The Vandermarks (Frank Salisbury farm) grew mint on the Outlet flats, had their still nearby and sold the oil to Hotchkiss. The late Mr. Salisbury sold the still for old iron in 1960; it had stood uncovered for many years on its brick foundation in a field northeast of the house.
 

The picture I have of the Lyman Parrish still (Isaac Roy farm, Maryland St.) looks like any barn. Mrs. Edgar Westfall (Lettie Parrish) has told me of its autumn activ­ities. To begin at the beginning-in April workmen set out peppermint roots in close rows; sometimes they walked barefoot while planting, holding the roots between their toes to lessen bending. In September, when the plants blossomed pink, harvest began. The crop was cut with scythes (later, mowing machines), allowed to wilt and then drawn dry to the still where it was packed by trampling into wooden tubs six to eight feet around, ten to twelve feet deep. The hay was tightly covered and steam applied. The boiler was like that of an old-time threshing engine or a large furnace with a network of pipes leading to and from the tubs. When the crop was large, men would work all night firing the boiler to keep up its steam. Earliest fuel was wood, later hard stove coal. The steam passing up through the hay-filled vats carried the oil with it into the worm (spiral condensing tube of a still). The liquid then ran down through the worm into tubs of cold water from which the oil was skimmed.
 

The mint straw was drawn back to the barns to spread on the land and plow under, as a rule. Lettie Parrish and her sisters, as children, used to ride on the haywagons to the still, play till the mint was processed, then ride home on loads of straw so hot they could scarcely sit still. Their father, Lyman Parrish, used to board in his barns a dozen Erie Canal mules during winters, driving them from Lyons. Sometimes the mint straw was used for their bedding but proved a little too coarse and stiff even for mules. Perhaps its pungent, medicinal odor may have been slightly soothing to the animals after their sore summers on the towpath. Oil of peppermint was much in demand as a headache cure
before aspirin. 

Benjamin Burnett, Thomas Vandervort, Charles Van
Auken and John Wolvin-among others-grew mint. An 1893 history stated: "John Wolvin, Phelps, raises large quantities of mint on his fine farm of 320 acres." The Frank Overslaugh distillery was the last in this area to operate; wormwood was the last crop distilled. Sugar beet crops alternated well with peppermint; this was a practice from early times. About 1900 more mint was being grown in the west than here. However, farmers had not forgotten their earlier successes. A 1907 Phelps Citizen item read: "Owing to the advancing price of peppermint oil, farmers who have been raising sugar beets will set out mint roots instead this spring." My wicker-covered demijohns, bought at a Junius auction, are still fragrant; probably the oil they once held was extracted at the Bishop still near Dublin. The Phelps peppermint era is long past.

 

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Phelps Roads and Their Family Names

EARLY ROAD NAMES with their associations have historic interest new names lack. It is fortunate for the Town of Phelps that its officers have chosen to publicize so many families, both old and new, in this way. I cannot list all, so have chosen some at random.
 
Carter, Cross and Cuddeback Roads have interesting stories. Dr. James Carter's very early farm (1829) was near the Geneva end of the road. He practiced medicine in Geneva, had his own drug business there. He served as a Phelps militia surgeon and supported Oaks Corners Church. If the road were ever renamed, Chase Road would be appropriate; Walter Chase pioneered there in 1791, and John and George Chase farm the same acres today.

In the early 1800s the east Oaks Corners highway was Cross Road in honor of its most prominent people; then the title was discontinued until the recent map of town roads was printed. This new map perpetuates again the Cross name, kinder in this respect than Nature who gave the John Crosses no sons, three daughters only.
 
Some people have thought that Cross Road was merely a crossroad, never having heard of the family. The term "crossroad" originated long ago. In medieval times it was the English custom to erect carved wooden crosses at roadsides near intersections so that wayfarers might kneel before these crosses to pray. In time all intersections came to be called crossroads whether the actual crosses were or were not present. The Cross family received its name centuries ago, when surnames were being formed, because it lived near a certain cross. Appropriately the  old Cross house has a "Christian" (or witch) front door its panel arrangement making the sign of the cross. These doors still used on colonial-type buildings, were once believed to keep witches or any other evils from entering the home.
 
The Oaks Corners Cross family is worth remembering. The pioneer Samuel, his wife and sons John and Sam Jr., arrived from Maryland about 1800 with their coach, wagons, riding horses and family of slaves-mother, father, one child. Young Samuel moved to Junius; John remained here, marrying Martha Sayre. Their daughters grew up to influence church and cultural life at the Corners. I have written elsewhere of the girls' summerhouse on the limbs of a big black locust tree on their front lawn but have only now read the following Phelps Citizen article of 1901 which tells more:
 
"A large limb from this tree extending over twenty feet in length straight out towards the road has been made into a rustic retreat. A floor, reached by steps winding around the tree trunk, has been laid on this limb with a railing enclosing it. Seats to accommodate twenty or more persons are conveniently arranged, and a light awning keeps out the sun or rain. There is still another platform about two feet above this which will hold three or four persons. Here in this cool and comfortable retreat the fair hostesses spend pleasant hours with friends and relatives. Rockeries, arches, a ",malleI' retreat in an apple tree west of the house, the large conservatory at the rear of the home, all make the place a picture for an artist." 

My  mother--who lived as a child on the adjoining Sydney Cockett place-used to tell of the tree house, but I had not realized its size. Church groups, as well as casual callers, were entertained there-often by poetry readings followed by tea. Raw wood circles where branches had been sawed off to make space boasted watercolor scenes painted by the artist Miss Addie; when dimmed by weather, a few strokes of her brush would renew them. The tree itself was set out by Sam Cross Sr. who brought the shoot from Maryland. After years of senvice the summer house, then in disrepair, was removed. The huge tree itself fell only last summer (1961) during a lightning storm, damaging a corner of the old home.
 
