by George Kronmiller
I took this picture in the dining room of my grandfather's house (now Kuhl's old house) on the top of Dutch Mountain. The year I think was 1932 and early July because Klemmer was there and was probably having a cider after bringing in a load of hay. I remember setting up my grandfather with the accordian as a prop. Reading from left to right -- Artie Kofink youngest sibling of Henrietta and slightly younger than me. Wound up as a sawyer near Red Rock, lived and bartended the Sitting Bull, died a few years ago and is buried in Bellasylva Cemetery. Next is my hard working grandmother, Louise, who like other women up here, at the time, had to cook over a wood burning range, wash by hand with a scrub board, make beds and empty potties, churn butter, make cookies for her grand son, prepare healthy meals with no refrigerator, pick wild strawberries, raspberries, huckleberries, blackberries and June cherries for dessert, pies jelly and preserves. She also set a crock of home brew beer every other week and helped my grandfather bottle it. What a woman! She weighed 85 pounds wringing wet. Next is John Clemmer, who I considered a great guy, His weakness was my grandfather's hard cider, to top off a hard day making hay. Many afternoons his team of kicking horses took him home. His wife was very hard working and slight like my grandmother. She would get mad at my grandfather for the condition of her husband since she often had to round up 12 cows and milk them. Their place is now the Kilgus's. I remember as a kid, the place was alive with tame rabbits running around. (pretty good evidence of the lack of predators at the time). Like Artie they are both buried in Bellasyla Cem. The gent on the right is my grandfather, to me a legend in his own time. - GJK
I just ran across this old photo taken about 1930 at the little falls on the Mehoopany. We were cooling off with a swim after hiking to both falls. In the frontrow, left to right, is me, Carl Kuhl, my grandfather's man Friday of the moment. Adelaide Schmitthenner Mantell. Charles Mantell with there dog, Errata, and Adolf Otten. In the back row are my father and Helen Otten Weeks. I think Frances Otten took the picture.Charles Mantell is The Charles Mantell, editor of the ChemicalEngineer's Handbook, writer of many text books, professor of Chemical Enginneering at Newark College of Engineering, world authority on tin and carbon, and the only one I ever knew personally that was written up in Who' Who. The only thing I fault him for is convincing me to become an engineer. He was also a Canadian who was a fighter pilot in the RAF in WW1.
During the summer of 1962, after returning from a session in
Japan, I had some time off and got the idea that it would be fun
to take my sons, teenagers at the time, up to Bellasylva on Dutch
Mountain, where I spent my boyhood summers. Evelyn was working,
having two girls in college.
We arrived on the scene in our 1957 Citroen, after having the
ceiling fabric descend on us while doing 60 mph on the turnpike.
We drove up Mud Road and was shocked to see the multitude of hunting
cabins now decorating it. There appeared to be someone living
at the Otten "homeplace" as it was called in the past.
This was before the garage/apartment additon, the hospital room
addition, the enclosed porches, front and back, the dog kennel,
erection of a replacement barn and the sheep barn in the rear.
We drove past the Otten's on down to the Schrages (now Connants)
where we turned around. We were confronted by two women charging
down the road. They were out to chase intruders! It turned out
that they were Dorothy Otten and her sister, neither of whom had
I ever met.
I introduced ourselves and were then welcomed with open arms.
Adolf's father, Adolph, 93 at the time, was there and he remembered
the times we spent together when I was a boy. Adolf was due back
from attending to business in NYC. We were invited to stayover
so we could meet him. He was at the point of retiring and moving
to the mountain permanently. He did so after the death of his
father, not too long afterward.
Clyde Kester was doing some work for Adolf and he was also glad
to see us and invited us over to meet Henrietta (Kofink) his wife.
They, along with Henrietta's mother lived in what was the Kofink
house summers, until after deer season. They boarded hunters for
part of their income. Winters were spent in Forkston in the house
Clyde inherited from his father.
