A Sullivan County Farm/Boarding House:
The Hornbecks of Hurleyville,
New York
a family and local history compiled
by
Kathy Lynn Gorton Emerson
Pictured above is the Hornbeck farm in Hurleyville,
New York with Lawrence Hornbeck and his family posing in front. The Hornbeck
family first arrived in Hurleyville when Matthew
Hornbeck (born October 15, 1768, probably in Rochester, now Accord, Ulster
County, New York; died August 17, 1856 in Hurleyville)
moved there from Samsonville in Ulster County, where
he had a store where Indians came to melt lead for arrows. Family legend claims
he had a map to an Indian lead mine. Matthew married Elizabeth Wood c. 1797 in
Rochester/Accord. She died February 4, 1864 in Hurleyville.
In Hurleyville Matthew first bought "the Mannon Place" in the town of Thompson and is listed
there in the 1850 census. He is buried in the Hornbeck family cemetery in Hurleyville, located on the "Hornbeck Homestead"
on which Goldie Durland Hornbeck lived last. His
tombstone remains, along with one bearing the initials "SEH". Matthew and Elizabeth had thirteen children,
including Lawrence (born November 14, 1811 in Hurleyville;
died April 30, 1897 in Hurleyville). In 1856,
Lawrence married Catherine Gardner. She was born January 6, 1827 and died
January 13, 1890 in Hurleyville. When I was first
researching the family, as a child of nine or so, Catherine (Katie) Hornbeck
Coburg was my primary source of information. She thought her grandmother's
maiden name might have been Barrigan, because
Lawrence's sister, Catherine Jane Hornbeck, had married John Barrigan and she thought that Lawrence's wife might have
been his sister. This turned out to be incorrect but by the time I discovered
that I passed the information on to someone compiling a Hornbeck genealogy. You
will find my mistake in print but it is still a mistake. Lawrence built the
homestead on Columbia Hill, AKA "the farm." The Hornbeck farm was
situated on what is now called the Whittaker Road. It is reached by driving
south through Hurleyville along Main Street (Rt.
104), up Columbia Hill Road and turning left at the top (Rt.107). It was given
a value of $1000 in the 1860 census. In 1872 the farm was listed as consisting
of 75 acres. The town line between Fallsburgh and
Thompson was at the foot of the hill, so to get a true picture of the area, you
need to look at two maps. Those below come from the 1875 Sullivan County Atlas.
Lawrence and Catherine had two children, Myron Gonzales (known as
Miles) Hornbeck (January 19, 1861-March 4, 1948) and Constantia Elizabeth
(known as Libby) Hornbeck (October 25, 1862-September 22, 1941). M. G. Hornbeck
married Ella May Applebee, who also came from a farm/boarding house tradition.
Pictured below is the Applebee House.
The Applebee House in Hurleyville was
operated by Isaac and Mary Barton Applebee, parents of Ella Hornbeck. I believe
it was on Rt.107 (the Monticello Road), reached by a right turn at the top of
Columbia Hill. I have also been told it was called the Applebee Inn and later
Fairlawn Farm and Fairlawn Acres. The other photograph shows Isaac and Mary
Applebee.
M. G. and Ella Hornbeck had six children: Tressa Estelle, Ida Arlena, Catherine May, Myron H., Luella, and Howard Clark Hornbeck.
Shown above are M.G. and Ella in both photographs and
their five surviving children in the second. The children from left to right
are Lu, Katie (seated) M.H., Ida (seated), and Howd. M.G. farmed the land and
managed the boarding house, which at one point was called the Lafayette House.
The property was left in equal parts to his five living children and the child
of his deceased daughter but Katie Hornbeck Coburg (she had married her
sister's widower in 1934) continued to live there until her death in March of
1958. She took in tourists through the summer of 1957, although by then
separate kitchens had been installed in the "boarders'" dining room
and the family had ceased to provide meals for those who stayed with them.
After Katie died, the farm was sold. It burned down several years later. The
only thing left now is a cellar hole. The photograph below shows the house as
it was in the second quarter of the twentieth century.
My mother, Theresa Marie Coburg Gorton,
was the daughter of Tressa Estelle Hornbeck Coburg. Tressa died shortly after
giving birth in 1910 and Marie, as she was called, was raised by her
grandparents and her Aunt Katie. In a series of interviews in 1987 she recalled
life in a summer boarding house when she was a girl.
There were over 200 hotels in
Sullivan County in the 1920s - none would use a Liberty address because Liberty
was associated with tuberculosis cures. There were hotels up Goldie's road (the
road M.H. and Goldie Hornbeck lived on). On the other
road to Monticello, new ones were built. Gurney's Hotel (later burned down)
bought water from the Hornbeck pond. They had a little house, a big house, a
casino, and dances. Casinos at hotels were separate buildings for dancing and
entertainments by summer staff, bands, etc, NOT for
gambling. No money gambling was allowed in New York State [NOTE FROM KATHY: I'm
not sure that meant there wasn't any!!!].