The north end of the farm has a fascinating feature, the moose wallow. I am told there is another along Seneca River. Naturalists say that in the early 1800s there were more moose than deer all through the Adirondack region; still earlier many were here. In springtime the Cross wallow is a lovely place-an oval, water-filled depression about seventy five feet long and half as wide, surrounded by a ring of tall trees, its banks bordered with wild flowers. In summer the water seeps away leaving first a mud hole, then damp leathery dirt where nothing ever grows. Both Indian and family tradition said that moose and perhaps other animals once came here to clean and cool themselves in dry, hot weather. An eerie air of other days still hovers over the place. The Cross farm has been the home of Myron Willson for nearly sixty years and is now owned by his son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Calvin P. Brown.
 
Directly across the road stood for many years the Patrick Doyle house, once the home of an Oaks Corners doctor. In January of 1962 Ben Pickard, last owner, tore down the building with its pegged, hand-hewn timbers as it had become impractical to keep it longer in repair. The old house had an interesting interior, an early split-level with a short flight of steps raising its west parlor to dignity. Joseph J. Doyle, Seneca Falls attorney and banker, as a boy often visited his grandparents here.
 
Cuddeback Road was named for Cornelius Cuddeback, a farmer in north part of the township. He was a fourth¬generation descendant of Jacob Caudebec born in Normandy, France, 1666, and married in ,,'hat is now New York City in 1695. Cornelius and his son Abram were owners of 450 Phelps acres in 1867. Conner Cuddeback, grandson of Abram, today lives on the old Issac Burgess-Cuddeback farm received by the Burgesses as a grant hom a Duke of Cumberland. The property is on Burnett Road, a prominent name in our town since 1795;  Bunetts still live on Burnett Road. James Cudebec and his sister, Mrs.Willis Parish, know of no present relationship with Connor Cuddeback although the spelling of the former's 'name is closer than Connor's to the French original. Both men believe their ancestors were different branches of the same Huguenot Caudebec family. Three brothers migrated to England from France, but one disappeared. It is probable our Phelps families are descended from the two known brothers.
 
Griffith Road, running from Route 88 to Lester Road, used to be shorter, since its east end was Seager Road for years. The pioneer Joseph Griffith had his home at the west end of the highway; Mrs. Ridley has recorded his adventures. One of his sons, Robert, lived to the north on Griffith land (now the Horning-Salisbury farm) and ran a sawmill on the Creek there. The front part of the Horning house is very old; near it a tall lilac bush, thought to have been brought by the Griffiths from their Pennsylvania home, still blooms yearly. Today Frank A. Griffith, Phelps, and his son Allyn, Seneca Castle, are local bearers of the family name. Much interested in his family history is Frederick A. Griffith of Pittsford.

Hayes Road--named for William Hayes--could equally well have been Eacker Road as Charles Eacker and his father Ernest both farmed there. In 1867 John H. (grand¬father of Charles) and his brother George 1. Eacker held three hundred acres northwest of Phelps village. Abram Eacker was an early owner of the John Hildreth farm on Newark Rd., later Will Hicks' and now Mrs. Norman Rockefeller's. The outlet bridge there was known for years as Eacker's Bridge. The Eackers came here from Johnstown, one of the Mohawk Valley's very early Palatine German families.
 
Seager farm, in early days, was successively the John Chapman place, Horace Peck's and Harry C. Burdick's. Mr. Burdick, whose wife was a daughter of the Hon. Lewis Peck, named his land "Spring Brook Farm" and built the present brick house upon it .. Harry Burdick was editor of the Phelps newspaper just before Bussey Brothers. His brook--fed by the Lester farm spring and by a drainage brook from the wamp to the south--once had two important uses. Firat--its water ran in log pipes laid Underground down to the Village's old Globe Hotel sheds. There it filled a partly sunken wooden tub with a small but constant stream. Second--in springtime the burdick brook once ran the mill east of the barn. This property Was recently sold by George Seager, great grandson of the pioneer Levi Seager, to George Malloy. The present owner has an F. H. Wisewell Colored Postcard view of "Seager Avenue, Phelps," the brick house visible in the distance.

Lester Road honors James M. Lester whose farm William Gainey Purchased in 1910. I believe Caleb Phillips Was first owner of the farm. The second was Major Eleazer Hawks whose family owned it from 1807 to 1848 and carried on his limeburning business after the Major's 1829 death. Next owner of this farm was George W. Gates whose only daughter became the wife of James M. Lester. The next town map may show Adams Road instead of Lester since two farms on it are now owned by Arthur W. Adams and his Son Leon. The present tendency toward longer highways of one name makes for less Confusion but has eliminated some family names. For example, the south section of Lester Road Was once Blount Rd.; Mrs. Charles White is an Asher Blount daughter.

Marble town Road preserves the memory of stilI another early family. Daniel and Abijah Marble had their separate cattle earmarks registered in our first town book; Ephraim too Was an early resident. Norman Rockefeller (grandfather of the late Norman L.) Was born 1812 in Columbia Co. and came to Phelps in 1848; his great grandsons now own large acreages on and near Rockefeller Road.

In the northwest Part of town, the Outlet Road might Well have been Miller Rd. since Ruth Miller Bishop's great great grandfather Jacob Miller. bought from Phelps and Gorham in 1799 large tracts of land there at ten shillings an acre. The family's first log house Was iust east of the present homestead, Completed in 1818. This large frame house Was one of the area's first to be built Of boards, and  people came from all around to see the new mansion. Its fireplace, deep and wide as a room, filled all the space between the present front and back parlors except for one narrow door on the west end. Both the old parlor and the family room behind it had openings for fire; at the family room hearth all cooking was done. The house was so planned that the wide front hall (once the spinning room) had outside doors both north and south so the Miller girls, as they spun on hot summer afternoons, might enjoy each breeze. One of these girls became the wife of James Robison, Gypsum.
 
