Our Grandmother Grace Johnston Cady was born in the Town of Wirt,
Allegany County, N.Y. in 1885. With an intense interest regarding
family and history, in 1959 she wrote up memories of both her and her
mother, Alice Hinds Johnston who was born in Baker Valley to parents
Samuel and Eliza Baker Hinds. Eliza was a daughter of Joshua and
Elizabeth Parker Baker who came to the area about 1832 and had a large
family. Some additions she omitted are added my me in parentheses.
DLC
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Grandma Johnston (Alice Hinds Johnston) was born in Baker Valley,
Town of West Almond, Allegany County, January 29, 1853, on the small
farm left to her mother by her first husband George Watson. The house,
though remodeled, still stands on left side of Baker Valley Road going
uphill, straight from the Lynn Watson home. (ca 1960) When she was
living there the Baker Valley Cheese Factory was located across the road
just a little downhill toward Belmont.
Her father and mother were older than most people being
fifty-three and thirty-nine respectively when she was born. There were
two children older than she and three younger, one of these three,
Martha Amelia, died in infancy when grandma was about 2 1/2 years of age
but she told me she distinctly remembered the baby sister she loved for
so short a time.
Great Grandma must have cared for and respected her first husband
for when her first son was born nearly 4 years after her second marriage
she wished to name him George Watson Hinds but great grandfather
objected, saying he could be called George if she wished but if W. was
to be a middle initial it must be Washington and Washington it was!
Now who came out ahead on that?
Great grandfather was known as Uncle Sam and was noted for his
ability with an axe, being said to chop more wood in a day than any of
his neighbors.
He kept no horses, only cows, sheep and raised pigs for home cured
pork. The wool from sheep was sent to someone who could card it,
usually to a carding mill into what they called rolls. These were just
the fleece cleaned and fibers made into a soft roll about the size of a
man's forefinger, then spun by Great Grandma into yarn on her wheel.
She was known to spin faster and make better, smoother yarn than most.
The two used these skills to pay help for preparing ground for crops
and any other work that required team and equipment. A sister did
weaving homespun wool cloth for wearing apparel and bedding and for
cutting, fitting etc. garments for the family, as in her large family
one girl learned tailor's trade and did that work for the family so
great grandma lacked that skill and paid for the weaving by spinning
yarn.
Grandma tells of her mother laying a large Bible on a stool or
chair at one end of the spinning wheel and as she walked back and forth,
as they had to in order to spin the yarn, would read a verse or two at a
time. (As her vision failed, husband Sam Hinds rode horseback to
Elmira to buy her a large print edition which we still have.)
Wish I could describe method of spinning yarn better. I only
recall seeing it done once when Grandma took me to Aunt Eleanor
Fairbank's and asked her to spin a little to show me how it was done.
It looked as if it would be a very tiresome job walking back and forth
for the hours they put in at it. With the milk work, making butter
even from a small number of cows they kept, during winter months when
the cheese factory closed great grandmother must have been much
overworked and no wonder she grew to scold quite a bit as I infer she did
for Grandma Johnston once warned me to be careful and not get to be a
scold as her mother did, even if I was at a loss to keep up work and not
too well.
Grandma did not talk much of her father but from what she did say I
took it he was rather a stern disciplinarian as she told he insisted
they eat all their food on their plates before they could be excused
from the table. She told of one time she would not eat hers so he
finally told them to set her plate away and put it on the table for next
meal and she could have nothing more until she ate it. The plate was
put on for several meals and she would not eat, so her brother George
and sister Juliette slyly ate the food and then called their father's
attention tothe fact that "See, Allie's plate is empty." He allowed
her to have something more then and Grandma always smiled and said "We
really THOUGHT Pa didn't see them."
When Grandma told me of this she did it when I was "sputtering" about
one of you children being stubborn and she said: "They don't take it
from any stranger!"
Grandma of course was a small girl when the Civil War broke out.
Prices soared and work not well paid for resulted in rather hard times
for the family. They, spurred on by her mother, managed to hold on to
the home.
When it came time for attendance at school the children first went
to a school they called going over South to reach. As near as I can
recall it must have been on the road between Belmont and Phillips Creek
(Squintville it was called then),
later the Baker Valley District was formed and a school house built less
than a mile from their home. I taught there in 1904-05.
(The writer recently was welcomed into the same schoolhouse by the
occupants, and imagine the emotions at seeing the very room where my
grandmother was a young teacher and her mother had been a pupil, with
the original board ceiling and structure!)
The Methodist Church of Phillips Creek was where the children
attended Sunday School. She told of going barefoot in summer until
they came in sight of the Church, then sitting down and putting on their
shoes and stockings. Don't think they went much in winter due to
distance and later services were held in the school-house.
When quite young she stayed with some elderly people, helped in
house and went to school. Believe one family by the name of Johnson and
one named Fuller but am not sure.
The Civil War days with the boys and men of the Valley leaving for
the front impressed her very much. There were 3 or 4 McGibney men from
the neighborhood who went, one of them was James, grandfather of Mrs.
