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"I'm afraid we'll have to come back some other time and visit the Swetts, the Stanyans, the Robinsons, and the Weares. If I don't get over to Portsmouth I won't find a job, and we promised Mother we'd visit her people, the Moultons. We’ll be on our way," was William's reply.
They had no trouble locating the Moultons, and while William went to register for work some of the family made ready some food and took Hannah and the children out to the "Point of Graves", where they showed her the headstone of Great-grandmother Ayers. It read: "Here lies entered the body of Alice^ Ayers, wife of Edward Ayers, age 53, died in 9 Feb 1717." When Hannah asked about the Moulton graves, she was told that the great-grandmother was killed by the Indians, at York, Main. The father and his sons were captured, but the sons were released. The father was carried into captivity and never heard from again.
By this time Hannah decided she had enough information to tell her children to fill a book. Hannah had heard but a mere portion of the trails of the members of this family. She hoped her side of the family had fewer tribulations, but she would learn that freedom of any kind is bought with a price and the Skinner family also paid a price.
William had no trouble obtaining employment. We worked mostly on the rebuilding of the docks and wharfs. They rented a small home in Portsmough where Hannah gave birth to her third child March 25, 1815. He was given the name of William Harrison Folsom, of whom we shall learn more as the story unfolds.
The survey work for the great Erie Canal was commenced in 1810, but due to unsettled conditions during the War of 1812, work on it was delayed. The burning of Washington by the British in 1814 caused great consternation in the nation, but the signing of the Treaty of Ghent December 24, 1814, relaxed the tension felt by the citizens. Although the majority of the people of the young nation were not satisfied with the terms of the treaty, they responded to the call for national improvement, and the newspapers, magazines, and placards blazed forth in large headlines the continuation of work on the Erie Canal. William Fullington Folsom was still under contract for his work at Portsmouth, but gave much though to inducements of work on the "Big Ditch." By the time the controversy was over as to where the canal should enter Lake Erie, at Black Rock or Buffalo, he had decided to assume the risk.
Hannah was not too cooperative. That was a long trip for the new baby, Mary Jane, who had been born June 26, 1817, and she was right. Some of the roads were abominable, due to the influx of workers and their families, and food was so scarce and often unsanitary. As they plodded along in their covered wagon from canal town to canal town, they were compelled to associate with some very undesirable people. They reached Buffalo in time for the opening of the work on the harbor in 1820, according to a letter written by Benjamin Hodge to Ebenezer Goodale.
On May 30, 1821, a daughter, Elizabeth, was born in Buffalo. She passed away September 15, 1822. Three more children were born here at Buffalo. Louisa Maria, May 30, 1823, Ebenezer Johnson, April S, 1827, and Sarah Augusta, August 22, 1829. Sarah Augusta died October 6, 1829.
The first City Directory of Buffalo was published in 1829, with William Folsom, listed in it as a carpenter on Pearl Street, but according to the birth record of Elizabeth, we know he was in Buffalo before this time.