Tag Archives: Moose River Settlement NY

A decade in Moose River Settlement

After exploring how Moose River Settlement was established, I wanted to know more about the daily lives of my Bull ancestors after their 1875 move to the then-thriving hamlet.

http://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/Object/Show/object_id/295
South Branch of the Moose River (1912). A man driving a horse drawn sled loaded with logs along Moose River in the Adirondack Mountains. Logs piled along the river, and in the distance is a man standing on a log bridge. From 1875-1885, my Bull ancestors lived on this river in Moose River Settlement — an area with sufficient forests, water and transportation for leather tanning. Photo: New York State Archives Digital Collections

That’s when I discovered author Judy Jones — who wrote about her own contemporary journey of discovery after she and her family bought a camp in the area and became curious about its history.

Early in her book Moose River Diary – In Search of The Settlement (2011) she sums up a quest that sounds very much like my own and provides many details I am grateful for:

Now we knew the origin of Moose River Settlement, but that was all. Then, in a series of minute snippets, we learned a little more. We learned that a village of three hundred citizens once bustled in a place called Moose River. There had been a sawmill and tanneries and a boarding house and private homes. There had been a general store and a schoolhouse and a post office and a fine hotel. But then what? And what became of the place?

One of those tanneries employed my great, great grandfather Arthur Bull (a tannery foreman) and his father — my ggg grandfather Jeremiah Bull (who returned to tannery work at age 70).

Perhaps it was Lyon and Snyder’s Mammoth Tannery — built in 1866 at Moose River Settlement and one of the largest in the Adirondack region. Such a substantial operation could certainly have enticed my Bull ancestors to leave the Southern Tier for the promise of steady work in the North Country — and for hundreds of others to join them as co-workers and neighbors.

And Moose River Settlement appears to have fulfilled some of my Bull ancestors’ expectations — because they remained there for a decade from 1875-1885.

http://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/Object/Show/object_id/14295
Log jam on Moose River (1948). Men working to clear log jam on the Moose River near Lyonsdale in the Adirondack Mountain foothills — the area where my Bull ancestors lived from 1875-85. Image: New York State Archives Digital Collections

Highlights of the Moose River years

During their time in Moose River, my great, great grandparents Arthur and Mary Elizabeth (Blakeslee) Bull saw their oldest children grow to adulthood, start work and begin families of their own. One of these was my great grandmother Eva May Bull who married a local lad — my great grandfather William Lawrence Charboneau.

And Arthur and Mary became the proud parents of two more children — daughter Alice I. Bull and son Waples H. Bull — who were both born at Moose River Settlement.

Yet my Bull ancestors were also growing older, and health issues began to arise during their Moose River years. Arthur’s heart and lung complaints — for which he was hospitalized during his Union Army service in the U.S. Civil War — reasserted themselves, making it harder for him to work.

So in 1880 — about five years after moving to Moose River Settlement — Arthur Bull filed for a veteran’s Invalid Pension from the federal government and began seeing local doctors in connection with his application.

There will be more details in future posts on this and other aspects of my Bull ancestors’ Moose River years.

But first I have news to share about my Irish ancestors — William Patrick and Katherine (Gormley) Dempsey — starting with the next post.

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