Collins Mix and the Tioga County Poor House - Part 2

Welcome back to the saga of Collins Mix!  In the last post (Part 1), we ended with my trip to the Tioga County Historical Society in 2009.

So now, we fast forward to 2019.  I know I know, how did 10 years go by?  I don't know!  As far as I know I'm still 15 and forgetting my locker combination in my dreams.  Don't ask me what the hell is going on. :-D

AnyWAY, back to Collins and his family - we discovered him in the 1850 census in the Poor House in Owego, Tioga County, that he was listed as intemperate on the index card, and he died in 1852.

Sure would like to know how Leafe pronounced her name!! "Leaf?" "Leaf-ee?" "Leave?" Who knows?

He came up in conversation during a visit with my cousin Kimberly in New York.  We both do genealogy for the Mix side of our family and we decided to have a visit where we could review and verify our overlaps, etc.  During the visit we decided to take a trip over the the Tioga County Historical Society to see what might come up - maybe we'd find that Keeper's book and find out more about Collins!

The volunteer at the desk at the historical society was incredibly helpful and friendly, but was unable to locate the Tioga County Poorhouse Keeper's Book.  We looked at some microfilms of old newspapers in case we might find Collins mentioned, but no luck.  The volunteer (I'm sorry I don't have his name!!) even called another lady who wasn't there that day to ask if she knew anything about it.  Can you believe, she popped in on her day off and was rummaging around back in their storage area, but no luck.  Librarians and historians and volunteers are the BEST PEOPLE!

They suggested we head over to the local library just a few streets away because they had a mostly un-cataloged family history section filled with donations and maybe we would find something there.  So off we went to the library, with a quick stop for refreshments on the way.

We'd just made it through the door when the librarian behind the desk yelled over to us (yes! the librarian YELLED to two complete strangers): "OH, the historical society called!  They found your book!  They said to come back!"

OMG, how'd she know it was us?  Because she's a LIBRARIAN, THAT'S WHY!

Don't mess with librarians!

So we raced back to the historical society taking corners on 2 wheels and slid sideways into a spot and ran inside and........

TADAHHHHHH

Oddly enough it looks like 3 year old me already saw it and "wrote" on it...

Never was there a more beautiful sight than this little book on the table!

The volunteer historian was so nervous about letting us handle it but we swore on our ancestors we would gently hold it open by hand and just take photos.

You see - it survived a massive flood there a few years back - the whole basement of the Historical Society was under several feet of water and guess where all their records are stored?  Yep, of course!  Apparently they had a company come up from Texas I think it was, they do freeze-drying of records to try and make them usable again after floods.  I can't imagine trying to pick up the pieces after that!  But our book made it - so we quickly looked under the date I'd seen on the index card a decade ago and sure enough, there he is, Collins Mix, admitted 12 Nov. 1850.  But no one is listed under having dropped him there, no info under "Discharged".  POO!

"Colins Mix", male, born NY, 72 yrs old, Intemperate, resides Owego County

But finally after a decade, I've seen the source record, I know the index card was correct.  Awesome feeling!

So my cousin and I bask in the awesomeness for a moment and then she's like, so, let's look and see if he's anywhere else in this book!

Coming soon!  Part 3!!