USA > New York > Franklin County > A history of St. Lawrence and Franklin counties, New York : from the earliest period to the present time > Part 26
USA > New York > St Lawrence County > A history of St. Lawrence and Franklin counties, New York : from the earliest period to the present time > Part 26
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II. The said commissioners, after having made such inquiries, and ex- aminations as aforesaid, and as to them shall be satisfactory, shall on or after the fifteenth day of August next, fix upon and establish the site for the buildings aforesaid, and shall put their determination in writing, under their hands and seals, or the hands and seals of any two of them, and shall file the same in the office of the clerk of the said county, whose duty it shall be to receive and file the said paper, without any compensa- tion for so doing; and the determination of the said commissioners, or any two of them, being so made and filed as aforesaid, shall be final and conclusive in the premises.
III. The said commissioners shall be entitled to receive three dollars per day each, for every day they shall be necessarily employed in dis- charging the duties of the said commission, and fifteen cents per mile each, for their travel, going and returning, to be computed from the resi- dence of each commissioner, to the clerk's office of the said county; which shall be the compensation of the said commissioners, shall be raised levied and collected as the other contingent expenses of the said county are raised levied and collected.
IV. That Ansel Bailey, David C. Judson and Asa Sprague, Jr., be and they are hereby appointed commissioners to superintend the building of a court house, gaol and clerk's office, in and for the said county of St. Lawrence, upon the site to be fixed upon and established by the commis- sioners appointed in and by the first section of this act.
V. The commissioners appointed in and by the last preceding section of this act, or a majority of them, are hereby authorized and empowered to purchase materials, contract with workmen, and do all other things necessary to the building of the said court house, goal and clerk's office ; to direct the size, shape and arrangement of the said buildings, and the materials of which the same shall be constructed; and that the said clerk's office shall be built of such materials, and be so constructed as to be fire proof.
VI. The comissioners last mentioned shall be, and they are hereby authorized to draw upon the treasurer of the said county of St. Lawrence, from time to time, for such sum or sums of money as shall come into the treasury of the said county, to be appropriated for the erection of the said buildings; and it shall be the duty of the said treasurer, to pay on the order of the said commissioners, or a majority of them, any sums of money in his hands, appropriated to the erection of the said buildings.
VII. The said commissioners appointed to superintend the erection of the said buildings, shall, before they enter upon the duties of their office, give bonds in the penal sum of $5,000, with approved sureties, to the supervisors of the said county, conditioned that they will faithfully dis- charge the duties of the said commission, and the moneys which shall come into their hands, as such commissioners, and that they will punc- tually and honestly account to the said supervisors, for all such moneys; and the said commissioners shall be entitled to receive each the sum of two dollars per day, for each day they be necessarily employed in the dis- charge of their duties, under this act, to be audited, levied and collected as the other contingent charges of the said county are audited, levied and collected."
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The substance of the remaining sections will only be given.
VIII. A tax of $2,500 to be levied on the county for the building.
IX. The board of supervisors to sell the old court house, gaol and clerk's office, and apply the proceeds towards the new building, &c.
X. Supervisors to procure a deed in fee simple of the new site.
XI. The site to be paid for out of the proceeds of the old buildings.
XII. The supervisors to levy a sum in 1829, not to exceed $2,500, to finish the new buildings.
XIII. Commissioners to give notice to the judges of the county court, of the completion of the buildings.
XIV. The judges to meet and fix upon the gaol liberties.
XV. The sheriff to remove prisoners to the new gaol, when directed by the judges of the courts.
XVI. The sheriff alone, liable for escape of prisoners on removal.
XVII. The clerk to remove records when directed by judges.
XVIII. After the above, the new buildings shall be deemed the county court house, gaol and clerk's office, to all legal intents.
XIX. Vacancies among first commissioners, to be filled by governor.
XX. Vacancies in building commissioners, to be filled by county judges.
The sum designated by the foregoing act being found inadequate to complete the buildings, an act was passed April 16, 1830, authorizing the supervisors to raise $600 more for that purpose.
The first record made at the clerk's office after its removal, was on the 8th of January, 1830, on which day it was opened.
