Adam Manchester — An Autobiography

I was born May 26, 1895, in a tenant house on the Hi Schoolcraft farm located in the Town of Wright, Schoharie County.

I was the youngest of seven children, five boys and two girls. My one sister, Carrie, died June 23, 1884. One brother died October 2, 1889, and Harry, another brother died September 28, 1892.

My father was a farmer. He worked for Mr. Schoolcraft who paid him $18 per month and furnished him with a house, garden, apples, milk and potatoes. Father raised his own pork.

There were meat and fish wagons on the roads in those days and they would call twice a week so that we had fresh meat and fish at all times. Fish sold for two cents a pound; meat for five cents a pound.

It was very common in those times to have a pack peddler call. He would ask to come in and then he would unfold his pack to sell you all kinds of needles, pins, shoe strings or laces and all kinds of everyday items for the house. He would ask for a lunch.

Tramps were common and if you fed one, he told others who came to the door.

Mother worked very hard at her household duties. In the fall father had grain threshers, hay pressers and apple pickers. This lasted for a week or two and it made much extra work for mother to handle the big meals and take care of the children.

I went one year to Waldenville grade school. Six years old, I walked three miles each way to and from school. When I was seven father, and my oldest brother, Edward, bought a small home in the lower end of the village of Gallupville, from Menzo Schafer. This was on December 27, 1902. The village home relieved my mother of a great deal of hard farm work. It was like a vacation for her.

Gallupville was a very prosperous village. One of two saw mills was located on Mill Lane. It was owned and operated by Willey Gaige. The other was the Elam Haverly mill located at the lower end of Factory Street. One of two grist mills was located on Mill Lane, owned and operated by Frank Gaige who made both wheat and buckwheat flour. The other mill was owned by Elam Haverly. There were two cobbler’s shops. On upper Main Street was the Hiram Bunzey shop and another one on the same street was run by William Barton. There was a harness shop owned by Emory Bassler on the corner of Mill Lane and Factory Street.

There were seven grocery stores in the village. Daniel Baker owned one on Main Street just above the Nasholts Blacksmith shop. The post office was located in this store. The building still stands (1966) and is owned by the I.O.O.F. Lodge. Another grocery was that of Orville Plank and his son Edward, who also sold dry goods and hardware. It was across the street from the hotel and was last owned by a Donald Hotaling who tore it down to build a home on the site. A third grocery, Seward Latham’s was on the corner of Mill Lane and Factory Street, and has since been torn down. Jacob Kelsch and son ran another on the corner of Main and Factory Streets which also sold a general line of dry goods. This store changed hands several times and is currently (1966) owned by Frank Westfall. The Omar Wood grocery stood near the old creamery. It was made into a residence by Harold Barber. The sixth grocery was on Church Street where Thornton’s garage later stood. It was run by Menzo Hilts and burned down in 1903. The seventh and last was in the lower end of Gallupville in an area called “the Dock.” It was run by Harry Porter who also operated a grocer’s wagon on the road twice weekly. It is now (1966) a restaurant and grill run by Robert Millerton.

The Jeff Snyder hotel on Main Street is now owned by the Grange Lodge. A second hotel in the lower village burned on the evening of July 15, 1906. It was known as the Crystal Spring Hotel and was run by Peter Smith. I was 11 when it burned.

The creamery where cheese was made on Factory Street is now a town garage. The Col. Nasholts blacksmith shop on Main Street is gone. Another one, owned by Al Mattice, stood on the site of Thornton’s service station. A third one owned by Friend Bouck on Church Street is now a private garage. A meat market on Main Street was run by Albert Weidman and housed a barber shop upstairs, run by George Barrett.

The Methodist Church stood on Factory Street and the Lutheran Church on the corner of School and Main Streets. The Reformed Brick Church on upper Main Street burned May 17, 1932. It also was sometimes used as a school. A two room grade school stood on church Street. Among my teachers there were Arthur Parsons, Mamie Carter and George Becker. This school and the Gaige grist mill burned on April 1, 1920.

Father worked for different farmers summers and cut logs and cord wood for them in winter. In spare time he made wooden barley forks in his shop. The forks were sold locally and to hardware stores about the country. In spare time I made a wood turning lathe and turned out hay hook handles, neck yokes and other articles for the village blacksmith shops. Most every farmer had sheep and summers I helped my next door neighbor bale wool. He was a buyer and the bales were very large and made my shoes shiny and soft. Winters I ran a trap line and sold the furs I caught to buy clothes and my school supplies.

When I was 14 I began working during vacations for Lee Becker who paid me six dollars a month on the farm and for Jessie Ostrander for 25 cents per day. In 1911 when I was 16 I had finished seventh grade and quit school to work for an older brother as a carpenter. Charles Spateholts, another carpenter, worked for him and the three of us repaired old buildings and built new ones. Work was slow in the fall of 1912 and I picked hops for Levi Borst on Rickard Hill. We earned fifty cents per box and were paid off in silver dollars.

