On Tuba Southwest Fla

One of the joys of retirement is spending the harsh, Upstate NY winters south in warm, sunny southwest Florida. Down there I find a host of retired bandsmen --- old chronologically, but still potent as musicians. The ego is in most cases diminished and the competitive drive dulled. Consequently, this amateur is welcomed to play along-side some of the best. Most of the time I play euphonium, but here you see me draped around my King 4 valve, filling in on tuba with the Hafenkapelle at the 2005 Oktoberfest, German-American Club, Cape Coral, Fla.

A Mom's Day Story

A Mom’s Day Story

(This story is from my days in the “cemetery” business. How I got into it is easily explained. When I retired from teaching, my young wife had eight years to go before reaching her own retirement. I resigned from teaching and settled into Cambridge, NY to enjoy myself while the wife toiled on.

(That is what made the “village elders” uneasy. My being something of a community activist and given to fanatically taking up lost causes caused some unease amongst those good souls whose duty it was to keep the “ship of state” (in this tiny, Upstate village) not just “afloat”, which was challenge enough; but steadily upon an even course. To have yours truly sitting idly among them for eight years was apparently more than they cared to contemplate. So, they set out to find something for me to do.

(“Dave,” one coaxed, “you can do this job with one hand tied behind your back.” “You’ll have plenty of time for those things (un-specified, of course) that you like to do!” added another, slyly. I had already been idle several months, and was indeed becoming restless; which is usually when “trouble” would stars. So, with the blessings of my long-suffering wife, I became the sexton; actually “manager” of the local protestant cemetery.

(And they were right. I found the management easy, the surrounds (which were thankfully patterned after the mid-19^th century movement to turn staid cemeteries into inviting “parks”, instead of the flat rectangles of flat rectangular stones that cling to the butts of so many old New England churches) pleasant; indeed “restful”. The clients, as you may imagine, were forgiving and uncomplaining.

(In all, the sharp bluff that bisected the 14 acres, the steeply sloped burial plots and the dark, old growth hardwood forest that crowned the bluffs provided a pleasant contrast to the stark rooms of restless young souls with whom I had shared hundreds of stale insights, as well as countless thousands of cubic yards of stale, recirculated air.

(I have yet to write extensively of what seems to have turned out to be the “11” final years of a working life, the sweat of which began its life-long streaming at the age of seven in a dry-land cotton field in southwestern Oklahoma. Indeed, to date, this is the only story to come from that period of my life. If you haven’t already nodded off from boredom, read on.)

...The sweetest stories can be found in the simple study of Nature. As a

senior citizen I have become a devout student of Nature, often given to

hours of sitting in the shade of a Maple tree, letting the sap drip on

my balding head while I follow the exciting adventures of, say, the

carpenter ant as it busily excavates a rotten knot-hole, filling the

resultant cavity with the white maggots of its young. High adventure in my typical day; although I will admit to a tendency to

doze off during the slow parts.

Yesterday, before a spate of thunder showers moved through from the

Mid-West, I found myself down in the Cemetery watching as my crew

dismantled the set-up of a burial. This includes (but by no means is

limited to) the spreading (over real grass) of wide sheets of plywood,

over which is then draped dark green artificial grass.

In the dismantling process it is, naturally, necessary to remove the

artificial grass, shake it to remove particles of natural grass which

are naturally tracked onto it by the mourners; fold it (the artificial grass) and store it for use on some future equally somber occasion.

Yes, you are correct in anticipating that the next step is then to

remove the wide sheets of plywood; otherwise they would, under the

impact of those northeastern thunder showers, rot; the glue melt and the

wood particles decompose, thereby allowing the growth of an even richer

crop of "natural" grass; which my crew would then have to mow. So yes,

we did remove the plywood, and stack it for use on some future equally

somber occasion (I find it helpful to repeat phrases that purport to

profundity, as it saves wear and tear on the aging mind; also, I think I

read about it on an equally somber occasion in a creative writing class, quite possibly one I was supposedly instructing.

Or was it a journalism class? Yes, that was it, journalism; because the

dominant and equally somber future prospect was that we would all fail

to earn the Pulitzer Prize and ultimately have to earn our bread by

"stringing" for out of town dailies, which would then base our pay upon

the length (rather than the equally somber prospect of their supposed

depth) of our columns. This, then, is the secret of my writing style. Like Dickens, most of my work was originally “serialized” in periodicals, where the remuneration is by the “column inch”!

On this occasion, as I sat in the somber shade of this maple tree

wiping sap from my forehead as I watched my crew dismantle the funeral

site, I was (at this point in the narrative you may find this a bit hard

to believe) not so much taken with the somber removal of artificial

grass and plywood, but rather by a dramatic rescue mission, prompted by

the somber removal of the afore-said, that was taking place quite literally under our feet. It seems a deer mouse had taken up residence beneath one of the sheets of plywood.

I suppose you city folk think that this old boy has lost his somber,

story-telling mind in calling a mouse "dear"; also figuring, as does

the good (and academic) wife, that I have lost all interest in the correct spelling of the American version of the English tongue. Of course, all of this is true. But non-applicable in this particular tale, as we do have in this neck

of the somber woods, a tiny critter called a D E E R mouse.

It has a cheeky, white belly, large, black eyes that protrude from the

front of a narrow, flat face, a tiny, black nose on the end of its

pointy chin, and big ears, just like a Mule Deer. Its back is covered

with short mauve-colored fur. That is, fur that is a shade or two darker

than tan, or beige. Whatever! It's coat is deer-colored.

This particularly dear deermouse was a Mom (which is, of course, what

makes this a Mom's Day story).

We knew it was a Mom because, it did not pale (as the expression goes)

before the three really huge and really ugly human shapes that towered

over its nest. Instead, it held true to the most powerful force in the

entire universe; indeed, one must say it held true to the somber force

that makes possible future somber occasions. Which is, of course, the

Mom Instinct: The glue that connects the genes, unites the

ununitable; that can turn the average down at the heels coon-hunting

loafer into a dedicated, clean living, mostly sober, hard-working Dad.

So taken were we huge, ugly shapes by this raw and natural projection of

the fundamental force of the Universe that we stopped (actually, it was

THEY who stopped, as I--- sitting as I was under the

maple, sap dripping off my forehead onto the front of my beige (or is it

mauve) work shirt--- had never started) stacking the artificial grass

and plywood to watch, as this tiny creature, its nest disturbed, rose to

the defense of its "kinder"; indeed, risked its life to save these

half-dozen hairless, whimpering "worms" wriggling about in the tiny

exposed chamber of dried (natural) grass and mauve (or beige) fur.

The fully exposed nest was composed of two chambers, actually. One was

quite obviously the nursery and the other, more expansive and outfitted

with a large screen TV, a typical room into which it is periodically

necessary for Mom's to escape in order to recover their sanity. There

was a direct connection so that Mom could immediately respond should one

of her offspring cry out in the night or (God forbid) cough! And,

clearly illustrating that this was a mom of the new millennium, the

entire complex was encircled by this straw-lined jogging track.

And it is a good thing, too. Because with all exposed, the Mom needed to

be in top physical shape to pull off the rescue that suddenly unfolded

before us.

This should not be taken as a negative criticism, but at the first sign

of disturbance, the dear mom deermouse had taken refuge in a nearby

hole. It is often necessary for even humans to put some distance between

us (some have disparagingly termed this tendency "turning tail") and

impending disaster. But this is so that we can gain a perspective on the

calamity and decide how to respond to it.

