Frank Kinch
Wood-Splitter Extraordinary
Beaverkill Old-Timer Is Still Splitting Wood
at Age of 88
by Leslie C. Wood

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The following article, contributed by Anna Lise Vogel, was written in 1960 when Mr. Kinch was 88. There is no indication, however of WHERE it was published. It “looks” like the New York Times but it doesn’t “sound” like the New York Times.

 

Frank Kinch, of Beaverkill displays the form a real old-time wood-splitter uses. The blur of his hands is from motion, not being out of focus, although a shutter speed of 400 was used. This shows how rapidly the old-timer uses a double-bitter. – Photo by Wood.

Boys, if you think you’re a pretty good man (despite a few years), take a trip up to Beaverkill and see an 88-year-old feller splitting wood – and he’s a real man with an axe. None of these light single-bitted axes for him. He uses a double-bitter and (judging from the accompanying picture) it’s a 3 1/2 or four-pounder at that.

This wood-splitter extraordinary is Frank Kinch, one of north Sullivan’s best-known old-timers. He still milks the cow when his son isn’t around and takes care of his team of horses. In summer he helps with the haying.

As remarkable as his wood-splitting is Mr. Kinch’s mind, which is as sound as a dollar. He well remembers names of former residents and told of the old tannery at Beaverkill when interviewed in early December.

Asked to what he attributed his long life, he remarked simply, “Gosh, I don’t know”. He added that he did not smoke or drink and that he had lived a normal life.

In light of modern day living, his life was anything but normal. For nearly a half-century he lived on a 300-acre farm just inside Sullivan County, up Berry Brook near Beaverkill.

He milked 35 cows night and morning by hand, took care of 15 head of young stock and three horses, and had a few sheep to look after.

Some 23 years ago he moved to his present home, which is the first house toward the Beaverkill campsite from the intersection of the Lew Beach road. He declares that he has the hay cut on theplace so it doesn’t grow up to brush as is so much of the adjacent farmland.

Mr. Kinch’s wife, the former Nettie Whitcomb, died a few years ago. Living with him are his son, Isaac, and his daughter, Mrs. Mary Cammer, whose late husband, Jason Cammer, was a blacksmith at Livingston Manor for many years.

There is a second son, Henry, of Rutherford, N.J. A daughter, Emma, died 20 years ago.

Mr. Kinch has six grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren. He is one of a small proportion of people who live to see five generations.

The tannery at Beaverkill, said Mr. Kinch, was near the covered bridge and was owned by Henry Ellsworth and James Murdock. (This was the father, the aged Beaverkill resident recalled. A son by the same name went over on the Delaware in the timber business.).

The tannery burned when he was 12 years old [1895] and from that time the village that was Beaverkill fast disappeared, he recalled. The houses were torn down one by one. Some of the Beaverkill residents in those days recalled by Mr. Kinch were Jay Davidson, Sturgis Bulkley, William Tobey, Alex Butler, Smith Lennox, Abe Butler, and the Hardenberghs. None of these are left.

Mr. Kinch remembered that two uncles, Joshua and Heath P. Kinch, rafted timber down the Beaverkill river from the flatland near the covered bridge where the campsite is located.

It “looks” like the New York Times.

Enlargement

The unusual wood-splitter’s constant companion is a spotted dog, something like a coach dog. He’s a friendly pooch and greets everyone cordially.

It was a real pleasure talking to Mr. Kinch in the kitchen of the big farmhouse. The kitchen is as big as many houses and is heated by a good old-fashioned range. He’s a kindly man.

The wood is sawed with a buzz-saw, but he does all the splitting and piling. There’s some 15 cord piled up.

Like all old-timers, Mr. Kinch liked the wood well-seasoned, but one wonders if it isn’t his love of the the work rather than need for seasoned wood that makes all the piles on the place.

 


 

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