Road, about a half mile north of the Ridge.

I remember it was dusk, and as the horse plowed his way through the dust, the men were singing and the darkness sparkled with their little fires. In point of time, it was a long drive from Albion to the lake in those days, and many is the buckboard, buggy or democrat we passed on the way, to say nothing of an occasional surrey or phaeton, or a farm wagon creaking and groaning under its load of hay or grain. Such vehicles as these are all gone, so long gone, in fact, that I was startled to see a manure spreader recently on the road not far from Fair Haven (Childs, if you like) drawn by a team of brown horses.

Erie Canal towpath, Gaines Basin, c. 1900 before Barge Canal expansion

Well do I remember blacksmith shops (Joe Vagg’s was the last one to go in Gaines, wasn’t it?). Clure White and his fabulous pond full of goldfish, the old stone mill north of Eagle Harbor, the golf course and country club north of Eagle Harbor, which has both come and gone within this half-century, the towpath along the Erie Canal, the machine shop (maybe you know what work was done there; I don’t) in the rear of the Bacon house in the triangle at Five Corners, the East Gaines store (at the corner of the Kent Road and the Ridge – a vacant lot now), the Congregational Church at Gaines which burned in 1950, Huskin’ Bees, Bees to clear out the drifted roads in winter, and many, many other pleasant, friendly, everyday things.

Traction Engine, Maple Lawn Farm, Childs, early 1900s.  Note the belt driven power system extending from the engine into the barn.

I can’t remember back to the old, old threshing machine which was propelled by horsepower, and any way that’s back before 1909.  But I can distinctly recall the so-called old-fashioned threshing machine, drawn and propelled by a great, smoke-spouting steam “traction engine” which is gone from these parts (although it is in common use in New England, parts of Pennsylvania, and even in other parts of this state).

Almost as good as the arrival of a circus, was the advent of the threshers with their fascinating equipment on a hot summer’s morning. As a child I’ve stood many times in front of the farmhouse where Dan Bolger and his family lived, and seen the men set up the machine, connect the great belt to the traction engine, and bring the wagons loaded with wheat into line. Presently the engine would he belching smoke higher than the barn, the huge spout of the threshing machine would he spewing out straw in a never-ending stream, and the golden grain would run out into the waiting sacks.

Straw stack, Coloney Farm, Childs, c. 1900.

At noon, the activity would suddenly cease, and after a hasty cleaning-up session, the threshers would crowd about the tables to consume the meal the women had prepared. Then, afterwards, the threshing went on all the afternoon, until all the wheat was threshed, the straw stack was two stories high, and the wheat was sacked and ready for market. It was always an eventful day, an interesting and enthralling sight at the time, and a pleasant memory now.

Windmills exist no longer in Gaines, as far as I know. At least, there are no working ones. But they are by no means totally extinct. There are some still in use in this county, and still more in parts of Genesee and Wyoming. Down in the central part of the state, and in parts of New England, they are very common. For those of you who are doubting Thomases, I respectfully refer you to a brand new aluminum one a half-mile east of Navarino on U. S. 20 (south of Syracuse).

George B. LaMont, horse drawn binder, c. 1930.

To the best of my knowledge, no horse-drawn farm tools are in use in the Town. But, like windmills, they are much in use elsewhere for instance, in eastern Pennsylvania and New England. Likewise with the ‘‘little red schoolhouse.”  If you are lonesome for these relics of our youth here in this land of the centralized school of university proportions, go to rural New England. There you will find all of them your heart desires (and without swimming pools!).

One of my informants has assured me that there are no outside privies remaining in Gaines, but I can assure him that he’s wrong. While they are on the wane, they definitely are still very much with us, and I have an idea that they will be for a long, long time to come. But hitching posts (except for ornamentation) are a thing of the past, along with dry houses and evaporators.

Picking and sorting apples in 1904, LaMont Farm, note use of barrels for storage and shipping.

In my opinion, the cooper shop is deserving of a memorial from the apple growers of the past in Gaines, because the heyday of the barrel was also the heyday of the apple industry in all of this area. In the early part of this century the crop was usually good, and there was an ever-ready seller’s market, particularly overseas. Am I not correct that many of the fine, old homes of Gaines owe their existence to the fact that around 1900 apples were selling at $14 a barrel in foreign ports, notably in the free port of Hamburg.

