A Zieley Family Gallery

**********************************************

David Zieley (1824-1913), father of John D. Zieley, son of John D. Zieley II and Nancy Dockstader. Born in Palatine, Montgomery County, NY, on Feb. 12, 1824. He conducted a flour, feed and coal business, and also ran a large steam grist mill that was founded in 1850. This image was taken when he was about 25. (1849?)

Catherine Wetmore Zieley (1829-1911), mother of John Zieley, wife of David Zieley. She was born on July 8, 1829. Her parents were Pythagoras Wetmore and Nancy Jessop. David and Catherine were married on May 21, 1851.

Sherman Zieley (1863-1885), brother of David Jr. and John. He died at the age of 21.

David Zieley Jr. (1866-1927), brother of John and Sherman.

John D. Zieley III, possibly around 14 or 15.

Memoirs of John D. Zieley ~ 1870–1942 I was born on January 27, 1870, at five minutes past twelve o' clock on a cold and stormy winter's night, in the old colonial stone house just at the top of Academy Hill in Canajoharie, New York. My earliest recollections are of this house and its back porch with white pillars supporting its deep set inverted V roof. My memory goes back to when I was possibly four or five years old, and at that time my sisters Anna and Mary were fifteen and seventeen respectively, and my oldest brother Sherman (who was named after General Sherman) ten, and David, my other brother, eight. I recall some of the friends of my sisters who used to visit our home, their girl friends, Virginia Spraker, Sarah Van O'Linda, Mary Bragdon, Phoebe Stafford, and "Nat" Seward (the latter a beautiful girl, I can recall distinctly how she used to try to kiss me much to my displeasure); their boy friends, Harvey Donaldson, who afterwards married my sister Mary, Harry Swartfigure, who became the husband of Mary Bragdon, and Fred Spraker, the brother of Virginia. The back of our house faced the river and there was a steep decline to the street below where lived my mother's parents, my grandparents Wetmore. Grandfather Wetmore, whose given name was Pythagoras (but he always called himself P. Wetmore), was a kindly old gentleman who evidently had a keen sense of humor, as I can recall his antics to amuse me. He was a practicing attorney and counsellor at law, as I remember his weatherbeaten sign stated, and well do I remember his little white square office built out in front of his house. The latter set well back from the street with a flower garden and a lawn in front, and the office just to the right, directly on the street. I remember just how the office looked with its leather chairs, books and dusty papers. My grandfather was a student of botany and chemistry, and he devoted more time to these than to the law, and for this reason he was never financially very well off. Canajoharie, now better known as Beechnuttown, is geographically about midway between Schenectady and Utica and just across the Mohawk River from Palatine Bridge, the railroad station on the New York Central, which received its name from the old wooden covered bridge which crossed the river at this point. Before the advent of the West Shore Railroad, Canajoharie was a quaint old town antedating the Revolutionary War, its history rich in story and named by the Indians after the swimming hole called the "boiling pot," a circular hole worn in the bed of the creek which at this spot joined the river, and where we boys used to swim. There was a village green with a liberty pole, with stores and houses facing it on four sides. On one side stood the Lovett House, a long, low, rambling building painted white, with a long covered porch, and the Post Office, a little white square wooden building along the side of the hotel, with a stair on the outside leading up to a law office over the Post Office. In front of the hotel was the town pump and watering trough for horses. This hotel was later on demolished to make way for the new Hotel Wagner. The square was also broken up by the railroad running right through it and cutting off one side of the square.

Wagner Square area of Canajoharie. The Lovett House on the left, the Post Office is on the right. The brick building on the Hill is the Canajoharie Academy, which was replaced with a new school in 1892. Susan B. Anthony taught in that building. This photo pre-dates 1881, as the Wagner Hotel had not yet been built.

