Houston
Oliver Houston, a Colonel in the British Army, fought in the Battle of Boyne River, July 12, 1690. He settled in County Down and is supposed to have been Catholic.
His son Oliver was likewise a Colonel in the British Army. Nothing is known about the second Oliver or the following generations.
George Houston was the grandson of the second Oliver and had four sons and two daughters. They were:
- Patrick
- John
- William
- Michael
- Bridget
- Catherine
John had three children: George, Michael, and Mary Ann. Some or all of George’s family came to America in 1827, landing in Quebec and settling in Vermont. Patrick bought a farm at Fairfield Center, near St. Albans, where his family was born and he is buried there, apparently getting money from John.
Nothing further is known about the others who emigrated except rumors of a drowning and a family misunderstanding, following which all apparently went to Connecticut.
Patrick Houston married Sarah Sloane in October 1826, daughter of William and Catherine Sloane. She died November 1, 1846, leaving the following children:
- William (1826–1909) — Married Alice Lappin
- Ellin — married John Finnegan (2 daughters and 1 son — all single)
- Catherine
- Mary — married Bernard Spears; their children: Alex (Single), Jane (Mrs. James Riley), another son had family — one lived in Enosburg Falls, VT
- John — Settled in Des Moines, Iowa, and had three daughters and one son
- Patrick (see notes — single)
- Sarah
- George (the name listed twice as a son of his marriage to Sarah Sloane, but appears to have been erroneous, as he had a son George by his second marriage)
Patrick remarried a widow in 1849, Mrs. Susan McCarthy. They had three children:
- George — Lived on a farm at East Berkshire, Vermont. One son (presumed of George) thought to have been Dean at University of New Hampshire, Keene, NH
- Anne — Married John King. Enlisted in Civil War at the age of 17. Lived in Keene, NH, and after retirement from the Railroad moved to East Berkshire, VT
- James — Single
William Sloane and Alice Lappin Houston were married in St. Albans, Vermont, and then presumably came by boat down Lake Champlain, Lake George, etc., to Troy, NY, and then by Erie Canal to Rome, NY, settling at Coal Hill, now part of the Lake Delta watershed. His sister was apparently married at the same time to John Finnegan, and after came along where the two couples occupied the same house or log cabin, both families using the same kitchen. At that time the land around Coal Hill was virgin territory — bears used to try to break into their pig house.
William was a Millwright and ran a small saw mill. Unfit timber was burned to charcoal used at Taberg to make iron. Age-old Hemlocks were cut and stripped of bark for tanning.
William made two wall brackets out of black walnut boards taken from an old water mill wheel using a Masonic pattern loaned to him. These brackets are at least partly hand-carved. NBQ has one and the Stockbridge girls have the other.
William and Alice Lappin Houston had many children, the first three dying from diphtheria. The following grew to maturity:
- Alice (1855–1933) — Mrs. Thomas Foran Quinn
- Patrick (1856–1919) — married Maria Hogan (1860–1926)
- Sarah (1861–1908) — Mrs. Edward Barke
- William (1857–1927) — married Elizabeth Duffy
- Elizabeth (1857–1927) — married Thomas Fitzpatrick
- Mary (Mollie) (1858–1893) — married Thomas Duffy
- Ellen (Nell) (1863–1939) — Mrs. John Mitchell
- James L. (1865–1948) — married Agnes Finnegan (no family)
- Anne (1868–1946) — Single
- Margaret (1867–1950) — Mrs. Thomas Blake
Patrick Houston (the first) was said to be a man of great strength. His son William used to tell of his father winning a contest lifting a stone that others could not.
Patrick is said to have married for the second time on the same day his son married in 1849. It seems reasonable to believe that Ellen was also married to John Finnegan on the same day. At the time the family apparently lived at Fairfield Center, Vermont.
The log cabin built by Patrick on his farm at Fairfield Center was used by the tenant in the winter of 1918–1919 for his family, as he was unable to get fuel for the 15-room house on the farm.
Patrick Sloane Houston entered the Army during the Civil War as a bounty man — he was paid to take another man’s place. When he went to the bank to get the money he was paid 300 silver dollars and had to buy a valise to carry it away.
He claimed to have been taken prisoner by the Confederates, escaped, and joined a troop of irregulars living in the country. Later he enlisted in the 7th Cavalry, General Custer’s outfit, but was on detached service at the time of the massacre at Little Big Horn in Montana, June 25, 1876.
On October 5, 1892, while working at a saw mill at Fort Custer, through the carelessness of an assistant, a piece of edging about one inch square and four feet long was pushed back on the saw and thrust with violence, striking him on the side of the head between the left ear lobe and the jawbone, penetrating the head and protruding in front of the right ear. He pulled out the stick and ran several yards when assistance came. Even a knitting needle could not have been thrust in the same direction without striking a vital part under ordinary conditions.