The following extract from the report to the supervisors, of the com- missioners appointed to erect the county buildings, at Canton, describes their original construction :
" Each building is of stone. The court house is two stories in height, 44 feet by 40. The lower story is divided into four rooms, besides pas- sages and stairways, viz, a grand jury room, a room for constables and witnesses attending the grand jury, and two rooms for petit jurors. The upper story is devoted entirely to a court room, 41 feet in length, by 37 in breadth.
The clerk's office is of the same height and size of the private clerk's office, and differing in its construction only, in making the front room smaller, and the rear one larger. * *
The gaol is 36 by 40, with the basement story rising about five feet out of the ground, and a story and a half above. About 12 feet of the easterly end of all the stories is appropriated to prison rooms, except a small room in the lower story, for a sheriff's office, where the stove is placed intended to give warmth to all the criminal rooms in the upper story, as well as the debtor's room immediately back on the same story.
The plan of the criminal rooms has been entirely changed since the report made at the last meeting of the board.
It was then contemplated to take the Jefferson county jail, as a model, in the construction of ours, the strength of which consisted in the size, and even surface of the stone of which the walls are constructed. The difficulty of obtaining stone of sufficient size and evenness of surface to admit of dowaling, induced them to abandon that plan.
The criminals' rooms are a block of cells, five in number, constructed
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of wood and iron, placed in the second story, within and three feet dis- tant from the outside walls.
The light is admitted into the cells through gratings in the upper part of the doors (which are to be wholly of iron), opening into the hall in the easterly end of the building into which the light is admitted, through four strong grated windows.
The cells are, with the exception of one, intended for the accommoda- tion of single prisoners only.
The plan, though novel, as applied to county gaols, was suggested to the consideration of the committee, by an examination of the construc- tion of the state prison, recently erected; and it appears to them to pos- sess the same advantages for a county prison, which has given to those establishments a character for usefulness, in the prevention of crime, by the reformation of the criminal, in the measure of punishment that has revived the hope of the philanthropist, in the success of the penitentiary system; that from the world and from the contaminating influence of the society of his fellow prisoners, who may be more hardened in vice, and left to his own solitary reflections, if there is any chance for reformation; by punishment, it is under such circumstances. The safety of the arrange- ment strongly recommended itself to the consideration of the committee.
Confined singly, there can be no joint efforts.
Communication from the outside, except as to one cell, is believed to be impracticable and difficult, as to that; and should an escape from a cell be effected, the outside wall or grating would still remain to be forced."
The accommodation of the courthouse being deemed insufficient for the wants of the county, the subject of repairing and enlarging the building, was brought before the board of supervisors, at their session in 1850, and it was resolved,
" That a committee of five persons be appointed by the board, whose duty it shall be to examine the present building, and the cost and expense of an addition of 24 feet, of the same materials as the present building, and of the same height, including the expense of remodelling the inside in a convenient and suitable manner, and to receive proposals for the erection and completion of said addition."
This committee was authorized to contract for the erection of said addition to the court house, provided such addition shall be found prac- ticable, for the sum of $1,600.
Two days afterwards, this vote was reconsidered, on a vote of 11 to 10, and three members of the board were appointed a committee to examine and determine what repairs and alterations in the court, house were necessary. If, in the judgment of the committee, repairs and alter- ations should be made, and they might contract for the same, for a sum not exceeding $2,000, the committee were to file a certificate to this effect, with the clerk of the board, and they then might borrow, on the credit of the county, at par, such sums for seven per cent. annual interest, which they were authorized to expend in repairs and alterations of the court house.
The committee were to give their official bond for money so borrowed,
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not exceeding $2,000, in the aggregate, which was to be entered by the clerk of the board in his minutes, and certified by him, bearing 7 per cent. interest, payable annually. In case the committee should deter- mine to make such repairs and alterations, they were to cause such alterations and repairs to be contracted for and made under their inspec- tion and direction.
A further amendment, which required that the committee in no case should have authority to contract for the completion of the addition of 24 feet on the east end of the court house, unless the same could be done for $2,000, was adopted.
Messrs. Picket, Anthony, Cogswell, Foster, and Hazelton were appoint- ed to select a committee to carry the foregoing resolutions into effect, and they reported the name of Messrs. Fisk, Thatcher and Cogswell, who were duly appointed.
