FamilyHistoryFiles.com - Mike's West Castleton Journal Homepage

A couple of years ago I'd never heard of West Castleton, Vermont. Then in late 2005, in the midst of a frenzy of family history research, I learned that my grandfather John Delehanty had been born there. I'd always thought he'd been born in New York, because that's what his death certificate said. Turns out his widow was right about the date of his birth, but knew nothing about where he was born & raised or who his ancestors were. Evidently he never told her.

John Delehanty was my mother's father. He died on a cold mid-winter's day in early 1929 in St. Paul, Minnesota, age 42, seven months after my mother was born. That much I knew from his death certificate and obituary. The only other thing I knew came from the lips of my grandmother, who said he was tall and handsome and looked just like Clark Gable. Gazing wide-eyed into her eyes, a little boy perched on her lap, I had no idea who Clark Gable was, but he sounded grand, and she looked so tickled when she said it, that was good enough for me.

Then a couple years back, for reasons explored elsewhere in these pages, I decided to track down this mysterious character John Delehanty. After months of research, and thanks to the help of some very kind people, I learned that he grew up in a quarrymen's boarding house run by his mother and father about a mile east of West Castleton on the western shore of Lake Bomoseen -- a place of arresting physical beauty and of great physical danger, especially for slate workers and all who shared their lives. John Delehanty's uncles James and John, once-penniless Irish immigrants, had escaped quarry work -- by scrimping and saving their meager wages, working their socks off, making sacrifices, and eventually becoming quarry-and-mill owners. (Looking east along Cedar Mountain Road toward Lake Bomoseen, ca. 1905; the Delehanty boarding house was about a mile east of this spot; a year or so before this photo was taken John Delehanty walked this stretch of road for the last time; from the Martha B. Warren Collection)

In 1885 -- the year before John Delehanty's birth -- his uncles and their partner Patrick H. Downs founded the Lake Bomoseen Slate Company. The LBSC was one of scores of small slate quarrying and manufacturing firms dotting the New York-Vermont slate districts from the 1870s to the 1890s, and one of at least three around West Castleton. John Delehanty's parents, in contrast, owned no real property. Instead they ran a boarding house for quarrymen who worked for his uncles James and John.

Through most of his childhood John Delehanty's nuclear family was made up of at least 11 people: his parents, three half-siblings, five siblings, and himself. Born and raised on the shores of "Beautiful Lake Bomoseen," surrounded by mountains, streams, and forests, he, like his siblings, attended the West Castleton Schoolhouse for 9 months a year, avoiding quarry work. Then, starting when he was 11 years old, seven of his family members died, including both parents. His father, two half-brothers, and two sisters died of tuberculosis; his younger brother of a lung abscess; and his mother of pneumonia. In the wake of his parents' deaths, his older brother migrated Spokane WA; his younger sister moved to Granville NY. By summer 1903, on the cusp of his 17th birthday, he was the only one of the eleven still living in Rutland County. (Right: the S. L. Hazard General Store on Cedar Mountain Road in West Castleton, less than a mile west of where John Delehanty grew up, and where he was sent often for groceries; photo ca. 1925, twenty years after he left Vermont for good; from the Martha B. Warren Collection)

His family destroyed, he left West Castleton never to return. Yet his upbringing there seems to have deeply influenced his later life. Traveling to St Paul, Minnesota, he married a young Irishwoman, Bridget McDonough, distantly related to the Castleton McDonoughs. The young family migrated West, John working a dozen or more years in the silver mines of Montana and Idaho, just when the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies) was at its peak. Back in Vermont, sharing a boarding house with quarrymen, he'd have been steeped in the culture of labor radicalism and workingmen's associations that had developed since the Knights of Labor organizing drives of 1886, the year of his birth.

In 1908 in Montana, John and Bridget Delehanty had a son, Lester. They stayed together. John worked in the one thing he knew, earth & stone. After the Great War and the federal government's successful campaign to smash the IWW, the young family returned to St. Paul. Bridget died, and a few years later John married Grandma -- another ethnically Irish woman. Then he died of heart disease he'd suffered for the past 15 years, doubtless exacerbated by his years in the mines.

So I journey back in time to his formative years in the shadows of Cedar Mountain. What kind of boy was he? How did the world appear through his 6 year-old eyes? 8? 11? 13? 17? What forces most shaped his world, and how did he meet them? How do we understand the social and cultural milieu in which he grew up?