How this mom mouse responded was to sprint at the top of her limit back

to the nest, scurry through the entrance, in her mouth grasp the nearest

blind, hairless, really ugly infant by the neck and drag it (I mean,

what else could she do? Even a super deermouse Mom lacks arms?) back to

the hole in which she had originally taken refuge. 20

While we watched, she made this trip six times, removing all six infants

to the safety of the hole. Then one of the ugly human shapes,

preparatory to resuming its labor, reached down and pulled the nest

apart to see that it was empty. It was. But so infuriated became the Mom

that any creature would interfere with her natural projection of the

fundamental force of the universe that she charged back, forcing the

ugly human shape to stumble back (almost into the open grave. We were in

the midst of a burial, remember). Then she inspected, burrowed into it

and really looked around in each tuft of disturbed nest to make sure she

had them all. I know this observation could generate a negative thought,

as we humans tend to keep track of the number of offspring we drag

around. But then few of us give birth to sextuplets! She even took time

to jog a couple of times around her track to work off some of the

adrenalin. 20

Indeed, it seemed that she was never going to abandon that nest site.

And, well, we did have a coffin to dispose of, so I stepped on her....

No, really, just a shuffle in her direction and she disappeared over the

lip of the hole sanctuary to tend to the babies she had deposited there.

Well, for so long-winded a tale, those of you still reading deserve a

happy ending. And there it is. The babies were deposited into a safe,

dark hole, the mom there to nurture them until they, too, can scamper

about the cemetery doing whatever deermice do (which is probably about

as exciting as sitting under maple tree letting sap drip onto your

head).

But this is a Mom's Day story observed in Nature, and Nature doesn't

have happy endings. There is always at the end a coffin to drop into an

open grave, so to speak. And in the case of the deermice, perhaps they

have saved us undertakers the trouble. The hole the Mom dragged her

kiddies into is a foundation hole, that will shortly become the support

for the monument that will mark the grave we were bent upon filling.

And come Monday, we will fill even that hole--- with concrete.

But then, in Nature deermice metastasize with remarkable rapidity.

Here's the glimmer you were looking for. Perhaps they will make it.

And, after a life-time of sacrifice, struggle and love, that's about the

best any Mom can hope for. dt

Daves Digs: The Cambridge Band (1853-present)

Daves Digs: The Cambridge Band, Cambridge NY 12816

2006 Cambridge Band Schedule

(Jobs under contract as of 4-1-06)

Date Day Step-off Place Other Info

5-7-06 Sunday 2 PM Rutland, Vt.

5-21-06 Sunday 1 PM Manchester, VT

5-25-06 Thursday 7 PM Cohoes, NY

5-26-06 Friday 6 PM S. Glens Falls, NY

5-27-06 Saturday 12 PM Hague, NY (30 min. pre-parade

concert)

5-29-06 Monday 10 AM Cambridge, NY (NOT UNDER

CONTRACT)

6-10-06 Saturday 12 pm Saratoga, NY

6-11-06 Sunday (Unk.) Troy, NY (NOT UNDER CONTRACT)

6-16-06 Friday 6 pm at K-Mart Plaza Greenwich, NY

(NOT UNDER CONTRACT)

6-17-06 Saturday I pm S. Glens Falls, NY Shaker Rd. FD

(Hudson Valley Fire Fighters)

7-1-06 Saturday 1 PM (EST.) Brandon, VT

7-4-06 Monday 10 AM Pittsfield, Mass.

7-4-06 Monday 4 PM (likely) Salem, NY (NOT UNDER

CONTRACT)

7-8-06 Saturday 11 AM Fort Edward, NY

7-15-06 Saturday 1 PM Step-off Chatham, NY Shaker Rd.FD

(Hudson-Mohawk Fire Fighters)

7-20-06 Thursday 7-9 PM Concert in Granville, NY

7-29-06 Saturday Aft. Philmont, NY Columbia Cnty

Firefighters convention

8-6-06 Sunday 1 PM Schuylerville, NY

8-12-06 Saturday 5:30 RuPert, VT

8-13-06 Sunday 12:30 Bennington, VT

8-19-06 Saturday 1 PM Wells (NOT UNDER CONTRACT)

9-3-06 Sunday 1 PM Port Henry (NOT UNDER CONRACT)

10-1-06 Sunday 1 PM North Adams, Mass.(fall foliage)

NOT UNDER CONTRACT)

CAMBRIDGE BALLOON FEST BAND WAGON APPEARANCE TBA

CAMBRIDGE CONCERT TBA

Mayhem in Murray Hollow

By Dave Thornton
Jud Weir and Joe Sprague were neighbors. In June, 1866 they farmed on opposite sides of a small brook that flowed from the forested fringes of Murray Hollow.
Murray Hollow is an isolated glen east of Cambridge, NY. It is bisected by the Vermont-New York Line, and is one of the earliest Old Cambridge areas to be settled.
Old Cambridge denotes the first township, formed in 1788. In 1816 the towns of Cambridge, Jackson and White Creek were created from it.
Old Cambridge is located approx. 40 miles northeast of Albany in an narrow, north-south valley, down the middle of which runs NY State Rte. 22. Across a ridge of the Green Mountains and 10 miles southeast lies Bennington, VT.
At the mouth of Murray Hollow is the Battenkill River, famed for its trout fishing. Move southeast into the Hollow and you are soon in Town of Shaftsbury, Vt.
Jud and Joe were practically kin, since Weir had married Sprague's sister. How could they know, as that beautiful spring morning broke, that a cry of mortal agony would be wrung from one of them before the day was out.
Over an item as simple as a scrub brush.
It was Monday, the traditional wash day. Mrs. Weir set up her cast iron kettle in the yard to boil water. She got down the tin tub, the wash board and the lye soap. For a minute she couldn't remember where she had placed her wash brush.
BORROWED BRUSH
Then she recalled that her brother's wife had borrowed it and had not returned it. She sent her young daughter to fetch it.
It was a brief journey, the Sprague house but a few yards south of theirs across the lane and brook.
Murray Hollow was pretty isolated in those days. To get there from Cambridge meant a morning ride by wagon or buggy to the red bridge on the Arlington road. A turn to the right brought you to a closely grown track leading into the gorge.
There were a few other residents, families "perfectly oblivious to the behests of fashion, but mindful of a stray passerby": Hill people, clannish and suspicious of out-siders.
When she returned the girl reported that her Aunt wouldn't return the brush until Mrs. Weir returned her tumbler.
"What tumbler?" She asked.
"A tumbler she said you had."
Judson Weir had done a lot for his brother-in-law, helped him through some hard winters, and was helping him with his haying. The idea that his wife's own kin could be so bull stubborn boiled his blood.

BULL STUBBORN KIN
"I'll get that wash brush," he told his wife. "You care for the milk." He handed her the tin pail he had brought from the cow shed and walked across the lane.
It was a bright morning. Far up the Hollow a flock of Jays let out a ruckus as the shadow of a solitary eagle swept over them. But Jud was too filled with his own pent-up hatred and frustration to observe theirs.
He'd put that fool sister-in-law in her place finally and forever, he decided.
Once you got into it, Murray Hollow was beautiful, the land was cleared well up the ridges, in those days. The lower fields were kelly green with young corn. Half-cut meadows trailed up the flanks of the mountains toward the wooded tops.
Across the ridge west were the sheep meadows of Black Hole Hollow, so-called from the numerous charcoal pits where the first-growth timber had been burned.
Jud didn't stop to knock. He slammed the door open, catching Betsy Sprague just as she was setting a breakfast plate for Joe.
I want that brush, and I want it now, Weir demanded.
Not 'til your wife returns my good tumbler. It's from a set mother gave me when me and Joe married.
Your mother never gave you no wedding present, Weir replied, as he pushed deeper into the kitchen. Your family was so poor they ate off tin.

BACKED AGAINST STOVE
By this time Betsy had backed practically against the wood stove on which she was cooking.
Joe, Joe! she called.
Joe didn't feel well, hadn't felt well since Saturday when he drank some of that feller's pop-skull over at the Arlington Inn. That was bad liquor. He had been lying there considering all that he had to do that day; considering his wife and little daughter and life in the Hollow, and wondering if he might should have gone to Nebraska for some of that cheap, virgin land.
Railroad fellow name of O.K. Rice had come and taken a whole car-load of local families out there, pretty much free of charge.
This morning he kinda wished he'd gone, but it was too late. Now he was left in the Hollow with a wife and family and a sickening head-ache.
"Joe, Joe, bring the wash brush. Please!
And a brother-in-law who come bargin' into your house in the morning, without asking, yelling at your wife. A brother-in-law who thought he was better. Better farmer, better worker, better thinker, who knew everything. Or thought he did.