The additions contemplated, were effected during the year 1851, and St. Lawrence county can now justly boast of a court house which will com- pare favorably in point of convenience, although perhaps not in splendor of architectural display, with that of most of county buildings of the state.
This improvement had been suggested by the judges of the supreme court.
The records of the board of supervisors of St. Lawrence county pre- vious to 1814 were lost in a fire at Ogdensburgh in the spring of 1839. The first board is said to have been composed of the following:
Nathan Ford, of Oswegatchee ; Alexander J. Turner, of Lisbon ; Joseph Edsall, of Madrid; Matthew Perkins, of Massena.
The early action of the supervisors in regard to public buildings, is not known. That in relation to subsequent buildings, has been given.
In 1825, the board resolved to avail itself of the provisions of the act authorizing certain counties to build county poor houses, by filing a cer- tificate to that effect, in the clerk's office of the county.
Carried by a vote of 11 to 7.
The sum of $2,400 was accordingly voted, for the purpose of purchas- ing one or more tracts of land, and to erect thereon suitable buildings for a poor house. This sum was to be raised in three equal annual instalments.
Smith Stilwell, Jonah Sanford and Chauncey Pettibone were appoint- ed commissioners to locate the site, and make the purchase.
At an adjourned meeting, held in January, 1826, several attempts were made to agree upon a site for the poor house, but without success: and the commissioners previously appointed were discharged from that duty.
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John C. Perkins, Samuel Northrup and Reuben Streeter were subse - quently appointed for this purpose.
Asa Sprague, Jun., Daniel Walker, Smith Stilwell, Samuel Patridge, Silas Wright, Jun., Joseph Barnes and Ephraim S. Raymond were, at this session, appointed superintendents of the poor house.
A lot of eighty acres, one mile west of Canton village, was purchased, on which was a house and barn, for $1,250.
$500 was applied for repairing buildings, and stocking the farm. In 1827, the further sum of $500 was raised, for the purpose of erecting an additional building at the poor house.
From the interruption in the series, we shall not attempt to give in connected order a synopsis of the proceedings of the board of supervisors in St. Lawrence county, but shall have frequent occasion to allude to them in this work.
Louis Hasbrouck was first appointed clerk of the board of supervisors, and held that office till the year 1810, when William W. Bowen was appointed, and held till 1819. During the session of that year, Chester Gurney officiated, and at that time, Bishop Perkins, of Ogdensburgh, was appointed to the office, which he held uninterruptedly, till the ses- sion of 1852, when having been elected to Congress, he resigned his office of clerk of the board, which he had held with the entire approba- tion of that body, for a third of a century, and Martin Thatcher was appointed his successor.
On his retiring from the office which he had held so long, Mr. Perkins received a unanimous vote of the board, expressive of their sense of the high esteem with which they regarded his services.
ORGANIZATION OF FRANKLIN COUNTY.
C LIN A Petition of John Porter, and others, inhabitants of the county of Clinton, was presented in the assembly, February 4th, 1808, praying for the BERTY erection of a new county therefrom, by the FR SEAL name of NORFOLK, and other provisions relating thereto, which was read, and with several similar petitions, was referred to a committee, consisting of Mr. Joshua Foreman of Onondaga, Mr. Elisha Arnold of Clinton, and Mr. Amos Hall of Alleghany, Genesee, and Ontario counties.
On the tenth of February, Mr. Foreman, from the above committee, reported as follows :
" That they had taken the facts set forth in said petition, into con- sideration, and do find, that the settlements in the western part of said
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county, are so remote from the site of the courts in said county, as to render their attendance extremely difficult, and burthensome; that the territory of said county is sufficiently large to admit of a division, and leave to each county a territory equal to the general size of counties in this state; that the application for such division, has been generally known in the county; the committee therefore presume that the princi- ple of such division, as well as the line of division, are well understood and agreed upon in said county; the committee also find that the town of Malone is very nearly central, in such proposed county, between the east and west line, and from the quality of the soil in the north and south parts, the committee are of opinion. that said town will be at least as far south as the centre of population in said county; the committee are therefore of opinion, that the prayer of the petitioners ought to be granted, and that the place of holding courts in the new county, ought to be established in the town of Malone; the committee have therefore prepared a bill for that purpose, and directed their chairman to ask for leave to bring in the same."
