Head Forester: Clay Bigelow
Children of Lebbeus and Priscilla (Randolph) Bigelow:
15923.73B21 Older brother of Clay, b _____ ; d
______ .
15923.73B22 Clay Wilbur 10 Bigelow, b 08 Oct 1897; d 02 Dec 1962; married with children. (see below)
Sources:
The Bigelow Family Genealogy Vol. II Page 414 child?;
Howe, Bigelow Family of America;
various censuses.
Obit 24 May 1905:
Dr. Lebbeus I. Bigelow
At 8 o'clock Tuesday evening, Dr. Lebbeus I. Bigelow
of 503 Seventh avenue, Juniata; died at the Altoona hospital of paralytic
dementia.
He was taken ill several weeks ago, and on April 27 was admitted to the
Altoona hospital for treatment. He seemed to improve for a time, but
taking a turn for the worse a few days ago, he gradually grew worse until
he passed away. His wife and brother were with him when he died.
Deceased was born at Dubuque, Iowa May 30, 1869. He was educated in his
native town and when a young man decided to study medicine.
He entered the Baltimore Medical college, at Baltimore and was graduated
from that institution several years ago. He came to Juanita two years
ago and located there, was building up a good practice and stood high in
the esteem of the community in which he lived. He was a member of the
Lutheran church and is survived by his wife and one child. He is also survived
by his mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Bigelow of Burnham, PA; three brothers:
Jesse H. and Eliphas C. Bigelow of Juniata, and William Frederick Bigelow
of Belleville, PA; and two sisters: Mrs. G.E. Middlesworth of Pittsburgh
and Mrs. David Yingling of Burnham. The remains will be interred at McConnelstown.
(see note)
New Note Clay:
from magazine article 1937;
SEVENTY-Five Thousand --
That's a lot of trees for one man to care for ....
If you take the footpath up behind the Armory and hike up
the mountain some eightenn hundred yards you'll enter upon a secret few people
share. Or then perhaps you've heard that up on the moutainn there's
a shady and sweet-smelling arboretum that streches leisurely over seven of
Lehigh's Acres and that right beside it are five more acres of experimental
plantation covered with maybe fifty thousand trees-the yellow pine, the jack
pine, linden, pin oak, larch and a host of others. There are seventy-five
thousand trees on those twelve acres and at least one of every kind that
grows in Pennsylvania.
It was in 1918 that the arboretum and plantation first
gained proportions. That was the year Clay Bigelow came to Lehigh as Forester.
He had spent most of his life working in forestry and he's going to spend
the rest of it there. At the turn of the century he was working in the middle
of the state, somewhere near Lewistown. In the steps of his father and older
brother he spent a good twenty years in the forest lumbering for the
charcoal kilns. Working practically independently, he received wages according
to his cordage. A cord is a stack of wood, ranked and cut to size, eight
feet long, four feet high and four feet in the billet. Clay will tell you,
and quite proudly. too, that at the end of a day's work be hauled six cords
of wood out of tbe forest.
Now, at sixty-five he doesn't fear his advancing years.
What he has lost in stamina he has gained in skill, and life has been kind
to him, After twenty prosperous years in the forest he applied for and won
a position as a forest ranger for the state of Pennsylvania. He modestly
attributes his success to the fact that he worked in that region so long
that he couldn't help knowing it by heart. Acting as a combination fire and
game warden, he patrolled his districts for five years and had no mercy for
those who were careless with matches and cigarettes, but he usually missed
young fishermen who tried their luck on state property.
Then in 1918 when Lehigh, after the chestnut blight of
that year, decided to start an experimental plantation of local trees to
study their growth, he was sent by the state to superintend the planting.
In 1919, a fire swept through that area, and in 1920 a plague of locusts
produced the same results. By that time the university had realized that
it needed a permanent forester to take care of their woods and so tendered
the position to Mr. Bigelow. Clay however, was loath to leave the more rustic
life to which he had been accustomed. He offered the position with the additional
raise in pay to several of his associates, but they all refused. He
doesn't mind admitting that there was plenty of doubt in his mind when he
took this position. but now he's getting used to it.
Clay has his vegetable plot, and he has his cbickens,
buthe emphasizes that trees are hisbusiness and his hobby, and hewants nothing
to do with anything lsee. He looks at his trees and tells you, "The first
nine years were all right and I had plenty of time to take care of the arboretum
but the next administration changed thing's
and had me on the campus more than up here, I don't mind chopping down trees,
but when they make you sweep out cellars and carry papers there's not much
use being a forester." There is no anger in his voice, just regret.
