USA > New York > Jefferson County > A history of Jefferson County in the state of New York, from the earliest period to the present time > Part 28
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Theresa.
about 1818, a reservation of 1000 acres, was surveyed for Mr. Le Ray, by Musgrove Evans. In 1819, a grist mill was erected for Le Ray, and in 1819, a tavern, which the next year was burned. The town began to open for settlement at about this time, and the first inhabitants were not exposed to the incon- veniences of distant mills, as these were among the earliest im- provements. In an original map of the village, are the names ' of the following as first purchasers of lots. Azariah Walton (5 acres on the east bank at the falls), Ebenezer Lull, Samuel Hall, Mrs. Keeler, E. F. Cook, M. Huntington, H. Money, G. Locke and P. Lehman. Mr. Lull opened the first store here in 1820. Among the first settlers in town were James Shurtliff,* Anson Cheeseman, Marcius B. Ashley, Col. Bull, and others. Dr. James Brooks settled as the first physician in 1822, and died the next year.
The village of Theresa, on the west bank of Indian River, at the High Falls, possesses an immense water power, which has been but partially improved. There were in September, 1853, 2 grist mills with nine run of stones, 3 saw mills, 2 furnaces and shops, 1 machine shop, 1 plaster mill, 1 shingle mill, 1 wagon shop, 1 clothing works, 2 cabinet shops, 4 dry good stores, 4 groceries and drug stores, 2 inns, 1 marble shop, 1 tin shop, 1 tannery, 6 shoe shops, 4 blacksmith shops, 2 tailors, 2 saddlers, 1 goldsmith, and about 600 inhabitants. There were 5 phy- sicians, 2 lawyers, and churches of the Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Methodist orders. The census of 1850, gave 101 houses, 104 families, and 516 inhabitants. The lower fall is said to be 62} feet, and the total fall within a quarter of a mile about 85 feet. The still water at the foot of the falls is, according to Broadhead's report, 66 feet above the St. Lawrence at Ogdens- burgh. From this place to Rossie, it is still water, and flows a considerable extent of swamp, which in certain seasons have occasioned sickness along the borders. There being no further obstruction to the draining of these drowned lands, than a reef of rocks adjacent to the old lead furnace at Rossie, the legislature was petitioned for the powers necessary for their removal. An act was accordingly passed on the 10th of April, 1850, appoint- ing A. Fisher and Abram Morrow of Theresa, and George W. Clark of Alexandria, commissioners to remove the obstructions in Indian River that were alledged to cause sickness by flowing lands in the towns of Theresa and Rossie. The damages caused by the removal of these obstructions, with the cost of removal were to be assessed upon the lands to be benefited. The work not being effected under this act, another was passed.
By an act of April 12th, 1852, Archibald Fisher, of Theresa,
Mr. S. died at Plessis, August 1st, 1846, aged 79.
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and Lawrence W. DeZeng of Redwood, in this county, and Abel P. Morse of Hammond were appointed commissioners to drain certain wet lands on Indian River in Rossie and Theresa, by removing a certain ledge of rocks at the smelting works to the depth of five feet, with other obstructions within three quar- ters of a mile below, including the dam at the Dayton Falls. Damages were to be assessed and paid by an assessment upon the lands to be benefited. Nothing has hitherto been accomplish- ed under the act, difficulties having occurred, it is said, in failing to agree with Mr. Parish upon the terms to be paid for the losses that will result to him in the water power in Rossie.
A furnace was built near Mill Seat Lake, about one and a half miles from Redwood, in 1847, by Joseph C. Budd, Wm. Bones, and Samuel T. Hooker; the latter becoming an associate, while building. It was started in the fall of 1848, and run nine weeks, making two tons a day; a second blast was run in the spring of 1849, of fourteen weeks, making three and a half tons a day, and a third blast in the spring of 1850, of fourteen weeks, making six tons a day. Since this time the furnace has laid idle. At the first two blasts the furnace was principally supplied by ore from the vicinity, with a little from the mines near the line of Philadelphia and Theresa. The third blast was with ores from the Kearney, Thompson, Sterling, and Shurtliff ore beds. The furnace is 30 feet square, 35 feet high, 8 feet 8 inches inside diameter, and cost with fixtures about $8000. It was supplied by the hot blast, and two tewels. No castings were made on the premises.
