The Land

Western New York was a wilderness by white man terms post revolutionary war.

After the war families started moving west. 

Which route west did they take?

Would they take the Great Western Turnpike,

which ran from Albany to Ithaca and Bath?

Or was it the Hudson-Mohawk

and Seneca Turnpikes to Canadaigua, then to Buffalo?

Whichever route the family had to take, it was  through a forested wilderness.

The Old Farmer's land had old wells and dumps
and old barbed wire grown into trees of the back woods.
I remember being told to be careful where there was
an old well with rotten wood beams covering it.
Remnants of a stone wall ran through the woods.

At the backside of the woods was a dump site.
I went rumaging around there one time and found this treasure! 

A cherry tree flask in good condition is quite valuable and a good find.
Unfortunately this one was half a cherry tree flask,
but a half that left the face design largely intact.
really pretty amazing to think of it laying out in the woods like that.

In the front corner of the north forty,
overgrown in the brush edging the field was a huge old log
roller that appeared designed to be dragged by horses?
It may have been two feet in diameter and well on its
way to rotting away. I wonder what its function was?   

In the spring there were beautiful waves of Great Trilliums.
Most were snowy white, every now and then there was a red one. 

We would gather armfuls to take home to The Old Farmer's Wife.