Asa Hartshorn at age 35 married Sarah A. Howes 28 September 1864 (while the Civil War was occurring). They had one child named Leonard (Lennie) born August 1866. Sarah tragically died 29 August 1866, apparently related to childbirth. If that was not enough tragedy, Lennie died 27 August 1883 at age 17 of unknown cause. Sarah was born 28 May 1836 so was age 30 at her death, and Asa was 39.
He remarried after several months later in 1867 to Brunette O. Morgan b.1 February 1833 d. 29 April 1916. Brunette was 4 years younger than he, but older than was Sarah who was 7 years younger. With Brunette, there were three children, all born in Lebanon, Madison County, NY. All three children lived through the Great Depression and WWI, and two also lived through WWII and the Korean War:
Jennie M Hartshorn Bartlett b. 20 June 1868 d 2 February 1935. She married Merton H. Bartlett. Her passing preceded the author’s birth.
Ryal Pearce Hartshorn b. 18 June 1871 d 21 March 1957 at age 85. He married late at age 30 to Maude A. Jaquith on 19 February 1902, d. 5 October 1957. They are the grandparents of the author-webmaster of this website who knew them up until college age. Around age 21, Ryal was 6 feet tall and contracted polio and for awhile was immobile, but eventually he regained full use except for one ankle where there was no control. Despite this handicap, at a time when there were no provisions for the handicapped, he bought his father Asa’s farm and operated it for many years, then relocated to a smaller farm at the edge of Lebanon NY when he sold the Hartshorn Homestead farm to his daughter Ruth. He did all the work with horses. He had difficulty controlling the accelerator on cars, but made it work. He never cussed or drank or used crude language. He was profoundly deaf in his later years. After retiring to a house in town that had a sizable barn, his wife Maude continued to raise a large flock of chickens, even during retirement, and kept the town supplied with eggs and chickens. She kept meticulous records on every penny as the author noted when as a kid observed her detailed entry using the ledger.
Karl Hartshorn b. 11 April 1877 d. 1 October 1964 at age 87. He married Nellie Wilcox and after she died in 1947, remarried at age 74 to Edith Green Spoor on 22 August 1951. For awhile prior to his remarriage, he lived at the author’s house following a family dispute with his 3 children which necessitated departing his dairy farm.
Columbian Exposition and World’s Fair
In 1893, Asa’s son Ryal Pearce Hartshorn took a train to Chicago to attend the Columbian Exposition Worlds Fair, aka the Chicago World’s Fair 1892-3, along with some relatives. The Exposition celebrated the 400th anniversary of the voyage of Columbus. The Fair was a really big deal, then or now. On 692 acres was built a number of large permanent buildings and the first ever “Midway”. There was a train station with 26 tracks, Nicola Tesla designed the power generation equipment for Westinghouse to light the whole area and buildings (the first large electric lighting development anywhere), and gave presentations. There were replicas of the 3 Columbus ships, also Buffalo Bill Cody shows, and the first Ferris Wheel. New products were Introduced such as hamburgers, Cracker Jacks, Aunt Jemima pancake flour, a moving sidewalk, automatic dishwasher, zipper, Shredded Wheat, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Wrigley chewing gum, all of these among the 65,000 articles exhibited. Ryal, then age 23, sent a letter home. [Hartshorn, Ryal letter to sister Jenny October 15. 1893]
President Cleveland pressed the button to turn on all the electric lighting and a cheer resulted from the stunned crowd with the brilliance. This was a triumph of Westinghouse over the competitor Edison. The Ferris Wheel was 250 ft in diameter. A total of 25 million people attended the Expo when the country’s population was much smaller than today. Tesla had a presentation room in which he demonstrated electricity spinning various objects on a table, and another in which he turned himself into an electric firestorm of 200,000 volts corona which scared the attendees [Cheney pp70-75].
Ryal Recollections
Notes written by Ryal in the Spring of 1951 stated that when Asa was about age 2, Asa was moved from one place in Lebanon to Asa’s Uncle Wolcott’s farm in 1831, and confirmed that Asa bought his Lebanon Farm in 1864.
