The Chenango and Unadilla Valleys Fifty Years Ago
by S.S. Randall
Chenango Telegraph, Norwich, NY, April 17, 1872
During the occupancy of the old "Yellow House," by Capt. James Perkins, as a Hotel--more that fifty years since--I can distinctly recall a scene which made a vivid impression upon my young mind. It was that of a poor crazed girl--Fanny Widger by name--and a resident of Preston or McDonough, who was on her way, under the charge of her friends to some insane hospital. While at the hotel she had contrived to escape from her keepers, and had fled to the large garden north of the house, for the evident purpose of concealment. The alarm having been given, she was, after some time, discovered among the bushes and trees, with her long, fair hair dishelved and flying wildly chanting disconnected scraps of poetry and fragments of love songs:
"They bid me sleep - they bid me pray -
They say my brain is warped and wrung;
I cannot sleep - I cannot pray"
"Twas thus my hair they bade me braid
They made me to the church repair
It was my bridal morn they said,
And my true love would meet me there"
Her frantic screams, as she was borne back to her room, were agonizing in the extreme. Poor, broken-hearted Fanny Wigner. The image of your, fair, tearful face, dishelved tresses and torn apparel, and the mournful music of that love lorn ditty, have remained in my memory for more than half a century.
There are some of my readers who will also recall the early fading--in that same building--of that beautiful flower of the valley, Pauline Holcomb, whose premature decay, remarkable loveliness, and intellectual promises, deeply interested and affected the little community. My friend Clapp has reminded me of the beautiful wreath of elegiac poetry cast upon her early grave, by Noah Hubbard, the concluding lines of which were the following:
"Fair maidens, cull the sweetest flowers
Simplicity and taste can twine,
To deck as if for fairy bowers,
The lonely grave of poor Pauline."
The poem was conceived in the highest strain of poetical beauty--worthy of the brilliant genius of its erratic and hapless author, in his most inspired mood. To use his own magnificent simile--
"So when the Spirit's evil thrall
Unhinged and fexed the soul of Saul,
The powerful harp of Jesse's son
Bade the tormenting fiend begone."
The mantle of the poet descended in after days, upon his nephew, Harvey Howard, who in his "Forest" wanderings, discourses "most musical, most melancholy"--
"We are all night wanderers, and we grope
Our way by toppling ruins and by walls
Frowning through ivy, searching for the paths
Our fathers trod, obscured by mouldering stones
And weeds, rank with the dust of ages old
For we with all our vanity of soul
Built on the wisdom of the past, and halt
When the dim light goes out, till from afar
Some soul great with new thoughts and holy fire
Doth rise and beckon us on!"
"That strain I heard, was of a higher Mood!" Alas it has forever ceased to warble its sweet music in "these low grounds of flesh and sense!"
Perhaps no event of this period threw a deeper pall of mourning upon the community than the early death of Peter B. Guernsey, Jr....He was a young man in the prime of life--universally beloved, admired and respected for his talents, ripe scholarhood, and genial social qualities. he had only recently returned from an extensive tour in Europe, with a mind stored with all the legendary lore of that old world, and united himself to a lovely and amiable wife--Miss Bellamy, of Catskill--now, if living, the widow of Dr. Henry Mitchell. Public expectation had concentrated itself, as never before, upon the prospect of his future usefulness and eminence--when the fell destroyer suddenly struck him down in our midst! "Whom the gods love, die young."
"The good die first
And they whose souls are dry as summer's dust,
Burn in the socket"
Another sad incident of these early days presents itself to recollection, the melancholy suicide of the boy John Johnson, a younger son of Dr. Jonathan Johnson. He was an intimate friend and associate of my own, and I loved him as a brother. His physical constitution was very delicate and his nature exceedingly susceptible. Some family trouble, or other real or fancied grievance, possessed upon his mind--the atmosphere in which he lived had grown oppressive to his diseased sensibility and one night, feeling himself unable longer to endure "the weary weight of all this unintelligible world," he swallowed a few grains of opium, and closed his eyes forever upon the things of time and sense. poor boy! He was all unfitted for the wear and tear of earth and I fear his heart was broken!
In a little hut, formerly used as a carpenter's shop, in the outskirts of the village, solitary and alone, at a later period in those days, lived a good old man,...He had seen better days, the history of which, well-known to the older inhabitants, need not now be alluded to here. But he was an old man, three-score and ten and upwards; and he was universally reputed--so far as my knowledge extends--as a good man, a good citizen, worthy and upright in all the relations of life. It seemed hard to see him--as I have often in my boyhood done--in his solitary and cheerless room, with his coffin, and grave-stone, and shroud, all prepared, and in readiness for his final summons; and to witness his weary and painful labors to extract from the stumps and decayed fences in the neighborhood, the scanty material for fuel. I desire to cast no reflections upon anyone, knowing nothing whatever of the circumstances which induced this melancholy state of things, or whether it was voluntary or involuntary on his part. He uttered no complaints and could rarely be induced to converse upon any subject. I state only facts which came under my own observation, and were open and patent to all. Whether his days were finally left to be closed in this his solitary seclusion, or whether he was transferred to the Alms House in Preston, I cannot now be certain, my impression, however, inclines strongly to the latter alternative. There must have been some grievous fault somewhere I judge not. Fifty years have left their verdure over his solitary grave, wherever it may be located, and all his contemporaries who were familiar with his history have, with few exceptions, long since disappeared. Only the lone old man, leaning on his cane, sitting in his scantily furnished room, with its grim accompaniments around him, and his well worn Bible on his lap, or laboriously gathering fuel in the streets, remains as a memorable fact in the annals of the past.
In a little hut, formerly used as a carpenter's shop, in the outskirts of the village, solitary and alone, at a later period in those days, lived a good old man,...He had seen better days, the history of which, well-known to the older inhabitants, need not now be alluded to here. But he was an old man, three-score and ten and upwards; and he was universally reputed--so far as my knowledge extends--as a good man, a good citizen, worthy and upright in all the relations of life. It seemed hard to see him--as I have often in my boyhood done--in his solitary and cheerless room, with his coffin, and grave-stone, and shroud, all prepared, and in readiness for his final summons; and to witness his weary and painful labors to extract from the stumps and decayed fences in the neighborhood, the scanty material for fuel. I desire to cast no reflections upon anyone, knowing nothing whatever of the circumstances which induced this melancholy state of things, or whether it was voluntary or involuntary on his part. He uttered no complaints and could rarely be induced to converse upon any subject. I state only facts which came under my own observation, and were open and patent to all. Whether his days were finally left to be closed in this his solitary seclusion, or whether he was transferred to the Alms House in Preston, I cannot now be certain, my impression, however, inclines strongly to the latter alternative. There must have been some grievous fault somewhere I judge not. Fifty years have left their verdure over his solitary grave, wherever it may be located, and all his contemporaries who were familiar with his history have, with few exceptions, long since disappeared. Only the lone old man, leaning on his cane, sitting in his scantily furnished room, with its grim accompaniments around him, and his well worn Bible on his lap, or laboriously gathering fuel in the streets, remains as a memorable fact in the annals of the past.
To be continued
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