My Years in Berby Hollow (Egypt Valley)
My older brothers were always interested in the Bristol Hills and
around 1927 they rented a small house on the Egypt Valley Road which
we called a cabin. It had a kitchen, living room, pantry and two
bedrooms. There was a porch on the front. The cabin was heated by
means of a wood stove. we used to get our wood by dragging in limbs
with a rope, sometimes for quite a distance. The painting business was
very slow in the winter and sometimes Clarence would stay over there
for more than a week. He wouldn't want to spend all of his time
gathering wood. Halfway down the hill into the valley there was an old
man who lived alone on top of a ridge beyond a deep gully that ran
beside the road. He sold firewood, delivered for $3.00 a cord.
Sometimes we would buy wood when we had enough money.
The nearest house to the west was one half mile away and to the east
there was one a mile beyond us. The roads were dirt and were never
plowed in the winter time. Most days in the winter, the only car to
come by was the mailman. In the deep winter he might only make it once
a week. In the spring when the snow melted the roads were bad and we
would simply drive in the ruts that were not too deep. I spent all my
Christmas vacations and weekends with Clarence, and sometimes Gordon,
at this place.
If the roads were very bad in the winter, my father would take
Clarence and I as far as the main road went and we would pull a
toboggan, loaded with our food and supplies, about six miles to the
cabin. We would have set a time and day for him to pick us up when we
were ready to come home. The corner on the main road where he met us
was at the top of the hill that goes down into Honeoye. There was
Jones' gas station there where we would wait. When we were at the
cabin and the weather was good, some of the family would come over for
Sunday dinner. My older sisters and their husbands would sometimes
join my father in coming. Clarence's friend would often come over to
hunt. The rabbit hunting was very good.
When I was old enough to have a gun, Clarence, Gordon and I would
start out about 11:00 am to hunt for dinner. We would go in opposite
directions and try to get a rabbit then beat the others back to the
cabin. I remember one time we got a rabbit and were back in less than
an hour, but Gordon was already back and had one ready to start
cooking.
The cabin was interesting because we were told that a man who had
lived there some years before had sat in the kitchen in a chair and
blown his head off with a shotgun. The bullet holes were all there in
the plaster in the ceiling so we supposed it to have been true.
Clarence was always interested in fox hunting and had a trap line too.
I guess at this time I had a BB gun and just followed Clarence around.
When I was about twelve years old Clarence bought me a single shot 22
and I used it to hunt fox with him. I don't remember what we ate in
those days at the cabin, but Clarence did the cooking. I do remember
one time Gordon made a raisin pie. He made the crust and put in a box
of seedless raisins then put it in the oven. When he took it out it
was just as when he put it in, so we poured the raisins back in the
box and ate the crust. Across the road about a quarter mile up in a
field there was an old chestnut tree that was killed by blight that
eventually killed all the chestnut trees in the East. This tree still
had a few green limbs coming out of the trunk and we used to get the
chestnuts and roast them. The remainder of the tree was dead and we
used it for firewood.
The cabin was on the edge of a deep gully and the creek ran down the
gully in back of the cabin. It went on to Honeoye Lake. We used to set
traps in the creek for muskrats. Sometimes we would hear wildcats
scream in the middle of the night down in the gully. The stove we used
for heat had a big ornate top that slid to one side to expose the
cooking top. we took this off and had it hanging on a nail in the
pantry. One night Clarence and I were there alone and the wildcats
were down in the gully. Just about midnight we were awakened by a
terrible crash somewhere in the cabin. Between that and the wildcats
it made our hair stand on end and the chills go up and down our
spines. We finally got up enough nerve to get out of bed, get a
flashlight and investigate. The heavy iron stove top had come off the
nail and knocked down all the pots and pans. After a couple of hours
we got back to sleep again. Down the road, not far from the cabin, a
church had burned down at midnight under mysterious circumstances. All
these happenings made the place very spooky to someone only ten years
old.
During these years I used to tag along behind Clarence while he was
hunting and taking care of his trap line for fox and muskrat. Fox
pelts were worth about $20 then, which was a lot of money. In all the
years that we hunted them, I can not remember getting one. It was fun
setting and baiting the traps and finding where the fox had gotten the
bait without springing the trap.
