Cherry Valley Gazette, Cherry Valley, NY, January 1, 1822
Elopement
Whereas my wife Susanna [Wood] has eloped from my bed and board, this is to forbid all persons harboring or trusting her on my account, as I will pay no debt of her contracting after this date. Thomas B. Wood, Cherry Valley [Otsego Co. NY] Dec. 17, 1821
Cherry Valley Gazette, Cherry Valley, NY, January 8, 1822
Marriage
In Richfield [Otsego Co. NY] by the Rev'd D. Putnam, Mr. James Hyde Jun. merchant to Miss Frances Beardsley daughter of O. Beardsley, Esq.
Death
In this town [Cherry Valley, Otsego Co. NY] on Saturday last, Mr. Hugh Mitchell aged one hundred and one years and nine months.
The deceased was a native of Carrickfergus in Ireland and emigrated to this country about the year 1764 with the little Irish colony who came out with the Rev. Mr. Dunlap, who were the first settlers of this town. At the time of the Indian massacre in this place in Nov. 1778, Mr. Mitchell was compelled to witness a scene the recital of which excites all our sympathies. A party of savages burst into his house and in a most barbarous and shocking manner murdered his wife and four children and after setting fire to the house, carried off his then only remaining child* into captivity. He himself only escaped death or captivity by running up a ravine near his house, in which the bushes were so thick that he was enabled to elude his pursuers.
After the enemy withdrew from the place, he was compelled alone to put the bodies of his wife and children upon a sled and to draw them a mile to the fort for interment.
The next year, while here to see to his property, he was walking through the woods unarmed, an Indian with a drawn knife chased him a great distance, but he was enabled by his swift running to escape from him.
He endured all these afflictions with Christian fortitude and has through life preserved a fair and unblemished reputation.
He had long been a professor of the Christian religion and gave good evidence by his purity of life that his profession was sincere. As long as his health would permit him, he was always found on the sabbath in the house of God. He now sleeps with his fathers and let us all be in readiness to follow him.
*This child was recovered from captivity and survives him, as does his second wife and several children of the second marriage.
Cherry Valley Gazette, Cherry Valley, NY, January 15, 1822
Marriage
In this town [Cherry Valley, Otsego Co. NY], on Sunday evening 29th ult. by the rev. Mr. Putnam, Capt. Pacifer G. Dutcher to Miss Johannah Frink daughter of Mr Stephen Frink.
When friends like these unite to mingle cares, / May wealth and love and prosperous days be theirs.
Deaths
In this town [Cherry Valley, Otsego Co. NY] on Saturday last, Mr. James Farqueharson, Jun. aged 29 years.
At Greenwich, Washington County [NY] on the twenty-second of December last, Mr. David Sprague, who had nearly completed his ninetieth year. He was the father of twenty-one children, 10 by a first and 11 by a second wife - 8 sons and 13 daughters; all of whom married and were all, at one time, the living heads of 21 families. In September last, 420 of his descendants were enumerated. When alive, his families showed five generations on the earth at the same time. Mr. Sprague had never used spirits and very little tea or coffee and was always a great enemy to tobacco. His death was sudden - when at dinner and apparently about half through, he rose quickly from the table and soon settled into a chair, when placing his hands and feet in an easy posture, he instantly, without a struggle, ceased to breathe. In early life, Mr. S. embraced the Baptist persuasion and adhered to the same through life. He was a native of Rhode Island.
Cherry Valley Gazette, Cherry Valley, NY, January 22, 1822
Deaths
In this village [Cherry Valley, Otsego Co. NY] on Thursday last, Harriet Newell Truair daughter of the Rev. John Truair, aged 6 years 4 months and seventeen days.
Same day, Caroline [Goss] daughter of Mr. William Goss, aged 15 months.
"Yes, thou stern death! art, after all, the best / And truest teacher, an unflattering one, / And yet we shun thee like some baneful pest / In youth we fancy life is but begun.
Then active middle age comes hurrying on, / And leaves us less of leisure; and, alas! / Even in age, when slowly, surely run / The few last sands which linger in the glass, / We mourn how few remain, how rapidly they pass."
Cherry Valley Gazette, Cherry Valley, NY, January 29, 1822
Death
The following lines were occasioned by the death of Harriet Newell Truair daughter of the Rev. John Truair of Cherry Valley [Otsego Co. NY] who died the 17th inst. aged 6 years and 4 months and 17 days.