We had guests Decoration Day
weekend, then the last of June/1st of July. On July 4th we had sparklers and
firecrackers. We were too involved in the boarding house to go to coaching days
but my aunts and uncles did in the old days. All the farms took in boarders. It
was all boarding houses along the road: Aunt Carrie's, Cohen's, and Hornbeck's.
Many built new buildings or built on. The "addition" to the boarding
house was built on in the back - 6 bedrooms upstairs and downstairs was a big
dining room and a kitchen as long as the dining room. Off the back was a hall.
Off the front was the writing room. You went through the writing room to get to
the dining room and there was a door out of the back of the dining room. To
serve, food was slid through a hole in the wall to the waitresses. There was a
shelf for plates. There were no individual tables, just long tables. My
grandmother cooked, but sometimes they also hired summer cooks. One older New
York woman, an Irishwoman, left because it was "too damn lonely in the
country." Another time Lena Bauers and her
husband and son came and the couple cooked. There was a built-in flour bin over
the countertop in the family kitchen and a griddle on top of the stove. There
was one bathroom, upstairs - I'm not sure when that was put in. There were chamberpots. The boarders cleaned their own or left a tip.
Family cleaned rooms and made beds for boarders. We had to bathe and dress for
dinner at 4 PM. The bathroom was upstairs. The boys had the room next to bath
and there was a crack in the door. The big long room downstairs was used by M.G. and Ella in the winter but given to boarders in the
summer (the Getzens); M.G.
slept on a featherbed on top of the grand piano in the dining room. M.H. and Howd had an apartment in
the barn reached by outside stairs. The apartment over the garage was put in
around World War II at about the same time the change was made from boarders to
roomers [NOTE FROM KATHY: several small kitchens were put in where the large
kitchen had been. That was the way I remember it from the 1950s]. The three big
trees in front were evergreens. The old winter kitchen was flush with house and
had a door to the side with a narrow porch and steps. We had a big ice house
and a water tower (for summer only). We had a crank telephone on the wall. We
had electricity.
The Farm took the overflow from
the Columbia Farms Hotel. The Hornbecks also had an
ice business and then whatever farm work and later on my Uncle Howd was a salesman for cars. He worked in Monticello. They
were busy with the ice business. They had a truck. My grandfather had a wagon
but I can't say that I remember that time. After that they had a truck. They
had a model T touring car they used as a taxi later. My uncles (M.H. and Howd) had gamblers as
passengers, some possibly with a Mafia connection. [NOTE FROM KATHY: This was
the area where Murder, Inc. dumped bodies.]
To make more room for boarders,
the family slept in the attic where there was a big bed on one side and
mattresses on the other. Sometimes there were as many as 35-40 people in the
house with two full beds in some rooms. Most rooms had two beds and some also
had a cot so they could sleep the whole family in one room. Often the same
people took the same room year after year. There were Irish-Americans,
Italian-Americans, and Jewish-Americans among the guests. Young people came too
and the family socialized with them after chores were done. There were dances
in the winter dining room with bands. There was a flag raising ceremony every
day. The radio station was KDKA and we had a
Victrola. Some of the names of guests were Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Woll,
the Quirks (Irish family) and the Seligs (did their
own cooking and ate in a corner; no bread and butter). Aunt Katie went to a
Selig girl's engagement party. Also the Silvers - Irish wife, Jewish husband.
In the summer, the older
children waited tables while the younger children washed dishes. There were big
drying racks for dishes - no wiping. I had lots of play time. We had swings,
swimming, boating, climbing the hill in back of the lake. We went barefoot a
lot. Walter's entire family came up in the summer to work.(Kathy: this was
Walter Crosby, who married Ida Hornbeck, and their daughters Eleanor and
Martha.) My cousin Eleanor worked at Aunt Carrie's. Aunt Carrie (Lounsbury) was the first woman in the area to bob her hair
and drive a car. Aunt Carrie also employed Mexicans but was always afraid
they'd run off. We'd run out (to get away from chores). I don't ever remember
acting up at the table. We ate what we had. Martha and I would try to run
upstairs, any excuse to get away. That was when Eleanor was there. One year she
took a job with Aunt Carrie to get away with us. We used to go up on the hen
house roof and tease the bull and then he'd run. One time he got real mad and
ran through the sheets in the orchard.
A typical mid-day meal was
chicken on Sunday with homemade ice cream, biscuits, a choice of pies and
cakes, veg & salad & soup, pickles, etc., served at a big long table,
family style. Certain days=certain things so you could plan ahead. The evening
meal was lighter: salmon, cold cukes, potato salad.
