Title: S.A. Lane Autobiography 11 [Blank] 2 Preface. [Advent of see p.257]2 The good younger son and brother, Arthur Malcolm Lane, [In November 1877]3 before leaving the “old Home Nest”, to “scratch” for himself, on hearing his father relating some of his own boyhood or early manhood exploits, said: “Father you occasionally let out something about your early life, but really we children know but little about you. I wish you would write out your history so that we can sometime, find out more about you”. Promising to do so, I had this substantial Record book made, and from time to time have written out and entered therein the chief events of my life, embracing more or less of the history of many other members of the family. From the perusal of a Geneological history of the Lane Family, compiled by Rev. Jacob Chapman and Rev. James H. Fitts,4 of New Hampshire, in 1891. I find that I may not have been technically correct as to the origin, and advent in America, of our immediate lineal ancestry, but all herein recorded on my own personal recollection, may be relied upon as substantially, if not literally, accurate. And though some of my youthful idiosyncrasies as well as many of my adult eccentricities, may be regarded rather as a warning to be shunned than an example to be imitated. I feel that all of my surviving children, and such of my grand children as may have sufficient patience to wade through these pages, will be benefitted by their perusal; the writer’s life having providentially been spared many years beyond what, at its commencement, might reasonably have been expected, being at the date of this writing, January 29, 1894, just 78 years and 7 months old. S. A. Lane. 3 Autobiography Birth – Childhood – Education. I was born June 29th 1815, in the town of Suffield, County of Hartford and State of Connecticut, one of the very lovliest of the many lovely towns in the lovely Valley of the Connecticut, situated on the West bank of the river, sixteen miles North of the City of Hartford, and ten miles South of the City of Springfield, in the State of Massachusetts. 1 Page number printed in book 2 Written in margin 3 Written in margin 4 Citation for title in question: Chapman, Jacob, and James H. Fitts. Lane Genealogies. Exeter, N.H.: The News- letter press, 1891. Transcribed by: Brittany Dudas, June 26, 2008. Title: S.A. Lane Autobiography Parentage5 My father, Comfort Lane, was the third of the five sons of Gad Lane, a lineal descendant of the traditional “three brothers” of the name of Lane who immigrated from England to America at an early day, settling, respectively, in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. My mother, Betsey Sikes, [Betsey Sikes]6 was the second daughter of Gideon Sikes, also a descendant of the “three brothers” of that name, who immigrated +c, one settling in Massachusetts, one in Connecticut, and the third in Rhode Island. Paternal Grand Father. My Grandfather, “Gad”, <insertion: Lane> though not a Revolutionary soldier, was of very great service to the Continental army, being a very skillful blacksmith, and not only shoeing the officers’ and Troopers’ horses, repairing army wagons +c but fabricating pikes, cutlasses and other rude but effective implements of warfare. After the close of the war, though quite an extensive farmer, as well as the keeper of a country tavern, he still carried on his shop for the accommodation of his neighbors, as well as for the traveling public. He delighted, in his old age, to keep his grandchildren 4 supplied with jack-knives of his own manufacture, and once, when I was visiting the family, the old gentleman – then in the 85th year of his age – turned out, just for the fun of the thing, you know, a Jews-harp and a fine tooth comb. The former was rather a hoarse toned instrument, the jaws being about five inches in length and the toungue at least three-eighths of an inch in width at the bulge, its vibrations nearly jarring the teeth out of the jaws of those who attempted to play upon it. The comb was made of steel, and the teeth were only calculated to “rake out” the “fatlings of the flock”, being at least an eighth of an inch in width and fully the same distance apart. The old gentleman was not only plucky to the last in the practice of his “profession”, but he was also “game” to the last in the matrimonial line, for, after burying his third wife, when about eighty years old, he slyly entered into a fourth matrimonial engagement with a widow lady but a few years his junior, the “untimely” interference of the children of the “youthful” couple alone preventing the consummation of the nuptials. He died in the ninety-second* year of his age. *[I was present at the death and funeral of grandfather Lane, and it was then understood that he was over 91 years old, but the same Genealogy, page 12, gives August 31, 1744, as the date of his birth, and November 27, 1833 as the date of his death, making him but 89 years, 2 months and 27 days of age when he passed away.]7 Maternal Grandfather. My Grandfather, “Gid,” <insertion: SIKES8> was a soldier of the Revolution, and, in the later years of his life, received a pension from the government. He was a farmer, but made about quarter-yearly excursions into neighboring towns and counties as a peddler of glass-ware, which occupation he followed nearly to the end of his long life, dying April 13, 1846, aged 92 years 10 mos, 15 days. Grandfather Sikes was also somewhat matrimonially 5 This, and all headers, believed to be written at a later date than rest of paragraph 6 Written a second time in margin 7 Paragraph written in the margin of the page and believed to be written at a later date 8 Written in a different hand than author’s Transcribed by: Brittany Dudas, June 26, 2008. Title: S.A. Lane Autobiography 5 inclined, having had three wives and raised three “crops” of children – fourteen in all – one son and five daughters by the first; one son and one daughter by the second and two sons and five daughters by the third. Occupation of Father. My father was, by trade, a Carriage maker, or, as it was termed in those days, a “Wheel- wright”. Soon after his marriage, which took place July 15th 1807, he established himself in business in his native town, about a mile and a half northeast of the center, on a street called “Crooked Lane”, so named, probably, from the fact that, branching off from the main North and South road, about half a mile north of the center, it pursues the tortuous course of an original foot-path from the village to the settlements upon the river above: the path becoming a lane and then a street, as the land through which it runs were settled upon and improved. Diversity of Employment. Through all kinds of wagons and carriages, then in vogue, were manufactured in my father’s shops, his great specialty was the building of Stage-Coaches– “Staging” being in fact the great business of the country, at that time. In addition to the various mechanical branches carried on – wood-work, blacksmithing, painting, trimming +c – a small farm of some thirty-five or forty acres was cultivated. As our school kept but little more than half the year, there was most generally something useful for us boys to do, though we were, by no means, deprived of a proper proportion of play and innocent amusement. Thus I had an opportunity of getting a tolerable insight into the arts and mysteries of currying horses, milking cows, chopping firewood, plowing, 6 planting, hoeing, weeding, reaping, mowing, raking, digging and picking up potatoes; gathering apples; making cider; husking corn; threshing grain +c. Tobacco-raising and cigar-making, were also, then as now, prominent branches of agricultural and mechanical industry in the fertile valley of the Connecticut. An acre or two of our very best land was devoted, each year, to the growing of the “delectable weed”, and one or two girls were almost constantly employed in working it up, when properly cured, into “genuine imported Habanas”. Among my earliest recollections is the extreme “pleasure” which I daily “enjoyed”, in passing through the field in search of the voracious and “sweet-scented” tobacco worm, “suckening” the plants +c. +c. Youthful Haps and Mishaps. During those juvenile and youthful days I also obtained quite a smattering of the different mechanical branches carried on in the shops. One of the earliest of my juvenile “mechanical” operations occurred in this wise. When I was perhaps four years old the proprietor of the stage line brought one of his coaches to the shop for some slight repairs. While the workmen were at dinner, I clambored up into the Coach, in which the trimmer had left a dish of brass-headed nails, and his trimming hammer. I made such good time in my labors, before the trimmer returned from his dinner, that I had firmly planted some two or three hundred of said brass-headed nails in various portions of the coach – the floor, the seats, the panels +c. though it was, of course, very annoying, the owner of the Coach persuaded my father not to punish me, and often joked me as I grew older, at my dexterity in “hitting the nail upon the head”.