The memoirs continue: At this period, 1870 to 1880, Canajoharie was a bustling country village, the center of a prosperous farming community with a few manufacturing enterprises, Arkell & Smith Paper Bag factory, the largest, my father's flour mill, the L. B. Clark Lumber Mill and Trunk Factory, and the Yates Malt House. The Arkell & Smith Paper Bag Company was organized by the late Senator James Arkell, President of the Beechnut Packing Company. He conceived the idea of making flour bags out of paper in my father's place of business during the rebellion, when cotton bags became scarce due to the shortage of cotton. He experimented with the paper bags in my father's flour mill, He invented the machinery to make them, and he needed the capital to start this enterprise. He wanted my father to join him, but Father had just built the mill and was head over heels in debt for same, and was trying to work out his indebtedness out of the profits, and he was in no position to join in this most meritorious enterprise, but he did induce his most intimate friend, Benjamin Smith, to back Arkell and the result was Arkell and Smith (Adam Smith, a cousin, also a member of the firm) became one of the best known flour bag manufacturers in the world. The Parlor Car is another important invention which was conceived of by a resident of Canajoharie. This was invented by the late Senator Webster Wagner. He owned and operated a small wagon shop, and he built his first model of a parlor sleeping car in this shop, which he made out of a cigar box. He was also a friend of Father's, and he showed him this model. Father, at this time, had the friendship of Mr. Livingston Spraker, who was a banker and a wealthy resident of Canajoharie. He owned a large interest in the Utica and Schenectady Railroad, which at that time ran between these two places. He was my father's cousin, and it was he who backed Father in building the flour mill. Father suggested to Wagner that he submit his model to Mr. Spraker, which he did, and Spraker gave him a letter to Cornelius Vanderbilt, who was at this time forming the great railroad system which afterwards became the New York Central and Schenectady Railroad, [that] became an important link in the great trunk line. Mr. Vanderbilt became interested in Wagner's invention and formed the Wagner Palace Car Company, which for years operated exclusively on all the Vanderbilt roads and made Webster Wagner both wealthy and famous. My father, Mr. David Zieley, was born on February 12, 1824, on his father's farm in the town of Palatine, near Stone Arabia, where his boyhood days were spent and where he attended school in the quaint little rural school near that village. He obtained a position in Albany in a dry goods store where he worked for a few years. It was during this time that he conceived the idea of establishing a flour and grain business in Canajoharie, with the assistance of his father, who mortgaged the farm to help him. He started in to build the large steam flour mill that at this early time was a big undertaking. He was assisted through his financial troubles by Livingston Spraker, but eventually unable to obtain further help from him, he sought assistance from an old friend of his family, Daniel Cady, and Uncle Daniel, as Father called him, loaned sufficient funds to Father to tide him over, and thus saved him from ruin.

David Zieley's stone steam mill, built about 1850.