We had a big breakfast: cereal, juice, eggs, bacon, toast, sometimes pancakes
but no choices. Some special diets were accommodated.
There was nothing in Fallsburgh then. Shopping was done in Hurleyville
- people came there from Fallsburgh, Woodbourne and
Loch Sheldrake to shop at Van Keuren's butcher shop.
There were also Jewish shops. Uncle M.H. worked for
Lawrence - he drove all over in a truck with fruits and vegetables, delivering
to the houses. Still many things came from home: milk, eggs, we made our own
bread. There was a dress shop in Liberty that New Yorkers raved about. For
movies we went to Monticello and shopped at Hammond and Cook.
Prohibition was ignored - had
home made wine and white lightning. When there was a deadbeat, they called
Sheriff Farquhar.
There was not a lot of prejudice
in the area. There were some smart asses, but they had no particular target.
Schoolmates were mostly Jewish. Cousin Walter was Catholic (lapsed). There was
one colored man in town (Doc) who sometimes stayed at the farm as a helper. A KKK cross was burned on Columbia Hill. There were lots of
cars. The Lounsburys were involved but the town
wrongly thought the cross was on Hornbeck land and that almost lost us the ice
business.
The family did talk about my
mother. They all said she was pretty and that she was very vivacious and I
remember my grandmother and Aunt Katie saying Tressa would say "I'm not
going to have any life insurance on me. They can just throw me out when I die.
I'm not going to worry about any insurance." Everybody had a little
insurance then. She had a boyfriend before my father. My aunts all had
boyfriends from New York.
I only saw my father every few
weeks. He was a trainman and went from New York to Oswego and different places.
I can remember he always brought me something, a present. He brought me
bathrobes and dresses. I had dolls already. "Doc" brought me
presents, too. My grandfather spoiled me. I couldn't do any wrong. No one ever
discussed why Aunt Katie didn't marry her sister's husband until after my grandmother
died.
I walked in my sleep as a girl.
One night I got up and I started to walk down the stairs, the back stairs, and
Aunt Katie heard me and she started after me. I guess she caught me downstairs
but I didn't know until I woke up. And then I used to hang out of the window in
my sleep. Not my whole body, just my elbows. Then one night I evidently got up
and I was in the new section I think and Aunt Ida and Uncle Walter were
sleeping in that section and I pounded on the door because I wanted to tell
them something but when I woke up I couldn't remember what I wanted to tell
them. Sometimes in the winter hanging out the window would be cold but it
wouldn't bother me.
I was in an accident in an old
Buick that was cut down and had just the seats on it. Painted red. Two seats in
the front and a place to sit on a board in the back. Martha and I were in the
seat. The brakes gave way. He said stay in and I thought he said jump out and
Martha was hanging on for dear life. This was down across the hill and back. We
didn't hit the garage. We went right through the gates that kept the animals
in. Uncle MH took me out driving when I was 13 and he got a ticket for letting
me drive. A State Trooper gave him a ticket. I used to take the car and go
around and around the driveway. That was my grandfather's car, the one I got my
license on. I drove it when I worked for the telephone company. That was one
that had a shift.
Everyone was a Republican:
Grandfather (M.G. Hornbeck) was superintendent of
roads and a school trustee, so he hired the teachers.
The smell of cucumbers=milk
snake.
TWO FRIENDS ADD THEIR COMMENTS:
Lillian Cohen Benmosche was my
mother's next door neighbor and lifelong best friend. When I talked to her in
1987 she had these memories of the Hornbeck farm to add:
Marie would sit down on a very
small chair in the kitchen and Aunt Katie would have to braid her long hair
before she went to school. Marie would say "tighter" and Katie would
say, "I think it's tight enough." And Marie would say "no,
tighter." And she would keep shouting "Tighter! Tighter!" until
the whole braid was finished and her skin was literally popping out of her
head. That's the the only way she would do it, every single day, and we had to
wait. We knew we were going to be late but Marie needed her hair braided tight.
Marie
Coburg's class at Columbia Hill School, taken June 20, 1924
Lil Cohen
and Marie are in the second row, closest to the door; Sam Cohen is on the lower
left on the end
Most of the children liked to
come to Marie's because she had all the toys and we always played in the
orchard near the chicken coops. We had one girl, Mary, who was very unhappy
because she always wanted to be the mother. To keep peace we allowed her to be
the mother. We used to go after the pigs and winter time we'd take barrel
staves and go down the hill right onto the ice. We used to have ice skating and
watch the men cut the ice and put the ice into the icehouse.
