World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, American; World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German
About 1930 or shortly there after, Clarence and Gordon bought five
acres of land from Tony Miller along the edge of his farm. They paid
$30 an acre for it and about four and one half acres of woods, then
the creek with a clearing beside it. After we had it surveyed we put
up some markers at the back corners which were up the hill. It was
level for about 1/2 to 1 acre at the bottom and the woods went up the
hill fairly steep. About two months after buying the land we were
walking around the property line and found that Tony Miller was
cutting down the big trees, 2 to 2 1/2 feet in diameter, and dragging
them onto his property. He had cut about ten of the big trees and
didn't think we would be over there to find out. We went down to
Bristol Center and got the local Sheriff (big deal) and had him serve
papers of some sort on Tony Miller. We never got any of the big trees
back, but he didn't cut any more. There was one big oak about 3 1/2
feet in diameter that had been cut down and still on our property. I
would go up there and sit on it and hunt squirrels. We never did cut
it up for firewood as we never had a saw big enough to do it. The
knowledge of trees that I learned in Boy Scouts gave me an interest in
the trees that were on our property. There were pine, oak, maple,
beech, basswood and a very hard wood. The ironwood did not grow very
big and had a twisted trunk. The bark was slate grey, smooth and it
was properly named because it sawed like iron.
We bought the lumber for the cabin at Davidson's Lumber Yard on West
Avenue in Canandaigua and they delivered it for us. I remember being
over there and waiting for the truck to get there. The driver got lost
and it took him half the day to find us. After we had unloaded the
lumber, he sat and visited with us the rest of the day. I was about 12
or 13 years old so could help my brothers saw the boards and nail them
up. I recall putting the wood shingles on the roof. We even had a
front door that we could use when we had company. Gordon was good with
mason work so he put in the cement block foundation and built the big
stone fireplace at one end of the cabin. We had a lot of good
fireplace fires and used to sit around it by the hour. Sometimes we
would find a piece of apple wood to burn, which makes a beautiful
fire. We also had a wood burning stove which we used for cooking. The
cabin had one large room and two bedrooms partitioned off at one end
by six foot high partitions. The walls were just the clapboards on the
outside so it was not very warm in the winter. Just about like
Horseshoe Camp I imagine. It was nice and warm, however, if you kept
the fire going.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account