Life after Logging
Review and Catch Up
In this article I will be picking up the story of my Larson relatives who emigrated from Sweden in the 1880’s. After Frank and John’s brother Will died, the two remaining brothers continued to develop their skills and figure out where they wanted to settle permanently with their growing families. Two additional siblings - Linus and Mary - also arrived. Mary and her husband August, who came over in 1906, would join their children in Rockford, Illinois. (this information is relevant to The 1938 Project). Linus, who arrived in 1884 and promptly changed his name to John Linus Turner (why would he do that? we have no clue), appears to have remained in western Pennsylvania.
If any of you missed the earlier articles I wrote or just want to review parts of the family story that occurred prior to where this article begins, you can find them here:
Coming to Amerika - The story begins in Sweden and explains why the Larsons left their home country and how they got to the United States
Getting Started in Pennsylvania - This part of the story describes the historical context and economic opportunities existing in western Pennsylvania in the 1880’s and help explain why the Larsons settled there.
Shining Light and Tragic Loss - This article completes the story of one of the Larson brothers, Will, and how his family’s resilience led to a proud but poignant moment during WWII.
These earlier articles chronicle where these ancestors are from, why they came here, where they settled and what they did in the early years after arriving. If you read those articles and are feeling confused about who people are and how they are related, I constructed several brief, two-generation, easy-to-read family trees that I loaded into my Snippets and Tidbits collection. Those simple charts (link is below) may be useful to reference when needed as I begin including more family members into the larger family story that leads up to the 1938 California trip.
Other, earlier blog articles explain the background of what I’m calling The 1938 Project, and how my family history links to the road trip I will be taking in my camper in October and November 2023. If you want to review those, you can find them here:
Now, onward with the story!
Settling Down
My great-grandfather Frank Larson was nothing if not a family man. He had eleven children, ten of whom lived to adulthood. He maintained close ties with his siblings and their children his entire life, especially when they went through challenging times. Family get-togethers were frequent, fun gatherings, evidenced by the available family photos from the first decades of the 1900’s. We also know that Frank made at least two trips back to Sweden to see his mother, taking one of his daughters, who was three at the time, with him on one of those trips. He played the accordion quite well, apparently, and others in the family also played instruments. My mother always said that music was an important component of her childhood memories. While alcohol was present in many households of that era to the point that there was an organized movement to combat its destructive prevalence in society (which eventually led to the Prohibition Era), it was never a factor in Frank Larson’s household. That’s not to say some of his children didn’t go down that path, to their detriment, but those stories will be reserved for later.
This is the region of Pennsylvania and New York where the Larson family made its home.
So how did Frank accomplish all that he did and why did he end up settling in Limestone?
As described elsewhere, Frank and his brothers John and Will began their lives in the U.S. by working in the logging industry in and around Costello, Wilcox and Sheffield, PA. These were places with some of the largest tanning and logging operations in the world at that time. During their first ten years in the country, the brothers moved around following the economic opportunities as they learned new skills and began building their families. By the time Will died in the logging accident in 1892, it appears that Frank and John had had enough of the hard life working for the big tanneries and sawmills, and were ready to become entrepreneurs and settle down in one place.
Did Will’s tragic death in February 1892 provide the tipping point, pushing Frank out of the logging industry for good? We’ll never know for sure, but we do know that by mid-1892, according to census records, Frank was running his own shoe-making business in Allegany, New York. John was also in Allegany with his family, working as a “laborer,” as was their brother John Turner (aka Linus).
This receipt, found in a box of my mother’s artifacts and scrapbooks, is pretty clear evidence of Frank’s transition from employee to entrepreneur.
Presumably, whatever job Frank and John had in the tanneries taught them the skills they needed for the shoe-making business.