In the summer we had a boarding
house and we had to work no matter how young we were. Our house was the
Columbia Star House. Katie was like a second mother to us. She knew I loved
rhubarb so she'd call "come up and get your rhubarb, I just made a rhubarb
pie for you." I'd come running about a quarter of a mile, I guess. My brother
Sam lived with them for a year and he used to do everything for them. He loved
chocolate cake and she'd make any food he wanted. He was an adult by then (in
high school) and he'd come and help with the ice. It was a beautiful love
affair with the Hornbecks. Today you don't get that
warmth from people.
Anna Mauer Todd,
another old friend of my mothers, grew up on a farm/boardinghouse as well. In
1987 she remembered that they had boiled cheese to eat. "They'd take great
big metal spoons and scrape it out." They also had homemade bread and
asparagus.
In the summertime we'd pick wild
flowers. We always had flowers on the table for the boarders.
There was wallpaper in the
outhouse.
Men came with a team of horses to
clean out the outhouse through a separate door and take out the contents. There
was always a catalog hanging there to use the pages for toilet paper.
In the summer kitchen apples
were strung and hung from the ceiling to dry.
Everybody had wine in their house
during Prohibition.
Photo
Gallery
Below are a selection of photos
taken of the Hornbeck farm from about 1900 until 1958.
Katie, Lou, and Ida Hornbeck
Tressa Estelle Hornbeck Coburg before 1910
M.G. and Ella Hornbeck riding
in the first car in Liberty, New York 1909
farmhouse from the road, looking toward the top of
Columbia Hill, unknown date
summer scene, unknown date, but the two people
seated in the foreground are Katie Hornbeck and Marie Coburg (b.1910)
unknown date, but showing outhouse; probably Marie
Coburg in white
M.H. Hornbeck in World War I
about 1915: Katie Hornbeck, Marie and Les Coburg,
Ella and M.G. Hornbeck
Howard and Mabel Gallagher Hornbeck
view of the back of the house and garage from the
hill behind the pond
probably sometimes in the late 1940s or early 1950s
boating on the pond, unknown date
Katie Hornbeck, date unknown
on the dock at the farm pond
upper row: Mrs. Shall; Mrs. Wolf; unknown; unknown;
Mrs. Ash
lower row: unknown; Marie Coburg; unknown; Ash boy;
Mr. Wolf; Ruthie Shall; Muriel Ash
in front of the house, c.1915?
Golden Wedding anniversary of M.G.
and Ella Hornbeck, July 4, 1933
guests identified from front right moving back:
unknown; Rhea Gallagher; Mabel Gallagher Hornbeck;
Howd Hornbeck; Ida Hornbeck
Crosby; Walter Crosby; Marie Coburg, Daniel Lounsbury;
Grace Lounsbury, Ralph Lounsbury, Addie Lounsbury; Ruth
Beebe?
Moving around the foreground table to Marie's right:
M.H. Hornbeck; Mildred Slater with husband behind
her;
Alvin and Blanche Lounsbury.
Behind Mildred and moving back: Esther Lou Wright; Dave and Eula Frasier;
Katie Hornbeck and Les Coburg. In the far right row
from the back moving forward: Irene Lounsbury;
Ed Lounsbury; Libby
Hornbeck Bedford; Ella and M.G. Hornbeck; unknown;
unknown; Mrs. Frasier?;
Howard Doggett; Martha Crosby
scene by the pond; Katie Hornbeck Coburg in the
center of the boat
at the top of the hill looking down on the farm
Marie Coburg and friends
Katie Hornbeck Coburg taken from side of front porch
Les Coburg in front of kitchen and showing top of
outer cellar door
family photo at the pond about 1948
front row: Martha Crosby Walsh holding Richard
Walsh; Katie Hornbeck Coburg holding Kathy Lynn Gorton; Ardell
Walsh, Phyllis Courtney
back row: Martin Walsh, Eleanor Crosby Courtney,
Marie Coburg Gorton, Carole Courtney; Russ Gorton
winter scene of garage and barn, 1950s
another scene in winter showing the front of the
garage with the apartment above
another view from the hill looking down on the farm
buildings
living room at the farm before the purchase of a
television set
(it was in the front corner in place of the chair by
1956)
Kathy Lynn Gorton Emerson still owns the coffee
table and the framed La Mode Illustree print
farm from the road, 1950s
The 1920s floorplans below are based on the memories of my mother, Marie
Coburg Gorton. These are not to scale and may not be completely accurate, but they
are the best we could do from memory.
The floorplan below, from the 1950s, was reconstructed with the help of
my Hornbeck cousins, Ardell Stebbins, Rhea Woloszynski, and Maybelle Kruger and using the notes I'd
taken of conversations with my mother.
Return to Kathy Lynn Emerson home page
contact information: Kathy can be reached at P.O. Box 156, Wilton, ME
04294 or by email at KathyLynnEmerson@Roadrunner.com