Adolf paid Clyde 50 cents an hour and complained because Clyde
wasn't interested in working very often. Clyde was also caretaker
for the Kuhls and Henrietta cleaned for them. A couple of years
later, Carl apparently thought he could get someone more energetic
than Clyde and laid him off. This was a mistake, since he wasn't
able to find a cheap replacement and Henrietta wouldn't clean
for them any more. It was the end of a friendship of many years
standing. The Kuhl's also lost the surveillance of their property
during hunting and berry picking times that they enjoyed from
the Kesters.
Ozzie Keller had acquired the Trube property , built a stone cabin,
calling it AltaVista.
He then bought at tax sale, a property along both sides of Mud
Road east of the game lands parking lot for over a half mile.
He then proceeded to subdivide it into one acre lots and is responsible
for the rash of cabins along the road and much of the hunting
pressure and poor deer harvests of late years. After his death,
his wife Millie did the same with much of the frontage belonging
to AltaVista, resulting in further dilution of the pristine wilderness
of the area.
During the years of my absence, the road from Lopez to the Wyoming
County line was paved. In doing so the State radically changed
the alignment of the roads. Originally the dirt road crossed a
stone bridge over the Loyalsock in line with Mud road. The Forkston
road turned left where the present sharp bend in Mud road is.
As a result, when passing by the old Hunsinger house now, you
are on Mud Rd. Before when you passed the Hunsinger House, you
were on Forkston Road. All this caused a bit of confusion in anyone
returning after a number of years in addition to that of finding
most of the people of earlier times in the cemetary.
Electric power had arrived on the mountain as well as a single
telephone line running to the Ottens. As a result indoor plumbing
was possible in the more affluent places that had adequate water
supply, as typified by the Ottens, Kuhls and John Schmitthenner.
Many of the old hayfields on farms such as Ottens, Kuhls(exKronmiller),
Williams Hill(now Rose Hill, Taylors, Finckes,Kiester Place(Ottens),Hunsingers,
McCarrols et al , had all changed into overaged huckleberry bushes,
most of whom were unproductive. Many areas were past the bush
stage indeed into young forest trees. The many other berry bushes
that were plentiful such as red and blackraspberries, blackberries,
wild roses were essentially gone, presumably victims in the increase
in the deer population.
With the coming of wood fiber consuming industrial operations
in Towanda and then Meehoopany caused a resumption of some lumbering.to
supply pulp logs and also harvest the very valuable black cherry
popular with furniture manufacturers. More and more large tract
owners are succumbing to the offers of bucks for their logs.
One of the earliest pioneers on the mountain,the Hunsingers,brother
Almon, sisters Nora and Louise and their sister Belinda Taylor.
Aside from boarding hunters and a meager income from butter from
their open range cattle herd, and possibly some Social Security,
as they aged,needed mon-ey to get by. They sold extensive property
along both sides od Forkston Road from their corner to Kofinks
and on up the hill toward McCarrol's corners. Unfortunately they
were in relatively small parcels as time went by , and then further
subdivision resulting in a multipliciy of camps.
In 1937, Burton M. Taylor sold six tracts of Belinda Hunsinger
Taylor's land. Tract one went to Harry Moore, which is now owned
by Frank and Eileen Monachino. Tract two was sold to Geoge Bell,
who also owned extensive acreage in Sullivan County. This parcel
#2 of 14.13 acres was sold to Joseph J. McLaughlin in 1956, and
is now in the name of Loretta M. McLaughlin, his daughter. In
1993, the 11 acre Parcel 3 of the Belinda Taylor land, which had
been owned by Harold Maye, and tract four, which was four acres,
and owned by Franz, Baines, Maye and someone else, was sold and
subdivided among the existing neighbors in an attempt to stop
development of the area. Father Robert A. McLaughlin bought a
91 foot long tract of Parcel 3, known in the Courthouse as the
Dollar subdivision, in order to square off the "L" shaped
McLaughlin land, adding 2.64 acres to the McLaughlin place --
now just under 17 acres. A five acre tract next to McLaughlin
went to George "Bennie" Carey, who had been a member
of Kile' camp, which was the sixth parcel of Belinda Hunsinger
Taylor's land. The remaining 7.36 acres of Parcel's 3 and 4 went
to James and Rose Mary Dollard, who already owned the Rice/Gregory
cabin, which was part of Parcel 5 of Belinda Taylor's land, sold
in 1937 to Hoffa, later to Manginello, then to Harding Rod and
Gun Club,and for sale again at the time of this writing. Parcel
6, across the road and adjacent to the Barber Tract that is now
State Game Land 57, is currently owned by Ethel Kile, et al.
