Warwick Historical Papers Volume 6 Part 2

History as it should be .. by Roy Vail
Before I Forget

My first recollections are of going to school - the Long Swamp School at John Drews, Blooms Corner. Mother said she sent me before my fifth birthday to keep my older brother company. It was nearly two miles to the school and mother would walk half way with us on good days. On rainy or snowy days father would provide transportation for us and our playmates, our help's children. I was so small I sat on a big dictionary between Mable Davenport and Cecil Hulse, lovely girls. My teacher, Miss Bertah Wood, who just passed away recently, said I'd fall asleep in the afternoon. She told me she had 30 children and just last year could resite all their names but four. Probably they were the lemons who didn't make an impression or perhaps she wanted to forget them.

After I graduated from college I taught in that small school for a short time. It seemed odd going back to all the memories of my childhood.

Back then a few of us boys would spend the noon hour catching suckers in the brook behind the school and opening soft shell mussels, looking for small pearls that we'd sell to a store in New York City for 25 to 35 cents.

We'd make guns from the swamp alder by pushing out the pitch with a small stick, then tying a string around the end for a plunger. We'd put a small plug in one end witih a tiny hole for the water to squirt out and we'd have squirt gun fights or
contests to see whose gun would shoot the farthest.

There were surpirses. Elsie, a very nice girl who attended school there, walked part way home with me one afternoon. She was about 5 years older than I. Suddendly she stopped in the middle of the road and took off all her clothes. She shocked and excited me with her beauty. I have always regretted that I hadn't been born much older.

We'd make our own kites by splitting white cedar and tying the peices together in the form of a diamond-shaped cross. Then we'd run a string around the outer edge and with flour paste glue newspaper over-all. We'd tie rags for the tails and fly the kites in the wind. I made a parachute out of silk and flew it attached to the kite's tail with a stone tied on for weight. It was fun to jerk kite until the parachute let loose and watch it drift to earth.

I had a pet bullfrog named Charlie and asked him if he wanted a parachute ride. He didn't object so I made a nice soft harness of stout woolen yarn and sent him aloft. I think he was the only animal to go aloft till America sent the monkey on its first astronaut flight.

I was somewhat nervous but Charlie made the flight O.K. and as I released him on his parachute he started to paw his way back to earth. I ran and caught him in a large net I'd made. I never did it again but we were forever after the greatest of friends. Frogs must have a language and he surely told his offspring about his jumping to the clouds, because whenever I came to the spring which was his with extra food, I'd get the greatest of welcomes. "Jug-a-rum, jug-a-rum."

My Uncle Lewis told me many stories about the old families of New Milford and the trades carried on there.

Outside of early scouts or hunters, the official beginning of New Milford and Warwick area was the granting of the Wawayanda in 1702-3 and the Cheescock Patent in 1707 ( which was signed by twelve Indians who put their mark or symbol on the deed to twelve New York land speculators.) Our first settlers were Johannes and Elizabeth Wisner who settled on land in the Wawayand Patent which they purchased from Christian Snedeker of Long Island in 1714. One of their sons, Captain John Wisner (1722 - 1778) named one of his sons Henry Wisner. Henry was tutored by the minister in Amity, Mr. Dolson. He became a Justice of the Peace and settled about a mile from Goshen on the Florida road near the present stone school house. Henry Wisner was a Captain and a member of the Continental Congress. He manufactured gun powder in Ulster and Orange counties which was so desperately needed for the cause. He was one a America's foremost citizens and an early relative of mine. I am grateful for documents of his.

Descendants of Wisner and other historically- minded people called on Congress to award posthummously to Henry Wisner the Distinguished Service Medal because of his contributions to the founding of the nation. He was one of several New York delegates to the first and second Continental Congress who worked so hard for independence. He was alos credited with being a leader for the fortification of the Hudson at West Point. The request was made in a resolution that the proposed Wisner Medal be in the possession of Orange County for one year and then be placed in the Library of Congress. In the Jeffrey Wisner papers there is mention that Henry Wisner was buried on the family farm at Mt. Eve.

