It seems the McGuires lived in at least three locations in Sullivan County: Hillsgrove, Forksville, and between Forksville and Estella. Next door to my grandparents' farm in Forksville (up the hill from Forksville heading toward Estella, take the first left I believe) lived an American Indian couple who both smoked a pipe.

Charles McGuire (Maguire) my grandfather, ran a lumber camp in Forksville and most of the men were from Poland. They would skin the bark from trees and stack it to make tannic acid. Rattlesnakes would climb into the stacks and hide. My dad, Francis Osler McGuire, had a dog that would get bit by rattlesnakes and it would go down to the swamp and jump into the mud up to its head. The kids would go down and feed the dog. It would stay in the mud for a couple of days and then it would come out skin and bones but the poison from the rattlesnake didn't seem to cause any problems. My dad said the dog did this on several occasions. They lived on a farm on Bear Mountain just up the hill from Forksville and before Estella. One day my dad was sitting on the front step and a rattlesnake came up the sidewalk toward him. It came straight at my dad until my grandfather killed it. My dad never liked snakes.

There were hickory trees across the road from the farmhouse and one year my grandfather killed five bear in one day. My Uncle Leo Raymond McGuire told the story of how he would bring a buggy of wooden barrels up to a hill behind the farmhouse. Then he would push them down the hill so his father and other farmers could shoot at them, practicing for bear hunting. My dad always loved to hunt and one time he decided to hunt rabbits from the back of a horse. Everything went fine until he shot from the horse and the horse bolted for the barn. The horse cleared the barn and my father didn't. He was knocked senseless when he hit the barn beam with his head.

Another time, my father was being chased by a bull who was trying to kill him. He was running around and around a tree when my grandfather came to aid him. The bull chased granddad and he decided it was the bull or him so he killed it with a pitchfork.

My Aunt Beatrice Evangeline McGuire Welch told me about how, on one occasion, my Uncle Leo and Aunt Beat were told to stay in the buggy while their father went into the Forksville Fair and had a few drinks. He came our soon after, leaving them, and told them that, if the sheriff stopped them, they were to say that he had been with them all day and he hadn't stopped at the fair and got into a fight.

My dad and Uncle Leo (dad about 8 and Leo about 6 years old) went down from the farm to fish in the Loyalsock. They were successful and started home later then they should have. They decided to take a short cut over Bear Mountain instead of walking the road. It was getting dark. Soon they heard a panther screeching in front of them. My dad said it sounded like a woman screaming. Shortly it was behind them, then to the side of them. They never saw it, but my uncle Leo was still mad at my dad because he started running and Leo had a hard time keeping up with him.

My grandparents eventually moved up into New York State. During Prohibition in Corning, New York, my dad would be told and I assume paid by lawyers to get guys out of town. My grandparents' farm (Hillview Farm) was located in Odessa, New York. The Lehigh Valley Railroad went through the bottom of the property and on the other side of the tracks lived a hermit.

Bernice (Osler) McGuire and Charles McGuire
Grandparents of Leo McGuire
The Seated Couple
Note: The standing couple on the flanks is Leo and Breeze Havens. Leo is holding their daughter, Shirley Havens. Leo Havens was a grandson of Charles and Bernice via Leona (McGuire) Havens, his mother. In fact, the woman in the center is Leona, born in Forksville, PA on 8 Sep 1897, died Jan 1999 in Elkland, PA.
Taken at Hillview Farm, Odessa, NY About 1930
Photo contributed by Leo McGuire

Here is a picture of Bernice (Osler) McGuire taken about 1950. We received it from her great-great-granddaughter, Christine Campbell, in November 2010:

Bernice (Osler) McGuire
Venue Unknown
Caption reads "Great Gradnmother McGuire (Scoops) Grandmother About 1950"
Photo contributed by Christine Campbell

My dad's Uncle Clay Osler (wife Alice E.), grandmother Bernice Osler's brother, raised stallions and his daughter had a business school in Philadelphia. Their son Mark Osler still lives in Elmira (2001).

During Halloween, the big thing was to tip over outhouses and my father's specialty was to put buggies on the top of barns.

Uncle Bernie Maguire (yes, they spelled it that way) looked like a leprechaun and is buried in Bernice, PA.

Aunt Beat, when she was a kid, played with Red Grange (the Galloping Ghost ). He lived in Forksville a few houses from the McGuires. He was quoted as saying the lumber men in Forksville were as tough as any men he met on the field. There was another farm my dad lived on that was in Hillsgrove just above a hairpin turn.

John Speaker Osler told my dad that, during the Civil War, they would weld two cannons together and attach a sharpened chain to the two cannon balls. When the cannons fired, the balls with chain attached, would cut off soldiers legs as it whipped around the field of battle.

There is a big kettle that is going to be mounted in front of the Historical Society in Laporte. It has been in the Rogers and Osler families. The Oslers, I was told, used it to dye Civil War uniforms while the Rogers used it in the Revolutionary War for the same reason. I have an article about the kettle stating that Kettle Creek is so called because the kettle ended up there after a flood..

Source:
Leo McGuire
December 17, 2001

Francis Osler McGuire at the Wheel
Schwartzenbach Highway, Near Loon lake and Wayland, NY
About 1930
Photo contributed by Leo McGuire