This process is still going on, the most recent instance being
the Lobeck tract, southeast and northeast of the corner of Forkston
Road and Schoolhouse road. It was originally, 110 acres if I am
correct. It is now split up into 8 or 9 parcels almost all sporting
a cabin and probably 2 to 4? hunters all hopefully cutting into
the meager supply of available deer. This is compounded by the
ocassional heavy caliber shot heard in many different directions
from dusk to 10-11pm on weeknights in the summer.
Another case of the activity that has and is ruining the area
as a semblance of a "sportmans paradise"was acquisition
of about 24 acres by an in-law relative of the widow of one of
the active area hunters. The in-law's wife had two brothers as
relatives. All three put together the pittance that the widow
realized from the sale. Each took 2 acres and put trailers thereupon.
Then they proceeded to get their money back plus a profit by selling
off an acre at two of the remaining corners. The fourth corner
was spared because it is wet, on the road to the widows place,
and would have probably incite her ire.
Other probable and possible subdivisions in the future, have not
been made as yet because
of faulty, hard to negotiate titles and deeds; new regulations
with regard to subdivisions and most importantly sewage disposal
also has been somewhat of a deterrant to Pocono-like development
since the whole area just will not perc. So permits are hard and
expensive to come by. The inability of the ground to perc is indicated
by the success of many ponds that have been installed and the
abundance of wetlands on the mountain.
For two years after renewing my acquaintance with the Ottens,
Kesters and other mountain people,and with Adolf's permission,
we setup a canvas camp in the northwest corner of the large field
behind the Otten's house. It was a lot of fun. I remember on one
4th of July the aluminum tent poles had a layer of frost in the
tent.
When Bernard O'Leary died his wife, a lawyer in Washington inherited
his farm. Then she died and an niece living in Chicago inherited
it. She wanted to unload it so she had a lawyer contact Adolf
Otten and Henrietta Kester about finding a buyer. They decided
who the buyer should be--us! And we agreed. The lawyer came by
to inspect the place and stopped in the Kesters. Henrietta emerged
from cleaning their basement and told him how to find the place
and to be very careful and keep an eye out for the rattlesnakes.
He was much impressed and the inspection and appraisal was what
he could see from his car.
The price was very reasonable, and in early 1963 the place was
ours. What we got was
an overgrown field,an Agway barn full old hay and junk, a two
room tarpaper shack,
and a big hole in the ground that was dug for a future O'Leary
home. It was later used as a repository for the shack and an old
Peerless automobile chassis.
We spent the first winter camped in the basement of the barn,
it is a dairy stable complete with stanchions and calf pens. We
heated it rather successfully with a Sears chunk stove which we
hauled in by Flexible Flyer. Jack Schoenwetter came by hunting
crows and helped hauling the bogged down sled down the road. That
is how we met Jack, who has along with the rest of Rose Hill,
been good friends ever since.
After the main floor of the barn was emptied of years old haybales
and stored junk,
we moved upstairs, complete with black plastic sheet partitions
and ceiling to contain the heat generated by an antique kitchen
range that could burn either wood or coal.
That was the start of a slow evolution that converted most of
the barn into a home, complete with 2 bathrooms, drilled well
and a cutting edge heating system -- a ground water source heat
pump.
