So sorry about your friend, what a shame that such a great kid had to lose
his life.
About that bear, did you happen to meet my former neighbor--a certain Mr.
Irving there with said bear? Ruth
At 5:43 PM -0500 1/24/05, Gabriel Orgrease wrote:
>Pamela S. Follett wrote:
>
>>Anyway, I always thought the train stop had crossed Besemer Hill Road, which
>>would have been north of the manor house, wouldn't it? Getting old really
>>sucks when there's too much other stuff cluttering the brain.
>>
>The map in A History of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, The Route of the
>Black Diamond by Robert F. Archer shows that "Besemers" was a stop on
>the line that went from Elmira to aWhite Church to Brooktondale to East
>Ithaca to Freeville to Cortland then on to Oneida Lake ending at Camden.
>
>Directly north of Rt. 79 and to the west of Besemer Hill Rd. was in our
>childhood the remnants of the water tank... a ruin of early concrete
>walls. There was no wood tank structure then. The crick that supplied
>the water ran to the east of Besemer Hill Rd. where it travelled south,
>then made a turn to the west then eventually connected to Six Mile
>Creek. I suspect that there was a small station at Besemers. I remember
>once someone telling me that they not only remembered the station, but
>had once been on a train to it... it may have been Doctor Mary that told
>me this. Doctor Mary was our family Doctor and I went to her from like
>5th grade up into the early 20's of age. She was one of the first women
>to graduate from Cornell as a doctor and she subsequently settled in
>Brooktondale in a house built very near, directly east of the trestle.
>On the south side of Six Mile Creek there were the remnants of the gray
>limestone abutements. To the north there was a road cut and the ditch to
>the north of the road was always a problem for quicksand. Nobody has to
>believe me but one night returning from scouts in Brooktondale to home
>in Besemer I saw this really incredibly large UFO float out from above
>the hill where the trestle would have ended. By the time we were alive
>the rails had long since been removed, though in some places you could
>still find the ties. I had walked many times the railbed in the area
>between Besemer & Brooktondale, and up to White Church road and beyond
>to the south, I also walked a few times the distance from Besemer to
>Ithaca (7-8 miles). It was always a pleasant walk, plenty of interesting
>plants to look at. I was very much into looking at wild plants. This was
>decades before people got into makgn gree trails of abandoned railbeds.
>I've seen photos of the trestle and it was impressive.
>
>There once was this place along Rt. 79 between Slaterville Springs and
>Richford where there was an artesian spring that people would stop at to
>get water and I remember one time we were going that way and they had a
>large iron bar cage with a brown bear in it.
>
>I also remember the mill building in Brooktondale on the south side of
>the falls. My stepfather would take me down there and we would stand
>around the coal fired pot-belly stove while he talked w/ the guys there.
>I was kind of pissed when they tore it down... and this was way before I
>ever thought about histo presto. A friend of mine in scouts drowned in
>the falls pool while rescuing two girls. The two girls survived. I'll
>never forget my friend, he was the guy that we all of us kids looked up
>to as the best marksman in scouts for the entire county -- he was always
>leading us by his example. They were a hunting & fishing family working
>close to the local land. His father worked the county road crew and got
>some sort of posthumous medal for his son's bravery.
>
>][<
>
>--
>To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
>uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
><http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>
--
Ruth Barton
[log in to unmask]
Dummerston, VT
--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
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