HISTORY - Marbletown history & folklore

To Jerry, Diane, Steven and Thomas Pelis as part of their education and heritage, I dedicate this paper which is much more a labor of love than a work of historical art.

I have selected the history and folklore of Marbletown as a research project for varied reasons. Marbletown is the location of our present home and the place my sons and daughter have spent their entire lives. It has been stated... "It is believed that a people who understand their heritage are better equipped to face the present and the future..." Since neither my husband nor I spent our childhood in this area, this effort has been to acquaint myself and my children with their heritage in regard to this bit of Americana that is their own.

This project became more challenging as I discovered that nearly all reference books dealing with early Wayne County barely mention Marbletown or ignore its existence completely. Source material and puzzling together the bits and pieces of information were my only resource. Time necessitates a woefully incomplete picture of these early days. I believe if I were to distribute copies of the information I have gathered here among families who have lived here for two or three generations, enough contradictions and additional folklore would come pouring in within the next year to write a complete volume. Only then could I be satisfied that I has done my best to produce a complete history of Marbletown.

I wish to acknowledge with grateful appreciation the many kind people who so generously gave me access to their family clippings, family records, libraries. I have experienced a deep personal humility that there people felt me worthy of the trust they placed in me by entrusting their one-of-a kind, irresplaceable clippings and priceless old voLumes in my possession to peruse at my leisure. I wish to express my sincere gratitude especially to:

Marbletown, Town of Arcadia, County of Wayne, was originally a part of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase and is situated very close to the old pre-emption line. The Phelps and Gorham Purchase comprised the following area.

Although Phelps and Gorham negotiated with Massachusetts for the lands which, according to agreement, were to become a part of New York, they also had to purchase them from the Seneca Indians. After much delay and many problems an agreement was finally reached at a meeting with the Senecas held near the present site of Buffalo, whereby the purchasers were to give the Indians five thousand dollars in hand and five hundred dollars a year forever. This amount to about one and one half cents per acre. Financial difficulties forced Phelps and Gorham to allow about two thirds of the original purchase to revert back to Massachusetts. This land was later sold to the Holland Land Company and a portion called the Morris Reserve was sold to Robert Morris.

Due to an error in surveying, the boundary line was changed, resulting in an irregular shaped piece of land called the "gore" between the old and new preemption lines. The area known today as Wayne County was officially named April 11, 1823. It was made up of parts of Ontario and Seneca Counties which included the gore and from Seneca County the land that had been set aside as a land bonus for soldiers of the Revolutionary War and was called the Military Tract. Wayne County was named in honor of General Anthony Wayne in remembrance of his great services in quelling the Indian uprisings in this section. (See fig. 2)

On February 15, 1825, two years after the formation of Wayne County, the Town of Arcadia was set off from Lyons. The name Arcadia is derived from the Greek hero, Arcas, and is the name of the largest political division of the Peloponesus. Since Arcadia is the largest township in Wayne County, there is a possibility that the similarity was the reason the name of Arcadia was chosen.

Tucked in the southeast corner of the Town of Arcadia of Wayne County, New York, lies the tiny crossroads community of Marbletown, less that a mile from the Ontario County line. Today the settlement is composed of a few dairy-farmers, a few general farmers, and many weekend farmers who are employed elsewhere and culitvate only their lawns and occasionally a vegetable garden on the weekends. There has been an outcropping of so many new homes and trailers in the area that it appears only a continuation of another residential district of Newark. A meat market and a chicken processing plant are the only industries in the community now. The old schoolhouse has been purchased by the Home Bureau for use as a meeting place for social affairs for both Home Bureau and 4H Clubs.

The first settlers came to Marbletown in the early 1800's. The first settlement was called Taunton for some years in memory of Taunton, Massachusetts. The pioneers came on foot from Massachusetts and New Jersey, and later with wagons and oxen or horses. The were of English, Scottish, and German descent. Mrs. James Burroughs, nee Polly Dunwell, whose family was one of the earliest gave a graphic account of those pioneer days in an interview given to Rev. A. Parke Burgess, a Presbyterian minister in 1885.

A story is told of a Burroughs that was chased by a bear. One of the Marbles tried to be a hero and help his neighbor, but was hugged by the bear and well chewed on his thigh.

When the Dunwells arrived in Marbletown, then called Taunton, the Marbles were already settled here. Four Marble brothers, Nathaniel, Abijah, Ephraim, Jeremiah, and a brother-in-law, Mr. Coates, were the leading spirit of the settlement. The parents of the four brothers had emigrated to this section with their children. Nathaniel, Sr. was born to Sudbury, Massachusetts, in 1721, and died in Marbletown June 8, 1802. His marker and that of his wife, Abigail, who died in 1825 at age ninetythree, are in the Marbletown cemetery on Sweed Road.

The Marbles were energetic men and had planted a vigorous settlement. Nathaniel owned three hundred acres between Marbletown Road and Vienna Street Road. He donated land for the cemetery, the church, and the school. Although some of the Marbles moved to other sections, many of them and their descendants lived in Marbletown for three generations. Miss Verona M. Marble, who now resides in Newark is the great-great-great-great granddaughter of the first Nathaniel Marble to settle in the section that now bears his name.

Daniel and Abijah Marble had cattle earmarks registered in the first town book of Phelps. Cattle were allowed to roam in the woods then and the earmarks served the same purpose as branding cattle in the West.

