February 17, 2011

Written by: Leo Lawton

Born during the latter years of the great depression in 1938, I lived through the remainder of that. I’ve lived through World War II, the Korean Conflict, The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Viet Nam War, The Cold War, Desert Storm, The Iraq War, Afghanistan, and a few other skirmishes here and there.

I’ve lived for years without electricity, central heating, running water, bathroom facilities, refrigeration, school buses, and television, to say nothing of modern electronic gadgets. I’ve cut and split wood for heat, I’ve carried countless hundreds of cords of it into a home by the armload. I’ve pumped water by hand for family use as well as watering a barn full of cattle and a few odd chickens, horses, pigs, cats, dogs, and other assorted animals. I milked cows by hand, pitched hay with a fork, loaded oats and corn on wagons with a fork, drove horses that worked, and pitched manure by hand in the dead of winter.

I’ve used an outhouse when the temperatures were way below zero degrees, and let me assure you it doesn’t take long. I’ve walked to school for years, and walked home again at the end of classes. I played in the meadows and woods. Parks and recreation buildings were unheard of.

Times were tough, work was hard, but I always had a close family to rely on, and I expect my ancestors would tell me how easy I had it.

I spent nearly 15 years as a warrior for our great United States in the Naval Service.

All in all, life’s been good to me.

Written by: Leo Lawton

Without trying to be too boring is it okay to recall that by early 1639 Thomas Lawton immigrated to the New World Colony of Portsmouth, later to be a part of Rhode Island. Now comes the boring, but necessary to a genealogist, part.

Thomas had a son Daniel, who had a son Benjamin, who had a son Benjamin, who had a son Oliver, all while yet living in Rhode Island. However in 1789 Oliver and his wife Ann struck out across the forested wilderness stopping when they got to an area that would one day be known as Fairfield, Herkimer County, New York.

Among other children Oliver and Ann had a son named Benjamin, born in 1790, who was in New York with his parents. In 1807 Ben and Mary had a son, also named Benjamin. A few years later Ben and Mary moved northward to help settle Jefferson County. Their children, including Benjamin jr., traveled north with their parents. In 1833 Ben jr. and his wife Betsey had a son named Joseph.

Why do I care about all of this? Because Joseph was my grandfather Will’s father. This of course means that all of the above were my ancestors. Joseph married a fine young lady named Jane Wilson on her 21st birthday in 1856 when he was 23. The married couple had eleven children between then and 1877 all of which lived to adulthood except one.

Joseph apparently had many talents as at times he was a farmer, a storekeeper, a furniture and casket maker, an undertaker, and a carpenter. At one time he owned a complete business block in downtown Philadelphia, New York. As the 58 year old Joseph died in1891, 47 years before my birth, I never knew him, but he must have been a fascinating man.

Written by: Leo Lawton

My grandfather Will, and his younger brother Fred, came to our farm for an extended visit. I was around six years old at the time so it must have been about 1944. Grandpa was born in 1866, and Uncle Fred two years later, so they would have been about 78 and 76 respectively. They rode the Greyhound from Watertown to Ogdensburg, then walked the five or six miles to our farm from the station, each carrying an old cardboard suitcase and a walking cane.

They stayed for around ten days until one evening while my parents were doing the milking and barn chores Grandpa was correcting me for some mischief I was into. I was sassing Grandpa and told him he couldn’t tell me what to do as he didn’t even live there. This perturbed Grandpa so much he went into the house, packed his bags, as did Fred, and they walked out our driveway onto the road headed toward town. Grandpa was a fairly tall man, probably about 6’ 3”, while Fred was several inches shorter. Each carried a suitcase, and each had a cane over a shoulder with toiletry articles tied up in a red bandana. As they grew smaller in the distance I thought they looked rather funny so I entered the milking barn to tell ma and dad they ought to see this sight.

This, of course, was the first inkling my parents had of anything being amiss. My forty-year-old father ran up the road after them to see why they would leave without notice at that time of the evening with no bus leaving town until the next morning. All Grandpa and Uncle Fred would say was that they had stayed long enough. Finally my father gave up and returned home perplexed. If he ever found out why they left it wasn’t because I told him.

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Written By: Leo Lawton

November 27, 2005

I have come to liken my circulatory system to my past, present, and future.

I am my heart, my present, and the center of my universe. As my heart accepts blood from my veins, oxygenates it, and pumps it through my arteries, I absorb the blood from my ancestors, enrich it, and pass it to my descendants.

My veins carry life to me from my extremities, just as my connections to my ancestry have brought their blood into my system from far away places, and times long past. Veins, my attachment to the past, bring me the blood of my ancestors to refresh for them, and pass it to the future.

Arteries are those vital lifelines to the future. They are the highways of life used to move the blood of my ancestors to the blood of their, and my, descendants. I am but the present heart of the system, and the hearts of those very same descendants will replace me in the future, and they will become the center of their own universe.

