We lived here for a number of years.
Dad bought this place from Bennett's. He was tired of moving around and getting screwed out of places we rented. When you move a gazillion times in your life it can get darn tedious. He wanted a house where he could do what he wanted. He didn't use an agency and didn't get a loan for it. I don't know if he used a lawyer or not. He paid Bennett directly. Dad was working for the town of Kingsbury highway department then. Whether it was a bad decision or not, I can't say. There was no running water so no plumbing. No bathtub, no toilet.
We would later discover that it was impossible to drill a well there because it was all built on a rock ledge. They told our parents it would take a diamond drill at over a thousand dollars an inch and they couldn't even be sure they would find water.
So we used an out house. We bathed in water we drew by pail fulls out of the creek. (need to find the name of that creek) At least twice a week we put two galvanized milk cans behind the front seat of the car, drove to the creek to fill them up and brought them home. This was washing up water, for bathing and washing clothes and sometimes watering the many animals we would have. Mom always had rain barrels to catch water in as well.
For drinking water one of us, usually me, would walk over the field across from us into Bentley's pasture and down into a lush green place where there was a pipe that came out of the side of the rocks. We were told it was an Artesian well and that there was an underground river there. We would clear out some of the water in the old moss covered bathtub he kept there to water his cows with, stick the pail under the pipe till it was filled with clean drinking water and trudge back home being careful not to spill it. I think we did this at least twice a day, sometimes getting two pails.
There was no bottled water available to buy like today and we wouldn't have had the money anyway.
One day I went over there and got my pail of water. I was starting back up the hill when I saw a huge ugly snake. I was terrified and threw the pail of water at it and ran screaming all the way home. I swore when I got home and told Dad to get his own damn water. I was scared and pissed. He went back over with a shovel, killed the snake and brought it home. He yelled for mom to come out. She nearly fainted when she saw him holding up the snake. She wasn't even sure then that it was dead and she kept yelling at him to put it down so he wouldn't get bit. Dad wasn't dumb. he knew it was dead.
He swore it was a copperhead which had never been heard of in New York State before. He called the Game Warden who came out and said it was. I think he took the snake back with him. He was also amazed that one was that far north. Since then a lot more have been found around there.