Arnold, R. B., p. o. Whitney’s Point, born in Columbia, Chenango county, N. Y., Jan. 4th, 1826, farmer, owns 214 acres, was enrolling officer and deputy marshal of Cortland county, N. Y., during the war, has been highway commissioner of Triangle eight years; wife, Drusilla Sirrine, daughter of John and Betsey (Ross) Sirrine, of Honesdale, Pa., married in 1851, children six, four now living: Edwin D., Emma D., now Mrs. Salma R. Johnson, of Triangle, Devern and Frank J. Parents, Henry and Desire (Ellis) Arnold, natives of Greenwich, Rhode Island.
From:
History of Broome County
with illustrations and biographical sketches
of some of its prominent men and pioneers.
Edited by: H. P. Smith
D. Mason & Co., Publishers
Syracuse, N. Y. 1885[/caption]
Robert Bell worked at home and went to school but little. He went to church every Sunday after he was old enough, to pump the pipe organ in the old Zion’s Church at Mossie; it took two boys to pump it. They got 25 cents apiece every Sunday. When he was twenty-one years old he took his way on foot to Pennsylvania to work at carpenters trade. He had his extra shirt and socks tied in a red handkerchief. He found plenty of work in barns, bridges, wood mills etc. He found a good carpenter to work for and was employed by him for four years.
He found Mother there at Honesdale Wayne Co. Pa, became acquainted in 1851, were married and went to Willett on the farm he had previously been up to and bought. Here Edwin, Mary and Clemma were born. After 6 years they sold out, rented rooms of a neighbor and father hired out to a hardware man to peddle tin. He ran the cart for a year then rented a large farm near Willett village. He had a good dairy and speculated in young stock and horses. He made pretty well at it. But while they were there, diphtheria came in that section and took the two little girls. They died in May and a new little girl came to them in July. In 1863 they left the farm and bought a house and lot down in Georgetown, a little settlement a mile above Willett. While there Father engaged as a clerk in Binghamton NY for a year. Then he was appointed Deputy Provost marshal to take care of the drafting in our county in the Civil War.
by Emma Arnold Graves, as told to her daughter Nellie Graves Dewsnap who hand wrote it in 1933 and passed down to her granddaughter, Suzi Dewsnap
Keeper of the Family 