When the stuffy succession of the fine Georges of the House of Hanover, which from 1714 to1837 held the throne of
England had ended, and the tottering lineage of the royal German mummies, many of whom could not even speak the English language, had passed across the pages of English history, there was still a feeling of oppression upon the lives of the great mass of the English speaking people, among
them many who remembered Magna Charta and who saw that the final fires of the earlier ages had not been extinguished by the union of England with Scotland in 1703, but that the landed gentry whose right to enslave their fellow man by fief or vassal had not been changed, that the vast
territorial remains of Great Britain was still subject to the internecine actions of those elements that make life bitter to all those who have their faces turned upward from the sod.
It was in the beginning of the reign of the Fifth George who assumed the title of William IV, in 1830, and who
reigned but seven years, that our (ancestry) begins. The name of Mott, as such, does not adorn the higher (pages) of English history either in political, ecclesiastical or heraldic story for the family were but fiefs of the crown; living for many years upon some one of the magnificent
estates into which much of England is divided, powerless to rise above their fateful environment and existing only as time and circumstance directed. They were of that sturdy yeomanry to which <end page 1> the writers of history are so eager to refer but so loath to praise.
War is the game that kings from time immemorial, delight to play at with human beings as pawns and probably ever
shall, until the equality of (man) has found a right fine place in the story of human endeavor, when every vestige of kings and royal dominion are forever banished from the earth. The cannon fodder that serves to make or unmake an empire or establish an historical event, lies upon the field
of action forgotten while the aristocracy moves on in successive generations of power.
England, the most rapacious of the dynasties of the earth in the breaking of the tenth commandment, will ever
stand at the bar of human justice guilty and her "dominion upon which the sun never sets",- (winds) of which was acquired by the (aggrandizement) of war,- demands the wisdom of the wisest of her sages to perpetuate. The never ceasing call to arms makes the appeal to the peasant in
pseudo-heroics from which he cannot escape save upon the sacrifice of home and country - emigration. To many of the timid who soliloquize as did Hamlet-: "there is much that puzzles the will and makes us rather bear the ills we have than to fly to others that we know not of", that continue
to live within the narrow confines of an area that forbids (the) expansion of souls struggling to make better the human side of man, to rise above the sordid environment and escape from a slavery to those debasing conditions that- make human beings but the chattels of the
dominant-(oligarchies) of reigning families - "a brother to the ox."
The Motts were nonconformists, as were the Puritans two centuries before them and as such were under the ban of
the established <end page two> church. With the monarchy, the prospect of continuous wars for insular and continual defense, the mounting national debt- as well as the constant draft upon the flower of the (yeomanry) for military service, advanced emigration to an alarming extent, so that
early in 1832, Stephen and Charles Mott left England, as did thousands of others, and sailed for six weeks across the Atlantic to find a new home under better living conditions. They braved the winds of winter and steerage surroundings (cheered) by the hope that they at least, would find a
fair field in which to labor, unobstructed by the state or church or the feudal lord of the magnificent estate of royalty.
They established themselves in a little while and wrote back to England of the wondrous nature of the new country,
although they had not seen very much of it in New York; then in one letter it was said that work as they formerly knew it was not known here, for "all they did was to eat fat pork and swing on a gate all day" while business went right ahead and they were free to use their talents as they
chose. This humorous phrase did not fall upon stony soil for Grandfather George Mott with his family of ten growing children, surveyed their present environment, weighed (their) future prospects and then decided to follow the pioneers into the land of milk and honey.
This was in the winter of 1835 when they set sail on one of the slow moving sailing ships that carried them across
the ocean and in six weeks landed them at Castle Garden, where all immigrants were received. They were full of hope for the coming years in a new land. <end page 3>
This was the family who left the historic battlegrounds of the despots in the vicinity of Runnemede, where the
great chart of human freedom was forced by the barons upon John (Lackland) the most despicable of all the English kings, to sign, which he did June 15, 1215, and in spite of its 600 years of misinterpretation and peril has never been repealed or set aside. This little colony of
argonauts consisted of
George Mott Sr., Great chart. Kent. born February 7, 1796
Ann Mott, his wife, Great chart. Kent. born March 5, 1803
George Mott Jr. born March 12, 1820
John Mott born February 28, 1821
Hannah Mott born November 19,1822
Catherine Mott born December 4, 1824
William Mott born December 13, 1825
Ann Mott born May 13, 1828
Edward Mott born June 19, 1830
Thomas Mott born March 1, 1832
James Mott born May 25, 1834
Jane Mott born May 10, 1835
(Two) children were born in this country
Henry Mott born September 10, 1837
Mary Matilda Mott born December 15, 1839
They found a home in MacDougal Street near Washington parade ground where some of the wealth of the city was
located and the family went into the business of making and selling English muffins, with sons George <end page 4> and John aged 15 and 14 as distributors. George was subsequently indentured for five years, to the firm of JOHN KLEEBER & SON. marble mantle and tombstone makers of the city. At
the conclusion of his apprentice(ship), he looked about New York for a place to create. He was a young man of 21 and had made such progress along the line of love as to become engaged to Miss Mary Amelia Washburn of New York City and they were married on April 15, 1842 by Rev. J. Stocking a
Methodist preacher of the locality. Finding nothing promising in the City of New York, the young couple with the daring of adventure, which part of the spiritual makeup of the Mott family, left for Philadelphia, finally locating in the City of Camden, N.J. across the Delaware river in New
Jersey. Here the first baby was born-dead- in 1843. Eleven years elapsed when George Edward Mott was born, with a (card,) like (tat) described in the first chapter of "David Copperfield" by Charles Dickens, which, with the superstitious is the (augury) of good fortune, on October 4, 1854.
These years had been made successful in acquiring a profitable business from a large marble yard at the foot of
Federal Street in Camden which also enabled George Mott to purchase real estate on Federal (Street) above Eighth, consisting of two brick dwellings, one on Federal and one on Market Street-; into the latter the family moved from the small home on (Taylors) Alley where George Edward was born
and who now was now nearly five years of age, well known to the family and friends as "Colonel Monkeyshines" because of his ludicrous actions and laughable speeches and gestures. He was a showpiece it was admitted. <end page 5>
The boys and grandfather Mott left home, some with very little schooling as soon as they became of age as soon as
they could work their way to success. Edward went to Taunton, Mass., learned the (machinist) trade and very soon became a valuable man in the locomotive works there. He entered politics and in 1891 was elected a member of the State senate. He was a favorite with his brother George and hence
the middle initial in young George's name.
In the Market Street house, Caroline Susan Eliza Mott, was born June 26, 1859, very much to the dislike of her
brother who was now to be deprived of the attention he had monopolized. Shortly after this, the family moved into the Federal Street house, and George E. was sent to a private school for sometime and then to the district school near Coopers Creek. half a mile from home. where he remained
until the new graded school near the Camden County Courthouse was finished. This district school was near where the Esterbrook (pews) were made and the land about out was used during the early part of the war for drilling the volunteers for the civil war. Year's later the sight became the
large area occupied by the Victor talking machine and still (later The Raiola.)
The years had been financially profitable and George Mott had become in the 20 annual revolutions a prominent and
valuable citizen, having become such ten years before. Being social he entered Camden Lodge 15, 4. a.m. and held the Silver Maltese Cross as the token of a crack shot in the Camden Light Artillery. antebellum, showy organization wearing bear skin shakos and West Point uniforms but far from
being militaristic as their rifle was <end page 6> used only for target practice and their appearance was spectacular rather then war like.
George E. was entered as a scholar in the family study Baptist Church Sunday School at the age of 6 albeit his
father had become are adherent of the Second Advents Faith, one of the many spasmodic doctrines with dogmas that builded upon prophesies of (Daniel) and the apocalypse of John to sustain a specific belief and the personal, premillenial advent of Christ, immediately, upon this earth and
establishment of a kingdom of the righteous here with total annihilation of the wicked of this thousand years of peace had reached its fulfillment. The prophetic hour had twice failed to come, though firmly fixed forty years apart but the terms which the sect sent out concerning the
concerning cataclysm caused young George and many others to remain at home nightly awaiting the crash of worlds with inexpressible fear.
Early in 1860 there appeared a man, an inventor from Sequin, Texas and Savannah, Geo., with a patented
contraption, an improvement upon the Eli Whitney (saw-gin) which was largely used at that time for freezing the cotton bole from its seed, a work that had been done formerly (by the) hands of slaves, but which had become too slow for the increasing demand of the world for cotton; his name
was S. Z. Hall and he found in George Mott an easy mark in persuading him to invest largely in the manufacture of his cotton gins which Hall was to dispose of in the south. He was cordially hated by Mrs. Mott who could apparently see bad will in his designs.<end p 7>
On April 19, 1861 Fort Sumpter, in Charleston Harbor was fired upon as a culmination of the secession of the
southern states and the civil war was on. Nothing was heard of hall again but George Mott was about ruined. In a short time he had paid his debts by selling all he had and leaving in the spring of 1864 with his family, saving little from the financial collapse.
The little city of Camden was alive with the war spirit and most of the troops who answered President Lincoln's
call for 75,000 volunteers beside other subsequent thousands which followed, came through Camden over the Camden and Amboy railroad from New York destined for Philadelphia. This railroad ran within 500 feet of the Federal Street home so that the blue uniformed soldiers witnessed great crowds
of the patriotic element on the banks of the vacant lots that overlooked the tracks, to cheer them on their way to the National Capitol. They in turn threw out from the car windows and platforms, in the shape of souvenirs, cartridges, musket caps, coat buttons, together with some of the hard
tack of their daily rations to watch the scramble for the trinkets as a wonderful possession. (In) the score of years absence George Mott made frequent visits to Grandfather Mott's home in Hoboken, N.J. where the old couple had purchased a house on Meadow Street. On these visits George E.
usually went along as a kind of show piece after he became six years of age. One especial visit was to go on board of the "Great Eastern" which was docked on the North River at the Fort of Harrison street New York. The monster ship was <end p 8> a revelation of the coming of age of iron and
being British built was visited by thousands of born Englishmen. This was in 1860',Two years after the launch of the 800 foot vessel in 1858, the designer of which, (___mbard) K Brunell, C.E., died in January 1859 after six years work on the vessel without seeing his great work afloat. The
wonderful ship whose subsequent use in laying the great Atlantic cable was accomplished in 1864 by Cyrus Witfield and then the populating of Australia with English emigrants, was historic. The sight of the gigantic leviathan was such as to produce in the mind of the six year old boy
incidents that are still vivid. Many of the mechanical processes that this era of man power provoked in his brain an attraction which asked for the reason why. Among these were the sawing of great blocks of Vermont Marble in the marble yard into two inch slabs by one man, sitting in a
temporary shed to shield him from the sun and rain, while pulling the long, toothless band of iron back and forth, using sand and water only to wear away the stone. The making of pumps by an auger ten feet long turned by hand through o log of wood and the conical chips that were gathered for
kindling at home. These antique methods long abandoned by the machine age are still (more) vivid for the reasons that they have come within the span of a human life, each following the others in rapid succession in obedience to the demand for speed.
The city of Camden held a wonderful attraction for young George for the pleasant things it presented in the
numberless events with which he was almost in daily contact that gave the opportunity to <end p9> satisfy the curiosity of the developing mind and give impression of some ideas and things that were never to be forgotten.
Among the firm friends of his father was a quaint, ancient (__usonian) democrat named Henry Curtz, a printer,
whose shop on Federal Street was a veritable wonderland to the 10 year old boy who was a frequent visitor. Mr. Curtz was an elderly man whose education in the art preservative dated back to the beginnings of typography in the early 20's. In his office in daily use was one of the venerable
RAMAGE hand operated printing presses, such as Benjamin Franklin used, built of strong oak timber six inches square, in the ceiling and walls of the shop and capable of fairly good work. Upon it was printed the "Camden Phoenix" of which he was the eccentric editor and proprietor, which was
published when occasion, political or otherwise called for it. Some of the type faces were nearly a century old and cast by him in an antique casting machine that he would be proud to show when any one asked for information. Ancient political wood cuts of the 18th century had been used until
they were worn down to a silhouette, for the electrotyped duplicates were unknown at that day. The methodical precision of printing a sheet is well worth a description. The fun being open and ready). The form of type was inked by a leather ball being patted on it then a sheet of paper was
laid on the upper (tynepanum) and the frisket turned down on it to prevent it slipping, it then was turned down on the type, the form was then rolled under the platen where it was squeezed down by a big toggle jointed lever by hand and a foot braced against the press to make the impression,
at a speed <end p 10> of possibly 100 in an hour. The printed sheet is taken off the press by the reverse process. There was, too, a certain rhythmic cadence in all these motions that was accompanied by a ducking and swinging of the body as if in tune with some metronome unheard save the
manipulation of the press. In setting type also the same cadence prevailed as each letter was clicked against the composing stick before setting it in place while the body swayed to and from the case in proper measure.
There was, as in every city as we journey southward : a more dense population of Negroes and South Camden is full
of the local color and provincialisms that are noticeable. The division then of the sexes in the cabins of the ferry boats to Philadelphia, the deliberate slowness of physical movement in business transactions, the market days when the farmers and others displayed their wares in the street
markets once a week, the almost universal use of brick for houses and sidewalks, with white marble lintels and sills, white shutters on the lower front windows and blinds on the second floor of the two story houses that were set on the street line with two white marble steps and a platform
from the door to the sidewalk which were washed with hoses from an outlet beside the steps every morning at five o'clock, rain or shine. The lower shutters were bowed and held together by a strip of tape passed through two rings - black tape if a death had occurred in the house within a
year, otherwise, red. There are fixed provincialisms from which there is no departure , to the average Philadelphian and its suburban towns handed down from sire to son with the never changing custom of the environment. < end p 11 >
The Christmas holiday however was celebrated among the Motts as only the custom of (Merrie) England would devise
with its turkey dinner with its dessert of English plum pudding with brandy sauce and the (_iering) "hot stuff" of spiced Jamaica rum for those who liked it. The Christmas tree, too, heavily laden with gifts for the children was in evidence so that young George had an abundance of toys of
expensive class such as the mechanical toys of the times, most of them of German or foreign manufacture. One year a sailing ship having a cargo for the Christmas trade was sunk in the Delaware River in early December, just below Camden and much of the stuff was salvaged before the salt water
had ruined it and it was placed for sale in Philadelphia; that Christmas great heaps of agates and marbles, toys of iron, toys of brass and lead, rubber toys were piled up under the tree as never before.
The winter of 1860 was a severe one and the Delaware was frozen almost solid above Camden. The stream here was
divided by Smith's Island, one part of which was called Windmill Island for the reason that a mill of that character had been built on it for grinding grain at one time; through this island the little ferry boats with side wheels had to pass in a canal just wide enough for two boats to
navigate. So cold was the weather that winter that one of the boats became frozen fast in mid channel and could not move until the incoming tide broke the ice which released it after 6 hours waiting. On the boat was George E. and his father and the family could see the < end p 12 > situation
from the Camden ferry house but no help could be given; while the paddle wheels were kept moving only to keep them from freezing in the river. For the boat did not move a foot. The water is brackish and almost fresh for Philadelphia is about 100 miles from the ocean. This island became a
hindrance to navigation in the later years and totally removed by the federal government and the channel deepened. Now a wonderful suspension bridge spans the Delaware at this point with modern powerful screw boats navigating in an unimpeded river so that the events written are historic and
seemingly ancient stories although their action occurred but within the scope of a human life (especially) have we moved foreword in (less) than a hundred years.
It would seem strange that a family of the size of the Motts, that could brave the ocean to find a new home never
to return to the old one would naturally adapt themselves to the newer advantages that they found this side of the Atlantic, to become pioneers, to seek out toward the great west another environment; but while some went to the east, some to the south, they did not venture more than 500 miles
apart. At the close of the civil war or about 1868 we find most of them back in Hoboken, New York near where Grandfather Mott had located. All except Edward who was in Taunton, Mass. were at home near the metropolis. So it happened that in the social life of the family, sometimes there were
four Georges seated at the same table: Grandfather, his son George Jr. George Edward and a son of William Mott who lived in Charleston, S.C. long before the outbreak of the war, who had married three wives and had a girl and three boys < end p 13 > as his contribution to the Motts, one of
whom was also named George. It was facetiously announced that they could easily be designated as "old Mott, young Mott and two Mottoes." However, it was the Camden Mott who bore the name George Edward all through the advancing years and held to his middle cognomen after all the
others had passed on, for his mother mentally segregated the name in her mind and held it sacredly above imitation or duplication with a feeling that all mothers have for the things they love and cherish. The "George Edward" never became separated during her life of 63 years.
It was but two years after the return from Camden that Grandmother died in Hoboken, May 15, 1866 in her 64th year
and on August 16, 1868 Grandfather died at the home of his daughter Ann (Mrs. James Stephenson) at Boiling Springs, (Brier) Co., N.J. at 72 years of age. Both were buried in the family plot in Hoboken cemetery.
After leaving Camden the family came to Hoboken to stay for a few days until the furniture arrived and a suitable
locality for a house could be found. Hoboken was once an island in the Hudson River and the salt water marsh that lay west of it was subject to the daily rise and fall of the tides of the river in the creeks that meandered through it. This span of marsh was crossed by a five foot plank walk
built above the water, for half a mile to the bergers or (Weihawken) Hill to enable the toilers living in Hudson City and working in New York to reach the ferry from Hoboken.
Over this plank walk the family went to find a home on the < end p 14 > heights. George Mott found a job in New
York with a firm that had larger contracts for supplying marbleized slate mantels for the hundreds of new brown-stone fronts that were being built in the expanding territory to the east and north of the city. These slate mantles and wainscots were a new idea that cheapened the cost of
building by substituting the imitation of costly marble in the rooms of these dwellings which were thrown together for speculative purposes in the era of sham through which the metropolis was now passing. The beautiful coloring of Spanish and Italian marble were so cleverly imitated upon a
foundation of common slate that it required a close examination to show that it was sham.
<extra page inserted here to be chronologically viable>
When the furniture and household goods arrived and were in place in the large brick home on Montgomery Avenue,
Hudson City early 1864, we had hardly been established when the Federal Conscription Act of 1863 was enforced, and on October 3, 1864, my father, who had become a naturalized citizen some years before, was drafted for war service at 44 years of age, after living been exempted in Camden and
he was compelled to go into the U.S. Army or furnish a substitute, which under the conscription law, approved July 4, 1864 he could do and at the cost of $800. he furnished a man to take his place. This with the losses incident to the heaping out of the rebellion and the Hall cotton gins
while in Camden was unfortunate and unforseen. We had seen with horror the results of the draft riots in New York City, involving the loss of 1000 lives and the hanging of innocent Negroes from the lamp posts on the street and the acts of mad vandalism that were perpetrated by the mob that
held the city in terror for 4 days, sacking military offices, burning of buildings and colored asylums and Negro Quarters with a financial loss to New York by incendiary fires, of over two millions of dollars.
The conscription subsequently effected all males < next 1/2 page> between the ages of seventeen and fifty five
years of age until the war ended in 1865.
A solid gold hunting case watch, English lever, barrel and (fusic) movement which my father had bought in his days
of prosperity was taxed by the government at one dollar annually and father gave the watch to me to evade any more taxes for war purposes but it was only an antique for the spring was eternally breaking and the (fusic) had long since gone into the discard it was not practical for any length
of time, so where George Edward Mott II was born in Oct. 1924 I gave it to his father Edward in trust for him until he became old enough to keep it as an heirloom of his great grandfather.< end extra page>
In the new home on the heights Geo. E. was placed in the Baptist Sunday school of West Hoboken and some very
pleasant recollections are associated with this school in the decade that followed. It was late in 1864 when a residence on the Heights was secured on Montgomery (Central) Avenue in the center of the plateau when George Edward was enrolled at 10 years of age in the lower department of
school No. 2 of Hudson City, but a block away from his home, much to his dislike for - his pride rebelled for he had been an assistant to the teacher of the district school in Camden in instituting the primarians to acquire a knowledge of the alphabet, which was taught in reverse. It cost
some tears but he had to submit and be taught his first lessons in a modern graded school regardless of what he thought he knew. After six years he had reached the grade from which promotions were made to the < end p 15 > High school in the Masonic Hall building as Hudson City had no such
building there. There he remained for a year for the school was closed because the locality had become a part of Jersey City whose high school was over a mile away. However he went back with others to old No. 2 to form an advanced class under the principal Charles A. Hoyt. This did not last
very long for his father took him as a helper in the work of setting mantels in the building boom that had seized New York. After a year, George Mott visualizing a like boom in New Jersey real estate, gave up his job borrowed some money and bought a piece of property on Palisade Avenue
consisting of two lots and a 1 1/2 story frame house.
