
Bishop Starkey's kind words about Father

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Father died intestate on Easter morning 1886. Uncle John Burd agreed in Surrogate's Court to put his affairs in order. This began with an inventory of every item on our farm, which makes a booklet of 11 pages! We were allowed to go through the list and claim the household items for our family. After the heartache of dealing with Father's estate in the absence of a will, that same summer Mary wrote her own will, which is touching in its clarity and simplicity.


Blairstown Press, January 1888. Mary loved to give parties!

Grandfather's cousin Uriah met a gruesome end!

In the 1890s Sarah worked as Matron in the Infirmary of St. Mary's Hall School for Girls, located in Faribault, Minnesota and operated by the Sisterhood of St. Mary, an order of Episcopal nuns. This picture was taken in June of 1895, when she was 53. Can you spot Sarah?

Emma also worked out of state for awhile, teaching school in Connecticut. She had both the normal school training and the teaching experience they were looking for. 9/19/1895

Emma improved her standing with each term at the New Jersey State Teachers College at Trenton (the Normal School). In the term ended June 24, 1869 she scored an average of 82.4. In the term ended January 27, 1870 she improved to 85.7. Both scores were considered Meritorious by the school, but in the term ended June 30, 1870 she improved to the Distinguished category with a 90.6, ninth in her class! Special mention was made of her skill in rhetoric, which would serve as the foundation for a second career in between teaching.

Emma had an admirer at the Blairstown Press. March 17, 1897

This clip is from the nationally circulated
Werner's magazine, Volume 29 (1902). Emma had brochures printed to promote the tour.
Nicholas Harris sent a pair of them to his distant relative Henry J. Aten of Kansas. This scrapbook is not complete without one!
Emma continued teaching to age 85 in 1928, 57 years after first receiving a teaching certificate, and it wasn't her idea to stop! Her lifelong friend and distant cousin Nicholas Harris represented her in these proceedings.

Early August 1899 from the Blairstown Press. Sarah was undoubtedly working at St. Katherine's Hall, another Episcopal school for girls located in Davenport operated by a different order of Episcopal nuns (St. Mary's took over operation in 1902, but Sarah was gone by then).
Over the years Sarah and Emma both made their marks away from home in their respective trades. This was their first extended trip home after getting back to their lives following the death of their older sister Mary, for the occasion of the third annual family reunion, to be held elsewhere with Mary not around to make it happen at home. Mary along with Nicholas Harris had been instrumental in arranging the first two reunions at the "Eagle's Nest" homestead. Sarah was now sole proprietress according to the terms of her sister's will. For most of the last 20 years she had made her life elsewhere, and
she briefly considered selling the farm. But in the end she managed to keep both her life, and her father's farm, under her control.

One step she took was to find work closer to home. This is from a 1900 Directory of Social and Health Agencies in New York City, just a few hours by train and ferry from Delaware Station (a 1903 timetable shows an 8:10AM ferry from W 23rd Street getting you to Delaware at 10:53AM*). The job itself is not as big a leap for Sarah as it might seem - in 1880 she worked in an Insane Asylum! She landed the job of her dreams a couple of years after this, around age 60.
*Thanks Tim Stuy and the Knowlton/Blairstown Facebook group.
From the same 1900 Social Services directory, another St. Mary's operated by the Episcopal Church.

St. Mary's Free Hospital for Children entrance on W 34th St. (this is a drawing)

the childrens' ward

and the playroom, with a swing, rocking horse, doll house and various plushes sitting in miniature chairs

From the Belvidere Apollo, Aug/Sept 1899, written by Nicholas Harris, great-grandson of Thomas and Angelica Albertson Harris.

Blairstown Press, March 1908

Blairstown Press May 3, 1911.

Blairstown Press June 24, 1922
Mary Ellen (8/13/1840-11/30/1898)
Belvidere Apollo December 2, 1898
Nicholas Harris wrote frequently for the Apollo, I suspect this is his writing.
Sarah (10/20/1841-3/21?/1934)
Blairstown Press March 1934
They started out by misspelling her name and giving her house away to her cousin "J. Tinsman", whose real first name and initial were Laura C. Then they got wrong the pertinent fact that the GFS home (Holiday House) and the boys' camp were on land donated by Sarah's cousin Ellen Cummins. There's no mention of her professional achievements. Sarah Albertson deserved a better obituary! Sarah did indeed make a very generous donation of land, land that would be underutilized by the camp. But she also gave the camp something essential, the name of her home, Eagle's Nest.
Emma (1843-5/29/1937)
Easton Express May 31, 1937
I guess poor Ellen Cummins never had a chance against the charisma of the Albertsons.
Augusta (10/6/1846-1933)
Bell (8/31/1852-3/9/1909)
Belvidere Apollo March 11, 1909
Mrs. Harry Williams was of course Bell, Maria Isabella Butler. She grew up in this house from infancy to age 30. She is buried in the family plot, her inscription is on the fourth face of the stone commemorating Mother, Father and Mary Ellen.