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FOURTH GENERATION
136. William H. Sayer
 was born on 2 Feb
1860 in Fine, St. Lawrence Co, NY. He died on 2 Dec 1931 in Black River,
Jefferson Co, NY.
Mr. Sayer, a lumberman, was wood superintendent of the National Papaer
Products company at Carthage for 20 years. He was active in civic and
fraternal organization in the village, and March 20, 1929, was elected the
mayor of Black River, defeating William E. Brown in a close election. Two
years later, in 1931, he was re-elected to the office after a contest with
Hugh Pugh.
The couple resided at Fine, Edwards and Star Lake for many years prior to
coming to Black River in 1918. He was the supervisor of the National Paper
Products company timberlands at Star Lake for a number of years.
The William H. and Hettie Melissa (Waters) Sayer Family
by: Phyllis Rebecca (Sayer) Cory
William H. Sayer was born in Fine, New York on February 2, 1860. He met
Hettie Melissa Waters in Fine while she was teaching school. She was a
tall attractive young lady, about five foot eight, and William was five
foot three. Melissa was born March 25, 1860. They were married in Fine on
August 8, 1880. William always called his wife Melissa. I suppose it was
because of he had a half-sister by the name of Hettie.
William worked in the sawmill at Scott's Bridge for Mr. Scott. The
hardwood was not as plentiful as it had been. The paper companies were
interested in softwood for the paper mills along the Black River. William
took a job spotting softwood for the paper companies.
The first baby, Della M. Sayer, was born on August 7, 1881. She lived two
years, then died of diphtheria on February 15, 1884. She was buried at
Scott's Bridge Cemetery. The loss was a great shock to Melissa and
William. Melissa returned to teaching.
The wood business was a prosperous business and of course, seasonal. They
cut wood in the winter, in the summer there was always farm work to be
done.
The Colton family had a store in Oswegatchie as well as a farm. There was
always work for William at the store or farm. Teaching at that time was
paying $3.75 a month with room and board. William was getting about $.25 a
day when they were married. The paper company asked him to spot wood for
them at $.50 a day which was good wages.
Their first son, Howard Leon Sayer, was born July 14, 1886 in Fine. He
attended a rural school there to the eight grade. Their second son, Edgar
Byon Sayer, was born in Fine, October 22, 1890. He also attended Fine
Elementary School. At fourteen, Howard started at the Union Free School in
Edwards. It was a cold bleak walk in the winter. Sometimes the only way to
school was to down the river since the road was closed due to snow.
William heard of a grocery store in Edwards for sale. It was on the east
side of the river, on the main street to Gouverneur. A new cheese factory
was being built on that side of the river near the railroad. This meant
that the farmers would be in each day to bring milk to the plant. The zinc
mine in Edwards were working full-swing, and St. Regis Mining Company was
interested in the mine. The talc mines at Talcville were working at their
full capacity. This meant that there would be good traffic by the store
and the grocery business should be good. Moving to Edwards would mean a
better education for the boys than William and Melissa had received.
In about 1898 William decided to take the store. It was a building with a
stoop across the front and living quarters above. The river ran behind the
buildings across the street and the railroad was behind the store. On
September 6, 1899 Thomas William Sayer was born. He was a lovely, plump
baby unlike Howard and Edward who had been slender children.
While Howard attended the Edwards Union Free School, he worked in the
store and for Mr. Woodcock on a farm. He graduated and found work in the
mines. The wages were about $.75 a day.
The store was doing quite well. William saved cigar coupons for a
grandfathers clock and gave it to Howard for his twenty first birthday. I
have the clock in my home.
Edgar finished school in Edwards and went to barber school in Carthage.
Howard meet Olive O'Shea at Miss Ruth Babcock's birthday party. Olive was
born in Edwards on November 9, 1886. They courted for two years and were
married on her twenty first
birthday November 9, 1907 in the Catholic church at Harrisville. Olive was
the daughter of James Henry O'Shea who ran a plumbing shop on Main Street.
Olive and her sister were seamstresses. They had attended dressmaking
school in Governeur, also she had taught school for a couple years. The
interesting thing about that is that she earned $18.00 a month with room
and board.
