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.

][<

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