Answers from Glenette Forgea's Scrapbook: George Moseley and the Oldest House

Little did I know when I wrote my last post that some of the questions I had asked were answered in a scrapbook sitting right on the desk beside me! On Tuesday, I brought home a scrapbook from the historical society that was created by Mrs. Glenette Forgea - my great-grandmother's best friend - in the 1940s. The book covers nearly every subject in the history of the village, with much material taken from personal interviews and written correspondence with "old-timers." One of these old-timers was 90-year-old George Moseley.

Mrs. Forgea writes:

"From an interview with Mr. Moseley came the following interesting facts: He was a drummer-boy during the Civil War. He served in place of a member of the family to which he was a slave. He came to [the village] with a family named Gregory in 1871. He worked for H. W. Leonard and one of his memories is the draining of Kirby's Pond in 1888, which act destroyed the Optical Works, an industry employing many people throughout the surrounding country.

"It was the Silas Gregory family that brought Mr. Moseley here. This family lived in a house at the foot of Lundy Lane. Mrs. Charles Underhill of Yorktown Heights was born in this house. Mr. Moseley's wife was the cook at H. W. Leonard's. He and his wife adopted two children: Ruth A. Moseley who teaches music and David Turpeau, a minister."

Note that a "George Mozely" served in the 5th United States Colored Infantry Regiment, Company C. This may have been George Moseley.

Mrs. Forgea also illuminates the background on the "oldest house" in the village:

"According to an old resident the first house in [the village] was located on the east side of the Railroad Reservoir on Capt. Merritt's Hill just above the Gilbert Ganun building. This was on the Captain Merritt farm and was lived in at one time by Leander Sypher. The second house (still standing) was the house of Pat Malone, to the rear of Barney Tompkins's building and close to the railroad tracks. The third house was the Barney Tompkins's (Smith Hall) house. The fourth was built by David Moger and known also as the Dr. Miller house. It was originally located near the site of Bailey Department Store and had a white picket fence around its grounds."

The Moseleys

My last post featured this excerpt from a 1976 article about St. Mark's Church: "Efforts to locate the old rectory led (Mr. Hall's) sister, Catherine Hall Metz to recall that the site opposite the old church, where Conte's fishmarket now stands, was the home of a black family named Moseley who had been slaves before the Civil War. 'Mrs. Moseley,' Mrs. Metz remembered, 'taught piano to the Baldwins and others.'"

Sure enough, I found the Moseleys - or specifically a G. Moseley - living at that location in 1901. The Moseley house was sandwiched between St. Mark's Church and its parsonage, and would have had a lovely view of Kirby Pond before it was drained in 1888. G. Moseley still owned the property in the 1929-31 atlas. At this time it seemed that the house had been expanded, and a corner of the property now belonged to R. Moseley.

New Castle Corners 1901

New Castle Corners 1929-31

Looking into the census, I was able to identify George Moseley, the landowner, and his daughter Ruth Moseley, the piano teacher, in 1940. George's place of birth is given as Delaware, which was indeed a slave state at the time of his birth circa 1850 (that was only 23 years after slavery was abolished in New York State). You can see that each person's level of education was noted in this census. Ruth's was "C-2" (two years of college) while her father's was "0" (meaning no formal education). Viola Brice, age 19, was the Moseleys' maid, a native of Florida.

1940 US Federal Census of New Castle

I was also able to find the Moseleys mentioned a few times in the local paper. In 1932, the Recorder noted: "Miss Ruth Moseley, well known pianist of [the village], was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. William F. Kingsland of 30 Mechanics avenue last Saturday." In the 1930 census, William Kingsland, who was a mailman, his wife Carrie, and their 12-year-old daughter Esther were living at 30 Mechanics Avenue in Tarrytown.

The 1930 census shows that Ruth Moseley was born in New York, while both of her parents were born in Delaware. It also indicates that George was married for the first time at the age of fourteen, and indicates that he could neither read nor write.

1930 US Federal Census of New Castle

In the 1925 New York State Census, a family of Stevenses and one servant, Albertine Appo, were living with George and Ruth. This was the first census (going backward) in which George, then 75, was listed as having an occupation: "general laborer."

1925 New York State Census of New Castle

The 1910 census is the first (going backward) in which George's wife Annie appears. Like George, she and her parents were born in Delaware; also like George, she could neither read nor write. They were recorded having been married for 32 years (circa 1878). Annie was the mother of one child, which one would assume would be Ruth, but this will come into question later on. Eliott McMaster, a Scottish hired man, lived with them.

1910 US Federal Census of New Castle

The 1900 census gives more specific information about George's and Annie's dates of birth: George in March 1855, and Annie in August 1856. Contradicting the 1910 census, George was said to have been born in Maryland and Annie in New York. Though Annie was still listed as the mother of one child, Ruth was not recorded in the census. Instead, David Turpeau, a minister born in Louisiana, was listed as George and Annie's son. They also had one boarder, Sarah Brown.