They moved to Black River in May 1909. Howard worked in a chair factory.
Olive did dressmaking. They lived in the Tynick block building across the
hall from Dr. Sylvester. Ed lived with them part of the time. Howard
earned $8.00 a week in the chair factory.
In 1910 there was an epidemic of rheumatic fever. Melissa came down with
it and became desperately ill. She was so sick for weeks that she had to
be turned on a sheet. Olive took care of her.
James O'Shea, Olive's father, had the former Harmond Farm on the South
Edwards Road. It was about two miles out of town and he had been renting
it out. He wanted to sell it to Howard and Olive. They bought it and moved
on it in 1911.
William's business was not doing well. His only alternative was to go
through bankruptcy. Later he was able to pay off all of his old debts. The
National Paper Product Company contacted him to take over a logging camp
in Canada. He worked for them for four or five years. He lived at Star
Lake until about 1920.
Edgar married Colice Caulfield on June 23, 1914 in Watertown, New York at
the Holy Family Church. Their first child was Colin B. Sayer, who was born
August 10, 1915 in Watertown. On September l5, 1917 they had a daughter
Julia Hettie Sayer. She was born in Carthage. Ed was working in Carthage
in a barber shop at the time. On August 13, 1919 Dorothy S. Sayer was born
in Carthage.
Howard and Olive had a daughter, Phyllis Rebecca on February l3, 1918. I
am their only child. Olive was in labor three days and nearly died. There
was a very bad snow storm and Dr. Taylor had a very difficult time getting
to the farm. Olive was nursed by Ruth Paterson whose mother ran a hotel at
Star Lake. She was a very good friend of William and Melissa. Ruth was
with Olive about two months. Melissa was afraid I would never see, the
instruments had cut my face badly. William bought a home in Black River on
Maple Street for his family. International Paper Product Company had given
him a permanent reforestation camp at Streater Lake. During the warm
months he lived at the camp. At the camp he started seedlings, which were
raised for four or five years. Spring and fall he would hire a crew to
transplant the young trees to the woods. The camp has very pleasant
memories for the grandchildren.
Howard's farm became quite prosperous. He had rotated the stock and crops
so they were productive. Edgar had a Star auto and would visit the farm.
Colin would come with them and stay a couple weeks. I remember one time
when Aunt Corly and the girls came, Julia did something that annoyed Aunt
Corly. She chased Julia until she was exhausted. When she caught Julia she
punished her but never told her why. I was very upset over that. My mother
never punished me with out an explanation.
Howard bought his first auto in 1924, a Overland four door roadster. I
think it Cost $400. William had had an auto for sometime. The first one I
remember was a Buick Roadster. Uncle Ed had a problem with women and Aunt
Corly was jealous. She would go to grandmother crying because Ed had
girlfriends. William thought if Ed worked in the woods with him, it would
help the tension. So he went to work in the woods.
William and Melissa bought the house across the street from theirs. I went
there when Mr. St. Louis was painting it for them, I always managed to get
into paint no matter how careful I was, and of course I got plastered with
it. Mr. St. Louis said I was a hazard.
Thomas William Sayer married Leota May Kepler, born December28, 1897 in
Black River, New York, on September 24, 1921. Aunt Leota and Uncle Tom
bought William's old house across the street. They lived there until 1934
at which time they bought a house on North Main Street.
Ed and Colice bought a home on LeRay Street and moved there. I suppose it
was about 192l. It had two large crabapple trees in the yard. The river
run behind the barn at the back of the lot. It was always fun to go there
to explore.
