A piece of family history

[Deleted]

It was in 1910 that my grandfather loaded livestock and farm equipment onto an "Emigrant Car" on a railroad siding in Kansas and headed West with his family (my dad was 8 years old at the time) to start a new in Idaho.

Among the farming gear grandfather brought was a horse-drawn plow. A some point my father acquired the plow and when he died it was passed on to me. It currently resides in a flower bed next to our house (I don't have any fields to plow or horses to pull it).

With the 100th anniversary of the family's arrival in the state approaching, I'm going to see about getting the plow cleaned up and installing new wooden handles on it.

!00 years isn't such a long time for some forum member in the Eastern U. S. and overseas. But in 1910 there was only 325,000 people in Idaho (which is larger in land area than many countries)

[mickeyobe]

Wayne,

I am not familiar with ploughs being a city slicker.
It has a very elegant shape.
Restoration should be an interesting challenge.

Mickey

[PeterW]

Wayne:

Go for it. When that plough is restored and on display in your garden it's going to be a wonderful piece of Idaho history as well as family history. I'll bet there aren't all many like it still around in the State today.

100 years isn't really a very long time in the general scheme of things though, as you say, time span is relative depending on where you live.

In the history of Ashford, Kent, where I live 100 years ago is almost yesteryear. I've lived here 37 years, and my house was built in 1884. When my house and the rest of the houses in this road were built, Ashford Railway Works had been building locomotives and rolling stock for nearly 40 years. Economic pressures forced the end of locomotive building in 1981, ten years later saw the end of carriage and wagon building, and the works finally closed in 1991. The end of a period of Ashford history. Five of the old buildings, including the locomotive building hall, are Grade 2 listed as of historic importance, and the town council hasn't yet approved any of the various proposals to develop the 185-acre site in keeping with the character of the town - not all old by any means. Ashford International railway station and the new shopping centre are very modern looking buildings.

The cattle market goes back much further, more than 760 years to 1243 when the Lord of the Manor of Ashford was granted a Charter to hold a Cattle Market by King Henry III. It's site has been moved to the outskirts of the town but it's still going strong today and is among the top 15 in Europe for throughput of livestock.

We have a thriving local history society the members of which have, among other things, collected a huge number of photographs showing the changes in the town from the mid 1800s to the present day.

It's sometimes difficult for people here to realise it, but Idaho is of course vastly different from the county of Kent. Ashford's population in 1901, when it was still a medium-size country town, was 43,600.

Keeping in mind the size of Idaho (you could fit the whole UK in it several times over), its distance from the earlier settled areas of the eastern US and its very small population 100 years ago makes anyone looking at websites about Idaho and its cities today realise what tremendous progress has been made in the past 100 years. A tribute to pioneers like your grandfather, and everyone else who has lived and worked in Idaho during the past 100 years.

I'll bet the Centenary celebrations will be quite something. I do hope someone, perhaps local newspapers, has collected a photographic record of changes in the towns and cities during that time. Social history is an area where the often-belittled 'documentary' photograph is supreme.

PeterW

[Deleted]

Peter:

Actually the territorial and statehood centennials (1863 and 1891) already are past. 2010 will just be the Cornell Family Idaho Centennial. I may try to organize some sort of celebration at a local park.

[PeterW]

My mistake, Wayne.

Even so, 100 years of the Cornell family in Idaho (in the same town?) has got to be worth celebrating. I seem to remember that your father (?) ran the local newspaper for many years.

PeterW