1. HIRAM LEWIS TOWNSEND was born Sept. 17, 1841 and died March 16, 1926. He was in the Civil War. He was mustered in on Sept. 11, 1862 at Sackett's Harbor, New York. He was in Company D. 10th Regiment, Heavy Artillery. I have his papers framed and hanging in my living room. After the war, he was a carpenter and worked in a sawmill
He married October 9, 1866
CORA AMY MORGAN. I have their marriage certificate. She was born Jan. 25, 1848 and died April 18, 1943 in Watertown, New York. She was living with Blanche Casler and her husband, Perley Casler, at the time of her death.
Now what info I have about those 10 Townsend children. I knew five of them. Amy Cora was a precious woman, very soft spoken and always a smile on her face. She was hard of hearing and wore a hearing aid that she used to let me try to listen on. She also would eat Shredded Wheat with orange juice over it. I asked her why and she said it all goes to the same place!
Hiram Spafford was so handsome! I called him Uncle Hi. He was a photographer and lived in Theresa, New York. He was very spry and I know he was still living in the 60's. (He died January of 1967) My great grandmother, Sabra, and I were visiting him and she dropped her earring and it rolled under the bed. I was a young teenager at the time, I believe. I was going to get it but Uncle Hi dropped to his stomach and shimmied under the bed and retrieved it for her. He had to be close to 90 years old at the time! When he drove his car, he would go around the corners in a cloud of dust! LOL
Sabra, my precious great grandmother was a saint. She helped raise my mother and instilled such values in her. She was a schoolteacher at one time in a one room schoolhouse. She said she would arrive around 5:00 AM to get the wood stove going so the children wouldn't be cold. This was upstate New York, mind you! She and her husband had a business in Fisher's Landing, New York. Her husband, Clarence Fox, was also a fishing guide on the St. Lawrence. She moved to San Diego to live with her daughter. Actually her two daughters, Lenore (Jean) and Cora (my grandmother) lived there. She died in 1981 at the age of 104.
Blanche and her husband could never have any children. They were chiropractors! That was so unusual at the turn of the century for a woman to have such a job. They both developed arthritis and then had to stop being chiropractors. They then started making trusses for people with back problems. They lived in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh I believe. When Perley died (1963, I believe) , she went to live at Foltz Home, run by the Methodists, in Herkimer, New York. That's where she died.
I know my great grandmother was born in Theresa and perhaps all of the children were. I do have a picture of Hiram and Cora's home in Theresa. I also own several pieces of their furniture...an Eastlake desk, a table with six leaves, a Lincoln rocker, a platform rocker, and an Eastlake medicine chest with the towel bar underneath. I also have a few family dishes...some dating back to the late 1700's.
Children, TOWNSEND (order unknown)
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