This article has been drawn from the first chapter of the author’s thesis on Jefferson County folklore, which she wrote in fulfilling the requirements for a Master’s degree at Cornell University. In this, the introductory chapter of her thesis, she chats about some of the Jefferson County people who aided her in her search for folklore.

AMUSING AND PITIFUL is the sophisticated “sniff-sniff” of the supercilious person who has no time for folklore. More pathetic than amusing, however, is the fact that admissions of interest in the folk are made sometimes from eyes peering sheepishy from behind finger-bars of scholarly convention. Steele, as well as Addison, confesses to a keen interest in ballads. Steele says that his “unhappy curiosity is such” that he has to take a coach to avoid the temptation to loiter with the ballad-singers. Poor, hampered individual! Think what a big “kick” he would have had with a recording machine, a voice, the people, and the company of Sandburg, Lomax, Thompson, and Jones. Frustrated folks might well turn to folklore for fun.

I am not concerned with the defense of folklore. My aim is to record a little more of the folklore of New York State, particularly of my own county of Jefferson, partly because I have always lived there and partly because someone made the statement that there was no folklore in that county.

In my search I have discovered the strength of our pioneer, who could bury the massacred remains of the loved one after a white-man-propelled Indian raid, and whose descendant could gather the family around an old reed organ in the living room at night and sing after a day’s toil in kitchen and field. The strength came from utter devotion to a greater power outside himself.

Wherever I have visited, someone remembers that a mother or a grandfather had time to tell him stories or sing him songs that vibrate even now in his memory with quiet energy and sympathetic appeal.

THE FIRST TIME I visited Miss Florentine Vincent of Cape Vincent, who has lived in one house for over 80 years, she sang a song that her mother used to sing to her. Miss “Tinnie,” as she is known throughout the county, is a retired school teacher, whose collection of Americana is the envy of antique dealers.

HAD IT NOT BEEN for Ross B. Lowe I should never have found Miss “Tinnie.” Mr. Lowe lives in Watertown and collects early American books. Mr. Lowe and his wife have never been too busy to go on pilgrimages with me. The people and the places that they know to be rich with folklore are legion.

I WENT TO ADAMS to the house which used to be the first bank of the county, the present home of C. W. (Ken) Whittier. Mr. Whittier not being home, I followed the suggestion of a neighbor and drove to Depauville, where the object of my quest has a small summer cabin next door to the farm that he used to work and where the famous Cyrus McCormick found his wife, the former Nettie Fowler.

Mr. Whittier sat in a rocker by an oil-cloth covered drop leaf table on which was a kerosene lamp. There are eight fireplaces in Mr. Whittier’s home in Adams, but here was only a make-believe one. For the benefit of the scholar, Mr. Whittier is a collateral descendant of the Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier. The home-like voice and the strong, sure accents of Ken Whittier reminded me of the poet’s hymns and his unswerving faith. I wasn’t mistaken.

Mr. Whittier used to play the ‘cello. He used to attend the singing school that Steve Slater held. He used to play in the band, and now in his eighties he rocks--oh, yes, he drives his gray horseless Chevrolet--but he rocks and thinks of the nights when German cheese makers and hotel keepers used to holler, across the muddy road: “Keen! Keen! Come ofer. Seeng!” He told me that he used to know many German drinking songs.

“YOU’LL NEVER GET to heaven if you don’t collect antiques,” declared Chris Irvine of Chaumont. When I told him that I wanted to leave and go over to visit another old-timer in the area, he shook his head, pointed his finger at me, and grinned: “Girl, let me tell ya something. Ya don’t wanta b’leeve a word he says! He’s the biggest liar in the county!: Later, upon visiting another of my informants, he said, “I sure scared hell outa that little school teacher, but I like her; bring her down again sometime.”

“Ten dollars and you don’t hafta take it,” is one of the favorite phrases of this antique collector. Chris might well begin all his years, “Now, this is a true one and you don’t hafta b’leeve it!” He said he woke up in the night trying to think of stories for me, but anyone knows that “the tarnal ole liar” can tell them sleeping or waking. His sister Bertha looked at him and me sitting on an ox yoke and said to Mrs. Warn: “Now, what’s that Chris up to now? Telling that poor girl a pack of lies, I suppose.”

