Transcript
Kathleen: We can find an authentic perspective on what life was like in the remote hills of Schoharie County at this time. From Henry Conklin, from his book “Through Poverty’s Vale, a hardscrabble Boyhood in upstate New York.” The following are excerpts from his book, as they describe his encounters with J.C. Tompkins.
That night, Jay came down to see us, and I shall never forget him. What a rollicking and fun loving fellow he was and what hours of fun and laughter he made for us. Years later, he would hit the fire shovel red hot, then lick it with his tongue and not get burned. And then he said he could swallow us if he had some grease to grease our heads with. Many, many a time. He used to come over and have fun with us, chasing us around the house to swallow us. The next spring and summer went along as usual. I had gotten more acquainted with most of our new neighbors.
Mr. Tompkins family were the nearest and were. We went there the most. There was old Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins or Aunt Peggy, as we called her. She was a great big, fat, good natured old lady, most always out to work in the lots. She had two great big dogs. She would take them and go up in the lots on the side hill and dig out woodchucks. The dogs would haul one. And then the fun would begin. The dogs both digging and she with a hoe or shovel. I tell you, the dirt would fly when she got after a woodchuck. Everyone in the neighborhood knew it by the noise she made. Yelling sick em, sick em. Brother James and I used to skin up across the lots to help her and see the fun and fun it was. The fat old woman would work and dig until the sweat ran off her face to get a woodchuck for a roast. For they used to eat them.
The old lady kept guinea pigs. They were a little chunk of an animal, about half as large as a rabbit with short legs, short ears and short tails. And I know it was like a little pig. They were fed on grass and clover, winter and summer. They were spotted black and white. In summer, she kept them in large, tight yard, outdoors. And in winter she kept them in boxes or cages in the house under her bed. She raised them for the Albany market, taking them there every fall. All but 2 or 3 pairs to breed from the next year. The rich people in Albany bought them and kept them in great cages for pets, just the same as people now keep canary birds. She used to get as high as $5 a pair, and that would depend on their beauty as to the spots. She made more clean money at her guinea pigs than they did off the farm. I have stayed over there many an hour to look at the guinea pigs and help her pick clover to feed them. Her husband, the old gentleman, was very quiet, sort of an easygoing worker, always busy and always quiet.
But there was their son, J, as I told you before. He was full of fun and frolic. He used to come down to our house to torment us children. He would open his great wide mouth and chase us around the house to swallow us. And he said many a time he could do it if our heads were greased. His wife, Elizabeth, was full of fun as J only not quite as noisy. They had two children, Joshua and Hannah. Hannah was the baby, and when she was a little, J would come over one day and flattered me up to go and work for him till I was 21 years old. He was to give me Hannah for a wife, a pair of guinea pigs and an old frozen footed hen that he said went thump thump across the barn floor. So I went over with him and stayed all night, but I did not sleep much. Next morning he set me to rock in the cradle with Hannah laid in it. He said she was to be my wife. I must begin to take care of her now. And after breakfast he would show me the old hen. Henry never did marry Baby Hannah. Hannah Tompkins married Austin from Eminence and they lived in a farmhouse in Eminence that I can see from my living room window.