Jacob's son, Daniel, carried on the farm although he became a semi-invalid quite early in life because of a doctor's error in prescription. Unable to mount his horse from the ground, Daniel had a special platform erected at the rear of the house from which he dropped easily to the animal's back and rode across his fields, overseeing the farms. The girls, too, probably used this platform as a mounting block to settle into their sidesaddle seats. 

(Physicians and druggists were then more prone to human error than today. One young woman of early Oaks Corners was given wrong medicine by a Geneva druggist. Seriously ill for months, she lost all her hair and was compelled the rest of her ruined life to wear a wig. "Locking the barn after a horse was stolen," the druggist tied a bell on that particular poison so the nearly fatal mistake would not be repeated.)
 
Daniel Miller's son Albert and grandson Elmer continued to farm their family acres. The homestead was recently sold to Mr. and Mrs. Maynard K. Drury by Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Bishop, who now live in another Miller house. nearby.

Salisbury Road, as such, is no longer on the town map but forms the south end of Maryland Street Road, named by first settlers the Roys and Parrishes from that state. Vandermark Road it could have been called ever since 1792, when Joseph Vandermark settled there; his farm is that of the Frank A. Salisbury family. Elizabeth Vandermark, wife of Benjamin F. Salisbury, was grandmother of Miss Anna and the late Lewis and Frank Salisbury. The Salisbury family, with all its branches, is today the foremost in the township with an enviable record of endeavor and influence in church, town and social organizations. One can dial by phone fifteen local Salisbury numbers.
 
The book "When Phelps Was Young" contains a sketch on the Vandermarks in this country. A printed genealogy gives their European background from 700 A.D. to their 1665 arrival in America. The Counts of Mark owned whole provinces in Germany, France and Holland; they intermarried frequently with royal families of Prussia and the Netherlands. One of these Counts--a Dutch admiral--laid the foundation of the Dutch republic by his victory over the Spaniards at Brill in 1572, called one of the decisive battles of the world. The family name of all Counts of Mark was Vander Mark (from or of the border). During the Reformation and Spanish Inquisition the Dutch nobility was persecuted and scattered; estates were lost, but descendants carried on.
Wheat Road places the 1795 pioneer Benjamin Wheat Sr. on the map. Mrs. Ridley has written of this family. The late Sidney T. Wheat was a great great grandson of the pioneer; Mrs. Wheat is a fine historian. Silver was once mined on Wheat Rd., though not in paying quantity. The mine's location was in a bank on the road's west side just north of the railway crossing. White Road--dead end since the Thruway--is named for Charles White's grandfather, Captain George White, who came to Phelps from Crieff, Scotland, after his retirement as a sea captain of the British Merchant Marine. Here he bought two farms whose operation was continued by his son David. Capt. White's reason for settling here was that his wife's brother, John Gibson, was already established in our town as owner of the Gibson Block and a large distillery. The White farm has just been sold by its owner Francis W. Eighmey.
 
Avery, Bell, Falkey, Gifford, McBurney, McIvor, Mott, Ridley, Stryker, Trimble and Wilber are a few more--not all--of the names perpetuated by our town map makers. There might have been other names, too. Ottley Rd., for instance, would have run from Mrs. Roy Facer's corner west to Melvin Hill. Mrs. Facer's handsome home was built by William Ottley, as were the two cobblestone houses near the foot of the Hill, then on Ottley land. These stone houses, built 1848 and 1854, are today the homes of Robert G. Stevens and Peter J. Haich, respectively. There might have been Peck Roads in several parts of the township, named for Lewis and Ezra Jones and the C. Sealey Peck farms. These suggestions of other family road names do not imply they would be more correct than those chosen by town officials; they are simply other possibilities. Of course, a road can have only one name.
 
A study of Phelps farm acreages in the 1867 Directory informs us that Crothers, Marsh, Musselman, Peck and Ridley families each owned over 400 acres then--the Burnetts, Crittendens, Van Aukens, Vandermarks and Warners over 500 each. The Westfalls worked and owned 900 acres, while Leman Hotchkiss 2nd topped them all with his 1400.
 
The east half of Gifford Rd. was Westfall land bought 1796 by Cornelius Westphall from Esopus on the Hudson. It was his great grandson Jacob who built the impressive Century Farm home of Frederick C. Van Derhoof. Mrs. Van Derhoof was Jacob's grand daughter and a great great great granddaughter of the pioneer Cornelius. At least three Westfall families live in Phelps today.
 
Some worthy families have been omitted from lack of space. Others have already been detailed by Conover, Milliken and Mrs. Ridley in their books and need no repetition. One fact lends dignity to nearly all our early settlers. They had fine ancestry; they grew from good stock. Some--like Crosbys, Ottleys, Parmalees and Vandermarks--are descended from noble or even royal blood lines; for example, let us consider the Prescotts of Prescott's Corner, one mile west of Oaks Corners. You remember that Joel Prescott 1st, Lester Rd., was the town's earliest doctor; his nephew Joel 2nd also practiced medicine at Prescott's Corner, in the home of Emor DeCann. These men were descendants of kings of Great Britain, of Charlemagne, Alfred the Great and Duncan, King of Scots, whose supposed murder was the theme of Shakespeare's play "Macbeth."
 
Miss Bertha McMillan, Phelps, is a skillful and enthusiastic historian--genealogist who has been able to trace her Clan McMillan lines from fifth--century Celtic kings from the Scottish royal house of Alpin who married a ninth-century Pict princess, through Macbeth to Gilchrist and later King John af England. During the great Scotch migration of 1749 to Canada and the American colonies, McMillan ancestors settled at Freehold, N. Jersey. The late Rev. Charles Dayton was another Phelps student of lineage with royal ancestors. The study of genealogy is a rewarding hobby, no matter what figures you find hanging on your family tree--princes, paupers or pirates.