Miss Verona Marble's father, the late Ray W. Marble, was interested in family history. He sent to a place in Massachusetts for a genealogy of the Marble family. Of the serveral children and their descendants of Edmund Marble, born in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1664, all had been traced except Nathaniel who, according to the family historian, had emigrated to York State and never heard of again. Mr. Marble was pleased that he could fill in the "missing link" to his family's history.

Some of the other early settlers were Hezakiah Dunham, Oliver Bailey, John Crothers, Matthew Ridley, Oliver Purchase, and the Dunwell, Edison, Aldrich, and Burgess families. One of Oliver Purchase's sons, Thomas, lived 103 years and another son, Robert, lived to be 100 years of age.

The fourth generation of Ridleys still live in Marbletown. A clipping from the Newark Union-Gazette of June 28, 1913, gives a brief history of the Ridley family on the occasion of their tenth annual reunion.

The many descendants were named in the report, some names which seemed to fit into the Marbletown Alphabet poem which will be quoted later. The "programme" is listed and consisted of recitations by the children, songs, and a duet. "Reading the History of the Ridley Family" was presented by Mrs. Delbert Ridley in a combination of rhyme and blank verse. We can only assume that the composition was original with the lady who read it. It is reproduced here as an example of the rhetoric of that time.

In the year of 1780
In old England's balmy land
Was born the child whose descendants
In Redfield's Park, today do stand.

While a young man full of courage
With a cousin, Mr. Hall
Matthew Ridley left his country
For a country free for all.

He was stalwart and ambitious
With shoulders broad and strong,
Ready and willing to brave the hardships,
Of a country needing brawn.

He was always bright and cheerful
And for wholeheartedness renowned,
Ready to help a fallen fellow,
If worthy he was found.

In those early days, as at present,
There were poor, who had no homes.
So his was a house of refuge,
He kept them cheapest of anyone.

He was married and the union
Gave them children, seven in all,
Six grew up to bless his old age,
While one, Nelson, while younger was called.

There was Elihu and James,
William, Lydia and Hiram,
And Aunt Lyra who was youngest
And the last to leave the heartstone.

Elihu, nine children had
All except one still alive.
Harriet, Delia, Sally, Mary,
Eunice and Emma, far away.
These had twelve grandchildren.

William had eleven grandchildren
Five are living, six and dead,
James and Morrison, Libbie, Alice,
Dell and eighteen grandchildren live.

Uncle Hiram, with five children,
Florence, Grant, George, Myrta, Silas,
With Aunt Lydia, a childless widow
Went to Michigan years ago
And in that state today,
Nine grandchildren survive.

Last, Aunt Lyra had five children
Nelson, Laura, Emmit, Marshall,
And Rose, who died in California,
These had fifteen grandchildren.

Grandfather was thrifty, almost wealthy,
And his children shared his wealth
At their marriage each each received
A goodly sum to start in life.

All were married and had families,
And their life's work here is completed,
And their children and grandchildren
Today number one hundred nine.

I'm not here to tell their goodness
Nor yet to mar their fame
But will speak for us who have
Married RIDLEYS, delighted to bear the name.
May we all consider it a great privilege
To attend these yearly meetings.

God is kind and full of mercy
And his hand is over all
In the past year he has only asked for one, Willard,
Who was willing and ready to answer His call.

One by one we are passing onward
To a land unknown below.
It behooves us all to listen
To a story very old.

So when we are called to join them
We'll be ready every one
For a reunion in a brighter land
When our life's work here is done.

At the present time Nelson Ridley and his son Myrle live on their farm on the Ridley Road about two miles from the original land cleared by Matthew Ridley. "Uncle Nelt" as he is familiarly known, is now ninety-two years old. His reminiscences of early days are mostly of hard work from a very early age. He and his brother left school at ages seven and eight respectively to help out with the work at home because the father was stricken with meningitis. At twelve years old he was hired out to his grandfather to help support the family. The early families were indeed a hardy lot!

During the War of 1812 all able-bodied men and boys of Marbletown went to the defense of Sodus Point. The women and children were left behind in their log cabins to protect themselves from Indians and wild animals as best they could.

Marbletown supported industry in the early days, as well as farming. Many of the "factories" were really workships within or connected to the home.

There was a sawmill owned by a Marble on Trout Run, as the small springfed trout stream that meanders through our back lawn, was then called. The brook was dammed to make a mill pond and power to run the mill was obtained by running the water throught a hollow log. Vestiges of the dam are still visible and although the hollow log was rotted away, there are older people of the community today that can recall seeing it there as they played by the pond as children.

With the advent of a sawmill, people began to build with boards instead of logs. The homes were built with strips of white wood, dove-tailed at the corners. They were left unpainted for the most part. In 1809 it is recorded that John Tooley who had married Ephraim Marble's daughter built a large gambrelroofed barn, the first of its kind in the neighborhood. Polly Dunwoll, later to be Mrs. James Burroughs, painted the date, the owner's initials, and a picture of an eagle at the gable end of the barn.

Ephraim Marble built a chair factory and did an thriving business for many years. William Marble of the next generation was a cabinetmaker in Marbletown. Stephen Dunwell was a carriage maker and a blacksmith. Jonathan Fisk owned and carried on a factory which stood near the highway, for making watering troughs. Miss Elizabeth VanDusen whose home has been in her family for over a hundred years, recalls going to a huge watering trough fed by constantly running spring water, to get the water supply for the district school where she attended. She describes the watering trough as at least fifteen feet long and as wide as an average room. The water was always cold, and fresh from the ever-bubbling spring that dripped into it. It was a favorite place for travelers to water their horses and for farmers to draw water from when their own supply ran low. I expect this was a relic of an advertising campaign of so long ago.