Streaters Lake is about eight miles from Star Lake and we had to go to the
lake by horse and wagon. There were three bodies of water about a quarter
a mile apart, Streater Lake, Crystal Pond, and Pansy Pond. The paper
company had a hunting lodge about five miles from the camp at the other
end of Pansy Pond. Streater Lake was about one and a half mile long and a
mile wide. There were deer, bear, bobcats,
beaver, and many other small animals. There was a domestic cat that had
gone wild that we could see from the cottage but never could get to come
to us. The lake had its inlet and outlet next to each other where the
beaver built dams. So the men had to keep the outlet open. We would go
fishing and the beaver would slap the water with their tails to try to
scare us away. There were trout and bullheads in the lake. The loons would
scream at us when we were fishing and the deer would come to the edge of
the water. On the shore was a sand beach with a dock, boathouse, and motor
room that held the gasoline motor to pump water for the cottage and water
the trees. A path lead up a hill from there to the camp. Along the steps
were huckleberry bushes. At the left were some trees that had been planted
the year Julia and I were born. It was interesting to watch them grow. The
last time I saw them they were about thirty years old.
On the lawn at the right was a summer house that was a fun place to play.
The yard was quite large. There was a croquet game that we enjoyed. The
back porch had a rain barrel, that the fish were keep in if we had more
than we could eat at a meal, and a washstand with a wash basin to wash in.
A roller towel hung beside it. There were all sorts of large pans with
wash tubs hanging on the wall.
There was a large clearing behind the cottage where the little trees were
grown, from seed to about five years old, before they were set in the
woods. Also there was a big vegetable garden. Grandpa would always have
poppies planted between the trees. They were pretty, shading the seedlings
from the hot sun. The deer did not like them to eat. The berries we had
were plentiful but wild. There were red raspberries, blackberries, and
huckleberries. We went across the lake in a rowboat, to where the railroad
had been and the timber had been cut, to collect them. As you reached the
road the store house was at your right. There was everything one could
want in this building. It had boots, gloves, shirts, pants, pails,
buckets, lamps, lanterns, canned goods, hundred pound bags of sugar and
floor, and plumbing fixtures, Etc. One year there was a box of old things
sent to camp from the paper mill's head office , "the plant". In
it was a lot of old shoes with French heels. We children had a good time
dressing up in them.
The next building on the road was the wood shed and ice house, after that
was the barn where Old Dan, their horse was kept. The barn had the
chickens hay, feed, and harnesses in it. Outside there was a shed with the
wagon and farm tools.
Down the road about a half mile was the sugar house. In February or March
each year Ed or Howard would take Old Dan back to the woods from William's
home, were he had been keep all winter, to do the sugaring.
The cottage was run by Mrs. Scott or Lucy Muir. Mrs. Scott was a widow.
Her husband had an accident and left her with her two youngest children in
high school, a boy and girl. Linn, the boy, worked for William at the camp
in the summer and continued after he graduated. The older children were Ed
and Howard's age. Ivan was Howard's friend. Mrs. Scott lived with him in
San Diego in later years and died there.
Mrs. Muir also was a friend, her husband died in 1927 or 1928. She stayed
with Melissa when she had a heart attack.
On September 26, 1926 Edgar William Sayer "Billy" was born to Ed
and Colice in Black River. He was a lovely little child. In the summer it
was always nice to go to camp for a couple weeks. The children would help
weed the seed beds. I remember one time when quite a few were there and
Grandmother made a red raspberry short cake. When she was putting it
together to serve, Grandpa slipped a pot holder in the center so when she
went to cut it she could not get the knife through it. He was always doing
some thing to heckle some one.
There was always lots to eat, ham, bacon, fish, berries, and venison.
Venison was something we did not talk about because it was not always in
season.
In the fall and summer the people from "the plant" had to be
entertained. If they were there, we didn't go. Grandpa was always worried
when they came during hunting season. He was afraid they might shoot
everything but deer.
One of William's jobs was to keep fire watch. The telephone line was
hooked in to the ranger station. The Ranger was Mr. Farris.
The thunder storms would start fires. It would cause lighting to jump
around on the pans on the back porch. Sometimes it would come in the
cottage and run around the room.
After hunting season but before Thanksgiving, Ed or Howard would bring the
horse and chickens to Black River to be put in grandpa's barn for the
winter and close camp. It was a two or three day trip to Black River.
William and Melissa were very active in the community. They belonged to
the Methodist Church and to the Masons, Odd Fellows, Stars, and Rebecca
lodges. He was Master and had worked his way up all the chairs. She had
done the same. He was mayor of Black River for eight years.