The town is underlaid by primary rock and Potsdam sandstone, the former exhibiting a succession of hills and deep valleys, while the latter presents a more uniform surface. Accumulations of drift cover these rocks in many places, but the soil is generally fertile. The most remarkable feature in town is the number and romantic beauty of its lakes. In this and adjoining towns there are, within a radius of ten miles, nearly twenty lakes, of which Muskelunge, Red, Moose, Hyde, Mill Seat, Thompson, Sixbury, Grass, Mud, and Butterfield lakes are wholly or in part in this town. Most of them are surrounded on one or more sides by bold rocky shores, with deep bays, prolonged in woody swamps, and with rocky islands, densely covered with wood. These ro- mantic sheets of water, form delightful places of resort to the pleasure-seeking and sporting, where both fish and wild fowl afford attractive objects of pursuit, while the shores, overhanging cliffs, and tangled ravines, offer a perfect paradise to the geologist, and the mineral collector. The islands and shores of Muskelunge and Butterfield Lakes, in particular, are celebrated for the variety and number of their mineral productions. Most of these lakes are
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apparently fed by springs, and one of them, (Thompson's Lake) has neither visible inlet nor outlet, yet abounds in fish.
It is probable that the wild primitive portion of the county, may hereafter become one of interest for mining purposes, as the geological features of the section do not differ from those of the adjoining town of Rossie, which has attained much celebrity for its lead mines. The indications of copper, and the well esta- blished fact of the presence of iron ore, favor this inference.
Religious Societies .- The Presbyterian Church of Theresa, was formed May 8, 1825, at the house of Abraham Morrow, of four males and eight females. The clergy have been Wm. B. Stowe, Roswell Pettibone, Lewis M. Shepard, Wm. Chittenden, Leemand Wilcox, Revilo Cone, Harvey Smith, W. Chittenden, and Chas. W. Treadwell. A society was formed Dec. 22, 1835, with James Shurtliff, Anson Ranney, and Nathan M. Howe, trustees; and these, with the Methodists, built in 1836-8, a church, which was completed at a cost of $1,800, and dedicated by the Rev. R. Pettibone and - Peck, of the two denominations, in Sept. 1838. In 1849, the Methodists having sold their interest in the Union church, formed a society, and built a chapel, at a cost of about $2,200, which was completed and dedicated Sept. 14, 1850. A class had been formed in 1827.
St. James' Church, of Theresa (Episcopal), was organized July 16, 1848, the place having been previously occupied by Rev. W. A. Fisk, as a mission, about a year. In 1850 there was re- ported a growing regard for the service, and an increase of numbers, and in the same summer was begun the erection of a Gothic church, after the plans of R. Upjohn, of N. Y., which was finished at a cost of $2,600, and consecrated Aug. 7, 1851. The incorporation of the church was obtained July 16, 1848, in which Horace Parker, and Daniel Parker, were named first wardens; and Willet R. Jarvis, P. B. Salisbury, Franklin Parker, Thomas Robinson, A. M. Ferris, E. W. Lewis, S. L. George, and Joseph Fayel, vestrymen. The number of communicants was fifteen in 1850; nineteen in 1851; twenty-five in 1852.
In erecting their edifice, this society received $250, from Trinity Church, N. Y., $125, from Hon. Wm. C. Pierrepont, and several sums of $25 each, from others in the county. Mr. Fish was succeeded by Rev. B. W. Whitcher, the present missionary.
WATERTOWN.
This town was organized from Mexico, by the same act that created Champion, and other towns. March 14, 1800, the first town meeting being directed at the house of Asher Miller, who resided near what is now the centre of the town of Rutland. In the general statute describing the several towns of the state, passed April 7, 1801, we find the following:
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Leyden. " And all that part of the said county of Oneida, bounded easterly by Remsen, southerly by Steuben, and westerly by Camden, Turin, Lowville, Champion, Watertown, and the west bounds of the state; and northerly by the county of Clinton, shall be and continue a town by the name of Leyden." [This would em- brace the present town of Leyden, with the whole of Lewis Coun- ty, east of Black River, and all of Jefferson County, north of the same.]
Watertown. " And all that part of the said county of Oneida, known and distinguished by townships, Nos. 1, 2, and 3, in a tract of land belonging to Henry Champion, and others, which said townships are bounded northerly by the Black River, westerly by Hungry Bay, so called, and southerly by townships Nos. 6, 7, 8, and 9, and easterly by township No. 4, all in the same tract, shall be and continue a town by the name of Watertown."
The name of the town was, doubtless, suggested by the extra- ordinary amount and convenience of its water power, for which it will compare favorably with any place in the state. To this cause may be mainly attributed its early and rapid growth, and the superiority in wealth and business which it enjoys, far be- yond any other place in the county.
