In this entry, I am just going to come out from behind the thin current of objectivity and simply render an impressionistic account of a recent attempt to find out more about my ancestors who came over from Switzerland in the mid-1800’s, specifically the Ryman’s and the Bossley families.
While my second great-grandfather Michael Ryman and Magdalena Bossley Ryman decided like many other new Americans to take advantage of land grants and move from Sullivan County, New York out to Brown County, South Dakota, a few members of the Ryman family and even more of the Bossley family remained behind. The family names generally disappeared as older members died off and others married into families with different surnames, residing now only in middle names or on gravestones strung along highway 52 that winds its way through the small towns of Sullivan County.
Three towns dot the road across mid-Sullivan County where our ancestors seem to have settled. Callicoon, on the far western edge seemed to have been the initial stop for some relatives. Jeffersonville, the central town was where my great, great grandfather Michael Ryman seems to have settled. Liberty, on the east was where most of the Bossley’s as well as the patriarch John Ryman and some of his children set down roots.
The day that I drove up to Sullivan County, it was pouring rain. Callicoon lies along an extension of the Delaware River that separates Pennsylvania and New Jersey and, at the one point into New York it sidles up to Callicoon. As I pulled into Callicoon Creek Park near the public library where I was headed to do some research, the river was roiling and brown, spilling out over the land rising before turning to a fork where it split. Callicoon is the seat of the Sullivan County Democrat, a paper that goes back to 1878, so my plan was to try to locate a couple of specific items and hope to run across family names. Naturally, the library was closed.
I proceeded down the road towards Jeffersonville. The road meanders shadowing Callicoon Creek. There is a section on the south side of the road in Jeffersonville where many of the immigrants from Switzerland made their residence when they began coming to the United States in the 1860’s. A small bridge took me over to a street called Swiss Hill Rd. and, indeed, beyond the road rose a small hill covered with conifers that the road seem to arc around. As I drove along it, being in the physical environment itself, I was suddenly able to see the appeal of the area for immigrants coming over from Switzerland who, the Rymans came from a place that was remote, mountainous and covered in some parts with evergreens. Off of Swiss Hill Rd. I came across another road that I had been looking for, Eggler Rd. Before our ancestor Michael Ryman made his voyage to the United States, two his siblings preceded him. One was his older sister Susannah (known as Anna) who had married Mathaus Eggler in Switzerland. This help to confirm that this was, indeed, the area where some of our relatives have lived.
I knew that Anton Bossley, my third great grandfather was buried in Youngsville Cemetery, somewhere between Jeffersonville and the small village of Youngsville itself. I had been unable to find it on a previous trip because there is no visible sign from the road or any driveway leading to it. Having researched it a bit more this time, however, I was able to narrow down the spot where it must be. Though the cemetery was soggy in the rain, I did find the grave I was looking for. 
Thanks to some research on Find a Grave, I was also able to locate another Bossley family member in the much larger Calvary Cemetery across the street. I had searched this cemetery for Rymans and Bossleys on my previous trip and not found any. However, according to Find a Grave, Anna Bossley Miller, the daughter of Anton Bossley was buried there. This time, I was able locate a large family stone that said Miller and, one reading Anna Miller was there. It was also surrounded by several families whose last names I had recognized from Anna’s obituary. This, then, definitely was Bossley family territory.
As it turned out, the Callicoon Library re-opened at 5 and, though I wanted to continue on to Liberty, there was no time to visit both places. I opted for the library. Skimming through issues of the Sullivan County Democrat was a different experience than reading through a newspaper today (even a hard copy one). I had little luck; even the couple of specific dates I had were difficult to locate. I did locate the death notice for Anton Bossley for the Feb. 27, 1880 issue. I say “death notice” because it was not really an obituary. It merely read: “BOSLEY – February 23, 1880, near Youngsville, Anthony Bosley, in the 76th year of life.” One of the things evident in reading through the Democrat, an English newspaper, was that events related to members of the German community there were given scant coverage.
The other notice I came across (also in the “Died” column) was on Sept. 11 1886: “BOSLEY – At Briscoe, on Tuesday, Sept. 8th, Magdalena, wife of Anton Bossley, aged 38 years 7 months and 29 days. Her remains were interred in the Presbyterian cemetery at Jeffersonville.” The notice is an interesting example of how some details conflict with other sources (the spelling of Magdalena’s husband’s name) or omit other known information (such as that she died in childbirth. It also confirmed that some Bossley family members lived in Briscoe, an unincorporated area just past Jeffersonville that can be driven through in just about a minute. One can’t help but surmise that it must have been tight community. I’d read in other sources that two of Anton Bossley’s descendents had died of consumption as teenagers in the last decades of the 1800’s but was unable to locate any information on their deaths.
By the time I had discovered the information, it was getting dark and near time for the library to close. Genealogy research on line through organizations such as ancestry.com is one thing. Doing the actual field work is another. As this experience showed, it is often messy and not all that productive. Still, I came away feeling that actually traveling to the places where my ancestors first lived on their arrival to the country and attempted to become part of American society, yielded some intangible understanding about what life might have been like for them that I would not have in any other way.
Northen History 