Page 1
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
Back of this page:
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
New Page :
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
Back of page
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.
New page
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
New page
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 ..
Back of page
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.
Back of a Page, New short story
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.