Gaines Sesquicentennial Parade float from Coloney Farms, 1909

And what about circuses and the thrilling parades which always preceded them? And don’t tell me there have been no circuses or circus parades in the Town of Gaines since 1909, because I know better. I’ve watched many a parade go past mv house headed north, turn about (with considerable difficulty) at North Street, and head back up Main Street, with bands playing, flags flying and elephants joined tail-by-trunk in a long line.

Calliope as seen at Krull Park, Olcott NY, July 2021.

Perhaps the most thrilling part of the parade (to me, at any rate) was the steam calliope, and I can well remember one in particular, which was huge. Of course, as always, it brought up the rear of the parade, and was giving out great clouds of steam all along the route. The player sat on a fancy settee which overhung the rear wheels, and as the vehicle passed under the trees in front of what is now the Lions Club house, the steam descended, completely enveloping player, calliope, horses and all.

As for circuses themselves, I can well remember three back on the Church farm, at least one of which was within the past twenty-five years. But they’ve gone now, not only from Gaines, but from almost everywhere and circus parades, I understand, have completely drifted into oblivion, forever obscured from their clouds of steam from their now silent calliopes.

While modern economists tell us it is a good thing, and a sign of progress, the passing of the small farm makes me sad. The little farm, usually a one-man operation or certainly a one-family operation, was for a long, long time the measure of the American way of life. For generations the families which worked these small places were the real “grass roots” of the country, and the salt of the earth. It is true that some of these small farms are still with us, but each year a few more of them drift into the limbo of the past, along with the asheries with which Gaines was once so liberally blessed.

Paradise Road, not existing today, as seen on this 1913 map, at one time had two cobblestone homes at its northern terminus, north of Ridge Road. One home was owned by Nahum Anderson, great-great-grandfather of retired Historian Bill Lattin. Bill noted that Nahum said the soil on Paradise Road was so poor that “it was only good to hold the rest of the world together.”

And Paradise! Have you ever been to Paradise while the half-dozen houses were still standing? Back then, there was no need of going to the “wild west” to find a ghost town. We had our own right here in Gaines. Just when it was finally abandoned, I don’t know, but it has completely fallen to pieces in the last half-century, and now consists of stones scattered about the meadow at the end of the old Paradise Road.

Gaines Academy after a third story had been removed 1930s, Courtesy Town of Gaines Historian

So it was, too, with the old Gaines Academy, except that this institution is marked by a State sign on the south side of the Ridge, across from the Town buildings. The Academy building has completely collapsed into rubble during the past fifty years, but it was, I am informed, abandoned long before that.

Harness maker Philo Henry Peters is shown here at the entrance of his harness store in Albion, 1905. A sampling of the numerous types of leather goods he produced is seen in the store windows and also on the life-sized horse mannequin he moved outdoors in fair weather.

Harness shops are gone, kerosene lamps (except in emergencies) are no more, and the gas-light era has long since passed. So with the kind of well with an “old oaken bucket” (there were a lot of them fifty years ago).

Blind Man’s Bluff, Bisque Figurine, circa 1890

And think of the old children’s games, like Blind Man’s Bluff, Cops and Robbers, and the like. And the songs which have come, been sung and loved, and gone…and the dances…and the celebrations…and the weddings…and all of “those we have loved long since and lost awhile.”

When I come to read this over, now that the space allotted to me is exhausted, I realize something I never thought of when I started: This little chronicle is a half-century slice carved out of the life-time in the Town of Gaines, in the County of Orleans, State of New York. It tells of the way of life in this community during the period 1909-1959, and all that is set forth in it is now history – a history which many of us living have helped to shape.

View of Gaines business section looking east along the Ridge Road, 1930s, during the period of recollection by Sanford B. Church.

Progress is wonderful, so I’m told, and we should be duly thankful that we’re living in this modern day and age, with all of its many wonders. Probably this is right, and probably a psychologist would say that I’m simply wishing for my irrevocable youth when I would gladly give up all of my interest in a rocket to the moon, to go back again to 1910 and ride once more behind that old horse in the dust of the Fair Haven Road.