One winter Leon stayed at the camp and worked for Tony Miller on his
farm down the road. This is where he met Louise as she was the school
teacher at the school the other way from the cabin. At that time
teachers would board near the school and she stayed at the Miller's.
Leon said he worked very hard there, from sunrise to sunset, cutting
wood and doing chores for small wages and one meal a day.
For a change sometimes in the summer, we would go down about two miles
toward Honeoye and there was a place you could drive a car along the
creek away from the road to where the banks got steep. There was a
nice point by the creek where the ground was level and there were lots
of tall pines. Clarence had a panel truck and there was a mattress in
the back to sleep on. We would set up a canvas cover to cook and eat
under. It was a beautiful spot where we could stay for the weekend.
Sometimes I would take Ray Smith or Chuck Spears with me. There were
places where the creek was a couple of feet deep and we would go
skinny dipping. I often think of all that I would have missed doing if
it had not been for Clarence.
About 1930 or shortly there after, Clarence and Gordon bought five
acres of land from Tony Miller along the edge of his farm. They paid
$30 an acre for it and about four and one half acres of woods, then
the creek with a clearing beside it. After we had it surveyed we put
up some markers at the back corners which were up the hill. It was
level for about 1/2 to 1 acre at the bottom and the woods went up the
hill fairly steep. About two months after buying the land we were
walking around the property line and found that Tony Miller was
cutting down the big trees, 2 to 2 1/2 feet in diameter, and dragging
them onto his property. He had cut about ten of the big trees and
didn't think we would be over there to find out. We went down to
Bristol Center and got the local Sheriff (big deal) and had him serve
papers of some sort on Tony Miller. We never got any of the big trees
back, but he didn't cut any more. There was one big oak about 3 1/2
feet in diameter that had been cut down and still on our property. I
would go up there and sit on it and hunt squirrels. We never did cut
it up for firewood as we never had a saw big enough to do it. The
knowledge of trees that I learned in Boy Scouts gave me an interest in
the trees that were on our property. There were pine, oak, maple,
beech, basswood and a very hard wood. The ironwood did not grow very
big and had a twisted trunk. The bark was slate grey, smooth and it
was properly named because it sawed like iron.
We bought the lumber for the cabin at Davidson's Lumber Yard on West
Avenue in Canandaigua and they delivered it for us. I remember being
over there and waiting for the truck to get there. The driver got lost
and it took him half the day to find us. After we had unloaded the
lumber, he sat and visited with us the rest of the day. I was about 12
or 13 years old so could help my brothers saw the boards and nail them
up. I recall putting the wood shingles on the roof. We even had a
front door that we could use when we had company. Gordon was good with
mason work so he put in the cement block foundation and built the big
stone fireplace at one end of the cabin. We had a lot of good
fireplace fires and used to sit around it by the hour. Sometimes we
would find a piece of apple wood to burn, which makes a beautiful
fire. We also had a wood burning stove which we used for cooking. The
cabin had one large room and two bedrooms partitioned off at one end
by six foot high partitions. The walls were just the clapboards on the
outside so it was not very warm in the winter. Just about like
Horseshoe Camp I imagine. It was nice and warm, however, if you kept
the fire going.
We had a wood bin in the back of the cabin that came out into the room
a couple of feet and had a cover that lifted up. On the outside we had
a door on hinges that would raise up and thus we could fill the wood
box from outside. One time someone broke in through that woodbox and
stole a couple of my brother's guns, but that was the only time we
were ever robbed. We used to drink the water from the creek even
though there were cows pastured not far up stream. We thought that if
the water ran five hundred feet from the cows that it would be pure
again. It never hurt us but we soon found another way to get water.
There was a small gully next to the cabin that was wet most of the
year, so we drove an iron pipe back in the shale three or four feet
and put a pan under it to catch the water that dripped out. In the
summer it would drip about a gallon a day which was enough for
drinking.
