Hi Celeste.
I believe Sidney N. Dean was the grandson rather than the son of Nelson Dean. He was born about 1875. His mother was Emma Augusta Dean (b. Dec 1856).
Here is a story about Sidney's great great grandfather, Daniel Lobdel:
http://news2.nnyln.net/watertown-re-union/search.htmlTHE WATERTOWN RE-UNlON
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 1896
TALES OF FIFTY YEARS
When Indians Roamed the
Wilds of New York.
SETTLERS DARED NOT GO FAR
FROM HOME.
Mrs. Turner Relates the Stories Handed
down from Her Ancestors-Of Local
Interest to Northern New York.
Mrs. E. Turner, formerly of Wolf island, contributes the following article to a Montreal paper, which will be found of great interest to our local readers:
In the early wars between England and France, when the Indians roamed the forest with, hardly a rival save the wild beasts, the Indians were always on the alert to capture white people for the French. Settlers dared not go far from their homes on the Mohawk flats, near Albany, a district but sparsely settled by German and Dutch farmers, whose effort was to clear the forest and make a home for themselves in the wilderness. Mrs. Turner's great grandfather, then a boy of thirteen years, was in the barn with two younger brothers threshing, when they were pounced upon by Indians. The boy heard the shout "Run Dan run—Indians!” and he ran and hid. The Indians found them all and took them into the farmyard, where they had their choice, to go as prisoners or be scalped. They went as prisoners. Their parents were absent on a visit to another part of the country and had thus escaped capture - perhaps death. As the Indians passed the home of the boy's aunt they found her baking bread and captured her as she stood taking her with them. They, however, cured her of asthma before her return home, which to her was a blessing.
The whole party were prisoners for three years. They were then exchanged for other prisoners in English hands. The Indians in these days were good herb doctors. The party reached Montreal, via St. Albans, after suffering many privations. The scalps taken no [sic] this raid were strung on a scalp pole, each end carried on the shoulders of two Braves of the tribe, and the scalps dangling in full view of the prisoners. The whole party of prisoners mentioned were sold for a quart of fire water to an old Indian chief who resided near Kingston. They had a long and tedious tramp to Kingston, trees "blazed" through the forest marking the only road. They were kindly cared for at Kingston,
then a mere hamlet, by an old squaw and thus three years later were hearty and strong when sent back to the Mohawk flats to bring joy to the mother who had mourned them as
dead.
Mrs. Turner’s great grandfather had made friends in Kingston and returned thither, after having spent some time with his parents. He afterwards married Miss Jane Low, of Kingston, where his family of eight children were born, and where his wife died, his eldest girl being just 12 years old. This was Mrs. Turner's grandmother. She remembered having seen Tecumseh, and smoke of his noble mein and fine presence, as he was six feet high. She also saw General Brock, of famous memory. The Indians were always friends of young Daniel, Mrs. Turner's great grandfather, and had taught him to be an expert woodman and hunter. His eldest daughter married Mr. Cook, and settled in the vicinity of Crystal, now known as Williamsville. They were on a visit to Mrs. Turner's father in Belleville once, when the Rev. Stephen Miles, an old printer before he became
an itinerant Methodist preacher, paid them a visit. He told them of seeing an old Indian friend in Western Canada, and how delightful the meeting was to the red men. Azael Cook was married to Elizabeth Lobdell, 1816, by the venerable archdeacon, John Smart.
Mr. Cook was a contractor of Kingston, formerly of East Haddam, Conn., where the blue-law Yankees lived. Mrs. Cook was greatly tried when the Indians learned that her father, their old friend, had made their house his home. They always came and borrowed
what they required with no thought of returning it, and held their dances on an eminence near by, where fire-water or whisky played too important a part in their pow-wows. The chiefs were first and the medicine men next in rank. The chiefs had feathers in their heads, wore wristlets, anklets and deerskin belts, ornamented with the teeth of wild animals. This dress and their painted faces made them hideous. The medicine men served soup to the squaws seated in the circle, each taking a sip of it as it was pased [sic] around. The squaws carried the children fastened to flat boards and the only furniture of their wigwams was the bed of hemlock branches. A pot hung upon a pole, each end of which rested on the stump of a tree, with the fire between. This furnished a cooking department,
and when the fire burned the warriors danced around it. They had a dance for nearly everything, and one Indian kept time with a stick, beating a tree stump while the rest danced.
An old squaw named Snowstorm came to borrow a jug from my grandmother
and so bothered her that finally she turned upon the squaw and said very solemnly, 'If you don't clear out, I'll send the devil after you.' Then Snowstorm went off as though she were
really being thus chased.