Hudson City was situated on a plateau known as Bergen Hill 200 feet above the river, west of Hoboken and north of
lower Jersey City the termination of the palisades of the Hudson and extending a mile across from the Hackensack Meadows on the west to the Hoboken flats in the east, with West Hoboken to the north and Jersey City to the south. The sectional designations of which were North Bergen, Chelsea,
Hudson Grove, Homestead, Center Hill, Washington Village, Waverly, and Five Corners; a terrain given over to exploitation by real estate agents for residential settlement. on the corner of Palisade Avenue and Congress (Warren) Street an 80 ft. liberty pole was erected and a 50 ft. flag was
thrown to the breeze on every fitting occasion. It was in a building on the opposite corner that the Wescott Comet Band was organized and for a year or so some four of the young men of Hudson City including Geo. E. made the air resonant. <end p 16 >
In 1871 this whole hilltop was incorporated into Jersey City proper and thereafter was known as Jersey City
Heights. The little village of Hudson City was a territory of residences and it lacked stores. All of which were in Washington Village largely run by Germans who also had their little liqueur bars behind a wall of soup boxes in the days of the saloon. George Mott thought it needed a bakery
and so with little tact and less judgment, that saw only a possible fortune in realm of the tradesman, built a store in front of the house which sat back about 15 feet from the street and the real trouble began. The oven for the bakery was built in the cellar of the house - as all bake shops
were then located - unsanitary, dark and airless. A confectionery store and a milk rout were added and soon the whole plot was covered with a three story structure and three stores beneath it. Into there were crowded a flour, feed, grain, and hay department, in a stable built on the rear of
the lot, a grocery store and meat market. George E. had bought and housed a small printing press and outfit in the cellar with steps down from the side street, and started for himself in a self chosen occupation. Three or four families occupied the flimsy apartments on the upper floors - a
quarrelsome and cheap lot such as the surroundings invited.
The bubble burst in 1876 as none of the ventures paid. The mortgage given to the New York Flour Co. was foreclosed
and the Motts were on the street. The printing outfit was not in the chattel mortgages and with it he continued business in a store located a short <end p 17 > distance away on Palisade Avenue - No 570. He was then past 21 and had cast his first presidential vote in the full election of 1875
and the story is now his narrative written in the first person singular.
---------------------
I have always possessed since school days a faculty for sketching free hand which was made use of in my annual
visit 5 relatives of my mother in Duchess County N.Y. on summer vacations and wherever fancy directed. This faculty I thought could be developed along the lines of architectural drawing and so, during the winter months of 1874,75 and 76, I was enrolled as a pupil in the evening classes in
the Cooper Institute, New York, studying architecture and mechanical draughting and earned a certificate of proficiency but when I made application to several of the architects of New York for a job I learned it was of no use to present my qualifications for the coming draughtsmen were
required to grow up in the office. This drove me to the knowledge that I had arrived at a man's estate but it was all the estate I possessed so I turned to the art preservative and dared to hang out my shingle as a job painter although I had never spent an hour at the trade anywhere. Our
family moved into the rear apartments of the store where I had set up a press.
An opportunity to purchase a home on the other side of the street at No. 571 Palisade Avenue was seized upon and
the property was purchased in the name of George E. and Catherine S.E. Mott and we moved across as soon as a temporary office for my plant could be built. My father built a barn on the rear of the two lots and went into <end p 18 > the business of carrying express to and from New York every
day by horse and wagon delivery. Here I was located for ten years adding machinery and material as circumstances demanded. Much time at this period was given to literary work in the Good Will Literary Society, a coeducational club, then to Palisade Literary Union, the Irving Dramatic Club of
young men and finally the Amaranth of Jersey City, a dramatic organization of both sexes which gave several performances for two winters. Then the era of beneficial and fraternal associations broke out and I joined the Odd Fellows the Patriotic Order Sons of America, the A.O.U.W., the Royal
Areanum and the L.A.B.A. The last two were Hoboken societies as well as the Hoboken Camera Club, organized in 1889 where five brown stone buildings at 1036 Park Avenue became a social and recreational headquarters for the Amateur Photographers of the city and a club of no mean proportions
for the hospitable entertainment of visiting members of the craft from other states. Its membership consisted of persons among the higher class of Germans and others. A governor of New Jersey was an honorary member. In Unique Lodge 34 of the A.O.U.W. I was its recorder from 1898 to 1906, was
sent as a representative to the (Snud) Lodge one year. In the Patriotic Order Sons of America I filled every office from 1871 and was its president in 1876, was appointed State Commander of the Blue Degree and National (past) President of New Jersey for one year. The Areanum Wheelmen was
also an organization formed from the (Councils) of Hoboken with which I was connected.
Let me go back to the centennial year which was a focal point < end p 19 > in our family from which occurs to
radiate many lines that possess a vital significance that may be visible in the mental turn of this retrospection. It will be remembered that the evangelists Moody and Sankey had come to New York after a wide series of meetings in Europe and began their religious revival in the Hippodrome
the largest public building that could be secured, which attracted thousands of people in every walk of life during this year. While I did not as a young man believe in the emotional exhibitions of religious mania. Yet there was a tendency to become agnostic. In the local societies with
which I was associated we were care free and apparently satisfied with our spiritual outlook, if we had such a thought. The make up of the local friendship embraced the German socialist freethinker, The agnostic and the infidel as well as the deeper thinkers but it was a matter of selection
among us so a few became interested in the movement to the extent not altogether of curiosity but of a desire to hear the music of ten thousand voices and witness the power of one man to command the wills of hundreds whom he had never seen or spoken to. The result was that many of us caught
the spiritual vision of the higher life and we were found in the inquiry rooms at the close of the service. We were told by the teachers and the Christian workers that we could not sustain our beliefs alone but should unite with some church body for mutual strength and advancement. I
remember the man who took me in charge was a Jew who had become a believer in Jesuit and that gave me a forceful example that punctuated deeper than <end p 20> words to give a definite end to the longings of the soul for the zealitic of Christian living. Some of our party united with the
Methodist church but I feel my beliefs particularly upon baptism were in (line) with the Baptist faith and so, alone, one Sunday evening in the month of July 1876, I was baptized by Rev. F.E. Asborne of the Baptist church of West Hoboken and thus made a public profession of faith
before a full congregation, among whom were members of the Camp of the Patriotic Order of which I was then president and in the church which I was a Sunday school scholar twelve years before. As of old the Sunday school appealed to me and I soon found my place as secretary of the body.
Among the teachers were two sisters named Martha and Tillie Collins the former being organist of the church
besides being one of the faculty of the West Hoboken public school, a girl endowed by nature and study with an unusual ability in instrumental music. This was an attraction that gave many opportunities to gratify my love for the art so highly appreciated and we became friendly. As we grew
more intimate we shared our ideas and the friendship ripened. We attended the centennial exhibition in Philadelphia with other companions and my knowledge of the Quaker City was used (loosely) when viewing the many points of interest in the city. Four years elapsed and on June 14,
1881 we were married and left for a two weeks wedding trip that carried us over a thousand miles of travel by land and water over the eastern states, which included Niagara Falls, Toronto and Montreal Canada, through the White Mountains to Portland Me. where a National Convention of the
P.O.S.A. was being held where we were. <end p 21> entertained for four days there to Boston to see the sights of the revolutionary city and back to New York.
A very pleasing feature of the family of Miss Collins I learned after our marriage was that of celebrating
Thanksgiving Day with the usual gathering of the Jennings - the family name of a large number of aunts, uncles and cousins living in Hoboken but now, through marriages (it) somewhat separated - the celebration was held at the home of Mrs. George Lawyer Sr. in West Hoboken, a sister of
Martha's mother. It was a real jollification in which all participated with zest especially those who came from the farm in Connecticut. All were musical and the hours were filled with mirth and song. It was an expression of loyalty to the family idea, inherited from the Pilgrims, as well as
a means of social expansion where cousins, as they came could know each other while they were upholding a principle brought to Plymouth by their forebearers. The Motts never had such a gathering except as they came to visit the old folks on unstated occasions. The Jennings had a splendid
opportunity and a splendid galaxy of the younger element to make it an event never to be forgotten, so from 1881 to 1887 these groups assembled in West Hoboken then for a few years until the death of George Lawyer (July 4) 1897 in Jersey City. When the weather permitted a picture was made of
the group; when separation began we missed the faces of some (left) for the more delectable feasts where the corroding fingers of the spoilers, time, leave no impress upon the glorified faces of the children of the father.
I shall never forget these occasions for their joyousness. Their religious significance, the milestones they
planted in the memory of a journey that can never be retraced, for it leads ever onward and upward to a haven of rest.<end p 21a>
On February 25, 1883 our first baby arrived; he was named George in conformity to the unwritten law of a hundred
years back. My business was good and everything seemed lovely, but one of those inexplicable things occurred which come into most lives at some time to mar the tranquillity. If we only possessed the gift of prescience and could define the future I doubt sometimes whether it would save us
from our individual pride in the exalted powers of misapplied initiative and defend us from disaster which leads to this; After the election of 1884 when Cleveland was successful, a little weekly paper in the republican town of Pinegrove, Pa. turned its batteries on the republican party to
make a bid for democratic patronage. At the National convention of the P.O.S.A. which we attended on our wedding trip in 1881 we made the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. F.E. Estees, the national president and held them in high appreciation. He was a prominent business man in Pinegrove
interested in coal mining and represented Schuylkill County in the house of Assembly of the State for two terms. In January 1885 I was surprised by the appearance of Mr. Estees and some others whom I did not know who stated that they had been sent by a large number of citizens of Pinegrove
and the county of Schuylkill on a mission of inquiry to learn if I would come out to Pennsylvania and start a newspaper in the village to oust the renegade who had gone over to Cleveland and the democrats with his paper. hey had 1000 subscribers they said and a fund <end p 22> of $1000 to
start with. This looked good to my unpracticed eyes but where I had to buy a newspaper press for $750. it should have warned me to look out, but they promised to see me through and I took the matter under consideration. It was purely rashness for me to accept the proposition for had I
personally visited the region to look over the ground I would have remained in Jersey. However, I relied upon the promise to see me through and late in January I took the family, household goods, printing plant to start a spite paper in the benighted anthracite coal region near Pottsville,
Pa. against the wishes of my parents and the family. I soon found out when I arrived that I was totally unfitted in experience and equipment which was mainfull besides being deceived by the good intentions of the community. The mistake was a costly one for the section was in the heart of the
Dutch section alive with clannishness, their suspicion of all but natives and their boorish ways. This put me at a disadvantage at once in so far as cooperation was concerned for I could not speak Dutch and many of them could not speak the English language, so that I struggled for nearly two
years against odds and a few days before Christmas 1886, I stopped the paper, stored the plant and household goods in the basement of the M.E. Church and left the region and a note for $400. with frozen assets in the way of subscriptions, etc. of nearly $3000. This note given to Miller and (Stus)
was paid by my father and I brought the outfit back to Jersey in a short time a wiser but much poorer man, to begin all over again. Sister Carrie came out to see me at my solicitation to help us pack our goods for <end p 23> storage also to bring with us Tillie Collins Mott two months old,
born on November 13, 1886. We spent a merry Christmas at home thankful that we were all together again. While in Pinegrove Mrs. Mott established herself as a teacher on the piano and had pupils among the better class of people which helped us greatly. We were however, in the midst of the
section who had for a hundred years back had traced their lineage to the (indy) Mennonites who came from Germany and Holland to escape persecution from the Protestants and Catholics, bringing their language and their faith; the former of which had become a grammerless, oral hodge-podge that
cannot be written because it had sounds that defy the spelling book and the printing press. Pennsylvania Dutch baffles the lexicon and can only be acquired by contact with it in linguistic absorption or by birth.
A suitable house was found on Webster Avenue and the furniture was moved into it. I bought a small camera and an
accompanying outfit and began to practice photography as a pastime. The press that was bought for printing the Pinegrove Tribune was sold to L.B. Huse of New York and went to work for him at his Harrick Street office.
Mr. and Mrs. Collins and my wife's sister Tillie, who was married in 1879 to a man named Bruce, whom she had
divorced, and our family moved into a brick dwelling on Waverly Street on May 1, 1888 where on June 11 our boy (Sendrick) died of malignant diphtheria as well as Mrs. (Beni's) daughter Mary a few days later. This calamity was sufficient to frustrate my <end p 24> father whose hopes were
centered in the little grandson and we were quick to get out of the fateful home to avoid the possibility of death among the other children particularly little Tillie who was slowly recovering from the measles.
Because of a church difference that had developed in the Baptist Church of West Hoboken all of us had taken our
letters from the church and gone to the Summit Avenue Church in the Bergen section of Jersey City to worship for there was no church of the Baptist faith Hudson City, the pastor of which was very solicitous during our affliction.
Early in the month of March while I was doing some local photo work I was approached by some Hoboken friends who
proposed that we organize a club for photographic and social pleasure in Hoboken.
The matter was carried foreword with the result that a Camera club was brought into being on March 23, 1889.
The Ancient Order of United Workmen a fraternal insurance organization was instituted in November in 1887 with a
goodly number on the charter for these were the times that life and other insurance was without the legal bar that it is now under and many swindling bodies such as the Iron Hall (of) the Order of Touti were in existence. The social side of a life insurance club was exploited with great
effect against the old line companies for the social side of life insurance had become a craze and mortuary tables had been discarded in order to get members from any source. It was not long before the (chapters) and the honesty of the fraternals was questioned and their methods harshly
criticized in the light of reason and cause. <end p 25>
Add p 25a where it goes
The old line companies as well as the fraternals were put under beneficent laws so that they became just to the
policy holders, so just as to treat them royally in the offering of new classes of protection so reasonable and in conformity to the mortuary law that the business of insurance upon life boomed while the fraternities which could only use the "die to win" plan by pan-handling assessments at
stated periods, with a steadily increasing death rate, gradually diminished and after ten years or about that had to give up the ghost leaving a host of members stranded at a time when they needed help the most. This was about 1887 and in 1897 I was elected recorder of the lodge which office
I held until 1906 when I left Jersey City for good. Continued paying monthly assessments until 1916 - Nearly 30 years - at which time they had compelled me to pay nearly $2500 on $2000 of insurance only to be dropped from membership and to lose all I had paid in.
In 1887 I was in partnership with W.F. KASTENHUBER a printer of the locality eventually selling out the business
to him. From January 1890 I was a member of Typographical Union No.6 and worked at the trade in New York until September 1891 when I edited the Dispatch of West Hoboken until January 1892. I bought a (___er) camera in May 28, 1890. Laurel I. Mott was born January 14, 1890 in Congress Street
Jersey City. The camera club took much of my time evenings and I became acquainted with many very pleasant young men among the wealthy Germans of Hoboken and while the object of the club was only photography there were others who were social members and they discussed political and general
news. About this time it was rumored that <end p 26> the "Evening News" the local daily had been pandering to the politicians of Jersey City to the detriment of the democracy of Hoboken and a new independent newspaper would be started to track the news that there were democrats at home more
eligible as a champion of their interests than the other crowd. The movement culminated in the formation of a stock company to get to work at once. I was approached by W.W. Pollock one of the camera club, to take the editorship on January 25 and the first number of the new papers was issued
from its office 205 Washington Street, on February 6, 1892 and for over two years I stuck steadfastly at the job, leaving the paper on May 25, 1894.
While I was a republican on National issues I could write upon independent democratic subjects to the satisfaction
of the stockholders, so that the paper was a success as a weekly. In May 1894 it was changed to a daily. Pollock sold out his stock and new capital was added and the paper was moved into Mayor Fagan's new brick building on lower Washington Street and a Jersey City politician took my place as
editor. Eventually it became one of the metropolitan dailies. Started as the Hoboken Observer it became the Hudson Observer and in 1896 ran the News out of Hoboken.
The year 1892 was full of noticeable incidents for early in the year on January 22 Edward F. Mott was born at 358
New York Avenue and the one sad incident among others was the death of my father George Mott who was attacked with pneumonia and lived but a week, dying on May 2 at 72 years of age. This compelled me to relinquish the <end p 27> property at 571-3 Palisade Avenue which was surrendered to the
mortgagee without course of law. In 1894 we were boarding with lil Bruce at a house in Mercer Street Jersey City when on the morning of April 11 after one of the fiercest nights of winter storm, (Monnie), my wife died in my arms at about2 o'clock of endocarditis. She was buried in the
Collins plot in New York Bay Cemetery.
I left the Observer a short time after this and as a part of my time for about a year I acted as a private
secretary to (Mayor) Fagan of Hoboken then for six months worked in the filing department of P. Lowell and Tobacco Works in Jersey City. Tillie and Edward were sent this summer to Mihoes, Conn. where Mrs. Bene has established a boarding house on a farm 5 miles from Bridgeport. They were
brought from there in August 1896 and taken to Uncle Jos. Sayres, Rutherford N.J. Early in the next year I gathered my plant together and started printing in a small place at 58 First Street, Hoboken succeeded in securing quite a trade. Frank Southard and Mrs. (Snow) were quite intimate
although living in (communipan). I was surprised one day to receive an invitation to the wedding of Theodore Southard, youngest brother of Frank (who) was to marry a Hoboken school teacher, Miss Frances Blauvelt of Angelica, N.Y. A cousin of the Southards was present, and I was introduced as
an old friend of the groom.
The sharp realization that I had a duty to perform in the education and support of my little family whose needs
were the more pressing <end p 28> after the death of their mother two years before and it led to some confidential talks with Mrs. Snow who advised that I write a letter to Miss Blauvelt, her cousin, to start a "get aquainted" campaign. The correspondence (was) begun in June 1896 and
continued until spring of '97 when I received a very cordial invitation to come and visit the Village of Angelica, which I did in the following August.
Meanwhile I had taken into partnership January in the printing business a young man who had learned the trade in
my office at 571 Palisade Avenue. Things had not gone right in the transfer of stock from the Observer to the new daily and two or more of the stockholders claimed to have received damages in the matter. A.J. Volk and City Treasurer Smith who had been ill treated decided to start another
paper to air their grievances and oppose the Observer. It was called the republican and was issued from the office of a local firm of printers on Park Avenue. I was made editor and general reporter, however this did not last very long before the organizers found out that it was easier to
start such a venture than to keep it going so it faltered and gradually died from (inaction) as my previous venture in Pinegrove (had). There was however during its short existence a few things which made for notoriety which cost but little in money but was rich in propaganda and publicity.
By some means a Reporter on the Republican had wandered into the field of fiction and made an unqualified statement that apparently touched a very sore spot in the brain of a Hoboken saloonkeeper who immediately swore out a warrant for <end p 29> libel when he read it and sent the process
server out on a hunt for his victim. The matter was brought to the attention of City treasurer Smith who told me not to worry about it, but I did nevertheless for (if there's) anything that can stir up an editor it is a suit for libel for it involves so much legal language to define the word
so that an unscrupulous lawyer welcomes it as a means to high financial attainment. I took the occasion to go out of the jurisdiction for the day to escape the constable but the next days papers in Hoboken and Jersey City and even the New York dailies had the news of the arrest of an editor
charged with libel spread out in sensationally typed heads. Nothing more came of it but the novelty was not pleasing to me but it taught me to edit the correspondents copy before having it printed ever afterward.
The era of bicycling had arrived and it became an every day for wheelmen to start out for a century or 100 mile
run, so I thought it proper to try my energy in a like performance and ride to New Haven, Conn. where Frank Southard was located and surprise him. On Oct. 30 I got away early on my wheel, feeling grand. I had gone possibly 25 miles when I found it more to my liking to buy a ticket from Port
Chester (to) finish the 80 miles if I expected to finish my journey. It takes some previous practice to successfully complete a century run I found out.