Like the waters in the River of Life I have written of in the past, the blood in my veins shall never cease. Since time immemorial humanity has searched for the Fountain of Youth, but all the while it has been within them. My blood was the blood of my father, and all who came before him, and it is the blood of my children and all those who shall follow them. Blood is the Fountain of Youth, and the River of Life. As my heart is the connecter from my veins to my arteries, I am but a single droplet that flows in the bloodstreams of eternal generations, connecter of the past and the future.

Written By: Leo Lawton

It was about 1945. Our family cut firewood to heat our home. Each year about January it was time to cut a winter’s supply for the following year. By staying a year ahead we always had seasoned wood to burn. That brings me to mind that my Dad had a heavy fur coat that he called his buffalo coat. He always wore it to cut wood. It was similar to this one shown. I expect he got it from his father who stood about 6′ 2″ or 3″, while my dad was only about 5′ 8″ because the coat went from the top of Dad’s head, with the 8″ collar standing, all the way down to his ankles. It was made from buffalo or bison hide.

Additional Info:

A couple of days ago I wrote the small article about my father’s buffalo coat. I suggested he might have gotten it from his father. My father’s sister Clara gave me information for another article, and confirms Grandpa Will had such a coat so it was without much doubt they were one and the same.

Written By: Leo Lawton

March 2, 2022

Mary was born November 21, 1931 in Ogdensburg, New York, the third child and eldest girl of the marriage of Lloyd Benjamin and Alice Pearl (Halladay) Lawton. She was raised as the daughter all parents love; pretty, witty, healthy, and loved by all. She attended and graduated from Ogdensburg Free Academy in June 1949 at age 17 years. She loved to attend what were called round and square dances which were prevalent at the time. Mary’s brother Lawrence had wed Patricia Pierce of Heuvelton, New York. In turn Patricia’s brother Raymond Pierce and Mary became very good friends.

I recall an evening when Mary and I sat at our kitchen table each doing our school homework. A fly was buzzing around us, and Mary deftly reached out with one hand and caught it. I was nearly dumbfounded. She put it in a glass half full of water she had been sipping. It remained for several minutes before she removed it and placed it on the table where it remained apparently dead. Mary asked if I thought it was dead, and I answered yes. She poured a small quantity of salt onto the table and placed the fly in it. A minute or so later it flew away. I could hardly believe what I had just seen.Another evening I remember was when she asked me what m-a-c-d-u-f-f spelled. I told her MacDuff. She then asked what m-a-c-d-o-n-a-l-d spelled and I told her. Still next time she asked me what did m-a-c-h-i-n-e spell. I told her MacHine. She said “It does not. Don’t you know how to spell machine?”

She found work as a bookkeeper in a public accountant’s office in Watertown, Jefferson County, New York, but in 1950 she began having sharp pains in her head. She was found to have a growing tumor behind her left eye at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York which caused pressure on her brain. She had to terminate her job due to very poor eyesight caused by the growth of the unforgiving tumor. It was considered inoperable with the technical procedures existing at the time.

Three years slowly passed as Mary’s pain was ever increasing. She remained at home where our mother gave her all the care she possibly could, but the inexorable pain hardly ever eased. On Christmas Eve 1953 she was screaming at the pain which got worse as the hours passed. Our parents called for an ambulance to take her to the hospital, and she died there before midnight December 24, 1953.

Additional Info From Leo’s Sister Lori:

Mom told me Mary had come home from her Watertown job for a visit and was dressing Rose and Jane. She told Mom she needed socks for them and Mom told her they were right in front of her and maybe she needed to get her eyes checked. Mary then went to eye doctor to see if she needed glasses and that was the beginning. Mom always thought it was caused because Mary had been at a school dance and fell and hit her head really hard in the hard gym floor. I don’t know if that is true or even possible.

A funny story is after I was born and was a toddler. Mary’s eyesight had gotten really bad. She helped mom by making the kids lunches for school. There was a big flour can next to the cabinet where she made the sandwiches. She would sit me on the flour can to watch. She would put the bologna on the bread and I would snitch it off. With her bad eyesight she wouldn’t notice and the kids would get to school to find empty sandwiches.

Written by: Leo Lawton

Uncle Fred, who wasn’t really my uncle, was born July 10, 1868. His full name was Fred Eugene Lawton, and he was the next youngest child born into the family after my grandfather Will Benjamin and Will’s twin sister Wealtha Betsy Lawton. This, of course, makes him my father’s uncle, not exactly mine, but he was always known as Uncle Fred to me.

Fred grew up in the Philadelphia, Jefferson County, New York area, and married Minnie Bowles the last day of December 1890. Minnie died in January 1938, about six months before I was born, without ever having any children.

In August of that same year the seventy-year-old Fred took unto himself a new bride. The blushing bride, Bernice Patchen, was all of 16 years old. A year later she became a mother to a son Paul, so Fred at age 71 became a father for the first time. As Bernice died November 17, 1952, Fred outlived his second wife by nearly five years as he died June 4, 1957.