Jim Simpser was the welfare officer. Ina Carey-Scott was Jim's wife's
niece. When Linn Scott and his wife Ina's first baby was born, William
sent Jim to see about the little boy that had no shoes for school. They
had not heard of the birth.
Tom was treasurer of the village for a long time.
Ed was tired of working in the woods and Colice wanted him home. He went
back to barbering in Watertown.
Howard had an allergy to the grain and was not able to work in the grain
fields at harvest time. Jim O'Shea was very ill in the fall of 1925. In
November Howard rented the farm and went in town to take care of him.
Howard worked in the mines that winter. The following February he went to
work for The National Paper Co. at the camp.
I went to school at a county school. Mrs. Golde Curtis was my first
teacher. After moving to the village, I attended Edwards School. Miss Mary
Colton was my teacher in first grade. Mary was from Oswegatchie Village.
Her father ran a store there. He was a friend of the Sayer family. She now
lives in Buffalo, New York.
Jim O'Shea died April 1926. The estate was sold and his widow went to live
with her daughter Eva. Olive went back to the farm and cleaned things up
so that the farm could be rented to new tenants. In the fall they moved
into Edwards into Jeanny Kerrs double house, they lived there until 1928.
I have some very pleasant memories of that time. My mother had boarders
and my grandmother O'Shea lived with us some of the time. The boy next
door and I were great pals. He had a cocker spaniel dog that was our
companion. Julia came one year and spent a time with us. The Catholic
church was built in Edwards at that time. My mother got her first vacuum
cleaner and her first and only washing machine. Dad bought a new car in
1927, a 1928 Whippet. Grandmother O'Shea died April 11, 1929. My mother
and father bought the Radigan house in Black River at 105 Union Street.
When Melissa was at home, Leota always had lunch with her. Leota never
returned the courtesy. I don't think Uncle Ed's family ever was asked to
her home. She was a very different person.
In the winter of 29 to 30 Tom, Leota, William, and Melissa went to
Florida. William had asthma so bad that he could not stay. The only time
in his life he had had it. They brought back the first kumquat I ever saw.
Willam was a very short man with a very large abdomen, he made an
excellent Santa Claus. He always took the part in the churches at
Christmas. He was a happy, witty person.
He was taken sick in 1931. He had a stroke and lived only a few months.
The house was so full of flowers there was hardly room to hold the
funeral. After that Melissa lived alone most of the time. Mrs. Muir stayed
with her later on.
The company had been talking of closing the camp and Howard had been
offered a job in Oregon managing a reforestation camp. In February he went
on a fire call. He was a volunteer fireman and broke his back when he fell
from a roof. I will never forget Colin meeting me at the corner of Union
St. and Maple when I was going home for lunch. He told me my father was
hurt and to come to grandma's for lunch.
My father could never get a good job after that because of insurance, he
could not pass the exams.
When William was mayor he had the village insure the firemen, but because
the fire whistle had not blown they would not pay Howard compensation. Dr.
Farmer, the insurance company doctor would not give him total disability.
Howard and Olive's home on Union St. was paid for and they were renting
the farm. The banks closed and the one in which Howard had money to payoff
the mortgage on the farm never reopened. The man that held the mortgage
died and it was foreclosed. Howard lost the farm.
Colice had been taken with a mental illness and had to be put in the
hospital. So Uncle Ed's children were at grandma's.
That year was not a good one for the Sayer family.
For some time Ed kept his home in Black River and the children with
Grandmother. Julia graduated at the head of her class and went to Albany
State on a scholarship. Ed found it to hard to live in Black River so he
moved to Watertown to an apartment. Dorothy graduated from there. Colin
graduated from Black River and joined the CCC.
Billy was put on a forester farm. Dorothy married Francis Victor McKinley
on October 6, 1935. Francis was born June 29, 1917 in Watertown, NY.