One of the oldest houses in the valley was built by Thomas J. Kearns in 1710 practically on the site where Stanley and Marie Ferguson were born. It was part of the Wawayanda Patent owned by Cornelius Christance who sold it to Dedrick Vandenburg in 1704. He was a land speculator like Everett and Gowns who sold 1200 acres to Thomas DeKay and Benjamin Aske in 1724. From studying old maps, the sale certainly seemed to involve many more than 1200 acres.

Another of the old log houses in the area was owned by Cornelius Lazear on the site where John and Sue Bradner now live which is also where Lazear later built a tavern in 1790 called Lazear's Tavern. There was another log house across from our house on Route 94. We think it was built by Ellis before the early part of our house was built. Up our lane was an early blacksmith shop.

Some of the names of those early families were Davis, Lazear, Wood, McCamley, Ellis, Clauson, Ryerson, Edsall and many more. My mother's Aunt Harriet Edsall who married Gilbert Drew lived in a house Edith and I now occupy and we are fortunate to have their Grandfather clock and other pieces of furniture.

There were a lot of sheep raised by the early settlers in and around Jockey Hollow since woolen clothing was in great demand. There were two fulling and carding mills which were kept busy - one run and owned by John Kiernan and the other by E.L. Davis who also had a distillery. Another distillery was run by John Ryerson.

Distilleries were bad in a community as they sapped the mental and physical strenght of an innocent family, whose husband or father spent the money on whiskey instead of food and clothing and education.

In 1802 John Lazear built a grist mill on the site of the one now standing and in connection with it had a factory for the manufacturing of hickory axe handles and hickory and ash shovel handles. Second growth hickory was the choicest and strongest. The grist mill was later destroyed by the flood of 1859 and a larger more modern one was built by O.W. Ferguson in 1861. It was later sold to Juidethan Day, a fine person who had just returned from the gold fields of California. Day ran it together with a saw mill until his death in the late thirties.

The grist mill was purchased by my sister Emily Vail in 1936 and later purchased by Allen Vail and me in 1974. We are now restoring it. All of the machinery is there as are 8 grist stones. These stones are not of Shawanga Conglomerate as most mill stones around but of French Burr from the Pyrenees - superior because of the hardness of the stone and the superior sharpness or cutting holes.

Mr. Day, a tall slim man, had one of the early cars, a Hupmobile. It was a streamlined job and a beauty.

He showed me a gold nugget he'd brought back from the gold fields of California. He turned it into the government when Roosevelt illegally called in the gold from the American public. Roosevelt gave us $20 an ounce for it in paper money and let the rest of the world have it for $35 an ounce. Congress passed a law that we couldn't buy it. Then in 1975, Congress passed a law we could buy gold. So England and France sold some of it back to us at $175 an ounce - it was undoubtedly our property in the first place.

Further down the stream was a feed mill, a saw mill, a wool carding mill and a tailor shop.

West of Highway 94 David Demerest built a clover hulling mill, a plaster mill, and a large saw mill. When the flood came in 1903 it wiped out all the lower mills and changed the stream bed in places. It was a terrible flood as all of the dams broke which added to the destruction.

Clover hulling stones are very rare. Clover has a hull around the seed somewhat like a hickory nut. In order to sprout that shell must be cracked or broken or the seed will not germinate. At times, with dampness and freezing weather, nature will crack the husk and take over. The old timers liked to have a week or two of this weather so they'll have a good clover crop. The same was true of a late snowfall in the spring, especially if the ground had thawed and the farmer plowed it under. Clover returns nitrogen to the soil. It is known as the poor man's fertilizer.

Change of Name

About the time of the Revolution the farmers around Jockey Hollow raced horses on the green and sold them to the Continental soldiers. The place was then called Jockey Hollow. As a child we'd go to Jockey Hollow 2 or 3 times a week to pick up the mail and shopping.

The little red house on the corner of Iron Mountain Road and Route 94 was originally a harness and shoe shop built by Clauson in 1869 in connection with the tannery which was just above it. When Morris Bahrman, a fine gentleman and soldier, returned from the Civil War he purchased it and enlarged it and ran it until 1921. The home and one of the buildings is still standing, now owned by Lewis Stage (ed. I think John Stage). Mr. Bahrman made some of the choicest leather around and people would come from Patterson and Newark to have fine harness made. He employed 8 to 12 men.