Along about 2 or 3 years into the project, our adjoining neighbor
at the time, Dick Wescott, acquired a bulldozer and brought it
up on the mountain, needing a worthwhile project He and Adolf
Otten decided that I should have a pond on the northeast end of
the barn. It wasn't too hard to twist my arm because what use
was a huckleberry bog! It also supposed to be inexpensive with
most of the funds coming from the Soil Conservation Service. Well,
they did lay it out and design it for me, but--- no funds were
available until the following year. We went ahead anyway. We bulldozed
for two years, cut down a 1/4 acre of big woods (accomplished
by a large group effort including the Alpines), and wound up with
a beautiful pond, 1 1/4 acres and 16 feet deep.
I received an original stocking of 50 large mouth bass fingerlings,
500 blue gill hatchlings.
Jeff and Johnny Kuhl contributed a pail with thousnads of just
hatched bull heads. Additional small fingerling blue gills were
seined out of Kilgus'pond (they wanted to get rid of them). The
fish did well with the bass fishing good until Agnes in '72. After
that there wasn't a bass left. Dick Obert came to the rescue with
pails of under-sized bass that he would catch in other ponds
I thought it would be fun to have other varieties of fish, so
I bought from a hatchery, 50
Northern Pike, 20 Walleye Pike, 100 Channel catfish. None survived.
In recent years, Dick Obert put in a couple dozen crappies, some
of which have been caught and thrown back. Recently Brian Honish
caught a couple of yellow perch. It is not too much of a mystery
how they got there. In the early days of the pond there was copious
quantities of tadpoles and frogs Now they are greatly reduced
because of the activiy of the fish In late years, the Great Northern
Herons have discovered the pond and are not helping the growth
of the fish population. Finally on the subject , in 1995, while
standing on our deck, a big Osprey hit the water with a big commotion
and took off with a nice big bullhead. The lot of a fish farmer
is hard.
Years ago I thought we had too many small catfish, so I started
buying commercial fish food to make them grow. It sure did. The
catfish,-some dating backover 25 years-perform on command,as well
as the bluegills. The prize fish story is a follows. We have a
black lab, Schatzie, who when she was about 1 year old, liked
the fish food which floated. She waded into the water and started
gobbling up the pellets. Several very irate catfish attacked her
on her nose. The completely shocked Schatzie jumped out of the
water and never tried it again.
As mentioned earlier, in the 60's Adolf had the only telephone
on the mountain. It wound up being the 911 service of the time
for emergencies and other problems and concerns of the other summer
residents. To alleviate this situation to some degree, I bought
six old hand cranked ring telephones in wooden boxes and one mile
of army combat telephone cable. I formed the Dutch Mountain Telephone
Co. of which I was president, chief engineer, lineman and you
have it It connected us, the Wescotts, Helen Weeks and Adolf.
The wire was laid on the ground through areas where there wasn't
any traffic -so I thought
I miscalulated on the damage that Honda trailbikes with knobby
tires could do to the cable. They caught the wire, wrapped it
up in the chain and destroyed sections of it. Other breaks would
occur with the problem of finding them. As my interest in becoming
a utility magnet waned, fortunately, Commonwealth Telephone started
to string wire and took over.
New Friends:- Starting back in the 60's we started meeting
local and summer people that I didn't know as a boy. Dick and
Irene Obert were among the earliest people that we have had a
real attachment for. Unfortunately Irene passed away about 1990
when we were in Mexico. Dick was devasted, and he has been a regular,though
occasional dinner guest ever since. He is an avid fisherman and
hunter. He likes to fish for bass and bluegills in the local farm
ponds and usually when he comes for dinner he brings the main
course, fish or venison. He also runs a large garden and is an
especially good guy to know in the summer.
Another acquaintance that has become a good friend over the
years is Father Bob McLaughlin, chaplain of Temple University.
He too spent his boyhood summers on the mountain but did not start
until my days were over, so I didn't know him then He has a new
house downhill on the road west of Kesters.He is an avid computer
addict but he is on MAC and I am on IBM. But we have continual
contact via Compuserve and Epix who don't care what you are on.