Besides the steam mill which Father built on the bank of the Erie Canal, just west of the old malt house, he also built coal pockets for loading anthracite coal, and he was the first dealer in coal in this part of the state. He also ran a general store in another part of the village near the Main Street Canal bridge, on the site of the present plant of the Beechnut Packing Company. He also owned and operated a line of canal boats between Buffalo and his mill, and between New York and the mill. He would purchase grain in one or the other points, and sell the products wherever he could obtain the best market for same. He was the pioneer manufacturer of buckwheat flour in New York State, and at one time was the largest manufacturer of this product in the United States. He introduced the raising of buckwheat in central New York, sold the farmers their seed, and bought back their crops of buckwheat. Most of his flour and mill products he sold in New York City; the largest customer for his flour was Hecker Jones Jewell Company, who market prepared buckwheat flour under their name and trademark. In 1877, Father was conducting his business with two partners, John Vickers and Emerson Stafford, under the name of Zieley & Vickers. For some unaccountable reason, Father sold his interest in the business to Emerson Stafford, and decided to move West with his family. He left Canajoharie in 1877, and moved to a farm in Iowa between two towns, Commanch and Clinton, a few miles from both. At this time, I was seven years old, and I recall clearly our trip to the West. We left Canajoharie on a night train, my sister Anna, my brothers Sherman and David, Mother taking charge of the four of us, and Father looking out for the baggage and lunch baskets. At this period there were no sleeping cars, so we all slept as best as we could in ordinary day coach seats. The train stopped at almost every station, and it was a slow and tedious trip. I have often wondered how my dear, sweet mother ever managed to transport her four children, with all the responsibility and lack of comforts such a trip involved, without some accident, but somehow she did. I can clearly recall our home in Iowa, a large, square white house, with a cupola set in a large yard enclosed by a fence, a big backyard with barns for cattle and horses, woodshed, smoke house, chicken houses and cyclone cellar. My favorite amusement was hunting eggs. I liked the chickens, and when I think of our Iowa home I always recall the chickens, and can remember how I used to crawl under the barn and find where the old spotted hen had begun to collect a nest of eggs. Directly back of the barns, and to one side, there was a big field where corn was so high I could lose myself among the tall stalks, like I imagined a forest must be, and in among the corn were tangled vines with large pumpkins scattered countlessly. In another adjoining plot were melons, both sweet musk and watermelons, and nearby were grown sweet potatoes and other luscious edibles, all of which were interesting marvels. Back of this cultivated area, there was an open country separated from it by a high log fence, and beyond this barrier rolled away, as far as the eye could reach, a level prairie, a vast, mysterious void where I was never allowed to go, but which fascinated me, and at the same time frightened me, which I peopled with all kinds of mysterious things. Men used to call at our house on the way into the prairie with guns on their saddles, and they would gallop off into the unknown, and return days later loaded with prairie chickens.

On the left side of our section ran a road back into the open country, and on the extreme left of the rough cowpath road was a patch of woods, and in among the trees was built a number of log cabins. I remember one day my father took me for a walk along this road, and just as we reached the woods, there suddenly appeared several horsemen, rough-looking, bearded men, who rushed by us and halted before one of the log cabins, the door of which was closed. One of them picked up a big chunk of wood, hurled it against the door, and as it struck, the door crashed open and out stepped a big tall man who leveled a long-barrelled gun at the horsemen, but before he could shoot, several guns banged and the man dived headlong forward, stone dead. We ran as fast as we could just as soon as we realized what had happened. This all took place faster than I can tell it. The horsemen galloped away, but did not molest us; and we learned afterwards that they were Jesse James and his band, and the man they had killed was one of their band who had turned traitor. Our house was situated on a high bluff, and from our porch we could see the broad Mississippi River, and could watch the big river boats with their big stern paddles ply up and down the river. Between our place and the river, on the flats at the foot of the bluff, were several large mills, and we used to see long rafts of big logs come floating up to these mills where they were sawed into big planks and beams and loaded on steamers and taken away. And down the river, some miles below these mills, was a town called Commanche, a name which seemed very peculiar to me, and I wondered who named it until my father told me it was named after a tribe of Indians. Our cattle used to go down to the river every morning as soon as they were let out of the barnyard and swim over to an island in the river where they used to roam all day and return home at sundown, and everybody's cows did the same. It was a remarkable sight to see these herds of cattle swimming back home and hear their moo-ing as they arrived back on shore. Along the foot of the bluff, just below our place, ran the main highway connecting the city of Clinton just above with the lumber towns and Commanche. On one side of this road was built a long board, running for miles between the towns. In those days wood was cheap, and walking was bad in rough weather, so the mills built the boardwalks. Father sent to Chicago and bought us three boys wooden velocipedes painted a bright red, and we used to ride to and from school on these. I do not remember much about school, but I do recall a Christmas party in a little church, and a star of Bethlehem lighted with candles, and bags of popcorn and candy which were given us. One incident stands out in my memory more strongly than any other in my recollections of Iowa. Suddenly one day, Father called for us at school with his buckboard and team of Rocky Mountain ponies. He arrived before the close of session, which was a very unusual thing for him to do. He hurried us into the wagon and drove like fury for home. Continued on page four...