Vinna Bennett and of Willis McGibney. They had two sisters, Sate
(Sarah) and Mate (Mary). Only one of the four brothers, James, came
home. Grandma was in school where one of the sisters was teaching and
one a pupil, when someone rode up on horse back and told them James had
come home. The younger sister jumped up clapping her hands and saying
over and over "James has come home!" then dropped back in her seat, laid
her head on the desk and burst into tears. ( Perhaps moist eyes for
the reader as well?)
One thing she vaguely remembers when very small was her Uncle
DeWitt Baker bringing his new wife to see them and the pretty shiny
dress she wore and the treats she brought the children. I think she
must have been about three years old. DeWitt was the father of John,
Stephen and Clara, neighbors and friends.
Besides the Uncle's families the ones most often mentioned by
mother were McGibneys, Watsons (Joseph, brother of her mother's first
husband), Ives McElroys, Lytles, Fullers. Three of her girl friends were
Lot Ives Tucker, Jenny McElroy Brown and Ett Watson McGibney. These
friendships lasted for life as I vividly remember visiting at Browns and
McGibneys and Mother and Dad visited Tuckers after they came here.
One cold and stormy winter day they went to school without their
hoops and were laughed at by the boys every time they moved out of their
seats. It was an unheard of thing to go without hoops, then she said
they didn't try it again! As little girls they wore pantalets.
She always loved flowers and said one year she planted hollyhocks
along the path from door to road and how she was surprised because her
father noticed them and told the rest to be careful of Allie's flowers.
Schools
Grandma never attended any but the one room country school. When sever
of the young folks went to Alfred Academy she wished to go very much but
it was impossible. Although she did not go she obtained a teacher's
certificate in 1869 and taught one term of school, I think on Jersey
Hill, am not sure. If I remember correctly she was paid $1.50 per week
and boarded round a week at a time with each family. She said the
trustee told her when it was the time for one family not to go there but
to come to his home. Was not strange that after one term she decided
that she preferred to work in homes of people she knew either personally
or by reputation as she earned fully as much and was treated as one of
the family.
She worked for the DeWitt Bakers' several different times. I know
she worked there when the youngest son Stephen was a baby, winter of
1871-72.
Somewhere along the way she learned to milk and consequently milked from
four to eight cows morning and night. It was customary in that area
for women and girls to help with the milking with the men and boys, many
farmers keeping a dairy of twenty to forty cows with milk going to local
cheese factories. Mother grew to be a very swift milker and after she
came here used to tell James she would go out with him and see i f she
remembered how to milk and he said she always beat him as to time in
milking a cow. (James being the writer's father and the subject's
grandson: James Cady)
She also worked for the Watsons who lived neighbor to them, told me
she milked 7 or 8 cows morning and night and did work for the family of
six with the mother having a new baby and being in bed for ten days or
two weeks. There were two sons, one older and one younger than mother.
The older one was very bad about getting up in the morning, all had a
quota to milk and when the older boy was late they all milked some of
his cows. One day she milked over a dozen and Mr. Watson asked how
many she had done and sent her to the house as he and Elmer would finish
the rest. (Elmer, the older boy, was Clair Watson's father.)
The baby was Alice and she died when I was a young girl, Mother was
fond of her always.
Ett (Mrs. McGibney after her marriage) had mother helping her at
least two different times. Mott, her husband, was a little slow or
slack about having wood on hand for their cooking and Grandma tells of
one time they had no wood so put everything on stove with no fire and
when Mott came in with the hired hands and asked if dinner was ready the
girls told them it would be as soon as it was cooked! There was a bit
of an explosion when they found no fire but after that wood was usually
cut for them!
She was working for McGibneys at Duke Center, Pa. (Bradford oil
boom of 1878) where they kept a boarding house when work in oil was
first done there, and where she met Grandpa J.. Her mother died that
year and she and Grandpa were married the following March. Her father
had died in 1869 and after his death when their mother's health failed,
she and sister Juliette took turns staying with her.
Grandma Grace's narrative ends there for the talk of Baker Valley and
goes on with amusing but poignant anecdotes of Whitcomb and Davis
neighbors and the year of her teaching in the Valley as she boarded with
Baker uncles and a spinster aunt. She had a very full life caring for
others with three children living on this farm in three homes,
surrounded by 13 grandchildren and caring for as many as five "elderly"
at one time...... with no bathroom in the home for some time. The
other child became a missionary in India and Pakistan and stayed with
her family for extended periods. Great Grandma Alice Hinds Johnston
lived to age 92 when I was six and I can recall her smile as she would
stoop and ask "Are you one of James or one of Julia's?"
Grandma was disturbed to find that the ancestral Baker Cemetery was
enclosed by a fence to become part of a sheep pasture and implored her
husband and brother to go take care of it; the overturned stones and
such. Age and busy lives precluded that along with the challenge of
entering onto another's property, but as Grandma said it is "in
perpetuity" which seems a relative term?
I plan to go and see if any stones are legible. Family and personal
anecdotes have been included to give flavor and ambience to the Baker
Valley of that century.....also names of neighbors in case descendants
are "searching".
Grandma became a teacher as did many of her children and grandchildren
with a heritage of learning and sharing.
GGrandma Alice Hinds Johnston and unmarried Juliette Hinds were thrown
from a runaway carriage ca. 1902; Juliette was killed and Alice
survived a coma but was never the same .