SEIZES THE AXE
Joe swung his legs off the bed, not bothering to pull on his boots. His bloody eyes swept the cramped room, but not for the scrub brush.
When he came into the kitchen it wasn't a scrub brush he brandished across his chest. It was his double-bitted axe.
"In language more forcible than polite," according to a newspaper account at that time, Sprague ordered Weir from the house.
Although Weir might have held a high opinion of himself, he held a higher opinion of that glittering axe. Without any further argument, he turned and ran for it.
He ran around the east side of the house and across Sprague's garden. Sprague, in the grip of raging fury, ran after, axe raised.
Four rods from the House, Weir encountered the brook. It was just wide enough at that point to make a leap impractical, under the circumstances.

BANK CAVES IN
He started to skirt it to reach a narrower place, when the bank gave way beneath his feet.
Down he went, right knee on the bank, left leg extended into the brook. And there Sprague found him with the axe.
He sunk the bit into Weir's skull back of the left eye. The forceful blow pared the scalp like an apple; peeled open the sinus, split the skull, and penetrated the left side of Weir's brain.
Despite the dreadful nature of the wound, Weir reeled
down the brook about 15 feet.
"Joe," he cried. "You've killed me!"
Sprague replied, "God Damn, you. That's what I wanted to do."
His rage satisfied for the moment, Sprague returned to his house. Later he would ride to Arlington and try to swear out a warrant against his brother-in-law.
Weir, leaving a gory trail to mark his progress, climbed the bank of the brook and made his way home to die.

EDITOR ON THE SCENE
James S. Smart, editor and proprietor of the local paper rode to the scene with George Stevenson, the Coila doctor who was summoned to treat Jud Weir.
As the Weirs were a prominent Old Cambridge family and journalism being what it was in those days, Smart reported from their point of view.
He accepted Weir's version of the story as "gospel," since it was from the lips of a man who was obviously about to meet his maker.
Frances Weir, Jud's brother, obtained a warrant from Judge G.G. Turner, Town of Arlington. About 9 p. m. Sheriff D. Crowfoot arrested Sprague and took him to the Bennington County jail.
Were this story an act of fiction, Weir would die the hero and Sprague, as villain, would hang at the county jail in Salem.
However, Weir, by some quirk of nature, survived the horrible wound.
Both sides hired lawyers. The Arlington people sided with Sprague, while Old Cambridge defended Weir.
It was the custom in those days to avoid criminal prosecution by "settling." The agressor could pay money to compensate for the physical damages he inflicted.
Since the case is not reported in the fall court proceedings, it seems likely that Sprague reached a cash settlement with his brother-in-law.
The actual outcome of the case is lost in the mists of Old Cambridge.
Either that or waiting to be uncovered in the family bible preserved in some great-great grand-child's attic.
What happened to the combative brothers-in-law is, however, not such a mystery.
Judson Weir moved to Coila near the Village of Cambridge, Washington County, where he lived a long and active life, apparently completely recovered from the axe stroke.
Joe Sprague, too, lived a long life, albeit much more troubled. He continued in the hollow until the death of his wife, Betsy Ann Monroe, in 1879. His daughter Sarah died
two years before.
It must have been about this time that Sprague moved ove the ridge into Black Hole Hollow. There high on the eastern ridge at a spring that flowed year round he built a one room log cabin. (see photo on this “blog” of Joe at his cabin door.
He lived there until 1904, when he was found, like many another aging, mountain recluse, swinging by his neck from a tree along the trail.
Black Hole Hollow is over-grown with timber now. The few human habitations are rustic hunting camps. One such camp was built in 1927 on a ridge overlooking Sprague Springs. From its porch the foundation of Joe Sprague's cabin can be seen among the pines and maples.
The hanging tree fell to lumbermen long ago, but the next generation of Old Cambridge children can show you where it stood.
And they still run past it on dark nights.
#
Note: All of Dave Thornton's narratives are protected by copyright law.

Historical Highlights of The Owlskill Valley
By Dave Thornton

Note: Most residents know the valley discussed in the following narrative as the “Cambridge Valley”. But long before the Cambridge Patent opened it to European settlers it belonged to Soquon (the “Owl”), wise chief of the Mohicansacs. Thus, “The Owlskill Valley”.

GEOLOGIC FORMATION
Noone knows when the first people came to the Owlskill Valley. We do know that 15,000 years ago, glaciers covered this area. Ten to eleven thousand years ago, they began to recede.
Their movement scoured out the Owlskill/Owlskill Valley, which because of a giant wall of scree down about Pownal, Vt. was one huge lake. We like to call it Lake Cambridge.
The original path of the Battenkill was down the Owlskill Valley. A subterranean flow continues via marshland south of Shushan through Plains Rd., entering the Valley above Cambridge Village. Some experts believe that the Village sits above a vast, untapped aquifer of pure water.

EARLY HABITATION
West of the Hudson, archaeologists find evidence of ice age hunter-gatherers.
Archeologist William O'Donnell, in working a site near the Owlkill in Cambridge Village, has exhumed hearth charcoal that carbon-dates to 2,200 B.C., as well as numerous stone artifacts.
One historian lists eleven "calendar sites" in this region, as evidence of an even earlier, pre-historic culture.
When the first Europeans arrived, almost 4,000 years after the events just cited, Mohicansacs occupied the valleys of the Hudson and Hoosick Valleys, as well as the valley of the Owl's Kill, from Lake Champlain to the Catskills, and from Amsterdam on the West to central Massachussetts on the East.
The first Europeans are thought to have arrived in the vicinity via the Hudson and Hoosick Rivers, about 1540.
At that time of the arrival of the first Europeans, the Owlskill Valley was a major, north-south passageway. The Great Northern, Indian War-Trail passes down the Valley, generally following the route later chosen for The Northern Turnpike, a toll road opened in 1799 between Troy, NY and Rutland, Vt.
In 1600, before the coming of the Dutch, the population of the Mohicans in the Upper Hudson, Hoosick and Owl's Kill valleys may have exceeded 5,000.
After 1676, when the Witenagemot Oak (The Tree of Peace) was planted near the Knickerbocker Mansion in the Hoosick Valley, the Europeans began to make inroads into the holdings of the Mahicans.
The first conflict on New York soil that involved caucasians took place in this county,d as the fur traders that accompanied French explorer Samuel Champlain followed the Indian trail south through the Owlskill Valley to the junction with the Hoosick River.
A few miles upstream, they established a trading post and fort. The priests with them raised the first flag of christianity over this land and dubbed this first white settlement St. Croix. By 1669, at the heighth of Mahican strength, the Indian societies of the Northeast were rapidly changing from a nomadic, hunter-gatherer existence to a life more dependent upon agriculture.

EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT
When the first Dutch settlers moved into the Hoosick and lower Owlskill Valleys, the Mohicans were farming. The first land acquisitions were negotiated with these agrarian Indians.
In 1683 the State was divided into counties and settlement began. Between 1688 and 1765 a concentrated effort was made to put peoplle on the land. Many patents were granted.
The Owlskill Valley down to its junction with the Hoosick Valley was the fiefdom of Soquon, the "Owl" or wise man of the Mohicansacs.
Early permanent settlement involved a Dutch mill at St. Croix in 1724, a fort at the same time. A considerable Village grew up around where the Little White Creek spills into the Hoosick.
The first settler north of the Hoosick River was a fur-trader, one Bartholomew Van Hogleboom. His Christian name, "Bart" was given to the stream that flows into the Hudson just north of us, forming the natural boundary between the Old Cambridge District and Town of Salem. Originally called the "Bart's Kill", we know and love its pristine waters and undeveloped shores today as "The Battenkill".
Another important Indian settlement was in the mountains three miles east of the Valley. As the Europeans encroached more and more into the ancestral lands of the Mohicans; and as they negotiated more and more of this land from the dwindling tribes, Maquon, the great war chief of the Mohicansacs, retreated to a narrow defile through those mountains.
The defile was an ancient path that led east and west, from the Hudson near the present Villages of Greenwich and Schuylerville west through what is today the Main St. of Cambridge. This great east-west primitive arterial crossed the Great Northern War-Trail at Cambridge Village, and traversed the Valley roughly on a line with the present Main St.

