The Eastwick Press Newspaper

Eastern Rensselaer County's Community Newspaper

George Holcomb

The Life Of George Holcomb – George In Court On Assault Charges

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by Alex Brooks

In the last episode, Holcomb was hauled into court because of a quarrel with one Zachariah Chapman. Chapman apparently owed Holcomb money, which was not paid soon enough to suit Holcomb, and according to Chapman, Holcomb accused him of having money stashed in his clock with which he could pay his debts if he chose.  Chapman apparently angry upon hearing that Holcomb said this about him, marched over to Holcomb’s door-yard, where there was some kind of confrontation.  The matter was submitted for arbitration at the house of John Russel, which is where we join the scene now.
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The Life Of George Holcomb – Deaths And Births

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by Alex Brooks

In the last issue, George Holcomb’s first-born son George Jay died of an illness, leaving Holcomb and his wife, who have been married for about a year and a half, temporarily childless.  Holcomb makes very little concession to his grief.  He doesn’t do much work the day after the boy’s funeral, but Tuesday, the day after, he is back to work, building a house for Barnum Clark, who is to be the blacksmith in the blacksmith shop business that George runs along with his brother William.  [Read more…] about The Life Of George Holcomb – Deaths And Births

The Life Of George Holcomb – A Death in the Family

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by Alex Brooks

In the last episode, Holcomb’s first-born son, less than a year old, had taken ill.  The last entry was in mid-July of 1820.  There is then a period of two months in which Holcomb does not say anything about his baby being ill.  He talks about buying cap-ribbon and shoelaces for the boy.  Whether the illness went away or just subsided a bit is impossible to tell, but Holcomb is not writing about any illness in his baby.  In early September he even takes the baby on a trip up to Fort Edward to visit relatives.
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The Life Of George Holcomb – George’s Son Becomes Ill

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compiled by Alex Brooks
Wednesday, July 5, 1820:  Tonight my son George J was taken quite unwell and Cousin Samuel Holcomb went after Doctor Graves but could not get him.  Said doctor sent some phthisic.  It set the child puking.
Thursday:  This morning I went after Doctor Graves.  I walked as far as Sylvester Pardies and he let me have a horse to ride.  Said doctor came and left medicine.  Today I tended still and we ran off one charger of cider.
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The Life Of George Holcomb – George And Brother Wm Get a Blacksmith

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by Alex Brooks

For two weeks in mid-February George has a bout of illness, with a severe pain in his head and eye.
Thursday, March 16, 1820:  Today I began to keep house by myself, separate from Father’s family.  I regulate and moved things in the house today.
March 28: Tuesday I trimmed apple trees and helped make soap.  Today Mr. Zach Chapman came and paid me $12 on a note dated 3rd of July last of $30.  I took said money and carried it to Caleb Joles, for I was owing him ten dollars and 68 cents, but said Joles refused to take it, for the money was not current, and I returned the whole 12 dol to said Chapman again.
In mid-April he begins plowing, and sows wheat and rye on the 18th.  In early May he goes travelling around the neighboring towns looking for a blacksmith to work in William’s blacksmith shop.  He finds one in Lee, Mass., who walks over to Stephentown to look things over, and they make a bargain: “We are to find said King a house and garden and shop and tools and one-half the stock and coal, and said King the other half and give William a chance to work before the fire and to continue for one year, and we are to pay said King one half that he charged in said shop in that time, in such pay as we could collect of customers.”
June 3, Saturday:  We worked on the highway.  My own assessment was two days, and Father’s seven, and Wm’s two days and Samuel’s one, and in all twelve days, and we worked five of them by taking on my team and Wm worked half a day himself but hired a hand Mr. Johnson King (the blacksmith).
I took my sheep, 23 in number, to Henry Stantons to pasture.  He agreed to pasture said sheep for 13 weeks for 4 dollars and 88 cts and to take his pay in blacksmithing.
In June George works in his corn and potato fields.  On June 13th he turns 29.
June 20 Tues.: Tonight at dark Wm and I started for Albany with a load of cider of 6 barrels.  We traveled all night.
June 21, Wednesday: This morning at eight we got in to Albany and in a short time we sold three barrels of cider and the barrels for 10 dollars 88 cts and the liquor for the other three for 7 dollars and 50 cts.
George bought salt, tea, coffee, rice, molasses, rum, gin, gingham cloth, silk and gauze for his boy’s hat, tobacco, 17 pounds of codfish. a pair of morocco shoes for his wife, steel and iron for his blacksmith shop, and some other things.
“This afternoon we came home from Albany.  We paid 75 cents for gate fee and ferrage and twelve and a half cents for drink on the road.  We got home about midnight.  On the road going we saw the ruins or the smoke of the great fire that broke out in Troy yesterday, which destroyed more than a millions property.  It took out the heart of Troy.  Said fire broke out about the middle of the day by an oven and some hay by a stove in a barn.”
Thursday, June 29:  I plowed out corn and racked off cider.  Today Mr. Tammadge came and got two barrels of cider at 2 dollars per barrel, which makes three barrels in all that he and John Harrington has had and I am to take the pay in pasturing.  On the 8th of May I took three two-year-olds and he agrees to pasture them at 8 cts per week a head and four yearlings at 4 cts per head a week.
June 30, Friday:  Today I took the single wagon and carried Father up to the foot of the mountain in Goodrich Hollow, and then we walked up the mountain and took a view of the farm that one Wm Coons of Hoosic owns, what is called the Rich farm.  We viewed it in order to buy if we could agree on the price.
Holcomb reports that he read a story in the Albany Plough Boy (newspaper) that the fire in Troy on the 20th broke out at 3 in the afternoon and raged until 9 at night, and losses were estimated at $800,000.

