Luman Roberts Homestead at 4575 N. Main St. in Hemlock NY

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The Luman Roberts Homestead

at 4575 N. Main St. in Hemlock NY.

Photo courtesy of Joy Lewis 2020.

Luman Roberts was a month old in the winter of 1814 when his father moved the family from Dutchess County, New York to a farm in the township of Russia (Herkimer County). The children of Peter and Diadama Roberts at that time were four: David age eight; Orrin, five; Mary, two; and the newborn Luman. Three more would be added to the family in the next decade: Almira, Luke, and Noble.

Another move when Luman was in his late teens took the family to Verona (Oneida County), where Luman was apprenticed to the local wheelwright. By the time he’d served the term of his training he had become “a skillful workman [with] a record for faithful service and superior work.” He was married at age twenty-nine to Mary Earl and a few years later a child was born. The baby, however, did not survive and there were to be no more children.

Luman lived to his early nineties and when he died in 1905 his brother Luke wrote a lengthy and informative obituary (which appeared in the September 26, 1905, edition of the Paxton, Illinois, Daily Record). Luke praised his brother’s workmanship and detailed Luman’s life after his marriage.

From Luke we may learn that Luman and Mary arrived in Hemlock Lake about 1846. Several members of the Roberts family also made the move to Hemlock including brothers Luke, David, and Noble, their mother Diadama, and a sister. Luman bought a lot on Main Street “on which he built a dwelling house” and two lots across the road (4574) where he built a carriage shop and a blacksmith. Two young men, both in their early twenties, lived with Luman and worked for him: Mary’s younger brother William and the apprentice Eli Ferris.

Very soon after arriving in Hemlock Luman joined the Hemlock Odd Fellows Lodge, whose meetings were held in the upstairs room of Lewis Carroll’s downtown store. (After the Civil War this group was disbanded; a revived Odd Fellows Lodge was formed in Hemlock in 1898.) A strict T-Totaler, Luman, his brother Luke, and several others, founded the “Sons of Temperance” Lodge 121 at Hemlock.

For nearly a decade Luman and Mary lived in Hemlock, until 1855 when they sold their home and business, packed up their gear, and moved to Illinois.

A pride of Lyons lived in Livingston County and nearby Ontario in the early years of the nineteenth century. There was the family of Seth and Sarah Lyon in Lima — they had eighteen children. The Oliver Lyon family lived in West Richmond; he and his wife Betsey were the parents of two daughters and five sons. Simeon Lyon, father of eleven, was an early settler of Naples. A distant cousin, Luther Smith Lyon, was born in Massachusetts in 1806, the son of Wakeman Lyon and Judith Smith.

Luther was in his early thirties when he showed up in Hemlock in 1837. His occupation was given as “lumberman” so it may be inferred that he was involved with one of the several local sawmills in operation at that time. His first home, which he shared with his mother, was near the foot of the lake, but by 1855 when he bought the Luman Roberts house on Main Street he was a married man with a family.

Luther’s wife Eliza was ten years younger than he; they had three children: Emily was fourteen; Charles, twelve, and Marietta, ten. Luther owned several parcels of land in town, from the lake shore to downtown. When he moved to this house, he also bought the lot next door to the south (4581) on which he built a cooper shop. George Glazier worked the cooperage for a few years before buying it from Luther about 1859.

It was in that year that Luther, Eliza, and the children sold up and moved to West Bloomfield where they remained for three decades. Both he and she are buried in the West Bloomfield Cemetery.

Anna Lyon, daughter of Seth and Sarah Lyon of Lima, was a shirt-tail relation of Luther. She was nearly sixty when she acquired this house. Her principal home was in Lima, but she spent many months of each year living with her niece, Sarah Cook, and Sarah’s husband George in their home atop the hill (4461).Anna’s older sister Polly was married to John Ganoung; Sarah was John and Polly’s daughter. George Cook wasa leather worker with a boot and shoe shop in downtown Hemlock.

Anna Lyon rented out the house she owned in Hemlock.For some years the widow Esther Jenkins and her younger children lived here. The daughter of Isaac Adams and Lucretia Holmes, Esther was born in Richmond in the summer of 1815. At age twenty she married John Jenkins, an Irishman working in the lumbering works of Slab City. Their first home, at the foot of Hemlock Lake, was probably one of the many slab-built houses so ubiquitous to the early settlement.

Within a year or so they welcomed their first child, Elinor. Archie was born the next year and Lucina three years after that. As the family grew John took up the shoemaking trade — the need for footwear was a never-ending want in the young settlement.

Lucina was still an infant when John purchased half-interest in the lakeside inn called The Halfway House. Fifteen years earlier a work crew was busy surveying and grading the roadbed over Bald Hill, from Hemlock to Springwater (today Route 15A). Abner Goodrich, who lived in the area, saw how fatigued the workmen were at the end of each day and took action. He built a double-log cabin on the hillside above the lake for his family. Then he offered inexpensive accommodation to the road workers; he named his establishment in honor of its placement halfway between the head of the lake and the foot.