Edward Fisk's father ran a complete tannery and leather business. Spinning wheels were manufactured by Stanford Trowbridge in a shop at Douglass' store near the four corners. Mr. Douglas came to Marbletown from Down East to teach in the school. He apparently had little experience in merchandising some products as the tale about him testifies. The story was told with some amusement that he complained of having no cellar in which to store the whiskey barrels and was afraid that the whiskey would freeze.

A large pond near the present crossing of the Pennsylvania railroad was the site of the Heacock wooden bowl factory. The forests were searched for knotty and gnarly wood to turn into knobby wooden ware used in many early homes. George Rush operated a blacksmith shop across from the school.

In the early 1850's a Sodus Point and Southern railroad was proposed to run from Sodus Point through Newark and Phelps to connect with a branch from Hall's Corner's and on to Canandaigua. Money was raised by subscription from the towns and from individual farmers. In 1852 the work was begun but the money gave out before the grading was done. Farmers had donated land and drawn gravel for the grading, but some, in their disillusionment, planted crops again on the land that was to be used for the railroad. Due to the financial panic of 1857 the work on the railroad which had moved very slowly before, was abandoned completely. The project was revived, however, in 1870. The railroad beds and tracks laid previously were renovated and the unfinished part completed. The first train passed over the line on July 4, 1872. The first fence built on the railroad in Marbletown was taken from a race track on Sodus Point, brought to Marbletown, and placed on what is now the Sweed farm. Passenger service was maintained on this line until 1935. It was considered a fashionable summer outing to take the train to Sodus Point and back for a weekend or a Sunday trip. Although land was set aside for a depot in Marbletown and at one time the farmers built a platform for loading cabbage, the plans for a station here were never realized. However, the train would stop to let off passengers who were visiting in Marbletown and made many other unscheduled stops. It has been told that there was a custom in Fairville observed by whose wishing a ride into the town of Newark. They would stand by the tracks waving a tin pail of hard cider. The thristy engineer would stop the train and take the "hitchhiker" into town in exchange for the cider. If the people of Marbletown used this system, no mention has been made of it.

The railroad was sold to the Northern Central line in 1880, and again to the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1914. The "Pennsy" still runs through Marbletown but doesn't stop. It carries only freight and coal to Sodus Point. Some of the farms still predict the weather by the sound of its whistle.

With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, Newark took on prominence and Marbletown's rising star descended to final oblivion. In 1867 it was recorded that the population of Marbletown as one hundred, composed primarily of farmers. Peppermint oil was the chief agricultural crop as in the rest of Wayne County at that time. Although Lyons was the leading center for the distilling of the oil, there was a distillery at Lockville nearby and two near Marbletown. These were small individually owned and operated stills which were important only to the immediate neighborhood.

Marbletown was the leading place in this vicinity in the very early days, being larger than Lockville, Newark, Lyons or Clyde. Rochester had but a few houses and a small tavern. An announcement of a Whig meeting to be held at the Marbletown schoolhouse on October 28, 1838, which appeared in the "Wayne Standard" showed the importance of Marbletown as an early settlement.

"One hundred and sixty years ago Marbletown appeared to have a great future until the opening of the "Grand Canal" drew people away from this isolated rural community.

As in most early settlements, when the log cabins were built and a crop or two harvested, the pioneers began to turn their thoughts to a place of worship and tothe education fo their children. There was a Christian Church Society organized in Marbletown as early as 1825. Benjamin Farley was a preacher. The deacons serving at that time were William Marble and his wife Sarah, Austin Parks, Peter Garlock, and Wealthy Rogers. A brick church was built in 1834 and in 1844 there was a membership of sixty-five.

Since I can find no other reference to Benjamin Farley I believe it should read Benjamin Bailey. Two generations of Baileys were clergymen and the fact of Benjamin Bailey's leadership in the church had been further corroborated by Mr. Robert Hoeltzel.

Hand written records of the early days are often very difficult to decipher. Due to the similarity of the two names, it is likely that an error was made in reading old records.

Services were still being held in the Christian Church of Marbletown as late as 1853 but apparently were dicontinued within a few years. In 1863 the building was sold to a group of German people in Newark for construction of a church on the corner of Miller and Norton (now Colton Ave.) streets. Men, women and children of the German congregation helped take down the old church, cleaned the bricks and transported them to the new site in East Newark. The church as finished in 1864 and incorporated as the "German Evangelical Association of Arcadia."

Services were held periodically in the schoolhouse after the dismantling of the church. Outstanding among the itinerant preachers was the Rev. William Roe, who was also a school teacher at Marbletown. He had started his career of Evangelism at the age of eighteen at Plainsville, New York, and continued for many years to hold revival meetings in various communities. He was known for his lengthy sermons.

Stories are told of frenzied crowds at the revivals stopping the horses of passers-by and exorting them to join the revival and receive the "Spirit."

Although Marbletownites held church membership in various churches of Newark, a need was felt for a place of community workship. In 1900 Frederick C. Miller sold a plot of land for the erection of a chapel for the sum of one dollar with the reservation that the property be returned to him when it was no longer needed for that purpose. Accordingly, a small but attractive chapel house was constructed by community labor and donated materials. It was equipped with pews and a small pump organ, which my mother-in-law recalls playing for the services when she was about thirteen. Both devotional and Sunday School services were held. Itinerant preachers conducted the services, and when thy were unable to be present, men from the community led the service. The pastor at the chapel for many years was Rev. Henry Hyman, who died this year at ninety-three years of age.