The next spring I got a job driving a dump truck for the Mix Stone Company at Schoharie, delivering crushed stone for road building. This lasted until cold weather set in and in November 1912 I went to Schenectady to look for a job. Mother gave me five dollars in bills with some extra clothes in a suit case and I left home. My brother took me by horse and wagon to Delanson where I boarded a train for the city. There I visited my cousin, Viola McFarland, on South Center Street. On Monday morning she sent me to the employment office of the General Electric Company. There was a line of two or three hundred men and women ahead of me. I went there twice a day for a week. I was discouraged at being told each time that there were no jobs today. Saturday I decided to return home but my cousin said to try again. When I finally reached the man who hired he said I’d been there each day all week and to come inside. The office was full of people. When asked my occupation I said carpenter, but that I was willing to do any kind of work. I was told to report at shop 14, second floor, on Monday at seven. It was a happy day. On the way home I bought a lunch basket and could hardly wait to begin work. Everything was strange when I began work. Oddly, two friends from home, Roy Saddlemire and Nellie Bouck worked there and I felt at home. I was put on day work on a machine to insulate electric motor coils. After a week of day work I started on piece work. Wages were small. I worked 13 hours for one dollar and ninety five cents.

My cousin had so many boarders that I looked for another boarding place. I called at the home of Henry Pickett on Crane Street. He had come from my home town and I stayed with him for some time. When they moved I went to live with Avery B. Zimmer who also had come from my home town. He was a motorman on the trolley cars.

Saturday noon, August 3rd, 1914,the fire sirens sounded and the boys in my shop said it was on Crane Street. I never gave it a thought until I got home at the Zimmer residence and found that the fire had been there. In the backyard there were burned shoes and clothing. I went in the backdoor of the kitchen. Food was cooking on the oil stove. I called but there was no answer. I turned off the stove and went to my room to change my clothes. The door bell rang. I answered it and one of the neighbors told me what had happened.

Mrs. Zimmer had been burning papers in the back yard when her clothing caught fire. She had been taken to the hospital where she died. I had to go looking for another place to live.

One of the fellows who worked with me roomed on Jay Street at Gleason’s bachelor apartments and suggested I come room with him. A furnished room with bath was four dollars a week.

We ate at a small diner on Franklin Street which was just around the corner. Weekly rates were 21 meals for $3.50. The diner furnished a card and punched the card for each meal.

In May of 1914, the men went out on strike for more money. I hung around a week waiting for a settlement that didn’t come. I went to Altamont looking for a job. I found work in a garage owned and operated by Arthur Barton who gave me room and board while I learned to he a mechanic. I got my chauffeur’s license that year and worked all winter overhauling cars.

In the spring of 1915 Barton began paying me six dollars a week and furnished my board. I was still working there when a contractor, John W. Flynn of Watervliet, contracted to resurface the state road from West Berne to East Berne. He came in the garage one day asking where he could find a truck driver. I hired out to him for $18 a week. The crusher was located in Berne so we drew stone from it during the day. At night we hauled soft coal from Altamont for the steam boiler.

I boarded at the home of Claude Scrafford in Berne, paying six dollars a week for room and board. After the road job was finished I went back to Altamont and worked in the same garage that winter. The following spring of 19161 felt I should have more money but the garage owner said he couldn’t pay more. A friend told me to go to see Jake Weaver who was a building contractor. I did and he gave me a job. He has several men working in different places doing different kinds of carpentry, wages were 20 cents an hour.

The contract to build the Catholic church in Voorheesville was awarded to Weaver and I went there to start the job. I boarded at the Grove Hotel owned and operated by Walter Albright. The church was nearly finished when its parish priest, Father Michael McCoffrey, hired me as his chauffeur. Father McCoffrey became ill in the spring of 1917 and I was laid off.

A new Ford auto agency was opening in Central Bridge under the name of Enders and Colyer. I boarded a train for that town to see if they needed a mechanic. They asked some questions about cars and then hired me. I was the first mechanic to join the firm. I returned to Voorheesville to pick up my clothes and tools and returned to Central Bridge. The firm’s contract for 1917 was for 85 cars, model T’s, and trucks. I worked there until the fall of 1917.

The first World War was on between the Allies and Germany. And that year the United States entered the war. War clouds thickened and a draft law called for men from 21 to 35.

It was May, 1919, when I returned to Central Bridge and the garage where I had worked before going off to war. During that time, my old school teacher A.B. Parsons, had bought Mr. Colyer’s interest in the garage and sales agency. He was working on a Model T when I showed up and eagerly asked me to come back to work, since the firm had no mechanics. I told I had come through the war without a furlough, that I wanted to visit my family for a few days. And so I went back to my old job at $15 a week. Board and room at the David Enders home was six dollars weekly. I was with them until 1924 when Mr. Parson offered me the house by the garage. Mother moved in to keep house and father worked on the farm of my brother, Edwin. Weekends he spent with us at Central Bridge, going back to the Gallupville farm Sunday nights.