By the erection of Rutland and Houndsfield, the original limits of the town have been reduced to their present. A fire, which consumed the early records of the town, has prevented us from obtaining many interesting facts, which the town book is said to have contained. The following list of supervisors is taken in part from the records of the board, which begin with the organ- ization of the county in 1805.
Supervisors .- 1805-8, Corlis Hinds; 1809-10, Tilley Richard- son; 1811, Wm. Smith; 1812-9, Egbert Ten Eyck; 1820-6, Titus Ives; 1827, Jabez Foster; 1828, Titus Ives; 1829, Daniel Lee; 1830-4, Henry H. Coffeen; 1835-7, Orville Hungerford; 1838- 40, Joel Woodworth; 1841-2, O. Hungerford, 1843-5; John Winslow; 1846-7, Orville V. Brainard; 1848, Geo. C. Sherman; 1849, Adviel Ely; 1850 Kilborn Hannahs; 1851, O. Hunger- ford; 1852, Robert Lansing; 1853, David D. Otis.
This town was surveyed by Benjamin Wright, in 1796, into fifty-two lots, of from 450 to 625 acres, having a 'total area of 26,485 acres. A subsequent survey by Robert McDowell gave 26,667 acres. In 1801 it was subdivided by Joseph Crary, under the direction of Silas Stow. A mortgage upon this town, in common with Low and Company's Purchase, was canceled by William and Ann Constable, and the President and Directors of the Bank of New-York, March 18, 1802. Upon the division of these towns, this, with Adams and Lowville, fell to the share of
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Nicholas Low, under whom it has been settled. The first agent employed was Silas Stow, who was followed in 1804 by M. S. Miller, and in March, 1806, the latter was succeeded by Isaac W. Bostwick, Esq., all of Lowville. The lands in this town have long since been sold out, and nearly or quite settled up and con- veyed, as freeholds. It will be interesting to notice the remarks of Wm. Wright on the survey of this town into lots, which are given with more detail than in his general report, from having surveyed the boundaries of the towns only, and which we have given on page 65.
" Township No. 2, on Black River, is situated about three miles from the mouth of the river. This river is navigable for bateaux about one-and-three-quarters miles, but yet with considerable difficulty, it may be ascended two-and-a-half miles. The soil of this township is excellent in general, and, indeed, there is very little but what might be truly called first quality. Timber-ma- ple, beach, bass, elm, ash, butternut, and some pine, of excellent quality.
There are excellent mill seats along Black River, where they are noted on the map, and many more, which it is impossible to note with certainty, as the river the whole distance on the town is very rapid, except at the north-east corner, for about three-quar- ters of a mile. The river is very rocky along the whole distance, and appears to be a bed of limestone rocks. Along the banks of Black River, opposite No. 2 township, is cedar and hemlock, and, in some places, white pine, for about twenty or thirty rods, and from thence it rises to very handsome' land, and tim- bered with maple, bass, beech, &c.
At the north-west corner is some flat rock, which lies about eight inches under the surface, and which is full of large cracks, open about ten or twelve inches."
Of the lots upon which the village of Watertown has been built, he remarked:
7. "This is a very good lot, and has excellent mill seats on the river, without expensive dams, and with the greatest safety to the mills.
8. This is a very good lot, and is well timbered; has fine mill seats, and land of the first quality; some few stone and some pine timber.
2
9. (Above village.) This is an excellent lot, some beautiful land along the east line, and some pine timber on the south; some maple, beech, bass, elm, and iron wood.
10. (Corner lot.) This is an excellent lot; has a fine flat along the beach, which is very fine soil."
Settlements commenced in Watertown, in March, 1800, at
17
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which time Henry Coffeen,* and Zachariah Butterfield, having the fall previous visited the town and purchased farms, removed with their families from Schuyler, Oneida County, and began improvements on the site of Watertown Village. Coffeen was the first to arrive, having penetrated from Lowville through the woods, with his family and household goods drawn on an ox sled. He had purchased parts of lots 2, 3, 13, 21, and 165 acres on the westerly part of lot No. 7, now covered by Watertown Village.
He erected his hut on the ground just west of the Iron Block, and Butterfield settled on the spot now covered by the Merchants' Exchange, newly erected on the corner of Washington Street and the Public Square. Oliver Bartholomewt arrived in town, in March, 1800, and settled one and a half miles from the present village of Brownville. Simeon and Benjamin Woodruff, and others visited the town, with the view of settlement, and in the ensuing winter but three families wintered in town, viz: Coffeen, Bartholomew, and Butterfield. The land books of Mr. Low show the following list of purchasers, of which there may be some who were not actual settlers.