Later after the arson fire of 1898, the red building was New Milford's second Post Office and store run by Jacob Stanaback, a fine trusting gentleman. Edith and I purchased it so it would always be preserved. (ed. I have record from Warwick's two papers about a fire in 1900. I can't find records from the paper of a fire in 1898 because there is no microfilm records for that year. Either there were two fires or someone got the date wrong. I think the later.)

Dad would give us two cents to go to the store. We were poor and two cents was a lot of money in those days. My parents had purchased the Underdunk place of about 40 acres in 1889. Then, in 1900, they purchased the adjoining farm, the Dr. Sutton farm, for $5,000 dollars which was a lot of money back then.

The greatest shopping went on with those two cents, to get the most and largest candy for the money. There were Necco wafers in a roll about 6" long and the size of a quarter, licorice pipes, marshmellow bananas that smelled like bananas, chocolate covered peanut butter pillows, candy cigarettes, lollypops and much more.

Stanaback ran a general country store and also sold boots and shoes, and canned red salmon, sardines, dried cod fish, prunes, cloth, calico and some hardware.

The people of Jockey Hollow tried very hard to get the railroad to come there instead of by Covered Bridge(later named New Milford). They were unsucessful however, and that failure along with its diastrous flood and fire, was about the end of Jockey Hollow.

Chestnuts

The blight was killing the chestnuts off when I was a small boy. There was a large tree on the outer fringe of our back woods that was blight-free and it produced for several years after most of the chestnuts were gone. I gathered them every year the tree produced and mother alwasy included them in the Thanksgiving turkey dressing. They were also delicious roasted or boiled to eat out of hand.

Some years when there were no acorns, chestnuts or hickory nuts due to late freeze or off-year, father didn't want us to gather many nuts so the squirrels could winter through. We'd shoot quite a few squirrels in those poor nut years in order to help the remainder through the winter. I gave all the squirrels to a family named Elliston who had 6 or 7 children and never enough to eat. I stretched the skins, salted them and took them to Mr. Bahrman to have them tanned. Mary, his daughter, made them into a scraf for my sister who wore it a great many years. Mary was a very fine seamtress and could work in furs also. Things weren't thrown away or wasted as they are today.

When there were plenty of nuts I'd send them to the commission merchants in the city and get from $2 to $4 a bushel. People made their own salted nuts seasoned with real creamery butter which were real tasty. They were as different from today's oiled nuts as day and night. There were also butternuts and black walnuts which had their own distincitve flavor.

I think I should retrace my steps and give a partial history of the old New Milford.

The original log school just off the north side of the church was organized in 1783. As it deterioted a new school was built in 1830 at the corner of Covered Bridge Road and Route 94 on 1/4 of an acre, a former corner of my farm which is now nearly covered by roads. Then in 1870 a new site was chosen about 100 yards north on slightly higher ground containing one acre purchased from David Demerest for $800 - a school for 30 pupils which burned in the twenties when the present school was erected.

Jockey Hollow was larger than Warwick until the railroad came and bypassed the Hollow and made Covered Bridge, later named New Milford, the station half a mile away.

My father, with a few other farmers, the Demerests, Bahrmans and Drews, got Borden's Creamery to come and build at New Milford.

Shortly after the Creamery came they built a little lake on the Drew farm but it cost more to get ice and haul it by wagon or sleigh to the Creamery than it did to get it off the Wawayanda Creek. For a great many years the boys around would look forward to gathering ice during Christmas vacation. According to the thickness, which depended on the time it took to fill the
house we would get from $25 to $35. After a few years the New York City Board of Health gave orders (because of the pollution in the creek) that no more ice was to be harvested from the creek. So they filled the ice house half from the lake and half from the creek. Then for many years they went back to using the ice entirely from the creek. It was not unusal to see rubber goods frozen in the ice, cigar butts and all manner of floatable items.

We raised ducks, turkeys and chickens on the farm. Duck or goose down was the deluxe filling for pillows. Uncle Lewis's mother saved up duck down for pillows and swapped 4 or 5 bags full for a large brass kettle that has come down through the family.