INDUSTRY, INVENTION
There prior to 1680, in what is today Town of White Creek, Maquon established the encampment of "The Last of the Mohicans". Many refugees from Indian wars raging in New England found refuge with Maquon's followers. This historic region was called "Pompanuck". Today we call it "Pumpkin Hook".
Early white settlers took advantage of its timber and water power to establish a flourishing, inventive, industrial community. Except for a few modest dwellings, Pumpkin Hook today is abandoned. But the geniuses of Pumpkin Hook produced the first steel mouldboard plow. This "plow that broke the West" was known nationally as "The Cambridge Steel Plow." Several local inventors had to share the credit for its development.
And it was from Pumpkin Hook that certain textile manufacturing technigues evolved, to blend with stolen British technology and lead to the flowering of the textile industry in New England.

WELL-SPRING OF LEADERSHIP
From Maquon's refuge at Pumpkin Hook came the great Indian leader Oceola, who moved south to found the Seminole Nation in Florida.
At one time, the immortal Uncas and his father, Chingachgook, roamed the Owlskill Valley, as did King Philip, himself, and Chief Greylock of the Wampanoags.
Uncas, hero of Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans", is believed to have been permanently laid to rest in the Hoosick Valley in a field near Schaghticoke.
And no fewer than that two future governors of the State of Massachussetts spent their boyhood in that area.
One was Gov. George N. Briggs of Massachussetts, who served from 1844-1851. Gov. Briggs was asked what college he had graduated from, he replied "From John Allen's hat shop in White Creek." The other governor from Pumpkinhook was Thomas Talbot, who served from 1879 through 1880.
What happened to the Mohicans? In 1709 both aging leaders, Soquon and Maquon, among other chiefs in the Northeast, were taken by ship to England, where they were to be feted and other-wise honored in the Romantic tradition of "The Noble Savage".
Our Soquon, who was by then quite aged, did not survive. He died and was buried at sea. However, the warrior Maquon did survive. He was feted (and, indeed, even "painted") while in England.
But the great inroads of the Europeans were steadily grinding down the peoples of the Hoosick and Owl's Kill valleys. The French and Indian War raged over this area. Tribes were forced to side with either the French Catholics or the English Protestants.
After the French were beaten back to their lairs on the St. Lawrence River, many Mohicansacs left the Hoosick Valley and joined their brothers in Quebec. They then joined the French Jesuits in forays against the growing English protestant settlements in Western Massachussetts and Connecticutt. These vicious raiding parties were also directed against the tiny European settlements at St. Croix and in the Valleys of the Big and Little Hoosick.
Their captives, usually caucasian women and children, were force marched or dragged up the bloody war trail through the Owl's Kill Valley to Quebec. The raiders made stops at an ancient camping grounds on the site of Cambridge Village and at the head waters of the Owl's Kill, some small glacial lakes, Hedges and Lauderdale, that are five miles north of us. Their leavings has been enough to keep arrow head hunters and amateur archaeologists excited for 200 years.
That the Northern War Trail up the Owl's Kill Valley was a bloody path is undeniable. When the French and Indians attacked Fort Schaghticoke in 1746, they marched their prisoners up the Owl's Kill Valley to Canada. Subsequent raids into the Hoosick Valley and into Massachussetts were made via the same bloody path
that you sit within 100 yards of today.
The scalping forays of the French between 1869 and 1724, led down the Owl's Kill and up the Hoosac Pass to Deerfield and Northfield villages of Massachussetts. On their retreats north, the Indians dragged their hapless European captives up the Owl's Kill, always camping around the glacial lakes found five miles north of us. There great evidence of Indian occupation has been found and accumulated over the years.
This path down the Owl's Kill is the same that Baum would follow south to the junction of the Hoosick and Walloomsac Valleys where was fought one of the pivotal battles of the Revolutionary War.
The Hoosick Patent was granted in 1688. It extended up the valley from Schaghticoke or Valley Falls north to Falls Queequick or Hoosick Falls and then south down the Taconic Valley.
Noone seemed to contest that the land belonged to the Indians. Payment was always made and documents drawn and signed. A typical payment for such land might be 20 shirts, 2 guns, 12 pounds of powder, 36 pounds of lead, 8 gallons of rum, 2 casks of beer, 2 rolls of tobacco, 10 gallons of madeira wine and a quantity of pipes.
For deeding the Hoosac Patent, Soquon "The Owl" was to receive yearly, 1 blanket, 1 shirt, 1 pair of strockings, 1 apron, 1 keg of rum, 3 lbs. of powder, 6 lbs. of lead and 12 lbs. of tobacco.
A 12 acre cornfield at Tiashoke (Eagle Bridge) was set aside for his exclusive use. When he complained that the cattle of his Dutch neighbors were roaming through his crop, the Governor fenced the field for him.

DIVIDING THE LAND
When in 1683 the province of New York was divided into counties. The northernmost was Albany. This stretched north and west indefinitely, and east to the Connecticut River, the western border of New Hampshire.
The northern border was disputed by the French. In 1731, the French sought to secure the disputed territory. The English countered by inviting "loyal Protestant Highlanders" to settle the lands between the Hudson and the northern lakes. In response, various land patents were granted to English protestants and New Englanders who desired to settle here.
Of interest to us are the Hoosic Patent, which embraced the Hoosick River and south, and the Walloomsac Patent of 12,000 acres. This patent embraced the Walloomsac Valley, where the battle of Walloomsac (or if you insist, "Bennington") would be fought some 40 years later.
The Walloomsac Patent also embraced the southeast portion of what, in 1788, would become The Old Cambridge District, and ran east into what is now called Bennington Township.

In 1761, the Governor of New York granted a patent of some 31,000 acres north of the Hoosic patent, under the name of the Cambridge patent, to 61 petitioners, Edmund Wells, Isaac Sawyer, Jacob Lansing, William Smith, Alexander Colden, Goldsboro Banyar and others.
The original settlement was along the banks of the Owlkill Creek, although much early settlement took place in the highlands of the Taghkanick Range to the east.
It is generally agreed that the first permanent caucasian settlement in the Old Cambridge District began in 1763.
In 1772 Cambridge became a District, and in 1788 a Town of Albany County.
In 1791 it was annexed to Washington County. In 1816 the Old Cambridge District was divided into the towns of Cambridge, Jackson and White Creek.
In 1852 investors from Salem and Cambridge built the Eagle Bridge and Rutland Railroad. It quickly became a part of the main rail connection between Albany and Boston. This would remain so until the 1870s when the Hoosac Tunnel was completed.