He doesn't like to see alumni visit the arboretum and
frown at the unraked ground and uncut grass just because he has no time to
care it the way he wants to. Yet you can hardly blame the university for
asking him to cut down trees when you see how skillfully he does it. Take
the tree in Mr. Litzenberger's backyard, for instance. There, to prevent
the crushing of a young hedge, he built a crib of brush just a bit higher
than the hedge, chopped some here, a little more over there, and the tree
fell, It upended and bounced on the crib over the hedge onto the road, nestling
nicely on a little trestle that had been set there by ............Clay Bigelow
There's an interesting story he tells about the case
of the boxwood huckleberry. It seems that there are only two places in the
entire world where the boxwood huckleberry grow. One is in Sussex county,
New Jersey. and the other is in Perry county, Pennsylvania. On a hunting
trip, a companion of Mr. Bigelow's, told him that he would send a dozen plants
with which Clay could experiment. When Clay got the plants he had a pernicious
desire to work on his own hook, but, as he tells it, "They saw me as I went
to plant them, and they asked me what they were. I told them they were boxwood
huckleberries, and that they grew in only two other places in the world.
Naturally, they told me where to plant them and I did. Every one of 'em died."
The next year his friend took him where they grew and
he saw them grow "as thick as hair on a dog's back", He also noticed that
they grew in thickly rooted soil. When the next batch came he again planted
them where he was told but not all of them. The rest were planted under what
he thought were the same conditions. This time he didn't stop to argue.
If you go up to the arboretum he'll show them to you.
You'l1 see the shoots be planted, struggling little things; about an inch
or so high. They look
well cared for in their tight bed of peat moss. You'll get quite a shock
when he tells you that they were planted ten years ago.
Just ask Clay Bigelow and you'll see many an interesting
tree up in the arboretum, There's the Chinese chestnut that refuses to be
consumed by the chestnut blights; the charter oak, as wide as it is long;
the beautiful Colorado blue spruce. trees presented by alumni. He knows them
and their habits. their common names, Latin names, and pedigrees. and if
you want to know what the Latin name means, he'll tell you that, too.
If you don't like trees, argue with him about the Supreme
Court. but be careful, he know"s the Constitution backwards and forewards.
Or perhaps; you're interested in poetry, then go on up and match verses with
him, that is, if you memorize them as he does. He likes James Whitcomb Riley,
Mark Twain, and Longfellow, but he doesn't care much for Edgar Allen Poe.
And now, after nineteen years of service, he looks at
the well-grown young red oak that "was about as big as my wrist when I came,"
and he thinks about the time on Christmas Day in 1919 when he chopped and
ranked a cord of chesttnut from eleven o'clock until dinner.
Note2:
Subject: Eliphaz Custer Bigelow
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 14:58:33 -0500
From: "Jessica Goss" <jeem@acsworld.net>
Hi Rod, I have been working on the Dr.Eliphaz Bigelow tree for many
a year.He was my Great grandfather's Clay Bigelow's Grand-Dad. I have learned
not to take any information for granted. I have all of Eliphaz Children and
Photo's of their headstones and have researched all the children to
the present which was a task. I have come up with a couple things that
I do not agree with things I find on the net.Also I have done all Eliphaz
brothers that lived in my area: Lewistown, Allensville, Belleville all in
Mifflin Co.Pa. And McAlevy's Fort Huntingdon County. I was lucky enough to
remember a lot of what my Great-grandfather told me,and
have found so far thru research that it has checked out.He said that thru
his father's Lebbeus S..Bigelow 's,Uncle, Lebbeus Lummis Bigelow
that thru the Custers it went back to General Custer and thru his Mothers
side Priscilla Randolph's Bigelow to Pocahontas and this really put
me on a chase but he was right.
Lebbeus S. son of Dr.Eliphaz married Priscilla
Randolph Her father sure does go back to Pocahontas. But back
to the Custer or Custis I believe the name is Custer.I realize that
some where down the line they could have changed from Custis to Custer. All
I know is what I was told and from records
in our area. He went by Eliphaz Custer Bigelow. He is buried about 15 miles
from where I live. I also have a friend that her husband comes down from
that side of the family and all her family records are Custer.
Also I can not match to Dr.William Gantz Bigelow his wife
that is listed as a Mary Ann Baker(2ndWife). All the records state she was
the daughter of Nathaniel Baker. I have turned our area upside down and
can find no information on a Mary Ann Baker d/o Nathaniel. On the records
I sent for:
Dr.Wm.Gantz filed for pension she is listed as Mary Jane Rakerd, and that
they where married by a Rev.Hanawalt. He did exist and was a preacher in
our area..At this time she gives Dr.Bigelow as her first husband, but when
she files for her Widow's pension she still states no prev. marriage she must
have been turned down because she filed again, and gives her name as Mary
Jane Ross and that she had been married to a Ross before she married Dr.Wm.Gantz
Bigelow. But on this she still gives her maiden name as Rakerd. Also on the
General Affidavit the witness list has a J.F.Rakerd of Belleville and
a J.E.Rakerd swearing to the truth of the Affidavit. I can find that a Rakerd
had a daughter Mary Jane and the dates would fit. But can find nothing on
a Mary Ann Baker. She remarried after the death of William G Bigelow
to a Henery Sones in 1902. in Centre County,Pa.
I have all records on Family Tree Maker and want to
send what I have to the Bigelow Society.With a copy of records, I think that
the Web page is great and you do a great job, I do not know how you do it.So
many Bigelow's just doing what I have done took many years and had my head
spinning.
Thanks Bobbi
rodbigelow@netzero.net 
