The following is an excerpt of a correspondence from February 7, 1902 between Sam Wilkinson and the editor of the Ellenville Journal at the time. These correspondences are from a series of 35 written to the Ellenville Journal in 1901, shared by James Ayers of Tabasco.

Bro Taylor: Here are some scrap recollections of what seemed to me queer or funny happenings among old inhabitants — eked out with an item or two on “information and belief” — which if not deemed to “shallow” are at your service, in crude form:

One man on his wedding day forgot which of two sisters he had married — the two bearing a striking resemblance to each other. The festivities of the reception being over and the guests retired, the groom stepped up to his new sister, and said, “Come, old woman, we may as well retire too!” The general opinion was that he had imbibed too much tea, or something. The sister was by no means choice in the language she used to denounce him.

To one who had been bereft of his wife I said, “I am sorry to hear you have lost your good wife.” “Ye e s,” he replied with a sob, “she’s a goner!” Another widower said to a man who had met with a similar loss, “Yes, everybody is subject to locality.” One man who was married on Saturday, drove the next day with his bride to church, and in his excitement marched into church with his hat on and knit mittens on his hand, in one of which he carried a big driving whip. In the same class this incident belongs: A man who was dressing for his wife’s funeral, was grunting and tugging away to get on a pair of new boots. He pulled until the perspiration broke out all over him in drops; and finally threw the boots across the room, declaring with a good deal of emphasis, “I shall be glad when this fracas is over!”

We had two Irish weavers who went about the country weaving for the farmers. When either of them came to the village he was sure to get slightly breezy. On one occasion while going from one farm to another to work, John (we will call him although that was not his name) had somehow got a drop too much, and seeing Dominie Wyckoff coming along the road he backed into an angle of the “worm fence,” and there braced himself with a hand grasping either of the diverging rails. When the sedate old Dominie discovered John’s plight he said to him, “John, I am sorry to see you in such a condition;” and after some further moralizing put the query — “John, where do you expect to go, when you die?” John stammeringly responded, “Well, Parson, unless I can get along better than I can now, I shan’t go any where!”

Billy, the weaver, was a very nice old man; drunk or sober he was always civil and sensible. For some cause Billy and his wife did not live together; he never went near her. When I was about to get married I told Billy (who was a regular visitor at my shop) what I was going to do. “What, Sam, you going to be married?” I said, yes I am. “Well, Sam,” said he, “I like ‘em; yes I like the women — but I tell you — you, keep clear!” When anything in the culinary line please Billy was wont to ask, “Who is the cook of this cookery?” and being told he would say, “let her do it again.” Once he bought a pair of boots long before winter, and put grease on them every week, so they would turn water. Winter came, and Billy essayed to put on his boots. It would have been a fortune for an artist could he have seen his countenance then; but Billy only said, “Oh dear, what judgment!” The grease he applied had caused his boots to shrink, and he couldn’t get them on.

One woman who is still living, on her wedding day visited Ellenville for the first time, though only eight miles away. She was wonderfully surprised. he said to her husband, “How nice it is; I had no idea the world was so big!” This lady was a handsome young woman; it was her first trip away from home; and it was her husband who told me this story. There were numbers of people around here who had never seen the North river. One old lady told me she had never seen a steamboat, not even a sloop. One payday (payday along the canal in those days came once in three months — wages 62.5 cents a day), her husband took her to Kingston a shopping. When she told me she was going to Kingston I told her not to return until she had seen the river and the sloops. It happened to be a fine day for the visit; there was a fresh breeze and a great many sloops were in sight from the heights overlooking Rondout and the river. The day after her return the old lady hailed me thus: “Sammyche, dat was de greatest treat of my whole life. I was so surprised I didn’t buy a t’ing; an I’m coming to spend my money mit you!”

One a visit to Kingston or “Sopus” as the Dutchmen used to call it, one honest old farmer took dinner at one of the eating houses (there were no “restaurants” known as such 80 years ago), and the old gentleman for the first time in his life had pork and baked beans. He had eaten plenty of pork, and also boiled beans; but Boston baked beans he had never heard of. When he got home he told his wife and daughter what a splendid dinner he had eaten at ‘Sopus — baked beans; and now, said he, tomorrow we must surprise Simon with baked beans for dinner. The beans were duly washed, put in a pan and placed in the old Dutch oven. Every housewife well knows the result; the family were all surprised to find the beans that were to have been such a luxury, as hard as glass! “By minedunder” said the old man, “how is dat?” Next time he visited Sopus the old lady where he dined told him the beans should be boiled first and then baked. And the scheme was tried again very next day, and with such success that on his next rip to Kingston the farmer was easily persuaded to buy a pound of tea — an article never before tried in his house.

On leaving home for the woods next morning the old gentleman said he would be home for dinner, and would expect to have tea. After his departure the vrouw summoned her daughter in council as to the method of cooking the tea. After protracted consultation they were united in the opinion that it must be boiled; and if that proved not right it could be baked afterward. Accordingly the pound of tea was emptied into the iron pot generally used for cooking potatoes. Water sufficient to cover the tea was poured in; but soon the tea drank up all the water, and was still swelling to such proportions that the pot cover was bobbing up and down like a jumping jack. Another consultation resulted in the determination to pour on more water, as the leaves were found too tough for eating, and evidently needed boiling longer. The old gentleman returning said he understood the it was the liquid that was to be used, and not the leaves; but on tasting the water he changed his mind, and concluded it must be eaten like cabbage, with perhaps a little vinegar to make it palatable. The water was then poured off and the new cabbage was served in the biggest pop bowl on the premises with the customary condiments taken with cabbage. The result can be imagined. The old gentleman said the stuff was tam poison, and avowed that if he had that Sopus shopkeeper here he would cram the whole potful down his throat, py tunder. “And when you vimmen catch me pringing home any new ting from ‘Sopus again,’ said he, “You may take me to the ‘syium for one tam fool; you hear dat now.”

Sally Walker was the wife of old Jimmy Walker, an Irishman and a good old fashioned Democrat. It was Jimmy who said, “when I brought to Middleport in 1844 the news that James K. Polk had been nominated for President, “I don’t know him, never heard of him; but I’ll vote for him though hell itself should gape and bid me hould me pace!” Squire Depuy said Jimmy voted for Jackson every election day as long as he lived. Jimmy was a great drinker, and the Squire would often treat him just to hear him talk. When asked what he would take, he always replied, “Cashey knows.”

But that isn’t telling you that the people of this place insisted that Sally was a witch. And she certainly looked very much like the pictures of witches I have seen in years gone by. However, poor old Sally was no witch, despite the opinions of superstitious people; and she was no fool either — though foolish she certainly was, to go about in the way she did, with nothing on her back but an old quilt wrapped around her, her spindle legs swathed in old rags, on her feet a pair of old shoes or rubbers in winter and in summer no shoes at all. One summer afternoon I was driving rapidly past Sally’s place, thinking to avoid the storm that was approaching. Sally was out in the field picking up droppings from the apple trees when the gale struck her and tore the old quilt from her back, leaving her standing in the middle of the field as nearly in a state of nudity as fifty years of accumulation of dirt would permit. From that day to this I have fancied that if ever there was a witch I have seen one. Had the incident occurred on a moonlight night and been witnessed by the inhabitants, this vicinity would have been more depopulated than it is now; believers in witchcraft would have been multiplied — the tale told with fear and trembling to this day, and children would not have gone out of doors after dark. And on that score it might have been a good thing.

S. Wilkinson