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Our thanks to Jerry Orton for his contribution
Interview with Corliss and Lena Varney of Hudson Falls, N.Y.
Today is August 5, 1979 and I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. and Mrs. Corliss Varney of Hudson Falls today. Mr. Varney is my first cousin once removed. His father, Dallas Varney, was my grandmother's brother. My grandmother was Minnie Varney Orton.
Corliss was the son of Dallas Varney and Jessie Hodges, although she was born an Engle. The Hodge's lived in the large house on the East side of Parkhurst Road after the junction of Parkhurst Road and the Wilton-Cornith Rd. His home was in a 1 1/2 story house located on Woodard Road at the junction of US Route 9. This is the house that was next to the Brookview Dinner. It burned down sometime ago. Gus and Stephanie Rapthus live there now.
Growing up in Wilton he went to school in a one room school house.
He married Lena Osborn at 16 in 1912 in Cornith and lived on the bottom of Sidney King's home. After Sidney died, the store business folded up and his widow moved upstairs. This was later the home of Helen and Walt Duncan next to the Little Snook Kill. It is all gone now.
Corliss worked next door at the general store of C.C. VanRensselaer and Sons. The store had everything one could want. Work pants, nails and food were some of the items. Since there was no refrigeration in those days, perishables were kept in the cellar. Things spoiled a great deal. Bread was delivered via the Hudson Valley Railroad from Glens Falls and left in specially designed boxes outside the store. Bread sold for 5 cents a loaf.
Corliss also worked for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company when the buildings of the tuberculosis sanatorium were being constructed. When the sanatorium was being built he along with a large number of other men would walk up the mountain to start work at 7 AM. Clearing fields was not an easy job. There were misquotes. Cutting brush, trees and clearing stones for the power house was the first job he had. The large trees were cut down for lumber, the roots cut out and dynamited and pulled out with teams of horses and oxen. This type of work paid 17.5 cents an hour for a 10 hour day. His brother, Lewis, received about $3 a day for the use of the oxen team. My father, Wallace Orton, their 1st cousin, was a water boy. There was spring on the mountain near the power house and he would go around and offer drinks to the workmen.
The superintendent of the ground crew was Bill Green, a very difficult man to work for. Bill's son, Ed Green, was the foreman. At the end of the workday, Ed would, say, "Drop your tools Boys." However, you had to clean your tools on your own time and walk back down the mountain road to home or for a drink or two at Ryan's Wilton Hotel.
Half way up the mountain the Italians had a village of their own with a little store and a sawmill in the back of it. Several of the workmen had pregnant wives. The first was a Mr. DeBeneditto. He named his child Margaret McGregor DeBeneditto. In her honor the Italian flag was waved from the top of the smokestack at the powerhouse. At one time this was the tallest 8 or 10 sided smokestack in the world.
At the foot of the mountain road on the left there was a water supply for steam rollers. This can be seen in photographs of the time period.
Lena was an agent for the Trolley Company. This was a good jog for her since she could stay at home which was about a two minute walk from the trolley stop. People would buy tickets or pay for freight at her house and a company representative would call at intervals to check her bookkeeping.
Since Cork's mother was a Hodge, I asked him how the Hodge's were related. Edwin Hodge was Miles Hodges' father and Cub Hodges was Mile's son. Cub was killed in an automobile accident back in the late 19 teen's. A few local boys were hurt in the accident.
He mentioned Abraham Van Rensselaer. He was a big heavy set man with chin whiskers. Lena said that one time Abraham gave her some kittens and she put them in her apron and took them home and she returned them even sooner!
The power house for the trolley train was a good place to keep warm, especially in winter. There were a few protective measures and once a man by the name of Bryman was electrocuted.
During this time the Epithet League was formed. It was a temperance organization. John Ross while he was member gave up alcohol.
There were two blacksmiths in town at that time, John Richards and John Ross. The shops faced each other on the bank of the Little Snook Kill.
John Tracy Ross was a heavy set man with strong arms, no doubt from the hard work of his profession. He worked over a fire of coke, not coal. The metal was red hot and put on an anvil with pinchers and the metal was put in water and one could hear it sizzle. He wore a black canvas apron when working. Shoeing a horse is a rare job today unless you go to Saratoga during racing season. The nails were put through the side and not straight through the hoof as not to harm the horse. He could remember hearing the water sizzle and the smell of flesh as new shoes were put on the horses.
This is the last time I met these two cousins of mine. Now, in 2001, they lie beside each other in the John Ellsworth Cemetery in hamlet of Gurn Springs, Town of Wilton.
Ruth is Ken Petteys' sister and was born before women achieved the right to vote.
One of the first things that she recalls is walking to the post office across from Ryan's Hotel (Stage Coach Inn) with her sisters Marcy and Virginia. Later her brother Ken and wife, Carrie, would have an apartment over the store where the post office was locate. This was the former C.C. Van Rensselaer store. It just a vacant lot at the junction of the Wilton-Gansevoort Rd. and Northern Pines Road in 2001.