Except for Jennie, born in Sheffield, Pennsylvania, when Frank was still pretty young and figuring his life out, and Walter, who was born in Allegany, New York, all of Frank’s nine other children were born in Limestone, New York. This means that Frank spent some years in both Allegany and Limestone before he figured out where he wanted to settle permanently. He apparently lived in Limestone from 1885 to 1889 and had three babies there (including my grandfather Fred). Then, sometime after July 1889 he moved the family to Allegany where he had Walter in 1891 and worked as a shoemaker through part of 1892 (as noted in the state census), at which point he moved back to Limestone in time for Florence’s birth on June 4 of that year. The two towns are twelve miles apart and moving a growing family with lots of babies back and forth couldn’t have been easy. Other records suggest that Frank’s other brothers, John, Will and Linus (“Turner”), spent time in Allegany as well during this period. In fact, it appears that John lived there for a number of years and had both a shoemaking and grocery business there before moving to Bradford in 1905, just a couple of miles from Frank’s family. Were Frank and John working together as shoemakers in Allegany? Could be, but we don’t really know without more evidence. We also don’t know exactly what the attraction was in Allegany, but from what I could tell there was a strong Swedish contingent as well as economic opportunity at the local tannery (most of the towns that were thriving back then had at least one tannery or sawmill, and Allegany was no exception). John and other members of his family are buried in Allegany, so that town clearly felt like “home” to him despite the many years he spent in Bradford.
As for Frank, he didn’t stay in Allegany very long. The Limestone City Directory of 1896 lists Frank Larson as “harness” in the list of residents and their occupations, so he was back in Limestone by then, and this time for good. What does “harness” mean? Harnesses are made of leather, as are shoes, and it isn’t a stretch to imagine Frank returning to Limestone and shifting his business from making shoes to making harnesses. Again, we don’t know for sure, but what we do know is that by the 1900 Limestone census Frank is listed as being in the grocery business. We also know that Frank ran his general store for over 25 years. It was definitely a family business, as several of his children worked at the store before marrying and taking up other pursuits.
This is one of the rare pictures taken inside the Larson & Son General Store in Limestone, NY. The “son” was my grandfather Fred, who ran the business with Frank for a number of years until he married and moved out of Limestone. We are still trying to identify the woman, who we believe was probably one of Frank’s daughters - but which one??
Going from newly minted immigrant doing difficult, physical labor in the logging industry, to making shoes and harnesses, and then to running a general store tells us something about what kind of man Frank was. He was clearly ambitious, smart, and confident, with the ability to see opportunity and go after it. He was willing to take risks, starting a new business while also building a large and growing family. He had to have good relationship skills in order to network, establish contacts and sources for his goods and build a successful retail store. On top of that he would have to have been a good problem-solver and have a competitive nature in order to navigate the complexities of setting up a business, running the business, and staying in business for over 25 years. As we will see, many of these traits were passed on to his children.
Why Limestone???
The Centennial Committee in 1977 published a history of the first hundred years of the town, and the introduction to that pamphlet contains this:
The year 1877 saw the State’s official recognition of the existence of the Village, and this point in time, a century later, a superficial examination of our community, might well lead to the conclusion that we were largely strangers to material progress.
Other villages, similarly miniscule in size, can display impressive monuments to commerce and industry, in the guise of shopping centers and factories as well as costly public works.
In contrast, our efforts have been almost wholly directed, with remarkable success, to the development of substantial citizens, cognizant of their responsibilities to God and to their fellow men. In numbers, greatly disproportionate to its size, Limestone has always sent forth its sons and daughters to serve in positions of trust and responsibility.
On the eve of this our second century, this miniature volume has been prepared in tribute to all of our people, … who have served this community in public and private life, certainly without thought of material reward, since its founding. They performed their duties in a manner commensurate with their talents.
No man has a right to expect more.
I don’t know about you, but I find this introduction to be a remarkable testament to the people of Limestone and its historical legacy. It acknowledges the economic hardships suffered over the years, but manages also, with deep appreciation, to lift up the strong sense of community identity and civic responsibility that has existed since its beginning. Frank and his family lived that history and, as we shall see, were intimately involved with the development of the town during those first hundred years.