J. Howard Pratt c. 1910 – Courtesy Orleans County Historian

By Doug Farley, Cobblestone Museum Director

Vol. 2 No. 25

GAINES – This is the second article about historian J. Howard Pratt. Mr. Pratt was born on August 15, 1889. In 1980, at the age of 91, Howard sat for an audio recording session conducted by Orleans County Historical Association in 1980.

The following reminiscences have been transcribed from that session.  The full audio and text file is available online.

 Sickness, Quarantine and Vaccination

(As told by J. Howard Pratt – August 6, 1980.)

J. Howard Pratt at his family farm with his team of Percheron horses, c. 1920

Well the home today is much different and much is missing in the modern home compared to what it used to be when I was a boy. This old house was probably placed here and added to about 1845 and it’s been the home of the Pratt family, with my grandfather living and dying here, my uncle living here and I’ve been living here for 85 years; so it’s an old family home. The home is much different than today in the things that transpired within the home, too.

In the case of sickness, we had no great buildings and great hospitals to go to. The home was the hospital. It was the place where you lived and died. When you became sick, some of the family drove a horse to Gaines to get Doctor Eaman, or to Knowlesville to get a doctor from there, or from Eagle Harbor, or Waterport. All little towns had doctors in those olden days.

I’m going to take a typical case when I was sick because I remember going through all of these things: a sick boy, not too old. They sent for the doctor at Gaines, Dr. Eaman. He came and looked me all over and said, “I think Howard has got the Diphtheria.” Of course that alarmed my folks a great deal. My sister had gone to school so the doctor put a sign on the house: KEEP OUT – DIPHTHERIA. You were under quarantine and my sister could not come back from school to enter here.

Howard Pratt age 4 and sister Florence age 9

My parents arranged with a neighbor east of us, Mrs. Warn. She agreed to care for Florence, my sister, until I was better or died. When Florence came home that evening, she couldn’t get into our house. She had to go to Mrs. Warn’s, and there she stayed over a month. Dr. Eaman was an old doctor at that time.

I can remember Dr. Earmon because he’d been here to our home several times before for different sickness. I remember he had a lot of medicine in his case. He’d give me a half a glass of water. He opened up his satchel and he took out a white powder. “Now I want a spoon,” and he put a spoonful of that white powder into the glass and stirred it up with the spoon and said, “He’s to take a teaspoon full of this every four hours.” That was my start on medicine.

(Left) Mary Britt Pratt (J. Howard Pratt’s mother) and (Right) John Henry Pratt, father.

My folks were very alarmed over my sickness because the little girl across the road, near my age, had died within three months with Diphtheria. This alarmed my parents very much. So they hired a Practical Nurse. She was my father’s niece, Sarah Stevens who had gone from house to house; a Practical Nurse, not a Registered Nurse.

She learned it the hard way. She came and was here all the while that I was sick. She lived here and I remember one of the things she did, under the direction of the doctor: she took a newspaper, rolled it up and made a sort of a little horn. Then she put a teaspoon and a half of dry sulfur in the horn. She would hold her breath and say, “Now open your mouth.”

I would open my mouth and she would blow sulfur down my throat as I held my breath. I was not so sick that I didn’t know about what was going on. I’ll tell you, they tended to me night and day!

Someone stayed up all night. If you did not have a nurse, some of the neighbors would come in and do the night-trick, or part of the night-trick.  Now after a while, I got along so they said that I was a little better and I commenced to gain and come back and I could eat more things. The doctor would come every day for a while, and then he came every other day, and at the last he would come every three or four days.

Hitching post at Cobblestone Museum

The doctor didn’t have a car. First, you drove the horse down to Gaines to call the doctor who went out and harnessed his horse. He would drive back and would tie his horse to the hitching post, and come in. I can remember several doctors tying their horses to that same hitching post. The doctor would charge two to three dollars; they were not very expensive.