THEN THERE IS Lester West, barber and farmer of Chaumont, who responded well at the Rogers’ old seed farm. We turned out all the lights. His grandchild was squealing, for it was she who had been assigned the task of getting him to tell how Fred Sternberg plugged the drain that served as the cloistered thoroughfare of the ghosts in his house, and how “Hogeye” tried to fool the ghosts. “Didn’t s’pose anybuddy these days was int’rested in ghost stories.”

NOT FAR FROM CHAUMONT beyond Three Mile Bay lives an old warrior who has seen the fields grow into cement highways, the skeletons of ships and docks sink slowly into the quiet waters of the bay, the tallow candle and the oxen give over to electricity and the locomotive. Milton Lance, better known as “Met,” had just come in from hoeing a thriving garden. It was dusk, and who wouldn’t be flustered to have a city whippersnapper drop in of an evening and peck at his Past?

As he stood by the old kitchen range waving his arm and flashing his eyes, I knew that I had found a prize. He launched into a lively discussion concerning “Prusshy,” “Russhy,” Napoleon, and the English. At the age of 100, his Polish “Grumpa” never minded walking from the Toadhole up to the old farm or to the town every day---a distance of twelve miles. He managed to get away from the Sicily Isles in 1815. Somehow he made it from there to Quebec to the Mohawk---finally to Point Peninsula; his tombstone informs us that he lived to be 104. And thereby hangs a tale, a long-fascinating tale......

CLIFFORD BOWMAN met Mrs. Warn and me at the door, dressed in light gabardine slacks and soft shirt. We must have known each other though I swear we’d never actually met before. No preliminaries, and he didn’t mind if I took notes. I started to tell him some yarns in a quivering falsetto; suddenly like an oath in a prayer service he boomed out, “All right, git your damn pencil out!” He changed his cigar to a pipe, his shirt to a red and black checked hunting outfit, and began. About 11:30 he was still going strong, and I meekly mentioned the fact that I had a friend in the car that had been waiting two hours. Out went Clifford, opened the door of the coupe, and yelled: “C’mon! Git out! We’ll thaw you out.”

OUT ON POINT Peninsula----the richest land in the county----lived farmer John Becker, whose ancestors were all seafaring men and whose grandfather came to the county with a horse and one blanket. One uncle was piloting the Comanche the time it was partially wrecked. The wind, strangely enough, heaved the ship right into the little cove just back of the farm. Corn was pumped out of the ship, dried, and sent to Kingston.

I VISITED AUNT Minnie Conklin and asked her if her father, too, was mild-spoken. Sitting back in her rocking chair, she told me that her father never raised his voice that she remembers. In correcting a child, his silence was eloquent and powerful. Men who worked with Mr. Gladwyn attest the fact that here was a prince of men. Aunt Minnie writes poems, playlets, and hymns for the church. Her aim, I am told, is to leave a hymn book of her own as a monument to inner life.

JERRY MEAGHER of Whitesboro, 97-year old cabin boy, began immediately by showing me the housecleaning he’d been doing---”learned it all on board ship.” Jerry shipped aboard the Empire on the first line of steam-propelled passenger ships between Ogdensburg and Toledo. He was a cabin boy at 11 to Captain Denner of Chaumont. He has a picture of his own schooner he painted in oils.

IN LOOKING OVER the tally of students who assisted me, I find among them the only two I exempted and four who had the lowest grades of all. One of the best stories is from a boy who failed my English exam; another student-informer was buried June 3, 1936 (sic*). This boy liked old-fashioned people and old-fashioned things. One of the husky football fellows said to me, “Miss Pete, Keith was a pioneer.” He knew he could not live, so he speeded up his program by taking and passing Regents exams in January instead of June. It was he who chose the class motto: “Look backward for guidance forward.”

*Typist's Note: I believe the author is speaking of Keith Connell who was to have graduated from the Brownville Glen-Park High School later in the month of June, 1946 (not 1936 as the article states).

THEY MAY SEARCH a long time for your and my resting place, pull back the long, sharp, tough blades of grass and read, “Gone but not forgotten,” but it won’t be quite so difficult a search for proof of the unselfish sharing the one’s life with his neighbor’s weal and woe.

