to the yard from the woods. Chips made a quick fire for boiling the tea-kettle. Besides the wood we cut for home use we cut a good deal of cordwood to be taken to New York by our teams. We had no buck-saws, but used axes and sometimes cross-cut saws. Besides getting in our wood, we threshed oats, rye and wheat in January and February, calculating to get through before the first of March, which was the month for repairing stone walls and rail fences, and for cutting brushes and briars and heaping them up in piles to burn. In April the farmers were generally digging out stone and building stone walls. They were also at that time getting ready to plow their corn ground and also to plow their oats, which were sown in April. In May we planted our corn ground and also planted potatoes and plowed our pickle ground. Every farmer had his pickle patch, some reserving four acres and some five or six for that crop. In June the pickles were planted. That was a very important crop. Not one-quarter of the pickles were taken to the Yonkers pickle factories. The fact of the business is, that Yonkers, Fordham, West Farms, Eastchester and Greenburgh were the principal pickle producers for the New York market. It was a former Yonkers man who established the pickle industry in one of the western states. In June we also put our cheese peppers in beds to be afterward transplanted. A good many of them were raised. June was also the month for plowing and hoeing corn and potatoes. In the latter part of the month we plowed for buckwheat and turned over our turnip ground. Turnips were raised to feed the cattle, not for market. June was the month in which the sheep were sheared and in which cherries were picked and taken to market. I have taken down to the city as many as sixteen hundredweight of cherries. In July we were plowing and hilling corn, which we tried to finish before the beginning of haying and harvesting, which was our July and August work. In July we also plowed and hoed our pickle crop. Apples were taken to market in August and pickles were picked in the last part of the month. That was the principal work. We also at that time dug potatoes and took them and our apples to market. This work extended into September. Forty-five bushels of apples were a load for a team. September might have been called our marketing month, for then we were gathering our crops and taking them to market. We also were topping our corn at that time, but we did not husk it until October, which was also the month for picking some variety of apples, digging some kinds of potatoes and for making cider. In November we were yet busy husking corn and digging potatoes. We were also, during this and other winter months, threshing grain, killing hogs and poultry, cutting wood, etc.
The crops in Yonkers were fine. In the '40s over here in the valley (Tibbett's Brook), at the Horton farmhouse, near the present Dunwoodie railroad station, and a little south of the road to Eastchester (Yonkers avenue), we would get up the oxen and take the cart, which held forty-five bushels, out to the potato patch, in November, and there dig potatoes and fill the cart and have them in the wagon-house or cellar by noon. We would get another cart-load in the afternoon. We calculated that six hills of the variety, which was very large, would fill a bushel basket. They did fill it. Some of those potatoes were from six to eight inches long, and they were good, too! I remember that sometimes after supper we went to the barn to sort apples and potatoes. We made two candlesticks by cutting holes in two large turnips. We put a dip in each. One dip would be burning at one end of the heap of potatoes or apples, and the other at the other end of the heap. We sat there in the barn and worked. Just before stopping work, one of the men would go into the house and put some of those potatoes in the hot ashes of the open fire-place. When we all came in from the barn the potatoes were nicely backed, and there we sat, before going to bed, and enjoyed those mealy and white baked potatoes.
As to the price of farm land, the Horton farm of two hundred acres at what is now called Dunwoodie, was bought in 1833, or 1834, for six thousand dollars. A little more than a score of years afterward, when the village was incorporated (1855), the average price of a lot on Warburtom avenue was about one hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars. Opposite Manor Hall the price was two hundred dollars. Judge Woodruff owned the property at that time. As to the upper end of what is now Warburton avenue, they would almost give you a lot in that locality if you would go up there. In 1872, when the city was incorporated, those lots opposite Manor Hall were worth five and six hundred dollars each. When Dr. Gates bought of Levi P. Rose two or three acres on the hill, opposite the present First Reformed church, he paid for it three thousand and nine hundred dollars. In 1893, a part of that property was offered to the city, for a city hall property, for one hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
I recall one event which created great excitement in Yonkers in 1842 or 1843. A dam above Ashford (a place subsequently called Ardsley by Mr. Cyrus W. Field), about five miles north of Yonkers, gave way, by reason of a sudden and heavy fall of rain, owing to a cloud-burst Oliver Rhead, whose farm was in Sawmill river valley, a little north of St. John's cemetery, saw the river rising rapidly, and, mounting his horse, rode swiftly down to Yonkers to alarm the village. The Wells and Paddock dam, north of the present Elm street bridge, was then comparatively new, but for some time it resisted the pressure of the flood. In those days there were no factories or other buildings near the dam to be damaged. At last the water broke through and with irresistible force rushed through the little village. It gullied out Mechanic (now New Main) street about seven feet. It also gullied out Mill (now Main) street, west of Getty Square, At that time the " Tony Archer " bridge, a wooden structure near the present cemetery(Oakland), spanned the Sawmill river. It had upright side-posts surmounted with railing. The water overflowed that bridge and the bridge over the Sawmill river just north of the present Getty Square. The Sawmill river road was covered. The water ran up over the stone wall, and as far as the old parsonage, in what are now Oakland cemetery grounds. It also overflowed, " Gully Guion's lane." I was on my way to a political meeting to be held at Bashford's tavern, which stood on the north bank of the Nepperhan, west of Manor Hall. When I reached the Tony Archer bridge, near the parsonage lot, I attempted to ford the water, which was runnings over the bridge. The current swept me and my horse downstream, and, after regaining solid ground, I rode down to the Post-road bridge and forded it without accident. I recall the deep gully in Mechanic street near the site of the present Getty House. A few days after the flood a young horse belonging to Anson Baldwin was taken to be shod at Archibald's (afterward Peter Nodine's) blacksmith shop. The horse was restless and succeeded in breaking away from the tie-post. He ran around into Mechanic street, fell into the deep gully and was killed. The gully was full of boulders.
Jacob Read was born at Southeast, Putnam county, New York, on September 30, 1818. His father, Rooney Read, was a soldier in the war of 1812, and his grandfather, Jacob Read, was a soldier in the Revolution. Mr. Read came to Yonkers at the age of eleven, and is one of the oldest and best known citizens. He has held many positions of trust; for fifteen years was supervisor, and at present is a member of the board of water commissioners, acting as treasurer. He is a member of the Odd Fellows and Masonic orders. On November 23, 1845, he married Miss Catherine L. Mann, who died on December 26, 1891. Five of his children are living, — George, Leander and David H., all residents of Yonkers; Mrs. Amanda Gibson, of White Plains; and Helen L. , wife of Wilbur B. Ketcham, of this city.
HILL, THEODORE
One of the most progressive and successful agriculturists of Yorktown' township, Westchester county, is Theodore Hill, who is the owner of a beautiful farm of two hundred acres. His methods of farm management show deep scientific knowledge, combined with sound, practical judgment, and the results show that "high-class" farming as an occupation can be made profitable as well as pleasant.
Mr. Hill was born December 1, 1850, and belongs to a family which was founded in this county by his great-grandfather, Uriah Hill, who came here from New York city during the early days of settlement on Manhattan island. His grandfather was Abraham Hill. His father, Abraham Hill, Jr., was a farmer throughout life, was broad and liberal in religious matters, and at the polls voted the Democratic ticket. He married Miss Thamer Lounsbury, the daughter of Daniel Lounsbury, who belonged to an old family of this section, and was the son of a Revolutionary soldier. To Mr. and Mrs. Hill were born two children: Theodore, the subject of this sketch; and Hannah J., wife of Peter Curry. The mother died in early life, and the father afterward married Miss Mary A. Fowler, whose death occurred in August, 1897.