Driving into Limestone today, visitors will be struck by the run-down nature of the town. It is small, with just a few sad-looking streets, houses, and businesses. Little hint of any former glory remains. The biggest feature of the town is Route 219 which essentially took what had been a main road into town and turned it into a four-lane bypass in 1960, literally splitting the town apart. There is currently no reason for anyone traveling on Route 219 to take any notice of the ramshackle buildings and empty houses with overgrown yards as they drive past. A few miles further south, just across the border into Pennsylvania, is Bradford, where you will find all the fast food and big box chains one might need or want, as well as other businesses that provide various needed services to the surrounding small communities.
Of course, I am overstating the case. The people who live there now have well-deserved pride in their town and its history (evidenced by someone calling the state trooper to check out my sister and I when we got out of our car to take pictures of Frank’s old house - which sadly happens to be one of the empty, rundown-looking ones). Limestone, with its proud and complicated history, has been home to many families over the years. As a small town, people know each other, and tend to notice when someone new stops to take a closer look.
Limestone’s Proud Past
Limestone was not always struggling economically. The town was officially incorporated in 1877, not that long before Frank Larson and his young family arrived. It is strategically located along the Tuna River, which flows into the larger Allegany, and at one time was also an important railroad stop. This geography made it a good waystation for shipping goods down the rivers or by train. It boasted a large tannery which took advantage of the vast amounts of timber in the surrounding hills. It was also smack in the middle of the Bradford Oil Field, a large geographic area in the region which was pivotal in the development of the oil industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These forces combined to cause rapid growth of the town, and it’s easy to imagine that Frank saw great opportunity for an ambitious young entrepreneur wanting to serve the needs of a growing community.
Despite its early and rapid growth, and the potential for becoming an economic center of the region, Limestone never developed into a big city, apparently because several of the early, large landowners actively prevented the type of commercial development that would have encouraged more settlement. Instead, as noted above, this honor went to Bradford, just across the border, which is today a much larger city, with a big downtown, businesses of all kinds, and lots of shopping. When the tanneries closed and the surrounding oil fields were tapped out, there was little left of the economic engine that drove employment opportunities and kept small businesses afloat in Limestone. People moved away, and those left behind went to work in Bradford and other nearby towns, where all the action, entertainment, services, and employment opportunities were.
Despite it remaining small, Limestone was, nevertheless, described as “booming” in its heyday of the late 19th century, which would have been right around the time when Frank Larson moved there. In 1865 a German immigrant named Henry Renner opened the Limestone Hotel near the edge of town. James Casey bought the building in 1891 and operated Casey’s Limestone Hotel until his death in 1940, at which point it remained open for a number of years until the 1960 Route 219 highway project ensured its eventual demise. In its early years this fancy hotel attracted many of the rich and famous, with the original guest book including names such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Lillian Russell, Sarah Bernhardt, William Jennings Bryan, John L. Sullivan, and Presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley. A rather stellar list of celebrities for such a small, out-of-the-way place.
Clearly there was something attracting people to that little corner of the world! As it happens, the town of Salamanca, New York, is a mere 12 miles to the north, and has the distinction of being a half-way point between New York City and Chicago, a fact that would become important in the rum-running days of Prohibition. That period of our history had a pretty big impact on little Limestone, which I will save for a future article.
This is the main street of Limestone. I don’t know the exact year, but the car would suggest early 1900’s. I’m pretty sure that the Larson General Store is one of the storefronts since this photo was found in a family scrapbook.
The town of Limestone is comprised of 1000 acres of land lying at the base of a hill about one mile wide and one and a half miles long. At the time my great-grandfather Frank arrived with his family in the late 1880’s, the town was dense enough to have two hotels, a post office, a bank, two barbershops, several saloons, a hardware store, a grocery, and an opera house. Over the years it would grow big enough to have multiple grocery and mercantile stores, several more hotels, a doctor’s office, a law firm, police and fire departments, and other services and amenities associated with a thriving community.
The primary industrial base was the tannery, which would have caused a pungent, odorous cloud permeating the town at all times, plus two sawmills and a cheese factory. There were also ongoing efforts to exploit the oil, coal and other minerals under the ground, and various railroad lines were built in order to transport these products from Limestone to different markets. A school in the town, sanctioned by the New York Department of Education, was well established by the time Frank’s children were ready to begin their education. When the Larson family arrived, the town had three churches, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Catholic.