The chapel organ is now in the possession of Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Miller whose grandfather donated the land. The chapel has been used now for many years as a tenant house to the Miller farm.

There seems to be no available record of the date when Nathaniel Marble donated land for the first log school, but it was early in the settlement's history. It has been ascertained that there were at least two log schools, one of which was destroyed by fire, and a frame school building before the present brick school was built in 1876. Maps of Arcadia dated 1854 and 1858 both show two schoolhouses in Marbletown on opposite sides of the road. However, I can find nothing that indicated they were both in operation at the same time, so probably one was abandoned or used for other purposes. According to their location both of these schools were made of logs. The frame schoolhouse was built on the same site where the brick school now stands.

The teachers listed in the early schools were Sela Crosby, Jonathan Winslow, Austin Stearns, Michael Seager, Rev. William Rowe, and then a female teacher, Alanson Knapp who later married Matthew VanDusen and moved to Michigan.

Rev. Roe also held revival meetings at the schoolhouse every two weeks. He was known for extreme severity in discipline as a teacher. The story is told that some boys inserted pins in strategic positions in Rev. Roe's chair at school in retaliation for his severe treatment of them.

Ezra Douglass came from Down East, which probably refers to Massachusetts, to teach at Marbletown. He was the first teacher to assume his duties in the new frame building that had been erected as the last of the log schools had burned down.

The school was a center of community activities as well as a place for education and worship services. Two alphabet poems are reproduced here which were the product of a literary circle organized at Marbletown in 1878. They were printed in "The Marbletown Enterprise." No records are to be found of a newspaper printed in the settlement, so we must assume 'The Marbletown Enterprise" was a section in the Newark-Union published in Newark in that era by Hudson Fisk.

Being the product of a literary circle organized at Marbletown in the winter of 1878, and in which pleasantries were profusely used about people still well known in the community.

Marbletown Alphabet

A stands for Alfred, who lives near the brook,
Also for Alfred who loves a good book.

B stands for Burroughs, one Silas by name,
Who as chairman presided with fame;

C stands for Carrie who, with a flower does go,
For a vine without a rose would be lost, you know.

D stands for Delia and Dora, who live near
together, Also for Drusa who goes in all weather.

E stands for Ellen, who lives on a hill
And Edith and Ella, who sing with a will.

F stands for Fannie, so well known to all
and Frankie and Frank, who on the ladies call.

G stands for Georgie, whose hair will not curl,
Still he is admired by a beautiful girl.

H stands for Harper and Hudson,
who think sound sense, and Huratio and Helen,
who a mode cannot tell from a tense.

I stands for Ida and Irving, who are true
To the pledge they made of "wearing the blue".

J stands for John and James, who number five
Without whom this circle whould scramble alive.

K stands for knowledge, which all ought to gain,
Though to force through some heads would
take a hurricane.

L stands for Lydia, whose reading is good
And Linda, who could do well if she would.

M stands for Madge and Matie so grave
And Milton, who know not how to behave.

N stands for Nettie, who likes a flirtation
And for Nellie, who thinks home is her station.

O stands for order that all should preserve,
With which this Lyceum, success will deserve.

P stands for president who all should obey,
And don't let us mind the long words he doth say.

Q stands for question, who this article did write,
The author will inform you is not very bright.

R stands for road that we must take,
At half past six or else be late.

S stands for Stephenson; Dickie, you know
And Stell "so Sammy says', is at a loss for a beaux.

T stands for Timmie, though name not very vast,
Yet I can tell you she if far from the last.

U stands for useful, that all should be,
When we are Editor, then you will see.

V stand for Vigor with which work is done.
Now write for this paper, everyone.

W stands for Will, who likes to play ball,
And always is really at fun's first call.

X stands for Xantippe, an unmerciful scold,
Of whom to say more would be exceedingly bold.

Y stands for yough who shouldn't be seen,
Though their olders admit they are often quite keen.

Z stands for Senobia, which we resemble in tears,
Lest our piece be declined, for such is our fears.

Marbletown School Alphabet

A stands for Albert, a nice little man
Who goes home with Edith whenever he can.

B stands for Burroughs, our Frank who gets mad
At Dora if she speaks to another young lad.

C stands for Carrie who has but one beau
And always with Rosee is willing to go.

D stands for Dora, the daughter of Jim
Whom Frank thinks was born on purpose for him.

E stands for Eddie who is some on the dance
And ne'er goes with the girls when he can't get the chance.

F stands for Fannie, small and delicate, yet grand
Whose affections are placed on one Belle, we understand.

G is for George, a young man of credit
Who left his Mary Emma, his paper to edit.

H stands for Harper, who presides here with fame
Who tries the affection of Miss Butts to gain.

I is for Irvin, tall, graceful and fair
Who waits upon Nettie with wonderful care.

J stands for John whose nice-name is Dick
Who reads of the mule and its wonderful trick.

K stands for kisses what pleasure they bring
But our school don't indulge in any such thing.

L stands for Lydia, who don't want a beau
A peculiar trait of old maids, you know.

M is for Matie whom all people know
Is not very fond of makin a show.

N stands for Nellie, a nice little Rush
But when she meets Charlie, she can't help but blush.

O is for order which we must insist
On having on all such occasions as this.

P stands for Percy, on Nettie by name
Who for reading and speaking has mad a great name.

Q is for questions the teacher does ask
And often puzzles the whole of the class.

R stands for Rarey, whom Loren can beat
In breaking colts to use for the street

S stands for Sanford a steady young man
Who waits upon Stell as well as he can

T stands for Timmie who is one of our girls
With her face half-covered with frizzes and curls

U is for useful which all should be
And then our school will improve you see.