CAMBRIDGE VILLAGE
During the Civil War the Owlskill Valley sent hundreds of its boys and young men as soldiers. Following the war, on April 16, 1866, the Village of Cambridge was incorporated. It was divided into East and West Districts, one part lying in Town of White Creek, the other in Town of Cambridge.
That same year, funds were secured, a hand-pumper secured from Troy and an engine house was built. The Village had a Fire Dept.
Even before it was a Village, the Corners had a band. The Cambridge Band was organized as a militia band in 1853, making it (in 1997) the oldest independent military style band in the Nation.
In the 1870s The Jerome B. Rice Seed Co. began its rise to national imminence. It would at the turn of the Century be the second largest seed packet operation in the Nation.
In 1886, private investors built the Cambridge Water Works, based on a spring that flows from Billings Hill in Annaquasicoke. The spring has never failed.
In August, 1891 the Village Board signed a contract with the Cambridge Light and Power Co. to supply elecricity for street lights.
On February 6, 1900, the Board granted permission to the Granville Telephone Co. to put service into the Village.
In 1913 Main St. was paved with yellow bricks.
In 1918 tree spraying was begun in an effort to protect the giant elms that lined the Village streets.
In 1919 free mail delivery was instituted in the Village.
In 1919 Mary McClellan Hospital opened. It was a gift to the community by Edwin McClellan, in honor of his mother.
In 1927, the "President" of the Village received the new designation of "Mayor".
In 1932 all of the Village fire companies were disbanded, in favor of a single "Cambridge Fire Dept."
The present fire house and Village hall went into service in 1951.
By 1958 the Elm trees were dying en masse. Fourteen were taken down that year in the Village alone. The next year 16 came down.
In 1966 the Village celebrated its 100th birthday with an elaborate parade and festival.
Among the original settlers in the Cambridge District, many of whom or whose sons were later soldiers in the Revolution., were James and Robert Cowan, Robert Blair, George Gilmore, and Jonathan and Thomas Morrison.
The Morrisons settled on what today would be the east end of Cambridge Village. The Blair holdings included the swamps that were once the heart of the Village, and upon which the J.B. Rice Seed Co. dand the Union School were built.
In 1762 the "Anaquassacook" patent of 10,000 acres was granted to four Schermerhorns, three Quackenbushes, two Smiths and one Jansen, all of Schenectady. The tract was situated in the north of the Towns of Jackson and White Creek, along the south bank of the Battenkill River. The area is still identified with that unusual name.
In 1764, Turner's patent of 25,000 acres was granted. This constitutes the Town of Salem today.
In 1769, German-Irish Methodists (so-called Palatines, for the region in Germany from which they initially fled), under Philip Embury, obtained a patent in the northeast of the present White Creek. The only original patent paper that remains in this community is for this Embury-Wilson Patent, which was south of the Battenkill River and extended east into what became the Town of Shaftsbury, Vt. The ancient document bears the seal of King George III.
But the land of the Embury-Wilson patent was too mountainous for a flax industry, which was the goal of the colonists, so they obtained rented lands north of the Battenkill in the area of modern day Eagleville.
In 1766, Phineas Whiteside purchased 1,400 acres in the west part of Cambridge patent. Other patents in the area included the Grant and Campbell patent south of the Embury Patent in White Creek, the Bains patent adjoining that and the Reed and Van Antwerp patent of 1770 north of the Hoosic and west of Cambridge.
To promote its settlement and meet the conditions of the grant, those who would move to Cambridge patent, build a home and cultivate within three years were given 100 acres. These grants stretched along the west bank of the Owl's Kill from the present Eagle Bridge up to and including what is now the Village.
The settlement of the Owlskill Valley was interrupted by the Revolutionary War.
In 1772, the New York Legislature formed a county named "Charlotte," in honor of the queen wife of George the Third. This would later become Washington County, although at the formation of Charlotte County, the Owlskill Valley remained in Albany County. At the same time, Charlotte County was formed, Albany County was arganized into Districts. Everything east of Saratoga District, south of the Battenkill and north of Schaghticoke was formed into The Cambridge District.
In 1775, Charlotte County was renamed "Washington" in honor of the great revolutionary soldier, and the Old Cambridge District, much against its will, was taken out of Albany and added to Washington County.
In 1815, reflecting the limited communications of the times, the Districts of eastern New York were reorganized into smaller townships. The Old Cambridge District became the towns of Cambridge, Jackson and White Creek.
Early white settlment in this community was largely in the Taghonic Mountains to the east and along the Owl's Kill. The first tavern was a log house kept by James Cowden, where the Checkered House Inn later stood, south of Cambridge Village along the Northern Turnpike. When it burned in 1907, the Checkered House Tavern was more than 100 years old.
The Checkered House was indeed a landmark. During the Revolution, the hostelry gained prominence by virtue of its being near the Walloomsac battle field. Under its roof many of the wounded were nursed.
George Washington is supposed to have visited. Likewise Thomas Jefferson and The Marquis de Lafayette, as the traveled from visiting the battlefield at Walloomsac to the battlefield at Old Saratoga (Schuylerville).
When, with the battle of Lexington in 1775, the Revolution became a reality, Old Cambridge was thrown into confusion. Many Loyalists simply fled to Canada, never to return. Others later took refuge with Burgoyne at Fort Edward. Some, especially from Camden Valley enlisted in the British army.
Patriots of Old Cambridge formed the 16th New York Militia and armed with smooth-bore muskets, presented themselves for service to the Revolution.
As the war waxed, civil authority in the Old Cambridge District disintegrated. After the rebel victories at Walloomsac and Old Saratoga, all power fell to the Committee of Safety and Correspondence. There was much unrest.
Most homes were still the original log cabins. The construction of the first church, on the Turnpike south of the Village, had been interrupted by the war. There were no schools, no newspapers, no transportation or mail service.
Such were the conditions in Old Cambridge in 1778.

AFTER THE WAR
The settlement of Old Cambridge District increased rapidly after the Revolution. In 1788 Cambridge District became a township. In 1791, the Legislature created Washington County from the old Charlotte, and at the instigation of Gen. Williams of Salem, added those parts south of the Battenkill and north of Rensselaer, which was formed at the same time.
Both New York and New Hampshire continued to claim the area between the Hudson and Connecticutt River, even though the British government had found in favor of New York.
Civil War raged from White Hall to the Walloomsac. So disturbed did the people become at New York's unwillingness to defend them against the predators from New Hampshire that in May, 1781 a convention was held in Cambridge. Delegates came from all of the surrounding border towns.
At this convention, believed to have been held in John Wood's tavern near White Creek Village. When the delegates voted to submit themselves to the authority of Vermont, the people of Old Cambridge District "seceded" and joined the Benning Mob as a means of achieving peace.
This caught the immediate attention of the governor at Albany, who dispatched militia to the border. Whether they were to subdue the frustrated sededers or the Benning Mob, is not clear.
The result was that in March, 1782 a second convention was held in Major John Porter's old tavern, Park and Main in Cambridge, and the secession was retracted. A petition went to the Governor asking pardon for the inhabitants of The Old Cambridge District.
The Northern Turnpike Company was incorporated in 1799. A road was built from Lansingburg to Burlington, Vt. This went up the Valley of the Owl's Kill and largely followed the Great Northern War-Trail of the Indians.
The war of 1812 also touched Old Cambridge. The local militia was called to arms in 1814, but was in such decrepit condition that it had hardly gotten out of town when Commodore McDonough conquered the British fleet on Lake Champlain. Later prisoners were marched down The Northern War-Trail or Turnpike through Cambridge to Albany.
Historian Mrs. A.D. Frisbie recorded the story of John Mitchell, a young British soldier who was captured near Plattsburgh. As he was marched down the Northern Turnpike he came to admire the Owl's Kill Valley and determined to make his life here. Just above what is today the Village of Cambridge, he found an opportunity to escape. He broke ranks and hid under the bridge where a small steam crosses to the Owl's Kill at what is today the Robert McClellan estate.
John Mitchell made good his pledge. He was not found by his Colonial captors and did spend his life living quietly in Old Cambridge. For many years he was caretaker of the United Presbyterian Church (then on the Glebe lot just north of the Turnpike Burying Ground). He and his family were buried there, but later were removed and placed in Section B, Woodlands Cemetery.

Resources for this narrative: The files of the Washington County Post weekly newspaper; The Hoosac Valley, its Legends and its History” by Grace Greylock Niles

All of Dave Thornton’s history narratives are protected by copyright law.