Meanwhile the invitation to come to Angelica became so insistent that I felt my visit would be looked upon in the
sense which was desired in the letters I had written to Francis and on August 14 I left on the evening train on the line taking with me the two young boys Frank and Freddie <end p 30> sons of my friend C.F. Southard for a ten days vacation in the homeland of their father. We arrived at
Belvidere the next morning with my bicycle and were met at the station by Oscar Blauvelt and (his) sister Frances in a two seated carriage for a five mile ride to Angelica - the Mecca of my dreams. Our acquaintance at first sight seemed to be mutually agreeable although over a year had
passed since we had been only casually introduced at Theodore's wedding. The space however had been bridged as carefully by each of us through the plans of romance that the consummation agreed with the mental drawing so perfectly that there was little need of any alteration. I was glad that
the opportunity came to feel that while in some directions fate had laid my lines impleasantly there yet was in life some untravelled paths, some new vistas, some pleasures that had been hidden or could be renewed in which my joys could be shared by a companion. I was activated by the
highest principles of honor yet somewhat doubtful as to the outcome of this visit for usually an acquaintance begins with a knowledge of the antecedent of those with whom we wish to associate as well as the familiarity of friendships formed by selectivity after the test of time or a period
of self examination; none of which I could lay claim to. My higher ideals must find an objective that (accords) with a faith that controls my being else the quest is vain. While I tried to impress the idea that there were Elysian fields nearer than Allegany county, in our few months of
correspondence yet my coming implied a mutual research in other fields than the alchemy of the crucible.
I did not presume to be anything but natural but I felt that my <end p 31> temperament had been sifted and the
judgment that called me must have been the result. So with the opportunities presented for (forindly) intercourse with the family from M. Henry Blauvelt and (his) wife to the resident children particularly Miss Frances, the belief came that my personality had not provoked his favor. In the
few days among the Angelica folks I found them as amiable as others of my kin and the loves were employed with a zest that was more than I should have exhibited but the object of my visit I dared not approach with any degree that it might be mutual gratification, so I planned to spend a
short time away from Angelica to see if it made any difference whether I ended my visit now or a short time later. Later in a little quiet talk with Frances I was assured that my plans to go away for a day or two only urged a quick return.
After a few days I started for Buffalo where the National Encampment of the (G.A.R.) was being held to see the
wonderful displays that I had read of. I had brought my bicycle along so that I could cover more territory at less expense but I had left my camera, a more desirable thing as I learned, at home. The opportunity was presented to carry back some views that should embrace my (purpose); so
before going to Buffalo I telyphoned to Sister Carrie to send the box by express with some plates. On my return from the visit to Buffalo and Niagara Falls I found the camera had been sent and it was made use of plentifully in making some views that in after years renewed the joys of the
occasion that called them out. <end p 32>
Before leaving Angelica for home our little period intimacy had developed into the advanced bounds of friendship
and gone so far beyond that Miss Frances wore on the third finger of her left hand a mutual pledge of constancy with the approval of her own heart and the approvation of her family.
This year was crowded with history that is associated with the story that now hinges upon the fifth generation of
Motts. I was elected recorder of the A.O.U.W. which I held for 10 years, became a member of the Royal Areanum, the L.A.B.A. and one or two other mutual benefit societies. In passing as a matter of record this year on November 19, George Bence, the divorced husband of my wife's sister Tillie,
after a wild criminal career, shot himself at Fairview, N.J. with a French rifle cane, in the home of his fathers property. The same cane with which we had toyed with 20 years before when we were courting the Collins sisters in West Hoboken.
The year 1893 was full of calamities, but somewhat balanced by a greater number of blessings, it passed into
history without the harsher judgments which usually follow unsuccessful endeavors. On the early evening of Saturday, January 22 while engaged in casting accounts in the printing (office) at 81 First Street, Hoboken, I rose up from my chair quickly and overturned a big oil Rochester lamp
hanging overhead. In falling from its frame it fell on the floor near the Front Street window and the oil was quickly ablaze. In the endeavor to put out the fire with my overcoat my hands were badly burned. The flames spread rapidly and my exit by the front door was cut off. I was caged in
for the two rear <end p 33> windows were up near the ceiling which was low, so without any other thought than escape I rushed for them and mounted one of the presses to open the window and found they opened inward from the top so that the draft outward carried the hot air and flames out with
me so that my face and hair were burned badly. The firemen soon arrived and deluged the little shop with water. Fortunately we carried enough insurance to cover the loss. I was taken to a drug store where I was bathed in Canon oil freely but I was a sight for several weeks of convalescence.
The seed which we planted in Angelica last year had become a sturdy plant through the warmth of loving
correspondence and the date of consummation of the contract was fixed as June 15 and the second visit to Allegany County on June 13 was one of unallayed pleasure. We were married by Rev. M.E. Hedding of the M.E. Church in the home on East Main Street attended by Mrs. Maude Blauvelt and
Montford Lathrop a sister of Frances and a brother of (Lester) Josephine's husband. A house full of relatives and friends gave us a hearty send off at the conclusion of the dinner as we were taken to the train for Buffalo.
It was but a coincidence, if it may be so called this marriage to a cousin of my friend Marie and Frank Southard
whose ancestors came from (Manahawken) in New Jersey and found an abiding place in the hills of Western New York early in 1829 where the eastern civilization had been knocking at the doors of the Empire State for entrance to a territory for settlement in virgin forests while yet they were
the <end p 34> hunting grounds of the Senecas and other aborigines of the powerful Iroquois Nation. They were the pioneers that builded the social order upon which their successors flourished years before the winning of the west beyond the Mississippi, by the avant couriers activated by the
lust for gold as well as for the love of adventure; for here on Jersey Hill in Allegany County Job Southard and his wife rested with their family in a peace that must have seemed to them as to Caleb and Joshua when they looked upon the land of Promise beyond the Jordan. While I, the
birthright of the same state came westward to find a bride but to reverse the order of the earlier civilization in a succeeding century. We who are all filled with the same great imaginings, actuated by the same passions, longing for the realizations of the higher ideals, see the purposes of
life from different standpoints. So it is that two people possessed by differences that are opposite, can, under the eternal law of love, blend them to that satisfaction that comes from mutual regard.
We spent a short time at Niagra and arrived safely over the West Shore railroad at New York and often breakfast at
a restaurant. Went to Rutherford where the children were to be introduced. I made arrangements for a temporary resting place until we could decide upon a place. It was somewhat revolutionary both to myself and Frances to live in a flat but we did in the fifth story of a ten family home on
14th Street Hoboken, but we learned to appreciate our sequestered villa so high above the world below where the dumb waiter and electric front door release was our salvation from tramps, peddlers and beggars with which homes on the ground floor <end p 35> are annoyed. The speaking tube to
the cellar put us in touch with all necessities of living for everything needed was bought by an order to the "butcher, baker and candlestick maker" who awaited in the cellar below for his order which was delivered to our flat by the dumb waiter.
My partnership in the printing business was becoming exasperating to me as my partner was intoxicated so much that
no dependence could be placed on him, so rather than to break out with him I asked a release from his father and I let him to fight it out alone. I had some credit with a supply house and I bought a (small) office and located it in a house where sister Carrie lived with my mother on Palisade
Avenue in the Waverly section. I went back to the Observer as a reporter on the Heights and managed to live with job printing at home. While we lived here Maude Blauvelt and Gerald visited us in April while our finances were at a low ebb and had it not been for sister Carrie who held a good
job as one of the machine (computers) on the Evening World of New York, we might have gone down. While living thus an opportunity came my way by the failure of the manager of Station 16 of the Post Office to make good and I applied for the place, was appointed and became manager January 1,
locating in a (store) near Franklin Street on Palisade Avenue. Brought my outfit from the home and located it in the Post Office and things began to turn. While the quarters were dingy and cramped, we four, Tillie, Edward, Frances and I lived in this store and two back rooms for four years.
It was an office much needed in the locality and while we were living among Jews, Austrians, Cypriots, Germans, Italians, Polocks, <end p 36> Turks and a few Greeks we got on famously. The locality was one where much manufacturing was done and a large postal business was the result so much
so that my salary which was but - $100. the first year was $(___0) in 1906, besides a very good business in job printing.
A short time after starting the office Frances went for the usual annual visit to Angelica, a custom which we
began soon after our marriage but at this particular time, July 1901, the visit had a mightier motive. In our miserable situation without many of the necessities of a home, the peril was too great for the proper reception of another Mott - hence the emigration. It was well that we planned so
for shortly after Frances had gone, my sister was taken with what the physician called typhoid fever and she was removed to Christ Hospital a few streets away while my mother was taken to a friends home until we knew of the outcome. This unfortunate state of affairs was in line with our life
of a year ago, so we made the best of the situation and tackled the thing bravely. Tillie was but a girl of 15 was a scholar in the Jersey City High School and attended there while Edward was at school No.9 on Webster Avenue two blocks away.
As soon as practicable we vacated the house at 254 Palisade Avenue and by working nights Tillie and I succeeded in
packing up the furniture, putting it in storage and transferring some to the Post Office Station. Business was increasing both in the printing and post office and Tillie had to leave school to act as clerk for Uncle Sam in Station 16. <end p 37>
A letter was received from Angelica announcing the birth of Raymond Blauvelt Mott, who was named after his uncle,
on July 28, 1901 with all things satisfactory. After a month in the hospital sister Carrie came (home) and boarded on Ogden Avenue near the office until another house could be secured. Frances and the baby come home in October to share in our meager surroundings.
On January 7, 1902 my mother died at the age of 83 and after three years Carrie engaged the first flat in a
house no. 94 Ogden Avenue and we moved there from our cramped quarters, at Carries solicitation and once more lived like humans.
Meanwhile Tillie and her brother Laurel made a trip in June 1902 to Angelica and did not return until after New
Years day 1903. They were there at the time of the big flood on July 6, 1902.
One day in the summer of 1903 an unfortunate mishap occurred in the printing office when Raymond was toddling
around that he tripped and fell on the floor as he ran toward the press which I was running and put out his hand to save himself and it went between the pinion of the gear which was unprotected. I quickly stopped the press but it was too late; the top of the middle finger of the left hand
had been caught and crushed but not badly as we found out when the doctor washed the wound which was black with grease. There was a guard put up after that but the scar remains on the finger yet.
While the year 1905 was nearly gone, while the evening of the 30th December neared (nearer) the midnight hour
another event <end p 38> was made manifest in the birth of Quentin R. Mott in the house on Ogden Avenue. His name was the result of a discussion which brought out the fact that the word means the birth of the fifth son. The R. stands for Randolph, an historic name associated with the
Blauvelt family in its early annals. Gertrude Hurlburt and her boy Donovan had come from Western New York to take part in the celebration and with the German midwife and doctor were on hand to usher him in. He preceded the annual with which New York and the environment customarily greet the
New Year, by a day. Gertrude remained with us for some time and spent New Years Eve among the thousands of paraders that milled about from Trinity Church to Grace Church on Broadway and Tenth Street where the howling crowd was so boisterous and the chiming bells could be heard above the
turmoil of the street.
This year was one of quick decisions and surprises almost from the beginning. In April, a day or so before Easter
Carrie announced that she would marry William Hawkey, a widower whom she knew for several years as a proofreader on the staff of the Evening World, and became his second wife and moved to Bogota, N.J. to live in his house. The date was (set at) Easter Sunday which this year was April 15,
1906. On the day appointed he came and both went to the residence of the minister of the Congregational Church on (Booraeue) Avenue a few steps away, were married and had dinner with us. This was an unexpected went but not more so than a letter we received from Maude Blauvelt a day later in
which she states that she and Gerald Hulbert would be with us on or <end p 39> about April 20 on their wedding trip from Angelica. They came and we did all we could to advance their happiness by showing them some of the sights. It was rather early but we went about the (spent), desolate sand
of Coney Island where the elements of the resurrection from a winter hibernation had not yet appeared and among the rocks of the palisades where the first awakening of spring was visible. It was a week pleasantly spent.
It remained for me to get a shock from an unexpected source to add to the surprises of the year for on July 1 I
received a letter from Postmaster of Jersey City that beginning with the fiscal year July 1, my compensation would be cut down $200. annually. When I looked around at my way of living now and what it would be under reduced pay it did not take long to make up my mind what course to take.
Maude had for the six years following our marriage been constant in an endeavor to have us move to Angelica by
suggestions of what I might be employed at there, principally the purchase of Mrs. (Rumpff's) paper or work at the mill in order that the family might all live together or be near each other. This ultimatum from the postmaster now took another angle as to what might happen ahead when a
political change in the postal service after the election in 1907 would land me again in the street. While I was now working hard, I came out at the end of the year with nothing but an even or close to an even balance when I should have a savings bank account to show for my work. Besides
that I was near the zenith <end p 40> of my ability and an increasing family. The death of my mother, my sisters marriage, the impossibility to maintain a home on the reduced compensation acted to sever the tie that held me to the city and opened up another vista. Frances of course was
pleased with the prospect of returning to her homeland from which I had taken her but as she had shared my misfortunes thus far was prepared for any future. For me whatever the future offered it should at least remove the daily grind of toil which would follow present circumstances as under
my present physical condition I could not (presage) the strength of endurance. Under a charged condition with better air, cheaper living, elimination of hypertension, the children's welfare in a better environment all made an appeal that must be considered. I handed my resignation to the
postmaster and gave notice to the owner of the store of what had happened. Then I wrote to the folks in Angelica that I was force to act. Oscar Blauvelt offered me a position as a handyman in his sawmill; with my photographic outfit there was a possible revenue besides the possibility of
work on the County newspaper. By September 1 the post office station had been located in a real estate office (__built) and Tillie was given the job of attending to it while we began packing up the furniture at Ogden Avenue home. I sold the printing plant to a supply house in New York. We
went to Bogota, Frances and myself Raymond and baby Quentin to say good bye on Saturday, September 4 and remained over night and started on the evening train Sunday night arriving at Angelica on September 6, to find a temporary home with Oscar and Carrie Blauvelt. <end p 41>
We arrived in Angelica in the fall of the year when the gorgeous natural changes in the colorings of the woods
make a scene that no artist can transfer to canvas; the quiet of the night, the glory of the morning under the autumnal sun, that peculiar sensual gratification of breathing deep and long in the air untainted by noxious gases and void of all but the elements that give the its elasticity and
the mind its ease. I remember that on returning to Jersey City after a few days of vacation spent in Angelica amid its pastoral scenes, how my ears were shocked by the street noises that were (concomitant) with city life; the blare and the blatant sounds that were rife and unceasing; the
unnecessary clamor made by speeding machinery and even the petty wrangling of the children of the sidewalk, particularly among the Latins, in their childish imitation of their elders in their arguments. These we had all been schooled to endure without redress, but when released from contact
with them, how we enjoyed the quiet of the everlasting hills, the song of birds and the methodical hum-drum of country life. This was several years before our advent here so that when the realization came, it came like the still small voice that the great prophet, fleeing from the vengeance
of a godless queen heard on Sinai after the stupendous crash of the elements had (pealed). I at least; found in the little villages nestled in the pleasant rural environment of the Genesee country, a panacea for the results of the eternal rush, the survival of the stronger in the unequal
battle for an existence in the rabid competition of the URBAN life of man. " 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical love, and coming events cast their shadows before" was the warning given to (Lochid) which (___) I felt applied in full force to me. <end p 41A>
A search through the village found no place where we could live and so nearly a month passed until a small house
on East Main Street, owned by Tom Henry was secured after we had lived at Oscar's home for two or three weeks. On September 26, 1906 we witnessed the fire which destroyed the famous old Charles Hotel on the park, one of the landmarks which had become historic from association with the
westward march of the pioneers of a century before. Through Angelica passed the highway of the southern tier and cattlemen drove their stock through here and put up for the night on their way to Buffalo, and beyond. After the destruction of the old Exchange Hotel on West Main Street near the
park, the Charles Hotel became a famous meeting place for the politicians for Angelica was then the county seat. I was employed in Oscar Blauvelt's planing mill and we lived in the Henry house until Gerald Hulbert And family moved to Saint Mary's, Pa. March 30, 1908, nearly two years, when
we located in the house they had bought of Henry Blauvelt after Maude was married in 1906. The vision of a united family that Maude had so earnestly upheld was eclipsed by the stern circumstances over which we are so frequently unable to exercise any control.
Edward Mott was about fifteen years old when we came to Angelica to live. He was made an orphan when about two
years of age and was city bred and at a time when a young boy needs the guidance of a mother he was thrown upon his own resources and like most adolescents he had become self-conscious in a world of indecision at <end p 42> a time where decision was needed most - the formative period of
early childhood; he was care-free, jovial, fun loving but chafed under restraint, with an inherited disposition to be independent but not offering materially from hundreds of the loveliest of the sons and daughters of men. Consequently he rebelled somewhat at school discipline but not at the
course of study, yet after two years at school the thought of an academic career never entered his head and he wanted to work out his own destiny or at least to shape it to his liking so he quit school while in the eighth grade and went to work in the Shawmut Railroad shops here, which was
not the high pinnacle of existence that I should have selected for a boy endowed with his qualities, but it seemed to gratify his love for tools and machinery. He soon left here to go to Belmont to work for Clark Brothers in their machine shop but with the restlessness of his disposition he
went back to New York City to look for something different. Soon we find him back in Newark N.Y. employed in railroad work again with the West Shore Railroad, a division of the New York Central. He was married to Edith Paisley on August 2, 1917 and in a year later he was in the selected
draft of men for service in the world war and left Newark, February 25, 1918, for Camp Devins at Ayer, Massachusetts, from whence he, with a big detachment of railroad men were sent to Camp Merrett at Tenafly, N.J. From where they were transferred to Hoboken on March 28 to the Army Transport
"Mount Vernon," which was one of the converted German passenger ships that were interned at Hoboken upon the declaration of war with <end p 42-A> the central powers and became the property of the United States. They were equipped for service in France where they arrived safely April 7. The
ship was convoyed by cruisers and dreadnoughts guarded every ship (carrying) troops, so that not a vessel or life was lost through the work of German submarines. Edward was assigned to Company I, 19th Engineers, A.E.F. and for about 18 months were located at the shops at Dijon and St.
Nazaire. Coming back home they were aboard the transport MADAWASKY. Edward was left to take up and carry on where he left off in 1918 but with the added experience not attained in the life of every man.
A year of work in the mill had given me leisure some of which I could devote to commercial photography so I took
occasion to advertise the fact and in the Allegany County Fair of 1908 I had a commanding booth in the center of the Exhibition Hall.
The post office which was located in a little building on West Main Street belonging to S.S. (Hoover) was moved
March 15, 1908 to the larger store floor of the Lightfoot building on Park Circle. I was employed by Postmaster Weaver who had held the position for 12 years in several capacities until the end of his term, when the administration changed. About April I opened a studio in the Clapp building
which had a sky light and I specialized in penny pictures as my outfit was not for portraits.
On July 2 Theodore Southard and wife and daughter Helen came to Angelica to live and were assisting Carrie at the
lumber camp on the (Rulison) farm for a while. They were cousins of my wife whose <end p 42-B> mother was a Southard, a sister of Charles Southard, Theodore's father.
October 10, 1908 I was made a janitor of the library building, the only place of assembly with a theatrical stage
in town. September 8, a clerk in the P.S. and (N.) offices came to me with the idea of starting a dramatic club for pleasure and profit. He was C.B. Epworth who had some experience in the management of home theatricals and we succeeded in casting several plays for the fall and winter of 1908
and spring of 1909,When it went out of existence after giving three public performances in the library hall much to the regret of Theodore and myself. The club bought from the Andover opera house several sets of scenery, two drop curtains and other stage fixtures for our plays which we gave
to the library at the conclusion of the existence of the club. We found that there was a great scarcity of young ladies capable of taking any parts requiring thespian ability or able to forget their self consciousness on the stage. Parlor theatricals and school day comedies were common but
attempting to act was beyond their limit.
