More Honey Relatives trip

Wednesday 9-8. We drove to Akron, OH, and visited Leon’s first and only cousin on the Honey side, Margaret Raynor Warren. She lived just a few blocks from our motel. Leon has pictures of a visit her family made to his family when they lived in Schenectady, NY, when he was a little boy. The family only visited together one other time, in 1947 in Cleveland, OH. Her mother is William Honey’s sister Doris. We also visited the next day with her and her son Kenneth Warren. We saw lots of family pictures.
From Akron we drove to clarion, PA, about 100 miles away, to see Jenny, our granddaughter. She is getting her Masters in Library Science at the University in Clarion. It was great to see her and to see where she lived, ate and studied.
Friday 9-12. We decided to trade Canada for LDS Church sites. We had originally planed on driving up into Ontario and seeing where his Loyalist ancestors lived but it sounded like a good trade. We drove to Kirtland, OH and toured the temple there. It is now owned by the RLDS church and they maintain it very well. When I mentioned that my 2nd great grandfather was F.G. Williams, the guide said "you are standing on your grandfather’s farm." The Church has a good relationship with the RLDS’; they let the mission president hold testimony meetings inside with the newly-arrived missionaries, We saw FGW’s picture and also Rebecca Swain Williams’ picture in their Visitors Center. We visited the Newel K. Whitney home, which is our Visitor’s Center now, and his store. We drove out about a mile to the Isaac Morley farm, a distant relative of Leon’s, and learned many interesting things. Our next stop was about 30 miles away to Hiram, OH to the John Johnson farm. We couldn’t go inside as they were renovating it. We then drove to Buffalo, NY and it was late at night when we arrived. We got confused trying to get off the toll-road and went through the wrong gate, the one that pass holders use, so we didn’t pay our toll. We expect to receive a fine in the mail any day now. (We never got one!)
Saturday 9-13. We drove to Youngstown, NY on the tip of the Lake Ontario and the mouth of the Niagara River. It was a beautiful view of the lake and one could just barely make out Toronto on the other side. My 3rd great grandfather, Isaac Swain, had lived there and in 1836 had built a beautiful three-story cobblestone house. It was built on the foundation of his earlier home burned by the British in the War of 1812. That earlier home was built on the battlefield of La Belle Famille which took place between the French and British in 1759, during the French and Indian War. We went to the town library to found out where the home was located. We were sent upstairs to the Historical Society and two little old ladies were so happy to see us and happy to know I was related to the Swains. They copied pictures and information for us. One of them, age 96!!! drove us out to see the home. It had originally been called The Willows but there are none growing today but was surrounded by lovely trees. It was a beautiful home and the owner let us come in and see the parlor and take a picture of the original fireplace.
From the home we drove to see Ft. Niagara. It had originally been French, then British and finally American. It has been restored to its French days. The drawbridge has the inscription Porte des Cinq Nations , Gate of the Five Nations to favor the Iroquois Confederacy. LaSalle had first built a fort at this location in 1678, then another was built in 1687. It too was abandoned. The permanent fort was built in 1725. From there we drove to Palmyra. The Church, from aerial surveys for the exact location and dimensions, has reconstructed the log house where the Joseph Smith Sr. family lived and where Joseph received the visit from the Angel Moroni. The original large white frame house the family later lived in was there though an extensive renovation program was going on inside to return it to its original configuration. We walked into the beautiful Sacred Grove, no one else was around, but someone on the other side of the grove had a boom box going playing loud music which spoiled the atmosphere. I was so disappointed! We drove the four miles to the hill Cumorah. We thought the hill would stand out more but there are many hills in the area. It was a little larger and very beautiful. There is a lovely Visitors’ Center. We then proceeded to Syracuse, NY for the night.