After incorporation of the town in 1877, by-laws were written in a way that would encourage the residents to care for each other and take pride in the town. For example, there were prohibitions against “disturbing the peace,” tying horses or other animals “to any ornamental, shade or fruit tree,” and obstructing streets and gutters “with stone, ashes, dirt, rubbish, etc.” Businessmen in the village were expected to erect hemlock plank sidewalks in front of their establishments, and horses, cattle, sheep or swine were not permitted “to run at large in the streets or public parts of the village.” Houses of “ill fame” or “gaming or gambling” houses were not allowed. Apparently these ordinances were taken pretty seriously because, on September 19, 1898, it was moved and carried by the town clerks that “the Street Commissioner notify Wm. Paton and Frank Larson to build their sidewalks immediately or the Corporation will build same and charge it against their property.” We have no idea if this ruling spurred Frank to action.
Ethnically, the town of Limestone was fairly diverse, at least in terms of European heritage (which is where the vast majority of immigration originated in those years). The historical descriptions of the town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries include families of German, Scottish, Italian, English and Irish origins primarily, and a few French and Swiss. There was a section of land up on the hill behind the town called “Little Ireland” which apparently was quite sizeable in its day and gave rise to both a Catholic church and a Catholic cemetery. The historical accounts of the prominent families in town do not include many Swedes, a curiosity for me since it appears that everywhere else Frank lived prior to Limestone were enclaves for Swedish families. What made Frank want to branch out and set up shop in an area with more diversity? Don’t know.
There is little evidence of any Native American families (which would have been from the Seneca Nation, most likely) or African American families living in town, although there was apparently one Black boy who attended the school at one point during that period, and one of my great-aunts remembered a Black family who owned a gas station on the edge of town when she was living there as a young adult. Other residents remembered that the town hosted Negro League baseball games on Sunday afternoons in the 1930’s, which apparently were quite popular.
So it appears that when Frank Larson brought his family to Limestone, it was a thriving town with a lot of opportunity for someone looking to set up his own business and get involved in civic affairs. Although it had been in existence since the 1830’s, the town was still evolving and figuring out its identity fifty years later, and Frank and his family would be active participants in the town’s development.
Whereto From Here?
In the next article I’ll talk more specifically about Frank’s and Emma’s lives in Limestone, and begin to bring his children to life. He made the pilgrimage to California in 1938 with three of his children, and met up with the families of at least three others while on that trip. Who were these people? Stay in touch with this site to find out!
Resources
Some of the information contained in this article came from the following sources:
Cattaraugus County Genealogical Society documents, including:
A Souvenir of Limestone, N.Y. (1901-1905). Pamphlet originally published by the Press of The Parish Visitor.
Casey’s Hotel Limestone, New York: A Brief History. Documents including newspaper clippings compiled into a packet.
Park, Martha Wilson. (1991). History of Limestone. Comprehensive researched historical account of Limestone and its residents that includes both historical data and first person accounts of Limestone’s early years.
Past and Present Glimpses of Limestone: 1877-1977. Information prepared for the 1977 Limestone Centennial Celebration
Eastman, S. (2004). Transcription of Chapter: Town of Allegany in HISTORY OF CATTARAUGUS: Illustrations And Biographical Sketches Of Some Of Its Prominent Men And Pioneers. Philadelphia: L.H. Everts, 1879, Edited By Franklin Ellis. Pages 441-455. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~nycattar/1879history/allegany.htm
Patterson, C. (2004). Transcription of Chapter: Town of Carrollton in HISTORY OF CATTARAUGUS: Illustrations And Biographical Sketches Of Some Of Its Prominent Men And Pioneers. Philadelphia: L.H. Everts, 1879, Edited By Franklin Ellis. Pages 398-407.
Sager, Kate Day. (2009). A look back at Limestone: Town’s history rich with oil, lumber and old bones. Olean Times Herald.
Town and Village of Allegany, New York. http://www.alabamacorporates.com/corp/528058.html
