Spring Sends Memory Back to Black Hannah and Old Days of NT, article (Elizabeth Wherry, Tonawanda News, 1961-04-01).png
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Spring Sends Memory Back to Black Hannah and Old Days of NT, article (Elizabeth Wherry, Tonawanda News, 1961-04-01).png
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Spring Sends Memory
Back to Black Hannah
And Old Days of NT.
By ELIZABETH WHERRY
Of The NEWS Staff
Rake in hand, you reflect that spring has again scorned the calendar.
Regardless of printed announcements she has always chosen her own date to put in her first appearance — sure of recognition and welcome, early or late. So you stand bemused, while this shimmering gold and blue merges with and becomes part of yesterdays within your memory, and beyond.
Your Spaniel stirs at your side, and her eyes looking up at you glint warmly, surprisingly brown in her black face. You hear an elder’s voice from across the years, “I like a nice brown eye on a Spaniel.” And this dog, like the day, becomes a composite of others.
When you turn your face back up to the sun, there’s a high drift of cloud off east . . . and beyond that cloud, Black Hannah’s Woods.
Black Hannah! You’re a child again listening to the “visiting” of family gatherings that often encompassed three or more generations. What book could equal the fascination of those conversations?
So you know that sympathizers let Black Hannah take refuge in North Tonawanda in Civil War days. And the woods were and still are Black Hannah’s because her cabin was built there, and there she lived for years.
IF YOU HAD BEEN 9 or 10 years old in 1880, say, Black Hannah would have been a familiar part of your life. From your father’s land on Mile Line Road (now Division Street) and the New Road (now Goundry Street), a lane led back to Black Hannah’s.
Surely she was the forerunner of local babysitters, for when your parents went to “town,” went visiting, or to Buffalo, she “sat” with you and the other children.
You went back through the lane at will to visit her, too. A bench made of logs leaned against the cabin, and her horse was tied to a log rail. Black Hannah would see you coming and wave from the door, calling, “Are you hungry?”
You always were, and when you were inside, Black Hannah went to her black cupboard and gave you cup-cakes loaded with maple sugar. Or she might take three steps down to her dug-out cellar, and then you would have cottage-cheese she had made piled thickly on old-fashioned brittle crackers, topped off with salt or sugar. In season, berries were on the fare.
RIGHT NEAR Black Hannah’s was a sulphur well. People from “all over” came to get the water for medicinal purposes. One local man attempted to commercialize the water but was unsuccessful. Seemingly you had to go to the pure source.
(. . . Names of principals in these events are clear in your memory. For that matter, there are at least two venerables of that era surviving with sharp first-hand memories. Incidentally, one of the venerables remembers Black Hannah as a small woman with “a dear little face.” To the other, she appeared larger, with formidable white teeth, and a rather alarming habit of shaking one’s arm.)
Oh yes, townspeople knew Black Hannah, and she knew some of them possibly better. Young ladies and gentlemen went to her to have their fortunes told. Tea cup reading was one of her methods. There’s the story of the Young Blade, bent on delving into his future, over whose cup Black Hannah remained silent. When pressed, she finally said only, “I have nothing to say to you!” Could she possibly have foreseen that shortly after this he would ask a friend to accompany him to Buffalo? That the friend would be unable to, and that he would go alone, disappearing without trace?
Ah well and lackaday, time went its way and Black Hannah went to her reward. And the no longer nine-or-10-year-old and others paid their last respects to her.
YOUR DOG BARKS questioningly and then follows you as you take the rake to the back porch. You’re not going to rake. You and the dog are going down across Mile Line Road, or Division Street, if you prefer. Once across Division you won’t trek through old orchards and fields as you did so often in past years. But when you have advanced through the built-up areas, you will go through the “rooms” that are left, formed by the old tree and brush field boundaries, with breaks as “doors” between each one. Along the southern boundary of the final “room” there will be the magnificent line of elms. You will stand under the elms to hear their unfailing soothing “Hush, hush, hush” — and then on to Black Hannah’s Woods.