Tracking John Delehanty back to West Castleton, in short, was just the beginning. Piecing together his childhood and youth there has proven a genuine journey. Two journeys, in fact -- or better said two trips from Ann Arbor, Michigan to West Castleton and back -- the first in late May and early June 2007 (14 days, 2,165 miles), the second in mid-August (8 days, 1,686 miles), both in my little blue 1989 Honda Civic with its 231,000-plus miles. (Left: Mike and his Champion Automobile on the return leg of Trip No. 1 in northern PA, with Mike's just-discovered treasure of a rusty & mangled old hay-picker wheel, dug out of the creek bed adjacent to George Kinsman's old farm homestead, where Nellie was born in March 1848; a Christmas present for Tom)

The first trip was magical -- perfect weather, no mud or bugs, great camping, terrific hiking, some really great people, tons of documents and photos, and a host of indelible memories. The return leg was also pretty magical, swinging through Chemung County in southern New York, the birthplace of Nellie Kinsman Lang Blowe Church and the topic of yet another set of pages on this site. (Right: piece of waste slate, ca. 3' x 5' x 6" x 1,000 lbs., on the waste heap near the top of Cedar Mountain, a stone's throw from where John Delehanty was born & raised, hoisted into position with two iron bars and inscribed with what you see here, using a level, ruler, chalk, and a ¼" wood chisel, facing west towards West Castleton, the stone visible from the Bomoseen State Park docks on a clear day; remainder of inscription to be completed on later trips).

The second trip, also camping at Bomoseen State Park, was spent mainly working in the basement of the Castleton Town Offices. I'd contracted with the town (via the town manager) to clean up and organize its auxiliary basement vault, figuring it'd partially cover my expenses, provide a useful public service to the Town of Castleton, and let me go through the town's old records with a fine-tooth comb. As you'll see if you read the site or scan the WCJ2 Photo Pages, it worked out great on all counts. There's no substitute for getting your hands dirty in the local archives to get a feel for the history of a place.

All historical research being a collaborative enterprise, I'm very grateful to everyone who so generously shared their time and expertise and helped to make these research trips what they were -- especially Peter Patten in Fair Haven, Joe Doran and Vy Manovill in Hydeville, Prof. Joe Mark of Castleton College, Castleton Town Manager Jon Dodd and his wife Alica Dodd, Town Clerk Katy Thornblade, Jim Davidson in Rutland, Carol Thomas McKearny and her family, and the many librarians, clerks, and others who helped me at various stages along the way. Benevolent Park Tsar Jeremy Hogaboom at Bomoseen State Park let me camp two days before the official Memorial Day opening (all I had to do was park outside the gates, carry in everything I needed, sign a volunteer waiver form, and paint two lean-to's!). Dave at Dave's Autocare in East Smithfield, PA wired up my muffler at a moment's notice at a critical juncture on Return Trip No. 1 (and handed me the page from the local phone book with all the Kinsmans listed on it -- there's a lot of Kinsmans in Bradford County PA!). Closer to home, John and Ron at Mallek's Service in Ann Arbor (at the Marathon station where Jackson & Dexter split off from Huron Street as you head west out of town) are bona-fide saints, and magicians too. Copious thanks to all.

These West Castleton Journal pages are divided into four main parts:

1. Photos   Numbered and annotated, from 1 to 1,613 (yes, 1,613 individual photographs on 41 separate web pages). Most of these -- probably about 1,400 -- are photos of historic photographs and primary documents. Basically what we have here is a fairly good-sized online archive, focusing on Castleton & Fair Haven, ca. 1860-1910, but extending considerably beyond (e.g., the Hazard Letters date to the 1810s and 1820s and take us to Boston, New York, Charleston, New Orleans, while the Martha B. Warren Collection extends to the 1950s and to Albany NY, Indiana, and beyond). There are two sets of Photo Pages: Photo Pages 1-18 from Trip 1, and Photo Pages 19-42 from Trip 2 (WCJ2 for "West Castleton Journal 2"). The latter set holds about 1,000 photos of primary documents, including numerous complete tax assessment or "grand lists" for the Town of Castleton in the late 19th century.

2. Maps   Historic and contemporary.

3. WCJ Documents    Homepage for all primary documents relating to the Delehantys and their kin & community in the slate districts of Vermont & NY. Includes materials appearing in the Photo Pages, and everything gathered before undertaking these trips. Here's where all the documentary evidence is organized, transcribed, analyzed, and presented. Documents are divided into the following categories in a navigation bar appearing on all WCJ Docs Pages: Census   News   Land   Vitals   Probate   Taxes   Other   Pubs. Pretty self-explanatory. (Though "other" might be changed to "politics.")   These Docs Pages include some interpretations, but mainly serve as a big filing cabinet. The interpretations come (or will come) in the

4. Journal Notes Empty for now, but will include excerpts from my daily journal and later thoughts & ruminations on how I'm thinking about this project and what the whole point is. Preliminary sketches for the book -- which is more a process than a product in any case-- that will come in due time. In the meantime, hope you enjoy the site a tad mite as much as I've enjoyed building it!

( friendly suggestion: start with the WCJ Photo pages )

( though the more intrepid may wish to dive right into the land records )

( while the more courageous still might wish to examine

Deaths in Castleton Town, 1897-1902 )

( which is only accessible here and through the Vital Statistics page )

( comments, questions & contributions can be sent to mjsch313@yahoo.com, with something in the subject line to mark your missive as non-spam )

( Lastly, please watch your head: construction's going on everywhere )

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