V stands for VanDusen, both Drusie and Clara
Who are both chuck full of the very old Hara.

W is for Will, who is quite sure to call
On a girl whose name is Ella Westfall.

X is the crossroads on which our schoolhouse
does stand And you can take which you choose
on leaving our land

Y stands for Young Americans of which we have
some Who always stand ready to beau the girls home.

Z is for zenith and none can get higher
So let us strive that height to aspire.

Miss Elizabeth VanDusen gave the School Alphabet poem to me and was able to supply last names for many of the persons mentioned and of some that were linked romantically in the poem that had married when they grew up.

Husking bees, spelling bees, quilting bees, and house and barn raisings were forms of amusement in Marbletown as they were in all early settlements. The box social was very popular in this section as a form of social recreation and a fund raising project. The women would vie with one another to fill their boxes with delectable viands and to decorate the outside attractively. The boxes were auctioned off to the males present who received a fine meal as well as the company of the lady who had prepared the box. It was not uncommon to mark a box in a special way known only to the swain who was expected to buy it. It was a point of pride with the ladies to have their boxes bid up to a high price.

Square dances held in various homes were occasions attended by the entire community. Babies were laid on the bedstead while their parents, grandparents, and brothers and sisters danced to the music of one or two fiddlers and pirouetted to the caller's commands until the wee, small hours of the morning. They were well fortified with refreshments both solid and liquid.

Although it is not very ancient history, the children of today have no real concept of life in a one-room school. A history of Marbletown should necessarily include reference to this era so recently passed from the New York scene. The "little red schoolhouse" had many limitations, but there were also numerous compensations that I wish our childen of today could experience.

It was often the custom in the 1930's and earlier for teachers to get experience in a rural school before they would be considered as applicants in a city or village system. It was also a prevailing rule in most graded systems that married teachers were not allowed to teach there, but they were acceptable in rural schools.

The citizens of each school district gathered at the school the second Tuesday in May each year to transact the necessary school business, discuss budget, and to elect a trustee. This lone trustee had almost unlimited powers over school policy and expenditures. In those forgotten days when there were more teachers than there were jobs, applications found it advantageous to wait outside the annual school meeting and accost the newly elected trustee before anyone else could in order to secure a position.

All eight grades were taught in many outlying districts but because Newark was nearby, by 1936 which I first came into contact with Marbletown school district #5, Town of Arcadia, the seventh and eighth grades were being transported to Newark and only grades one through six were taught in this district. It would more properly be called nursery school through sixth grade since children were sent to school by the age of five. I remember one mother of six who took employment outside her home and sent a little four year old to school with his older brothers and sisters. He would sit quietly all day with legs dangling several inches from the floor, and when it was nap time he would fall fast asleep with his head on the desk.

School was in session from 9 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. when a fifteen minute recess was declared. Children were called to classes by a bell which hung above the schoolhouse in a belfry and was rung by virgorously pulling on a rope. Children would vie for the privilege of ringing the bell and it was great fun when the pull of the bell rope would lift the feet of the small ones from the floor. After recess classes were resumed until the lunch hour from 12 noon until 1 p.m. From 1 p.m. until 4 p.m., school was in session again with the first and second graders being excused at 3 p.m.

Recess was too short for a real ball game, but "Annie Eye Over" and various forms of tag in warm weather gave the pupils plenty of exercise. In the winter months the blackboard would be cleared for games of "tic-tac-toe" and the "hang-a-man" spelling game. More often than not the children would play "school" in their free time and the teacher had a good opportunity to see herself as her students saw her.

When I see our modern children being herded through a lunch line in the cafeteria, constantly admonished to be quiet and stay in line, my mind goes back to those days in the country school again. The children took their lunches from the cloakroom shelf, and in groups of two or more found a shady tree to sit under with their best friends and enjoyed their lunches free from any adult interference. Sometimes in the winter when the sliding was good, we would decide to skip recess for a longer lunch hour. Then everyone ate lunch as fast as he could and teacher and students would go to a nearby hill to slide down on teacher's ten-foot toboggan for an hour before classes had to resume. In summer the most popular activity was baseball. Since there were never enough children for two teams, the teacher played a position as well as being arbitrator of the many disputes that arose.

The usual procedure was for the teacher to "hear" each class in rotation - every subject, every grade - on a recitation bench in front of the teacher's desk. Meanwhile the others were studying their lessons and completing assignments far more quietly and independently than they do in our supervised study periods today. Older children took responsibility for smaller ones and helped with difficult overshoes and hard to reach buttons.

A janitor, usually an older boy of the school, was hired by the trustee to keep fires in winter and to sweep the floor. Children would beg for the privileges of going to a neighboring house for a pail of water for school use or to "clap" the erasers to clean chalk dust from them.

The heating and plumbing systems left much to be desired. The ceiling was 15 feet high so it took all the heat the coal stove could put out to warm the top half of the room. I can remember wearing woolen ankle socks over my stockings all winter to keep my feet warm. It took so long to heat the room on winter mornings that sometimes we would start classes with coats on and sitting on top of desks with feet in the seats because the floor was so cold.

On a few below zero days when it was impossible to heat the room, the children all walked the quarter mile to the teacher's house where they studied on bridge tables and every available space. It was unthinkable to close school because the law required an exact number of days of instruction and any missed days had to be made up at the end of the school year. There were no substitute teachers. The teacher went to school whether she was well or sick. In case of severe illness of any duration, another teacher would be secured but sick leave was unheard of in those days.

