Miscellaneous, Legends of Our Valley - Part 5

Legends of Our Valley - Part 5

White Store

Chenango Union, April 3, 1884

 

It is uncertain what gave the name of White Store to the little hamlet founded so many years ago, but from the fact that the church, standing like a guard over Evergreen Cemetery, is also called White Meeting House, it is probable that the color of the paint gave it its name.  It is guiltless of that now, but the old landmark remains.  It is said that the first cemetery was commenced at a little hamlet below, Latham's station--formerly Latham's Corners--and that those first interred were removed to Evergreen Cemetery. The first school house was also at Latham's. 

 

Among the old landmarks remaining in this section, are the Curtis--now Case--farm house at White Store, and the T. Richmond house at Latham's.  These ancient houses have been kept in repair and modernized, till it seems strange to think that they were built when Chicago was only an Indian trading post, and Minneapolis had never been dreamed of.

 

Another of the ancient landmarks, wearing a modern dress, is Union church, which was raised in 1819, and the frame of which remains as perfect as when it was raised.  We have in our possession an ancient book of coarse paper and pasteboard cover, the original subscription book for this church.  It contains such names as Sullivan Reynolds, Paris Winsor, Arthur Green, Richmond, Gunn, Cornwell, Orcutt, Cleveland, Volentson, Hayes, Smith, Eastwood, Hyre, Westcott, Secor, Robinson, Bowen, Chamberlain, Cady, Calkins, Colburn, Fox, Beckwith--written in a large round hand now obsolete, and long ago recorded on the marble headstones in the cemetery.  Among the memories of childhood were the large quarterly meetings, when people would come twenty and thirty miles in large loads, and at the close of the Saturday afternoon service be assigned to the homes of those who volunteered to entertain them.  "I can take as many as there are boards in my kitchen floor," was John Eastwood's hospitable offer.  On one occasion it is said his generous offer was accepted almost literally.  It was all comfortable, only there was not pasturage for so many horses.  Mr. E. had a fine field of winter wheat into which he turned the horses, and he often declared that "never a field of wheat yielded like that one the following summer."  "Every stalk bore two heads of grain," he used to affirm, and evidently believed.

 

A little below this church, on the east side of the river, about this time, almost a tragedy occurred, of which one person preserved a lively memory to the time of his death.  Mr. M. was walking leisurely along near the bank of the river, when he became aware that a bear was following him.  "What should he do? Climb a tree?"  Bruin could do that as well as he, and he was too near to risk the experiment.  A slender sapling barely sufficient to bear his weight was before him, and up this he climbed just in time, for a minute later the bear sat at its foot, eyeing him hungrily.  He barely had time to congratulate himself on his escape, when, alas!  the sampling bending beneath his weight, brought him so low that the bear reaching up struck his feet with her cruel claws.  This set him swinging, and every time he came hear, the bear would clutch his feet, till his shoes were torn off, and the flesh and tendons of his feet were mangled.  In his agony he cried so loud that help came to his relief, and he was rescued from his perilous position.