After we left Jersey City Tillie was in charge of Station 16 but a short time when she found a situation with the
Fidelity and Casualty Company of New York at a good salary. Here a word could be said of my son (Laurel) who was born January 14, 1890 at a time when Mrs. Motts health was not up to her best and we could get no satisfactory girls to assist us. It was then that Mrs. Isaac G. Jennings, my
wifes aunt by marriage, who was childless, offered to take him into their family and it was agreed he should remain until our conditions were improved. He was then nearing three years of age and grew to manhood under the care and guidance of a Christian woman. He held a responsible position
<end p 43> ...PAGES 44 TO AND INCLUDING 46 ARE MISSING... <start p 47> and the plan looked good. Hardly had they become settled in the old colonial house, whose tenant also had the care of the toll bridge over the Delaware at this place, where in a violent fit of temper she refused to
pay (for) the property and started out to find another place. Edwin had no thought of acquiring the property or any desire to become a farmer, so the situation put him out on the road. Tillie wrote to us of the unfortunate condition and we invited them to western New York for a chance to
recoup. So it was that the Motts had a sudden family increase in the early summer of 1912. While Edwin was here he was employed in Messenger's grocery on several occasions and helped in the care of Oscar Blauvelts chicken plant. When the fateful wreck of the Shawmut occurred on September 22,
1912 we went to (Nile) to get pictures for post cards and made up a series of 20 views.
I was appointed to take the school census this year and subsequently the census for the years 1920-21. August
17,1912 I took the janitorship of Odd Fellows Hall.
Rev.Geo. A. Bond of the M.E. Church began spreading a series of rumors on the "Seven Devils" in the winter of 1912
and on Thursday January 2, 1913 the church sheds were burned supposedly by an incendiary act of revenge. When the second wreck on the Shawmut occurred above the county home May 26, 1913 both Edwin and myself were there for pictures. The revenue from which for some time was considerable.
On July 11, 1913, through the receiver, Frank Sullivan Smith I was made official photographer of the Shawmut
Railroad, who furnished Edwin and myself with passes over the (wever) line from Wayland to the Allegheny River with (plenary) powers to stop trains to mount or dismount where any situation called for it. For this trip we were furnished a speeder and driver to <end p 47> get photographs of
places where trains did not go daily, especially to the collieries of Norman, Seminole, and Chickasaw, the tile works at Shawmut Grummond and Saint Marys and wherever the railroad had erected any (bridge) or fratured any improvements. The passes were annual and we found many opportunities to
slip away for a day to a picture that was desired.
About the 9th and 10th of September a comedy was put on through the Village Improvement Committee of the Propers
/club for the purpose of supplying funds for erecting enamel street signs on iron standings at all street corners and around the park. The play was a comedy - one of John (Drew's) - and was called "What Happened to Matilda"; the cast included Mrs. Blair, Mrs. W.F. Lilly, Misses Horne and
Dickson and Misses Epworth J. Dickson, F.W. Werner, G.E. Mott, Kitsner, Newman, VanCampen and Rubison. Mrs. Lilly and myself carried the comedy honors. <end p 47A>
During the winter Edwin helped in keeping the street lights going with a deficient gas supply. He took charge of
the Baptist Church in January 1913 besides doing much photo work for me in (outline) of post cards which we had made in the Village of Friendship, Birdsall, Belvidere, St. Marys, Stony Brook Glen and other places.
The coldest temperature ever recorded since we came here in 1906 was reached on the night of February 14, 1914,
when the minimum reached 36 degrees below zero but the difference in temperature between 16 and 36 degrees was not apparent to the casual observer.
I became interested in the work of Rev. S.A. Bond minister of the Methodist Church and united with the church in
February and did considerable blackboard for the meetings. I was made one of the stewards of the church in October and assisted in the organization of the Men's class with D.D. Dickson as teacher this year.
Edwin left for New York on May 14 this year having been with us for nearly two years. Tillie and Winifred left
town on July 1 for New York. Fred Adams and Len Palmer laid the cement walk in front of our home and when the cement was but a day old Winifred traveled half the length of it on (Crewfred's) side pushing ahead of her the little go cart of Quentin's. The faint outlines of the wheels and
footprints are there at this writing looking like the fossil impressions we see in the sedimentary rocks we find in such quantities about here.
Being urged by friend C.B. Epworth to unite with Angelica Lodge #25 (I.A.A.F.) I secured a dismissal certificate
from SUMMIT lodge 182 of Jersey City <end p 48> and deposited it with the local organization and was elected secretary of the lodge July 20, 1914. My entrance into Oddfellowship duties from November 4, 1880. September 1 I shipped all of Tils household goods by freight to New York. July 1914
Aunt Dell came to our home very sick on the return from (Deriville)(Ga.) where they had gone two years before. Oct. 9 she was able to go on the porch and sit up. She remained until after Christmas.
The members of the Baptist Church seemed eager to have a religious revival here and the universal craze for a
"tabernacle" has possessed them, so without money or other means a campaign for funds to build October 16, 1914. I attended one of the meetings and was made publicity agent for the event. They were successful in getting enough money or promises. The building was erected on the rear lot of
the Baptist Church by Oscar Blauvelt and the first meeting was held there on November 11 in a terrific rain storm. Two traveling evangelists, Aldrich and Carr were hired, the former to preach, the other to sing and they out - Heroded Herod in the spectacular imitation of Silly Sunday every
night from the platform, smashing chairs and platform gymnastics - much to my disgust and I thought of P.T. Barnum who once had just such a show in New York, who said "the American people love to be humbugged," but he was not an evangelist. The third night in a tirade of abuse of the modern
Sodom which he found (lackluster) took the occasion to utter spiteful personal statements concerning Rev. G.A. Bond who had been pastor of the M.E. Church for three years and had been sent by conference to Buffalo in October, Which touched my indignation and I resigned my job as publicity
agent and left the unholy shows but was forced to sit and listen when the Odd Fellows Lodge attended in a body one night. The last day of the circus was Dec. 13, 1914 when Aldrich escaped with $740.00 as a "free <end p 49> will gift" of the people of Angelica for just one month of emotional
clap-trap. The woods were full of such calathumpian adventures at that time whose prerequisites were noise, bluster and a flexible covered bible from which they could quote as did the devil once when tempting the Savior.
The year 1915 being the time for the biennial town meeting selection of officers for town elections. I was
appointed one of the inspectors of election for the spring and fall. At this time the polling place was the town hall and the entire town voted in one room on the first floor as it had been the custom for years until1919 when the town was divided into two districts. The first district to
vote at the (hose) house and the second at the old place. This was found to be confusing and inadvisable so that the next year 1920, the line was drawn through the town hall, the first district voted downstairs and the second up stairs, on the east and west sides of the building. This again
was unsatisfactory to the second district to compel the voters to climb the stairs and other things detrimental to the service, so a new order was made that in 1922 there would be two polling places on the first floor, the first district on the east side and the second district on the west
side of the building on the lower floor. The winter this year was rich in zeros reaching 30 below on Dec. 26.
Theodore Southerd with his wife and daughter Helen surprised with a visit on the morning of July 21, 1915. It was
his first return after they left Angelica in 1910 after a residence here of two years. It seems that in an altercation with a drunken or hot tempered driver of a vehicle at the wagon entrance to the ferry concerning the purchase of a ticket he had <end p 50> been struck and injured and he
was taken to the hospital and as a matter of necessity to his recovery the doctors advised a change in the environment by travel, so they came to Angelica to stay a few days visiting among old friends for a few days.
Early in 1916 the lodges aid society of the M.E. church realized that the old carpet in the class rooms had about
outlived its usefulness and needed to be replaced. This was the cause with other things to put the earnest workers to find an effort which was determined to be the putting on of a home talent play by the church members and I presumed that the (echoes) of eight years back brought me foreword
and I was cast for the "Uncle Josh" of a comedy after the popular Old Homestead pattern called " Down in Maine". It was put in rehearsal which were almost numberless. It was played in Assembly Hall on the night of January 28, 1916. The audience that gathered that night could not get in, so
before the curtain was drawn up the announcement was made that another performance would fallow on January 29. The financial realization was about $120.00 with which the carpet of the entire rear rooms was purchased. A proposition was made that the play be taken to Friendship did not meet
with much favor among the players but objections were overcome and on a stormy night, February 29 the company was taken in sleighs and the play enacted on the High School stage. The financial result was about $10.00.
Our erratic gas supply which comes up and goes down with the mercury in the thermometer, is like the twins,
comical if not serious for they both go down and up together - colder the weather, the less gas. So for some <end p 51> erratic cause the village is going to try and get along without My lamp job after February 7.
Quentin had developed a growth of tissue that both Doctor Jackson assisted by Dr. Warner with Ether had endeavored
to check by two excisions but failed caused his removal to St. James hospital on March 17 and the operation for its removal was successfully done. Frances and I went over for him on March 23 through tremendous snow storms and a temperature of -30 and brought him home. At 9 years he was a
favorite with the nurses at the hospital.
Sunday morning April 2, 1916 we were shocked at the news that Aunt Del Smith had been found dead in her room that
morning at the home on West Main Street. As soon as I could get away from church I hurried down and found the report was true and returned home to tell Frances as briefly as I could and we went immediately to offer what sympathy directed to Uncle Will and Hazel. While Aunt Dell was not well
we knew for the time she had been at our home to stay on the return from Danville Ill. but we were unprepared for the blow in the character that it came. Harold, Gertrude and Maude came and the funeral was held at home, Rev. J.H. Crocker officiating with the burial at Belfast. Will (Murdoch)
and Hazel came up to dinner on Friday with us. Frances helped in arranging the household goods which were stored at Kent's and Hazel came to live with us on May 5 when she remarried until the following January when she went to live with the Thompsons. We were very sorry to have her leave us
for our family affections seemed intertwined and our desires were mutual. <end p 52>
I had kept my membership in Unique Lodge A.O.U.W. although the assessment came with regularity monthly and were
climbing to a point which I could not afford with no prospect of reduction for with (seamless) imprudence of the organizers the early numbers were taken in sometimes with but superficial medical examination and were now beginning to die as their span was reached so on April 28, 1916 I let
them default and I wrote to the New York Life Insurance Co. to send one of their agents here for a talk. I found to my dismay that at my age I had become unable to partake of many of the options and opportunities of younger men and must be satisfied with a straight life policy which was
written after a medical examination for $1000. (with) a semi-annual premium of $47.30
The European Light which began in Siberia on June 28, 1914 through a pistol shot of a half crazed fanatic had by
this time ran into a real war and for three years the slaughter of the natives had begun in progress in a new method of extermination under the direction of Kaiser Bill who had been preparing for "der Tag" ever since 1871 who used all the mankilling devices that devilish ingenuity could
invent. Now it had reached our shores and (all) American waters had been infested with German submarines to sink non-combat mercantile ships without warning so this country had to plunge into the red maelstrom and thus dissolve our dream of "a splendid isolation" from heathen Christians of
the beast of Berlin. It was then that President Wilson gave up "watchful waiting" and issued a declaration of war on February 3, 1917 when the (sagal) family <end p 53> had become a human massacre for the extermination of human life. The war spirit permeated and found a lodgment in every
city and village where the German spy system had been suspected. Even in staid old Angelica, unruffled since our civil war, safety first was quickly thought of and a home guard company was organized at a meeting at the court house on May 14 which was to be equipped by the county and armed
where sufficiently drilled. I joined the company on May 30 and Raymond, yet at school was accepted on September 11.
On May 15, 1917 at 5:45 in the afternoon the Shawmut shops here were burned down and I photographed the ruins when
the smoke had cleared away. It was thought that some trace of the origin of the fire could be found to connect up with German propaganda but it could not be proven. There was no water in the reservoir to combat a fire of such inflamable nature and it just had to burn itself out. While the
embers were yet smoldering Mr. F. Sullivan Smith had gathered an audience in the park and promised that the shops would be rebuilt here.
The newly organized semi-military company had selected Clarence Lathrop as its captain with W.F. Cook as first and
F.E. Benson as second lieutenant, and after some drilling under the instruction of John Isiakson Harold Rulism, and others was mustered into the State service on August 11 and each man signed up for two years of military service so that the body of 72 men Company A, Fourth Infantry, New York
Guard. The company was uniformed and armed by the state and the old Court house was converted into an Armory by the <end p 54> removal of all the seats and furniture from the second floor to make a drill room. The changing of the first floor into locker rooms Captains room and Company
meeting room, the addition of a toilet and wash room with a shower, an electric light plant, flag pole and flag followed. March 1, 1918 I was made armorer of the outfit under the (jury) of the State. The company was called upon at various times for men to replace men who went overseas. From
the 1st Provincial regiment which was guarding the New York City aqueduct in its course of 100 miles from Ashokan to Staten Island, against the (machination) of the unscrupulous Hun. Raymond Mott left with a detachment of 22 men on November 16 but as the armistice had been signed, he with
others returned by Christmas.
Early in November the 7th word was flashed around the world that the war had ended and the Germans had surrendered
at 11 o'clock. It seemed authentic and the town broke loose, all bells, whistles, every contraption that had noise in it was put to use. The Guard was called out to parade the street with the scholars of the school which had been dismissed. The celebration had been announced too soon we
learned, but we waited patiently until November 11, 1918 when the fact became certain and the scenes of the first celebration were repeated. I spent one solid hour ringing in the Methodist Church bell with Helen Dickson relieving me every little while. The Guard were called out, parading to
martial music.
In April 1919 I was donated to a thankless job by Principal Palmer of our company. He had agreed to take care of
the Weather Bureau outfit of the <end p 55> (of the) U.S. Dept. of Agriculture when Frank Jackson Gave it up because it did not pay a cent for cooperative service. The job had been held by Charles P. Amoch for over 30 years, but he had found it too much to do and too insistent as well in
the few day(s) he tried it out. He brought the shelter home, and rain gauge to the Armory that I could see what it looked like. As janitor I had to be on the job daily as well as nightly sometimes he thought and it took but a moment to make the daily record so I assumed the work nonchalantly
and so for a decade and a half it has kept me home when I might have enjoyed a vacation. The U.S. does not pay a cent for the work of recording the weather but the cooperative observer must be on the job under summer sunshine and winter snows to watch the fitful weather as it comes which the
higher ups in the same department get big salaries and are retired on a pension. The job does not offer any means of reimbursing the substitute if such is available. On the afternoon of October 29, 1919 (Sardana) Blauvelt was taken sick at Lathrops and after a week of illness died on
November 3 there. The funeral was held Nov. 5, Rev. A.A. Reverdy of the M.E. Church officiated. She was the last (but one) of the Southard family.
Company A was disbanded on November 18, 1917 when the time of two years of service was completed, after several
futile attempts were made to prolong its existence. We who remained received an honorable discharge dated November 12 from Captain Lathrop and the incident closed. (__ armor) let the opportunity pass without saying a few words in reference to the military company that was organized and
existed as a result of a patriotic feeling prompted by the declaration of war upon Germany when it was known that the ruthless and merciless tactics of the Hun were heinous and barbaric in the extreme as well as open defiance of all laws of civilized warfare for there are laws of honor were
under <end p 56> the arbitrament of the sword. The submarine poison gas dum-dum bullets, desecration of churches and honored antiquities the total disregard of age or sex by bombing of non combatants by planes, all made a foe that could only be met by like means to which civilization recoils
with horror. When the cowardly submarine entered our waters with its intention to annihilate the race every red blooded man was ready to enter the warfare against it. When one company was organized it was composed of many sons of farmers besides mechanics and citizens to whom war was an
unknown quantity. When Capt. Lathrop endeavored to inure the company in the discipline as a military necessity some thought it was too much to ask of a social club. While the farmer was exempt from the selective draft he was expected to know that the law of eminent domain belongs to the
(people) and if necessary could be enforced even upon the farmer who was fit for service. The company cheerfully signed up for two years and many were glad to be taught the manual of arms and the school of the squad. Not one of the men who went to Binghamton on July 4, 1918 for the four days
of military drill regretted the time that was spent. While the man who had no white collar job like the farmer, regretted the setting up exercise and could not see its purpose. (For it) was military necessity that called for that kind of instruction as a part of discipline, without which no
soldier can become a unit of offense or defense successfully. Company A was the primary (department) to a higher service. As a nation we are not militaristic and the average citizen finds no sport or inducement in a soldiers life on duty or off. With the disbanding of the company the annum
again became the town hall when and I was appointed <end p 57> by Supervisor Hogue to continue at a salary of $200. a year.
Soon after this when Prof. D. H. Cole became principal of the Wilsonian High School I was made secretary of the
school board. My last day as Armoror of the building was February 29, 1920 after I had disassembled the lockers and shipped all the property of the company to the destinations.
March 23, 1920 I was called by Thomas Hunt president of the village trustees to act as clerk for that body and I
served as such until the next election. This year (Guy O. Hinman) was made postmaster on July 1, 1920 by appointment of President Wilson and from April to June I acted as clerk until Raymond Mott graduated from high school to become deputy postmaster for four years. While Hinman was
postmaster dejure he left most of the duties of the office to his deputy whom he appointed June 28 but did not enter upon the work until July 12. Through the years 1920 and 21 I had much time in the office as assistant clerk. The latter year did not open suspiciously for on Saturday morning
January 16, 1921 at five o'clock the sirens shrill call announced that a fire had been discovered somewhere where it should not be and it was soon discovered to be in the Rice block where in 1899 it had been once before but in a more inflamable building. It had started in the rear room of
the Rice store and had completely burned the store and the second story room and had spread to the upper room of the next building where the lodge of the (A.O.O.F.) and Masonic bodies met before it was discovered. The loss was total when the fire had burned but the store adjoining and
occupied by C.P. Bosard was damaged <end p 58> by water and smoke. Much of his stock was salvaged but not in very good condition. I was secretary of the Odd Fellows Lodge and had taken one or two books but all the paraphernalia and many valuable records belonging to the two orders were lost.
January was noted this year for it low temperature which ranged from zero to 18 degrees below over half of the
month. The lodge of Odd Fellows had short notice to find a place of meeting for the next day after the fire but succeeded in getting the room of the Grange in the Piatt building and met there until the purchase of the Horner Building the upper floor of which was made into the necessities for
lodge purposes into which the lodge moved on April 11. Aunt Cynthia Hadrell the last of the Southards died suddenly on May 21, 1921 and the funeral was held May 5. Rev. Flemming and Frank Southard spoke at the services. He came with Lawrence from New York.
Frances and I started on a (longrel) for vacation to see the folks out east on August 16, from Belfast and spent
the time from there among relatives in Jersey and Pennsylvania until October 4, my birthday, when we were called back by telegram stating that Oscar's wife Carrie had died on the day before. We left Bethlehem by Lehigh Valley Railroad to Waverly and arrived at Belvedere at 9 PM where Lacy
met us. Carries funeral was at the home Rev.. A.B. Lawton officiating. While we were gone in September the work of remodeling the rear part of the Methodist Church began and we accepted the offer of the Presbyterian Church trustees to the use of their church until the new addition was
finished. The first sermon in the renewed auditorium of the M.E. Church was delivered on Sunday morning February 19, 1922. The electric light plant which was installed in the church was sufficient to supply current for the Catholic Church, Dr. Warner's dental work rooms <end p 59> and the
Angelica Advocate to run the lithograph machine. The same kind of plant was installed in Oscar's chicken house on November 29. Meanwhile our house had been wired on Nov. 18 for light and we substituted electricity for the erratic gas on December 2. The wire was connected also with Ames
chicken house. Our house and Oscar's were the first private dwellings to be lighted electrically in the village. This was a great advance over the gas but it was not very long before the public service instead of local battery plants gave us electricity for all purposes in abundance.
A row in the lodge by Oliver and Bun Against a goodly number who opposed the new beneficiary laws making the
funeral benefit $100. for members and $50. for wives of members; but the same clique wanted the secretaries office and in December Oliver was nominated for secretary.
We cleaned up the Methodist Church Mr. Flemming, Quentin and myself and put down the carpets on December 7 but the
services in the auditorium next day were in (moving) only on account of the bad weather. The following Sunday was Christmas day and not a minister in the village besides the weather was 10 degrees below zero.
I was elected secretary on December 26 by a margin of only 6 votes which (started) my thoughts toward resigning
the job.
The year 1922 like its predecessor had a gloomy beginning for on January 29 at 1 o'clock in the morning the
whistles at the shops told us that a fire was in propers somewhere nearby. Where we awakened we saw the snow on the ground had a red tinge and Oscar's house was all illuminated. It was soon discovered that our house was not afire but John Ames house <end p 60> across the road. The
temperature was ten below zero and the fire was then in the kitchen extension but rapidly eating its way to the northeast by the west wind blowing it. It seemed an everlasting (time) passed before the firemen arrived and they tried to open the hydrant at Weeks but it was frozen and they had
to go further up street. Meanwhile neighbors were carrying things from the flames which were eating into the upper rooms. Our house was safe but the sparks were flying across the street northward. In the excitement of getting the (innates) out we discovered John Ames half dressed on the
sidewalk and we brought him into the stove which was burning coal. Then Olive and Mrs. Ames were brought in Most of the furniture was taken out and put on the sidewalk by the helpers but the fire did not destroy the porch or the front of the house before it was put out by the firemen at
about 3 o'clock. Oscars house was only occupied by himself as a sleeping room as he had boarded with us since Carrie died in October so Ames piano and furniture together with all the vegetables in the cellar were taken there.