The writer persuades himself that there are but very few pious minds who will doubt the salvation of children who die at the age of the deceased, and in addition to these impressions, his own mind was farther satisfied by his frequent visits to the deceased (in the absence of her father at New York) during her protracted sickness, who in answer to his frequent enquiries whether she did not wish to recover her health and remain with her parents, invariably replied "No I am not afraid of the grave" - 'I wish to go to heaven." Who will you see Harriet when you get to heaven? "I shall see Angels" - and sometimes replied, "I shall be an Angel."
The stoical Christian will probably complain that the writer of these few lines has indulged his imagination improperly - while the tender and ingenious Christian will regret, because he has not taken a much more rapid and expanded flight.
Come gentle muse with golden Lyre, / (An Angel's bliss who lov'st to sing,) / Tune thy soft harp - brace all its cords; / And gently touch each melting string.
"Sing how dear Harriet fled from earth, / And upward borne on Cherub's wings; / The pearly gates of Heaven has pass'd / With Angels - She an Angel sings.
But stop my muse - suspend thy lyre; / My Harriet sweeter notes can bring; / Her harp by Angel's hands was made; / She softly strikes each golden string.
I heard her notes, and sweet they were; / To me how sweet an Angel's voice! / I heard her play, and chant, and sing, / And in her heavenly themes rejoice.
But list her voice! to earth it comes; / (Angelic accents softly fall) / Weep not for me my parents dear, / My Christian friends, my kindred all.
Weep not that I your world have left, / Your pond'rous earth - your isles, your sea; / If loss to you my early 'scape, / Your early loss, is gain to me.
Your tender hands have gently laid, / Your much lov'd Harriet's mortal dust, / within the gaping tomb - to wait / The resurrection of the just.
There let it lay and softly sleep. / (The sleep of death, how short 'twill be) / Till Gabriel's mighty Trump shall sound, / Give up your dead - ye earth - ye sea.
In Regions of eternal bliss, / Then shall I shine, than stars more bright; / Fill'd with immortal joys within, / Clad with immortal robes of light.
But list ye what my present state, / While here I wait that glorious day, / No Angel's tongue my joys can tell, / No Cherub's voice my bliss can lay.
But let my voice once more be heard, / From heaven it sounds - obey its call; / Stay not on earth my Parents dear, / My Christian friends - My kindred all.
My hand is waiting yours to touch, / (How soft that touch will seem to me;) / It's stretch'd to meet you as you come, / And Angels too - you, then shall be.
Those flow'ry meads we hear will read, / Breathe their perfumes and drink their dew; / And prostrate round the throne of God, / Our hallelujahs here renew.
Our hallelujahs here renew, / While twice ten thousand ages die. / Around the starry throne of God, / We still will hallelujah sing."
The nature of the existence of separate spirits in the heavenly world, waiting for the resurrection of the body, will ever remain an impenetrable secret of Christians while they continue in this world. our Harriet, though now herself a separate spirit in the heavenly world, declines to give any farther elucidation, than is contained in these two lines above.
"No Angel's tongue my joys can tell / No Cherub's voice my bliss can lay."
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At Canajoharie in the county of Montgomery [NY] on the 15th inst. Nathaniel Conkling, Esq aged 26.
He has left a legacy, rich in its inheritance, and pious in its example - a spotless and enviable reputation that impress which gives this human dross its currency, without which birth has no distinction, station no dignity, age no reverence, nor life a charm.
In the legal profession, which he had but recently completed, his endowments had already afforded an earnest of eminence and usefulness the goal of his ardent aspirations, and amid the rank and genius of his colleagues, a junior in years, he was a senior to many in intellect and promise. But disease came, its ravages paralyzed all surgical skill and by an all-wise decree, the voyage of this life without any earthly haven in prospect, was closed in harmonious response to the strain of holy resignation.
"Tis but the voice that Jesus sends."
Man is but a pledge in the hand of destiny! The lien is precarious! Neither talents, nor virtue, nor youth, can prolong the redemption of life! God who overlooks not the sleeping tenant of the grave and from whose omniscient eye its sod can never obliterate the remembrance of man, claims the breath of existence as his gift.
Long will the sigh of sorrow be wafted to the place of his sepulcher, and that of anguish bow at his youthful fate. But to his reflect, relatives and friends there gleams a ray of consolatory light. There is a solace in solitude. He died with the Christian's composure and commended his immortal spirit to the care of that great Being, who reigns where other stars glitter on the mantle of night and a more effulgent sun, lights up the blushes of the morning.
"Sic transit youth's aspiring sigh / that fondly dwells on days to come; / Soon the vain wish that sears on high, / Is hush'd to silence in the tomb."
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