Interview

The Calhoun - Garnsey Branch

Bennett - Roberts Branch / Calhoun - Garnsey Branch /VanDyk - Jenkins Branch

Excerpts relating to Grindstone Island, New York from:

TAPED CONVERSATION WITH LOUISE CALHOUN GREENWALD, AUGUST 1986

Thank you to Dorothy Estelle who interviewed Aunt Louise and gave me a copy
of the typed transcript GP

My great-grandmother Emma Garnsey was first engaged to my great-grandfather Elmer's brother Ben Calhoun. Ben and Emma tried three times to get to Clayton, New York to be married and bad weather prevented the trip each time. After the third failed attempt, Emma called off the wedding to Ben and later married his brother Elmer in Clayton on February 6, 1882.

Aunt Louise talked about that and other family oral history in the interview. Below are excerpts from that interview that might interest readers who are looking for information about early life on Grindstone Island.

For more information about Grindstone Island history, view the Grindstone Island Research and Heritage Web site.

AUNT LOUISE: Uncle Ben (Calhoun), you know, he was a sailor…He owned boats and he took cargo from down there clear up north. Ya. And he was gone most of the time…My mother was a cook on the boat one time and my dad was first mate.

QUESTION: That's one thing I wondered, what your dad did for a living when you lived on the
Thousand Islands.

AUNT LOUISE: Well, he sailed with my Uncle Ben. He was first mate…(Uncle Ben) owned the
boat…He owned three or four boats, in fact. But this one he traveled on, and then one by the
name of John Block was one of em, kind of the head with my dad. My dad was next in line…and
then he got my mother to go one year when Evylene was a baby. And he stitched a hammock,
and everything for em on the boat so ma could go and cook for em…it was a large cargo boat,
but then they had their rooms down below, you know.

QUESTION: Where did they go, between the Thousand Islands and where?

AUNT LOUISE: They went the St. Lawrence some how. You'd have to find out how they do that.
But Duluth, do you know where Duluth is…they went up to there, carried cargo clear up to
there…I don't remember what you call it (the name of the boat). It was Ben Calhoun's boat, that's
all I know, but he had two or three boats…

QUESTION: What was it like to live on Grindstone Island?

AUNT LOUISE: They left when I was four years old…I wouldn't remember. Well, I remember
some, sure I do. My mother couldn't believe at that age I could remember. But I did. And I
remember the house and the barn. Oh, it was a nice house. It was just like the homes around
here. Not the newer ones, you know. But it was a good home. It had an upstairs and
downstairs…(didn't know who had built it)…that was a farm, you see. This was right in front of
they call (it) Thurso, that was the center of Grindstone Island, and the stores were right in the
center there, and the stores were right here, and our house was right here. (Gestures this.) That
was a road going around the island towards the dock where they docked when we come in from
Clayton. That's on the American side. The other way we went, it was the Canadian side. We were
three miles from Canada and three miles from Clayton, in New York.

QUESTION: Where did you go most, to Canada, or Clayton?

AUNT LOUISE: We went to Clayton all the time.…no, they went to Gananoque once in a while,
that's the Canadian side. But they mostly went to Clayton for trading…

AUNT LOUISE: (The relatives) A lot had moved to Clayton from the island. All of em live in
Clayton now. They came from the island…Sure, they're all children from brothers and sisters of
my dad and mother…both my grandpas and grandmas lived on the island and the children were
raised there. So those in Clayton, there's a lot of relatives, but they're more distant relatives now.
I've got one first cousin alive, Amy (last name not clear). She was Amy Calhoun, and she's in a
home. She's just my age. But that's all I can tell you about the families.

QUESTION: You didn't go to school there because you were too little. Did the older kids go to
school there?