He worked at the Naval Proving Grounds, Sandy Hook, NJ, for many years. When he reached retirement age it was discovered that he had never been discharged from the 7th Cavalry, Custer’s outfit. He was accordingly sent to Cheyenne, MT for discharge. Upon arrival there he was ill with pneumonia and died — 1917.
Aunt Anne Lappin Houston recalled hearing a story that when she was crossing the ocean there was evidence of a shipwreck, including the corpse of a man lashed to a spar. Don’t recall if this was a Lappin or Houston tale.
Uncle James Lappin Houston told a yarn about a Tinker who made trips about the old country and who used to sleep in a cave in the neighborhood. There was an explosion and the Tinker was never seen again. The story went around that the Devil had run away with the Tinker. The Houstons or the Lappins were supposed to have come from Green Castle, where there are such caves. There are at least two Green Castles — one in Donegal and another in Ulster, near Belfast.
Thomas W. Quinn, while teaching in New York, used to visit the Timothy O’Shea family in Yonkers. Later the O’Sheas moved to Burlington, Vermont. Mrs. O’Shea was somehow connected with the Vermont Houstons. Did Mrs. Susan McCarthy have a daughter by her first husband? Mrs. O’Shea might have been a granddaughter.
Information on the early history of the Houston family is believed to have been obtained by a daughter of John Sloane Houston — Dora Houston of Des Moines, IA, or Mrs. Ford, Seattle, WA, wife of a railroad executive in the early 1900s.
In closing a letter dated November 8th, 1936, Aunt Ann wrote: “I am enclosing a saying of my father’s.” The enclosure was an air-burned newspaper clipping reading:
“Predestination” by Douglas Malloch (poem included in original document)
William Sloane Houston and Alice Lappin, and William’s sister Ellen and John Finnegan, were married on the same day at St. Albans, Vermont, in 1849. They came directly to Taberg where the men worked in a Tannery. They lived in a house part-owned by Thomas Duffy, thought to be located on a bluff at the juncture of two roads in Taberg. William and his brother-in-law helped to cut the road to Coal Hill, where William ran a saw mill. They had a home there with one kitchen which they shared.
Alice Houston Quinn was about 8 years old when the Civil War began. After the close of the war, fur was $16.00 to $20.00 a barrel. She recalled seeing ox teams hauling lumber and bark past their home to Taberg, with just the horns of the oxen appearing above the deep snow.
Wild strawberries as large as cultivated ones were plentiful, with no way to preserve them except in crocks as jam or drying them in the sun. Candles were made by tying strings to a stick and repeatedly dipping into warm tallow until candles formed. Later there were moulds of metal. Following candles there were spirit, whale oil, and kerosene lamps.
John King, who married William Sloane Houston’s half-sister Ann McCarthy Houston, recalled that as a boy his family lived mostly on homegrown food — potatoes, cabbage, corn, wheat, eggs, milk, pork, deer and bear meat, maple sugar, etc. He enlisted in the Civil War at age 17.
In an old book, “The Indian and the Pioneer”, describing conditions in the settlement of the Finger Lakes Region about 1795 to 1840, mention is made of men reaping (cradling) grain. The average man cradled 2 acres a day, some 3 acres, and a few exceptionally strong and skilled men 4 acres a day. The pay per acre was 25 cents.
William Sloane Houston, according to his son James L. Houston, was a 4-acre cradler. When he was 75 or 76 he cradled around a plot of 6 or more acres on land where the home of Albert Lappin now stands. The balance of the plot was cut by a team sweep reaper. The grain (oats) was then bound by hand into bundles by twisting wisps of the reaped oats.
The cradle consisted of a snath with a heavy long scythe blade and an attachment of several wooden guards several inches apart above the blade, to deposit the cut grain evenly in bundle form. The cradle weighed 20 or more pounds.
The log house built by Patrick Houston on the farm at Fairfield Center was used as late as 1919. The tenant on the farm, then owned by McGovern, was unable to get fuel for the 15-room house, probably due to shortages caused by World War One.
Most local information was collected by John Houston, grandson of William. John died in 1962. A daughter of William, Ann Houston, supplied most information relating to early days in New York State, Canada, and Vermont.
Excerpt from Rome Daily Sentinel — Tabloid Tales from the Past, January 20, 1926: The Rome Chamber of Commerce marked the completion of 14 years of service at its annual banquet. Guest speakers were R.B. Woodward of Rochester and Douglas Malloch, Poet and Humorist.