Connecticut western news., 1917-08-09
BELDEN'S REMINISCENCE
A Personal Letter from John H. BeIden
 to Frank Hanchett of Falls Village.

Hartford, Conn.,, May l5, 1917. My dear Frank:
 "How times and things change as we ride this vale through the contrast in remembrance the old with the new. In generation past many Canaan farmers grew much young stock and boarded it out in the summer Tn the hill towns around, as Canaan meadow enabled them to winter many more heads than they could in sum. mer. Fifty years ago today, May 15, 1867, you conducted drove, owned hy several neighbors to Sandisville, Mass. You had for helpers sorrel horse and buggy and a twelve. year old boy. I was that boy. Joe Robinson assisted us over the hill in Canaan, where now stands the Roman Catholic Church. When the cattle became quite, he re. turned. 1 we'll remember many little incidents along the road. As we passed Barnes lime kilns we were in- terviewed at length by Daniel Peirce on the corner near where he then lived, and pushed on our way towards Sodom, Gemorra, East Sheffield, or Demina's Corner, or whatever it might have been at that time, since called Clay. ton, where you bought crackers and cheese and a pocketful of small maple sugar cakes that I remember better than anything else. was permitted to ride and partake. As we wenG up Hadsell Street and you visited little with the Duncan family, where Dave Hill got his wife, Loren P. Kyes on the hill was just going or coming from blowing, with a pair of black horses which my father bought year later and kept for some years, and Bill Perry drove one of them for twenty. five years after the pair was broken up. You could not locate Warren Walker as we passed through New Marlborough and were quite anxious about our journey beyond there but we came out all right. At the scales in SandIsville we encountered stiff legged" Bill Fox, who invited us to spend the night at his house. After we had divided the drove between Louis Sage's and MT. Catlin's farms, beyond at Catlin's barn on the hill looking down on the top nf the little church in New Boston, we snow .balled from a snow bank a yard deep. We slept in a feather bed, and you put me to bed soon after supper while you and Fox sat up and talked over things. In the morning we had pie for breakfast among other things and I had two cups of coffee, which was unusual. We came cross lots over road that have never been able to find since, through the whip village of Southtield, back to Canaan. You were going to South Canaan and to Beebe Hill school. house, two miles apart, SO you very kindly gave me money to ride down on freight train to Falls Village and l walked up the path from Bartlett's house, past Lee Ensign's barn, near Hubbells, to the Beebe school l-house, where Neil. Nickerson (since Mrs. U. H. Miner) was teacher, and went on with my school studies with pleasant recollections of a trip which meant more pleasure and sight seeing to me at that time than trip to the north pole would, today. One little part I recall was that the horse we drove was stolen by Frenchman (of which our country had many in that genera tion) only few days before, and the Sheriff overhauled him at Clayton.
 Very truly yours,
 John Fl. Belden.