Question: Broad smiles are seen across this entire group of 23 men and women as they posed in front of the Fireside Inn. Can you identify any of them by name? Do you know the occasion that brought them together?
Last week’s answer: This simple log cabin sheltered John Patchet, his wife Betsey and their six children when they arrived in Lysander in 1852. Patchet established a farm on Smokey Hollow Road near Lamson. Six more children would be born to the Patchets. The heavily wooded lands of Lysander would provide lumber for a frame house and the log cabin would later be used for storage.
The photo shows Patchet some 30 years later. His family had grown and his wife had passed away. Vines and undergrowth obscure the cabin entrance. Fences appear to be intact and a large woodpile is seen behind the cabin. Patchet, who was known for his sunny disposition, is wearing a smile.
Patchet remained in Lysander for another 20 years and then moved into the village to live with his daughter, Emma Lemonier, and her husband at 17 Salina St. It was an easy walk into the village center where he could socialize and enjoy retirement.
Born in 1815, Patchet had gone from a sea voyage and life in a small log cabin to a village with rows of frame and brick homes and streets illuminated by electric lights. John Patchet passed away in 1904, just four months short of his 89th birthday. He is buried in Chase Cemetery.
It was his descendant who responded correctly to the photo in last week’s paper; Kim Branagan wrote the following on our website:
“The bewhiskered man is John Patchett Sr. (1815-1904) (my third great-grandfather), son of Thomas Patchett and his second wife Mary Eldret of Lincolnshire. John married Betsey Ducket Haw, daughter of William Haw and Sarah ‘Sally’ Duckett, in 1838 in Quadring, Lincolnshire. Their first and seventh children, both named Clark, died in infancy in England. Their eighth child of died of pneumonia at the age of 6 months during the six weeks onboard the Western World and was buried in the Atlantic Ocean. They had 12 children in all, who provided their parents 28 grandchildren. Mary Patchett m. Martin Van Buren Trapp; John Patchett m. Lucilia Tryphena Chase; Thomas Patchett m. Margaret Luke(ntelly); Eliza m. William Deline; Sarah m. James J. Haresign; Harriet m. Edward Dunn Allen Trapp; Betsey m. Obediah Charles Welch; Emma m. Edson Delbert ‘Del’ Lemonier; Lydia m. her widower brother-in-law Del Lemonier.
“The immigrant Patchett family moved to Smokey Hollow and settled on Kellogg Road. He was a farmer and was socially active in the community. The sons had become strong teenagers by the time the family purchased the Smokey Hollow farm and John is said to have seated himself on the porch, folded his hands and announced, ‘I have done enough.’ This may be myth, but all agree that it was Betsey and the boys who ran the farm.
“John’s life gradually resumed some if its old gaiety after his arduous labors and he became a favorite guest at weddings and christenings. He outlived Betsey and grew to be an old man in the home of daughter Harriet, whose husband Edward Dunn Allen Trapp had bought the Patchett farm. It adjoined the farm of Martin V. Trapp, Mary’s husband, so the two Patchett sisters and two Trapp brothers lived side by side for the rest of their lives.
“The Post-Standard, Syracuse, NY, 20 Mar 1904: ‘Death of Octogenarian. Baldwinsville, March 19. John Patchet, died to-day at the home of Adelbert Lemonier in Salina street. He was 89 years old. The funeral will be held from the home of Mr. Lemonier on Monday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock.’”
Contact Editor Sarah Hall at [email protected] or leave a message at 434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by 5 p.m. Friday (please leave the information in the message; we are not generally able to return calls regarding History Mystery responses). If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo, your name and guess will appear in next week’s Messenger, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.
