Copson Blog

Here’s an obituary found at the Yates County (NY) Genealogical and Historical Society.

Arthur T. Copson

Arthur T. Copson, formerly of Bluff Point, died Monday, April 24, 1967, following a long illness.

He retired from the Western Union in Oswego in 1965, following 55 years of service.

Surviving are his wife, Laura Dick Copson; sisters, Mrs. Shirley McNulty of Painted Post and Mrs. Lucy Disbrow of Bluff Point; brother, Donald Copson of Newcastle, Pa.; several neices and nephews.

Funeral services and burial were in Oswego.

Copsons were living in Bluff Point, New York, on the shores of Keuka Lake in 1914! This from the American Agriculturalist Farm Directory:

Copson, Charles, farmer
Copson, Carrie, 2 children
COPSON, FRED E. (BERTHA M.) 2 children

Where did these Copsons come from? Where did they go? Today, what was probably their land is a State Park with a fabulous view.

Jane Brookes, from Nuneaton, West Midlands, UK, has come across the following from

On Stepping Stones from Stockingford: the Cobbled Streets, Allotments, and Green Fields of a Mining Community that Was Nuneaton 1918.  By Gordon Peter Eaves (1939).  Excerpt.

Mrs. Copson was someone we all knew, but didn’t like very much.  She was fairly wealthy as she owned about six of the cottages, and she herself lived on a farm not far away in what was called ‘Quarry Yard.’  Her son lived over the road from Gran’s cottage.  They had two children, Molly and John.  John was tragically killed by German submarines shortly after the war had begun in 1939.

“Old Lady Copson,” for that is the name we gave her, also had a b lack patch over one of her eyes; long, straggly hair that was never combed; and always wore the same dirty old coat.  She would usually come to the cottages she owned, including Gran’s, twice a week, all the time complaining about the state of the cottages.   Gran always shut our rear door when she was about the gardens.  I found out later in life that she had always disliked Gran, for what reason I never did find out.  Perhaps it was Gran’s good breeding and her aloof posture to all things common.  Don’t get the wrong idea about Gran; she was always the most generous and gentle person, but had a steel-like spirit.  Nothing ever seemed to trouble her, and you can take it from me, she had many troubles, yet her indomitable mind rose above them all.

Mrs. Copson, who I have previously spoken about, owned all the houses nearby if I remember correctly; there must have been about ten in number.  No one liked her because she would find fault with everyone and what they did in her property.  She was not very willing to spend money on her properties, but new laws were coming in to the housing situation and she was forced to make alterations.  New water closets and sink basins were made compulsory by law, also provision of outbuildings for ladies to do their laundry.  So one can see that she did not take kindly to all these new orders.

It was in 1921 that the laws were passed to clear towns of slums, and there were thousands of these low cost houses that wer built in the Industrial Revolution for agricultural workers who were flooding into the towns.