Mesick Memories

In Memory of the Howard Mesick Family and In Honor of the Kohn Family: Lloyd, Grace and Deborah

Today a letter from Emma Mesick surfaced as I sorted through my memorabilia.  In reading it I thought back to the day in 1979 that it arrived in the mail.  In the previous year I had an assignment in college to write a paper on a certain subject.  I had chosen the Village of Mesick to write about.  As I gathered information on the history of Mesick, I learned the address of one of the Mesick family descendants.  When I did, I began to correspond with, Emma, the wife of Howard Ross Mesick, the son of Adelbert Mesick. (Adelbert’s father was Howard Mesick, the founder of the Village of Mesick.)  This spurred a relationship that resulted in a visit from Ross and Emma Mesick the following summer.  Although that was 37 years ago, my interest returns to that time and that family as I study genealogies of various people.  So, Guilderland, New York and the family of our village’s founder is once again in my thoughts. I am again looking into that time in 1860 when the sons of Jesse and Sarah (Fish) Mesick set out to make their way as trappers and hunters to the north woods of Michigan where the pines grew tall and the land was fertile.  It seems Howard and Walter were the only two, out of the family of seven, that had wandering feet at that time; although Jesse, another brother of Howard, did enter the picture later in 1863.  And so begins the account of Howard Mesick’s adventure. Written in part to record the history of the village Howard and Ellenor Mesick developed and to honor the work began by Lloyd Kohn, continued by his wife, Grace, and their daughter Deborah.