Uncle Lewis was a carpenter and built the house across the street from the high school that is still standing. When they built the railroad he worked on the Covered Bridge section. Later when the railroad came it was called New Milford. About 25 men with wheelbarrows wheeled dirt from the bank opposite the bridge down around Ryerson Bend which was and is now low ground, to fill in for the tracks.

His father remembered the McCamleys in New Milford who owned slaved who were freed in New York state during the Revolution but most of them refused to leave us they were well taken care of and were treated as part of the family. McCamleys owned long stores that joined a hotel where the Dittons live. In back of it on Ryerson Road there was a cheese factory run by them. The butter and cheese was trucked to New Windsor and went to New York by boat. Orange County was known for it sweet butter and it brought a premium price.

The cows were selected for utilitarian purposes - before, during and after production. First milk, beef, hides, tallow for candles, horns for powder horns, combs and other articles. The hoofs, horns and bones were used for glue and then the bones for fertilizer. The intestines were cleaned and used as sausage casings. There were no breeds as we know them today - Ayrshires, Dutch belts, and Red Spotted.

I am reminded of a story about two neighboring farmers. One had Jerseys and the other Holsteins. The Holstein man said, "Your Jerseys give just about enough milk to cover a silver dollar. My Holsteins will give a pail fill." The Jersey man retorted, " When my Jersey milk covers that dollar you can't read the date but with your pail full of Holstein milk you can read the date on that dollar in the bottom of the pail."

Uncle Lewis said when the thousands of passengers pigeons passed over on their migration, the ground was darkened over like a huge cloud. He was of the opinion they a disease which wiped them out. Barrels of them were sent to the city and they sold for 25 cents each. There were so many thousands of them their weight from lighting in the trees would break the limbs off. From what I gather they must have been a very stupid bird.

On Wawayanda known as Covered Bridge there were two grist mills. The green painted one on the northeast side of the bridge I have never been able to find out who built it or ran it. (ed: According to Henry Pelton, it was a Shoemaker mill in 1805. On the 1805 "Map," which was created from Mr. Pelton's writings.) The mill on the southwest side was built and operated by Thompson in the Civil War period. People were trained a millers to run the early mills. A poor miller could soon ruin a set of stones so they had to be separated and the grooves recut with a mill pick of hardened steel. The pick weighed about 3 or 4 pounds and was sharp on both sides. Its cutting edge was about 2" wide. In later years someone invented a tool with a carbon colored diamond which was run back and forth in a steel cradle across the grooves to recut the stones which simplified the process. The stones wouldn't touch and wear down. The miller had to know his business. Thompson's son ran the Ferguson mill for a short time.

There was an old man who lived across from the present store. Fred Crist who to our farm to hunt woodchucks and later in the fall rabbits. He'd borrow my dog Shep. We were as close as boy and dog could be and one day in shooting a rabbit some of the load went into Shep. I never felt so bad in my life. I stayed up all night putting compresses on him and giving him fresh water to drink. Mentally I was as sick as he was physically. In a week or two he pulled through but he was pretty lame for the rest of his life.

New Milford was much larger than Warwick until the flood came in 1898 and the arson fire of 1903. (ed. Dates got reversed.) The reason for its being a large industrial community and business center was due to the three large water power streams cascading down the mountain with excess power to run its mills. The Doublekill was the largest and most powerful. It emptied into the Wawayanda Creek and help to wash away some of the raw sewage Warwick had been dumping in it for two centuries or more. Mother wouldn't let us swim or fish in the Wawayanda.

I'll try to write a little poem while we are talking about the mills.
They say the mill cannot grind with water that has passed -
I'd like to change that fallacy to say the mill can grind again with water that has passed.
As sun and wind evaporate the water to the clouds,
The rains will come to fill the stream, that cascades its power down the mountain.