I forgot to mention that the first thing we had to do before we built
the cabin was to build a bridge across the creek. We cut two trees
about the size of telephone poles and nailed boards on top. At least
twice during our years there, the bridge was washed out by the spring
floods. Usually it was found not very far downstream so we would drag
it back and renail the boards down. I mentioned before, the Scout
trips to Camp Woodcraft which usually took place on a Saturday. It
must have been nice to have all the energy that we had at that age.
After running all day at Scout Camp, Ray Smith and I would walk to
Berby Hollow after the rest of the troop left for home. We followed
the edge of the big gully down into Bristol Valley and then walked
south on the road until Mud Creek passed under the bridge to our side
of the road. It was too deep to cross anywhere else. Then we would
climb the hill to the west, which is about where Bristol Mountain Ski
Area is now located, then cross the top of the hill, which was fairly
flat, and Down into Berby. We Couldn't get lost because I knew this
area very well and when we came to the Berby Hollow Road I knew
whether to turn right or left to get to the cabin. It was about a six
mile walk and we could make it there by dark. We only did this when
Clarence was planning to be there and we could spend the night and
come home with him the next day.
After we got the cabin built we planted some pine trees in the yard
along the creek. I remember getting six pine trees from a nursery.
They were so small that I carried them inside a small cereal box. The
last time I was by there they were all living and about fifteen feet
tall. We named the camp "Hunting's End" and we had a sign on a post
out by the road near the gate we made to keep people from driving in.
When you crossed the bridge we had three stone and concrete steps up
the bank and Gordon cemented a sundial on top of a three foot high
stone and concrete base. It was accurate and we used it to tell time.
This area of Bristol was sparsely populated in those days and there
was no house between the cabin and Honeoye. Sometimes we would need
extra groceries and would go to Treble's store in Honeoye for them.
After high School I went with his daughter Althea for a while. We
bought most of our groceries in Canandaigua before we left for camp
and could get enough food for two of us for a week for $5. We bought
them at a little grocery store on South Main Street owned by Ernie
Watts. Most of our meals consisted of boiled ham, Pancakes and jello.
We probably had other things but these are what I remember. Most of
our meat is what we got hunting. We often had fried squirrel, rabbit
or partridge. We used to start hunting partridge right from the back
door of the cabin and once Gordon got a bird about 100 feet up the
hill. At times in the winter we would get up in the morning and see
deer and fox tracks in the snow within ten feet of the cabin. The
cabin was in a valley with a hill to the west so it would be almost
dark by 4:30 PM so we would start a fire in the fireplace and eat our
dinners early. We would heat up the sliced boiled ham and eat it with
pancakes. We had a large round cast iron griddle and cooked with it on
top of the wood stove. Clarence would make his pancake (always about
one foot across) and then sit at a table in front of the fireplace to
eat. While he ate his, I would cook mine and he would be done when
mine was ready. We took turns like this until we were full and then we
would eat our dessert together. We didn't have to hurry any as the
evenings were long.
Sometimes in the summer we would go up the Lower Egypt Valley Road to
where the spring was (I'll tell more about that later) and there was a
lane that went up the hill to where a farmhouse once stood. There were
found a lot of blackberry bushes which we called thimbleberries
because they were big, over 1 1/2 inches long. We would have them for
dessert with sugar and evaporated milk. We had a concentrated
flavoring mixed with water to drink. It was called HO-MIX and came in
flavors. Whenever we got thirsty we'd stop for a glass of HO- MIX. It
was probably the forerunner of KOOLAID.
The only lights we had in the cabin were Coleman gasoline lanterns and
we would read by it at night. We had an outside "john" about 30 feet
up the hill in back of the cabin with stone steps cut in the bank. It
was a one holer surrounded by blinds we took off an old house
somewhere. You could sit inside and run the slats up and down to see
out. Sometimes we would take a gun with us and watch for partridge
while we sat.
One weekend we arrived at camp to find a dead partridge on one of the
beds. It had flown through a window and couldn't get out again.
Another time a red squirrel got down the fireplace and really made a
mess of the cabin. He even chewed off the wood around the glass in the
windows. He didn't get out and we found him in there dead.
We built a dam in the creek to make a place for our Saturday night
bath and it was about two feet deep with a nice smooth rock bottom. We
had an overflow in the dam to raise or lower the level by inserting or
removing planks. We took the planks out during the spring floods. The
level area between the creek and the road was large enough so we could
have softball games and park cars there.
