The Carrie Haskins Woodruff

Autograph Book

by Donna B. Ryan
 

A 120-year old autograph book, purchased at an online auction by a Pennsylvania man, has helped to put together the pieces of a tragic story from a local family’s past.

The saga began to unfold last December, when this message was posted in the guestbook on the Almond Historical Society website: “I have an autograph book that was owned by Carrie Haskins with about 40 autographs from her relatives and other townspeople from 1881 and up. I was wondering if any of her descendants are still around? Almost all autographs list Almond NY as their hometown. Signed: Bob Reiter”

Reiter gives a further explanation with this subsequent e-mail: “I purchased the autograph book a few years ago from an antique dealer in NY at an online auction. The thing that caught my eye was the interesting drawings and sayings. They were very clever. The book was given to my mother-in-law in Baltimore for a birthday gift. I was visiting her house this past Christmas, and read all the autographs and decided to see if I could find out anything about the person who owned the book.

“The owner’s name was Carrie Haskins, and she was from Almond, NY. The book has autographs from the 1800s. I was on the internet and found the Almond, NY, website through a search and then posted a question to see if anyone had heard of the family,” he writes from his home in Seven Valleys, PA.

Doris Montgomery and Betty and Wayne Kellogg searched in the archives room family files while working there one Friday afternoon to see what they could find out about Carrie. In the Woodruff and Haskins file folders, they uncovered a poignant story: She had married a man by the name of Miles Woodruff in 1897, but sadly, both of them had been killed in 1906 in a train and carriage accident. Details of the tragic accident that took their lives were not found, but a search of newspaper microfilm at Hinkle Library in Alfred and the Hornell Public Library revealed more of the story:

The December 19, 1906 Alfred Sun story reads:
 

“Never in the history of Almond has anything happened that has so shocked the people of this vicinity as the terrible accident in which Miles Woodruff and his wife, Carrie Haskins Woodruff, lost their lives last Thursday night about 7:30 by being struck by train #108 at the Glynn crossing between Hornell and Arkport. They were on their way to attend a Grange meeting in Hornell of which both were members and officers.

Probably no one will ever know just the particulars, but it is supposed they thought the train had passed as it was a little late. . . According to report, the engineer did not see the carriage until within too short a distance of the crossing to stop the train or even check the speed. It is said the customary warning whistle was sounded for the crossing, either the couple did not hear it or thought they would have time to cross ahead of the train.”

The December 14, 1906 issue of the Evening Tribune contains a three-column story complete with huge headlines and adds some rather gruesome details as well as this personal information about the accident scene:

“Mr. and Mrs. Woodruff live on Pennsylvania Hill and were prosperous and well-to-do farmers. They had a beautiful home and two children. . . Last evening the children were left with his brother, Charles, and Mr. and Mrs. Woodruff started to drive to the city.

“Their road to the city led over the dangerous grade crossing known as Glynn’s Crossings, which has already been the scene of some terrible accidents. It was raining and was very foggy. Probably neither of them noticed a train approaching until they were on the tracks. The horse was a spirited animal and probably became unmanageable before they could escape from the impending peril.

The members of the family were almost frantic over the disaster. Mr. and Mrs. Woodruff were in prosperous circumstances and had a wide circle of friends in the city and in the rural districts. Mr. Woodruff was 37 years of age . . . for years he had been one of the largest produce exhibitors at the Hornellsville Fair and had a reputation for being a progressive and prosperous farmer.”

Three days later, the Tribune ran this story with the headline,

“Woodruffs Buried”

“A great concourse of people attended the obsequies today, at their late residence on Pennsylvania Hill, of Miles S. Woodruff and his wife, Carrie Haskins Woodruff, who were killed last Thursday night by an Erie train. A large delegation of Grangers from this city drove to the Woodruff home to pay a last tribute to its former occupants. Mr. and Mrs. Woodruff were buried side by side. The funeral service began at 1 o’clock this afternoon and was conducted by Rev. Mr. Swan of Almond. The preacher referred feelingly in his sermon to the sterling qualities of the dead, to the essentiality of being prepared for death and to the fact that the two children, thus suddenly deprived of father and mother, would be well cared for.”

Who were Miles and Carrie Haskins Woodruff – and who were the children they left behind? Once again, the Hagadorn House archives room furnishes clues in the form of extensive family genealogy notes, handwritten by former archivist Helene Phelan. Miles, the son of John B. and Louise Wetherby Woodruff, was born the year after his father returned from a four-year stint with the 5^th NY Cavalry, Union Army of the Potomac. He had two sisters, Laura Swick and Minerva VanDelinder, and a brother, Charles. A map, provided by Chub Lockwood, shows the Woodruff property way up on top of Pennsylvania Hill, northwest of the present Blueberry Hill Farm.

