Grandmother Burroughs had sandy hair and a freckled face, and from
her my father and his sister Abby got their red hair. From this
source I doubtless get some of my Celtic blood. Grand-mother
Burroughs had nine children; the earliest ones died in infancy;
their graves are on the hill in the old burying-ground. Two boys
and five girls survived--Phoebe, Betsy, Mary, Abby, Olly, Chauncey
(my father), and Hiram.

I do not remember Grandmother at all. She died, I think, in
1838, of consumption; she was in the seventies. Father said her
last words were, "Chauncey, I have but a little while to live."
Her daughter Oily and also my sister Oily died of consumption.
Grandmother used to work with Grandfather in the fields, and help
make sugar. I have heard them tell how in 1812 they raised wheat
which sold for $2.50 a bushel--a great thing.

Father told me of his uncle, Chauncey Avery, brother of Grandmother
Burroughs, who, with his wife and seven children, was drowned near
Shandaken, by a flood in the Esopus Creek, in April, 1814, or 1816.
The creek rose rapidly in the night; retreat was cut off in the
morning. They got on the roof and held family prayers. Uncle
Chauncey tried to fell a tree and make a bridge, but the water
drove him away. The house was finally carried away with most of
the family in it. The father swam to a stump with one boy on his
back and stood there till the water carried away the stump, then
tried to swim with the boy for shore, but the driftwood soon
engulfed him and all was over. Two of the bodies were never
found. Their bones doubtless rest somewhere in the still waters
of the lower Esopus.