Baby Left On The Door Of Peter Voneida, 1876

 
On July 12 1876, A Male child left in basket and hung on door of Peter Voneida's residence in Chillisquaque township

In the age of DNA tests in Ancestry, the following story may someday answer a few questions.  Unfortunately, the newspaper was sparse in its details, not naming the couple who adopted the baby.

On the evening of July 12th 1876, a gentleman and a lady got off the train at Montandon.  They claimed they were to be met at the depot by a wealthy farmer of the vicinity, whose name they had forgotten.  "Several names were mentioned and their circumstances related, and finally the parties claimed to have discovered the one they were after."

At midnight that evening, the Voneida family in Chillisquaque township were awakened by an alarm at the door.  There they found a basket, containing a "fine healthy male child, about six weeks old, with a good assortment of fine clothes, a bottle of fresh milk, etc."  There was a note in the basket saying the child was left there at the request of the mother, and praying Mr Voneida would take care of it, promising if he did that God would bless him.

Mr Peter Voneida decided not to keep the the child, and turned it over to the overseers.  

In later years, Peter Voneida was an overseer of the poor.  He possibly was in 1875 too - or perhaps he was chosen simply because he was a well known farmer with means to care for a child.

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