Written By: Leo Lawton

Meandering through the tombstones

trying to connect with those I knew.

There rests my mother,

There lies my father too.

Ever side by side as they were in life.

Lingering memories here among the bones.

Seven brothers, like peas there in a pod,

and three sisters lie beneath the sod.

No brothers, two sisters yet remain.

Years pass, I see them not again.

I will miss them too, after drum and fife.

There is beauty here among the stones.

All were born, all lived, all died.

All were happy, all were sad.

All lived life, all left life.

It is the way of life.

Life goes on.

As I meander through the stones

Written By: Leo Lawton

My Grandfather William had 10 siblings, one of which was a twin sister Wealthy, and another was a younger sister Annis. Annis married a man named Fred Healy. Fred and Annis are buried in Cavalry Cemetery in Watertown, New York. Their graves are well marked, and easy to locate.

However, Grandfather and his twin Wealthy, didn’t get along well as adults. Wealthy sued her twin brother on two occasions, on behalf of her younger sister Annis whom she apparently was very close. While searching for Wealthy’s final resting place I learned she was buried in Cavalry Cemetery. I was never able to locate a marked grave for her. However, if anyone else ever searches for it I can tell you this, there is a coffin in the ground right beside Annis Healy that is unmarked, and I’d bet even money it is Wealthy’s grave.

Watertown Times, Tuesday, May 9, 1893

Non-Suited Miss Wealtha B Lawton against Willie B Lawton

Action brought to recover about $325 for furniture. About two years ago Mr Lawton died in Antwerp leaving a widow and six children, some of whom were married. The widow moved to 12 Mechanic Street in Watertown. She later broke up housekeeping and went to live with her son Willie B Lawton. The father gave property to his wife, and when she went to her son’s home she divided the household goods giving most of it to the married children.

Miss Annis Lawton was one of the children underage, and her portion of the furniture was stored in Willie’s house in Antwerp. Annis, being a minor, could not commence an action so she made a bill of sale for the property to her sister, Miss Wealtha B Lawton, who commenced this suit against her brother.

The first witness called was Miss Annis Lawton, a pretty girl of 19 summers who lives at 43 Massey street Watertown. She testified a quantity of furniture had been given to her by her mother, and that she transferred it to her sister for a consideration of $1.

Wealtha B Lawton and Charles H Brown were the only other witnesses sworn. Attorney Hooker, for the defense, moved for a non-suit on the ground that the plaintiff did not have a proper title, as the transferr was made by a minor. The court granted the motion.

Written by: Leo Lawton

It was a bright and sunshiny afternoon. World War II was ongoing, but that had little effect on four young lads on a dairy farm in northern New York. Bob was about 11 years of age, while Ron was around 9, Dell was 8, and I was about 6.

The hay had been removed from our ten-acre-meadow leaving just freshly mown stubble. As the four of us roamed the farm looking for some trouble to find us, we spotted a woodchuck nibbling from the newer green shoots poking up among the yellowed shafts of the removed crop. Engrossed in the new-found panorama surrounding it, the woodchuck without doubt had spotted us long before we laid eyes on it. That had little deterrence on the four of us though. Almost in unison we shouted with glee as we headed for the woodchuck sure that we could capture it for a nice pet. In our minds it was as good as in some sort of a pen we would build for it.

Before we were half way to it, Mr. Woodchuck dropped down a convenient nearby hole and disappeared. We had interrupted his afternoon meal, but accomplished little more than that. As we stood around the hole in the small dirt pile surrounding it we contemplated our next move. It was Ron that came up with the brilliant plan of filling the hole with water, which obviously would flood the woodchuck’s home forcing him to the surface where we would grab him. It was as good as in a pen already.

Bob and Ron each found a pail, filled them with water at the hand pump, carried them about a tenth of a mile to the hole and dumped them in. Little changed beyond a general dampness near the surface. Back they raced to the pump for two more buckets full. Down the hole went the water from the filled pails with approximately the same results as the first trip. Dell and I were the designated watchers to make sure the woodchuck didn’t escape somehow while Bob and Ron were at the well. With no visible effect from the action so far off they went after more water. Sooner or later that hole had to fill. After several more trips, each slower than the previous, Bob and Ron were getting tired so Dell and I were delegated to go after the next two pails full. Being somewhat younger and smaller we of course took longer. Bob and Ron seeing a good thing decided they were still tired so Dell and I returned for a second trip. This took even longer than our first one, so things were pretty much slowing down.

I don’t remember now if it was Bob or Ron, but one or the other decided we should get our hand-made wagon, load two ten-gallon milk cans, fill them with water and dump them in. Surely, that much water would get the desired effect. After a couple of trips with that rig it was a general consensus we were gaining nothing so we gave it up, at least until the next day.

As we trudged slowly back to the house I turned, and I swear that woodchuck was holding his stomach and laughing back on the hill.