Carrie Laverna was the only daughter of Eri and Caroline Allen Haskins, and apparently lived with her parents and two brothers, Frank and Allen, in the family home at 4 Chapel Street. In later years, her brother, Allen and his wife, Florence Tucker Haskins, and then their son, Glenn, and his wife, Laura, resided in the home. Pages of her autograph book, copied and sent to us by Mr. Reiter, are filled with sentimental messages written in beautiful penmanship from a host of friends. A handwritten poem with several verses, signed only with initials, reads in part:

“There’s many a joy in this world below,
And sweet the hopes that to sing were uncannie;
But of all the pleasures I ever can know,
There’s none like the love o’ my dearest Carrie. . .”

Whether the man who wrote this later became her husband is unknown, but we do know that she and Miles were married on February 17, 1897 and were a successful, well-respected couple. Their children, Florence and George, who were orphaned at ages 4 and 6 at the time of their parent’s accident, remained in the area for the rest of their lives.

What little is known of the “rest of the story” has been given to us by Karen Wilcox, whose husband, Jim, is one of Florence’s children. She tells this about the fate of the children: “Florence was raised by the Swicks in Canaseraga (Miles’ sister), and George was raised by the Haskins family (Carrie’s brother). That’s why he and Glenn (Haskins) were such good friends. Later, when George became of age, he got the farm on Pennsylvania Hill. Florence got the furniture and money,” Karen said.

The trauma of her childhood took its toll on Florence, according to Karen, who related that the two siblings were not close, and Florence did not speak of her parents. “It was a sad story, but not in all ways. Florence was left some money from her parents’ estate. She went to Hornell Business School when women did not go to school. She kept the books for the independent telephone company when they went up Karr Valley, and kept meticulous records of everything purchased on the farm. She and Glenn lived on the Wilcox farm on Bully Hill when they were first married. During the Depression, the State bought up all that land, and they came down on Karr Valley Road and bought the (Charles) Karr farm,” she shared.

She described Florence as a very private person: “I fact, she didn’t talk much at all, and she did not talk about her mother and father,” Karen said. Florence died almost thirty years ago, and Jim and Karen eventually moved into the big farmhouse, which was jam-packed with furniture and items of unexplained origin. “I found two large framed portraits hidden in the back of a closet. They were really dirty, and I tried to clean them, but I realized they were freehand charcoal portraits, very detailed, so I stopped. I asked all of Jim’s siblings who they were, and no one knew,” she said.

After they were settled in the farmhouse, Karen invited “Uncle George” and his wife, “Aunt Frances” for Christmas dinner. When they all sat down in the living room, George spotted the framed portraits on the wall and declared: “That’s my mother and father!” He went on to say that he had been told that they had had their portraits done a month before they were married, but he had never had a picture of them. They took the frames down from the wall and on the back of them wrote their names, when and where they were born, and when they were married. With tears in his eyes, he said: “This is the best Christmas I have ever had – you have made my Christmas!”

Continuing on with the story, Karen said sadly: “It was good that George had come up and identified them, because he dropped dead a couple of months after he had been here that Christmas.”

How did the Carrie Haskins Woodruff’s autograph book end up in Maryland? Karen explained that it probably had been tucked away with the Haskins personal property, which then reverted to Carrie’s nephew, Glenn Haskins, and then on to his wife, Laura. After she died, her nephews, Donald and Ronald Brundage, sold the estate to an antique dealer from Olean, who apparently put it on the internet auction.

Florence’s silence about her childhood and the painful loss of her mother and father leaves many questions that will forever remain unanswered. However, the autograph book’s surprising reappearance prompted more research, and has revealed details and secrets previously unknown to the family. The couples’ tragic death was not the last of sadness: Carrie’s brother, Allen, was killed when he fell from a rafter in his barn in 1931, and Allen and Florence’s son, Clifford, was taken as a POW in WWII and died in 1944.

Several years ago, Helene Phelan compiled a monograph/booklet entitled “Autographs”, editing excerpts from the six vintage autograph books found in the Hagadorn House collection. One belonged to Carrie’s late husband, Miles, and contains autographs from 1885 to 1897, a month after his marriage to Carrie. Near the back of the book is this prophetic entry:

““Our lives are albums written through
With good or bad, with false or true,
And when the blessed angels turn
The pages of our year
God grant they read the good with smiles
And blot the bad with tears.”
 

Florence and George Woodruff
 

Carrie Woodruff
 
 

Miles Woodruff