In those days we often hunted squirrels as I have mentioned. There
were many pure black squirrels then and we would hunt for them just
because they were different. One place up on top of the hill there
were fox squirrels but we never killed one of them. Fox squirrels are
much larger than gray squirrels and they have a long bushy tail like a
fox. We could see them in the woods but were never able to get close
to one. Most of them were up on top of the hill on posted property
belonging to the Sanetarium in Clifton Springs. It was called the
Sanetarium Farm and they raised farm and dairy products for use at
Clifton. It seemed strange that they would have a farm so far away.
You can check the map for the location of some of the places I write
about. We were told about a spring on the Lower Egypt Valley Road
where we could get water that was really pure. Just down the bank at
the side of the road there was a pool of clear water about three feet
across with the water bubbling out of the rocks at the bottom of it.
This water was so cold that it didn't even freeze in the winter time
and on the hottest summer day it was so cold that you couldn't hold
your hand under it. Eventually, Stuart Caves of Caves Lumber Company
in Holcomb, built a lovely summer home on the lot including the
spring, but they always allowed people to get water there.
There was an intersection in the road just down from the cabin with a
telephone pole. We made arrow signs with cities and mileage painted on
them and nailed them to the pole. They pointed towards Honeoye,
Naples, Rochester and Canandaigua. They were still there for years
after the camp was sold. Several times Clarence and I walked home to
Canandaigua just to see how long it would take us. It was about 15
miles distance and we always made it in about four hours and fifteen
minutes. One time when it was snowing I was wearing a heavy pair of
overshoes and about halfway home they got too heavy for me, so I took
them off and hid them under a large rock beside the road. The next
time we went to camp I picked them up.
We had a black and white cow hide for a rug in the cabin. Across the
road and up on the hill was a berry patch and in the spring there
would be berry pickers up there, when they looked our way, I would put
the cow hide over me and chase Clarence around the yard. They were
just far enough away that it may have looked real to them. At least
they used to stand there watching us.
One of Clarence's friends had a fox hound that we would keep with us
for fox hunting. His name was "Shimmer-boo" and he was large. One
Christmas vacation we got snowed in and the fellow who owned the dog
came after us in a truck. I lost three days of school which was a
treat. We slipped and slid around in the snow on the hill, but finally
made it up the hill, on to home and back to school. We all rode in the
front seat of the truck with that big smelly dog on my lap all the way
home. You know how big and gangly those fox hounds are. I'll never
forget that ride home.
We had a trapdoor in the floor of the cabin with a four foot square
pit dug out beneath. We would store foodstuffs down there where it was
cooler. There were all kinds of nut trees around and at one time we
had two bushels of butternuts, one of walnuts and two of hickory nuts
(all shucked) down under the floor. After they were there a couple of
years we took them out and burned them in the fireplace. Two bushels
of hickory nuts would be worth a fortune now. Halfway up the hill on
our property there was a pine tree about three feet through the trunk
and very tall. The limbs came straight out of the trunk so you could
climb up it just like you were climbing a ladder. About forty feet up
I built a platform and used it for my secret hideaway. I could see
down to the road and when we were expecting company, I would go up
there and watch for them.
We used to do a lot of partridge hunting and there was an older man by
the name of Bill Brooks who went along with us, without a gun, just
for the joy of walking in the woods. He carried a flask of whiskey and
every so often would stop to sit on a tree stump and have another nip.
He never bothered our hunting and was nice to have along. He was the
father of one of the girls Gordon used to go out with.