Mrs. Turner tells other stories concencerning [sic] the Indians, which were given to her by her ancestors: —
When my grandmother was with the Indians, while at Kingston, they were very hungry, and the whole band in their bark canoes set out in search of food. They went to Cape Vincent, then only a small clearing with a log house on it. When they landed an Indian exclaimed, "There is a bear tree." They at once chopped it down. To be sure there was Mr. Bear. They dispatched him at once and the squaws took the entrails to the lake and washed them until perfectly clean and white. This they cooked and ate without pepper or salt, which must have been very tasteless. Doubtless many of the old readers
of the "Witness" remember the Grape island mission and its converts, under the guiding hand of the Rev. William Case, or Elder Case, as he was called. How well I remember the dear old man, filled with loving kindness and trusting in God alone for help. One of his first converts was a n Indian by the name of John Sunday, who became a helping missionary among his brethren, converting many of them. He afterwards went to England and was presented to her majesty the queen. Victoria gave him a Bible, the secret of England's greatness. On his return home he married an English lady. She, with her husband, spent their lives among the Indians, converting, educating and leading them
to find a home in heaven above. I remember in the old Prince street church at Belleville the Rev. Mr. Sunday's address on the Indian belief, their superstitions and their religious
habits at the time of death. When an Indian died they believed they were going to their happy hunting grounds, called there by their Great Spirit. They also believed that they originally came from the land of the rising sun; that they were the first to inhabit the
earth. I have heard grandmother tell the manner in which they carried goods from place to place in summer time. Goods were carried in bateaux or flat-bottomed boats, manned chiefly by Frenchmen, with their songs, as they plied the oar, up to Kingston and other places along the river St. Lawrence. Then they were conveyed by wagons to the back countries. I remember hearing my grandfather tell of the building of the Murray tower,
which stands in the water as you enter Kingston harbor, the making of breakwaters and pumps to keep, the water at bay, while they spiked rock to rock on the bottom of the lake.
In the fall of the year, when the small crops were gathered, there used to be lots of pumpkins grown with the corn. Then the good old "pumpkin sass" was made, as well as the pumpkin loaf. This was made of pumpkin and cornmeal and baked in the bake kettle, covered with ashes in the fireplace. My mother says it was splendid. As my grandfather lost all his property in the town of Kingston through signing notes, they went to Wolfe island, then a dense wilderness, with lots of wolves and deer in it. They moved over in a scow and took a cow with them. I suppose it was the oxen and jumper that took their furniture to their woodland home on the big ridge of Wolfe island. My mother says it was in the fall of the year. Moving into a shanty that winter, they thought they would freeze to death, the shanty was so cold, and great fires were on all of the time. There were back logs in a fireplace, and a large box stove in the other end of the shanty; so they had fire in both ends.
Grandfather worked at his trade in Kingston, while grandmother and her children cleared the woodland farm and had a comfortable home for years afterward, God having kept her to see and enjoy the result of her hard labor, having called her to that home on that yonder bright shore at the ripe age of 92 years. The howls of the wolves
were something terrible to them in their new home. The first night the cow got out of her enclosure and the wolves got after her. Then she did more than run to save her life. My
uncle and mother started after her next day, expecting to find only her bones. When they got down to the turnpike, the only road then on the island, they beheld her, as she had
jumped a brush fence and got away from the wolves. The old cow looked at them as much as to say: "Well, you have come after me; I am reconciled to go home and stay there." I don't think they ever had any further trouble with her. About two years
afterward the wolves all left the island. Great packs of them were seen going over on the ice to be a terror to some of the other regions. The wolf is a very shy animal. There used to be lots here. Not many years ago I saw a pack going past our home one evening at, dusk, but did not know what they were, until afterwards in the moonlight they killed a deer only a short distance away. What a fuss and howl they made over it. The next
morning my brother went to see if there was anything left of the deer. There was only a few bones. Next night, they came back and finished that.
There was also quite a lot of amusement at the backwoods weddings. The Rev. J. W. S. Sill was ordained at a very early age and was called on to marry a couple. Being very bashful then, I suppose, he had not much to say. When the time, arrived he went
to the home of the bride, who was not dressed. So he had to wait for her to get ready. The house was full, the yard was full of invited guests. They did not go to be seen and take presents to the bride. They went for a good time, which they generally had. Well, the would-be bride came in. Said she, "Mr. Preacher, I'll be ready as soon as I get my white, frock on." Up the ladder she went, and down she came with it on. Then she went to wrestling with her husband, boxing him around; but when the finale came, she got on the
wrong side. "Ah," said Mr. Sills, "you are on the wrong side." "Well," said she, "I'm going to be boss." So he married her on the wrong side. Then came the big old-fashioned potpie, and all the rest of the eatables.
Then the bride and groom and their most, intimate friends sat down with Mr. Preacher, and all began to enjoy the potpie, when the bride began to scream and laugh. Mr. Preacher did not know what the matter was, but soon found out. There's was some one under the table stealing the bride's garter. He was supposed to be the lucky fellow to be the next one married. What, fun they had at their corn huskings. The aboriginal young man who got the red ear of corn. Some of the fair maidens knew what it meant when he was seen coming towards her. I'll leave it to the old folks to guess the result. Flax was greatly raised in those early times as prints and cottons and other wearables were very dear, and money scarce. Flax was spun on the small wheel and woven into wearing material. The coarsest of the thread was called tow, which made bags for grains and was put to other household uses, while the finest made beautiful white linen for sheets and tablecloths. Wool was then hand carded, as there were no carding machines. All was spun and woven at home. All that is past and gone. There are carding mills where you can get the wool carded and spun and even woven into cloth, thus lightening home labor.
Mrs. Turner concludes her letters with a very strong plea for the boys to stick to farming and not to turn their backs upon it for city life.
After a bit of research, it was discovered that the “Mrs. Turner” who wrote the above article was in fact Mrs. Edward Furner Jr., whose maiden name was Fanny Maude White. Her mother was the former Elizabeth Cook, daughter of Azel Cook and Elizabeth Lobdell. Elizabeth Cook married Samuel White in 1847. Elizabeth Lobdell’s parents were Daniel Lobdell and Jane Lowe. It was Daniel Lobdell who was captured by Indians about 1778.