The Life Of George Holcomb – Life With Baby

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by Alex Brooks

George Holcomb’s first child, named George, was born October 9 of 1819, when Holcomb was 28 years old.  This segment begins when the baby is four days old, as the newlywed couple begin raising their first child.
Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1819: I dug potatoes on Wm and Clark’s potatoes.  This evening I walked up to Ario Pardee and borrowed a breast pipe for my wife.
On November 8, on a trading trip to Albany, he bought, in addition to the usual things, 38 cents worth of oysters, and “one shillings of opium for sister Newton.”
On November 12 he took 33 bushels of apples to Schermerhorn in Schodack, sold at a price of 63 cents each, a large sale at an excellent price.  Nov 26 on a trading trip to Albany he bought “two strings of beads for my babe” and a breast pipe.  The one that he had borrowed from Sylvester Pardies had broken.  He paid Pardee 50 cents for it.
In January he mostly chops and stacks firewood, reckons his accounts, buys stuff at the stores, and goes visiting.  Being the slow time of year for a farmer, he is able to go visiting on several weekday afternoons, as well as the usual Sunday social visits.  He seems to have done well this year, and buys such luxuries as lace and fur for his wife.  He even at one point pays a violinist 25 cents to play for him and his wife, an extravagance rarely seen in these notes, in which he is for the most part relentlessly practical.
January 14, Friday:  Today Mr. Simon Cranston came along and gathered the taxes.  I paid $4.92, and I paid Wm’s which was 90 cents.”
This is the first mention of taxes.
Jan 16, Sunday:  Today we fixed and made ready to go on a journey.  I took Mr. Simeon Wylie’s horse to our shop to have the shoes set and I took our horse and harness to Mr. Simeon Wylie’s in readiness to start.
Monday: Today a snow storm and a severe wind, which did considerable damage in many places in taking off roofs of buildings and tearing down some and blowing down timber.  It likewise drifted up the roads and a very tedious day to be out.
Tuesday: Today we shoveled out roads.
Wednesday: Today my wife and I started with Mr. Simeon Wylie to go to Rome.  I put a horse into his double sleigh, he and his wife went, us four together and my babe.  We went on to Nassau factory at Joseph Hill’s, and then we returned home on account of my child, for it cried the whole time when in the sleigh.  This is the first time that we ever rode so far with George Jay.

The Life Of George Holcomb – The Winning Of Miss Wylie

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by Alex Brooks

In the last episode, Holcomb’s son was born, on October 9.  Astute readers will have noticed that this is less than 7 months after his April 15 wedding.  Holcomb says surprisingly little about his courtship, marriage or his wife’s pregnancy in his daily journal.  In today’s column we will gather all of the entries possibly bearing on the wooing and winning of his wife, nee Lucinda Wylie.
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