GAMMY'S STORY

My father's mother, Nancy Ann Master, was born in Longford, Ireland, Ulster Co., Barring of Granard, Parish of Colo. Her parents were John and Mary McGuire Masters. She had two brothers, Peter and Barney and two sisters, Bessie and Bridget. When she was twenty she married Barney Lynch, a storekeeper and a dealer in furs. When she was thirty-three years old her husband had died. There was a famine in Ireland and she came on a sailboat which took months to come. I don't know when but one little girl died at two weeks of age, one child got ship's fever and died in quarantine. One little boy, Morris, was left. I believe they landed in Canada, not sure.

She came to New York. Her brothers were going to take care of her. Peter was blown to pieces by an explosion helping to build the railroad. Barney was driving a four horse team. He sat high up in the air. A paper blew in the street, scared the horses, they ran away and he was killed. How they got to Whitehall we don't know but when her boy, Morris, and she had small pox, Peter Hunt helped to cure them. She and he were married. He also had been married before. He had George, James, William, Peter, Sarah Ann and Mary Ann (twins), Myra Ann, Lydia Ann, Julia Ann and Annie. (10 children) Then grandma had John, Richard, Hibberd and lost a little girl. Peter Hunt died December 22, 1872 age 76 years and 8 months. He was Welsh and Irish. After ten years she married Washington Wilson. They lived together seven years when he died. Nancy Ann Masters Lynch Hunt Wilson died December 19, 1904 at the age of 93.

I, Nancy Ann Hunt, as I was first named for my father's mother, was born in a small, weatherbeaten one-story house on a farm on top of a very high hill at the foot of a mountain called Little Diameter in the town of Dresden, N.Y., a small town lying between Lake Champlain and Lake George. I was born January 29, 1879. Not far from one side of the house, a little brook ran. For most purposes water was brought from there. Drinking water came from back in the orchard where there was a spring with water always cold. Not far from the brook was the mountain, it was tall and black looking, shaped somewhat like the Matterhorn. We children never crossed the brook to play. I don't think we were forbidden, it just seemed too gloomy. Much of the farm was wooded and we played in the edge of the woods there. There was no need of a flower garden for flowers were everywhere. The farm was cleared down the hill far enough so you could see across the valley to a bare lower hill called Marble Pillar. In the late afternoon you could see the children coming from school, their dinner pails shining in the sun.

My father was Hibberd Hunt and my mother was Mary Adeline Tracy.

The first thing I can seem to remember was being alone with my father in the kitchen where he was making a farm sled. I remember he burned holes with a red hot iron for the bolts. He was a wheelwright as well as a farmer. Perhaps the bit he had was not large enough for the bolts and he was only enlarging the hole. I remember while working he cut off one of his fingers below the first joint.

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