On February 19 the Methodist church was rededicated by a week of social and religious festivities and the members
of the church and congregation left to pay $(no entry) or more which the improvements had cost. We were yet to be made aware of the transitory state of life and to realize the frailties that surround us by the death of Oscar Blauvelt who was found dead in his bed by Mrs. Ames and myself on
the morning of February 22. I was stunned for he had been with us up to ten <end p 61> o'clock the night before and went home from our house apparently well. I had been at work in the chicken plant and so continued until things could be adjusted. The funeral was held at the Baptist Church
and was very largely attended and the Ames family were permitted to remain in the Blauvelt house until their home was so far rebuilt as to be habitable.
Oscar's death came as lightning from a clear sky and the circumstance was so like the death of his sister Adelina
but six years before, that the event caused more thoughtful consideration than the usual departure of the soul for union with its origin. I know I was profoundly impressed by the occurrence as to be unable to understand the full force and meaning of the great transition for some time. The
spiritual side of our existence is so rarely touched in our daily acts that when an occasion like this comes that reveals eternity it finds us unprepared to ask ourselves "Quo Vadis" when it should be constantly before us. 'Twas but a moment before that he spoke to us in life's unaffected
vein - the next he was beyond the stars. So close were we associated in thought, in activity, in social relations since the time when first I came to Angelica that I somehow looked upon him as a father in fact; particularly when he came to live in the house he had built for his father and
because he seemed more than a neighbor in 1913 when he bought the place and began the extensive chicken plant that was left to my management at his death. With the Mallebur benefit which he had made Mrs. Mott, his sister the beneficiary a beautiful memorial window on the west side of the
Baptist Church auditorium was designed and <end p 62> put in place at a cost of over $125.00 and the head stones above the graves of his father and his mother. Henry and Hester Blauvelt, and those above the graves of Oscar and Carrie Blauvelt were also purchased and set.
There was a rumbling among the discontented and unfilial in the Odd Fellows Lodge that seemed ominous, but
however, I sent out notices for the 2nd assessment for benefits on Oscars death, amid the evidences of opposition. The element that wanted the secretaries office wanted to run things but did not know how. Meanwhile the lodge took its course downward and secretly charged me with the cause of
it because the first two deaths that had taken all the special funds were in my wifes family. About 40 of the 135 members but a very large number of Rebecca degree members attended Oscar's funeral. The heirs of Oscar met at (Hinmans) office on March 24 to talk over the appointment of an
administrator as Oscar had died without a will and after some discussion Clarence Lathrop was selected from the suggested names.
The village election which took place March 21 was a sporadic outburst for some unknown cause and over 400 votes
were cast by which F.W. Gibson was elected president. I was clerk of the board and it took over two hours to tally the mass of votes because of splits and irregard. There periodical outbreaks like the (gus ___ng) on Main Street come unexpectedly from some unknown reason and then are followed
by a period of indifference by the electorate. On April 10 the Odd Fellows Lodge voted out the big burial benefit before the $50. could be paid to E. Matheson on account of the death of his wife which occurred in April. On June 3 the Ames family moved from Oscars home to their rebuilt home.
On Sunday the 11th a big flood covered the chicken plant and garden and the <end p 63> electric light plant was out of commission for the water was three feet deep in Oscar's cellar. At the June elections in the lodge I was put in nomination for office but was defeated and then I thought it
was time to (get) from under before the crash so I resigned and asked for a withdrawal card which was granted and in December I left the lodge after a service of nearly 8 years as its secretary.
He work of the janitor at the church had become so much greater with the improvements and taxed me physically so
much that I resigned on Oct. 16. (Welland ) and Raymond left on July 18 for a short vacation to see Aunt Maude at Bethlehem Pa.
On August 21, 1922 Til, Winifred and Irving came with Mr. and Mrs. Bruce of Bogota to stay for a few days, while
the Bruces went on to Niagara in their car. In a day or two they returned and remained with us over night and I was persuaded to return with them as Edwin had telegraphed Carrie was taken to Hackensack Hospital, left on 25th and arrived in Bogota Saturday night 26th. Went over to see Carrie
in the hospitable on Sunday and Monday. Dr. Edwards gave little hope for her recovery. Made daily trips to hospital and on Sept. 2 we were called at 11:45 a.m. but before we reached the hospital she had died. Telegraphed to Frances to come to Bogota which (she did) on 5th but train was 5
hours late so she did not arrive until 2 PM. The funeral services were held at Tils that evening at 8 and aunts Maude and (Addin) with Laurel and Mr. and Mrs. Howell were among the few who attended. The body was buried beside her husband in the (1st Reformed Church yard) at Hackensack.
Carrie had made a will with many instructions and designated me as executor, so I had to remain until Sept. 21, to arrange all legal details with Mr. Fulter the lawyer. The uncertainty of life warned us to make provisions for the fortune so Frances and I both drew a will on Jan. 17, 1923,
witnessed by Llewellyn Hadsell & Mrs. Weeks. <end p 64>
The use of electricity in the village by the individual systems beginning with the Armory, then Oscar's plant and
the Methodist Church started the idea. Why not have it for everybody who may desire a better service than the (gas) company was giving us, so the village board met and contracted with the Genesee Light and Power Company for electric service and by December 9 the cables for the boulevard
lights along Main Street from fair ground to Horner Road were laid. January 19, 1923 the globes were put on the posts and the first lights were turned on two weeks later. Meanwhile the unsightly telegraph poles on the Main and South Streets were removed and large heavy poles were erected on
the rear of the lots on each side of Main Street to carry the wires for light and power as well as telegraph and telephone wires on the cross arms. Our house being already wired for electric light we only had to substitute bulbs carrying 115 volts instead of 32 to make the transformation.
The first current was turned on in the boulevard and other street lamps on the morning of February 2, 1923 for half an hour for a test and the village was lighted by electricity on the night of February 3 at eight o'clock. In the cold and the snow the band played on West Main Street to
celebrate the event. On February 13 the electric fire siren was tried out and proved satisfactory so went into service for use.
Raymond was eager to secure the chicken plant of Oscar's to carry on the business and on Feby. 19 called to see if
the bank would help him but (Rook) would not promise. On March 3 at about 11 o'clock the creek suddenly came up to high water mark and put 36 inches of water in the cellar and 18 inches over the land of the chicken plant. It was a mystery as we had no <end p 65> rain fall here, but plenty of
ice which the village tried to blow up with dynamite for 1/2 day Sunday the 4th.
The boys had put in a home made radio set and we enjoyed the novel pleasure of hearing the programs through
separate earphones. On Oct. 14 Quentin who had been helping me take care of the chickens quit the job. The next morning between 12 and 2 o'clock that part of the county home which was of wood burned to the ground and 9 of the women inmates were burned to death. I took pictures at once for
the Hornell and Buffalo papers and wrote the story. On March 20 the attempt of Raymond to buy the chicken plant was declared off and I resigned my job on the first of April.
By bequest in Carrie Hawkey's will both Frances and myself, the boys and the two children of Til, Laurel, Edward
and Winona all share in the will while Til and Edward get the furniture of the Bogota house. The property was to be sold and the money given to some unnamed institution for the incurable deaf. Edwin bought the home and the money was given to Dr. Edward's for disposition. With our share and
the executors fees we began to improve our house by giving it a second story thus adding four rooms and a bathroom. Work was started on June 1, 1923 and the boys went down to Oscars house to sleep (until) Sept. 10 while our house was under the Hadsell boys for the new addition. Both Quentin
and Raymond helped in putting up the sheet rock partitions and ceilings.
On June 20 Quentin passed and graduated from (Wilsonian) High School. May 18, 1923 Raymond became a member of
Melrose Lodge 818 F.F.A.W. and after he was made a master he entered the official field that takes several years to reach the ultimate ambition of the Blue Lodge Member. <end p 66> On July 28 the Hadsells finished the job and left us with a much improved house and a satisfactory way of
living.
Two months later Sept 29 Frances and I went to Bogota to Straighten up and share the things that Carrie had packed
in every available space in the attic of the house and to see that the cemetery work had been done as ordered by Carrie's will. We made a visit among relatives in New York and Pennsylvania and returned on October 12. Sometime in October Quentin secured a job with the Keystone View Co. of
Meadville Pa. where R. Chamberlain was employed. On October 26 we went to see Edward at Newark and coming back by way of Rochester to go in the famed Eastman Theatre and got back on the 30th. Miss. Pierce a teacher of music in the (Wilsonian) came over and we had an evening of music at the
piano on Sunday Nov. 4. Raymond installed our electric light fixtures. Booker Davis dug the new cesspool which became necessary by the bathroom addition. Quentin came home to spend Thanksgiving with us and with the assistance of Raymond finished wiring and installing lights.
There had been several persons in charge of the church janitors job after I resigned. James Green and his wife
were the last to take charge but because of their removal to Buffalo, the board asked if I would take it up again at an advance in wages and I did. Quentin left home to return to work in Clearfield County, Pa. but we were surprised to receive a telegram from him from Washington, D.C. where
he had gone to see Marion Lilly who had a position under the government there.
Evelyn Fairfield and Raymond ate Christmas dinner with us. <end p 67>
Another message from Quentin and a card from Bogota. This was followed by his appearance at home on December 31
from Belvidere. They spent a great New Years Day at work at electric work and papering the house. Raymond gave up his post office job and I assumed his place.
On Saturday evening January 5, 1924 Raymond was married to Evelyn Fairfield, daughter of the Baptist minister by
her father at a birthday party of one of the Fairfield boys. We all attended as it was a family gathering. Raymond and wife and her sister to dinner next day with us. Tuesday Raymond left for Buffalo to receive instructions in a welding school. Evelyn remained with us and Quentin helped as
extra clerk in the post office with me. We used the completed bath room on January 16. Miss Marion Lilly called on the 17th and Raymond came home on the 18th to take his wife to the Wellsville hospital for a minor operation. It was not serious and Raymond went to Buffalo. Evelyn came back in
a blustering snow storm on January 25. Raymond, Evelyn, Quentin and Marion autoed in the rain to Olean to see the latter off for Washington D.C. on February 5. Quentin left on Lincoln's birthday for his work in Pennsylvania. Mr. Hinman's term (put in) on May 28 and Mr. Hinman and Raymond had
me photograph their pictures for the civil service examination. Quentin came home on March 12 unexpected. March 15 Mr. Hinman and Mr. and Mrs. A.J. Lytle went to Cuba to take civil service examination for the post office job but Raymond did not go for the reason that he felt physically
unfitted for the work which he found too confining and exacting at that time. <end p 68>
Oscar's property with all that was contained on the land was sold Friday April 12, 1924 to F.C. Baker for $1100.
and we all wondered why the sacrifice. Raymond received a job in the Pennsylvania railroad shops at Olean. I began working on my own account for (Hinman) at $50. per month for no definite time, April 16. A letter from Quentin was received which caused us to send him a command to come home at
once and a letter from Doctor Jackson stated he will have to quit or lose out. He came home May 2 but went at once to Olean for treatment at the clinic of Dr. Jackson, for acute diabetes. He remained until May 17 and was feeling much better from the attack.
Mr. Lytle was successful in the examination and was appointed and he asked me to remain on May 20 until Mr.
Hinmans commission expired and on May 28, asked to have him remain until July 1 to get better informed as to the postal work. Lytle's commission however did not arrive until June 28.
The soldiers memorial was erected in the park and completed on May 28 and was dedicated in a speech by Hon. John
Knight of the state senate on May 30 a cold frosty and threatening day, in the M.E. Church where a dinner was served. On June 6 I received a check in settlement of Oscar's estate for 3/10 percent of the amount due. (__the) Raymond and Quentin were members of the Angelica band and were
frequently called out of town besides playing in the park Saturday evenings in summer.
While the appointment of A.J. Lytle dates from June 29 he did not assume office until July 1 and I with Quentin
were employed for some time at different periods. Mrs. Lytle was made assistant and together they have a family to keep. <end p 69>
The private car of Mrs. Frank Sullivan Smith which had been at rest in the Shawmut coach house at the shops for
some time was given by her to the Allegany County Y.M.C.A. and about the middle of November it was taken to Shenawana, the 40 acres donated by Mrs. (Egglistm) to the association on the Genesee near Belvidere. It was taken from the trucks mounted on iron pipes sunk in concrete, near the lower
entrance to the ground and will be used by the Secretary S.F. Lester as an office and living quarters in the summer and fall. I had photographed "old 99" several times for Mr. Irvin, the foreman of the shops in the endeavor to sell the car but nothing came of it. The car with all its lavish
furnishings of kitchen, dining room, office and sleeper were given intact. The late Charles P. (Amoch) of Angelica, in an elaborate eulogy of "ninety nine" published in the Angelica Advocate of January 8 and 15, 1925, relates some of the diversified history of the car. It was not used after
the death of Frank Sullivan Smith which occurred on November 5, 1920, and sometime before it was the property of Mrs. Smith. In its early years it was named "Clara" but subsequently was known officially as "99".
The good news was received from Newark N.Y. from Edward Mott that a son had been born in his family on October 3,
1924 and that it had been named George Edward Mott. It was cheering but not alone that but the fact that the day of his birth was so close to mine which is the 4th, so the name perpetuates in a measure the long line of George Mott for a hundred years in the past.
My first boy in dying broke the continuity but this George sustains the sequence but in another generation. <end p 70>
After the death of Cynthia Hadsell (who was a Southard) on May 1, 1921, I took up her work as a correspondent for
the Tribune-Times a daily paper of Hornell and had considerable revenue from that source which was like picking up money. In this connection became acquainted with Mr. L.S. Foster the circulation manager in his trips through Angelica. One day in February 1925 he stated that they wanted a
hand in the reportorial and editorial department to replace a vacancy. He said the work was not arduous but as I could not return to a field of newspaper activity at my age I suggested that Quentin might fill the requirements and Mr. Foster told me to have him call at the office in Hornell
which he did on March 3 and his talk with the management must have been satisfactory for he went again on March 10 to assume his duties on the newspaper. He seemed to adapt himself to the calling for at this time (March 1933) he is still there - perhaps the element of heredity plays some
part for newspaper work editorial and reportorial always was alluring to me - in some instances very costly.
This being the year in which the decennial state census is taken Clarence Lathrop asked if I would be one of the
enumerators on the job, I to take the second election district and Clair Evans the first. This was tantamount to an appointment and we started on June 1 and ended on the 17th having earned $51.58 for about ten days work. Quentin came home every week to play in the band concerts. Photographic
work had been good to me and I had done some sign painting for Jason Fish. From this date on for over five years it was my professional work to visit Shenawana each year to photograph the various groups of summer campers from June to Sept. <end p 71> and make pictures of the yearly
improvements as they were added to the grounds in connection with the work of the Y.M.C.A. of the county. It was a pleasure and quite profitable also until it became a burden for (which) Mrs. Lester collected for the group pictures. I had to mail them to the individuals without payment for
the extra labor or postage. The usual four groups of girls and boys was supplemented in 1928 with the Farm boys, the farm bureau and a group known as Mrs. Lester's Reserves and one or two church organizations.
One Sunday morning after the services I was asked by Rev. S.W. Hale rector of St. Paul's Church to photograph a
group in front of the church in which the well known Bishop Brent of the Episcopal Church and Prof. (Birms) of Alfred University were in the foreground backed by the church choir the rector and some members of the congregation. The subsequent death of the world war Bishop has made the
picture more valuable. December came and left the record of five days of minus zero which is so associated with the old Allegany winters that has become so historic that Angelicans particularly the farmers, adjust their weather from the days of past winters to compare the lessening of these
freaks of the winter solstice with the ancient times to the depreciation of the present.
We thought it would add to our revenue to have our empty rooms made available, so on September 1, 1925 Miss Gladys
Adams who taught French and music in the high school, became a roomer and was with us for three years. On June 15, 1925 Mr. Dickson and Helen on railroad business and also to visit the continent on a tour. They were accompanied by Miss Hazel Smith on a leave of absence. They returned on
August 1 having visited the <end p 72> fields of battle in France and Belgium as well as some of the places in the British Isles. During this period of once a month it became my duty to act as a teacher of the men's class and I found it not so much of a lark as I might suppose it to be.
Again on January 23, 1926 Mr. Dickson and Helen left on a trip among the islands of the West Indies and I prepared a chart of their itinerary with a miniature ship, tracing the voyage each week and wrote a description of the places visited as a (friende) to the (lesson) which seemed
satisfactory to the members. After the five Sundays the lessons were resumed and at a special meeting of the class Mr. Dickson gave a talk of his experiences while traveling at the supper which preceded it.
June 3rd ushered another of the Motts into the world; Jeanette was born at Hinsdale, the second of Raymond's
children to be born there.
On March 11 Angelica lost by death one of its oddest residents Sheridan S. Horner at the age of 80 which day was
also the natal day of Anson T. Wilson the oldest man in Angelica who reached 93. I had the pleasure of talking with him on this occasion and listening to the history of early Angelica from first hands.
James Stewart a West Indian from Jamaica & family, who had been employed in the family of the Churches at
Belvidere formerly many years, came to Angelica March 1926, purchased the property of Oscar Blauvelt, once owned by F.C. Baker, and made the chicken plant modern in many ways by introducing electricity in the incubators, a new 10,000 egg Jamesevery hatcher, furnace heat in the home with all
modern appliances. He experienced two floods by the creek and on the night <end p 73> of November 26, 1927 the 700 ft. sorting home of the hens was burned at 3 o'clock a.m. so that he concluded that two floods and a fire were a warning to quit which he did on Oct. 1928 and the plant was
finally sold to Walter Cairnes who with son Jack and his father and mother, have improved the place wonderfully but not on the scale of his predecessor.
My work in the post office had been curtailed by the members of the Lytle family and the children of the family of
Tom D. Childs a widower, whose children lived with the Estees, so that I had more time to devote to photography. In January 1927 things were not progressing favorably at the shops at Olean so the Raymond came over to see Ambrose Palmer about finding a job in the Shawmut shops but without
success. On May 5 postmaster Lytle broke down and I went into the post office and remained there until late in June.
By some freak idea that came into the heads of the village trustees they decided that the houses in Angelica
should be numbered but for what reason only the trustees can explain, so L.S. Palmer with a 100 ft. tape measure and L.V. Demming with a bag full of aluminum numbers started out one day and by a week nearly every house in the village had some metal figures tacked on a porch column, door
lintel or some other place to show they had paid 25 cents in answer to the trustees mandate, for that was all that it amounted to. Our house is numbered 89 of the consecutives. Sometimes the tape measure went haywire and houses had duplicate numbers, but that was an expected experimental
digression - and it went.
In June one day George Newton was driving a herd of cattle <end p 74> over the (Closser) Bridge but when they had
all been pushed on the bridge the first of the cows refused to go ahead so they bunched up on the village end, when suddenly the cows and the bridge went down together in the creek bed and were penned in for the end they were on had dropped and the other end was high in the air on the
piling. There was no water in the creek so that when the cows were released by chopping out some of the bridge truss they were found unharmed.
A peculiar incident in our family occurred on July 28, 1927 when Gerald Halbert of Bethlehem, Pa. met his wife's
brother in law Carson Hurlburt of Industry N.Y. for the first time in 27 years, at our house. Fate had so arranged that while each one had come to Angelica almost annually to see the folks, at no time were both here at the same time. The Hulberts left Angelica in 1908. Carson had married
Gertrude in 1900, and Gerald had married Maude in 1906, and they had gone their separate ways. After this meeting we all went to Lathrops and had a picnic dinner on the lawn.
On August 5 Linus Graham, town supt. began the work of rebuilding a temporary bridge over the creek at the scene
of the breakdown. A strong temporary structure was put up with railroad tracks to support the roadway and it was opened for traffic on August 11.
