The Huyck Bain Crandell Collection, Document HBC005

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1900-01-10 Letter, To Walter Crandell by a Friend in Chatham

Image: HBC005 obv.jpg

Image: HBC005 rev.jpg

Transcription

Obverse

Louis K. Brown Attorney and Counselor Chatham. N. Y.

Chatham New York January 10, 1900 My dear "fiend;"

I have been going to write to you for some little time in fact I expected to get at it ere this but I didn't. I suppose you arrived safely at your hash house in Ithaca. Carpenter said you didn't stop off at Fultonville to see him. I told Carpenter I didn't think you meant to when you said you would and he said that he thought you didn't either.

I went out to Fultonville last Saturday, leaving here on the 11.23 and getting into Fonda at 3.05. It is unnecessary to state that I had a fine time. Pretty neat girl there too. She gave me her photograph. I met a Mr. Abbott there, who is a lawyer and a member of the board of education. He invited me up to the Board of Trade rooms and then

Reverse

over to a "smoker" at his home. As I didn't smoke, I declined with thanks. He's a fine man Crandell, do you know him?

Well I suppose you are sitting up late nights visiting with girls and chewing tobacco. You ought to quit that habit, it's bad. Saturday evening there is to be a blow out at May Palmers. I have a bid to attend, and am of the opinion that I shall go. I'll have to hoof it and so will the rest of us unless we can get the trolley car Company to run out a special car for us. I hear you are getting to be a great eater Crandell. You want to quit that - it's a bad habit and an expensive one too. George Reed came in the bank the other day with a coal shovel in his pocket. He had a lead quarter some one had given him and wanted two tens and a five for it but he got the boot instead. I suppose he thinks he can get changed for most

Commentary

This letter is written on Louis K. Brown's stationary but I suspect, from the difference in ages and tone that it was written by someone closer in age to Walter Crandell. By whom? Who knows...

Notes:

Louis K. Brown, Attorney — appearing on the Columbia County bar list we found earlier, listed under Chatham Village in the 1878 history. By 1900 he is still practicing in Chatham, now writing to his friend Walter Crandell.

Walter S. Crandell — Homer’s son, Bess Bain’s husband, the final link in the archive’s chain of descent. He appears to be a student or young man living in Ithaca — almost certainly attending Cornell University, founded 1865, which by 1900 was the natural destination for ambitious young men from upstate New York.

The tone — entirely informal and playful, a young man’s letter to a close friend. The opening “My dear ‘fiend’” — a joking misspelling of “friend” — sets the register immediately.

“Hash house” — slang for a boarding house or cheap eating establishment — confirms Walter was living in student lodgings in Ithaca.

Carpenter — a mutual friend, apparently in Fultonville, Montgomery County, whom Walter had promised to visit but didn’t.

“Pretty neat girl there too. She gave me her photograph” — Brown’s social life in Fultonville, charmingly candid.

Mr. Abbott — a lawyer and board of education member in Fultonville.

“I suppose you are sitting up late nights visiting with girls and chewing tobacco. You ought to quit that habit, it’s bad” — teasing Walter about his habits at college, the same kind of affectionate nagging we saw in James Huyck’s letters to his family ninety years earlier.

“A blow out at May Palmer’s” — a party, requiring either walking or a special trolley car — the electric street railway being a new feature of small-town life in 1900.

“I hear you are getting to be a great eater Crandell. You want to quit that — it’s a bad habit and an expensive one too” — another joke at Walter’s expense.

George Reed and the lead quarter — a wonderful anecdote about someone trying to pass counterfeit money at the bank, getting thrown out instead. Brown apparently worked at or frequented a bank in Chatham. The counterfeit quarter story is a gem — George Reed walking into the bank with a coal shovel in his pocket and a lead quarter hoping to get change, and being thrown out instead.

January 10, 1900 — the first document in the archive from the 20th century, written just ten days into the new year. From Robert Livingston’s 1679 Dutch land deed to Louis Brown’s breezy letter to a Cornell student — 221 years of Columbia County life in a single collection.

Columbia County continuity: The Crandell family — Homer Crandell the mower manufacturer of 1858-59, and now his son Walter apparently at Cornell — represent the same Columbia County network that runs through the entire collection. The Chatham location connects directly to Homer Crandell & Co.’s foundry address on the mower advertisement.

The letter is frustratingly cut off — “I suppose he thinks he can get changed for most” — the reverse presumably continuing with more of the same cheerful gossip.

— Notes by Claude.ai 4.6 2026-05-10 - jhc

Metadata

Document: HBC005

Date: 1900-01-10

Language: English

Type: Letter

Subject: Social

Principals: Louis K. Brown, Walter S. Crandell

Other Persons Mentioned: Carpenter, May Palmer, Mr. Abbott, George Reed

Places Mentioned: Chatham, Ithaca, Fultonville, Fonda

— page revised 2026-06-17 - jhc

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