The plumbing at that time had advance from the separate outhouse of my childhood school days to a chemical arrangement within the school building. The theory no doubt was fine, but in principle it became an outhouse on the inside and the stench became unbearable when the wind was right. My most unhappy experience in rural school living came early one spring. The chemical toilets were on the west side of the building and our winds prevailed from that direction. Inside the room, I had one family of five children who customarily remained unbathed and wore the same clothes all winter. When in desperation I would open the windows to the east, our nostrils were assailed by the odor of a dead horse that had died in the pasture that winter and the farmer had not yet taken time to bury it.

Although the subject content for each grade was taught to each grade individually, there were many activities carried on by all the children of all ages. During fire prevention week we built tiny controlled fires in the school yard and the students practiced putting them out with the chemical fire extinguisher working in teams of two. All joined together in singing and music instruction and in a rhythm band for which the children made their own band hats from construction paper. As a social studies project on Indians, all classes studied the phases of Indian life suited to their grade level and capabilities. The culminating activity was to build a real teepee in the school and be real Indians in homemade costumes.

The school entertainments were a popular form of community activity. At Christmas and again at the close of school in June there would be an entertainment prepared by the children consisting of songs, recitations, and plays. Preceding the entertainment there would be a community dinner where young and old participated. Each family brought table service and a dish or two to pass and the result was a feast of delicious food and an evening of unparalleled fellowship. In our larger centralized districts it is impossible to recapture the pupil's pride in accomplishment or the loyalty and cooperation of parents that prevailed in the rural school.

Three abandoned cemeteries in and about Marbletown provided an interesting and rewarding Easter afternoon. The first one we visited is located on Sweed Road on a knoll a short distance from the dirt road that runs parallel to the Pennsylvania railroad tracks. It is overgown with wild grape vines, bramble bushes and myrtle. Many stones were weathered to such an extent that the engraving was worn quite smooth, yet one nearby would be fairly legible. My sister and two sons, who accompanied me, helped decipher the stone markings. By filling in the indentations with pencil lines and observing from various angles of light, it was possible to get the epitaphs on those few stones that bore an epitaph. Another method that proved helpful was to place a clean sheet of paper over a word we could not make out and scribble over it.

There seems to be a controversy over who was the first to be buried in this cemetery. The oldest visible stone there is that of Nathaniel Marble who died in 1802. Mrs. Stroup, a historian believes Marble was the second to be buried there preceded by an Elder Marble. Still another student of history believes that a Mrs. McDonnell was the first, Elder Marble second and Nathaniel Marble the third. Fred Sweed, whose farm adjoins the cemetery and who played there as a boy tells us that there were some wooden markers there which have been destroyed by time as well as some markers of plain field stone that have been lost. This could account for the variance in opinion, but at least Nathaniel Marble has the oldest marked grave there.

A rather ghoulish story is told about this cemetery. John Granger had taken a crazy man from Down East by the name of Daniel Thompson to care for in his home. When Mr. Thompson died, his remains were placed outside the cemetery limits because it was not deemed proper that he be buried with the others because of his insanity. Many years later when men were taking gravel from a pit near the cemetery a skeleton turned up. It could not be acertained whether these were the remains of Daniel Thompson or of another person who was not considered fit society for the revered dead.

I was particularly interested in the Daniel's family plot since the earliest name showed on the deed and search of our own property reads 'Anna Roth from Delira and William Daniels, May 5, 1883."

The following notes are copies from some of the headstones in the Sweed Road cemetery:

With three deaths in one family in so short a time, one wonders what pestilence or virulent disease struck them down. Fortunately, I suppose, the father lived to care for his children until their deaths. Upon inquiry I was informed that a scarlet fever epidemic had caused the three deaths so close together. There was obviously another Phoebe Daniels as in the same section there is a stone for a Phoebe, the wife of Samuel Daniels. A small daughter survived her mother by only three days and had her name on the same tombstone. The stone reads:

The terse listing "Anson Daniels, died June 17, 1846 in his 48 years" gave us no clue as to his relationship to other members of the clan buried there.

Numerous Tooleys were buried here, the oldest stone reading "John Tooley, July 30, 1832 - 52 years." John Tooley was married to one of Ephraim Marble's daughters.

There must have been many children who died in infancy as many family plots bore tiny markers with just initials on them which would appear to be the grave of a baby. The pioneers were either too busy and practical about their daily tasks, or too prosaic to indulge in anything but the barest vital statistics on the tombstones. In a few instances there are epitaphs we could not decipher but these were few in number. Most of them bore only the date of death and age of the person buried there. The Tooleys were probably Irish and given to a little more verbiage than most. One reads:

Another member of the Tooley family who must have been cherished has this marker:

The gaps in continuity of family histories were usually accompanied by an unusually wide distance between stones which could be attributed to stones fallen over and covered with soil and grass or otherwise damaged and lost.

We found stones here for "James Reed, June 27, 1804 - January 1, 1867" and Lucy, wife of James Reed, September 2, 1804 - October 7, 1871. Then we found "Dolly, wife of John Reed, died September 5, 1838 in her 71 year." We found no record of John Reed nor of any children of either family.

There are stones here for William Marble who died October 27, 1857, and one for "Dolly, wife of William Marble, died June 1, 1873, her 79 year." In the old church records, William Marble's wife was named as Sarah but we found no stone for her. William was the son of Abijah Marble and grandson of the first Nathaniel Marble. In stones for Nathaniel Marble and his wife read:

Although we found no stone for Mrs. Averill here, we felt sure that she composed the following epitaph to her husband. His stone reads:

Mr. Sweed tells me that the cemetery encompasses a half-acre of ground which was donated for that purpose by Nathaniel Marble. He said he had counted the graves as a child and that eighty-five graves were there although they cannot all be found now.