It is interesting that Prescotts had King Duncan as an ancestor, while McMillans had Macbeth. Several historians have believed Shakespeare chose to use writers license when he maligned Macbeth. The Misses McMillan have a 1959 booklet, "The Vindication of Macbeth," written by the Rev. Somerled MacMillan, Paisley, Scotland. This author proves Macbeth had a stronger claim than Duncan to the Scottish throne and was a good, philanthropic king during his seventeen year reign until his 1057 death; he was one of the first patrons of the Church of Scotland. Duncan was not murdered in bed, as Shakespeare wrote, but was killed in battle the year of 1040; a roadside plaque near Inverness marks the scene of his death.
 

We have not finished this review of roads. Among names of other than family interest are Old State, Fort Hill, Old and New Pre-emption and Tileyard Roads. The Old State Road, we know, was one of the earliest ways west to the Genesee Country--across the State from Albany, over the bridge at Montezuma Marshes straight up past Vandermark's Tavern on the east border of Phelpstown, through Vienna village, past Hildreths' Free Bridge Hotel and on to the Niagara Frontier, Ohio and Michigan. 

Fort Hill farm, now the property of Glenn Crouch, lent its name to the road which runs through it. The so-called fort was an ancient Indian one, probably erected as protection against hostile tribes. The hill must have been the site of a permanent village. The late Frederick Warder of Geneva used to make interesting finds there for his artifact collection. There is still a good spring east of the hill. John Gainey of New York City has written me that in 1904 he helped dig up an Indian skeleton in the gravel pit there. He was told that old Mr. Lynch, then owner of the farm, used to collect all bones found and bury them once a year out of respect for the dead. The two Pre-emption Roads we will discuss later in this book in the story, "The Old Pre-emption Spring."
 
Tileyard Road, whose south end is in Town of Seneca, was once a busy thoroughfare. For the first thirty or more years of local settlement, much travel west was through Oaks Corners, up Melvin Hill and on to the foot of the long, difficult Orleans hill; here many travelers must have turned south on Tileyard toward the fine tavernhouse farm at its bend and then west up the short, easy hill. In no other way can I account for the tavern's well-authenticated location. Tradition has always said it was a coach stop too--perhaps an alternate route. The unusually large brick building with its pillared porch is now in disrepair; its spiral staircase, fireplaces and well-stocked wine cellar are gone. The present young owners, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Landuyt, live in a modernized apartment in the east wing of the house and work the land.
 
George B. Foster owned the old inn during the late 1800s when dances were held there regularly in the large second-floor ballroom. On ordinary evenings double doors and heavy curtains divided the space into bedrooms. As late as 1916 the neighborhood was still lively enough to have its name in the paper. "Jonesville and Vicinity" items were' appearing then in the Phelps Citizen; the Jones were one of the roads old families. North end of Tileyard was called Stuart Road while C. W. Stuart's Nurseries of Newark owned the corner farm.

It is said that a gang of horse thieves once had a place in woods northeast of the tavern. They operated so boldly that one Sunday a team was stolen from a Phelps church shed while the owner was attending service. One member of the gang was a professional who could change a gray team to a black one over night; the transformed animals were then driven to Pennsylvania and sold. Phelpstown's Horse Thief Society--formed May 5, 1832 at Vienna's Eagle Tavern, with twelve riders-- must have been inactive while all this was going on.

Undoubtedly the tavern's bricks were made from the same nearby clay beds that launched Oliver Childs in his early tilemaking industry. The Childs were from Conway, Mass., like so many Phelpstown folk; Oliver settled in the Town of Seneca in the early 1800s. His son Benjamin, who owned on both sides of Tileyard Rd., was well established in the tile business before his 1878 death. For years there were traces of corduroy roadways leading from his clay pits to the public road; over these mule carts once carried their loads to the plant on the road's north side. This plant was continued by Benjamin's son, Albert; using the latest machinery, Albert Childs began producing 20,000 tiles a day. His annual output was over 700,000. This seasonal business was still increasing when Milliken wrote of it in 1911. However, not long after this his supply of good clay ran out, and the plant permanently closed. 

Basil Gillam now has his dairy farm on former Childs and Peck acres; Patrick Linehan owns other Childs land. Back in the fields on south side of the road a half dozen of the long pits are still visible--their dimensions about a hundred feet by fifty, I am told. Neighborhood boys used to fish in the waterfilled holes, then deeper. On the north side of the now quiet road, the drying sheds--once 250 feet long-sag in ruins.

Not only country road but village street names sometimes change with the years. Phelps' present Pearl, for instance, was once Coal Street--a pleasant change from black to white. Early Castle folks took a long-range view of things. Seneca Castle streets on the 1859 county map were Pennsylvania Avenue, Albany, Ontario and Buffalo Streets.

We have read of Phelps families, new and old, in this chapter. A few more names to remember are the Bannisters, the Burtises of Alberta Stock Farm with its handsome horses the Redfields, Tituses and the Ingalls of the beautiful East Main St. stone house. now owned by William Whitson.
 
Orrin Redfield was Vienna's first merchant, setting up his dry goods and groceries in a log building. Ebenezer and Joel Redfield fought in the 1846 Mexican War and are buried in the Old Cemetery. The Redfields are direct descendants of Priscilla and John Alden of Mayflower and Longfellow fame. 

At Phelps there were Silas, George and Hamilton too.  However, it is Lysander, born 1817 at Vienna (Phelps), a son of Ebenezer, whom we particularly remember. At the age of fourteen he learned his trade of printing. When a young man, he traveled quite widely as a journeyman printer before settling in Phelps--first as the local printer, then as a merchant. Lysander was a good citizen, holding many town offices; he was Justice of Peace for forty years. He visited in southern and western states, enjoyed three European trips. In 1884 he culminated his years of public service when he bought and donated to the village the land for its public park, Redfield Common. He planted 200 maple trees for its beautification.