I must quote from an old account book I have of 1816. I will list just a few prices: eggs - 15 cents of dozen; potatoes - $2.25 a bbl; tub butter 52 1/2 pounds at 20 cts./lb; cheese - 8 cents; bbl dried apples - 110 lbs. at 7 1/2 cts. a pound; pair black leather gloves - 75 cts; to Kirby for repairing a watch - 50 cts; dinner at the tavern - 20 cts; quart of whiskey - 25 cts; 2 pigeons - 25cts; maple sugar - 8cts; cutting hair - 15 cts; paid Rastus for 2 weeks work - $3; taxes on the farm - $3.80. After that I quess I'd better stop.

In this Bicentennial year I sometimes wonder just what we are celebrating. Technically and scientifically we have advanced t greater heights than any civilization, to place a man on the moon. We have made great strides in indrustries and medicine but in other areas our ancestors might be shocked - in our worship of money, the union control of our lives, the low in law and order, and corruption.

I am certain if our ancestors who sacrificed so much to establsh this great nation were to return they would deal rather harshly with our ethics and moral codes which have reached an all time low.

Fortunately there is a very good side - the milliion of unheard from Americans who carry on our ancestors' traditions and standards so America will celebrate her 300th birthday.

NOTE: I hope to have another chapter on New Milford and Jockey Hollow, as one chapter can't cover all the information.

This is a transcription of an article published in the Warwick Valley Dispatch, dated July 21, 1976.

Amity School, c.1910

This is a photo that the Warwick Valley Dispatch published. I failed to write the date down, so I don't know when it was published. It is a newspaper print that was saved to microfilm, so the quality of the image is not good. If someone has this photo, I would like to make a good copy of it. Contact me at thann@comcast.net.

Alias Frank Forester

ALIAS FRANK FORESTER
by Julia Pines-Rosol

Although he was considered "peculiar" by his neighbors because he was a writer and his eccentricities amused some and annoyed many, he still became a notorious figure in America's literary past.

This was William Henry Herbert, Esq., a native Britisher and scholar who wrote under the non de plume "Frank Forester." Considered to be America's first sportswriter, he brought the idea of sport as a widespread leisure activity to the attention of a provincial public for the first time. It was Forester who wrote the hunting, fishing and trapping, of field sports and horses and horsemanship in such a way that a "sporting fever" caught fire in America that has yet to be extinguished.

Frank Forester was among the many noteworthy figures in American history who "discovered" Orange County and used it as an escape from hectic city life. For Forester, the Warwick Valley, with its great hills, rippling brooks and simmering lakes," was his retreat.

It was soon after his arrival in America, in 1831, that he was first introduced to "the beautiful little town of Warwick, New York." The occasion was a Fourth of July celebration with friends, in the country, and so impressed was Forester with the area that for the next 15 years, he made his three-day journey to Warwick several times a year.

On that particular Independance Day, Frank Forester made the acqaintance of Thomas Ward, proprietor of Warwick's Wawayanda House, whom he deemed as "the keenest sportman and most thorough character in the United States."

This was to be the beginning of a long and enduring friendship between the two men and Ward would prove to be one of the few true friends Forester would ever make. So taken was the writer with his new friend that he incorporated his character into the series of books he wrote on the region.

Under the transparent anagram "Tom Draw," Tom Ward became known and loved from Maine to Mexico as a jolly, congenial sportman and countryman. With his circumference some two or three inches greater than his five-and-a-half foot height. Tom was one of the most powerful, yet enduring and fleet-footed men Forester had ever met.

The two made quite a pair, the one short and rotund, the other tall and slender - but in their frequent hunting trips, througout the Warwick woodlands, Forester was often wont to keep up with the innkeeper who, undaunted would dive right through the brush at a smashing pace. Forester and Ward were "fast friends, comrades and boon campanions" and the days Frank Forester spent in Warwick were some of the happiest days of his life.

Perhaps it while quest of the region that Forester first delved into the fast paced world of the American trotting horse, Orange County, and Goshen in particular, had long been known as the "Cradle of the Trotter," producing some of the world's finest trotters. Harness racing history was being made all around the writer

As a regular contributor to such periodicals as AmericanTurf Register and The Spirit of the Times, Frank Forester brought the sport of the American trotter to the attention of the country. Already known as a good road horse, the trotter was brought to the fore by Forester who enjoyed a good harness race. Through his pen, he gave the fledgling sport a mighty shove, bringing out into the open for all the world to see.