The Bad ol' Days

Cobbtown (I)
by Dave Thornton
In The Valley of the Owlskill in the 1880s, morality was considered as important as say, the sprinkling cart, a handy device regularly trotted out to settle the dust of the unpaved streets; but was otherwise left stored in the barn.
The moral sense was expected to settle the dust of civil disobedience. It was a "given" that religious leaders and women had the moral sense.
Community leaders were expected to have morals, which they
were to exhibit regularly; otherwise they became EX-community leaders. School teachers without the moral sense were fired. Failed clergy were vilified. Politicians were turned from office.
It was as important to pass down morals to the off-spring as it was grandma's crewel work. There seemed to be no issue that did not yield to the relentless, commonly held standards of justice and right and wrong; that is, The Moral Sense.
OUT OF JOINT
But sometimes, like the nose, denizens of the Owlskill Valley got out of joint. When this happened the local editor of the Old Washington County Post (WCP) turned to satire as a means of helping citizens better understand themselves.
And nowhere could there be found a more revealing contrast than in the communities of Cobbtown and Pumpkin Hook. In Cobbtown and Pumpkin Hook the local saw Old Cambridge with its guard down: An unwashed swarm of amoral, chicken thieves, wife-borrowers, poachers and horse thieves; shiftless and contentious, untroubled by so much as a shred of the moral sense.
The Smart brothers, proprietors of the ancient Washington
County Post weekly newspaper, published in Cambridge NY from 1849-1996, characterized these rural abodes of the poor and ignorant as "sink holes of iniquity." To the good and respectable members of society, they were held up as a warning: "There, but for the Grace of God....'

And although it is doubtful that the reality of Cobbtown ever lived up to the myth, there are old-timers today who remember that you didn't drive a good horse past the Plains of Cobbtown after sundown.

MYTHIC CORRESPONDENCE
Tink Pratt, a mythical correspondent, wrote notes from Cobbtown. They appeared periodically in the columns of the paper. The notes were probably from the talented pen of Robert Law, who, in 1882 would have been fresh out of the Cambridge Washington Academy and ready for the first of his several illustrious careers.
Late in May of that year, Tink reported a large number of visitors "to this popular resort."
Cobbtown in May was particularly popular with tramps who had wintered in the county jail at Salem NY, formerly the Washington county seat. In those days, the Sheriff operated the jail as a concession. He was expected to make money on it.
One of the ways he did was to use the inmates to work his farm. He also billed the county on a "per diem” basis for those he incarcerated. Therefore, he loved to fill up the jail with tramps.
He preferred tramps to felons, for several reasons. Tramps were grateful for the heat and the roof over their heads and could be relied upon not to escape. They could be double and triple bunked or even bedded in the hallways. And they weren't particular about what they ate.
However, they were immune to work. Therefore, the sheriff made sure his collection of felons was filled out by spring “mud time”, for surely his family of tramps would desert him.
Cobbtown was their next stop.

COBBTOWN LIFE
"The Trailing Arbutus is giving fragrance to the swamps nearby," Tink observed.
There was always something exciting going on in Cobbtown to entertain visitors. That May there was trouble in two of the oldest and best known families of the Plains, the LeBarrons and the Coons.
"Wm. LeBarron and his 'accomplished' wife were living in relative harmony until a few weeks ago, when Reuben LeBarron, a cousin of Wm's came to visit from Hoosick Falls," wrote Tink. Like the hamlets of the Owlskill Valley,
Hoosick Falls Village is snug along the eastern line of New York State up near Bennington, Vermont.
"Unfortunately for the tranquility of the Valley, he became deeply infatuated with Wm's wife.
When finally this caught Wm's attention, he borrowed a chew from Henry Coon, a relative by marriage. Not mollified by this, he took his razor and commenced to kill himself. "Mrs. LeBarron threw herself upon his bosom.
Reuben, hopeful of the way things were proceeding, was infuriated by this. Jealousy at the sight of Mrs. L. at her husband's bosom gnawed at Reuben's vitals.
"Finally, in a rage, he fell upon the hapless William, who so soundly beat him that Reuben returned to Hoosick Falls.
"A few days after this, a well known Shushan blacksmith took Mrs. L for a buggy ride. Mr. LeBarron argued against the trip, to no avail. Upon her return, he contented himself with giving his wife a thrashing.
FAMILY TIES
Henry Coon also had a fascinating wife. It was in 1876 that Hen, scion of the famous Coon family, whose name has been associated with Pumpkin Hook since the earliest times, formed a matrimonial alliance with a member of the LeBarron clan of Cobbtown.
"Alas for the frailty of the human heart. The fires of love died on the altar of hymen," wrote Tink.
"His young wife was determined to return to her parents and one Monday she did so, an act that so touched 'Hen' that he was rent with anguish and weeping.
"Later that day, a member of the LeBarron family, upon looking out the window, saw a body swinging from a rope, suspended from the limb of an apple tree in the Simpsons' orchard. It was young Hen." The LeBarrons cut him down.
Luckily, Coon had little experience in suicide. The knot was so awkwardly tied as to do him no harm. He lived to try love again, by joining his inlaws in Cobbtown.
Then Nelson Parish, one of the visiting tramps, became smitten with Mrs. Coon. Hen resented this. He made this known to Parish, who gave him a thrashing.
Observed Tink: "The social waters of Cobbtown are not
allowed to become stagnant."
Tink also reported that Wm. was now out of danger and would not be able to harm himself, as Mrs. LeBarron had dulled his razor trimming her corns.
HERMIT REPORTS
The Hermit of Cobbtown reported in July, 1882. He found Tink sidelined for a while from his correspondence after his wife, who had been out of town, caught him in the arms of
Mrs. Mattison, who operated a “house” down by the toll gate Of the Great Northern Turnpike, at the eastern base of Oak Hill.
The Great Northern Turnpike was a wonder of deep ruts and perpetually slick clay hills that stretched in its day from the City of Troy on the Hudson River all the way up the Owlskill Valley to the great marble and granite guarries of Rutland, Vermont.
The heart-broken wife got Abe Pratt of Pumpkinhook to drive her down to fetch Tink.
Tink had a bulldog toward which he was partial. He wagered the family "carriage" against Perry Coon's shotgun and two cords of swamp maple that his dog could lick Perry's hound.
"The hound ragged the bull pup until the pup looked like it had been through the pulp mill, then Tink welshed on the bet."
The Hermit reported all cottages "at this summer resort" occupied. "The menus of the hotels are quite equal to the past, owing to the raid that depleted Simpson's trout pond, and will improve as soon as the nearby farmers' sweet corn ripens and their turkeys grow large enough to respond to the song,
'Come, birdies, come."
PROPHET SPEAKS
Politics in 19th century America lacked many of the niceties of the 20th. Cobbtown didn't write the book on vote buying and other outlaw practices, which were epidemic, but the denizens could certainly have provided an effective chapter in the training manual.
In late summer, pronouncements of wisdom and politics flowed from the pen of the Prophet of Cobbtown.
"Everyone in Cobbtown is looking toward the coming elections," he observed. ~Jackson (township) has no candidate for county sheriff in 1882, so the denisons are expecting to sell their votes dearly to whomever the parties run.
“Pond Valley (just north of the Owlskill Valley) coffin varnish will command a premium," prophesied the prophet.
“The Cobbtown voter only takes interest in an election where there is some 'principal' at stake. They are talking a dollar a head for votes."
The prophet, being old, could remember hard times, when
votes went begging at 25 cents apiece “and patriotic men would help save their country three times a single election for a bushel of shelled corn.
“His friends are trying to ‘boom' Nate LeBarron for pound master. Ed Rainey is quietly laying the wires for the Cobbtown mayorality. However, a recent imbroglio resulting rom too great familiarity on his part with his grandson's wife, may injure his chances somewhat."

#

One of the colorful, 18th century mountain men of Pumpkin Hook and Black Hole Hollow, shown before his cabin. The hills are shown shorn of trees, as in that period sheep-raising was a major agricultural activity. Today the site of this old cabin is surrounded by mature hard-wood forest. 

Early Days in Cambridge NY

Gunfight at Pumpkin Hook (In the Good Ol' Days)

I like to write about "the Good ol' Days," when Florens Hoxie and Dodds and McCrea Hedges were building the beautiful homes of the Cambridge Valley; when streets were sandy and lined with great elms, and the constables patrolled on foot;when groceries came in hogsheads and sold by the measure; when boys wore knickers, little boys gowns and black was for Sunday because it was the most expensive dye; When People could actually READ James Fenimore Cooper.
Those were the Good Old Days, when the writing was so
practiced that a letter from the period is today a lovely
wall decoration.