It makes little difference whether I conclude with Aunt Minnie’s quiet hymnology:

Through thoughts that are worthy
And words that are true,
Through earnest endeavor
Thy bidding to do,
With love never failing,
To lighten the way,
Lord, make me a channel
Of blessing, I pray.

Or with Uncle Herm’s favorite uproarious ending to every story:

Along came Jack
With a bucket of blood
To make it all
Grim and gory
And they lived in peace
And died in grease
And were buried
Under a cake of tallow----

Both are vibrant examples of words that live through the SPIRIT of those who say them. As long as there are people, there will be words -- ideas -- symbols and SPIRIT.

Note by typist: As I typed this, I was enlightened about Rowena’s relationship to Mrs. Warn and Aunt Minnie Conklin. Perhaps Mrs. Shangraw (nee Peterson) was related to Mrs. Warn and I shall endeavor to find out. I do know that Mrs. (Effie Starkweather) Warn was the mother of my Aunt Edith Warn Hasner, wife of Mom’s brother, Martin Hasner. Consequently, she was my cousin, Charlie’s, grandmother. As to Aunt Minnie Conklin -- well, if you have been travelling around my website, you know that she was my grandmother. The hymn about which Rowena writes is on my website. I was amused that Rowena called my grandmother, Aunt Minnie Conklin. I think this was a term of endearment which evolved from Rowena’s acquaintance with a teacher and church associates who were indeed, the nieces of my grandmother, Mrs. Minnie Gladwyn Conklin. (by Shirley, your site hostess)

BY ROWENA B. PETERSON

Dear Lord above,
Look down with love
Upon us poor scholars,
For they hired a fool
To teach our school
And paid her three hundred dollars.

One version changes “us poor scholars” to “the school committee,” and there is a still less modified version which some of the “old boys” may remember --- self-addressed, stamped envelope and it’s yours for the asking!

This particular schoolmarm must have forgotten that more flies are caught with molasses than with vinegar. On the other hand, she might not have been looking for flies.

Speaking of poetry may remind the older folks of the poetical sums, problems, and riddles. A tinker himself, Uncle Hermon might have remembered the old “tinker sum” recorded by Frank Rogers in his Folks Stories of the Northern Border:

And the tinker’s pot would be at times too small and often too large. What was it that the pioneer son wrote on his slate?

I am told by Effie Starkweather Warn that one of the favorite pastimes of a caller in the old days was to corner an unsuspecting child and say fiercely: “Spell circumlocution, Constantinople, archipelago, Popocatepet....” Also: “Where is Puget Sound? How much is nine times eight? When did Columbus discover America?” A family lost face if its offspring was not able to answer any and all questions the meddle quidnunes asked.

Mr. Henry W. Ciegler, one of the older School Superintendents of Jefferson County, let me borrow a clerk’s record, which Edward Evans had carefully preserved. This record is over a hundred and thirty years old. (Reference is made to this early record in Minutes of Meetings 1895-1950 for the Muscalonge School District No. 3 See Minutes of the Muscalonge School District No. 3 on this website.) Many problems had to be discussed at special meetings --- “appendages,” “rate,” “discharges,” “summer school,” and so on. In 1822 a “necessary” had to be provided. As far back as that, specifications were made that “it” should be ten feet long with a five feet wide roof to be shingled and sided “ruff” board. There must be a “petition” in the middle and two doors with “six-foot” posts.

Always there was the struggle as to who would bring the “fewel” --- in fact, there was more said about “fewel” and “vendue” than the “shollars” or where the schoolman or mistress was to board. However, in one entry the Board specifically designated that “a mistress be hired to keep the school that will bare inspection and that she shall board among the employers and begin to board where the trustees see fit and take them in rotation.” I can remember my Grandmother Dolin, who began teaching when she was eighteen, saying that even in Canada there were some places where she did not care to “board out,” and that she was always glad when it came time to board at “Rindy’s.”

In 1814, according to this clerk’s record, trustees could “exonerate” any person or persons in the district from paying his taxes “according to the law in cases of their being unable to pay the same.”

Evidently some “shollars” broke windows, for one action was to make whoever sends the culprit to school pay for the glass broken.

When it came to weighty issues like building a new school, Congressional votes were never more specific. If John Phillips, Solomon Livermore, or Erastus Potter voted “aye” -- “aye” was recorded after his name, and nobody could claim that he had voted “nay.” Not always were the votes recorded in this manner, but our pioneer schoolmen were not to be intimidated when it came to building projects.

