Delvin Emmons (Ted) Wilt died on February 27, 2023, at 105 years of age. With his passing goes the last human contact to a lost world. Ted was born in October 1917. Within a couple months, the old towpath Erie Canal would be abandoned as the new Barge Canal was brought into use. Of course, Ted never recalled the canal, but he was alive when mules pulled barges along the canals, and he witnessed the changes the village went through as it transitioned from a canal village to a bedroom community.
In his later years, Ted was kind enough to sit for a few interviews which we have recorded. He also took part in a panel discussion about the Van Ditto sisters and the Erie House, which you can view on the Lock 52 YouTube channel. Understandably, he was happy to have an audience who wanted to hear about all those things in the past. After my visits with him, I built a Wilt family tree and later added that to the larger Port Byron Family Tree project. So please forgive me for this bit of Wilt family history.
Also, a few years ago Anita Messina interviewed Ted and wrote a great article about his memories. It is well worth the read.
The Wilt clan was from the Baden area of Germany and in 1853, William Wilt moved his wife and five kids to America, settling in Herkimer County region of New York. This is not a surprise as this area was heavily German. Ted told me that William moved since the German government was taking all the children to train as soldiers for the military and that the father refused to allow his kids to become cannon fodder. William and Rosetta would add another nine kids to the family. Ted said that the family were all millers and that to find work, Delvin Wilt, (Ted’s grandfather) moved to Port Byron, in the 1890s. He purchased a mill that sat along the Owasco Outlet in North Port Byron. In 1895, Delvin went back to Utica to marry Catherine Schmuck and then brought his new bride back to Port Byron where they would raise their family of five. A side note here is that the Schmuck family has an interesting history of it’s own as Catherine’s brother John was the personal physician to Russell Sage and his wife for 25 years. And he helped to guide her philanthropy. John was a frequent visitor to Port Byron and his death in 1936 was noted in the Chronicle.
Although the family was known for Wilt’s Mill on Green Street, as I noted, the family’s first mill was on the New York Central road. The first mill burned, and Delvin built the current building. In 191l, Ted’s grandfather purchased the Tanner Mill on Green Street, and then ran both mills for a while. The family sold the old mill to George Graf in 1932. This was the same year as Grandfather Delvin’s death. Although Ted helped at the mill, he never ran the mill since the business was slowing down, and even his father Fred had to find outside employment. The mill closed in 1952 and then was taken over by the Hitchcock family for their business.
Ted worked at the Columbia Rope factory and then as a milkman. He sold his milk under the Wilt’s Dairy brand, and his route covered Port Byron, Throop, Montezuma, and had up to 140 customers. He first purchased his milk from the Batson Dairy, but when the laws changed and the milk had to be pasteurized, he switched suppliers to the Webster Dairy out of Auburn. He delivered milk between 1945 to 1975.
Of course, Ted had many stories to tell as his life overlapped those who worked on the canal and even a few men who had fought in the Civil War! As a teenager, he worked for the Van Detto family, washing their car and mowing the yard. Ted remembered that Peter Van Detto ran a clean establishment and he even knew the name of the woman that Peter lived with after he left his wife and daughters and moved to Montezuma. Try as I might, Ted would never say who it was! He always remembered Mrs. Van Detto as a very kind woman who would give him large tips for his work.
I recall that my head snapped around when he said that his aunt worked at Kodak and he could develop photos for free, so he had lots of pictures of Port Byron…and that his mother tossed them away when he moved out of the house!