Winifred and Irving Howell came on July 31 to Hornell and Raymond went over for them in Fairfields car. On August
21 Quentin brought Til and Aunt Addie (Laudern) and Miss Townsend from Hornell. Carson and Gertrude came on Saturday Sept. 10 and on Sunday the 11th at 5:30 a.m. all left in his car <end p 75> to take the Erie for home after six weeks among our hills. September 19 Edward while at work in the
bloomer plant accidentally had his index finger caught in a machine he was working on and the first joint had to be removed. In October Quentin and Miss Townsend with others were frequent callers. Quentin won a big turkey on Nov. 23 and brought it over for our thanksgiving the next day.
Raymond and Evelyn came from Hinsdale and we had a grand day on the 24th. Carson came back from Sandusky in time to take Quentin and Miss Townsend to Belmont to entrain for Hornell at 5 and he went back to Industry same night. The next evening Mama went with the Lathrops to the movies to see
"Grand Parade" and fainted from bad air in the show. November 30 was a night of horror for the rain came down in torrents after all day showers; both electric lights and the gas went out and we had 24 inches of water in our cellar while in the church cellar it was 4 feet the next morning,
and not a cellar on this side of the creek but had water in it from the high water in the creek. The famous singer Capelli had just finished his program in the M.E. Church when the lights went out. Nearly 2 inches of rain fell.
On January 16, 1928 Quentin was married to Miss Frances Townsend of Hornell. It was a home wedding and the family
was (enuf) besides the bride had a host of friends. Hazel who was also a guest took us over in her car and brought us back. The couple went to New York and visited Til. Quentin had entered the Masonic Fraternity on January 10, 1928. His wife was society editor on the Tribune-Times for some
time. On May 7 I was appointed by the town board to fill the place made vacant by the death of Jesse Pullock on April 16 <end p 76> and by that appointment became a Justice of the Peace of the town of Angelica.-One of four.
Mr. D.D. Dickson and Helen left February 17 left for a short trip to (Agua) the pearl of the Antillies to be gone
until March and again I was in command of the Sunday school class. Gladys Adams the French teacher who came as a roomer in Sept. 1925 left us this year after a very pleasant association for two years where with her musical abilities and pleasing personality but in her third year when she
began an erotic career with one of her pupils much her junior the dream vanished. The new addition to the school building with a new heating system, a gymnasium, a ventilatory scheme, toilets, shower baths etc. was begun on May 7 with the Shawmut ditcher to excavate the cellar. I made
several views of the construction and of the finished building for the architects at Jamestown.
A red letter day occurred Sunday May 20 when my old time friend Frank Southard with his wife Kittie, from New
Jersey came without notice at 1:30 o'clock in a taxi from Hornell. We had to telephone the folks who soon arrived and we had an old time talk fest and took the occasion to get a picture of them. Frank is a cousin to all the Angelica Blauvelts and we had not seen him for eight years. They
left at four o'clock. I supplied him with head views that were familiar. I went into the post office to take Miss Lucy Clapp's place who had left the job after a few weeks time. I had hoped it might be for some time but it lasted only until July 1 for Miss Bullock, his sister, and the Lytle
children who were out of school managed to hold down the job closely. It was a great year for photo work at (Shenanana) for from the day the season opened <end p 77> until September I was called on constantly for group making pictures. I had been making the GEM photo art cards for some years
and this year I secured some new negatives for profitable exploitation.
The 74th anniversary of the birth of the republican party was celebrated here as it was in its many birthplaces.
On October 17.-other other places have other dates- and contrary to expectations there was not a very large audience before the town hall which was largely decorated with flags and political posters bearing Hoover's picture. The speaker was Congressman Dan Reed of Dunkirk and most of the
county officials besides the village band. To perpetuate the occasion I have a picture of the old building that is really historic but sadly neglected by those who should prevent its decadence and desuetude as a national and local heirloom. It has never been restored since the N.Y.S. left it
as an armory in the hectic days of the world war. The republican party has as many, if not more, birthplaces as the author of "The Illiad" and all are beyond the pale of doubt as to a shore in the auspicious event.
Postmaster Lytle moved from Park Circle into the Gardner home on Olean Street Nov. 2, having sold their property
advantageously but most inconvenient for the postmaster. We thought to make some revenue from rooms while Gladys Adams (was here) and (_____) a roomer, Miss Gertrude Press, an employer in the Shawmut offices and afterwards another one Miss Dorothy Hand in the same office, and also a teacher
in the kindergarten of the school Miss Stead, but we had to acknowledge that the (sharedness) and quiet of our home was being lost to us by the stranger within our gates. Miss Hand became attached to a Lecherous libertine, a man of bad reputation whom I would not permit to come in the house.
One night <end p 78> after we had retired, Sunday evening Oct 28 I heard him in the room downstairs with Dorothy and Miss Stead. I came to the head of the stairs and told Dorothy to send him out of the home which provoked him into the (feat) to come up and thrash me when the girls held him
back for the ugly stories that would fall on such an assault and the bad notoriety associated with it. I didn't sleep much that night and determined to rid the home of roomers. Both Hand and Stead left us in a few days and this put an end forever to unmarried female roomers. The other two
left us soon and I had the satisfaction not long after this as a Justice of the Peace, to impose a $25.00 fine and jail sentence upon the thing who threatened me, in a case of assault upon a member of the orchestra at a public dance. Miss Hand died soon after this in an Olean hospital.
Carson came from Industry for us on the morning of Nov. 14 and we left at 8:30 and drove all over the 1500 acres
of the State Institution at Industry. We remained a week and left by bus for Hornell and home by train. We had dinner with Quentin's family. A week of delightful days away from Angelica.
There had been no political aspirants for the post office and so the commission of A.J. Lytle which expired on
June 28 was renewed and his term extended until 1932. In the civil service test, Hinman was first, Mrs. Lytle 2nd, A.J.L. lowest.
The sad news of the death of Llewellen Hadsell while visiting his son Roy at Rochester on November 28 was brought
to us by George Hadsell. His death came as sudden and unexpected while reading a paper sitting in a chair with his grandchildren playing about him. With apparently no pain he passed on. We had left home on the morning of Thanksgiving in (M. Young's) (car) <end p 79> to spend the holiday with
Quentin's family and remained until Saturday so we did not return to Angelica in time for the funeral at the M.E. Church Saturday afternoon.
We learned of the marriage of Donovan, Gertrude's boy, some time in November to a nurse in a hospital at
Charlotte, N.C. Neither Carson nor Gertrude knew definitely the time or the circumstances. Donovan is an expert mechanician in electric and radio work and was employed, the last we knew by the Victor Radivea Company of Camden N.J. with offices in Philadelphia who sent him out to install and
repair radios everywhere, and has been transferred at different times to new territory. He has his own car and was kept busy. The new school addition was completed in December and the architects engaged me to make views both exterior and interior for them.
As Justice of the Peace I married the first couple on Dec. 30 Sunday evening Miss Edna Green and Lawrence Gostley
of Fillmore. I hope they may look upon the ceremony as a sacred form and not a license on a scrap of paper. Thus the year 1928 closes without any evidences of the old-fashioned winter presented so far except for a cold day 25 degrees below zero in January and one in December (_0) below zero.
There has been nothing abnormal save that snow was frequent but not overmuch. As a New Yorker living near the ocean for 40 years I thought I had seen some bitter winters but never a zero; it remained for me to experience a temperature from 10 to 36 minus and live through it as has been
demonstrated here; likewise the use of natural gas was so new that I remember the first sight of burning gas at the end of a pipe sticking in the ground at Belmont with great astonishment. <end p 80>
Temperature began running down the scale this year beginning with 22 below zero on the 16th and following into
February with 15 degrees below on the 15th, seventeen on the 10th, eighteen on the 23rd, ten on the 21st, and eight on (Feb.) 24 when it stopped for the year.
It was my pleasing duty to marry a middle aged couple from Belmont on the 9th of February 1929 after which I was
informed that no justice of the peace could marry where either of the contracting parties was under 21 years of age, which made me think why was the town clerk permitted to issue such a license, without a parental sanction on the paper. I was informed also that any judge, minister or priest
could perform the office which also puzzled me much, and I reached the conclusion that the work of making the laws is relegated to a lot of shyster lawyers and legislative asses paid by the state for making and unmaking all laws from the Constitution of the United States to town ordinances.
A lawyer whose practices extend over half a century told me that he did not (know) where he stood unless he bought annually the book containing the latest interpretations of the code and drew a sane conclusion to use.
Mrs. Nina Hadsell Pierce, George Hadsell's sister died at Swain on February 15 aged 50 years after a life which in
the later years was not blessed by the happiest conditions, mental and physical. On March 15 Rev. Joseph Dennis, for three years a former pastor of the Angelica Methodist Church, died and was buried in Angelica cemetery in a plot beside his wife who preceded him by two years. The services
were under the direction of Rev. Titus and a number of Ministers of the Genesee Conference. Rev. B.W. Fairfield preached a farewell sermon to the members and congregation of the Baptist Church on Sunday morning March 31. He <end p 81> is the father of son Raymond's wife and had been in this
pulpit for about six years.
Raymond began work in the Shawmut shops on April 1 as a welder after an uncertain and desultory job in the
Pennsylvania railroad shops at Olean for over five years.
The record of the Motts now turned to Quentin for on April 23 a girl was born in his family at the hospital in
Hornell and was named Shirley Ann. Edward Mott came in on the 27th with something that never fails to remind me of the years we lived near the ocean and enjoyed its salt water delicacies - a lot of hard shell clams, which we promptly turned into fritters for supper. Thus calls to mind a
fragment of an apostrophe to the ocean which reads : "talk not of the river or lake to one who has lived by the sea". Edward came alone and returned on Sunday to Newark N.Y. Rev. Fairfield went to Meridian in Cayuga County to a small congregation on the 30th.
June 4 Raymond moved from Olean into their new home, the house of E.P. Mills on East Main Street. Frances came
back on June 6 from over a month's absence at Quentin's in Hornell where she went when the new baby came home from the hospital. On June 16 Carson, Gertrude and Ruth came and as usual we were taken for a ride next day to Rock City and Bradford, where Carson went to see his mother. On July 3
Carson drove to Lime Lake and took me along to get some pictures of the family gathering. July 24 Ruth presented a little girl to the Hurlburts at Rochester hospital who was named Carolyn Joyce. Edward came again August 3 to spend a short vacation; we spent the days up to the 11th driving
over Cattaraugus, Steuben and Allegany counties. <end p 82> He took me to Shenawana for pictures and on the way he took Uncle Will Smith to Rochester.
Mr. Dangerfield drove in on the night of the 10th with Til and Winifred from Bogota. On the 12th the Hulburts came
to dinner. Dangerfield went back to New York the next day, and after a few days another Mott came to stay : Neil Blauvelt, a baby son to Raymond and Evelyn on Aug. 18. We celebrated Winifred's eighteenth birthday on the 21st. On the 24th Til and Winifred went to Hornell for a home trip on
the (line.) Thus ended three months of activity as varied as a flower garden in the colorful events, as cheerful as the social spirit that called us together could be expressed, as fully enjoyed by all who will ever cherish this memory in future years, now engrossed in those "short and
simple annals of the poor."
Labor Day September 2 again, we were cheered by an auto-ful at 8:30 PM when Gertrude, Carson, Ruth and baby and
Donovan came to take the latter to Olean to take train for Philadelphia. The next day we went to Dunkirk to deliver the reunion pictures and back to Angelica. The next day all but Frances left in Carson's car at 3 o'clock. It was my vacation and it was a real outing. We visited Rochester to
see the exhibition the next day. Then the rounds of the Industry (farm) of 1500 acres and its 32 cottages that comprise the system for reformation of the 800 incorrigibles who were inmates. Sunday I watched the assembly and churching of the Catholic and Protestants at religious service - the
former the larger by twice in number. On the 10th I left for Hornell and came home with Britten.
In the rehearsal of the events in a human life as in an autobiography it would <end p 83> that come of the facts
could be sometimes omitted when their significance is not possibly of paramount importance, or brevity employed for the lack of detail, yet the incidents must be related with some definition when they enter into the sequence of a story such as this. The tiresomeness of a notation that seems
so remote as to be worthy of nothing more than a carnal notice is frequently admitted but while brevity is said to be the soul of wit as it is of facts, many of the points of contact need and must have more than a mere mention in such a brochure as this to make the whole work clear. Some wag
of a paragrapher has written that the whole scheme of human life could be embraced by three words : "hatched, matched and dispatched" which is indeed the shortest definition that could be applied to its from a humorous standpoint. The association in a descriptive span of the allotment of
years , many periods, many vicissitudes that taken separately are barely related to the narrative are found to lead to or followed by connecting links, hence the branching out of the family tree even to its outermost leaves. With this apology for the digression from a straight line, I
continue the story.
The town meeting or republican caucus which comes biennially arrived in September this year and was very loyally
attended by over 200 (voters) of Angelica who gathered with the old slogan of "the town against the village" which has recently become a clannish oriflamme where in former years laissez faire or let it alone was prevalent. This year the contest hinged upon an assessor and a justice of the
peace. I was placed in nomination for the latter office for a full term of four years and when the smoke had cleared away I was found to be the nominee and <end p 84> as the caucus nominee is almost certain of election I was elected at the polls in November following.
On October 13 Frances and I went to Hornell, took the bus and got off at Avon where Edward met us and took us to
Rochester and Newark where we remained until the 18th., then with Winona Edward brought us to Angelica. An accident by collision of automobiles in which Stanley was one of the passengers near Waterloo and one death resulted caused Edith to telephone for Edward to come home at 2 o'clock
Sunday morning and they left hastily at 6:30 am. November 27 Carson, Gertrude, Ruth and baby (came) and had Thanksgiving dinner with us next day. The next day we left in Carson's car for a trip to Bogota N.J. to take Ruth and baby to Bloomfield N.J. where Donovan had rented a house. Of
course we stopped at Paterson and took the trolley to Bogota while Carson & Gertrude went on. We remained until December 10, when after an excursion to Washington D.C. Carson appeared again and we continued our plan for a visit to Bethlehem Pa. We left Maude's on the 12 and arrived in
Angelica in an awful storm of sleet with Carson driving with his head and body half out the side window. They left on the 13th for Industry. The record of this trip would take more of this paper to relate than would be profitable and we can only thank our benefactors for the two wonderful
weeks of pleasure it afforded Frances and I.
January 5, 1930 Mr. Dickson resigned his Sunday school class in a moment of discouragement at the manifest apathy
of the meager class attendants which has dwindled from 50 to 5 but by the decision of the 5 <end p 85> we thought it best to get him to reconsider his action, so we followed him to his home and after some persuasive talk caused him to look upon the matter differently. While I have been
called in to serve as teacher on a number of times I do it cheerfully but would quickly refuse to succeed the present teacher, who is a gifted biblical scholar but lacks a personality to hold the class and it is this feature that is inauspicious.
While I had been called to work in the post office at various times I did not have the certainty of a position, so
that when I was asked to come to the office by William Child on the evening of January 13 it was a surprise to me to know that Arthur Lytle had collapsed under a shock that paralyzed his right side. The work had been apportioned among the Lytle family so that there was little for anyone
else, and I did not look for a job then. However I acted with Mrs. Lytle with Mrs. Bullock for about two weeks. On February 27 I talked with Mrs. Lytle about the possibility of a permanent place, as it seemed as if the postmaster was fated, and I said I would stay until Mr. Lytle was better
and it was agreed that I should work the first half of the day and Mrs. Bullock, his sister, the second half. The postmaster came in on March 10 but it was pitiful to see him try to work with the left hand while the right hand hung down powerless.
In the village election this year I acted for J.L. Parson the clerk and the number of votes cast for the offices
was 18 which made me stop to consider the utter indifference of the electorate on this occasion when at some previous elections one man could call out 400 nearly the whole voting strength. It makes the franchise the cheapest thing - something to be kicked about or buried under the laissez
faire. Many an otherwise good citizen <end p 86> to whom I have given an enrollment blank on registration day to have him to ask what he should do with it or tries to throw it into the waste. Such an act amounts to a crime against American citizenship.
March 19 I was summoned before Referee Wheeler at Belmont for a witness in the case of Schuyler vs the Town of
Angelica for damages caused by the erosion of land in front of his house by the water from Angelica Creek; as I had taken various pictures of the inundated territory and the destruction of the Fuller bridge at the time of the flood besides a number taken of the Schuyler house under orders of
the Supervisor. On October 20 I was given the job of taking the Federal census for the second Angelica district but at this time I was not in fit condition physically to attempt the work and sent my resignation to the County chairman and Josephine Lathrop was appointed and began work on
April 2.
The Lytles moved from Olean street to the Wafler house on Park Circle on the 18th. In the month of May W.G. Young
had me go out with him on official business as dog warden but it (got to the) ears of the hungry deputy sheriffs and that source of a little revenue was shut to me. We were surprised on Sunday May 17 at 3 o'clock to see Edwin, Irving and Donovan stop from their visit to Industry on the way
back to New York. In a letter received subsequently received stated, they did not reach Bogota until Monday afternoon - a whole day beyond schedule. Meanwhile Edward Mott and Winona who came on Saturday left an hour later for their home in Newark N.J.
On memorial day Til and Winifred arrived in Donovan's car <end p 87> while he went on to Industry. Clarence
Lathrop took Winifred to Hornell on June 1 to entrain for home. On 8th Til, Ruth and baby left in don's car left here at 8:10 am for New York.
The Sheddricks arrived from Antioch, Calif. to make their home here and on June 13 thirty two years before, the
Motts began to come to Angelica to spy out the land and twenty-four years ago they came to colonize. July 14, 1930 the Motts entered into an unexpected notoriety that was at least state wide when Quentin was sent up in the air to accompany the aviator Merrill McHenry from Hornell, in an air
derby that flew over New York State as a representative of the press. The exhibition lasted for a week and it was Quentin's job to send daily reports from the air to the Tribune Times concerning things that are not visible but from the upper atmosphere. It was a glorious conception of the
mastery of the air at that time and good fortune attended them all through although a year later the same plane crashed and a casualty occurred.
August 3 to 9 this week was made memorable for the presence of nearly all the Motts and those so closely
associated that they are within the charmed circle of our consanguinity. The Hulbert family of Bethlehem, Pa. on Sunday; Tillie and Winifred Howell of Bogota, N.J. on Tuesday; Edward and Edith Mott with Winona and George E. Mott II on Thursday, and at 9 o'clock the same day Carson,
Gertrude, Maud and Ruth Hurlburt with baby Joyce from Industry N.T. All were here to dinner the next day including Aunt Clara Lowry when 17 sat down to the table. Edwin and I went to Hornell and brought Quentin and Frances Mott and Shirley and Raymond Mott with <end p 88> Evelyn Mott,
Arlene, Jeanette, and Neil made up the gathering. Never again will this action take place on Earth and I rejoice that in the providence of the great Creator it was made possible in my declining years to be so happily blessed.
Evelyn went to Hinsdale on 5th to take her sister Aletha to the hospital at Sayre, Pa. for treatment of an illness
of two years standing. She died however on September 21 at 25 years of age. All the local Motts gathered to recognize the 76th birthday of the father of the growing family on Oct. 4.
When the local druggist came to take over the store of A.W. Mapes he brought with him a young pharmacist named
Henry Weidmann from Olean who became quite popular among all the classes by his pleasing urbanity and cheerful mingling in the affairs of the village, its politics, its amusements, its life so that he found many friends and in time married one of the girls of the village. On November 1, 1930
he was compelled to go to the hospital in Olean to receive treatment. A major operation was necessary and he died from its effects on Nov. 12. The funeral services from the Baptist Church taxed the capacity of the building and the funeral car was followed to the country by over 40 autos -
the largest private funeral procession ever seen in Angelica. He was but 41 and left a widow and a son.
December 17 Raymond took over the janitorship of the church which relieved me of much of the heavy work in the
winter care of the building - a thing that I find is necessary if I hope to remain to fill out my expectancy, the biblical four (I care). Christmas day we were largely remembered by Hazel and Josephine whose everlasting kindnesses are <end p 89> lovingly appreciated.
At the meeting for the election of officers in the Masonic Lodge this year I was glad to know that Raymond had
placed himself in the official line of succession for the Master's chair in 1934 which pleased me much for Masonry like Odd Fellowship, is based upon the highest of ethical grounds and to be a good citizen one must maintain a code of morals that can only be excelled by and sustained only in
a deeper (guise) of the foundation of morality, a love of God in the practical things of life no less than in the spiritual.