By the mid 1830's, trotting was suddenly in the public eye and well on its way to becoming the nation's "first sport," the pride and love of the people - and, all with no small thanks to Frank Forester.

When his Horse of America was published some years before his death, Forester found himself with a runaway best-seller on his hands. Never before had so thorough a compendium of informantion been produced on the horse and on the trotting horse in particular. Covering the entire history of harness racing to 1856 as well as containing copius records of over fifty seasons of racing, the two volume Horse of America quickly became a classic.

Not only was Forester's Horse of America a success, so were nearly all the other nearly two dozen volumes he composed. The Warwick Wooklands, My Shooting Box, and The Deerstalkers, among them, were all popular books in their day and received widespread exposure.

Within 15 years of coming to America, Frank Forester had become one of his adopted country's leading literary figures, and led an affluent life that was the envy of many. Yet, as successful and admired as Forester was, most of his personal life was fraught with misery and despair, for the happy days he spent in Warwick were few and far between. Prone to frequent bouts of mental depression and eccentric behavior, Frank Forester's private life could hardly have been deemed a success.

While his manner could be refined and engaging when he wanted it to be, Forester was generally quick to anger, imperious and overbearing, so much so as to beget fear and, sometimes, hate. Wayward and self-willed, he put many people off and he wasn't well-liked by his neighbors at his home, The Cedars, in Newark, New Jersey. These same neighbors declared him unworthy of both his wives and an unfit campanion for the second.

Forester's moods and attitudes shifted quickly and often. At one moment he was loving and attentive, the next his wife found him suspicious of her fidelity or was accused of mismanaging the household. It was little that neither Sarah Baker, his first wife, whom he married in 1839 (and who died in 1844), nor Adela Birdlong, whom he married in 1858 were very happy with him.

Forester was a man who fell hard in love, and was a man who feverishly tried to possess the one he loved to the very core. When Sarah died of consumption in 1844, Forester was devastated. He sent their young son, William George, to England to live and himself became something of a recluse. When he did venture from Newark on extended trips, he more often than not took Sarah's portrait with him to hang on the wall of his hotel room.

Adela Birdlong was ultimately the cause of her husband's death. Thirty-one years Forester's junior, Adela was a pretty young girl from Rhode Isand who was staying with friends in New York over the New Year when introduced to him. Adela must have had quite an effect on Forester, for soon after meeting her, acquaintances found the writer to have cast off all his years of moodiness and eccentric behavior. These same friends were even more astounded when, early in February 1858, Forester announced he was to be married. The bride - Miss Birdlong, the place - The Episcopal House of Prayer, Newark, and the day - February 16, 1858.

Frank Forester idolized his new wife and was frequently heard to say that he "had some hope for the future." Something happened in those first few weeks of connubial bliss, however, for less than two months after the wedding Adela Forester left her husband and returned to her parents in Rhode Island.

The gossips' tongues were wagging and stories flew about concerning the unexpected denouement, but no one knew for sure why the marriage had collasped.

Forester relasped into one of his old despondent moods, spoke endlessly of "the insufferableness of my life with so many cares resting on me," and vowed to end his existence "before too many days." And, a few weeks after Adela's flight, he undertook preparations for his demise.

He closed his house, sold off most of his possessions, paid his creditors and, taking a few select articles (including the portrait of his first wife) moved into New York City's Steven's Hotel.

To all outward appearances, it seemed Forester had put his past behind him. But this wasn't to be so - he was waiting - suspended in a tenuous existence that threatened to explode from the least porvocation. The stimulus for the explosion came in the form of a letter from Adela to Forester's lawyer requesting a divorce settlement.

For several days, after learning of the letter, Forester became even more despondent, pacing his rooms endlessly, and talking only of killing himself. Phil Anthon, a friend, had been with him, trying to talk him out of his depression, trying to rekindle his interest in life - but it was of no avail.

It was in the midst of his pacing, when Forester stepped into his bedroom for a few seconds, that it happened. The sharp report of a pistol brought Mr. Anthon to his feet. The deed was accomplished. Almost simultaneous with the discharge of the gun came the exclamation, "I told you I'd do it" from the lips of the suicide as he staggered back into the parlor and fell to the floor, dead of a bullet wound to the heart.