Abner later moved his family to the mid-west and sold the Halfway House. In 1842 John Jenkins became owner of half the inn. (John Martin owned the other half of the business.) The inn on the hillside afforded a “fine view of the lake” and the two men did a brisk business. To accommodate his growing family, John Jenkins built a log home beside the inn. During the decade they lived there four more children were born: Lucy, Emily, Lydia, and John. When Mr. Jenkins died in the spring of 1853 his eldest child was fifteen, his youngest, four.

Mrs. Jenkins was hard put to make a living of the inn. She sold up. For a short while she and the children lived with her brother Willis in Canandaigua. In 1860 Esther came back to Hemlock with the three youngest children and rented Anna Lyon’s house on Main Street. Daughter Lucy stayed with her uncle, and the three oldest children found work on area farms. By taking in sewing Esther was able to make ends meet. In the course of time daughter Lydia married and set up housekeeping in the house next door to the north (4567). For about a decade the Jenkins family remained in Hemlock, before moving back to Richmond to be near extended family. Esther died in 1878; both she and John are buried in the Richmond Center Cemetery.

Anna Lyon’s house was unoccupied in 1870. She died two years later and her brother Justus sold the house to Nathaniel Fowler, who rather quickly resold it to Surrell Wemett.

Surrell Wemett was the son of Mitchell Ouimet and Marie-Anne Lague, born in Quebec, Canada in the spring of 1816. When he was about six his mother died; her surviving children included Surrell (whose name is sometimes misspelled “Cyril”), his older sister Sophia and his younger sister Marie. A short time later the family moved to Lowville, New York (Lewis County). Mitchell Anglicized his surname to “Wemett.” He remarried and three more sons were born: Theodore, Mitchell, Jr., and Stephen.

When Surrell was twenty-six, he was married to Sarah Clark, a local girl. Their first child, Elinor, was born within the year. She was an infant when Surrell and Sarah moved to a farm in Alexandria Bay (Jefferson County). Their first son, George, was born there in 1848 but died about two years later. Emmeretta was born in 1849 and Theodore two years later. Theo was about ten when the family relocated to a farm in Canadice, where a number of Surrell’s cousins had earlier settled.

The children grew up, married, and moved away from home. In 1878 Surrell was sixty-two and retired from farming. Sarah was a year younger. They bought the house on Main Street in Hemlock and moved in with Sarah’s older sister, Betsy. The Livonia Gazette reported in August 1880:“Mrs. Surrell Wemett of Hemlock, whose leg was broken by the falling of a barn door, is slowly recovering.” Then eight years later: “The family of Surrell Wemett wish to tender their sincere thanks to the friends and neighbors for the kindness shown during the recent sickness of Mrs. Wemett.” Sarah Wemett died in Hemlock in the autumn of 1888 and is buried in Union Cemetery.

After his wife’s death Surrell moved to Livonia Center where he died January 11, 1895.

For six decades the houseremained in the possession of the Surrell Wemett family — from the elderly parents to their widowed daughter-in-law Ella Sherwood Wemett and her son and daughter, then to Ella’s sister-in-law Emmeretta (daughter of Surrell and Sarah), who owned it until her death in 1933. After Surrell moved away to Livonia Center, the house was rented to a succession of tenants.

Charles Dehr was in his early thirties, a baggage handler for the Lehigh Railroad. He lived here for about four years with his wife Rhoda and his younger brother Halton. They rented a room to a young woman named Mary Miller (who may have been Rhoda’s sister). During the time they lived here two Dehrsons were born: Alton in 1899 and Charles in 1902. By the time the younger boy was five the family had moved to Lancaster (Erie County), New York, Charles’ home ground. A few years later the couple divorced. Charles died in March 1933.

In 1910 the Ira Martin family lived here. Ira, a railroad conductor, was married to Estelle and the father of a little girl, nine-year-old Bertine. In 1912 a baby brother arrived: Ira, Jr. The family moved to Monroe County shortly afterward, where a second daughter, Paula, was born. When Paula was five or six the family moved again to Los Angeles; Charles died there in 1944.

The house was rented by day laborer William Knapp, forty-four, in 1920. He and his wife Mary, a dressmaker, had two sons: Harold, seventeen, and Earl, thirteen. In 1925 Dr. Harold Trott and his wife Hazel rented the house, until they bought their own place just down the road in 1928 (4593). The Michael Chicknewski family were the next residents, moving in when the Trotts moved out. A day laborer, Mr. Chicknewski paid twelve dollars a month rent. Both Michael and his wife Josephine were in their middle-thirties; both were of German heritage. They had two children. George was nine and Mary was four. Josephine’s elderly father John Stoltman, a laborer at the Waterworks, lived with them as well.

The heirs of Emmeretta Wemett sold the house in November 1939 to George Watson of Conesus. After a lifetime of hard work — farming, “working out,” railroad patroller — Mr. Watson was glad to retire to the quiet village of Hemlock. He was seventy-two years old; his wife Emma was in her late sixties. Together they had raised five sons and two daughters, now grown, married, and living elsewhere. Mr. and Mrs. Watson lived here about ten years.