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Once upon a time in Potter Couinty: Chester Edsil Williams and Betsy Lucinda Rogers

newspaper: Potter Leader Enterprise-, ... Francis Louis Truax, No record exists indicating whether they went alone, or even if their families knew of their intentions. Granddaughter Marie Morley Truax remember that Betsy told her the trip took all day.

The Bridal Book: Once Upon a Time in Potter County, published in the Potter Leader Enterprise, ca. 1988-

Charles Edsil Williams and Betsy Lucinda Rogers drove to Shongo, NY in a horse-drawn sleigh on Christmas Day, 1888, and got married.
No record exists indicating whether they went alone, or even if their families knew of their intentions. Granddaughter Marie Morley Truax remembers that Betsy told her the trip took all day.
The two did have a picture taken, dressed iin their "Sunday-go-to-meetin' best." Edsil (as he was known) was handsome and neat in his 3-piece suit, but at 28, his hands already showed the effects of years of hard work.
Betsy was just 18; very pretty, with hair piled high on her head. Her smile is slightly uncertain, but her hand rests firmly on her new husband's shoulder. The union they began that Christmas a century ago grew strong and true and lasted nearly 48 years, ending only with Edsil's death.
Charles Edsil Williams was born on Monday, June 25, 1860, in Harrison Vaeeley, the youngest son of Joseph T. and Susan Mariah MacMasters Williams.
When he was 14, his mother died. His father soon remarried, to a woman named Martha Gardner.
The new Mrs. Williams and her youngest stepson soon locked horns, and Edsil left home. He lived with his brother Philemon for a while, worked in the woods, farmed, did whatever was necessary to make a living.
Jim Morley remembers hearing his grandfather Edsil tell the following story about his youth.
Cure for Sleepwalking-
It seems Edsil was a sleepwalker, a habit which was, at the very least, an embarassing one to have in a camp full of burly lumberjacks. He surprised them by asking to sleep in a top bunk. They couldn't understand why he wanted to be so far from the floor when he began his nightly stroll. However, the young man knew what he was about.
The ceilings in those hastily built bunkhouses were extremely low, so when Edsil started to get out of bed in his sleep-- he smacked his head hard on a rafter. It didn't take too many bruises on his skull to cure him of his embarassing habit.
Betsy liked to tell this story about her own early years.
When she was 10 years old, she was "hired out" to George and Sarah Williams to help with their new baby girl, Mable.
Edsil, then 20, came to visit his brother's family and see his new niece.
Someone, in the age old fashion, asked him when he would "find a nice girl and settle down and have babies of his own." Always a tease, Edsil replied, "I'm waiting for Betsy to grow up." He may have been joking then, but 8 years later, he kept his promise.
Betsy Lucinda Rogers was born Oct. 30, 1870, near Gold, the 5th child of Calvin and Persis Lovinna Raymond Rogers. B the time she was 4 years old, she had begun to assume small responsibilities in the household. The first job she could remember was keeping the little bench that served as a washstand by the kitchen door scrubbed and the basin filled with clean water for her two older brothers and father when they came in from outside.
Betsy was proud of her heritage. Her great-grandfather Amos Raymond of Massachusetts fought in the Revolutionary War, and her grandfather Daniel Raymond was a veteran of the War of 1812. She was the offspring of pioneers, and she inherited their spunk and tenacity.
Signs Autograph Book--
On her 12th Christmas, Betsy was given a little authograph book. Adults staidly signed their formal names, such as "G.G. Acker, West Pike, PA" Her little brother Ray filled a page with a childish scrawl, and friends wrote infinite variations of the old standby: "Whereever you may be/Don't forget to remember me."
Her mother signed with a poetic admonition, "Strive to kep the golden rule/And be a good girl when out of school."
And on one page is simply: "C.E.Williams, Gold, Potter Co, PA"
There is no record of where Edsil and Betsy lived the 1st 2 months of their marriage. In February, 1889, Persis Rogers received a letter from her sister, Mrs. Spencer Preston of Michigan. "... David wrote that Bettie (as Betsy was sometimes called) was married Christmas and I know how badly you will hate to have her go for a great many reasons. But we didn't know how bad our Mother felt to have us go. We can only hope she will have a good Husband and home."
In March, 1889, Edsil and Betsy bought household goods from W.J.Grover in Newfield (see sidebar). It probably was at this time they went to Brookland to work for Mr. H.H.Dent.
Apparently Edsil and Betsy moved frequently during the early years, to wherever there was work. By 1896, they were living in Daniel Raymond's old homestead between Gold and Raymond. A baby was due to arrive in the late fall.
Diary REcords Birth--
Betsy's father, Calvin Rogers, kept a diary from July 1896 to April 1897, and from it we get a glimpse of what seems to have been a difficult pregnancy for Betsy.
In August, the Robers visited their daughter and found her so ill that they stayed with her all night. By the 19th of October, Betsy's mother Persis was getting nervous, according to Calvin's diary. "Pirt has been cleanin house and killin bugs all day!" On the 20th, she made a trip to Raymond in the morning with her daughter-in-law Neeley and then ironed all afternoon. "It's about time for Betsy," Calvin writes.
The fall harvest continued through the last days of October. Edsil was ill and needed help a day or two.
On Nov. 4, Edsil came for his mother-in-law. "Pirt has gone to Betsy's. She is sick. I am alone tonight. It's windy tonight."
On the 5th: "Pirt is to Edsil's. Betsy was sick. Wrayned all day."
On Nov. 6, Calvin's diary reads, "Helped D.W.Greene butcher his pig. It waid 170 LBs. Betsy had a girl baby this mornin. Wife got home." His sigh of relief is almost audible. His wife was home, and Mary Mariah Williams was present and accounted for. Shortly before Christmas, the little girl visited her grandparents for the 1st time.
There is no diary available for 1902, but it is safe to assume that Grandma Rogers was called into service again to help with the birth of Daisy Lovinna Williams, born Feb. 9, 1902. She was born in the house her father had built on land in Allegany Twp, near Gold, which he purchasted around 1900, close by his father-in-law's farm.
An itinerant artist happened by that summer and, in payment for one of Betsy's good suppers and a bed for the night, he made a pencil sketch of the Williams farm. It shows the house, a barn on the right, and a figure, supposed to be Mary, in the yard, surrounded by tree...

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