In 1888, on his seventy first birthday, Squire Redfield was given a large surprise party at the Town Hall. The Phelps Silver Cornet Band was on hand and busy; there was an address by Dr. John Q. Howe with presentation of a goldheaded cane. The Redfield Hook and Ladder Co. and the Cornet Band had marched down Main Street one May evening in 1887 to serenade the Meyers Thermometer Works, just opening. To return this gesture of good will, "the works were lighted from cellar to garret, Mr. Meyers had the doors thrown open to the crowd which had gathered, and over 1000 people partook of his hospitality." This was surely not a beginning helpful to Mr. Meyer's balancing of his business budget. All this was one item in a long column of current Phelps news printed by the "Rochester Sunday Morning Herald." I reprint it to prove once again how village life has changed since then. 

When. Squire Redfield's Common was only five years old, the town's Centennial celebration was held there close by the newly-erected monument to our pioneers. It was Lysander who had led the movement to secure this monument, and he himself designed it. Redfield Common has heard Fourth of July celebrations and orations galore. It has served culture and comedy to the village under Chautaugua tents; it has seen carnivals and countless baseball games. All summer our children play under Lysander's maple trees. His gift has proved communal indeed.
 
The Titus family was once important locally. Anson Titus Sr. came here in the 1830s as a young man to start a foundry. His father William had a furnace at Forge Hollow, Oneida Co., and young Anson had made several winter trips to the Genesee Country seIling plow castings for his father. He had made a study of locations and decided "there was excellent opportunity at Vienna, a town with eleven grist mills, thirteen saw mills, six plaster mills as well as an unusually fertile farming country surrounding it." His fifty years here, making stoves and plows, proved the wisdom of that decision. The Anson Titus Pointer Plow became widely known. In the 1850s he won many prizes at Syracuse State Fair and one year received there the silver medal of the State Agricultural Society for being inventor and manufacturer of so many types of premium plows, both in exhibits and plowing matches.

Of the four Titus sons Anson Jr. was the most noteworthy. He became a minister in Massachusetts and wrote for our village newpapers many invaluable local history and genealogical sketches; he was a well known lecturer, too. Billy was killed in the Civil War, from which his brother Oliver returned safely to become a prominent resident of Shortsville. Oliver was an official in the company of Messrs. Hiram L. and Calvin P. Brown, makers of the Empire Grain Drill, which employed two hundred men. T. Benton Titus settled in Clfiton Springs. The daughter, Susan Olive, married Charles Carr of Phelps; she was a grandmother of Mrs. Iva Britcher and her brother, George D. Weiss.
  
   
Phelps Surnames
SOURCES OF SOME SURNAMES OF PHELPS 

As you know, men have not always had two names. Family name began to form in England one hundred or more years after the country's 1066 conquest by the Norman-French. So few personal names were in use during the Middle Ages that nicknames and diminutive endings were given to distinguish people from each other. For instance--Richard had nicknames Rick, Hick, Dick, Rich, Hitch, Hotch, Digg and Higg; so, after a long time, there arose families with such different names as Hicks (s for "son of"), Dickinson (in for little), Richardson, Higgins and so on--all of whom had an ancestor whose only name was Richard. The Welsh version was (a) Prichard since Ap and Ab were Welsh prefixes meaning "son of." Bliven was originally (A) bLawen, son of the happy one; Powell was a son of Howell. Jones, Jenks, Jennings and Jensen were sons of an ancestor named John. Many names have changed over the centuries. The French DeVall and Devoe are the same, Carleton tells me; Denniston and Tennyson were too.

A few other patronymic Phelps names are:
Atkinson, Atkins-son of little Adam
Fitzgerald, son of Gerald (superior one) whose ancestors came to England with Wm. the Conqueror and settled in Ireland 1170
Hodges--son of Roger
Hoskins-kin of the chieftain-Anglo Saxon
McIvor, a Scotch clan-Son of Iver, the Saxon word for boar, signifying a brave person.
MacLeod-son of Light-Norse
McCallum-son of a dove, meaning a peace-loving man.
Oliver has same meaning in Latin.
McIntyre-son of the carpenter
McMillan-son of the tonsured one, a priest. Early Celtic priests were not celibate.
McAllister-son of Alister, Gaelic for Alexander Mickelsen-son of the large man (O)Conner-descendant of a chief
Connolly, Conley-descendants of the brave
Murphy-descendant of MacMurrough, the royal family of Leinster, Ireland
Watson-Son of Wat, early nickname of Walter
Whiting and Willing are the oldest patronymic forms, the "ing" suffix being much earlier than "son." Adam (s),
Davidson, Johnson, Williamson and Whitson are obviously sons of their forefathers. The first Whitson was a son of Whit(e), a noticeably light-skinned or light-haired person, and this name brings us to a second class of surnames, the descriptives. I list some Phelps examples.

Physical traits

Armstrong-name given in recognition of strength in battle
Blount-fair-haired, French
Brown-hair or eyes
Cobb--a large man or a leader, middle English
Fair, Fairman--evidently blonde
Morgan--seaborn--ancient Welsh
Palmer-a pilgrim to the Holy Land
Rodman--redhaired-"rod" was early spelling of red.
Sullivan-fair-eyed, Gaelic

Character traits

Falkey-a falcon, a daring person, Scotch
Goodman-good man
Goodrich-good ruler
Goodwin-good friend
Griffith-strong in faith, ancient Welsh
Humphrey-home lover, ancient English
Ingram--lng, a Norse god and ram, strong. A.S.  
Jeffrey, Jeffery-nickname of Geoffrey, anc. Saxon--meaning-the gift of peace or security.
Pardee--in most cases, from the profane expression of Middle Ages, "Par Dieu" (By God)
Phelp(s), Phillip(s)--lover of horses, Greek-s=son of 

Names formed from nicknames are quite common and often odd. Cameron means "twisted nose" from a feature of an early chief; Kennedy signifies the "ugly head" of a far-away ancestor. The insignificant beginnings of so many of our names is surprising, but that is the way it was. An interesting class of titles is derived from early inn or shop signboards. These signs were necessary because so few people could read. The early ancestor of John (atte=at or near) Bell, for instance, must have owned or lived near or worked at the sign of a bell. Buck, Bullock, Cockett, Coon, Fox, Hand, Hart, Lyon (Lion) and Wolfe are Phelps examples. Buck may also be derived from the Anglo-Saxon "bece," a beech tree.

