Civil War Times in Chenango County, NY

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(Article written July 1912)

It is now 51 years since the Civil War broke out and hundreds of volunteers left this section for the South, and not a few finding a last resting place far from their northern homes.

Many women bore up bravely through those strenuous days, whose hearts throbbed lovingly for the volunteers, among whom perchance were a father or a husband, a brother or a lover. Anxious hours and sleepless nights were their portion; always alert for a bit of news from the front, or a letter from the boy in blue in camp under southern skies.

Daily papers were not as numerous as now and the old four-horse stage coach lumbered slowly over the road with its passengers and the mail.  The Utica Morning Herald was the nearest daily and the only paper that reached Oxford [Chenango Co., NY] on the day of publication.  This was made possible by "Joe" Weeks and his pony express. The stage from Utica came to Norwich late in the afternoon where it remained over night and resumed the trip to Binghamton the next morning.  Weeks, who for years had been a typographer, was then deputy postmaster under Jas. W. Glover, and had a newsstand in the postoffice, then located in the store now [1912] occupied by Willard E. Cronk. As everyone was eager for the news from the seat of war, Weeks put on the pony express to Norwich and brought the Herald here early in the evening. Ellis H. Roberts was then editor and proprietor of the Morning Herald, who later was elected to the Assembly, and became a member of Congress and treasurer of the United States. The Herald had a large circulation down the valley and a large bundle came to Oxford. About the time the pony express was expected men would gather in the vicinity of the postoffice anxious to get their paper.  Hurrying home they would read by the aid of a candle dip to members of the family and a neighbor or two the "latest news from the seat of war."  The Herald was ably edited and reliable and had a host of readers throughout Central New York who swore by its editorials.  It was a powerful factor in journalism in those days.  In later years it was changed to an evening edition and still has a circulation in town.

The story is told of Weeks that one day a lady asked him how she could send her husband, who was with the 10th, N.Y. Calvary in the South, a half pound of tea. Weeks said:  "The best way is to send it in a newspaper, but if I should find it out, it couldn't pass through the mail."  The tea reached camp all right but the soldiers were so anxious to read the home paper that they were not particular whose mail they got and the husband lost his half pound of Hyson.

When Weeks reads this at Hyde Park, mass., it will recall Oxford in the days of the Civil war and the stirring times in our now peaceful village.