Vital Records, Otsego County, NY (1880)

 Freeman's Journal, Cooperstown, NY, January 1, 1880

Marriages

At the residence of the bride's parents, Cooperstown [Otsego Co. NY] the 24th by Rev. F.J. Parry, Walter C. Lloyd to Miss Belle Ve Dere Bice

At the M.E. Parsonage, Fly Creek [Otsego Co. NY] Dec. 24 by Rev. H.G. Harned, F.W. Johnson and Kate A. Lewis, both of the town of Otsego, N.Y. [Otsego Co.]

Death

Says a Unadilla [Otsego Co. NY] letter: "Mrs. Thomas Noble, one of Unadilla's oldest citizens, died at the residence of Postmaster E.M. Packard Friday, Dec. 26th.  Mrs. Noble was a daughter of Judge Beach, one of the first settlers here, and has spent her whole life, nearly eighty-three years, in Unadilla. She has two sons now living in California and one, Capt. Henry B. noble, of the U.S. Army, who is a resident of New York City."

Freeman's Journal, Cooperstown, NY, January 8, 1880

Marriage

At the residence of Mr. W.H. Lynes in Middlefield [Otsego Co. NY], Dec. 31, by Rev. D.C. Olmstead, George R. Sampson of Starrucca, Pa. to Miss Fannie I. Cook of Brandt, Susquehanna Co. Pa.

Deaths

At Toddsville [Otsego Co. NY] Jan. 1st, '80, Eva A. [Collier] daughter of Melvin and Jane A. Collier, aged 4 years.

The dreaded scourge diphtheria has at length made its appearance in this place [Toddville], seizing for its early victims the two bright children of Melvin A. Collier, aged respectively 10 and 4 years.  Irwin was an intelligent, active and winsome little fellow and will be very much missed. Death ensued after an illness of only four days.  Little Eva, who was then in rosy bloom, was stricken with the dread disease and in a week's time the angel of death came and beckoned her over the river to join Irvin in the spirit land. The afflicted parents have the sympathy of the w hole community in their great sorrow.

In Plymouth, Mich. Dec. 1st, Lucy A. [Eddy] wife of Otis Eddy, formerly of Richfield [Otsego Co. NY] in the 62d year of her age.

In Springfield [Otsego Co. NY] Dec. 21, 1879, Calvin P. Smith aged 76 years.  

News Item

Forty Years Ago -the Way Things Were Done in 1840 or There Abouts

"Yes," said the man who wasn't afraid of telling his age, "You young fellows of 35 don't really know how old we of 45 are.  You can't realize the changes that have come over this land in so short a time.  Look at our railroad system, even that in our neighborhoods.  

Forty-one years ago, I traveled with my father up the whole north side of Long Island from Greenport in a carriage.  The mail was three days getting to New York.  A single railroad track extended from Jamica into Brooklyn.  We crossed from Brooklyn to New York in a horse ferryboat.  They were playing 'King John' in the old Park Theatre.  Fanny Ellsler was the star of the ballet, and one-horse cabs, with a step and door behind, plied on Broadway.  the Astor House was in its glory, and I saw the unfinished walls of Trinity Church.  

My father took a paper called the Express and the Journal of Commerce, out of which I vainly sought for something to interest a four-year-old boy.  I can recollect but one sentence in either of those papers. It read at intervals in very big letters, 'Arrival of the Great Western from Europe,' and it seemed to me as if no ocean steamer, save the Great Western, crossed the Atlantic for years and years. Beside these headlines, they used on each arrival to get out a woodcut of the vessel.  A man who had been to Europe in those days was somebody.  Noted ministers used to go, and they always on returning wrote books of their travels.  It would be a good plan to compile a ministerial library of travel in Europe and Asia.

 A man with beard and mustache then was at once a curiosity and monstrosity.  I well recollect hearing one of our village magnates gravely advising a young New York doctor to shave off these appendages.  They were clean shavers in those days, and almost everybody shaved themselves.  The razor case and strop formed part of every man's traveling equipment.  

Illinois was the farthest Western State. 

Letter postage was 10 cents.

The Knickerbocker was the sterling magazine of the time.

Sam Slick's and Maj. Jack Downing's letters the only very funny reading.

Gentleman wore swallow-tailed coats at all hours. 

Tomatoes were called 'love apples' and suspected of being poisonous.

All temperance people were known as Washingtonians.

Circuses traveled with very small negro minstrel bands who sang 'Jump, Jim Crow.' 

Fiddles made a row among the older people when introduced in the country church choirs

The Methodists wouldn't tolerate a cross in evergreens on Christmas, or anything else, or at any other time. 

Everybody chewed and spit and built their houses with Grecian porticos.

Photographs were daguerreotypes and would rub off the plates.

Whale oil was the only lighting fluid.

All shirt collars stood up.

Doctors bled and gave calomel for almost everything.

Lung fever hadn't turned into pneumonia.

Everybody had a barrel of rum or hard cider in the cellar.

Nobody had put a -?- appendage on our first parents.

All schoolmasters came from Connecticut and licked with a cowhide

Girls hadn't learned to skate.

A man worth a million was rich.

The Democrats were called 'loco-focus,' and so were the matches.

The Presbyterians preached down the Methodists and Episcopalians.

The country papers abounded in advertisements of runaway apprentice boys bound out to serve until of age, represented pictorially by a young man seeking tracks, with his bundle slung on a stick over his shoulder.  

Good butter was only a shilling a pound, good cigars 3 cents apiece.  

Rum was the favorite drink, the best of liqueur 6 cents a glass.  

Infant damnation, predestination and election were the favorite pulpit topics.

Eclipse the fastest horse in America

Bunker Hill monument a big thing just done.

Nobody lectured.

Round dances hadn't come over,

Lager-beer was unknown.

General training was held yearly.

The muskets had flint locks.

Every householder was required by law to keep two leather buckets in case of fire.

Ladies wore bustles.

Gentleman strapped their pantaloons under their boots.

Trousers were cut with horizontal instead of perpendicular flaps in front.

Henry Clay and Daniel Webster were the greatest men in the United States.  

I tell you those were times now."