Author Archives: SKH

New Wheels

21 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by in 19th Century Photos

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As a follow-up to the previous post, here is a selection from The Pine Plains Register of Friday April 11, 1902, a year before the date on the section of quilt. This post started as an attempt to find Ward Bathrick mentioned in the social column of local newspapers and has become a post about getting around in the early 20th century.

Although cars were just becoming popular in 1902, most folks still used horses to get around or the very popular bicycle, I learned something from this paper from 1902; people of that era referred to a bicycle as simply as “wheel”. See the entries below for three examples from the same article.

First, a fun post from a place south and west of our area about someone getting a new car:

“There were great doings in the village of Walton one day last week. One of its prominent citizens purchased a fifteen hundred dollar horseless carriage in Philadelphia, and after it reached its destination and was unloaded from the cars, because of some defect in the machinery it could not be put in motion and the disappointed owner finally hitched his horses to it and drove to his home. His admiring friends accompanied him with drums, flags, horns, etc., and made the town lively for a while.”

Elizaville (the bit I had been searching for initially)

“Ward Bathrick and wife spent Saturday and Sunday with her sister, who is quite ill at Staatsburgh.”

Jackson Corners

“A few days ago Silas Lawrence lost a bag of corn between Nelson Bathrick’s and Pine Plains. Mr. Lawrence would be greatly pleased if the finder would notify him. His initials were on the bag.

The boys in this place have been getting their wheels out and are taking some lively spins.

James R. Wilbur went to Pine Plains one day last week on his wheel.

Harry H. Bathrick has a new wheel.”

The Pine Plains Register and countless other newspapers from NY State can be searched and viewed at Old Fulton Post Card.

Click to Enlarge

Red Hook children, c. 1890: Unknown girl on left, Leland 1874 – 1918 and Minnie Curtis 1880 – 1967 with their cousin Martha Fraleigh b. 1887. This image is part of my collection.

Signature Quilt – Introduction

20 Thursday Oct 2011

Posted by in Fiber Arts

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A 70″x80″ piece of family and local history was recently passed down to me from a great-aunt who had it passed down to her from her mother. It doesn’t have a name, thought had been calling it “the textile”. On doing some initial research, it appears to be a sort of “signature” quilt. Other names for such a piece are “album” or “autograph” quilt. Names I recognized from my family tree appear on it as well as those of a great many other local folks. I do not know how or why it was created, or even if it was made all at once or over time.

Signature (or Autograph) Quilt: a quilt made from blocks which have been signed on individual blocks. May be made as a friendship quilt by friends and family of the owner, or as a fund raiser.  Signature quilts were a popular fund raiser by the Red Cross and some church groups in the early part of the 20th century.

– Quilting.com

It’s constructed of muslin and embroidery thread and is unfinished–both in the sense that it has not been made into a quilt and that the edges are raw. The work is simple and in some squares rahter crude, but it is still something I treasure. Before stowing it carefully in an acid-free archive box, I photographed each of the 42 panels and transcribed the names that appear on each. Almost all of the panels are different, though most of the handwriting is in the same two or three hands, so I’m not sure it qualifies as a “signature” quilt by strict definition of the word.

The area in which the textile was made was surely around where my family lived in the Town of Milan, NY. Some names on it appear to be from the towns of Red Hook, Rhinebeck, Pine Plains, and Milan, in Dutchess County, NY and Gallatin and Livingston in Columbia County, NY. Below is panel #33 which is the only panel to have something other than a name written on it: the year 1903. On looking through the census for 1900 and 1910 I have found many of the same names right where they should be. I am currently researching all of the names on the quilt and plan to publish a book or booklet about the piece in the future.

At left, click to enlarge, is Panel 6 – 3 (#33 of 42)

Text: 1903, Herald Coons, Willis Bathrick, Harm Bathrick, Ward Bathrick, Mrs. Ward Bathrick, Willie Baker, Lulu Bathrick. Red, pink, yellow, grey and white embroidery: child, Greek helmet, heart-shape, carnations.

H. W. Smith Stamp Portrait

19 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by in 19th Century Photos

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This little guy is the size of a standard old-style stamp, scanned here quite large so you don’t need to squint. You can click to enlarge it, as well.

It’s from a late 19th/early 20th century photo album owned by my family. Only some of the images were labeled, and though we have Smiths in the family and in this album, I’m not sure where H. W. Smith fits in. He may have been a distant cousin of that family. The photo gallery which made the print is C. H. Gallup in Poughkeepsie. It’s a strange little thing, like a 19th century version of NeoPrint, traded with friends and pasted into albums and on business cards etc.

“…in 1887, two patents were issued for “stamp portrait apparatus,” first to Henry Kuhn, later to Genelli, both of St. Louis, Mo. They both copied a previously taken image into multiple stamp-sized reproductions on perforated, gummed photo paper. These are the earliest true photo stamps. Their popularity persisted until the early 20th century. Little is known about the makers of photo stamps in the U.S., even less for those overseas. Unless the maker is identified on the stamp, it is hard to determine even in what country the stamp was made.”

– Arthur H. Groten, M.D

The American Stamp Dealer & Collector, May 2009, p.47

Mr. Groten’s full article, linked to in this post, also has a page of examples of various stamp-type photos and a good, brief run-down of the history of photographic printing processes leading up to stamp portraits. It also mentions photos with stamps on the back from the Civil War era which I believe I have one or two in my collections somewhere, but never knew what the stamp meant! Neat. I’ll have to go through and see if I can find one again.

“Phil Setting Decoys”

19 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Color Slides

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Welcome!

I thought I’d like to have a place to post various musings about northern Dutchess County, NY which my family has called home for over 200 years. I have collections of color slides, letters, newspapers, family bibles etc. which can provide a steady stream of content for years to come.

To start things off, below is “Phil Setting Decoys” 10-27-1940 by my grandfather, John Losee. It was probably his favorite image and a scan, even with a lot of photoshop to try to get close to the real thing, doesn’t do it justice. Grampa Losee was born July 7th, 1907 in Upper Red Hook to Rosalie Fraleigh and Dr. Harvey Losee. He was an avid sportsman in his younger days, hunting all manner of woodland creatures, some of which we still have in taxidermy!

Here, his friend Phil (who’s surname has been lost to time so far) sets decoys in the early morning hours with John’s dog, Amos probably somewhere along the Hudson River in October, 1940.