(Ed. A separate piece that is contained within the article)
Writer who loved Warwick honored at Hall of Fame

In the center of the village of Warwick there is a plaque honoring the memory of Henry William Herbert. "Frank Forester," the man generally regarded as America's first sport writer. Hundreds of people all over the country contributed money to the erection of this memorial, which dates back to 1920, indicative of the esteem in which he was held by the American sporting public of the mid-19th century. Now, a scant 10 miles from the Warwick memorial, the Hall of Fame of the Trotter in Goshen has mounted a display on the great writer, who authored some of the first definitive books on the American trotting horse. His two volume "The Horse of America," published in 1857 became a best-seller almost overnight and is regarded as a classic to this day.

The Warwick connection stems from the fact that shortly after Frank Forester arrived at these shores from his native England - on July 4, of 1831, to be exact, he first visited Warwick and fell in love with it and the surrounding countryside. It was at this time that he befriended the innkeeper of the Wawayanda Inn, Tom Ward, " the keenest sportsman and most thorough character in the United States." The two became fast friends and hunting companions, and it was Tom, under the thinly disguised name of Tom Draw, who became the central character of several of Forester's most famous books, including the classic "The Warwick Woodlands." Much of Forester's inspiration for his books and articles on hunting, fishing and field sports came from his many visits to Orange County.

This is a transcription of an article from the Warwick Valley Dispatch, dated February 8, 1978.

Opening of the Oakland Theatre

OAKLAND THEATER
Work on Smith's Opera House is Progressing Finely

Contractor A.C. Altman of Goshen is pushing rapidly the construction of the "Oakland Theatre," for Harry P. Smith, which is the first invasion of Oakland avenue by business enterprise in the history of the village. That is will be an ornate structure and a credit to the street and village is the belief of all familiar with the plans and purposes of the owner.

Strenght and safety are the two essentials of its construction. The sidewalls are of hollow tile, cemented together. substantial brick piers, firmly bedded, support the steel eye-beam girders that carrry the weight of the roof. The exterior front will be of stucco, with red brick trim. The exterior side walls will be of stucco. The auditorium will be 45 x 100 feet; with a 25 foot ceiling. In front there will be a lobby, 10 x 20 feet, with two entrances and exits, each six feet wide; additional exits, one on each side, six feet wide, and a separate entrance and exit from the stage in the rear, will make it possible to empty the house in a few seconds.

There will be about 525 individual seats in the main auditorium and the gallery over the lobby and extending across the front corners of the building will seat about 125 more, -all individual chairs. Several windows on each side will afford light and air, the windows being well up from the floor level; and a large ventilator will be put on the roof.

On each side of the front lobby ladies and gentlemen's check and coat rooms will be provided. The state will be 28 feet front and 20 feet deep with commodious and handy dressing rooms on either side, fitted with modern conveniences.

A fire-proof wall will divide the auditorium from the stage. Mr. Smith has yet decided as to the drop curtain. A complete outfit of stock scenery and stage apparatus will be installed. The moving picture machine, which will be placed in the centre of the gallery will be enclosed in a fire-proof booth; everything will be in strict conformity with the fire-safety laws. The indirect lighting system will be employed, which enables late arrivals to find their seats without inconvenience during the progress of the show.

The building of this modern theatre is being watched with great interest by our citizens, and the belief is general that it is one of the events that mark the era of a greater Warwick. An ever increasing population is reasonably certain, according to all the infomation at hand, and the demand for entertainment is on the increase. That the present fad for the "movies" is pretty sure to be a permanent feature of our life is reasonalbly certain. Millions of capital are invested in the production of films, all over the world; the speaking movies are not so far off either.

This transcription comes from the Warwick Valley Dispatch, dated November 26,1913.

Closing of the Oakland Theatre

Mary Davenport played piano for silent films
50-year employee recalls theatre's colorful past
by Betty Jane Wright

With the final darkening this weekend of the Oakland Theatre - a victim of obsolescence, changing viewer habits and the inability of the small main street theatre to compete with the lure and the top film command of the shopping center chains - an era of home town entertainment came to an end. It was a long and colorful one and perhaps no one knew it more intimately than Mrs. Leo Davenport who has been associated with the Oakland for nearly 56 years.