He always manages to be up here during blizzards and his specialty
is being snowed in and having bears and turkeys watching him through
his kitchen window. He also is an avid hunter and has shot a bear
and numerous deer although his track record isn't so good during
the last few years.
Another good friend since almost day one with the barn is Jack
Schoenwetter. We have maintained contact over the years and has
been a good physical helper when we needed him. His cousin Joe
Voitek we also characterize as a good friend. Both are members
of Rose Hill Club and Joe is sectretary to the landowners association.
Blizzards Floods and Such:-- Agnes- Evelyn and her mother were
up here in 1972 and went through all the rain and worried as th
water in our ne pond rose and roared out the emergency spillway,
along with all of our bass population. At the time I was still
working. We had a party line at the time and the other party on
the line, Plessingers, kept the line tied up so that I couldn't
reach Evelyn and they wouldn't let her have it. After that I insisted
that Commonwealth give us a private line. I was a long time getting
over that one. Not being able get any contact, I took off for
the mountain. The authorities were shutting off the Pierce St
bridge in W-B but they let me through I think I was the last car
over the bridge before it washed away. They wouldn't let me go
over a bridge Luzerne so I had to take a lengthy unmarked detour
around it coming out in Dallas.
Blizzard of '93-- This was a doozy, It occurred on Friday night
and Brian and Laura arrived for the weekend. I suggested that
he leave his car by the mailbox but he said that he would do it
in the morning. That was a Mistake. Anyway it snowed and snowed.
Brian got out a snowmobile and bogged it down in the light fluffy
snow about 2 1/2 ft. deep.
Along about Tuesday and still snowed in, they became somewhat
worried and thought maybe they could hand dig their way out. They
dug and dug and actually had the driveway open up to the pine
tree. They also were showing signs of real concern, because. who
would believe they were snowed in for 6 days. They had proof though
in there was a video tape from their camcorder. I finally made
contact with a backhoe man from Dushore that was willing to plow
us out. It took him about 7 ours of solid digging. The kids departed
4 1/2 minutes after the road was open.
Blizzard A, Blizzard B, Deluge, Washouts, January, 1996:- 1/2-3,
had 8" snow, below zero temps. 1/7, Blizzard A start, 1/8
20-24"snow. Governor declared road emergency, 1/9-10 2"
snow, 1/12 Blizzard B starts, 1/13 20+'snow, Gerald Byers sticks
the Dodge snow plow on our road, 1/14 Frank Monachino tries to
pull plow truck out and sticks himself, Ted Sickler a logger operating
on the Raub place has lots of big heay equipment like a Payloader,
logging machine with a dozer blade and a dozer, sees our predicament
and pulls out the 2 stuck vehicles and makes short work of all
the drifts blocking the road. He didn't want any more than a thankyou-
I bought him a bottle of scotch. Late afternoon on 1/14, I thought
we had a real disaster because the water pump went off and also
the heat pump. I couldn't figure out what happened then, it as
panic time when I figured thas the pump went outa dn there was
10 ft of snow piled over the well casing. We still had power to
the cook top and several of the lighting circuitsso I restored
a low level of heat with portable heaters. I thought I had to
get to the basement to check the panel and pump breakers but there
was 30" deep snow that had to be dug for about 50'. During
the night I got the idea that it might be just possible that the
dpdt switch mounted below the meter out side might have opened
causing the problem. When Gerry arrived at 7:30 the next a.m.we
went out to look at the switch and it was covered with snow. He
dug a short path to it and sure enough the weight of the snow
was enough to push the handle down, opening it.
CRISIS OVER. Jan 17,18,19, Thaw, Jan18/19 2' warm rain and fog
overnight and 95 % of snow not piled up melted. Jan 20 W-B area
ordered to evacuate because of flooding danger As usual under
these circumstances the culvert carrying the Loyalsock above Leo's
(Mud Rd) is over powered and the road is washed out marooning
us.
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