I had to help make my way because it was eight years before may father
could work at all. Mother took roomers and boarders. I worked for the
National Youth Administration (NYA) in the school library, washed dishes,
cleaned eggs, plucked chickens, cleaned houses, and baby sat for $.10 an
hour to keep my self. I worked one summer and took care of a cottage and a
town house for $3.75 a week with room and
board. The next summer I worked at Great Bend for John Pennock and took
care of his niece and nephew. I went to school and worked afterwards and
on weekends. I was not as smart as Julia, as you can see, I could not
spell, therefore the school would not let me take the reagents exam in
English. The rest of my marks were not bad. I had had a time leaning to
read and had tutors. Julia and Anita Schoffield would make fun of me in
Girl Scouts when I did not read well. That always made me feel bad.
Claude Cory and I went together for six years. Claude James Cory was born
Monday, November 8, 1915, to Perley and Carrie Reviere Cory on the Cory
family farm. The farm was located at Five Corners, Pearl Street Road,
about four miles from Watertown, New York. It was near what was then
called Sanford Corners. Claude and I were married on April 27, 1938.
Colin came one day to tell me he and Peggy, Ruth Ella Lenox, were getting
married. I asked him if he did not think she was a little young, she born
Feburary 18, 1921 and was only 16. His reply was <quote>(She is very
mature). They were married on June 9, 1937 at St. Pauls in Black River.
They have been married a long time and have three beautiful children so I
guess it was a success.
Grandmother Sayer still lived in her own home when we were married and
stayed there until she lost her eye sight to the point that she could not
keep house. She sold her home and lived with Tom and Leota. Of course she
would stay with my folks some and would come to visit me for a few
days.
We lived in Henderson for a year and a half then moved back to the Cory
farm. Claude was taking a correspondence course in Auto Electronics and he
needed time to study. I took a job in the Mohegan Market. I also took care
of Betty Allen and Claude worked for his room and board that winter on
their farm. In April we rented a garage and service station in Permelia.
In the spring of 194l we moved back to the Cory farm. Earl was born March
l7, 194l. We lived there a year. Philip was born March 7, 1942. We moved
to Black River in half of May Cory's double house on LeRay Street. Later
we moved to Watertown to the corner of Harrison Street and Hamilton
Street. We lived there five years.
While we lived there grandmother came to visit us several times. Julia
finished college and married Vincent Alan Sherrod on September 8, 1942 in
Robinson, Il. He was born there on June 26, 1916. Alan was drafted into
the service where they found he had TB. He came up north to recuperate one
summer and they were at our house several times. Peter (Patty) and Danny
were about the same age as our boys. We enjoyed their company that year.
In 1947 Claude had asthma so bad that the doctor told him that he could
not do much more for him and that the only thing was to change climates.
May 6, 1945 Claude lost his father. Grandmother Sayer passed away on
September 15, 1946 and was buried in Black River Cemetery.
He was married to Hettie Melissa Waters (daughter of Edgar
A. Waters and Mellissa McDaniels) on 8 Aug 1880 in
Fine, St. Lawrence Co, NY. by Charles Williams, Justice of the Piece. Hettie Melissa Waters was born on 25 Mar 1860 in Theresia, , NY. She was buried
in Sep 1946 in Black River Cemetery, Black River, Jefferson Co, NY. She
died on 15 Sep 1946 in Black River, Jefferson Co, NY. at 8:30 pm Sunday at
the home of her son, Thomas. Her funeral was Wednesday at 2:00pm. in at
the home of her son, Thomas..
She moved to Black River in 1918 with her husband and resided there since
that time.
Mrs. Sayer was a member of the Baptist church and Bethany chapter, Order
of Eastern Star. She was also a memberof Crescent lodge, Daughters of
Rebekah.
She was one of the most promient residents of this community, suffered a
heart attack on Friday and succumbed two days later. William H. Sayer and
Hettie Melissa Waters had the following children:
 351
i. Della M. Sayer was born on 7 Aug 1881 in Fine, St. Lawrence Co, NY. She
died on 15 Feb 1884 in Fine, St. Lawrence Co, NY. of Diphtheria She was
buried after 15 Feb 1884 in Scott's Bridge Cemetery, Scott's Bridge, St.
Lawrence Co, NY.
+352
ii. Howard Leon Sayer.
+353
iii. Edgar Byron Sayer.
+354
iv. Thomas William Sayer. |