1900 US Federal Census of New Castle

On May 16, 1890, the local paper reported:

According to a notice from 1887, "Mr. Arctic DeVoe, from Savannah," a "young colored man who has been living in this village for the past three years" who had been "recently employed by Mr. J. H. Crane, the furniture dealer," was now working as a coachman for County Register J. O. Miller. The paper added, "'Art' is quite a nice young fellow, attends to his business, and is thoroughly reliable."

It is interesting to note that George Moseley also worked as a coachman at this time - for none other than Judge William H. Leonard (hero/villain of the Kirby Pond controversy). On February 3, 1888, the Recorder reported that George Moseley "has bought the house and lot known as the Jackson house, east of New Castle Corners, and now occupied by Mr. Benjamin Miller."

A year earlier, in August of 1887, Moseley saved a man from being killed on the railroad tracks (a fate that befell far too many others in the village). The man happened to be Marcus Dean, who is buried in the cemetery. It seems that Dean was not particularly grateful to Moseley, but that may be due to the fact that he was quite old and in poor health at that time (he died two years later at the age of 89). Dean's obituary notes that he was also blind, in addition to being deaf.

In the 1880 census, George and Annie were living by themselves in Bedford.

1880 US Federal Census of Bedford

A letter from Ruth Moseley to The Crisis (official newspaper of the NAACP) dated December 27, 1929, is held in the W.E.B. DuBois Collection at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Library. The letter requests information regarding "the John Wananabe Jr. Contest for musicians" and is signed Ruth A. Moseley.

That same year, the New York Age reported that Ruth Moseley and her students gathered books and toys to send to sick children at Harlem Hospital.

The book Breaking Barriers: An African-American Family and the Methodist Story elucidates David Turpeau's relationship to the Moseleys - apparently, George and Annie served as "surrogate parents" to David when he moved from Louisiana to New York. David, whose full name was David DeWitt Turpeau, married Ila Marshall and raised eight children in Ohio, where David served four terms in the State House of Representatives. In 1920, David and Ila christened their second youngest child Leontine Ruth after Ruth Moseley. In 1984, Leontine Ruth Turpeau Kelly became the first black (and second female) Methodist Bishop. She died on June 28, 2012.

Old St. Mark's Fondly Remembered by Parishioners

Front (L to R): Francis Finch, Caroline Clark, Minnie Finch, Catherine Hall Metz, Marian Taylor Gibson; Back: Irene Harder, Maisie Hall, Anna Close Carpenter, May Finch Woodin, Helene Whitehouse Walker, Virginia Fox Patterson, Eleanor Towne Carey, John Close

 Excerpts from an article by Phyllis Cobbs originally printed in the Patent Trader, July 15 1976

"There were memories galore when nine lifelong members of St. Mark's Church met for luncheon recently to renew childhood friendships and record their memories of the old church on St. Mark's Place, opposite Leonard Park, where St. Mark's churchyard is still located. The congregation m oved to the 'new' St. Mark's downtown, opposite Jeff Feigel Square, in 1911 and the old structure was torn down a few years later, although its timbers, donated to the St. Francis AME Zion, lived on in that congregation's former church building on Maple Avenue."

"Mrs. (Helene Whitehouse) Walker's father, Henry J. Whitehouse, was St. Mark's senior warden for 57 years. Her earliest memories were 'fears of being seasick' when the family set out in a closed brougham on winter Sundays for services conducted by the Rev. Henry V. Chamberlaine."

"Efforts to locate the old rectory led (Mr. Hall's) sister, Catherine Hall Metz to recall that the site opposite the old church, where Conte's fishmarket now stands, was the home of a black family named Moseley who had been slaves before the Civil War. 'Mrs. Moseley,' Mrs. Metz remembered, 'taught piano to the Baldwins and others.'"

"Dr. (Egisto Fabri) Chauncey was 'very interested in social issues' at a time when the church was less concerned with such matters than it is today. His concern led eventually to the building of the new St. Mark's in a downtown location so that less affluent parishioners, who did not have horses and carriages, could walk to church."

St. Mark's Lunch: Front (L to R): Cynthia Baldwin Pease, Helene Whitehouse Walker, Mary Wistar O'Connor, Rose Hall, Catherine Hall Metz, Anna Carpenter; Back: The Rev. William C. Heffner, Virginia Patterson, Evelyn Whitehouse Cobb, Jane Nash, William H. Hall. The picture held by Rose Hall is the Rev. Egisto Chauncey.

"Anna Close Carpenter, whose trace of Irish brogue still betrays her family's origin, remembered that she and her elder brother John, who had a fine voice and sang in the old St. Mark's choir, rode to church in Abijah Merritt's stage, which plied between the railroad station and New Castle Corners ... 'The stage met the train and the service was held when the stage got there.'"