Ryal also affirmed that Asa went to California in 1852 around Cape Horn in South America on a voyage that took about 5 months. His return trip was across the Isthmus of Panama about where the Panama Canal is now, and it took 3 weeks.
He also added that the Lebanon Baptist Church was moved from a hill in Lebanon Center in 1890 to the village of Lebanon.[Hartshorn, Ryal written note 1951]
Another letter by an unknown writer [file, contemporary]
“Ryal always was a farmer except about a year when he ran a store in downtown Lebanon village where Mrs. Aletta Lewis now resides. He was nearly completely paralyzed with polio for a while at around 25 years of age but miraculously fully recovered with the exception of one ankle’s muscles which required him to use a cane. He required the cane the rest of his life. His wife, Maude Jaquith was born 3 July 1877 at Smyrna, New York, one of five children. She was a former schoolteacher in the Woodison District and the Baker District. They met at the home of Fred Morgan, who lived where Leon Partridge lives now. They were married 19 February 1902 at the present Alden Briggs home. Rev. Champion, Karl, his brother, and Ryal started from Lebanon to go to the bride’s house. It had been snowing which made travel almost impossible. The trio got as far as the former Stedman/Werbela farm, where snow was so deep they had to continue on foot. Karl put Ryal’s suitcase on a high stick and carried it that way. The bride was anxiously clearing frost off the front house window, watching for the groom. Karl led the group, then Ryal, and finally the pastor, who all arrived in time to have the wedding a wee bit late, or perhaps more late. Ryal and Maude ran the Jaquith farm for two years, and then returned to buy his father’s farm, the Asa Hartshorn homestead, near Lebanon Center, around 1904. Around 1907, Ryal started making a purebred Holstein herd. He started with Stella Harr, South Hamilton, making several seven day A. R. (AdvancedRegistry) records on his herd. Ryal and Maude sold the farm in 1927 (to their daughter Ruth and her husband Laurence Roe). They then purchased the Streetch, or Morris dairy farm, at the edge of the Lebanon village, where they lived until 1949. Then they retired and purchased Clark Smith’s house (in Lebanon village) where they resided the rest of their lives. Ryal ran the farm solely with horses, no tractors, likely because of his polio-affected ankle. Horses did the plowing, tilling, planting, and harvesting. Hobbies: Hers: Dahlias, gladiolas, and Bible His: Reading, checkers, breeding purebred Holsteins, stumping (antiquated expression for rearing) children, and people with problems. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1952 at Lebanon, NY.”
Postcard of Columbian Exposition 1892
ASA’S only daughter Jennie Hartshorn Bartlett
Contact with any Bartletts has been lost. If any people reading this page have knowledge of living Bartlett descendants, please add such information to the Feedback page.
Jennie married Merton Bartlett, and their children were:
Harvey Bartlett who married Florence Parker
Gladys Bartlett who married Bernie Clisham
Leonard J. Bartlett who married Grace Parks
Ornan Bartlett who went into the Merchant Marines
Paul Bartlett who died in 1934 after being kicked by a hors
Here is more information on one of the above, Harvey and Florence had these children:
Kenneth Bartlett who married Gladys Clossen (Gladys passed this month November
2021 in North Carolina, so she is the 2nd Gladys in the Bartlett family living in the same
timeframe).
Verna Bartlett who married James Powles
Donald Bartlett who married Shirley Hill
Four Generations of School Teachers among Asa’s Descendants
The wife of Ryal Hartshorn, Maude, was a schoolteacher. Her photo and her teaching contracts are posted above. Take a closeup look at her salary in 1896.
Her daughter Ruth was a schoolteacher
Ruth’s daughters-in-law Eleanor and Sue were schoolteachers as was Ruth’s niece Jean Hartshorn Pray.
Jean’Hartshorn Pray’s daughter also is a teacher in Hawaii.
There are likely some others that are unknown at present.