The board of assessors embraced the recording of all things that are assessable for taxation but the tendency to
omit the taxation of dogs was so evident that the supervisors of the County made a new office of enumerator and relieved the board of the duty and each town board appointed an enumerator which this year in the town of Angelica fell to the lot of Raymond upon whom the duty of more difficult
service now impressed.
On January 13, 1930 Postmaster Lytle was stricken by a shock, one year ago, and in so far as his ability to work
was concerned he was no better at this date. Under the advise of the County Committee he resigned and Mrs. Lytle was made acting postmaster to fill out the term which expired in May 1932. <end p 89A> see insert p. 89 (1931)
On March 28, 1931 an examination for postmaster to fill the vacancy was ordered by the Civil Service Commission to
be held at Bolivar which date was changed to May 9 by later order, at which time seven candidates elected to take the test. They were Mrs. Lytle, Miss Frances Jude, Raymond Mott, Charles Eldredge, Taylor Brown, Donovan Piatt and William Link.
Things were being turned upside down on the highway into Angelica by the work of erecting the new State bridge
over Angelica creek at the (Joncy) and the contractors wanted men to work on the concrete abutments, so Raymond and Allen Kitchen both of whom were unemployed, were put on the job May 16 and worked at the slavish occupation for 35 cents an hour, as no white man would think of doing only
under the direst necessity until June 20, when they quit. Mary Lytle who was at school at Houghton College came promptly to the post office when vacation began on June 6 and I was a lame duck again. On March 16 Arthur had a final shock and died at the age of 58 and was buried in Angelica on
the 19th. Raymond had sent a petition of over a hundred names of the business men and citizens of Angelica who favored his appointment to congressman Reed after making application for the examination under Civil Service rules on May 12.
A circumstance toward which we were all looking was the demise of Uncle Will Smith who had been visibly failing in
health and which occurred on June 12 at Mrs. Nortons where he lived. Frances and Hazel went to see him early in the evening but was fearful of the imminence of his end at that time. He was 67 years of age. Hazel had her father's body brought to Thompson's from which <end p 90> the funeral
was held on June 14, Rev. L.E. Vaugher officiating with interment in the Smith plot at Belfast beside his wife. Quentin came over on Saturday with flowers and remained here until after the services. This was the (seventh) entrance of the grim reaper to break the circle of the Blauvelts since
our arrival to cement the bonds of its unity in 1906, and this calls up a few words reminiscent of the quarter of a century since first I knew Uncle Will who was a farmer born and through the laws of hereditary succession should have been one of the sturdy (yeomanry) of the land as the Motts
were in earlier years; yet his restless soul could not be attuned to its inherited environment and he could not see in the soil the sure returns, rich in the larger wealth of material interests and physical well being, but in the distant vistas, the mirages that beckoned him on, he was
irresistibly led by the ignusfatures of hopes that he never attained. The ever receding goal of concentered ideals was always ahead and he coutimed the hazards of new fortunes that taxed already handicapped body to a degree that it could not carry on, so that in the passing years he became
old before his time. At an age when a man should be at his best he wearily laid down the probationary existence as a pilgrim of the Infinite to take on the life more abundant as his spiritual reward. <end p 90A>
Against my objection Raymond felt that he could not hold the church janitorship while I was unemployed returned
the work to me June 7, 1931.
One of the most fortunate of misfortunes happened on the 11th when little Neil Mott aged 2 years fell from the
second story rear window of their home on East Main Street to the ground outside, a drop of about 15 feet and was picked up alive but badly frightened. In falling he had carried a pillow from the bed with him which may have softened the impact. He was hurried to the doctor and we also looked
him over to see if any bones had been broken or dislocated but neither of us could find a bruise or break. This calls to mind a similar event in my life when about 6 years old falling down an area in the Camden home which dislocated the right arm and again at the age of 12 falling from the
upper window of a barn while adjusting a flag to a pole, turning over to land on my feet very much surprised but unhurt ; again falling from an apple tree in Weavers orchard in 1910 but without injury. Heredity plays some part evidently in the family of Mott.
Harold Smith was unable to come from Chicago at the time of his father's funeral but arrived on July 22 with his
twice children Elizabeth and Earnest and remained until August 3. The children made friends with everybody and I secured pictures of them in the Lathrops garden - an ideal atelier al fresco to unite families on a sheet of paper.
We went up to Raymond's on June 15 to supper in part to remember our 33rd wedding day. The work at the bridge had
nearly done him up because of its slavish character and he finished up on Saturday June 20. <end p 91>
June seemed to be an ideal month for picture making and the garden of the Lathrop's seemed an inviting place for
finding suitable backgrounds so I made a number of views of the place for Josephine post card size for distribution among friends and others who had taken up the pleasing occupation of beautifying homes and gardens with all the natural accessories of rocks, flora and running water.
Raymond Lacy and Marguerite came for us on June 24 to take us to Perry where we were met by Carson to take us to
Industry for a little outing ; on the way we went to Caledonia to see the State fish hatchery for stocking the streams, ponds and lakes of the State and saw the countless millions of little fish in their infancy. Remained at Industry until June 30. While there we all went to see Ruth who
held a position in a hospital as a nurse in Rochester. She was staying at a friends house but by some mishap had been persuaded to remain away from Industry with Joyce and by some evil influence had become alienated from Carson. It was a surprise, such an act was beyond reason and had its
effect upon all of us, as we tried to untangle the mystery. The Hulberts of Bethlehem were here and on July 7, 1931 we all went for a picnic dinner in the garden and fully enjoyed the event. We were frightened by another episode in little Neil's life when he showed his mother some tartar
emetic which he had found in a hidden place where it had been placed for killing rats. He had tasted enough of the poison to make him sick and he was hurried to the doctors who applied the antidotes which brought him out of danger.
The church sheds had become a menace and a nuisance from neglect and public abuse so the trustees cut them into
five sections and sold them. <end p 92>
The centennial of the establishment of the Methodist Church in Angelica was celebrated by a whole week's program
of events from Sunday July 26 to August 1. The great day was Sunday when Phillip Waldorf of the Kansas City (___a) was present as the speaker.
Raymond's 30th birthday was duly celebrated at our home with a chicken dinner also with Harold and Hazel Smith and
children as guests : After nearly two weeks here Hazel took her brother and children to Wellsville to entrain for Chicago. On August 10 Til and Irving came over from Hornell with Quentin after Raymond and I in Lacy's car had gone over to meet them. Edward and Winona came on Aug. 16. The next
day in Edward's car we left at ten o'clock and roamed all over Allegany County until 5:30. Neil's birthday was duly celebrated on the 18th that evening on campus of Raymond's home with hot dogs, coffee and cake. Next day we went in Edwards car to Watkins Glen leaving at 10 am and enjoyed a
fine drive and dinner in the glen. We went to Hornell on 20th to Quentin's where Til was notified by telephone by Edwin of the death of his father that day. On the 22nd Edward and I took Til and Irving to Olean to take the bus for Bogota. Edward has been on so many occasions kindly conscious
of our humdrum life here so that when he has time it is many days of pleasure, where weather permits, for outings over the county which we keenly appreciate. Carson and Gertrude, too, have spent so many of their vacation days with us to our everlasting benefit, that we feel responsive of our
debt to them for untold pleasure. They came on September 14 ostensibly to take a trip to Niagra Falls, and on the 2nd started at 6:30. Went over the Peacebridge at Buffalo to Brock Monument and returned over the upper steel arch and back to Angelica arriving at 8. It rained from 11 o'clock a
drizzle but we enjoyed the trip. <end p 93>
The notice of Raymond's appointment as acting postmaster ( Mrs. Lytle having resigned) was received on 23rd and he
took charge of the office on Oct. 1. On October 3 we received notice of the marriage of Mrs. Lytle to William B. Child at Chemung on that day. In a letter to Raymond from the Civil Service Commissioners, it stated that he held first place with Eldrige 2nd and Piatt 3rd. On Nov. 3 Guy O.
Hinman was elected justice of the peace over Leon West.
Mary Lytle, the oldest daughter of Mrs. A.J. Lytle was married at Chemung on December 26 to George Woodard who was
a fellow student with her at Houghton.
For the first time in many years the customary exhibition of the acts of insanity or rather the aged senility of
the race, was not in evidence on the morning of November 1 this year, by the assembly of back yard rubbish on the Main Street, for the village board requested the state to send two troopers to watch and arrest any of the younger gentry caught in the defiance of decency, reason and law. Hoe a
Roman Catholic Church Saints day can be linked with common observance of All Hallow Eve by a set of devilishly inclined older children some of whom were brought up in so called Christian homes, is past comprehension. The work on the Joncy bridge is being pushed so that the structure may be
completed before the snow flies by working seven days a week. This bridge has destroyed all the scenic beauty the village ever had and forever put out of commission the post card views of the locality out of which I earn a living. However I haven't lost everything for the negatives still
tell of what has been and to a tourist the post cards are just cards. So the prospect is not so bad.
The Motts of Hornell and Angelica ate Thanksgiving dinner with us today and left Shirley with us for a few days.
<end p 94>
After the civil service examination for a postmaster's job at Angelica the Civil Service Commissioners sent the
names of the three highest on the list to Congressman Reed who recommended Raymond as being first. In January the Senate approved the nomination and President Hoover signed his commission as Postmaster of Angelica for four years from January 18, 1932.
Frances, wife of Quentin was taken to the hospital for a serious operation on January 8 and telephoned to us to
take Shirley for a little while. He came and brought her the next day and spoke gloomily of the situation - a case of fallopian pregnancy - and Raymond and Evelyn hurried to Hornell to see what could be done. After the operation Frances condition seemed to improve and Quentin asked if she
could be brought to Angelica if no setbacks appear for convalescence which we were glad to have her come. Sunday Jan. 24 she was brought in the ambulance on a cot and arranged comfortably in the west room. She did not seemed to be hurt by the ambulance trip and was very cheerful. The next
Sunday she was carried downstairs to lunch. Several Hornell people came to see her as well as cousin Gertrude.
The Dicksons went for a trip through the Caribbean's on February 3 and the class of men was in my charge until
March 20.
Quentins little family with Katherine Fairhill, Evelyn and Winona went to Hornell in Raymond's car on February 23
having been with us a month.
The eczema which for six or eight years has been on occasion a source of trouble which has localized in my lower
limbs below the knees and resists all treatment with local rostrums. It is said to be incurable so I thought it would be well to have some medical advise so for some <end p 95> time I have been put on the table under electric light rays together with the application of lotion to relieve the
itching under the direction of Dr. Lewis. On June 2 I married the fourth couple as Justice. They were from Wellsville and did not seem to be of an age that so many are who are activated by a spirit of adventure that makes the ceremony a "compassionate" foolishness, that follows a drive to do
something - they know not what. The salacious movies, lurid stories that are many degrees beyond the old-fashioned yellow paper covered novels, lack of a parental guide, women's bridge clubs, the apish Bohemianism of the ultra-artistic that rob the home of its discipline and personal life as
well as its religious tendencies all contribute to the awful wreckage of the higher ideals that makes news for the police courts and bad smelling records in divorce proceedings in this age of machine made ethics.
Katherine Fairfield, Evelyn's sister was married July 2 at Maplehurst to Walter Chauncy, a young student preparing
for the Methodist Ministry, who looks to the coming conference for some appointment at some time.
On July 22 I was taken sick while at work in the office with pain in my left groin and thought it was gas and went
home and laid down. Raymond took me to see Dr. Lewis after dinner but he was not at home. Next day Evelyn took me again to Belmont and Doctor Lewis said it was Phlebitis or an inflammation of a vein in the groin, and gave me a prescription. (Last page of a copy
given to Hazel) <end p 96>
The fire fiend that is supposed to stand ever on the watch of the carelessness of the human mind and to rejoice
in the chance to take some kind of revenge out of the misery and loss that follows some kind of conflagration, seems to find much to do on the west side of lower main street for on the morning of July 21, 1932 the two stores of the Arnold block were discovered to have been burning some time.
It originated in the Larkin store in the rear and when first seen had burned out the upper floors of the two stores, Larkin and C.P. (Spard) besides the lodge room of the Grange and some stored furniture in the old Arnold apartments. The building is owned by Dr. Warner whose loss was
covered. On the 28th the Motts came together to celebrate the event of the 31st birthday of Raymond. The family came to a chicken dinner which was enjoyed at our home. < end p 96A logical insertion point>
The month of July I gave up my services to the church official board as janitor (of this) and presented my
resignation as janitor after a long service. While I am not in a sufficient financial condition to stop work altogether, yet the warning is given me to stop that which is the most arduous and the work of janitor in the winter with furnace heat not alone for regular service but the many
social occasions at the church I feel is too much to hazardous and I asked to be relieved (13 years in office). Stanley Mott, Edward's wife's son, surprised us by a visit on July 23 and again on August 5. He is employed by the publishers of the Woman's Home Companion and The American
Magazine in the circulation department and this time he and his men are soliciting in the Southern Tier.
Edith and Edward came on august 16 and we had a picnic after 6 o'clock in the grove at Raymond's, with (roaster
corn) and hamburger around the campfire on such night. They left on Sunday and we accompanied them to Canaseraga in Raymond's car.
On August 23 while at work was taken with pain in left groin and when it did not yield to treatment I concluded it
could not be gas and sent for Doctor Lewis who said he thought it was gravel in one of the uterers. It was painful enough while it lasted. I had not the need of a doctor for 25 years until this time so I was not a very good patient. The occasional pains in left side Doctor says are caused by
small particles of gravel passing through the uterus. After being in bed for a week I began sitting up in a chair until I was convalescent. Had a lot of callers to keep me from (ennui). Rev. Vaugher the M.E. pastor was constant. Quentin and Carson and Gertrude <end p 97> and the neighbors
expressed an interest that was cheerful even if the daily monotony was weary and comfortless in detail. On September 1 Irving arrived and Quentin came over while Carson and Gertrude came on the 3rd. Put on my clothes for the first time and attempted to go down stairs on Sept. 7 but had to go
back to bed. So far improved that I went to church on the 18th. The primary election on 20 was enough to kill a weak man but we pulled through after a (sessine) lashing from 12 noon to 4:30 the next morning. I appointed Frances as substitute and I looked on. Had 4 hours sleep and went with
returns to Belmont without any feeling of discomfort at 9 o'clock. Til and Winifred arrived on the night of the 22 at midnight in Winifred's car which was a double surprise for the daring she exhibited in taking such a trip without a driver and successfully arriving here. The next day she
drove to Belmont to take me to see the doctor and subsequently while the visit, Frances and I with Winifred and Til in the rumble seat drove over three counties.
The bridge over the creek at Closser Avenue which was a temporary thing erected by town where the original bridge
fell into the creek was ordered taken down and the iron bridge at Belvidere, which was abandoned when the over pass built by the state above the (Erril) railroad tracks, was given to the town of Angelica to replace it. The work was begun on October 1 1932 and finished on Armistice Day so
that the village now has no further fear that the bridge and road would be eliminated as it was thought probable at one time.
Winifred and Til left for Bogota Oct. 1 at 5:30 in the Morning. As executor of sister Carrie's will it became my
pleasant duty to send Winifred a check for $491.38 as her portion of the estate when she arrived <end p 98> at her majority on August 21, 1932.
As a postal clerk I attended the annual meeting of the Postmasters of Allegany County at the rooms of the M.E.
Church, all of the force of the Angelica office attended but Hadsell.
The customary method of celebrating the defeat of the central powers by Armistice on November 11 which was ushered
in by the din of earsplitting noise in 1918 had subsided this year to a solitary toot on the fire siren at eleven o'clock. Unlike the original method of remembering the fourth of July by all the noise of bells, whistles, cannon, dynamite and gun powder with the slowly mounting list of
casualties among the careless younger generation, until the sane and safe element entered into the newer methods of remembrance, the celebration of the capitulation of Germany has grown more noiseless and possibly in a few years will be celebrated only by a brief note in the schoolbook
history, which will be commented on by the teacher at the assembly of the school.
This year we were invited to have dinner on Thanksgiving Day with Quentin's family and when Quentin had not
arrived at 1:30 we began to fear something had happened. His sudden arrival put us in good humor and the time for dinner was ready for us when we arrived at 2 and (Rosa) and Mr. Townsend were also included in the dinner. We remained in Hornell until Sunday afternoon when we came home in
Quentin's car.
The awful danger of speeding on East Main Street near the park caused the death of Henrietta Herdman, aged 17 and
the daughter of Jos. and Florence Herdman on Dec. 27 when her car skidded from the road around the park into a tree. The village board had set up all kinds of warnings on E. Main Street and around the park to no avail as the frequent ditching of cars going west continues. <end p 99>
In the record of burial in Angelica Cemetery this year from January 14 to December 29 two were noted as being as
far as age is concerned widely apart. Darriel Grunder who was for many years Superintendent at the County Home died at 89 and Henrietta Herdman a young graduate of Wilsonian High died by an accident at 17. The two days, December 16 and 17 stand alone in the year for temperatures below zero -
both at 10 degrees. The days were cold and unpleasant particularly around the holidays. Quentin drove from Hornell on Dec. 24 and left Frances and Shirley sick with fever. He brought gifts and remained to supper. Maude went to stay with Neil who also was sick. Our Christmas dinner was eaten
at 4 o'clock with only Raymond's family with us on Sunday.
On the afternoon of Dec. 27 the choir of the St. Pauls Church had been singing at the County Home to the inmates
and in going around the park on the East end Miss Herdmans car skidded and struck a tree. She was badly hurt and was taken to the Spangler home. The next day she was taken to Hornell to the hospital when she died at eleven o'clock that night. The office of dog warden of Allegany County held
by W.G. Young for two years and whose duties were exercised without fear or favor to the benefit to the sheep raising farmers, saving the county several thousand dollars for damages and ridding the county of a hundred or more predatory, worthless curs by killing them off was abolished
January 1 because it was (sind) a supervisors dog was shot ravishing sheep. <end p 100>
It was 2 degrees below zero on New Years evening 1935 when Quentin, Frances and Shirley came from Hornell and
Raymond with his family arrived to have dinner with us.
A letter from Gertrude received by Frances on Jan. 4 gave us the cheering news that after Ruth had left for the
South with the old feeling still manifest, she was recalled by the offer of a position in the State Home for mental defectives at Newark N.Y. and on her return Ruth had changed and baby Joyce was restored to the affections of Carson and Gertrude. This good news was verified by the appearance
at 1 o'clock Sunday Jun. 15 of Carson and Gertrude with Ruth and Joyce and they brought their dinner and we had Raymond and family come in the afternoon to a very happy gathering.
The little policy of $1000. which I took out in the New York Life Ins. Co. in 1912 has been faithfully kept up
until now when I have paid over $1500 into the company funds, so I wrote to the company about it and for relief but got no satisfaction. Semi annually I have paid in Jan. and July $47.30 and now I must stop and told the company that I had paid the last on January 3 that I could pay.
Quentin and family came to dinner on 22nd and after supper all went up to Raymond's home to hear radio. They
stayed all night with us and left at 7 o'clock on Monday morning. <end p 101>
On February Frank Southard wrote that his brother Theodore living at Valhalla N.Y. who had been sick since early
in December has died at the hospital in Tarrytown N.Y., after having been operated upon three times , on February 14, 1933. Theodore was married to Miss May Bostwick in Hoboken in 1896 at whose wedding I first became acquainted with my wife, whose cousin, he was. He came with his wife and
daughter, Helen to Angelica to live in July 1908, and remained about two years, moving from here in September, 1910. He was one of (the) best comedians in the dramatic club and was the lead in the play "Down by the Sea." He was 71 years old and the youngest of the children of Charles and
Jane A Southard.
While speaking to Hazel on March 20 at the post office in this afternoon I showed her the manuscript of which
about 40 pages were written and asked her about the cost of putting it in type and astonished me by offering to do it in odd times at no cost to me. This was more than I had expected and thanked her when she asked how many copies were wanted saying that four would not take any more (time)
than one. So she returned to me four copies in a few days of the matter I had given her and she gave her time and materials for a hundred pages of manuscript besides the gift of 5 loose-leaf books to bind the retrospect in - a favor that it will take some of my best effort to repay.
