Things Cornish

Writings of Cornwall

Touching the temperature of this Country, the air thereof is cleasnsed as with Bellowes, by the Bellowes that ever work from off her environing Seas where thorow it becometh pure and subtle and is made thereby very healthful, but withall so piercing and sharp that is apter to preserve than to recover health. The Spring in not so early as in more Eastern parts, yet the Summer with a temperatel heat recompenseth, in slow fostering of the fruits with their most kindly ripening.

The Autumne bringeth a Somewhat late Harvest; and the Winter, by reason of the Sea’s warm breath, maketh the cold milder than elsewhere. Not withstanding that Country is much subject to stormy blasts, whose violence hath freedom from the open waves to beat upon the dwellers at Land, leaving many times their houses uncovered.

The Soyl for the most part is lifted up into many hills, parted asunder with narrow and short valleys, and a shallow earth doth cover their outside which by a Seaweed called Oreweed, and a certain kind of fruitful Sea-sand they make so rank and fertile as is incredible.

John Norden. A topographical and historical discription of Cornwall. c. 1584.

The Cornish Arms Hotel

The Cornish Arms Hotel down on West 23rd Street in Manhattan, New York was a place where most Cornish stopped before going to other parts of the United States to find work. My daughter, Susan moved to New York City after college in 1972. She lived on West 23rd Street not far from the Cornish Arms, but it is no longer a hotel.

I was told by cousin Gordon Haslett of Tampa, Florida that his family owned some stock in the hotel at one time ‚ so you see this landmark has connections to most Cornish families who came to the U.S. in the mid-to-late 1800s.