Spring Sends Memory
Back to Black Hannah
And Old Days of NT.
By ELIZABETH WHERRY
Of The NEWS Staff
Rake in hand, you reflect that spring has again scorned the calendar.
Regardless of printed announcements she has always chosen her own date to put in her first appearance — sure of recognition and welcome, early or late. So you stand bemused, while this shimmering gold and blue merges with and becomes part of yesterdays within your memory, and beyond.
Your Spaniel stirs at your side, and her eyes looking up at you glint warmly, surprisingly brown in her black face. You hear an elder’s voice from across the years, “I like a nice brown eye on a Spaniel.” And this dog, like the day, becomes a composite of others.
When you turn your face back up to the sun, there’s a high drift of cloud off east . . . and beyond that cloud, Black Hannah’s Woods.
Black Hannah! You’re a child again listening to the “visiting” of family gatherings that often encompassed three or more generations. What book could equal the fascination of those conversations?
So you know that sympathizers let Black Hannah take refuge in North Tonawanda in Civil War days. And the woods were and still are Black Hannah’s because her cabin was built there, and there she lived for years.
IF YOU HAD BEEN 9 or 10 years old in 1880, say, Black Hannah would have been a familiar part of your life. From your father’s land on Mile Line Road (now Division Street) and the New Road (now Goundry Street), a lane led back to Black Hannah’s.
Surely she was the forerunner of local babysitters, for when your parents went to “town,” went visiting, or to Buffalo, she “sat” with you and the other children.
You went back through the lane at will to visit her, too. A bench made of logs leaned against the cabin, and her horse was tied to a log rail. Black Hannah would see you coming and wave from the door, calling, “Are you hungry?”
You always were, and when you were inside, Black Hannah went to her black cupboard and gave you cup-cakes loaded with maple sugar. Or she might take three steps down to her dug-out cellar, and then you would have cottage-cheese she had made piled thickly on old-fashioned brittle crackers, topped off with salt or sugar. In season, berries were on the fare.
RIGHT NEAR Black Hannah’s was a sulphur well. People from “all over” came to get the water for medicinal purposes. One local man attempted to commercialize the water but was unsuccessful. Seemingly you had to go to the pure source.
(. . . Names of principals in these events are clear in your memory. For that matter, there are at least two venerables of that era surviving with sharp first-hand memories. Incidentally, one of the venerables remembers Black Hannah as a small woman with “a dear little face.” To the other, she appeared larger, with formidable white teeth, and a rather alarming habit of shaking one’s arm.)
Oh yes, townspeople knew Black Hannah, and she knew some of them possibly better. Young ladies and gentlemen went to her to have their fortunes told. Tea cup reading was one of her methods. There’s the story of the Young Blade, bent on delving into his future, over whose cup Black Hannah remained silent. When pressed, she finally said only, “I have nothing to say to you!” Could she possibly have foreseen that shortly after this he would ask a friend to accompany him to Buffalo? That the friend would be unable to, and that he would go alone, disappearing without trace?
Ah well and lackaday, time went its way and Black Hannah went to her reward. And the no longer nine-or-10-year-old and others paid their last respects to her.
YOUR DOG BARKS questioningly and then follows you as you take the rake to the back porch. You’re not going to rake. You and the dog are going down across Mile Line Road, or Division Street, if you prefer. Once across Division you won’t trek through old orchards and fields as you did so often in past years. But when you have advanced through the built-up areas, you will go through the “rooms” that are left, formed by the old tree and brush field boundaries, with breaks as “doors” between each one. Along the southern boundary of the final “room” there will be the magnificent line of elms. You will stand under the elms to hear their unfailing soothing “Hush, hush, hush” — and then on to Black Hannah’s Woods.
Date
1961-04-01
Collection
Citation
“Spring Sends Memory Back to Black Hannah and Old Days of NT, article (Elizabeth Wherry, Tonawanda News, 1961-04-01).png,” North Tonawanda History, accessed June 17, 2026, https://nthistory.com/items/show/1059.