As to specifications, no million-dollar building today is discussed any more than was the little schoolhouse in the Muskellonge District back in 1827. The record shows that the following specifications were voted:

“That we do not build a schoolhouse on the site where the commissioners set the stake last fall.

“That we won’t move the old schoolhouse.

“That we build a new school in this district provided the commissioners are agreeable to the petition in their hands<.

“That we plan the sit (sic) on the peice (sic) of land survayed (sic) by Mr. Waldo this day for that purpose.

“That we build a schoolhouse and finish it on the inside on the same plan that was adopted last fall.

“That the school house be ten feet between the floors.

“That if we build of stone the workmanship to be as good as E. J. Potter’s house, the front be coarst with stone not less than four inches thick, the front be of blue limestone.

“That if we build of brick that the walls be eight inches thick, that the doors and windows be cut stone, that the gabolends and roof be like a barn, that a stone be plast in the schoolhouse for the stove to stand on four feet wide six feet long.

“That the trustees are authorized to levy a tax sufficient to build the schoolhouse.

“That Nehemiah Gale collect the money for 1%.

“That the schoolhouse be finished by the first Monday in October next and the trustees are authorized to collect the money by that time.

“That the trustees get a new stove and the old stove be set up to the highest bidder.

“Stove sold for $1.25.”

Often the record urged that “good hard seasoned wood” be brought according to the number of “shollars” sent to the school. Indeed the “free holders and inhabitants” of that district had many problems; the book shows the preciseness and independent judgment of the Corneliuses, the Eliakims, the Daniels, the Ebenezers, the Shubals, and the Jothams, who undertook to provide “readin’ and ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetick” for the pioneer child.

Books were important even in 1839, for a librarian was appointed at this school. But not until 1893 were there any recorded instances of funds appropriated for books; on August 22 of that year, the trustees voted to appropriate five dollars for “book or books” to be used in the school.

Teachers today think of school and military lore in terms of students who sat in their classrooms with them through the years: Smiling Al, now in the medical corps; Walt, whose plan crashed in a fatal bombing mission over North Africa in 1943; Bill and Bob, still fulfilling Uncle Sam’s requirement; modest, Fred, whose plane didn’t return to its base; scapegoat Wally, who cooked for the Navy; and other lads with their Silver Star pulling them up Long Hills---still others who tread through new wilderness trails.

Yesterday’s teachers also like to remember the human cargo that sat on long benches and recited lessons and spelled long words. Mrs. Jennie Hayes of Brownville used to recall one time “back there in Sackets” when she taught a chubby Italian youngster who became New York’s “Little Flower” ---bumptious Fiorella H. LaGuardia.

I am not interested primarily in the little red schoolhouse for its four walls, a pail-and-dipper, the tawse or leather strap, the barn red paint. To be sure, I have seen in another county the checkerboard schoolhouse that folklorists tell us about whose Board of Education disagreed so violently on the paint job that the school stands today in alternate checks of white and red.

Some people may be interested chiefly in the salary of the master. They will like to know that another entry of the clerk’s record states: “. . . voted to receive the estimate of the trustees of $120 for teacher’s wages including publick money . . . There shall be eight months of school.” Many teachers worked for less than this amount; I have heard of some who worked for two dollars a week. By this account one worked for $3.75 a week in the employ of the public. Not all these things count---primarily.

Rather, I am interested in the spirit that fills a human heart---that makes white whales out of black ones; victories out of Dunkirks; that makes a man able to break into virgin forests and clear the land for a living; that makes him able to handle flame throwers, muskets, packing boxes, lecterns, gavels, books, throttles, scalpels, hammers, plows, and ships; that makes school people turn their backs on more lucrative “propositions: than the training of boys and girls.

Through the lean and full, fat years there have been school men who have attained the million without the sacrifice of the unit. I can not take the credit or the blame for this study of the pioneer school of the Golden Rule Days. Historically speaking, those whom I shall mention are not pioneers---unless I may have the privilege of defining pioneer to suit myself, hurdling all the dates in the books. A pioneer, then, is one whose spirit surges beyond what is seen; breaks new trails through cool, stubborn forests; makes old trails immortal because he passed over them---triumphant in the face of defeat. I present four pioneer school men as examples to confirm my conclusions that the past is important only as it continues in the present.