After he’d been here once, if there was anybody else sick near here, he would make a circuit up this way and might go to two or three homes after leaving Gaines and traveling to the west. Then he would probably go through Knowlesville or Eagle Harbor, making a circuit and get back into Gaines, or he would go where-ever the next case called him. There was no telephone then. He couldn’t be re-directed from here by a telephone as he could in the later years. After a while I got better, the nurse was discharged and I got up. They took the sign off the house and Florence came home and we lived again as we had been living.

Many times there were lesser diseases: Whooping Cough, Measles, and things like that; colds and so on. In the case of lesser sickness, Mother was the nurse. She was the nurse for the household. She’d had lots of experience with the sickness. At that time they didn’t have as much medicine as today. The medicine you had in the home was Quinine, whiskey, hot water, and hot water bottles, Skunk’s Oil, and Mutton Tallow, which Lanolin is derived from. So when you had a cold, Mother was always on the job with something to break that cold up. We didn’t know whether it was going to be a cold or whether it was going to be the Grippe, so if they thought you were going to be real sick, or if you had any touch of fever, they would commence to load you with Quinine.

We had Quinine in bulk, a little bit of white powder. I remember Father always used to measure it out on the small blade of his jack-knife. It was bitter and we didn’t like to take it but we took it because I’d rather have the Quinine than we would being sick. Then it was followed by things that was hot, to heat you up. The older ones and even the younger children; they would take boiling hot water, as hot as you could drink, and they would put in about a tablespoon of whiskey in a whole cup of hot water, put sugar in it and then you had to drink it. You had to be in bed, and then we had hot water bottles placed around us; mostly glass fruit jars, around us with hot water. Now the idea was to get the patient to sweat. Whenever you can sweat you will break the Grippe or cold.  I remember later doctors coming and giving me pills that caused me to sweat. Sometimes your undershirt would be just wringing wet.

I remember having the flu during WWI, and I remember we had Doctor Waters at that time. (Doctor) Earmon was dead, so Dr. Waters from Knowlesville came here. Tied his horse out to the hitching post and stopped on the stoop and put a handkerchief over his nostrils. It’s the only thing he could do to prevent catching the flu. He came in and he ladled out Quinine and things like that. They did not have, at that time, the medicine that would knock out the serious fevers that they have now.

When the sickness got into Pneumonia, they didn’t have anything that would knock the Pneumonia out at that time. If you got Pneumonia, your chances was only one in two or three that you would get through. That’s what the most of them died with. That’s what got the young and the old because lots of people in the 1920s died. It (flu) wasn’t a disease of the elderly people entirely; everyone had it. I can remember that when I got it, we had a new furnace just put in.

“If you got Pneumonia, your chances was only one in two or three that you would get through. That’s what the most of them died with.”

In addition to other medicine we had Skunk Oil. That was something that you would rub on. Now, that isn’t the Essence-of-Skunk that you can remember by smelling. It had no smell at all. I’ve got some here in the house if you want to try some. But that is good to rub on your chest. Mother would always put a Mustard Plaster on the chest and almost burn you to get the fire in there. I took the Skunk Oil and poured my hand full, like that, and wet my chest, just as if it was water, and rubbed it on there; got right down on my hands and knees and let the heat from the register drive it in, and when that was dry, I’d oil my chest and let it dry in; then I went to bed.

I took all the other medicine and in the morning my fever was relieved, my chest had loosened up. That was one of the things that they did. Now we didn’t have as hard a case of this old Grippe as they do now-a-days. Sometimes it was almost impossible to knock it out. But now of course they have good medicine and they will dope you with pills, even in your blood, if they want to catch you quick enough. Many of the diseases have been headed off by the doctors and their medicine.

In those days we had no vaccination for Diphtheria, not even for Smallpox. I was not vaccinated for Smallpox until I commenced teaching in 1911, and then you had to be vaccinated! And I had to keep that up when I was teaching in different places – being vaccinated every seven years. One time I was so sick with the vaccination that I had to get a substitute teacher.

Death and Funeral in the Home

(As told by J. Howard Pratt – August 6, 1980.)