The name Linquest has a pleasing meaning, "linden twig"--from the poetic Swedish custom of taking family names from objects in nature. Sources of a number of names are given in the dictionary. Some may have more than one interpretation depending on nationality. Dewey is a form of David in Welsh; it is an island spring in Old English--the books tell us. Eacker, if German, means a farmer; if English, it means an oaken man, a brave, firm, unyielding man--from ack or eck, A.S. for oak. Rockefeller may be the ryefielder, a farmer on the lower Rhine in German--or, if Norman--French, the family of the rocky field, descendants of Norsemen who came down to Normandy centuries ago. They are said to have left a castle and estates in Southeast France to go to the country of the Palatines from which they came to America in 1720. The latter is the known history of our Phelps family. Perhaps both are-the Norman-French source antedating the German.

Some Phelps Occupational Names:

Baker
Barber
Carpenter
Crothers--harper, a musician of ancient Celts
Cooper or Hooper--a maker of barrels
Decker--a roofer
Eacker--farmer, German
Foster--a forester
Fowler--a hunter of birds
Knight--from military rank
Marshall--army commander, old English
Rector--clergyman of a parish
Schafer--a shepherd, German
Sherman--a cloth cutter
Spencer--a steward
Tinker--a tinman
Walker--a fuller of cloth.
Ward, Warden, Warner--official watchman
Webb, Webster--a weaver
Wheeler--a spinner
Zimmerman--a carpenter
 
Most occupational names originated in the great craft guilds in medieval cities. Under the manor system of old England the lord lived in the great hall, his village (ham or tun) near it. All births, marriages, deaths, debts et cetera were recorded by the clerk (Clark). If there were several Johns, he might write in his book "John the Shepherd" or "John, the fair." Later, "the" would disappear, and John's descendants had a family name as well as a first name. Spelling was in a state of disorder for centuries; it was poor and not uniform even in our early Phelps records.

A few of the lord's officials were the butler (Butler). bailiff (Bailey) and parker (Parker), in charge of his live¬stocked parks. An important annual event in village iife was the series of religious dramas whose chief players were, in time, given the names of the characters they played year after year--Lord, Gaylord, Prince, King and so on. Bishops, priors (pryors) and abbots traveled about the country in their church work with perhaps fifty men accompanying them--for example, John (with the) Bishop, Henry   (the) Messenger, Will (the) Page. 

In number, place or local names lead all the rest. These tell where a man lived or where he came from at the time surnames were forming long ago. Phelps examples are:
Avery-island of oats, Norse origin
Barnum (Bearnham)-town in the woods. This family originated in Southwick, Hampshire
Blackburn--the dark brook--name of a Lancashire town
Burns-Scotch for brook or stream-same as Brooks.
Cain-From Fr. City of Caen--other possible sources.
Cheney-(near an) oak grove, French
Clayton-a town built on clay
Cleveland--Cliff land
Conklin--at the head of the valley, Gaelic
Cornford--near the ford over Corn River, England
Crittenden--near the chalk hill
Crouch, Crosby--variants of Cross
Dimock, Dimick--near the dark oak.
Dunham--the hill town
Green--on or near the green, the common
Grimsley--the harsh field
Griswold--the gray woods
Harland--rough or long field, old Norse
Hause, House, Hall--near the manor house or hall
Holbrook, Hollenbeck--the valley brook
Horton--a Yorkshire town near a ravine (hor)
(H)osford--a ford over the River Ouse
Howe--hill, old English
Kenyon--a town in Lancashire
Lambert--excellent land, Old English
Lee--a meadow
Lynch--from an early England division, hlinc, pronounced link--a ridge of land.
              The word survives in "golf links."
Main, Maines--from Maine, an ancient government of Northern France
Nash--(AttenAsh--near a grove of ash trees or a certain landmark tree. "Atten" is Anglo Saxon for near
Needham--cattle town--a Suffolk market town
(N)Oaks-near oak trees-A.S.
Oldacre--a very old cultivated field (accer, A.S.)
Prescott--near the cottage of the priest
Preston--from the priests' town-name of a Lancashire city
           (All early clergymen were called priests)
Randall--the fair valley, Old English
Ridley--the red field-A.S.
Southgate--near south gate of a walled town
Upchurch--family lived up (by the) church.
(O)Updyke--family lived up (by the) dyke.
Van Camp--near the battlefield
Vanderveer--near the ferry
Van Dyke--near the dyke.
Van Kirk--near the church
West, Weston--from the west town
Whitbeck, Whitney--near the white water. beck is Anglo Saxon for brook.

Name derivation is a fascinating study. If any Phelps resident is interested in learning the source of a name not listed here, your town historian will be glad to try to discover it.  

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Phelpstown Railroads

This section is in the nature of an obituary for the town's four passenger service railroads--the Auburn Branch of the New York Central, the Fallbrook Division of N.Y.C., the Lehigh Valley and the Great Sodus Bay and Southern of the Pennsylvania System.
 
The old Auburn Road (1841), whose last passenger train passed through Phelps in spring of 1958, was once more than a means of transportation; it was a way of life a route to education, culture and entertainment. In its crowded coaches young people rode, commutation ticket in hand, to Phelps Union and Classical School and to Geneva's colleges. Adults found it indispensable for getting to and from work. Romances budded, bloomed or withered on the red plush seats. The old road carried boys and their evening dates to town for a silent movie and vaudeville at the new Temple Theater with time for a soda at an ice cream parlor before the ten o'clock train. In earlier years we often boarded the train for a Saturday afternoon at the Motion World, a nickelodeon on second floor of Seneca Street's Guard Building. It was there I first shuddered at Dr. Jekyll turned Hyde.