1799, May 16, John Whitney, 450 acres on lot 8, at $2.50 per acre; this probably reverted. In Oct., E. Allen, Silas Alden, S. and B. Woodruff, Jas. Rogers, O. Bartholomew, Thos. Delano, Elisha Gustin, Z. Butterfield. In 1800, Heman Pellit, Thos. and John Sawyer, John Blevan, Abram Fisk, Wm. Lampson, Joseph Tuttle, N. Jewett, J. Wait, Abram Jewett, Hart Massey, Joseph Wadley, Jonathan Bentley, J. Sikes, S. Norris, Chas. Galloway, Jonathan Talcott, Josiah Bentley, Frend Dayton, John Patrick, David Bent, Luther Demming, Ephraim Edwards, Tilson Bar- rows, Thomas Butterfield, J. and L. Stebbins, Asaph Mather, Benj. Allen, E. Lazelle, Henry Jewett, Lewis Drury, S. Fay, - Stanley, James Glass, Ira Brown, W. P. and N. Crandall, Calvin Brown, Aaron Bacon, Bennet Rice, Thos. H. Biddlecom.
During the following season, many of these persons, who were mostly from Oneida County, settled, and in 1802, Jonathan Cowent began the erection of a grist mill, at the bridge that crosses to Beebe's Island. The extraordinary water power which this place presented, afforded ground for the expectation, that it would become the centre of a great amount of business. The first deeds were given August 20, 1802, to Elijah Allen, Jotham Ives
* A native of Vermont, but for several years a resident of Schuyler, Oneida County.
f Deacon Bartholomew was born in Connecticut, October 20, 1757; served through the Revolution; settled in Oneida County in 1794, and died in Water- town, June 18, 1850. In 1803 he assisted in forming one of the first Baptist Churches in the County.
# Cowen was a mill wright, and an uncle of Judge Eseck Cowen, of Saratoga County. He died near Evans' Mills, November 27, 1840, at the age of 80.
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David Bent, Ezra Parker, William Parker, Joseph Tuttle, and Joseph Moors.
During the first summer of the settlement, it being entirely impossible to procure grinding at any mills, nearer than Canada, a stump standing on the Public Square, a few rods east of the American Hotel, had been formed into a mortar, and with a spring pole and pestle attached, served the purpose of a grain mill to the settlement. This primitive implement, suggestive of rustic life, and the privations of a new colony, relieved the pioneers, in some degree, from the necessity of long journeys to mill, through a pathless forest. The hardships of this early pe- riod had a tendency to create a unity of feeling and sympathy from the strong sense of mutual dependence which it engendered, and which is recalled by the few survivors of the period, with emotions of gratitude, for the manifest mercies of Providence. These hardy adventurers were mostly poor. They possessed few of the comforts of life, yet they had few wants. The needful ar- ticles of the household were mostly made by their own hands, and artificial grades of society were unknown. The first death of the settlement is thus described by J. P. Fitch, in the preface of the first village directory, published in 1840:
" Late at the close of a still sultry day, in summer, Mrs. I. Thornton, the wife of one of the young settlers, gave the alarm that her husband had not returned from the forest, whither he had gone in the afternoon, to procure a piece of timber. Imme- diately every man in the settlement answered to the call, and hastened to the place designated for meeting, to concert a plan for search. Here all armed themselves with torches of lighted pine knots, or birch bark, and calling every gun in the place into use for firing alarms, and signals, started out in small companies into the forest, in all directions. After a search of several hours, the preconcerted signal gun announced that the "lost was found." All hurried to the spot, and upon the ground where now stands the Black River Institute, crushed beneath a tree which he had felled, lay the lifeless body of their companion. He was laid upon a bier hastily prepared for the occasion, and con- veyed through the gloom of midnight, by the light of their torch- es, back to his house. What must have been the emotion of the bereaved young widow, when the mangled corpse of her husband, so suddenly fallen a victim to death, was brought in and laid before her! She did not, however, mourn alone. As the remains were borne to their last resting place-the first grave that was opened in Trinity Churchyard-it needed no sable emblems of mourning to tell of the grief that hung dark around every heart. Each one of the little company, as he returned from performing the last duties to his departed companion, felt as if from his own
1
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family one had been taken. A similar incident occurred a short time after, in the death of a child which was killed by the falling of a tree, on the present site of the court-house; thus designating with blood, as one can imagine, the location of the halls of Jus- tice, and Science, in our village, and consecrating the ground of each by a human sacrifice."