All of the sicknesses didn’t come out as well as I did and oft times there were deaths in the houses. My Grandfather lived and died in this house and his funeral was here and he was buried from this house. Then, my Uncle Will lived here and he died here. Then when my father lived here, one of the maids, or the girl that worked for Mother, died here with Appendicitis. They didn’t call it Appendicitis, they called it ‘stoppage of the bowels.” Her life could have been saved if they knew what they do now about medicine and had hospitals and medicine to take care of her. Nothing seemed to help her that they gave her. They didn’t have anything that was worth anything anyway at that time.

Body Cooler in Victorian Parlor at Cobblestone Museum Ward House. Used in pre-Civil War era, prior to today’s embalming process, to chill the deceased’s body during home visitation.

So, we had many deaths. My wife’s mother died in this house. My wife died here, some eight years ago. The body of the dead was not taken from the home. The Undertaker came here and laid them out in their good clothes. You would go to McNall’s, or whoever you were going to at that time, to select your casket. The family would look them over and order the casket. The undertaker would come here and bring the casket and put the body into the casket. The casket was placed usually in the parlor, in this room here to my right. (NOTE: Mr. Pratt is sitting in his dining room).

They didn’t embalm them as they do now, but they did just a little. Of course the crepe was on the door and there was a time of mourning for the people and many people would come here and call. Usually the third day was the day of the funeral. The Undertakers would come here with a vehicle; it wasn’t a wagon but it was a big cart and they brought lots of chairs, probably 50 extra chairs. They would set them up in your home. If you had lots of room they would fill two rooms with chairs and so when the crowd came, because there usually was a crowd to country funerals, there would be seats for all. But in small houses, I’ve seen the two main rooms of the house filled up and men standing outdoors listening, especially in Mrs. Neal’s which I will mention later.

Well, the cost for the funeral was not over a quarter to what it is now. The minister came; you hired the minister that you were with from whatever church you believed in. He preached a sermon. Sometimes in the olden days they used to have singing. My father was a pretty good singer and he and Mrs. Stanley would sing at funerals and usually one song, probably three verses to the song. “Nearer My God to Thee” was one of the favorites.

The minister gave the prayers and readings from the Bible. The funerals were quite an event. The neighborhood stopped work and they all went to the home; even the men would stop work and go there. Some of them would be dressed up and some of them would be in their working clothes. But there was honor that they should go to a funeral, especially with the neighbors. The neighbors were much closer than they are today, and so they all gathered there.

Now, I want to take up the funeral of Mrs. Neal. She lived down just east of the burying ground, the Otter Creek Burying Ground, about two-tenths of a mile. You go down there and I think Hollenbeck lives there now. Mrs. Neal lived there and I remember going to that funeral because I was quite a young man at that time and the men – there were so many at the funeral that we couldn’t all go in; the men and myself stayed outside. The door was open, it was in the summertime, and we could hear a little bit of the sermon but not too much of it. But of course we knew when they got through.  And then, when the funeral was ended, the hearse, which was a horse-drawn vehicle, usually with black horses, there was glass on three sides of the hearse, the back was glass, and the casket was put in the hearse.

Usually there was four pall-bearers, or six if it was a large, heavy person; but that was the usual number, and they were put into the hearse and then they would drive ahead. The minister would go first and then the hearse, and then they would stop a little bit and then the very close relatives would get into a buggy (wagon) or carriage, and they would pull up next to the hearse.

The husband or the wife, whichever one was living, and their children, and then the next nearest relatives, and then the farther relatives from there until the friends ended up the funeral procession. But they would wait until they all were loaded by stopping in the road. It’s two-tenths of a mile from where she lived, over to the burying ground and I remember distinctly that the head of the procession got over there and they were just loading up the last of the friends, showing that the procession was two-tenths of a mile long. That shows how many people went to one of these old country funerals. We thought it was necessary; we thought it was an honor to the dead and we always attended. If they were within a mile or two miles everybody went.

The neighbors would send in food during this time. Usually right after the death for a day or two, and the day of the funeral, the food was sent in. This is one of the things that we still remember about friends in the country. The family used to wear black and all the relatives wore black. If they had black dresses, they would always wear the black dresses. That was the sign of mourning. The other people wore dark clothes if they had them.