(We did not always go to town by train. One winter's day Grandpa Shear drove in the big bobs, with a dozen of us children tucked under the buffalo robes, to a matinee performance of Uncle Tom's Cabin at the Smith Opera House. We sat enthralled. As bloodhounds bayed and Eliza scurried across the icy river on-stage, little Jennie sitting beside me screamed in excitement, then fainted and had to be revived by the usher. That was a day to remember!)

The Auburn Road was social, folksy, its riders congenial guests of the conductor host who moved along the aisles greeting his company by name. Once in a while there was group singing, especially on the five o'clock in winter dusk. Then the conductor, lighting the gas ceiling lamps with his long taper, would playfully turn it into a baton leading his impromptu chorus. (First N.Y.C. trains were candle--lighted.) Once a ventriloquist mystified and amused his fellow passengers. Occasionally we could stare at a sullen-faced man bound for Auburn prison and handcuffed to an officer. At Oaks Corners depot the agent always glued pennies to floor and ticket window counter on April Fool's Day for his public's entertainment. My sister and I--as little girls--often pushed our pet white rabbits in the doll carriage to meet the trains. They would sit there fascinated, pink ears erect, and never turn a hair; their calm was especially surprising since the old depot was very close to the tracks.
 
Sometimes special trains were run--at State Fair time, for example. One evening we rode a special to hear Madame Schumann--Heink sing at Geneva's Armory, enjoying the unaccustomed luxury of its parlor cars' soft swivel chairs almost as much as the concert. Excursion trains to distant cities tempted us with bargain rates. Each train included, of course, that masculine blue heaven, the smoking car--long an anachronism. Children used to run to see the pony engine, bright with brass, carrying railway officials on inspection tours.
 
I have written of the conductor as "host" of the train--as indeed he is--but this was not always his position. In the book, "When Railroads were New," Charles Carter tells us that at first the engineer managed his train to suit himself; the conductor did nothing but take fares. Neither was there any way the conductor could let the engineer know when passengers wanted to get off. So, in 1842, one conductor on the old Erie (Western New York's first rail-road) arranged a signal for the engineer, a strong cord running the length of the train with a stout stick tied on the engine end. When the conductor pulled this up and down, the engineer was to stop the train. Instead, he three times removed the stick, feeling the conductor was exceed-ing his authority. Determined to be allowed use of this improvement, at the next stop the conductor dragged the engineer from his cab and thrashed him soundly. This set a precedent for other railroads, and ever since the conductor has been boss of the train. 

At Vienna (early Phelps village) there were two station stops for years. West Vienna was once more important than East Vienna because of the early enterprises of the William Hildreths, father and son, all centered there. They were. ancestors of today's John H. Hildreth. Their interests included a mill, large brick, stone-pillared hotel with store adjoining, ashery, cooper shop and distillery. Their Free Bridge Hotel stood on the southeast corner of Main and Newark Streets; it was later sold and dismantled. The Hildreths owned six hundred acres on the Newark Road too. The family fortunes declined rather sharply after the Erie Canal began to turn traffic of all kinds away from Phelps. Later a brick school, livery stable, carriage and blacksmith shops, a millinery store and shoestore served the west village.

The West Vienna railway station stood on the site of the present Seneca Kraut Company building. This station boasted an attached restaurant where fifteen minute stops for refreshments were made at meal times. Nearby waited the wood yard for refueling engines; next yard west was at Shortsville. Whenever the fireman had to "wood up," men passengers ran forward to help that the delay might be as short as possible.
 
It was difficult for trains to make good time over the old strap rails; average speed was fourteen miles per hour. (When speeds of 35 and 40 miles were later attained some medical men both here and abroad predicted various physical injuries to passengers--from eye damage to insanity.) Tracks were then made by spiking wooden timbers on the ties and fastening flat bars (straps) of iron on top of the wooden rails. The piece I have from the Auburn Rd. track is seven-eights of an inch thick. Sometimes engines were derailed by a "snake head," a curled-up end of a strap rail whose spikes had loosened from the wood track, which did not adapt itself well to weather changes. The first accident on the Auburn Road happened in 1848 when one of these snakeheads entered a car floor and inflicted flesh wounds on the foot and leg of a woman passenger. Cowcatchers on early locomotives all too often lived up to their names; tracks were not well-fenced, and frenzied animals strayed on them would run ahead of the trains.

West Vienna's depot, after many years of use, was moved to a corner of Exchange and Jay Sts. and remodeled into a house. Then the Church Street Station was the one and only. Earlier there had been regular stops at the Eagle St. crossing and at Unionville. For a long period much of the township's business was done at Unionville and W. Vienna; later, when Unionville began its decline, the railroad had a flag stop by the inn. Passengers might leave the train at the crossing just south of Fred King's residence too.

In fact, unscheduled stops were common. Along this line I have been told two delightful stories. Lucy Hemiup of Geneva occasionally came out from town for a day's visit with her Carter Road cousins the Joneses (Arthur Hall farm). When she boarded the train, she would tell the trainman she wished to get off at the Jones place--and she did. On hearing the late afternoon eastbound approaching, Mrs. Hemiup would saunter out to the track behind the house, wave her parasol or handkerchief as signal, and the train would obediently slow to a stop. Later she may have been annoyed to find that she was then expected to ride some distance past the Jones farm and descend at Oaks Corners station. Lucy (Mrs. Morris Hemiup) was a Phelpstown girl, a granddaughter of Joel Prescott 1st of Prescott's Corners--the town's earliest doctor.