We had to cut all our firewood with a two man crosscut saw or a one
man crosscut saw about three feet long. Our only problems were when we
went over to camp for a weekend, we had to spend the first day cutting
wood and the second day hunting. We never got very far ahead with our
woodpile. We would cut trees one to two feet in diameter. At the back
corner of the cabin there was a gully that went up the hill but it
never had any water in it's six foot deep depression. After we cut the
trees into chunks we would roll them over to the gully and start them
down the hill. They would bound up in the air and sometimes jump out
of the gully where trees would halt their flight. They would go about
40 feet and then we would start them out again. At the bottom they
would be traveling quite fast so we made a barricade of chunks about
the size of a cord of wood, to protect the cabin. It was an easy way
to get the wood down the hill and the chunks ended up right by our
wood pile for splitting. We would cut the basswood chunks about a foot
long as it was a very straight wood, soft and wonderful to split for
kindling. I would sit on one chunk of wood and split another with my
scout hatchet. It would split almost down to the size of a pencil and
I always kept a big pile of it to start fires with. When we were
cutting down trees we would put all the brush into piles so that there
would be places for the rabbits to hide. When we were hunting rabbits,
we could kick the pile with our foot and scare them out. We had a
basswood tree with a nest of honey Bees in a hole about 10 feet up the
trunk. One day when it was about zero degrees out, we cut the tree
down and when it hit the ground the bees flew up in the air about ten
feet before the cold got them and they fell to the ground. We got out
all the beeswax comb and took it back to the cabin and made honey.
On top of the hill in back of the cabin there were a lot of open
fields and in one we found a big old wagon wheel that we could roll
way up to the top and start it down into the open fields. It would
roll a long way before it came to the woods. Next time we came up we
would bring it with us. Sometimes we would carry our skis with us
about two miles up the hill and then ski down criss cross all the way
back to the cabin. Once I was sitting on top of a brush lot hunting
fox and I heard a noise behind me. I turned around very slowly and
there were three deer eating grass about ten feet behind me! One
moonlit night at midnight we went up there and sat watching for foxes
to cross the open field. With the moon light on the snow you can see
for a long ways and it was very quiet. It is amazing how you can do
something like that just once in your life and never forget it--the
sight, sound and feeling. I can close my eyes right now and see those
open fields and trees just as clearly as fifty seven years ago.
We did not have anti-freeze for the car in those days. We put alcohol
in the radiator to be safe at about zero degrees. You couldn't put
anymore than that because every time the car got warm it would boil
over. On very cold nights we would drain the radiator into a large pan
and take it into the cabin. One night it went down to 26 degrees below
zero and I believe that is still the record for this area. We took the
mattress off the other bed and put it over us and a big wooden chair
on top of that to keep it from sliding off. Clarence always got up
first in the morning and I still hear him crumpling newspapers to
start the fire again if it was out. We had a trap line to see to as we
were leaving home later in the day. I put on every piece of clothing I
could find and was so stiff I could hardly walk. We had to go around
the whole line and spring the traps as we would not be back for a
week. We then put the anti-freeze on the stove and melted it as we had
left it outside all night and it was frozen. We put it back in the
radiator and headed home.
Halfway down the road into Berby Hollow was an old dirt road to the
right that went along the hill through the woods. It crossed a deep
gully with a sharp S turn and crossed an old wooden bridge. Just on
the other side was an old abandoned house whose basement windows were
covered by iron bars. It was all grown up with brush and vines and we
speculated that slaves or prisoners had been kept there in the
basement. It was a very interesting spot to a boy. Near the back of
this house we found the remains of an old wooden railway track. It
went from the top of the bank alongside a deep gulley and down to the
creek in Berby Hollow. The ties and rails all made of wood and rails
were about 18 inches apart. It was very steep and ended at the top of
a cliff down by the creek. We never did find out what it was used for.
It was still recognizable as a track however. It may have been used to
get logs down to the creek and a sawmill when the water was high
enough.
We had a 22 rifle that was probably purchased in the 1920s by one of
my brothers. When he needed money he sold it to another brother for $1
less than he paid for it. Whenever the owner needed money, he would
sell it again with the one dollar loss. I finally bought it for $5 and
still have it. It is a very good gun and shoots straight. I used it to
hunt woodchucks for many years up to the 1960s when I hunted with
Harold Kennedy and Brownie. It is the rifle I taught Lynn to shoot
with.
My time at Berby was from age 9 to the end of high school in 1935.
After that I used to go there with the fellows I played ball with and
we would have parties and go hunting. After high school I never spent
a night there. When I was in the Air Corps, Clarence and Gordon sold
the camp for $1000. If I had been home at that time I think I would
have bought it. It would make a beautiful summer camp even today.
Goodbye to a lot of good times.