On November 28. 1923, I joined Wellington Lodge, 741 I.O.O.F at Central Bridge. About this time two of the mechanics. Harold Johnson and Arthur Bassigiou, came to board with my mother. It was the winter of 1924 that I was critically ill, in bed 17 days with pneumonia. Dr. Bentley saved my life. The next year, mother wanted to move back to our old home in Gallupville, I was 30 years old when on April 19th, 1925 when Miss Lena M. Teter of Old Central Bridge and I were married.

For a time we lived with her family and then were able to rent rooms from Mrs. Enders where I had previously boarded. The following year, 1926, I joined the Fred L. Stilson Post of the American Legion in Cobleskill.

I left my job in April of 1927, when my parents in Gallupville agreed to let us remodel their barn for a garage and filling station. We lived in part of their home. The Texas Oil Company put in a 500 gallon storage tank and hand operated pumps that pumped one gallon at a time. Father attended to selling gas and oil and other jobs about the shop. I took on the sales agency for Goodyear tires and other lines of automotive accessories. This same year I obtained two patents for two useful accessories for the Fordson tractor and sold a number of them to tractor owners. Business increased so much that I hired Charles Bouck as a mechanic and later hired Miss Olive Ostrander to handle our office work. Father died July 19, 1929, at the age of 71. My wife took charge of the gas and oil business. Mr. Bouck was with us four years until his death. Business was good and I hired Charles Chapin and Jessie Letts to handle the mechanical work. In 1939, we hired Miss Beatrice Truax to handle the office work when Miss Ostrander left to get married. That August 19th when she was 82, mother died. My brother Alvin came to board with us.

War clouds were on the horizon and industry was hiring all available help. December 7th, 1941 came and World War II started after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. My help left for higher wages in war work and I put up my garage equipment for sale in order to go into the grocery and hardware business. A salesman friend put me in contact with a garage owner along the St. Lawrence River and I delivered my equipment to him.

While I remodeled the garage for food supplies and hardware, I stored these supplies in my cellar. We opened our general store in 1942 and became involved in rationing. A county rationing board issued ration books and rationing stamps were needed for nearly all consumer goods. It complicated running a store because each type of rationing stamp was affixed to gum sheets that had to be turned in before more merchandise could be bought. But business built up and things returned to normal after the war when I hired Donald Hotaling following his discharge from the army.

After working for me a short time, Hotaling bought the grocery store and residence of Max Wise in Gallupville. I put up the money to buy them and to stock the store for Hotaling. Again, my wife and I were left without help to handle our business. In the summer of 1945 I bought a building lot near our store and we built a new house. Then one day on a trip to Albany for merchandise I hurt my back in a fall from our truck. Because of this injury I advertised our business for sale and sold it in 1951 to Jack Straub. Within three years, he had run the business into the ground and we foreclosed with Mr. Straub bankrupt at $35,000. We lost $8,000 after auctioning off what was left. This was the amount of my inventory when he took over the business.

In 1953 we put up a garage and wood working shop at the rear of our home. The shop is equipped with lawn mower blade sharpener, woodworking machinery and sundry articles of window glass and hardware in demand. When the shop work was slow I took on outside work of remodeling interiors of old houses.

One job I did was for Miss Olga R. Kugler. She was a major in the Nurses Corps. of the United States Army in World War II and the Korean War. Her home was located on the Bozenkill Road, near Altamont. The job lasted four months. I did another interior house job for Albert Bertam just outside of Gallupville on the Altamont road. That job lasted 2 months. During the long winter months I built lawn furniture and made cabinets, storm doors and windows, also screens and repaired old furniture.

It was April 7, 1959 that I was hospitalized for a hernia operation in the Veterans Hospital, Albany, NY. There three weeks. They told me that I could no longer do heavy work, so I have cut back to lighter odd jobs in my shop. I advertised my lawn mower sharpening machine and sold it at once. I enjoy working in my small garden behind my shop. As a hobby, I enjoy fresh and salt water fishing.

April 1, 1946, my oldest brother Edward, who is 65 years old, sold his farm to his son-in-law William Tryon and bought the George Kelsch home in the village of Gallupville. He and his wife May enjoyed living there very much, until the night of August 4, 1956 when she died very suddenly with a heart attack. His children wanted him to come live with them, but he decided to keep his home and live alone.

My other brother Alvin or Jum they call him by nickname still lives with us.

My brother-in-law Ira Chandler, who married my sister Bertha, died June 3, 1963 at his home in Gallupville. His widow, my sister Bertha who is 78 years old, lives with her daughter Mildred Chrysler here in Gallupville.

The remainder of my life will be set down in diary form as things of interest and importance take place.