1883 - May 27^th , Henry Roberts joined A. J. Barney Post, No. 217, of the Grand Army of the Republic, Sandy Creek's unit of Union Veterans. His friend, J. K. P. Cottrell, long the Post Adjutant [Secretary], listed Henry's membership date in the Personal Sketch Book where his service record is one of about twenty-five entered in the oversize volume during the 1890's. [This is the only Post artifact to survive the California Block Fire of 1912.]

1883 - September 15\ we believe that Henry Roberts was the night watch at the Sandy Creek Tannery. When he discovered that the plant [located just across the street and on the opposite stream bank from his home], was on fire, he went to the steam engine room and pulled the cord to open the "work whistle" thereby warning the whole community of the working fire. He got out of the engine room just as the roof started to collapse, but neither the bucket-brigade of local citizens - nor the hand pumper sent from Watertown on a special railroad car - could save the community's main industry, with 125 employees.

1884 - Local businessmen organized a wood manufacturing company on the site of the tannery, which made wooden butter boxes and, later, wood-veneer plates. John, George M. and Gilbert Roberts all worked there at different times during the late 19^th century.

1885 - Orville Roberts established a barbershop at Lacona Village [Sandy Creek Station of the NY Central RR until 1898], soon moving the business to the house on North Main Street, Sandy Creek, where his parents lived when they first came to the village. The Roberts' apparently rented from owner J. K. P. Cottrell, for the house had been part of the Cottrell shoe factory complex.

1885 through 1908 - During most of these years, Henry Roberts served as Color Bearer and Color Guard for all the public events of A. J. Barney Post, G. A. R., leaving a lasting impression on the community. “... his father was a former slave and Union soldier; who came here to live and he was a man of great integrity and my earliest recollection of the G. A. R. parade was Henry Roberts as color bearer with his snowy hair and beard and the blue coat of the G. A. R." - [ A July, 1948 tribute to Gilbert Roberts.] from "As I See It," by George W. Corse, a linotype operator and columnist for the Sandy Creek News for many years.

1889 - An item from The Sandy Creek News, states that" ... Samuel Sadler and Henry Roberts are employed in building the new brick vault at Woodlawn Cemetery." Henry was often employed in the cemetery during this era to help cut the grass. [The cemetery vault, with a 1930's addition, still stands on Lake Street, Sandy Creek, just a few yards east of the Roberts' family burial lot, purchased for $10.00 in 1893.]

1892 -A group photo of A. J. Barney Post; No. 217 shows Henry Roberts as the Color Bearer. [Nearly every man in the photo is identified, including another African-American Civil War veteran, Levi Bird, who lived with his wife, Lizzie, on the Ridge Road south of Lacona.]

1893 - This is the first year that Henry Roberts is shown as owning the house on Lake Street, Sandy Creek, where he and Jane spent the rest of their lives. By that time he had apparently been granted a military pension, but would fight for a medical pension for the next five years or so. A snapshot from this era hung for many years in his son Gilbert's barbershop on North Main Street, opposite what had been the family's first home. The photo showed Henry with both arms lined with braces of rabbits. His love of hunting and fishing was shared with his son Gilbert, "Gib", as a lifelong passion.

1900 or so, Henry Roberts sat for a photo portrait by "W. J. Fell, Artist," a Sandy Creek photographer from about 1898 to 1904. This portrait, in which Henry wears both a "Barney Post, No. 217, Sandy Creek, N.Y." silk badge and the official pin of the national Grand Army of the Republic, is the catalyst which moved this writer to become a "real" historian ­by necessity - and a dramatist in sheer desperation! [The light coloring of his irises is caused by a fatty overlay on the corneas from a lifetime diet high in animal protein. The condition, known as "Arcus Senilis," gradually covers even the pupils, blocking out more and more light to the retina.]

1903 - A group photo of the A. J. Barney Post members - possibly as they gathered for their Decoration Day parade - was taken by local farm youth, D. L. Woodard, in front of their meeting rooms in the California Block in Sandy Creek village. Henry Roberts' eyes actually seem to glow from the shady, recessed doorway where he is standing with the flag; showing the progressive nature of his eye disorder.

1908 - December 21, 1908, Jane Roberts died at the family home on Lake Street, Sandy Creek, N.Y., at the age of 74 years. Her obituary, four column-inches in length, contained the precise details which signal Henry's storytelling talents, for only he could be the source of all the facts packed into those few inches by the writer - perhaps the News owner and editor, F. Dudley Corse. The personalized details of Henry's own military record, as written out by Mr. Cottrell in 1894, also stand as proof of his roll as a "griot." [Please see last page.]

1909 - December 28, 1909, Henry Roberts died at the family home on Lake Street and was laid to rest in Woodlawn Cemetery two days later. His two-inch obituary is a "classic example" of F. D. Corse's terse but moving style:

"Henry Roberts, the oldest veteran in the local G. A. R. Post, passed away yesterday morning.

"Mr. Roberts was born a slave and few more deeply appreciated the meaning of the victory which was won in the Civil War, declaring freedom to the slave, although he had gained his liberty before that struggle was fought. For many years he carried the Stars and Stripes at all the public gatherings of the G. A. R., and few of us have warmer friends in the community or will be more thoroughly missed than Henry Roberts. Mr. Roberts was 95 years old last October." Full texts of Mrs. Roberts' obituary and of Henry's Personal War History-

MRS. HENRY ROBERTS

Jane, wife of Henry Roberts, passed away at the family home in the village, Monday morning at 9 o'clock. Mrs. Roberts' maiden name was Leonard and she was born on Grindstone Island in the St. Lawrence. Her father was Cato Leonard and she was one of a family of seven children of whom four survive. She was united in marriage to Henry Roberts in 1851 and to them were born nine children of whom four survive with the father.

Mr. and Mrs. Roberts have resided in Sandy Creek for the past twenty-eight years and Mrs. Roberts has enjoyed good health until August when she began to fail and there has been a steady decline until the end. The funeral was held Wednesday morning, Rev. D. Daly officiating. Interment in Woodlawn Cemetery. Among those here for the funeral were her son, Orville and his daughter of Syracuse; George and Gilbert of Rome and John of Sandy Creek.

From - Sandy Creek News 22 December 1908 issue