AUNT LOUISE: Ya, they had about four miles to walk to school…Well, they used the horse and
sleigh in the winter to take em. No, they had a school there and my sister who was seven went to
school there. That was the only one. I was too young, of course. And see, there was quite a few
children between them and me. That's why I was so much younger. When we moved here I think
I was four. Mae was five…So she (Evylena ?) was only nine when we moved here. And Bill was
fifteen. He's eleven years older than I am. So they went to school here for a little while, but not
too long. Evylene graduated from the eighth grade here. Bill quit before he got through that. Oh,
ya, it was just a one-room school house you know…

AUNT LOUISE: …it's (Grindstone) the largest island down there in the St. Lawrence, in the New
York part. And so there were, at one time, there were thirty-five families, farms there…relatives
were there, but if they had children they moved away. So it was just the older ones left. But, no,
there were people there by the name of Block, I know some of em, can't remember the names
right now…there were probably as many friends as relatives, cause on all the families the youth
moved away from there. There was, they had a lot of cattle, see? They kept, had a creamery
there, a good creamery on the island. They used to make the most delicious butter. we'd to down
and get some and things like that…I don't think they ever made Limburger Cheese…If they made
it there I never knew about that because I was too young to remember that. I know after we come
up here we certainly didn't send back there and get Limburger cheese…But they had a creamery
and they made delicious cheese, and now there's no creamery there anymore. And just a few
farmers.

QUESTION: Now the name of the island, Grindstone Island, did they quarry stone there?

AUNT LOUISE: Yes, they had a quarry there, Slate quarry (Slate was the owner of the quarry.
They quarried granite, not slate.) My dad worked there for a while when it was first going. And
they had a hotel on the island, too…really a big one, two or three stories. And men that was hired
to come in there stated that it would help because they couldn't take the boats and go home
every night from Clayton and Gananoque. And I guess, the way Dad told it, they hired quite a few
men. It was quite a big quarry. There's a street in Detroit that has that, it's all paved with that that
came from that quarry…I think it's Jefferson…My mother pointed it out to me when we were
there, said that came from Grindstone Island

QUESTION: Do you remember what your grandfather Calhoun did for a living?

AUNT LOUISE: Yes, he had a wagon, and he sold household goods, went from farm-to-farm
there…and always one of the boys went with him because Grandpa was blind, you know...Ya, he
was blinded when he was quite a young man. A log fell, they cut a log, one of the men was in the
way and Grandpa run under to help keep it off of his back, too, see, and he strained so hard it
ripped something, and he went blind. So, he never saw his last three children…there was Aunt
Esther and Aunt Marthie, four, Esther, Martha, Uncle Emmet, and my dad. The last four, he never
saw them.

QUESTION: What did he do for a living before he was blind?

AUNT LOUISE: I don't know…Farmed, I guess, because they had a big farm…unless he worked
for other farmers, but when he went blind he couldn't farm. So, he, I don't know how he got the
wagon, he must have had a little money laid by, got the wagon and the horse.

QUESTION: Just other farms there on the island? Or, did he go over to Clayton, too:

AUNT LOUISE: No, just on the island. There were thirty-five families there. And they all knew
him, and they'd all buy from him. He'd buy stuff, you know, that they could use…like household
ware of any kind. So, he made his living that way. And then they always had a garden and they
always had the boys big enough to do the gardening. (Laugh) My dad told about, they used to
tease him. He'd take the horse and go down the, plow in the garden, and they'd say, "Oh, that's a
crooked line." and he'd say, "My Criminoe, I'll get you kids yet." And he would shove em to the
fence, but they'd be on the other side of the fence. I said, "Oh, Dad, you were a bad kid." He said,
"Ya, I know…but we thought it was funny…" Boys are awful things to raise.

QUESTION: What about your Grandfather Garnsey? What did he do for a living?

AUNT LOUISE: I really don't know. Just farmed, I guess. No, see my grandpa died before, when I
was quite young. Maybe he never saw me, I don't know. And I don't remember my grandma,
either…No, I think they were both gone before I was born. But I did see my Grandma Calhoun.
And I remember her…Nancy…Well, she had a house. Right here (gestured) was the store, at
Thurso, of course, and our house was over here. Her house was that side of the store. It was a
street here and a street here. So, she was right back of us, see. So, we used to go over there and
she sat in a big rocker by the window, always looking out. Whether she was crippled, I don't
know, but I don't remember seeing her walk. She was always in that rocker. And she was quite a
heavy woman. And I remember going over there when they had threshers there. And my dad
would help with threshing, so I'd go over there, you know. And I can remember seeing her sit
there…her maiden name was Nancy Clark.

