A Member of Pioneer Family Dies

Esther Lucinda Tobey Plain who died May 18, 2005 was 99 years old and most of those years were spent in Pittsford on a farm – first on Tobey Road and then at 156 Mendon Center Road.

She was part of two very early families – Tobey and Willard.

Esther told of how her great-grandfather, grandfather and families moved from a farm in Pawlett, VT to Pittsford, NY via a packet boat on the Erie Canal in 1848. They landed at the locks near the Spring House, put their worldly goods on wagons and proceeded south to a very small cabin on Calkins Road. The first project the family undertook was to fell trees, create logs for a log cabin on the property they had purchased on Tobey Road. This first home was completed and the family moved in on Thanksgiving Day, 1849.

Esther was, of course, born long after those early efforts and by 1906, her parents and grandparents had moved into a large farm home on Mendon Center Road. The two families lived together in that house which was separated down the middle. Esther and her parents lived on the north side and her grandparents were on the south.

When Esther married Vernon "Pat" Plain in 1926, they continued to live in the house with her parents and the tradition continued when Esther and Pat's daughter married; for they also lived, for a short time, in half of the house.

Esther remembers driving with her father when he delivered mail and following in this tradition, she became a clerk in the post office and worked there for 16 years.