The other two cemeteries we explored are located on opposite sides of a lane that is used today by my father-in-law, Henry Pelis, as a tractor and truck access to his fields. It was once a highway connecting Marbletown Road with what is now Finewood Road, but has become a lane that ends in a tangle of undergrowth and plowed fields. The cemeteries are on the top of a steep hill and are grown over thickly with wild grape vines, thorn apple trees and myrtle. The tiny cemetery on the south side of the lane is a private family burial ground surrounded by a foot high stone wall. The stone posts where an iron entrance gate once hung are still standing. Here members of the Purchase family were laid to rest. Oliver Purchase was one of the original settlers of Marbletown and this place seems to be the family of his son, Robert.

Three stones in a row with a gap between the first and second were mystifying at first. They read:

After checking earlier notes, it was discovered that Robert Purchase lived to the age of one hundred years so he really had time to bury three wives of a normal life span for that time. The notes also state that Robert's brother Thomas lived to be one hundred and thee. However, we found a stone in the Purchase Cemetery for "Thomas Purchase, died September 15, 1821, age 80 years." Since these families used the same given name at least once or twice in every generation, it would be difficult to determine which Thomas is buried here.

There were the usual tiny initialed stones denoting the loss of babies in the Purchase family. The stone labeled

leads to the conjectures of whether Robert had the fourth wife or if Betsy was a nickname for Eliza Bates.

Who could Hannah Wilson be? A maiden sister-in-law of a Purchase? A trusted and faithful servant? A "bound girl" who never married? The half-told stories of the past from these old gravestones can be truly fascinating.

The community burying ground on the north side of the lane is even more inaccessible than the other two, but is well worth the effort involved, for here I found family names of nearly all of the earliest settlers of Marbletown.

In this cemetery one stone reads, "In memory of Capt. Hezikiah Dunham who died October 11, 1893, aged 85 years and 7 days." This grave is decorated each Memorial Day with a flag to honor this man as a veteran. He seems to be a little old for the Civil War, but was certainly too young for the War of 1812 so must have been a Civil War veteran. The name Hezakiah Dunham is listed as one of the original settlers of Marbletown, but this must have been the son, since he was born in 1808 and this settlement is believed to have started around 1800.

The Aldrich family stones show a connection to the Robert Purchase family and also to the fact that they lost many infants and young children. The Adrich stones we could read were:

In the same row is another stone which probably means that Aaron had another wife before Sally or else we have not deciphered the lettering accurately.

Much has been said earlier about the Ridley family. According to the family history poem, William Ridley buried six of his eleven children. We were able to find stones for only three of them in the dilapidated cemetery. They are:

Other historic names from Marbletown's early days listed from their final record on earth are:

We could make out only the last name of Dunwell on one stone, but the dates were obliterated by time. The name Dunwell as listed among the earliest settlers of this area.

In this cemetery the Burgee family seems to be about the only ones who indulged in epitaphs in addition to the plain statements of date of death and age. We found "Laura, wife of Moses Burgess, died Dec. 26, 1847, age 53 years, and "Cere" daughter of Moses and Laura Burgess, died March 18, 1823, age 10 yr. 2 mo." The following verses were copied with some difficulty from Burgess family stones and show sharp contrast to the stark statements of fact on the other stones.

The following cryptic message seems to be more of an attempt to contact the spirit of the deceased than to inform the public of his virtues.

Perhaps there is an unrecognized morbid tendency in me, but I found it truly fascinating to explore these old graveyards and to try to visualize family histories from the brief stories they told. Upon the cemetery research I can only reiterate the sentiments of my ten year old son who remarked at the conclusion of our journey, That was sorta spooky, Mom, but wasn't it fun?"

The tale is told around Marbletown by those old enough to remember of a tragic situation that nevertheless provided the neighborhood with wry amusement. The wife of an elderly farmer became mentally ill in her later years. With psychiatric help unheard of and no hospitals to care for such illnesses, there was no solution but to care for her in the home. Because it was unsafe to leave her unattended, the farmer, who was known for his kind treatment of his wife, took her to the fields with him each day. She would follow him up and down the furrows and on her more violent days would throw rocks at him shouting over and over so all could hear, "Say something nice to me, you d___ ___ old fool. Say something nice to me or I'll dust a rock off'n your ___ head.' Like a ballad of old, I never heard the final ending of the tale, but only this one incident repeated many times.

The following tale was related to us by an old man who lived to be eighty-four years old and has now been dead at least twelve years. It seems that as a lad of about fifteen years, he was asked by two brothers, who were respected in the neighborhood as righteous man, to accompany and help them on a trip to purchase cattle for their farm. Cattle were purchased as a location near Rochester and had to be driven home to Marbletown at a snail's pace. A night's lodging for the men and corrals for the cattle could be obtained at the country inns and taverns along the way, and their stop-overs were planned accordingly.

To the great consternation of the boy, his companions made it their practice to rise before dawn and be first to leave each inn they stopped at. Each time the cattle were driven from the corral, a few more were added on - it's very difficult to sort out cattle accurately in semi-darkness until the number of cattle brought home far exceeded the number purchased at the cattle sale.

Since cattle rustlers were dealt with most severly without benefit of a jury trial, the boy never cared to accompany his neighbors on a trip again.

