This is copied from an original hand written letter of Robert J. Arnot.
the pages were not numbered so I hope I have the story in the write order, well to the best that I can tell it was told.

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I Robert Arnot (the " J ". I added since) born Feb 14th 1811 near Schenectady in a little village called Florida in York State, quite near the Hudson River.

Sarah Hall was born in Darlington Canada May 18-1816 and we were married March 30-1836. Mother died March 15-1862.
To us there were eleven children born. The first
James born Dec 29-1836. died March 30-1862.
Elizabeth Oct 3-1838
Two little daughters born & died March 15-1840.
Ira born Aug 5-1841.
William born Sept 30-1844 and died Dec 25-1853
A daughter born & died Aug 27-1847
Cephas born Sept 14-1849
Silas       "      Nov 25-1851
George  "       April 18-1855
Phoebe J. "    Oct 30-1857

*Notes in pen
Sarah Hall Arnot passed away 1842.
Married again Mrs. Elizabeth Wheeler Livingstone Aug 21st 1862
(born Feb 13, 1817)
Died Nov. 13, 1910-age 93 years, 9mos

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Father is writing this for Cephas & I am copying just as it is written

Your Mothers name was Sarah Hall & her father name was William & her mothers name was Betsy Trull? Hall
children's names
Clarrissa, Samuel, William, Sarah, our mother,
Joseph, Silas, Phoebe & George all born in Canada

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Father is writing this & I am copying

My father's name was James. His father's name was Robert & Mothers name Janette.
He was born April 1787 in Scotland near Edinbourgh, a low lander & moved with his father & mother when he was 16 years of age to York State and died Sept 5-1848 in Darlington Can.

My mothers name was Sarah. Her fathers name was Daniel McMichael & mothers name Barbra I think.
They were principally low dutch, she was born Jan 7-1786 & died June 4-1842 in Darlington, Canada. To them were born 8 children.
Barbra the oldest married Michael Young and lived near Richmond, Mich.
Janet
Robert Arnot
Daniel
John
Albert
Lydia
Levi

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When I was about five years old my father moved from the village of Florida to Onedia? County & after living there a number of years he moved to Charleston in Montgomery County. Here I learned, while father was plowing to run along side with a stick & poke the old horses & hurry them along.
After a year or two father moved to another place about a mile away here I learned to tap trees & make sugar. and here while plowing out corn & I think the horse was on a trot. the plow struck a solid rock & I went over the high harnes horses heads & went sprawling away ahead of the horses on the ground & my father came pitching head first over the plow.
Got an awful shaking up.
after some years father moved from York State to Canada & settled for a short time in the Concession not far from Bay County. From there he moved  up in Crama?, a little below Coburg.

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Father bought a piece of land & I & my brothers had to underbrush & chop some, and the mosquitos, black flies & nats? were just dreadful.  They girdled our necks, there was a complete scab all around & when we would go for our dinner, the little things would stay by our axes waiting ready to pitch in as soon as we came back.
While living here father got a place for me to work out for a man by the name of Levi James, some six miles from home.  He was a farmer & a businessman. In the winter I had to go in the woods & cook for the lumberman & had a hard time of it.  In the summer I worked on the farm.  One day I was sent with his son Cruel? & some of his other children out in the field to pick a mess of peas.
Cruel was a little older than I was. his father was rich, my father was poor. he began to order me & abuse me and finally he went so far we came to blows to clinched.  I finally got him down & sprung with my knees on his head.  Then I thought

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I might kill him so I got off of him & he forever let me along.

    After living there a few years father moved up to Darlington, on the shore of Lake Ontario, Canada. On a farm he rented of Mr. Terwiliger.

    He then bought of the Canada company 200 acres of land, back in the 4th concession, about five miles north of where we lived.  It was wild land, no clearing on it. Father and my brother Daniel worked the farm on the lake shore. My brother John and I (though he was young & could do but little) went back in the woods on the land & kept shanty for some three years & cleared of a lot of the land. saved the ashes, made a number of barrels of potash, which finished paying for the land.
    I must have been 18 or 19 years of age at this time and while we lived on the lake shore my sisters, Barbra & Janette were married.

    After living on the shore 4 or 5 years father moved in the woods in a log house we had built on the ..
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place.  It was a rough log house but we afterwards built a log house out of cedar & heaved it down out side & inside.  In that father & mother both died.

    I lived with father & helped to clear up 70 acres until I was 23 years old, then I went for my self & father gave me 50 acres off of the north end of the 200 acres.  It was all heavy timber, no clearing on it. Well the next two years I managed to clear off 12 acres, built me a block house.  I think it was 18 by 28 ft the bottom up to the beams, h? cedar, ? baswood.
    Worked out to get my clothes and worked for my father to pay my board.  It was two years of hard labor every day of the week.
    On March 30-1836 I was married & we went to keeping house right away in April & moved in my new house.

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    Here is another little escapade I heard my father tell & I know it will make you the better for hearing it.

    It need to be the custom for neighbors to help each other when they had a barn raising and the man would furnish the eats and drinks after the barn was raised.

    Well father went with the rest of the neighbors, the barn was set and everything fine shape with the exception of the eats & drink so father was one of the neighbor who decided they would tear it down that night, so they did, but father conscious was very much disturbed & he had to go back the next morning & half put it up again, paid the man a sum of money, asked his forgiveness and that was the means of both men & one other being converted & a full forgiveness.  They were all so happy living a true life for Jesus is worth while.