"With prompting from Mrs. Taylor, the oldtimers were able to agree that the old St. Mark's had a red carpet inside and that the outside paint was dark yellow, much weathered - there was a dissenting vote for gray. No one could remember what had happened to a bell, given to the old church by General Alexander Hamilton, grandson and namesake of the Revolutionary War statesman, who conducted services there as a lay reader in 1871-2 and again in 1880."

"Other major fixtures in the old church moved with the congregation. Three Tiffany stained glass windows, given by the Cowdin family, were moved with great care without mishap to the Chapel of the Resurrection in the new church as was the old altar. The baptismal font was also moved to the baptistry of the new St. Mark's."

"Going over the tapes, Mrs. Taylor hopes to fill in a 10-year gap resulting from the loss of the church minutes from this period. No one knows for sure what happened to the missing minutes, but one of the guests at the oldtimers' luncheon said, 'you know, I think perhaps we cut them up to make paper dolls in Sunday school.'"

Kirby Pond and Leonard Park

 "After many years of litigation the old Kirby Pond, which covered 160 acres of land, was yesterday drained and has become one of the things of the past. It was owned by old Judge Leonard, who is now stricken down with apoplexy and he has had a hard fight in the courts to drain it. He was opposed by the people generally, who feared that the draining would prove deleterious to the public health of the village, and by the Spencer Optical Works, which were situated on its banks and in whose business it was an important factor. Not long ago, however, they had a good offer made them and removed to Newark, N.J., and taking a large number of operatives with them and throwing many more who could not go out of employment. The people of the village were present in full force yesterday to see the pond drained and, armed with pitchforks, succeeded in catching or spearing a great quantity of fish. A large number of dead fish were left on the muddy bottom, and it is feared that they will create an unpleasant effluvium and possibly cause sickness unless the weather continues cold. Taking it as a whole, the community regard the draining of the pond as a detriment and a calamity to the village."

-The New York Times, 7 December 1888

 "Leonard Park is a center of outdoor fun today thanks to two generous families who donated part of their good fortune to the village more than a decade ago. In 1943 Col. William Leonard decided to grant some 95 acres of his land to the village to be used for park and recreational purposes ... In 1949 the Memorial Pool was constructed on the property in memory of the local men who gave their lives in World War II ... "

-Yonkers Herald Statesman 29 August 1962

Miss Hamblin and Mrs. Pugh

The women of Mrs. Pugh's house: Beatrice Pugh, Mrs. Pugh, Esther Hull, Ruth Hamblin, and Annie Reynolds

My great-grandmother, Ruth Card Hamblin, came to Westchester County to work as a teacher around 1918. The daughter of dairy farmers, she was born on Winchell Mountain, on an isolated farm outside of Millerton in Dutchess County, in 1896. She graduated from the New Paltz Normal School and taught for a year in Nyack before coming to Westchester, where she lived for the rest of her life.

The elementary school where Ruth Hamblin taught

Ruth Hamblin and Esther Hull at the elementary school

In 1920, Ruth was working as a fifth grade teacher and living in the house of widow Harriet R. Pugh - at the corner of Main Street and Smith Avenue, close to the Methodist church - along with Harriet's son, daughter, and sister, and Esther Hull, another teacher at the school - as shown in the federal census.



Among my family photos from this time are pictures of Esther Hull, and of Harriet Pugh and her family, with my great-grandmother, as well as a picture of the school where Ruth and Esther taught.

Mrs. Pugh's house on Smith Avenue

Sometime in the early 1920s, Ruth moved out of Mrs. Pugh's house and into an apartment in the Ganun Building on East Main Street, where she met Ernest Waldie, a sheet metal worker who had come to the US from Canada around 1900. They married in 1923 and purchased a house on Brook Street for $3,000.

When she was older Ruth used to point out Mrs. Pugh's house to her grandchildren, including the window that had been her room, when they passed by. It was still standing a few years ago, but it had fallen into a state of disrepair, and was torn down to make way for a large office building.

Howard and Mrs. Pugh

Ruth and friends? colleagues? in 1922

Spencer Optical Trade Cards: More Girls in Flowers

Left image: Kansas Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research Library. Right image: The Library Company of Philadelphia, Digital Collections.

Spencer Optical Trade Cards: Artist's Palette

This trade card, from the collection of the University of Rochester, opened up a whole new world of trade cards for me! If you look closely, you can see that along the bottom edge of the palette it says "S.O.M. Co." This is the Spencer Optical Manufacturing Company. I was able to find this card because the University of Rochester had identified the manufacturer from those initials, and now I can identify more cards that have "S.O.M. Co." on them as Spencer's. And if the eyeglasses advertised were celluloid, you can bet that they are Spencer's, as the Spencer brothers held the exclusive right to manufacture eyeglasses from celluloid in the 19th century.