VII. ORRIN CARLEY, Sr., son of Ebenezer and Joanna, born Oct. 30, 1799, the 2nd white child born in Marathon, Cortland Co. N.Y. Married, July 5, 1822, Elizabeth Barnes, dau. of Jeremiah and Elizabeth Reeves Barnes. She was born Nov. 30, 1802, at Lackawaxen, Pike Co., Penn., and died Aug. 17, 1883, at Nanticoke, Broome Co. N.Y. Her mother died about 1868 at the age of 93. My father could just remember her, when he was a small boy, immediately after the Civil War. She talked Penn. Dutch, my father said. Very broken. Orrin, Sr., died Nov. 5, 1883, and is buried beside his wife and near his father, in the Marathon Cemetery.
Lumbering was a great industry in those days in those parts. In the spring, taking advantage of the swollen rushing torrent of the June freshets, great rafts of logs, "arks" they were called, as much as 90 feet long, 6 to 7 ft. depth, could carry an enormous tonnage, perhaps of milled lumber, as well as the logs themselves, were floated down the Susquehanna to market. The law provided that sluices or slipways must be provided in all dams to allow passage of these log rafts.
Orrin, Sr., was famed as a great walker. It was said he could almost walk a hound to death. So, where other men were content to take down one raft, Orrin would take two. One, he would tie up at night when the other rafters tied up for the night, then walk back with his great hound for company, and bring down the 2nd one while the other men slept.
It was while so occupied that he met his future wife, Elizabeth Barnes. Her father, Jeremiah Barnes, had a mill, and mill dam. The rafters would tie up above such a dam for the night, so as to allow a good head of water to build up overnight while the mill was shut down, to carry them safely over in the morning. It was noted that Orrin tarried unduly at the mill-master's. And when, their rafts delivered, he and a friend returned home on horseback, "ride and tie", with one horse between the two of them, he managed it so that they stayed overnight at Barnes Mill. The next morning Orrin started his friend out first on the horse. He was so long catching up to his fellow traveler, he began to worry that something had happened to Orrin. but all he said, when he finally overtook him was, "That's the girl I'm going to marry." And he did come back the next year, and they were married. ...
