1908 Group Photo

I found a great photo taken in Morris, NY representing many families from in and around the area. I normally pass my photos on to living relatives, but since so many families are represented, I’m looking for a local museum or historical society to pass it on to. I did some research on the individuals and found everyone in census records and newspaper articles. These are students and teacher from Morris High School.
Bill Tower was the son of a minister. As a young man, he was a salesman for yeast company and later a mechanic.

Marion Newton was married then lost her husband 5 years later to TB. After her husband's death, she supported herself and daughter as a bookkeeper for a physician's office.
Mary Daniels was orphaned at a young age. Her father died when she was 5 and mother at 10. She was married at 19 and by 1940 they owned a poultry farm. Her obituary stated she was a charter member of the Bible Baptist Church and taught Sunday School for many years.
Mildred Bishop was the daughter of a physician. At 19, she married and had 2 children. Her husband was a dairy farmer.
Florence Colburn was born into a farming family and married a farmer. When she died, she had 11 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren.
Fred Tilley was a teacher then became a dairy farmer after he married.
Henry Hand worked for a life insurance co. and eventually became co-owner of an appliance store.
Frances Carey was an only child. Her father was a photographer and took this group photo. Her father later took over the family's meat market. She married a postal clerk and lived a few doors down from her teacher in this photo, Ruth Light. Her father's obituary stated she was assistant secretary
Alice Chase was the daughter of a cheesemaker. She never married and was a school teacher according to the 1930 and 1940 census.
Ruth Light was a 4 year college graduate and teacher of this group. At the age of 39, she becomes sister in-law to one of her pupils, Agnes Greene when she marries Agnes’s brother in-law.
Agnes Greene graduated from the Morris High school and taught in the district schools. She died at a young age, 42 and is buried like many others in this photo in Morris, NY.
John Warner married and had 2 children. He was a bank auditor and later an account for a musical theater producer of the Morris Fair Association.

Facebook discussion:

Bob Thomas
I found a list of students promoted from grammar to high school in 1908. The list can viewed in the screenshot below from the June 24, 1908 Morris Chronicle, page 3. Only 10 students are listed but the photo has 13. Who are the guests and why were they included?
No photo description available.
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Rennie M Elliott
Bob Thomas I think Hand was on the left if you went up West Street beyond the bridge, not sure if he was connected with “Lamp lighter” (Adelbert?) Lent or not. The kerosene streetlights were converted to acetylene gas in 1898 by Lynn B. Kenyon, and was why Kenyon opposed the Linn Company electrifying the village in 1918, even though he had his own house lit by a electric dynamo.
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Joanne Long
Mildred Bishop grew up in Garrattsville. She was the daughter of Dr. Bishop, she married a Dockstader and they lived in Stetsonville. Her father, Dr. Bishop, had the house built in the late 1800s where my parents bought in 1954 and I spent most of my cg
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Nancy Salisbury Hart
Joanne Long I have the cherry drop leaf table from Dr. Bishop’s office. It bears some stains where his wife, Ada (Turnbull) mixed the medications he prescribed for his patients.
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Rennie M Elliott
I included the Bishops on some of those census records for John Youngs. When they are listed as boarders I wondered if they might have been residing in the Young’s Hotel. I have not consulted your book to see if Youngs is in there, I’m sure they would be Presbyterians.
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Rennie M Elliott
Thank you very much for sharing! Great that the names were added, I would bet this ran in “The Morris Chronicle” at the time, hopefully with names as well. The graduation photos were often taken at the Episcopal Church Parish Hall on East Main until the present school was built, the upstairs hall used for ceremonies. Fred Tilley was employed in the Buffalo Rd. School house near Patent/Cranberry Bog in Burlington, my Grandfather John Holdridge was probably about five years old (born 1909) and Fred Tilley would pick him up and carry him on his shoulders to the schoolhouse a mile further east. And then in those little twists of genealogy, Tilley would later teach in the Perry District schoolhouse down in Otego his son Lee would operate as a used furniture store. Fred was the teacher one day when my Great Uncle John Perry was misbehaving and when Fred went down the row between the desks after John with a ruler, my Grandmother (Perry) Elliott grabbed one of Fred’s coat tails and her sister on the other side the aisle grabbed the other, and it split the back of his coat right up to the collar. And allegedly that is how the Perry District in Otego was renamed “Hell Hollow”. A schoolhouse teacher’s life was always interesting.
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Rennie M Elliott
Frances is probably the photographer Norm Carey’s daughter, who lived in the same building on the corner of West Main and Church and ran a bakery that he had his butcher shop in. My Great grandfather Elliott raised raspberries, and would get raspberry pies in return for keeping “Fannie” Coyle supplied with berries.
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Edited
Rennie M Elliott
This is from Schoolhouse John’s book, c. 1925? Fred Tilley at the Buffalo Rd. Schoolhouse in Burlington, NY, long since abandoned. My Grandfather Holdridge the small boy sitting at right.
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Edited
Joanne Long
I spent most of my childhood living there. It is next door to the old Hardware store.
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Rennie M Elliott
I believe the photographers father, Ira Carey, came to Morris from Hartwick? This is their lot and stone near the caretaker shed in Hillington Cemetery on the second hill.
No photo description available.
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Seth Birdsall
Are there any photos or paintings of General Jacob Morris?
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Winnie Talbot
I remember some of those people .
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Rennie M Elliott
Reverse
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Rennie M Elliott
No photo description available.
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Rennie M Elliott
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Rennie M Elliott
Frank Coyle worked in the post office at one point, and married Norm Carey’s daughter Frances.
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Rennie M Elliott
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Fran Klindt
Rennie M Elliott
I remember Frank very well. In his later years when I was delivering baked goods for Frances, I recall seeing him at their house on Grove Street and that he was suffering from some serious malady that was apparently affecting his legs.