Alanson Clark Corbin

Alanson Clark Corbin, the son of Elkanah Corbin Jr. and Lucy A. Clark, was born on July 16, 1807. His birthplace is uncertain. Alanson's father was from Charleston in Montgomery County, N.Y.; Lucy was probably born in Connecticut. They moved to northern New York as early as 1820, settling in Ellisburg (Jefferson), bringing young Alanson with them. Elkanah and Lucy may not have moved directly to Ellisburg from downstate. They may have lived in one or more locations along the way. Thus, one account has Alanson being born in Russia, Herkimer, N.Y. However, Alanson himself told census-takers that he had been born in either Schoharie or Montgomery County, N.Y.

The cooper shop at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts.
The Village is a reproduction of 1830s New England. Thus,
this shop probably has a similar look to Alanson's.
(From: Wikimedia)

Alanson spent his teenage years in Ellisburg. By 1830, the newly married Alanson was still living in Ellisburg, but not for long. After marrying Eliza Bowe, Alanson moved to Clayton (Jefferson), N.Y. His farm was located on the south side of House Road, just east of its intersection with Deferno Road.

Alanson was a farmer and cooper. He apparently had multiple shops, located in Depauville and Watertown, according to Jefferson County and New York State business directories. Alanson's brother, Simeon James, was also a cooper and worked in Depauville--it's unclear whether they worked together in the same shop, or separately. Alanson responded to an 1850 U.S. Census of New York industry, providing us with excellent insight into his occupation. From the summer of 1849 to the spring of 1850, he built 1,420 barrels with the help of one other shop worker--possibly his brother. For the census column "Kind of Motive Power, Machinery, Structure, or Resource," Alanson responded "hands." This seems almost like a joke from our 21st century perspective of engines and electricity. But it has its own kind of beauty to it--everything he built, he built unassisted, with his hands. If you'd like to learn more about 19th century coopering, check out Old Sturbridge Village's cooper shop.

Unfortunately, Alanson had a tragic family life. He and Eliza had ten children together, but only five reached adulthood. Five children died between the ages of just a few months and thirteen years old. I don't know enough about child mortality rates in rural New York during the 19th century to determine whether Alanson's situation was unusual, but I doubt that parents in any historical period were not profoundly affected by their children dying so young.

Hannah Eastman

On July 15, 1752, Hannah Eastman died in Dudley, Massachusetts. Born in 1679, Hannah spent much of the first half of her life on the New England frontier, first in Haverhill, Massachusetts, then in Woodstock, Connecticut and nearby Dudley. Hannah was the daughter of Philip Eastman and Mary Barnard. Philip was the son of Roger Eastman, who emigrated to America from Langford, England in 1638.

England and its colonies were at war with France during most of Hannah's teenage years. King William's War raged from 1688 to 1697. When Hannah was seventeen years old in 1697, Haverhill was attacked by a band of Abenaki Indians allied with France. The Eastmans' home was among five houses burned to the ground. Philip and possibly Hannah herself were taken captive but escaped shortly afterward. But the 1697 Haverhill raid is famous for another Hannah. Hannah Duston escaped after killing ten of her captors during their long journey northward. For more on this event, see the recently published Massacre on the Merrimack: Hannah Duston's Captivity and Revenge in Colonial America by Jay Atkinson.

A new marks Hannah and James Corbin's grave in
Dudley, Mass. (FindAGrave.com)

Within a few weeks, the Eastman family moved to safer territory near the southern perimeter of the Massachusetts colony. Woodstock was a frontier village that had been settled eleven years earlier by emigrants from Roxbury near Boston. In Woodstock, Hannah met James Corbin. They were married in April only a few weeks after the Haverhill attack. James was a respected Woodstock citizen in his early 30s. However, despite moving to Woodstock, Hannah was not free of her fears regarding Indian attacks. Just one year before her arrival, an entire family had been killed in a surprise attack on the settlement of Oxford a short distance north of Woodstock. In the following year, Woodstock residents feared that some residents of the Wabbaquasset (Nipmuc) village adjacent to Woodstock had allied with hostile Indians from the north--the threat appears to have been unfounded. By this time, Hannah had experienced enough Indian violence that she was likely wary of them for the rest of her life--despite the fact that the Wabbaquassets were consistently peaceful and even allied themselves with the English against other native aggressors.

By the summer of 1697, Hannah was pregnant with the first of her eleven children, a son named Clement. She would be intermittently pregnant for many more years, finally giving birth to her last child, Hannah, at 41 years old. Shortly after that, Hannah and James moved a few miles north to the new settlement of Dudley (now in Massachusetts). Hannah survived her husband by 16 years, spending her final years in the household of her son, Samuel, in Dudley.