The train bandit, Oliver Curtis Perry, has a place in Marbletown history. Oliver Perry was an ex-railroad man who had turned bandit. His last escapade was his most daring and colorful one. On February 22, 1892 at the age of twenty-seven years he hid himself on a ten-coach train leaving Syracuse. One of the cars contained one fourth of a million dollars and was protected by only one guard. When the train got as far as Jordan, Perry entered the money car from the roof by means of a cleverly constructed rope ladder. He broke the train window with the butt of his revolver. A gunfight with the guard ensued with the guard being struck by a bullet. Before he collapsed the valiant guard kicked out the lamp and pulled the emergency cord, thus foiling the robbery attempt.

When the train stopped at Port Byron the bandit was gone. He was sighted by members of the train in the Lyons railroad yard. When the crew pursued him, Perry commandeered an engine and took off down the track toward Newark. The railroad men gave chase in another engine on a parallel track. As the railroad men overtook him, Perry reversed his engine firing at his pursuers as he passed them. Each time he was overtaken he would go in the opposite direction raking the other engine with bullets until the railroaders finally gave up the chase.

Perry abandoned the engine on the Blue Cut Road outside of Newark. He stole a riding horse, then a horse and cutter, and finally fled across the fields on foot. He fortified himself behind a rock pile at the edge of what was then called Benton's Swamp, a short distance from Marbletown. There he was captured by Sheriff Jeremiah Collins and his posse.

Oliver Perry was tried at Lyons and sentenced to serve forty-nine years and three months in jail. While in prision he made several unsuccessful escape attempts. He went on hunger strikes and refused to wear prison garb. When all his pleas for a pardon were refused, he blinded himself. He died in Danemora madhouse after serving thirty-nine years of his sentence.

Perry was always very proud of his feat and boasted that he was the only man who ever stole a railroad train singlehandedly.

One dear little old lady, only four feet nine inches tall, who has always exemplified the true pioneer spirit of later times, was Mrs. Julia Vanderbrook. Some twenty years ago before her death I spent many pleasant hours chatting with her since her residence was just across the road from the rural school of Marbletown where I taught. She also had the only nearby telephone for emergency use.

Mrs. Vanderbrook came to this country from Holland at the age of six. She told me they were herded into steerage like so many cattle and had a miserable crossing. Upon arrival in Newark, New York, they were given quarters in the old Central Hotel by the New York railroad station. They were so crowded that some had to sleep on pallets on the floor. There they stayed for two weeks or more until they could hire out to a farmer for board and wages.

In Holland at that time, it was not considered proper for girls to attend school so Mrs. Vanderbrook had no formal schooling there, yet she was one of the best informed people of her day. It was the custom to have Bible reading each day in her father's home. Miss Julia committed the Bible verses she heard so often to memory, then matched up her memorization to words in the Bible, thereby teaching herself to read Dutch. Eventually she persuaded her father to allow her to read from Bible at the family devotions. She attended school in Newark at the Central and had as much education as most people of that time.

After her marriage she had a nice home in the village but moved to the country because of her husband's health and because she felt it would be a better place to bring up their children. They moved to Marbletown in March, 1908, and lived there forty-five years until her death in 1953.

At time of our acquaintance she was many times a grandmother, having two grown daughters and three grown sons who were all well educated. She believed with all her heart in all the education a person could get and continued her own education through newspapers, magazines, and the radio. She once remarked to me after listening to a radio lecture on child psychology that she deeply regretted the fact that she had not learned of many of these ideas earlier in life. She felt that she would have done a better job of bringing up her own children. How few in their seventies are able to accept new concepts of a difference philosophy from their own established one! "It was as near as I ever heard her come to a complaint with her lot in life."

When they had a "good year" on the apple crop, they finished paying for their farm and bought a piano. I don't believe Grandma Vanderbrook herself could play a note, but felt it was a worthwhile investment for the cultural development of her children and grandchildren.

When she was about sixty-eight years old at about the time her husband was almost ready to retire from farming, they had planted three or four acres of beans near the Pennsylvania Railroad which formed the western boundary of their farm. In time, the weeds that were not killed by cultivation grew taller than the beans. To Grandma Vanderbrook this was a sin against nature as well as a personal disgrace. Thereupon she assumed the task of ridding the bean patch of weeds. Her singleness of purpose and tenacity were amazing in a lady of her age and diminutive size. Immediately after breakfast each day she prepared sandwiches for lunch so that she could save time going and coming from the field, and then set out for the bean field. She pulled weeds diligently until the noon whistle from the village announced lunch time. Then she found a shady spot for eating lunch and a few moments of rest after lunch. After her rest whe pulled weeds again until time to start preparing the evening meal. This routine was continued every day except Sunday for three weeks or so until the bean field was cleared of weeds and again a credit to the Vanderbrook name.

Her lively interest in people of the community, her children and grandchildren was never dampened by the hours of hard work she was so acustomed to. There was always time for a bit of kindly advice and a cup of coffee with friends.

There are others who, although they do not go back so many years in history contributed to the folk lore and general tone of the neighborhood of their time. Grandma Miller, whose hands were broader than most men's from many years of milking cows and heavy farm chores, always found time to make a box of her special Christmas cookies for every small child in the neighborhood. Mrs. DeWeaver was an extremely retiring person who did not mix greatly with her neighbors, but she crocheted a lovely doll coverlet for my daughter at two years of age because she had lost a little girl at about that age. Although neighbors still rally in cases of extreme emergency and are friendly, the old kindly interest in people just because they were neighbors and taking time to "pass the time of day" with others has been lost in these days of rush and hurry and easy transportation.