A church was no place to hold Gary M. Jones’ funeral, and yet I suppose there were some who kicked, because they wheeled his rose-blanketed casket up the narrow aisles of the Watertown High School auditorium---not dignified, some said, but Mr. Jones died in the harness. I can recall the anxious looks on the faces of the students when the Board were bidding him in for a higher position in the city. He didn’t know me, but I saw him after school hours wandering up and down the hall, smoking his old corncob pipe; I suppose he was trying to make a wise decision. There was great rejoicing the day of assembly, after he had called order with the dark gavel, stuck it back into his coat pocket, pulled out the little black books and read us a Psalm---we said the Lord’s Prayer, and then Gary told us he guessed he’d stay on as our principal.

Let me, a Jefferson County enthusiast, go out of my own region to recall, the keen, orderly, mathematical mind of James Seymour Luckey, who refused an offer to teach at Harvard and cast his lot with a rather insignificant Christian college in Alleghany County. It was at Houghton College that I first me Dr. Luckey, who died during my sophomore year. I can not forget his smile nor his characteristic pose---thumb tucked in the armhole of his vest, head down, thinking, I fancy, in terms of infinity. He needed all four walls covered with slate, for he used to have to walk around the room solving one problem, beginning at the left, winding up over at the right, never with quite enough room to finish his calculation. How he would step back, survey the pretty figures, tuck his thumb in his vest, smile---look at the class---and say, “Now, isn’t that beautiful!” Art and science are not so far divorced in the minds of men like President Luckey.

Let me go again---this time into Tompkins County for my third pioneer. My manuscript was messy--full of carets, blocked-out phrases, and some that should have been blocked out had I been able to put better ones in their places. While waiting for the busy professor to return, I “took in” the revolving bookshelf near his desk. On one of the shelves I noticed the thick spine of a beautifully leather-bound volume whose hand-tooled inscription bore these words: A SCOTTISH MAN OF FEELING by Harold W. Thompson---written, I suppose, during some advanced study he had made at the University of Edinburgh. I looked at my manuscript once more. I have had the good fortune to study under Cornell’s man of feeling, not only a teacher but a fellow-traveller who points the way a little ahead of himself---and rag content---for the thousands of students who have known him. As a rule, automatic applause doesn’t follow college professor’s lectures. During my first year of graduate work at Cornell, while taking the “snap-course” in American folk-literature, I was impressed by what followed Dr. Thompson’s reading of the lonesome song “Southern Road” written by the colored poet, Sterling Brown. The spontaneous applause that resounded throughout the old Museum of Casts from a hundred and fifty pairs of hands can scarcely be called “apple-polishing” or “boot-licking.”

My privilege it was to teach for eight years under a man who began his career in a little country school where at times he had to carry the smaller children like Cora Case through the deep snow drifts. For twenty-seven years Frank E. Smith---or “Big Joe” as the students often called him---was principal of the Brownville-Glen Park School. Every boy today likes to tell Mr. Smith that he received the traditional annual “trimming,” but Mr. Smith doesn’t believe that he trimmed every boy that walked into his office.

I can still remember the teacher who had a little difficulty with a “maladjusted” little boy. She took the youthful offender to the office. Mr. Smith was quite busy with the monthly requisitions of us teachers. However, in a little while out from the office came Professor Smith---a twinkle in his eye---and at his heels the “little tyke,” grinning now, because he was going to help Mr. Smith carry supplies to the Big Teachers.

Few know about Frank E’s youthful escapades. To look at his stern countenance you’d never suspect that he had played “hookey” or had stolen watermelons. If you were to ask him about these escapades, he’d reply, “It takes a thief to catch a thief.”

I like to remember the small problems and confidences that he shared with the younger boys and girls. You might not hear the story about the little child who picked the attractive tulips on the way to school one Spring day. The irate owner called the office and expected Mr. Smith to put the posies back upon their green haggared stems. Mr. Smith used to have a lot of problems like this -- he could handle math and history, too, but it is a little more difficult to put cut tulips back on life-giving stems. All that I remember is that he took the little tot by the hand, walked her to the tulip house, and waited while the child asked the lady to forgive her.