In 1802 an inn was opened by Dr. Isaiah Massey, and settlers began to locate in every part of the town, which, in September of that year, numbered 70 or 80 families. A dam was built by Cowan in 1802, and in 1803, he got in operation a small grist mill. During two or three succeeding years, John Paddock, Chauncey Calhoun, Philo Johnson, Jesse Doolittle, William Smith, Medad Canfield, Aaron Keyes, Wm. Huntington,* John Hathaway, Seth Bailey, Gershon Tuttle, and others, several of whom were mechanics, joined the settlement, and at a very early day, a school house was built on the site of the Universalist Church, which served also as a place of religious meetings. In 1805, John Paddock and William Smith opened the first store in the place, their goods being brought from Utica in wagons. An idea may be had of the hardships of that period, compared with modern facilities, from the fact that in March, 1807, seventeen sleighs, laden with goods for Smith and Paddock, were 23 days in getting from Oneida County to Watertown, by way of Redfield. The snows were in some places seven feet deep, and the valleys almost impassable, from wild torrents resulting from the melting of snows. The winter had been remarkable for its severity, and the destructive spring floods.
Many incidents connected with the early settlement of this town, have been published in the Jeffersonian, over the sig- nature of A LINK IN THE CHAIN, which were written by Mr. Solon Massey, whose father, Hart Massey, we have frequent occasion to mention as a pioneer and prominent citizen of the county. We regret our inability to publish more extended ex- tracts from these interesting articles, but take the liberty of using the following, which will give some idea of the perils that surround the first settlers of a new country.
Lost in the Woods .- To any person who realises what a dense howling wilderness this country was, at the time of its first occupation by our fathers, it will not be surprising that there were instances, rather frequent, of persons being lost in the woods.
The natural divisions of hill and dale, or upland and lowland, in this comparative level country, afforded but few landmarks to the unlucky wight who happened to get at fault in his reckon-
* Died at Watertown, May 11, 1842, aged 85. He was a native of Tolland, Ct. In 1784 he removed to N. H., and in 1804, to Watertown.
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ings, and even those who were best acquainted with the natural scenery of the trackless forest, immediately surrounding our settlement, were sometimes compelled to experience the startling reality of being lost in the woods; which was indicated by find- ing themselves following a circle-coming round and round and round again, to the same starting point, in spite of all their ef- forts to follow out a continuous straight course.
This liability to be lost was so well understood, that whenever any member of the family was longer away in the forest than was expected, the alarm was given, and a rally made of all the men and boys in the different settlements in the vicinity, and a general and systematic search instituted with preconcerted sig- nals.
And yet the liability to get lost did not deter or prevent fre- quent intercourse with the woods. The forest was the "long pasture " where the cows lived in summer, and where they had to be hunted over long ranges of upland, or of swale and beaver meadow, as their fancy or necessity led them to forage for them- selves. It was the botanic garden where a long list of medicinal plants were found, which were relied upon as preventives of the diseases that were incident to our new country, or as a sov- ereign balm for every wound with which we might be afflicted for the time being. It was the place for berrying for a great variety of fruits and berries in their season-the great range from which we hunted out our natural crooked scythe snaths, our crotched trees for harrows and cart tongues, our axe helves, ox yoke and ox bow timber, broom sticks, &c., &c .; and, finally, it was the great hunting ground for a variety of wild game, with which to supply our tables with meat, in the absence of domes- tic animals, for food. Woods was the rule, clearings the ex- ceptions.
One incident among a great many others, connected with be- ing lost in the woods, may be transcribed from the earliest tradi- tional history of our town, and which is something as follows:
Capt. James Parker owned and occupied a large body of land (now a farm) on the Brownville road, at present occupied in part by his son James. He had a large family of sturdy boys, the oldest of whom, at the time our tradition dates, was fourteen to sixteen years of age. The old gentleman, like many others of our enterprising settlers, was clearing up a large farm, and, for the purpose of making the most out of his ashes, had small pot- ash works, where he worked them into potash or black salts.
In the process of manufacture, it seems he wanted some hem- lock gum, and at the same time wanted some groceries from the little place ycleped a store here in the village. So handing the hero of our story a silver dollar, he bid him take his axe and a
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bag, and on his way to or from the store to procure some gum. With this errand and equipment he started, after dinner, on his way to this place; he proceeded as far as the foot of the Folts Hill (H. H. Coffeen's late residence), where, stretching away to the south was an abundance of hemlock timber, and intent on performing the hardest and most difficult part of his task first, and not wishing to risk losing the dollar, he struck his axe into a large tree and loosening a chip he carefully deposited the coin in the cavity between the loosened chip and the body of the tree for safe keeping, intending to come back to that starting point with his axe and bag, and leave them there in their turn, while he run up to the store and back.
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