April 2, 1935 Sunday we were surprised to see Carson, Gertrude and Joyce drive in at 11. Quentin, Frances and
Shirley came at 3 and Raymond and family came at 4 - what more could grandpa and grandma have to please them more.
The weather bureau work has become irksome and too dissistent <end p 102> so I sent my resignation to headquarters
April 3 and put the following reading notice in our Advocate on April 6 :
Resigns Post - After fourteen years as cooperative observer at Angelica in the Weather Bureau of the U.S.Dept. of
Agriculture, Geo. E. Mott resigns, to take effect May first, making a continuous record of service in the Weather Bureau of New York State of 44 years. The Department does not pay one cent, for the service which includes a monthly report to the branch at Ithaca besides the recording of the
daily record of the thermometers and the rain gauge, the wind direction, the depth of snowfall, the general character of the day and the melting of ice and snow to secure the exact precipitation. The position can be secured by any qualified applicant of any political party who lives like a
hermit and wants no vacation.
Easter Sunday came April and Quentin and Raymond and their families had dinner with us. This year an Easter
Cantata was given by the choir in which there were 36 members : Walter Lilly secured a member from outside the Methodist Church. The following Sunday the Cantata was spotted in the church at Bolivar. Quentin and family came over on April 30 and helped cut out black knot on plum trees and
plant lettuce. The Hornell Fairfields and Belmont had a family dinner at Raymond's.
No one up to May 6 manifested any interest in the Weather Board job but Mrs. Frank Morton who expressed the idea
that it might be an additional attraction to their beautiful rock garden. On May thirteenth the outfit was <end p 103> transferred and the work of cooperative passed into the hands of Mrs. Morton. I was glad to have it terminate this way for it released me without the labor of shipping the
outfit to Ithaca, lifted the insistent duty from my shoulders and relieved me of its maintenance and made it possible for Frances and I to go where we pleased for a day or a month vacation; besides, Mrs. Morton seems pleased with the work which is somewhat in line with her social activities
while both her husband and herself have a devoted affection for their rock garden with its infinite variety of flora and fossiliferous geological formations.
Quentin stopped on Mother's day to leave flowers for Frances while on his way to Buffalo to get an airplane back
to Hornell. The wonderful sun halos which came on May 15 at 11:15 was one of the most beautiful that I have ever seen. The phenomenon is so unusual that many who saw it were overcome with fear of some celestial cataclysm and shut their eyes and tried to get away. They are more frequent in
the northern zone than here.
Quentin brought Shirley to stay with us while they spent a few days in the mountains fishing and camping on the
24th. They came for her on 31st. Stanley Mott called on June 6 for an hour while his men were at work canvassing in Wellsville. Josephine fell today on the steps of the garden and broke her left wrist. Patricia Ann Welch, Catherine Lathrops baby was baptized on children's day in the M.E.
Church June 11. After church Raymond's family with ours went for a picnic dinner in the woods near Friendship, was back by 7 and found Quentin and family here.
Tuesday the 20th we went over to Hornell to stay for the weekend. On Sunday we had dinner at Quentin's with Hazel.
Lucille came in and we left <end p 104> for Angelica at 7:30, when we found Carson and Gertrude had come in. They stayed until Monday 26 when they left.
July 1, 1933 Quentin and Frances and Shirley came to hear band play. We all had dinner at Raymond's on the 11th.
Quentin went to work on Monday morning but returned. He and family went home on 5th. Quentin took mama to Dr. Karl in Hornell and brought her back the same day. Maude and children came from Bolivar to dinner and after supper we all went to Bolivar July 6, but did not see Mr. Hulbert or
Willis.
Next day all the families were assembled on the upper lawn of Lathrops for a picnic. On July 12 the group came
together again and I succeeded in getting a picture of the assembly of Motts, Lathrops, Hulberts, Lowerys, Lacys, (___) Ferrys and Welches. Gertrude and Catherine bring (Trent). Also Catherine Lathrop and her baby. It was a representative gathering of 35 persons such as can never come
together again. The four sisters Josephine \, Frances, Clara, and Maude represented the Blauvelts were seated with all the second and third generations grouped about them and if the twelve absentees could have been present it would have shown what could be accomplished in less than half a
century toward the divine command "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (Gen.1,28).
Gertrude wrote that Ruth and her little girl Joyce went back to North Carolina on July 13 much to their regret for
the little granddaughter had found a deeper place in their hearts than their own children ever reached but Ruth who was a graduate nurse thought it best to return. <end p 105>
The Hulberts drove over this morning July 16 to say good bye for their return trip to Bethlehem, Pa. At 10 o'clock
on Tuesday night Carson and Gertrude drove it to spend their three days vacation and the next day before 6 o'clock am Raymond, and the Palmers went for fish at Belfast. They came back in the afternoon with some samples. Had supper at Lacy's and enjoyed the fish.
Next morning we were taken to Olean, Salamanca, Allegany State Park at ten o'clock in Carson's car and returned by
7. We had never been through the state park and the visit was full of pleasure. We all went to Lathrops after supper and came home at 10. They left for Sandusky and home on the 21st. Hazel went to Greenwich Conn. to visit the Hookers and spend a week in the Berkshire. On this day July 31 no
less than five families changed their residences in the checkerboard fashion - One moved in where the other moved out and nothing was lost or gained by the village.
Frances was sick on night of Aug. 3 with heart trouble and we called Quentin to get the required medicine from Dr.
Karl. Quentin and family came over at 8 o'clock and brought the heart tablets. On the 7th Evelyn & Raymond took Frances to Hornell to see the doctor, and again on 11th. Quentin and family with Winona came over and remained all night Saturday 12th and left next morning at noon. On Aug 30 all
the Motts went to Hornell to see the Newark Motts at Quentin's and were back by 9:30.
Frances Mott of Hornell went on 26th to New York to visit friends in Hackensack N.J. and on September 2 Quentin
asked me to ride in his car to Bogota to bring his wife back. We left Angelica with all hands for Hornell in Raymond's car and we left at 4:15 for Bogota and reached Lacyville Pa. at 9 0'clock, having gone 150 miles. Had supper and retired in a nice Dutch hotel for the night and arose at
<end p 106> five o'clock to continue our journey. We had breakfast at (Lerinton) at 7 o'clock and descended on Hackensack at 11 0'clock. The home was found where Frances was located and from there telephoned to the Howells at Bogota. It was a big surprise but Frances accompanied us and we
reached Tillies in time for dinner. It was not a pleasant Sunday but hoped for a good holiday - Labor day to follow. Quentin and Frances drove over and had lunch, then turned westward on the return trip at noon. They left in a rain that promised to be with them all the way to Hornell. For
three weeks I enjoyed as far as I could without my wife as a companion, the things noticeable, particularly the (Linsberg Wachylow) bridge which we crossed several times with (tires) and on foot. My purpose on the trip was to be released as executor of Carries will and have Ed. Mott and
Edwin Howell appointed as guardians of the two remaining beneficiaries. Irving and Winona who will not come into their share until they are 21 years - a period of four and eight years before which time I expect to pass on. Went to see the attorney of the estate and had it all arranged, when
Til said if I would remain another week she would go back with me by car. I was anxious to get back for I was not in the best of health, but we started on Sept 24 early Sunday morning and left Bogota by train and 42nd street New York by taxi with Edwin to the starting place of the Greyhound
bus which left at 8 o'clock. We reached Hornell at 8:45 PM when Raymond and Quentin And Francis met us and we went to Quentins to tea, then to Angelica in Raymond's car.
The insurance company did not want me to take the cash surrender and to lot of time and paper had been wasted
since I first asked for it. However I sent my policy to Buffalo on the 28th of Sept. and received my check on October 7 for $569. a measly deal but all I had.
Hazel opened a book shop in Geneseo after leaving the service of the Shawmut on September 27 with all the
prospects of success in an undertaking that she had been planning for many months.
On Sept. 30 Tillie was here and participated as a visitor in one of the most spectacular and mysterious
nonsensical political outbursts that the village has ever been the subjected to, when upwards of 500 persons attempted to get inside the red courthouse to attend a republican caucus for the nomination of town officers for the town of Angelica, packed in solid as sardines the meeting was
unable to elect a chairman or secretary and had to adjourn to the park and use the croquet field to (conduct) business. It was not a closed caucus at which only enrolled republicans could vote, but it was wide open and everybody voted regardless of politics, age or residence. The clique had
so arranged the balloting that several of the town officials who lived in the village were defeated which included two justices and the highway (comforimer). The clique had not enough votes to (defeat) the assessor or the Supervisor <end p 107> which were the two principal offices that the
"square deal" iconoclasts were aiming at. I felt sorry to see my fellow justice Jacobs defeated for he had held the office for 12 years while I had gotten quite enough of it in the six years I served and proposed to resign at the subsequent meeting of the town board so that the board could
appoint someone to fill the vacancy. So I breathed a sigh of relief and not of regret as I accepted the mandate of the mob.
On Monday October 2 Til and I and the camera wandered down to the Joncy to get some views of the big bridge that
the state builded over a little creek and put the road bed 25 feet above the stream that we could step over today. There had been a frost the night before and the air was clear. To get the real visible proportions of the bridge the view had to be taken from the creek below, so standing in
the water I succeeded in getting a view that nobody ever sees from an almost inaccessible point, below the roadway. The highway is no longer scenic and the two hundred feet of approach to the bridge are embankments of sliding clay and gravel, without vegetation or even the leaves of grass,
not worth wasting a plate on but we did get several views that show where the old structure stood but from above, the $60,000 span is just a bridge and nothing more, to the motorist who crosses it.
Quentin and family with Raymond and family with Til had supper with us tonight (out) on the occasion of my 79th
birthday. Til left for home in Fairfield's car for Hornell to take Greyhound bus at 8:30 for Bogota. Raymond & Evelyn also left with Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield for a three days vacation at Stephentown, near Albany, N.Y.
On October 7 I received a check from the New York Life Ins. Co. for $569.00 <end p 108>
Lauren and Quentin with Mrs. Irving of the farm came over and Hazel also on Sunday 8, on the 18 I took N.Y. Life
check to the bank to break and had it cashed and paid note at bank that has run for 12 years, Doctor Lewis's bill and a dozen other debts besides loaning Raymond $200. to help him out in a bad situation.
Started on Sunday Oct. 22 with Carson for Industry, Frances and I, and for two weeks had nothing to do but ride
about and eat. We went to Rochester to get Ruth one day and had a visit from Luna Lorne, an old school friend whom all took back to her home after candlehour on Nov. 2. Learned that Frank Southards wife had died suddenly on Nov. 4. On Sunday Nov. 5 we left Industry and reached Angelica at
12:15. I spent the last few days in sickspell that did not leave me til after Election day on the 7th.
A surprise awaited us when we came in our home - I was too sick to notice that Raymond and Evelyn had taken the
occasion in our absence to repaper the parlor, Library and bath room but Frances went into ecstatics at the beautiful work they had done in the two weeks of our absence.
On the morning of Nov. 13 Frances complained of a pain in the right side and I bathed it with alcohol - Evelyn and
Raymond came at once. We thought Frances was some better on the 14 but telephoned for Quentin to come over and bring Dr. Karl. Early on the morning of the 15th we saw no improvements as she lay on the couch in the parlor so we sent for dr. Batt. Quentin came with his wife in car with Dr.
Karl, and remained with us. It became more serious and Dr. Karl said he would send a nurse from Hornell. Raymond brought the nurse from Hornell.
On Saturday 18th at 6:10 in the morning, Frances passed away after 5 days sickness with pneumonia. Raymond and
Quentin there took over the duty of notifying relations by telephone, and all the arrangements for the funeral. Carson and Gertrude arrived and took the nurse back to Hornell. The funeral services were held at the home on Monday 20th. Rev Alfred J. Grass the Methodist minister officiating.
The tributes of flowers were beyond measure and a large number of letters of sympathy were also received. Burial was in the plot in the Angelica Cemetery. The following lines were published in the Advocate of Nov. 23 all direct living relatives were present except(Carnell) who sent a letter
of sympathy. The calamity nearly dethroned my reason and I feared results that might place me with the dead but my children were attributive to me and I leaned upon them with a childish faith that, until the physical effect of the blow could be assayed in its terrible degree by time, so I
summoned all the Christian faith I possessed to my side and I am sure I was sustained from on high by the gradual change of my viewpoint of God's will which I have prayed since childhood is paramount to mine and in the language of the savior is placed foremost in the universal desire of the
Christian belief. <end p 109>
After the interment the folks began to return to their homes, Mr. Hulbert and Maude went to ( brother's), Carson
and Gertrude on that afternoon. Edward and Winona on the next day.
Quentin and Frances also in the afternoon for Hornell with Edwin who left for Bogota by bus on 21st at midnight.
Til remained with me until Sunday when we left in Raymond's car for Hornell to take the bus for Bogota at 11:15 in the morning.
On the 24th I went to see Dr. Karl and had a thorough examination in which he does not think a trip for any
distance would be advisable at this time. When we came home the sense of that awful conclusion came to me and the desire of a touch of a vanished hand and to hear the sound of a voice that was forever stilled took possession of my very soul. Raymond and Evelyn had not returned to their home
but remained with me. The children came from Hinsdale and the home was alive. I busied myself with writing the obituary for the Advocate and Clara had sent her contribution directly to the paper and it was published in the weekly edition. Thanksgiving Nov. 30 was like a day in the early
fall. Raymond had brought his radio down and installed it in the parlor. On December first I deeded my property to Raymond in consideration that I should have provision for my maintenance in the hours until I pass away. The deed was duly recorded at Belmont. Also went to report to Dr. Karl
who gave me a firecracker report after due examination and in so far as my body is concerned I seem to be cared for - the mind must now be (schooled) to accept the divine will and await that finale that comes to all who are born with such bravery as we can command. Quentin and Frances came
over Sunday Dec. 10 and again on the 24th with gifts for the tree which was set up. Hazel came in and brought the diary for 1934. A box from Til and Edwin also came and all were distributed Christmas Day.
Thus closes the year and thus (____) the record of events that (g__tend) abut the Mott family as (reproracted) by
the third George in the time of descent from the great hearted ones who landed here a century ago and found the freedom for which they yearned.......................................(("Not as the conqueror comes, They, the time beasts came, Not with the roll of stirring drums, And the trumpet
that rings of fame."))
I attended my last meeting with the town board at the regular session on December 4, sold all my legal blanks to
C.M.Evans one of the new Justices, also at the final meeting on Dec. 21 known as town settlement day. So I am no longer a Justice of the Peace after 1933 has gone. <end p 110>
Last pages of the Hundred Years of the Mott Family
Thus closes a century of vicissitudes associated with one family picked from a million or more of the struggling
of the earth, the annals of which began none too auspiciously on one continent to be terminated, in so far as that family is concerned, upon another ; a century in which human endeavor has been permitted to bring forth for human betterment more than any of the centuries preceding it but
which is also shown in glaring colors the unfraternal bestiality still latent in the human race in its tendency toward evil not less than with the Hebrews, even under the theocracy, centuries before the coming of the long hoped for messiah, yet there lurks in the shadows of our beneficences
the characteristics that make us one with Nineveh and Tyre. In the dim ages of human savagery under the might and power of a feudalism that denied to millions the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, for the gratification of their greed and selfishness is the carnal sin.
Christianity stands appalled even now at the outrages committed, the injustices tolerated, the exhibitions of
primal savagery and the slavery that exists in every walk of society. The European greed of war in this age of peace is the mockery of the times and shows how impossible it is to fraternize by laws of Christian ethics or the plan of mutual arbitration, the ignorant and the lawless factions
of humanity and this age will pay the penalty which inevitably follows the impingement of the beneficial laws of the Creator,<end p 1> by the godlessness of a decaying civilization, as a hundred empires and dynasties have arisen to eminence only to fall in the fullness of time, leaving
records that redound only to the glory of the creatures (of) a favored circumstance cut into granite shaft, that eventually became the toys of time and returned to earth. From Adam to Caesar and Napoleon, nations of the earth have risen, strutted on the stage, boasting a civilization almost
approximating the highest ideals of man, but their ruins lie buried beneath a hundred feet of desert sand today long past redemption.
The family is the lowest unit in the national life but upon this foundation rests the world's records. In some
cases like the Japanese or the Chinese the family becomes a thing of reverence so that the worship of ancestors is a fetish. Costly monuments mark the last resting places of the warlike dead in both public and private spots of the earth but so rarely is it that beyond the third generation of
our lines the trio of consanguinity are forgotten and the doomsday book is closed. In our hurried life the family tree drops its fruit far distant from the homestead of the earlier years and the graves of the household lie separated by land and sea.
Sometime, somewhere the primal curse is laid, so that the family whose members may for a hundred years be socially
associated (are) blessed indeed when the final hour comes, as come it must.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all of beauty, all that wealth ere gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour;
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. <end p 2>
The immigrants in these earlier years who were favored by having some relatives situated in the western states,
went out from New York and so preserved their family succession and lived as they did "far from the maddening crowds ignoble strife" for many years, while I, of the third generation of Motts, stand, insofar as I know, alone in the line of succession, now look upon the fifth generation
growing up around me, for my children have married and have children growing up, some eligible to carry into the sixth in descent, although but a hundred years have gone since their ancestors bid farewell to home and country to accept the hazzard of adventure in a land of which they
personally know nothing; driven from their possessions, deprived of their liberties by hierarchy and monarchy alike but endowed with courage born of necessity and hope, to span three thousand miles of ocean perils to attain that personal freedom and equality unknown where they were born. So
much for the incentive. Having safely reached the land of opportunity separations became natural so that this story is not so much coordinate family history but it is to preserve the story of Grandfather Mott's grandson George in his fourscore years, through the fabric of localized events,
some of which seem remote. From the tale get enter into the circumstances of which our daily existence is made up; out of which comes a history that has been repeated through the ages.
"Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain:
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other like surge after surge." <end p 3>
The Motts were born, they lived, they flourished, they died and were buried - as they do now; but the present
living generation knows little of their forbears; each performed their allotted part in the gigantic cosmos of God's place which was before the world was created and shall stand when time shall be no more - we all are a part of that mystery we call life which begins each day and ends with
its close.
A writer has truly said: "Life is a day - this day. All past days are gone beyond reviving. All days that still
may come for you or me are veiled in the great mystery, and for all we know there may not be another for either of us. Therefore this day is life and life begins with it anew. Take and use it as best you can, or as you choose - it is your life and your judgment whether it is of good or evil,
hangs upon the use it is put to. Each night of life is a wall between today and the past. Each morning is the open door to a new world - new aims, new vistas, new tryings, new endeavors."
These writings may seem freakish, without point or pathos to some who read them and their purpose fatuitous, a
misnomer to the critic but their record goes foreword as a living annal in our book of deeds. It may be distant far from the parent stem as the uttermost leaf upon its many branches yet particles of the life of its origin without which it never would have sprung into being; so to the reader
I say walk reverently for you are on holy ground made so by the unwritten law of God acting upon human impulses. <end p 4>
As a story is made more vivid by pictured scene along its course the interleaved pages convey to the eye
supplementary force to the little narrative of the span of activities of the participants and give added (interest) to the reader who refers to them. The act of photography had but just been given to the world when the Motts left England - today it has reached a place of paramount importance
in the art and sciences. The earlier pictures are reproductions of daguerreotypes taken in 1845 to 1860 yet in excellent condition. Many of the later prints are from my negatives taken upon glass plates from 1886 to date. The printing press and the allied arts have advanced in this
electrical age to a marvelous position in human endeavor so that the erudition of the scribes and the (mantles) is no longer necessary to produce looks for they are made by the millions in artistic forms beyond the product of the skill of the worker as sheepskin or parchment. However the
basic art is not lost for we still posses the native skill to write, to print, to illustrate, to bind even in this hectic age, works that will endure.
There has been no period in history when the great problems lacked a mind equal to their solution ; God raises up
to defend his designs men sufficiently gifted to see into the future beyond mortal (kin) and with power to act at the cost of their lives if necessary that his work shall not become inefficient. So with these words this poor itinerary of a handful of seekers after a freedom from irksome
restraint, in a new utopia, find its actions worthy of a place in human story and the writer throws the torch to another more fitted to find a broader record in a wider field with nobler impulses, higher ideals, in the ending of a famous century. <end p 5>