QUESTION: Did you know anything about the Clark family?

AUNT LOUISE: No, she come from Canada, that's all we knew…But she always said she was,
what was that, Dutch?…Pennsylvania Dutch…And if that's what she was, it was a little German
Dutch…

QUESTION: Did you know her mother's maiden name at all?

AUNT LOUISE: No, no, I didn't know any further back than my two grandmas and grandpas…my
dad didn't know. Whatever my dad and mother knew, I was always talking to em about it, so I
would have got it…

(Note: There is no documentation that Samuel Calhoun was raised on the Island. In fact, the first
census in which Samuel's family was on the Island, was the 1855 census when Samuel was in
his late thirties. We don't knew where Samuel met Nancy, or where they were married, but when
their first child, Sarah A., was born about 1845, they were living in Chemung County, N.Y. They
then went to Pennsylvania (according to information on the census) to the town of Wells, in Tioga
County (according to a Calhoun descendant, a Mrs. Rusho of Adams, N.Y.) where their second
child, Joshua, was born in 1847 (according to the census and Joshua's war records from the
National Archives). In 1851 they moved to Jefferson County, to the area of Clayton and
undoubtedly directly to Grindstone where Rosanna was born probably that year. William B.
Freeman of Watertown, a Calhoun researcher, said that Rosanna was a twin and that her sister
only lived a short while.)

AUNT LOUISE: Then, of course, I don't know how many Grandma lost, but my dad always said
his mother had seventeen children. And I've told you the ones that were alive that we knew.
Johnnie got killed at nineteen, didn't get killed. They were wrestling, the boys were out wrestling.
And something seemed to snap in his side. And they think he bled inside and died…he was older
than my dad, because he was after Uncle Ben. Now, let's see… ya, he was after Uncle Ben.
There was boys out there wrestling, didn't have to be all their own family. And that's what
happened to him…But my mother Grandma had two boys, an Emmet and Willie. And Willie, he
was about eight years old, he climbed a tree…he fell out of the tree and there was a stump down
below, he hit his head on. You know, on the island, had no way to get to a doctor…then her other
son was Emmet. And he was about fourteen. And they used to go skating a lot on the ice there,
you know. He went through a hole and was drowned. They said Grandma fainted away seven
times before she got out where he was. They'd get her up and she'd go down again. Ya, they had
tough times there. We don't know anything about that. My dad's side, they had so many children,
Grandpa being blind you know. My dad had to go over to Clayton to pick up groceries for em,
sometimes they couldn't get on the island. And of course they had to go on the ice, and he didn't
have any shoes, so they took the bark of the tree, cut big pieces of bark and tied it around their
feet. But Grandma always knit their socks, so they had warm socks under that. But they had no
shoes. That happened a good many times. So, they come up the tough way.

AUNT LOUISE: And they used to take their teams across to Clayton, you know…toward spring
it'd get soft. They'd have to go with the teams to buy groceries and things. That was after my
mother was married to em. And the horses would go in, go through the ice. And they had two
horses, Tom and Topsy. Topsy was young, and Tom was old. And so they wanted to save Topsy,
and they kept trying to get her out. And Tom kept going around putting his head on the ice, hold
up, and they didn't, they finally got them both out. But they wanted to save Topsy, cause she was
the youngest, see? They told us that, but I always thought, all my life, I felt so sorry for poor old
Tom. They was going to let him drown if they couldn't get, but they got em both out…

AUNT LOUISE: I would like to know if there was some way to trace my Grandma Clark. She had
black eyes and black hair. We, my mother always told my dad his mother was part Indian. And it
could have been…

AUNT LOUISE: It could have been because she came from Canada, and there were lots of
Indians there. And there was a lot of Indians all through the islands. But there were a lot of
Indians over there in Canada.