EVERYONE COULD SING
Everyone could sing and read music because everyone went to church and learned four part harmony and shaped notes.
Youths were more responsible in the Good Old Days, because adults gave them more responsibility. Experience, under proper supervision, remains the great teacher.
Some things never change. That is the Cambridge Valley I love to chronicle.
It was a society that feared alcohol and drugs far more than we do, because that world had no social drag-net in place. An individual suffered the consequences of his actions, and so did those of his association; so, one watched the company one kept.

THE OTHER WORLD
But just as there is today, there was on the other side of the white picket fence another world; a dark, marginal
society, where the people didn't wear sachet or bathe,
unless in summer.
They were an ambitious lot, bound to get ahead, so long as work wasn't required.
They didn't graduate the Cambridge or Salem Washington Academies and they didn't go to church.
They couldn't write or read a grocery list, much less Fenimore Cooper; although they would have recognized themselves in some of his characters.
By day, it belonged to the constables, ministers and
judges. But at night, The Cambridge Valley belonged to the
Subterraneans.
To them, we are indebted for the electric flood-light above every street corner, lane and chicken house; for locks,
burglar alarms, Dobermans, insurance, mace and 24 hour
police surveilance.
They are the subjects of these next few paragraphs.
If I have a point, it is only this, that some things never change. Some are born to heal the sick, others to steal your chickens.
And although the best chicken thieves preferred to live in proximity to the saloons and butcher shops, most of the miscreants of the Valley chose the out-lying hamlets,
away from the sheriff's warrant and the policeman's cudgel.
Everyone has read of the notorious hang-out for hoodlums of the Wild West, "Hole in the Wall." But where among us is the heart that races in fear and dread at the whispered mention of, "Pumpkin Hook” or “Cobbtown"?
We have read of Butch, Sundance and the tubercular Doc
Holiday, but who is terrorized by the dread surnames,
Lebarron, Surdam, and Mattison?
On April 19, 1875, the anniversary of the Battle
at Concord Bridge, a somewhat more infamous skirmish played out among these Taghonic foothills and took its rightful place in the annals of local history.
The disputants were Eugene Surdam and Clark Mattison.
The episode occurred in Pumpkin Hook, although it could
have as well occurred at Cobbtown. Pumpkin Hook is now deserted, the only signs of previous habitation are a few scraggly apple trees and the sluiceways carved into the stones over which the brook still falls. In the 18th century, it was a thriving, though tiny, industrial complex nestled in a high pass in the foothills of the Green Mountains in a region that would eventually become part of a future state named Vermont. At the time of this yarn, the the chair manufactory and the flaz mill had vanished, leaving behind the pattern of poverty and degradation seen generations later when they great mills pulled out of Massachussetts.

ON THE BORDER
Specifically, Pumpkin Hook was located in the saddle of a ridge of the Greens running north and south, conveniently on the Vermont-New York line between Cambridge NY and Arlington Vt. Now the only inhabitants are an independent order of Greek Orthodox monks who have built a monastary near there.
But that was now and this is then. Of Pumpkin Hook the local newspaper observed:
"This sequestered locality is infested with a class of
citizens whose character is bad, equalling, if not rivaling,
the denizens of that rural city Cobbtown in deeds of evil."
For new-comers to this Blog, let me say that Cobbtown was a hamlet near the local "aerodrome" on Plains Road between Cambridge and Shushan NY. Its residential base has improved a great deal with the passage of time.
Pumpkin Hook, aside from the above-mentioned, has ceased to exist. It once straddled the
divide between the Cambridge and White Creek valleys high in the hills above Ashgrove, itself an early Methodist mecca.
Pumpkin Hook was a major industrial community during the heyday of cottage industry and water power.
That Sunday Surdam rode his horse to a cabin the Mattisons occupied near the woods below Pumpkin Hook. Surdam hitched his horse in front and started toward the house.
Through a hole in the side of cabin, Mattison spotted him. Followed by his teen-aged son, he stepped out upon the lean-to porch, blocking Surdam's way.
With a plodding use of the vernacular that would have nonetheless stunned Professor Newman of the Cambridge Washington Academy, Mattison ordered Surdam from his yard.

FISTIC PUNCTUATION
Surdam, being not so dexterous with the language; in fact, being given to mono-syllabic disputations, punctuated with his fists, pulled his revolver from his pocket and shot
twice at Mattison, with no visible effect.
This terrible markmanship is better understood when one considers the time of day, and the fact that Surdam habitually spent the bigger part of Sunday sitting under an apple tree imbibing freely of a low-grade, semi-petrified
resin known as “pop-skull”, for the manufactory of which Pumpkin Hook was well known.
Mattison Sr. was so surprised at this line of discourse from the naturally taciturn Surdam that for several seconds he stood frozen to the rude planking of the porch. This while his brain ploughed through the events to try and make head or tail of them. For while he was a talker, in a disputatious sense, he was none too logical.
Mattison Jr., being the more nimble-witted, bolted for the woodshed, where he recalled there being a recently sharpened, double-bitted axe, and where the walls, being of Chesnut log, were thicker than those of the cabin, being of pine plank.
Surdam was aiming poorly, but thinking well that afternoon. He surmised what junior might be up to and fired twice at him; but again, he missed.
In the meantime, the brain of Mattison sr. got things lined out. Mattison was a laboring man, not given to fast moves, but known for miles around as someone into whose hands you ought never to let yourself get.
He sagged at the knee until a foot moved forward to support his tilting bulk. Thus begun, Mattison lurched off the stoop, his huge hands stretching for the turkey buzzard neck of the ill-fated Surdam.
Surdam fired one last shot. The low velocity bullet struck Mattison on the left hand, following the bone and sticking in the hard, fore-arm muscle.
As Mattison had very little to say about this and didn't appear to have been brought by the fortuitous shot to a point in the dispute where he might negotiate a settlement, Surdam stuffed the empty five-shooter in his pants and bolted for his horse.
When last seen, he was riding away from the sunset, high-tailing it over the ridge toward Vermont, that refuge of horse-thieves and cut-throats, for so it was regarded by the border people of White Creek in those days, and by some in these.
Of course, this is the way Mattison's friends told the story. In Pumpkin Hook, as in Cambridge, you could be sure that, never mind the facts, if certain folks came down on one side in a dispute, certain others would be found on t’other.
So it was in this 'shoot-out' at Pumpkin Hook. Surdam's crowd told it that the Mattisons, father and son, had stoned him until he was compelled to shoot in self-defense, never mind that the incident took place on the Mattison's front porch.
For the boys on the east side of White Creek in 1870, resorting to the law was just another move in the game. Therefore, the friends of Surdam wasted no time in swearing a warrant for Mattison, who was taken before Judge Tabor of White Creek.
Once they had him out in the open, they took the advantage. On Tuesday, as Mattison walked home alone from the hearing, the Surdam crowd way-laid him and administered the sort of thorough beating a crowd of crows can inflict upon a red-tail hawk that is twice their size, but half their speed.
That it was thorough may be deduced from the punishment meted out among his tormentors, for now it was Mattison's turn to appeal to the court. His complaint led to the arrest of one Lyman Gibbons, who was forced to post a peace bond. His brother, Aaron Gibbons, was sent to Salem Jail for six months.
In Vermont, the instigator, Surdam, finding agreeable lodging and boon companionship, showed a healthy disinclination to return.
The final resolution of the case is, of course, lost in the mists of time. So long as it involved one Subterranean doing in another and was not an immediate threat to the gentrified chicken coops of the Valley, the local weekly (from which these facts were gleaned)was in it strictly for its entertainment value.
There were Good Old Days in the lovely Cambridge Valley, but those days were a lot better, it seems, if your lot was tempered by money, family, education, and faith in God.
Some things never change.