Mary Davenport's first introduction to the fascinating world of "the movies" was as a girl of 16 when she was hired to play piano accompaniment to the silent films of that time. A pupil of Warwick's High Street school, she at first substituted for school teacher Florence Baker, then succeeded Miss Baker full time. This involved walking to the village from the McMunn family home on what is now the Raynor farm sometimes twice a day, and the cooperation of School Principal Cliford L. Haight who allowed her to leave school a few minutes early to get to the mid-week matinees.

"A new picture was shown everyday," Mary reminisced for the DISPATCH this week. Seated at the piano in the orchester pit, she would play marches for the war films, melancholy music for the sad scenes, "hurries" for the horse races. The accompanist was free to use her own imagination except for bit pictures when a cue card was furnished. "Sometimes Tom, Jeff and Clint Wisner and Theron Smith joined me and we had an orchestra," she recalled.

In those days the Oakland had three matinees a week - Wednesday, Thursday and Saturdays, but no shows at all on Sunday. Sunday shows were finally submitted to a public vote and approved, and Mary recalls that one of the most outspoken opponents of Sunday movies was the first one in line at the first Sunday show.

The theatre was in 1914 by Harry Smith and opening night was an invitation affair. Mary clearly remember town dignitaries arriving in evening dresses and capes. The following night the theatre was open to the public. "It was 25cents for mom, 10 cents for me."

Mr. Smith operated the theatre for three years at which time it was purchased by Thomas Wisner, his brother, Clinton Wisner and Burt Berry, father of Mrs. Tusten Van Duzer. Thomas Wisner eventually become the sole owner.

At the deathe of Thomas Wisner, ownership of the busiiness passed to his wife, Mrs. Henrietta Wisner, and then to his brother , Clinton W. Wisner, Charles Finger, who had worked for the theatre since the age of 12 and became its projectionist, first rented, then purchased the business which he operated for 14 years, with Mary as cashier.

On one memorable evening when Tom Wisner was the owner and Harry Welch was the projectionist, fire broke out in the projection booth. The sprinkler went into action and everyone got out safely but the theatre was heavily damaged. It was closed down and reopened with new carpet and new lined drapes hand made by Henrietta Wisner. A new brick front housing the sprinkler pump house and an office was added, along with a marquee, its many light bulbs adding a bit of Broadway to Warwick's Main Street. The DISPATCH at that time congratulated the management on this modern and beautiful theatre and the quality of its sound.

We asked what fillm stars Mary remembered most from her days in the orchestra pit. Westerns were the pop favorites as they are today: William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Buck Jones. And there were wondrous moments with Mary Pickford, Marquerite Clark, Pauline Frederick, Kathleen Williams. Two-reel comedies starring Fatty Arbuckle and Charles Chaplin shown in addition to the regular feature woud sell out the house on Saturday nights.

Harold Corbett brought a chance of pace with his vaudeville shows. At one time, vaudeville acts were staged as a special feature on Friday nights.

On other occasions, the Oakland's stage scintillated wtih DeRue Bros. and Van Arman's Minstrel Shows. The cast and props arrived by train, the special cars sitting on Elm Street siding of the L & H. The show was heralded by a big noontime parade of costumed performers and a full-piece band, "In March or April we could always look forward to a minstrel show."

It is the hope of this writer that some kind of rivival of the Oakland Theatre may take place. But should it vanish from the scene, many of us will long remember the enchanted hours it brought us, and the people like Mary and the Wisner brothers and Charles Finger who worked to bring the community a theatre of which it whould be proud.

This is a transcription of an article from the Warwick Valley Dispatch, dated October 4,1972.

Closing of the Oakland Theatre

These two photos were published in the Warwick Valley Dispatch on October 4, 1972. Transcription of the article follows. Click on photo to enlarge it. Then you can read caption.

Historic Houses: Sanfordville/Amity

These are photos of the (210) J.C. Wilson & Son Stock Farm (1903 Map). Sanfordville Road past the High School, cross County 1, first house on left.