Walking to the little red schoolhouse (Gurn Springs) near the cemetery. The school was a few hundred yards up Gordon Lane from where the Stewart's Shop is now located. It was a great treat when her father took them in the wagon. They had great memories of that wagon. Not everyone could afford one. She remembers when he father got his first and only car. Not long after that there was a day when a chicken ran in front of the car and rather than kill the chicken he hit the barn. Her mother asked him why and he said he did not want chicken dinner! Her father, Frank, was very fond of chickens and sold their eggs.
"We use to go to listen to Gene Autry all the time. He had a cabin near Saratoga Lake and we spent many times listening to him there."
"I remember 'hornings'..we go to a newlywed couple's house and blow horns and shoot shotguns and clang pans and do practical jokes. My mother usually brought cookies. They did it to Bill Loveland and me. Hornings were great fun."
"Pa and Ma delivered hay to Fred and Liv Brower. One day Pa delivered hay and Fred was telling Pa how they were upset they were to lose their house because their land was wanted for a road. It was the beginning of a lot of changes for Wilton."
"I remember when Gurn Springs store burned, the Ellsworth's owned it."
"Suye Narita showed us Grant's Cottage many, many times."
"Mt. McGregor had an infirmary, laundry, post office and etc. It was the first major source for the economy besides farming. Lot people thought farming was too hard. They had 3 big lakes on Mt. McGregor, rectory, infirmary and boiler room. Pa would get ice from them and cut them into squares and deliver them to the doctors. People did all kinds of jobs in those day.
"The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company owned the land adjacent to my father's farm. They approached him many times about selling it but he never would."
"They say Uncle Ira and Aunt Hattie (Pa's sister..Hadley) house was haunted. My brother Ken got a job at Corinth paper mill and bordered with them. They all went out and left Ken alone. He kept hearing "clunk, cluck, clunk", upstairs but no one would answer. Next day he quit his job and moved home. Ira asked why and he explained. Ira said they were use to it...he thought it was the ghost of someone rumored to be murdered in the house and buried in the basement!
"My first job was with the phone company in Saratoga. I worked at the "route table", providing distances between cities, collecting tickets and, etc."
"Churning butter was my favorite chore. Eventually we got a Delco washer. New York Power and Light wanted to put poles on their land and most farmers wouldn't let them. My Pa did, though, and how we got the washer. It was MUCH better than doing laundry by hand".
Ruth remembers the Traver family but not specifically Billy Goat Traver.
Ruth remembers the Lovemoney family as her brother Dallas (Stub) bought their house. The original house burned but Bernie Doescher lives in a little house on Northern Pines Road on the East side just before ACE Hardware's driveway there the house stood.
"Frank Miller was my step-mother's first husband. He was a very nice many who died. I do not remember from what. They had one son who could not walk so he was carried everywhere. Most people could not afford braces and all that." This is where John DeRidder lives.
"My father, Frank Petteys, thrashed Emerson's oats because Mr. Emerson had severe arthritis and was in bed upstairs all the time. He was a very smart man who helped us with our homework. He showed us his bed which General Lafayette slept in. They had three children, Helen, Lyndes and Guy. Guy known as Lawton, became a physician. Helen died real young."
"Dallas Varney was my grandfather and my grandmother was Jessica (Hodges). They had 7 children, 4 boys and 3 girls."
"The Greens lived down the hill across from Charlies Van Rensselaer's store. After a while he got selling beer and soft drinks, sarsaparilla was my favorite." The Irish's live in the house now in 2001.
"We went to school in Gurn Springs, near the cemetery. Then the Wilton school not far from Ryan's Hotel, next to the fire company. We walked except for when Dad would give us a ride on the wagon in winter days. We walked past the swimming hole. One day Ruth Osgood and Sarah Reeves walked out onto the board over the water and broke it. They could not swim so I jumped in and held Sarah's head above water until the other kids helped pull them out. Mr. Reeves was so grateful he called on the house to thank me over and over."
"I worked at Hill Crest, it was a tourist house. The Sprott family owned it. I waited on tables first but then I took care of Mrs. Sprott when she broke he ankle." The Sprotts are buried in the John Ellsworth Cemetery.
"The trolley went to Hudson Falls down through Wilton to Saratoga Springs. When he were kids it was the GREATEST to ride the trolley.
"I went up to Mt. McGregor lot and lot of times, especially to the movies. Plus most of the Petteys worked up there at one time or another. They had silent movies in Saratoga Springs and Congress Theater. Then they had talkies at Mt.McGegor.
"My mother's youngest brother Maynard Varney was everyone's favorite. We called him Bing. He was Bill Loveland's, (my husband), good friend. They say Bing was the first man drafted from Wilton for WW II and the first killed in Europe. he was driving a tank.
A special thanks is given to Donna Spawn for interviewing her mother.
Or E-Mail me directly, if there's any problems with the form.
