Ryker Schemerhorn

Ryer Schermerhorn was born in Schodack, Rensselaer County, N. Y., and when he was quite young his father moved from the latter place to Deerfield, Oneida County. He was a tanner, shoemaker and farmer.

Notes on the Family of Ryer Schermerhorn by Mrs. Hibner
I used to sleep under the blue and white bed spreads woven by Grandmother Schermerhorn. I remember how I used to look with interest at the samplers, herbariums and autograph albums of my Aunts Julia and Louise. They with Aunt Harriet were educated at Whitestown Seminary, and Louise became a teacher. These three left no children but lavished a world of love and care on their brother William's children. As one of these latter, I like to write of them. … I quote from an obituary of Aunt Harriet: "Her house was always full of the children of relatives and friends, and it was during the years spent in this devoted Christian house, that Rev. Avery Schermerhorn, now of Gilbert's Mills, N. Y., and Charles, now preparing at Hillsdale College, were placed upon God's altar, for future usefulness in the ministry. Space will not allow me to speak of the wonderful Christian influence of the home over which our sister presided. It was the resultant spiritual force of prayer, praise and prophecy combined. Though she rests from her labors, her works move grandly on, and through tears of hopeful sorrow, her family and friends look up to exclaim 'Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His Saints.' More than one grateful tribute has been written to that household, 'For influence, silent, yet the mightiest, of daily life fulfilling daily prayer.'"

Aunt Julia was a member of the Free Baptist Church at Ellington for nearly fifty years. "Her life was beautiful and radiant beyond description," wrote one who loved her well, "because of her unselfishness." Her hospitality was proverbial. Like Martha she was often encumbered with much serving, but she had Mary's love and devotion to the Master.

"I see her as I saw her standing first,
Within the low-ceiled, vine embowered room,
Through whose unused leaf-curtained doorway burst
The dear old-fashioned roses' sweet perfume.

And beauty born of being good was hers,
The charm of cheerful sweet self sacrifice
Of labor for love's sake through patient years,
Such beauty as the touch of time defies.

My girlish heart went out in quick response
To hers that beckoned in her smiling eyes,
Staunch friends, congenial comrades we at once,
Our interest one, and one our sympathies.

I see her as from room to room she moved
Performing homely tasks with fingers deft.
Her presence made the house the home beloved,
Her absence left it of its soul bereft."

Thus wrote another who loved her. In the late autumn of her life she became the wife of Bradley Boss, the widower of her sister Harriet.

The three sisters who passed so much of their lives together sleep side by side in the cemetery in Kennedy on the banks of the Conewago.

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