YANKEE HILL BILLIES
The Cambridge Valley is not really the "Cambridge" Valley at all. It is the valley of The Owl's Kill --- The Owlkill Valley, so designated in pre-christian times when Mohicansacs and Abinakis vied with the Mohawks for control of the mountain passes, the farmable valleys and the waterways.
The valley stream that drains the mountain regions to the east ---Ashgrove, Black Hole Hollow and Pumpkin Hook --- meanders through what in ancient times was a vast bog and pine barren, until after its 15 mile wander it flows into the larger Hoosic River and thence into the Hudson.
At the junction of the two streams is Tiashoke, the seat of power of The Owl, the wise chief of the Mohicansacs. That tiny hamlet, with its bounteous cornfields still producing today, is better known to us as "Eagle Bridge", the final home of primitive artist "Grandma Moses".
The people of the hills east of the Cambridge valley were different. Since pre-revolutionary days, when terrorism and guerilla warfare raged over the settlement of the land, the region worked and played to different rules.
Family relations were uncommonly direct. In 1873 Dave Browner of Murray Hollow dispaired of living alone. Murray Hollow is set in this same ridge of the Green Mountains, except that its stream flows north into yet another basin, which is drained by the Battenkill River. That stream is today revered not for its numerous water-powered manufactories, but as a popular stream for the fishing of trout.
Anyway, in 1873, Dave Browner had one of the most coveted of possessions among the Subterraneans, a good horse, but his wife had left him the year before.
George Fraser, a fellow denizon of Murray Hollow, had a wife and two kids. But Fraser loved a good horse best, and he didn't have one. That October, facing another bleak winter isolated in the hills without the companionship of a wife, Browner approached Fraser with a proposition.
The parties were reported to be happy with the trade.
Prostitutes posed such a challenge to female-centered society that they were never tolerated, not even at Cobbtown. And Cobbtown, in 1867, tolerated about everything. It is said to this day that in "the good ol' days" one dared not ride through Cobbtown after dark on a good horse.
In 1867 one Sora Anton operated from her residence. Neighbors ganged up and broke out her windows and smashed in her doors. They told her that if she didn't move her operation they would come back and tear the house completely to the ground. She fled.
Vigilance, so-called "frontier justice" prevailed at various times in the history of the Valley. When Pumpkin Hook became too rough in 1869, a group of irate citizens hired one Benjamin Whitaker to break up and prosecute the gang of thieves that was operating from there. He was so successful that they gave him a bonus of a new suit of clothes.
But of course, it didn't last. The Subterraneans quickly reclaimed their community. The years following the Civil War were especially turbulent. Many immigrants had been brought in by the government to fight the war. Afterwards, they had to be assimilated into the body politic.
Westward expansion was at its height. Soldiers suffering after-shocks from combat roamed the countryside, unable to settle down. Civil War "Bummers" continued to roam and pillage, simply because they had acquired a taste for the life.
Many communities formed vigilante committees, including those in the Owl's Kill and Hoosic valleys.
It was during this turbulent time that one Dennis Welch was roasted alive at the saloon of J.H. Eccleshymer of Johnsonville, a tiny hamlet by a dam on the Hoosic. Welch, a laborer in that village, was accused of having body lice. The clientele stripped him for public inspection, then poured "camphene" over him to kill the graybacks.
Some other thoughtful soul set him afire.
That March, things got so bad at Hitchcock's Hotel in White Creek, one of the towns in which The so-called Revolutionary War Battle of "Bennington" was fought, that Constable Butts hid out until a "party of Vermont toughs" finished smashing up the place and went home.
Times were so hard in the Valley in 1869 that in Cambridge Village the kerosene street lamps were not lit. There was no money in in the treasury. The Washington County Post (from whence these yarns were researched) reviewed the trouble along the eastern border:
"Shaftsbury, especially that portion bordering White Creek, has a class of inhabitants who, if not openly immoral, at least lead lives different from that Caesar wished for his wife... not above suspicion."
Ranked among the suspect was the Hill family, who lived on the border in a house belonging to Samuel C. Wheeler . Wheeler boarded with the family. Neighbors assumed that he was Mrs. Hill's paramour.
For a considerable time, all went well. Then on July 4 (a Sunday), Wheeler took sick. On Wednesday he died. Neighbors wanted a post-mortem, but Wheeler's mother would not allow it. He was buried.
Then a few days later, a child of Mrs. Hill sickened. A Dr. Turner called. He told the mother that the child had been taking laudunam (opium). He believed the child deliberately poisoned.
The parents denied any knowledge of opium on the premises, but the Dr. found evidence. This he carried to White Creek Village. There he learned that the druggists Barker and Fassett had sold the opium a short time before. The Doctor concluded that both Wheeler and the child had died from it.
Dr. Turner sought to exhume the body of Wheeler, but there was a problem. He had been buried across the time in Vermont.
The Hills maintained that the poisoning was accidental, the result of rat poison, which had been sprinkled on the pantry shelves.
They thought that it must have gotten on some pork, which had been cooked for breakfast. All had sickened, but only Wheeler had died.

DOPE AND BOOZE
In an unrelated incident that occurred in that vicinity about the same time, Brownell Niles tried to murder his wife.; They lived near Shaftsbury center. He came home drunk and tried to force his wife to get drunk. She refused.
Niles seized a child of 3 or 4 months and poured a quantity of the spirits down its throat, strangling it terribly. Then he went at his wife with a butcher knife, trying to cut her throat.
He made one pass, succeeding in slicing into her hand, before she rushed out of doors. She headed toward a passing team. Niles took to his heels and remained away for several days. Then the family “reconciled”. No legal action was taken.
Leroy Elwell lived about five miles east of Bennington, Vt. He had been married a few years, but his wife had refused to live with him. His marriage was not widely known.
Finally Elwell became smitten by the charms of an unmarried young woman. He counterfeited a divorce decree and married her, she thinking it was genuine.
Lately Elwell, “possessed of the horror of his crimes," imagined the law was after him. That Friday night he went to the garret of his house and hanged himself. It was the third suicide in Shaftsbury Township in seven months.

THE VILLAGE SMITHY
Fusil oil was an ingredient in some of the local "pop skull”, the imbibing of which could drive a man wild. One Saturday night in Hoosick Falls, John Faley, stimulated by "this delectable nectar", got into a row with a saloon-keeper and bit off his great toe.
Remarked the WCP, "there is no accounting for the tastes of Hoosick Falls pugilists."
A blacksmith of Old Cambridge, Malachi Shaughnessy, suffered the effects of alcohol abuse when his workman, Patrick O'Brien, pushed him onto a pile of iron and pounded him 3-4 times. By-standers called for Officer Chappell, the constable in those days. Chappell couldn't subdue O'Brien, even with handcuffs. He called for volunteers.
James Finn stepped forward and was kicked in the forehead for his trouble. Clark Weir split his best pair of pants. Finally, they got the cuffs on O'Brien and put him in a carriage to haul him to the lockup, but he kicked out of the driver's seat and Chappell and Weir had to subdue him again.
Justice Crocker fined in $15 and gave him 30 days in the County Jail. On the way to Salem, Officer Baker stopped at his home for supper. O'Brien was left on the step in the charge of a little girl.
"Good bye, he says, and down the road he ran, with Baker in pursuit," taking what in those good ol' days was known as "leg bail"!
It was not only the poor and the Irish who had a fondness for alcohol. It was that the proper people disguised and controled their appetites, consuming quantities of "patent"remedies, the principal ingredient of which was usually alcohol or opium.
The blackberry was a popular crop because it was generally believed that it gave color to the blood. Taken as a
brandy, it was considered medicinal, a remedy for diarrhea.
The local editor observed that the only part of the
blackberry that was an astringent was the root. "There is no
more medicinal value in blackberry brandy than in cherry
bounce and other tipples."

Such was life in The Cambridge Valley in "the good ol' days"!

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(All of Dave Thornton's tales and stories are protected by Copyright Law.)