HAVE YOU ever heard these saying that I found in an old scrapbook that belonged to Mrs. Lena Saunders Miller:

Whoever reads epitaphs loses his memory.
When children play soldier on the hillside, it forebodes the approach of war.
He who has teeth wide asunder must seek his fortune in some distant land.
A child grows proud when suffered to look into the mirror if he is less than twelve years old.
White specks on nails are luck.
To rock the cradle when empty is injurious to the child.

ERT GILMORE and Will Congdon had words. Words over an old punt that ‘peared to belong to both families. Back in the old days differences were settled, and Will Congdon says he well remembers the night he sawed the punt clean in two. Asked if he minded if the folks of the North Country knew about this, he declared, “Certainly not! We got along fine after that.”

* * *

MRS. JAMES A. BRENNAN remembers hearing her father-in-law recite the following ballad of tragedy, the details of which are distorted in Dresier’s American Tragedy. Mrs. Eleanor Waterbury Franz of Dolgeville has reported the story simply in the summer issue of New York Folklore Quarterly under the title, “The Tragedy of the North Woods.” Commenting upon the case, a prominent attorney in Watertown said, “Oh, yes. Isn’t there a tennis racket and some hair mixed up in it somewhere?” Herewith follows the ballad as Grandpa Brennan used to recite it:

The trial at Herkimer is finished,
The scene has been closed at last,
The jury has brought in their verdict,
The sentence on Gillette is passed.

All eyes have been turned on the drama,
Watching the press night and day,
And reading those sweet pleading letters,
And wondering what Gillette would say.

Two mothers are weeping and praying,
One is asking that justice be done.
The other is praying for mercy,
Asking God to save her son.

He is in Auburn’s dark prison,
He will soon give up his young life,
Which might have been happy and sunshine,
Had he taken Grace Brown for his wife.

On that hot sunny day in the summer,
When all the forest was aglow,
They started out on their vacation,
To the lakes in the mountains to go.

But Cupid was too strong for young Gillette,
It was playing too strong with his heart,
The girl that was loving him dearly,
From her he wanted to part.

As they were seen on the clear crystal waters,
Of the beautiful Big Moose Lake,
None dreamed that man could be guilty,
The life of that girl to take.

Did she think when they gathered the lilies,
That grew on that beautiful lake,
That the hand that plucked sweet lilies,
Her young and sweet life could take?

But as the boat glided over the waters,
Near at the close of day.
He with the girl that did love him,
They drifted out on South Bay.

Away from the view of the people,
Where none could hear her last call,
No one knows just what happened.
But Gillette and God who know all.

WILMA HOOVER of Theresa, commercial teacher in the Clayton Central School and daughter of a pioneer family of Jefferson County, tells a story of her grandmother who remembered the time they lived on the Oxbow road in a log house. There were two little boys in the family: Charles, a toddler, and an older one. A panther also lived on the Oxbow road. One day the mother missed the other child. Taking Charles by the hand, she went toward the cornfield where her husband was working. No child. Together the parents went to the woods. There approached the little fellow, followed by some distance by the panther. Needless to say, it was a case of a little child’s leading; also an occasion for all to run quickly to shelter in the log house. They arrived just as the panther reached the door. Next morning they actually found claw marks about the door and window panes.

THE RED MORNING happened over 65 years ago. One farmer awakened his wife and asked her to hurry and get up to help with the milking. As the regular time for daylight came, the blackness began to be replaced by fiery redness. The sky remained dark and heavy, but the shadow on the earth was red. Mothers took their children to the chipyard to watch the sky. Everything, they tell me, looked as if you were looking through a red glass. The color gradually paled into pink; by eight o’clock (some say nine) the sky was natural. Mrs. Doris Hasner Conklin remembers her mother telling about this phenomenon. The mother talked to a Watertown attorney about it. He said that he was traveling in Europe at the time. Strangely enough, there was a volcanic eruption in Italy, which spread a red reflection in the sky there, too.

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As nearly as I can determine it, the date of this strange occurrence was September 6, 1881. Mrs. Mattie H. Bergen says she was teaching at Perch Lake at the time. Mrs. Jennie Devendorf Phelps and Mrs. Fred Warn both remember it. The latter’s mother would not let her go to school that day.

Have any of our North Country readers heard of the “red morning”? May I please hear from you?