The second story--One Phelps resident remembers the spring day in 1886 when she rode an Auburn Branch caboose to an Oaks Corners wedding. She and her father had missed the train taken by the rest of the family, and the little girl began to cry. Her resourceful father, remembering a freight soon due, hurried her to the depot. In rolled the freight. Its conductor was told the sad situation and agreed to carry two passengers. Past Unionville and Oaks Corners they went, to the Carter Rd. crossing where the engineer slowed just long enough for a trainman to whisk the child down the caboose steps while her father jumped off under his own power. The wedding ceremony had scarcely begun when they arrived at the red brick house near the crossing, now the home of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph L. Carpenter. Train accommodations really accommodated in those days.
 
Now petticoats enter our railroad review. I quote an amusing item from an 1847 Livingston Co. newspaper:
"These useful articles are creating quite a sensation not only in fashion circles but among railroad agents and directors. At several recent railroad meetings it was determined to raise the fare upon every lady wearing more than twenty." (Mau) However could they have made a count? I suppose so fashionable a lady would have filled a double seat.
 
Seventy years later a quite different petticoat incident occurred. Marguerite Van---, nearing the station for her daily ride to school, glanced down at her thin summer skirt and was horrified at its transparency. Waving a wild signal to the engineer just pulling into the depot, she raced home to step into her forgotten petticoat while the waiting engine puffed patiently until her return.
 
One more petticoat story, an earlier one. Addie Edmonston (Mrs. Nettie Crozier Adsitt's mother) awoke one morning in late winter one hundred years ago to hear her father's voice unusually loud and excited. Padding downstairs to the warm kitchen, the little girl soon learned the reason for excitement. Flint Creek's ice had broken up during the night, and large cakes had jammed against the railroad bridge behind the Ontario St. Edmonston home, now Mrs. Adsitt's. Her father had discovered the structure so damaged that the track across it was dangerously weakened. Below and around the bridge rushed the waters of Flint River (then called) in flood, and the early westbound train was due. Addie's parents were no longer young, and she knew where her duty lay. Quickly putting on clothes and wraps, Addie dashed out the door, clutching in one hand her mother's bright red handwoven petticoat. Up to the Eagle St. crossing she ran, then down the track to the bridge; across this she crawled, ice and deep swift water beneath her. The train was already leaving the east depot as Addie began to wave the red petticoat high above her head. Seeing her at once, the engineer braked his train. The child had prevented an almost certain wreck. That particular petticoat is doubly remembered in the Adsitt family as not only worn for warmth but waved for warning.

A bit of derivation to end this petticoat prose--did you ever wonder why the petty (little) coat is worn below the waist, not on the shoulders like other coats? It was originally a light-weight coat worn under men's armor, but the years have changed both its sex and its position.

Now we return to Phelps railroads. The Fallbrook Road's history was part of the Pine Plains story, you remember. Strangely, it was not uncommon for railway station and postoffice, though adjacent, to have different names. For instance, Mitchell's Station (named for the father of Mrs. Edney Skinner and Mrs. Clair Bennett) on the Old State Road near Five Points was just across the road from West Junius postoffice, housed in the store. Farther north at Cuddeback's Station the postoffice was called Harvey; Albert Harvey was station agent, his wife the postmistress. They were parents of Mrs. Louis Holtz, Phelps. The old Citizen newspaper carried items from "Harvey and Vicinity." In Phelps village the railroad stop was still Vienna several years after the village had become Phelps.
 
The Lehigh Valley Railroad was built through Phelps in 1890 and 1891. The village station was at Griffith Road crossing; Oaks Corners depot was on the west road. There were at least six passenger trains stopping daily. The last Phelps agent was William Walters; Albert Salisbury and Will Vosburg were agents for the Corners.
 
Railroad officials had planned yards extending from Phelps station to Oaks Corners; these were all surveyed and a street development mapped north toward the village. However, farmers' prices for land were prohibitive, the railroad men decided, and Manchester became their choice. They had intended too to have a Phelps interchange with the Pennsylvania Road for shifting cars from one road to the other. As a railroad town the village would have been larger than today, but of different quality. One of the worst wrecks in the history of the Lehigh occurred at Manchester where twenty seven people met death one August noon in 1911.
The Lehigh's Black Diamond was called the most handsome train in the world; a nickname was the "Honeymoon Express" in recognition of all the brides and grooms it carried to Niagara Falls. In spring of 1959 the famous train made its last run, having been a symbol of up-to-date railroading for forty three years.
 
The Great Sodus Bay and Southern which ran from Stanley to Sodus Point-a distance of thirty-four mileswas leased for one hundred years by the Northern Central (Elmira to Canandaigua). First trains trundled over the tracks in 1876. Orleans and Phelps Junction were the township's stations. Two passenger trains went in each direction daily as well as freight.
The Junction station-where Auburn Road passengers changed trains-in summertime used to bulge with baggage of campers bound for the Point. Fourth generation members of the same local families today enjoy vacations there. Meeting the trains at the Point pavilion was a highlight in daily activity. The road's worst day was in 1901 when a wreck at Fairville sprayed passengers with scalding steam from the engine's boiler. Seventeen died.

Phelps Junction station closed at 2:59 P.M., December 15, 1933-according to the record of Adelbert (Bert) S. Hildreth, its last agent. Mr. Hildreth must have had a feeling for history as he made that exact entry in his time-book. Frank R. Myers, father of Mrs. Sidney Wheat Sr., was Orleans agent many years; the last was Ross N. McCarthy. Today all four Phelpstown railroads carry freight only. An era has ended.

Afterthought--Commercial railways were not our only ones. Every boy's ambition was to be an engineer; to this end he often built his own play road. The Corners had its (Albert) Oaks and (Allen) Marshallville Railroad, complete with station playhouse, home-made tracks, car and switches on the Nathan Oaks farm.

Later the Devil's Den Express, named from a natural cave in the woods, carried boys downgrade at high speed from Lehigh to Central on the Oaks Corners Stone Company's rail spur. This large hand car, braked with their heels, ran on weekends only, when the stone plant was closed. Remembering its adventures, I think again how Providence perennially protects boys.
 

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Town of Phelps NY
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