Miscellaneous Items

Drought at Bainbridge; Water Sells at Premium

The Norwich Sun, September 15, 1913

Word comes from Bainbridge [Chenango Co., NY] that that section of the county is experiencing the driest season remembered by the oldest inhabitants.  Water for use by the village people and the many industries is being pumped into the water mains from wells in the creameries and the sugar of milk factories.  The Susquehanna river is so low that boys wade across it just above the iron bridge and sand and gravel islands may be seen looking both ways from the bridge.  The big Bennettsville creek is entirely dry at the point where the river road crosses it.  A pond on the Maria Saxe farm, two miles below the village, which was never known to be dry before has entirely dried up and a person who investigated Friday, found cracks two inches wide and over one foot deep in the bottom of it.  Years ago this pond was a great place for bullheads and many a boy of the neighborhood has caught fine strings of them.  Several farmers get water from the Cold Spring brook.  Manley Coates draws water also for his stock. at Masonville seven miles from here, a charge of 10 cents a can is being made for spring water.  The dry season, the many frosts last spring and the one last Thursday morning have made it a poor season for the farmer and the gardener. 

 

Miss Maria Saxe, who owns the W.R. Kirby farm, has decided to sell the same and move to St. Louis.  This fine farm previous to its ownership by Miss Saxe had been in the Kirby family over 100 years and is one of the best in the Susquehanna valley.  When it came into the possession of the Kirbys the Indians were still here. The elder Kirby used to tell about loaning the Indians in the morning a five gallon copper kettle to boil salt water, the men returning the kettle the same night with some warm salt in it in return for its use; but the white settlers were  not permitted by the Indians to know the location of the salt spring and to this day it is still a mystery where the Indians found the salt water within one day's distance from the Kirby home, though many men in several generations have looked for it in vain.

 

Laconia Survivor Tells of Sinking

New York Times, March 18, 1917

 

Arthur T. Kirby, a lawyer of Bainbridge, N.Y. [Chenango Co.], who arrived yesterday from Liverpool on the White Star liner Lapland, is the first survivor of the Cunarder Laconia to reach this country with details of the torpedoing of the ship without warning off the Irish coast on Sunday, Feb. 25. 

 

"I was in the music room after dinner," he said, "listening to the record of Madame Butterfly on a talking machine when there was a loud last somewhere in the interior of the ship that sounded just like the blasts that all New Yorkers are accustomed to hear along Broadway.  One man who was drinking a cup of coffee put it down on the table and remarked quietly:  'Well, they've got us this time.'

 

"For a moment no one spoke or moved, as we did not think it was a serious matter.  Then some one in the room laughed in mirthless fashion, and we all went to our cabins to get our lifebelts.  After putting on my big coat and belt I went to the top deck, where I found a place in the last lifeboat to leave the Laconia.

 

"Just then the second torpedo struck the ship and she seemed to drop ten feet into the water suddenly, like an elevator falling. As our boat was being lowered away I saw Captain Irvine and the chief officer walk along the desk aft to the place where a boat had just touched the water.  It was too far for them to reach it from the rail, and they both jumped into the sea.  When we were pulling from the side of the sinking liner I saw Captain Irvine swimming toward a boat that was near by, which he finally reached and clambered aboard with the assistance of its occupants.  There was little excitement after the first torpedo struck the Laconia.  The women seemed a bit nervous, but they were calmed by Mrs. Harris, one of the first cabin passengers."

 

Mr. Kirby said he did not feel at all fearful about traveling back to New York on the Lapland, a British ship, after his experience on the Laconia, because he believed the German submarine commander only got her by accident when he came to the surface to send a wireless message to Berlin or Kiel and saw the liner coming along in the misty moonlight.

 

Another passenger on the Lapland was Captain E.A. Kelly, who descended the gangplank on crutches after serving two years with the French Army Flying corps.  Captain Kelly said he intended to train aviators for the United States Army when he recovered his health.  He did not care to give any details of his experience at the French front, but said his injuries were received at the Somme, where he was hit by a shrapnel fragment in the right leg, which shattered the bone so badly that he will carry three silver plates below the knee for the rest of his life.  He has brought back with him a Vicker airplane, the latest type of aerial machine, which he said he would use in training aviators here for the army.

 

Captain Arthur R. Mills, who was taken from the liner St. Paul in Liverpool seven weeks ago suffering from pneumonia, arrived on the Lapland apparently in the best of health, to take command of his ship again. 

 

James A. Hare, the American war photographer, also returned on the Lapland, bringing a number of pictures taken on the western front for Leslie's Weekly. he described a clever surgical operation which he witnessed in a French military hospital, in which a right arm was restored after being torn from the body by a shell.  The surgeon first attached the arm with tapes and then stitched it to the shoulder, Mr. Hare said.  The arm grew to the body again and the soldier recovered its use and went back to the trenches. 

 

The Lapland brought 171 passengers and 2,000 sacks of mail. 

 

Mrs. A.T. Kirby's Bainbridge Home

Berlin Gazette, September 4, 1947

 

The following is of local interest because the owner of the home described, Mrs. Marjorie Banks Kirby, is owner of the Eagle Hotel and was a former resident here [New Berlin, Chenango Co., NY].

 

Bainbridge [Chenango Co., NY]:  The 143-year-old white house at 50 W. Main St., today gives little evidence of the colorful role it played in this village's early history.

 

Yet one of the village's most colorful pioneers, Richard Griswold, made this house his home for nearly  half a century.  Not only was Griswold the area's first dentist, but its jeweler, goldsmith and silversmith.

 

Older residents of this village recall stories their grandparents had told them about Griswold, who always dressed in cutaway coat and stovepipe hat to camouflage his lack of stature.  But his height proved to his advantage insofar as his dentistry was concerned.  The fact that dentistry of the early 19th century was largely confined to extractions insofar as rural areas were concerned explains Griswold's other ventures.

 

The house in which he lived was built in 1804, and at the present time is owned and occupied by Mrs. Arthur T Kirby, who is restoring its colonial atmosphere insofar as possible.  Originally the property was nearer the street than ever.  A prior owner who owned the adjacent property moved the house back in the lot so that its frontage would match that of his own residence.  The structure has a central chimney which services the furnace and three fireplaces. There were spaces each side of the chimney used for bed alcoves.  As originally constructed the house had a porch around two sides of the kitchen and a corner conservatory for flowers.

 

Mrs. Kirby has selected antique furniture which match the period during which the house was constructed  Though not entirely furnished by antiques, the house has much the atmosphere of that period without sacrifice of modern comfort.  A visitor is impressed by the side entry, the plain, but tasteful stairway.  In the living room is a fireplace, and several pieces of antique furniture including a desk and chair and Mrs. Kirby's grandmother's rocker.  The dining room boasts two Haskell and Allen prints, and a 125-year-old cherry sideboard with rare milk-glass handles.