brought us to Volney, New York.
Gideon was about 55 years old when he got to Volney.
Some history says he came from Paris, New York.
Paris got created when the Town of Whitestown got divided in 1792...a hamlet...and Isaac Paris, a merchant from Fort Plain. As early as 1789 he was supplying residents around the hamlet with corn and other food.
Gideon was married to Amy Andrus (also known as Anne Andrews) and they'd been living in Derby, Connecticut near New Haven.
from The history of Volney:
"In 1806 Cornelius H. MILLER settled on Steen’s location in the north part of the present village of Fulton. He afterward removed to Granby. The same year Peter SHARP located near John VAN BUREN’s and Gideon SEYMOUR, William DEAN, Gideon CANDEE and Amos BISHOP settled at and near Volney Center. This apparently, was the first settlement made in the interior of the town. Major Van Valkenburgh had a hunter’s shanty at this point, just north of the Corners, in which the four men encamped for the night. Mr. Seymour opened the first hotel at this place, was elected one of the first assessors of Fredericksburgh in 1807, and re-elected in 1808, and died at Volney Center in March, 1817, being succeeded in his tavern by his widow."
This says..."Mr. Candee was a prominent man and became a justice of the peace in 1810. These two gentlemen had each a hired girl. In 1808 Calvin TIFFANY, who had just opened a tavern one and one-fourth miles northeast from Mexico village proposed giving a “log house dance.” Girls were scarce in that vicinity, and three young men there, two of whom were Sherman HOSMER and Nathaniel P. EASTON, started out on foot with axe and compass to secure some from Oswego Falls. They unwittingly came upon this settlement and immediately proposed that these two girls and another one near by should return with them, fifteen miles to the dance, a proposition that was finally accepted. The young men in making the round trip were absent from their homes six days."
The history at the town of Volney website is an excellent concise presentation of hundreds of years of history!
What's a "poormaster"?
It's listed as a now obsolete position...duties similar to "paymaster."
To validate those who applied for relief and issue funds...
AID?
AID, yes, but there were strict rules about what people needed to do in order to get the monies. And realistically, there were no monies. People got placed in peoples' homes either as chore helpers or apprentices.
We've been learning about Gideon and his nine brothers and their Candee family over in our colonial space on the internets.
But we hadn't heard of any colored girls.
Maybe they meant wearing colors! Or wearing makeup? Maybe they meant secretaries or spies!
By the time Gideon made his way to New York in 1806, the Candee family was turning from colonial to settler. Of course, everybody'd been through the Revolution.
Maybe they were French Ladies.
Gideon was a fourth generation American and by the turn of the century, he and several of his brothers were venturing from the native family nest into other parts of America.
Hired girl? Frankly as family tree researcher I question that accusation in the history account. A girl with Gideon may have been his daughter Sarah or maybe one of his other daughters like, "Hulday."
Huldah Candee did marry a Seymour afterall, and isn't the Seymour family named in that history account as being also a first family in Volney?
As a researcher the clues begin to blur together with facts like the ones we've been reading on the Censuses and in history books.
Gideon was among the first settlers to make permanent residence and was at that first "town meeting" at Major Van Valkenburg's "public-house" (later an Inn) in Volney (originally called Mentz).
So...people were drinking alcohol up there? Amy might have whispered harshly to Gideon in the night when he came back home to present the case of moving to Volney.
A dance in the forest, Huldah would've been telling the story over and over to her sister, like making a quilt.
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