Leave being granted, the bill was introduced; read the first and second time, and referred to the committee of the whole. On the 15th the house as a committee, spent some time upon the bill, when the speaker resumed the chair, and Mr. Gold, from the said committee, reported, that the committee had gone through the said bill, made amendments, filled up the blanks, and agreed to the same, which he was directed to report to the house; and he read the report in his place and delivered the same to the table where it was again read, and agreed to by the house.
It was then ordered that the bill be engrossed.
On the 16th, it was read the third time and passed; and on the same day it was sent to the senate, and read the first time.
On the 17th, it was read the second time, and referred to the commit- tee of the whole.
On the same day Mr. Graham, from this committee, reported progress and asked leave to sit again, which was also done on the 26th. On the 7th of March, he reported that the committee had gone through the said bill, made amendments, and agreed to the same, which he was directed to report to the senate, and he read the report in his place, and delivered the same at the table, where it was again read and agreed to by the senate. The amendments were ordered to be engrossed, and on the next day it was passed and sent back to the assembly, where they were concurred in.
On the 8th, it was by the assembly referred to the council of revision, and it subsequently received their sanction.
Franklin county, was erected by an act, entitled:
" An act to divide the county of Clinton, and for other purposes."
Passed March 11, 1808.
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HISTORY OF ST. LAWRENCE
" Be it enacted, by the people of the state of New York, represented in senate and assembly: That all that part of the county of Clinton, lying west of a line beginning in the line of the said county of Clinton, between number six and seven, of the old military townships, and running from thence southerly, along the east line of number seven, eight, nine, ten and eleven of the old military townships aforesaid, to the north line of the county of Essex, shall be, and is hereby erected into a separate county by the name of Franklin, and the residue of said county of Clinton, lying east of the aforesaid line, shall be, and remain a separate county by the name of Clinton.
And be it further enacted: That there shall be holden in, and for the said county of Franklin, a court of common pleas, and general session of the peace, and that there shall be two terms of said courts, in the said county, in every year, to commence as follows :- The first term of the said court of common pleas and general sessions of the peace, shall be holden on the third Tuesday of April, next, and may continue until the Saturday following, inclusive; and the second term of the said court, shall commence on the second Tuesday of October, next, and may con- tinue to be holden until the Saturday following, inclusive; and the said courts of common pleas and general sessions of the peace, shall have the like jurisdiction, power and authority, in the said county, as the courts of common pleas and general sessions of the peace, in the other counties of this state, have in their respective counties.
Provided: That all suits now pending in the court of common pleas and general sessions in the county of Clinton, may be prosecuted to trial, judgment and execution, as if this act had not been passed.
And be it further enacted : That the said courts of common pleas and general sessions of the peace be holden at the academny, in the town- ship of Malone, in and for the said county; and that the supervisors of the said county of Franklin be, and are hereby authorized to raise by tax, on the freeholders and inhabitants of said county, the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, to be applied and appropriated by them to strengthen and secure one room in the said academy, as a gaol for said county, and the sheriff of the county of Franklin, and other officers, civil and criminal, are hereby authorized to confine their prison- ers in such room of said academy, and in the gaol of the said county of Clinton, at their election.
And be it further enacted: That all those parts of the towns of Peru, and Plattsburgh, lying within the county of Franklin, west of the old military townships, be annexed to the town of Harrison, that all those parts of the said towns of Peru and Plattsburgh in the said county of Franklin, within the old military townships, be annexed to the town of Chateaugay ; and that all that part of the town of Chateaugay, remaining in the county of Clinton, be annexed to the town of Mooers, in said county of Clinton; and the supervisors of the towns of Harrison and Chateaugay in the county of Franklin, and of Mooers, Peru and Platts- burgh in the county of Clinton, shall, as soon as may be, after the first Tuesday of April, next, on notice for that purpose being given, meet and divide the poor and money belonging to the said town of Peru, Platts- burgh, and Chateaugay, according to the distribution of the territory of said towns, and the last tax lists thereof.
And be it further enacted : 'That the said county of Franklin, shall be considered as part of the eastern district of this state, and until other provisions are made for that purpose, that the inspectors of elections in the several towns of said county of Franklin, return the votes taken therein at any election for governor, lieutenant governor, senators, mem-
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bers of assembly, and representatives in congress, to the clerk of the county of Clinton, to be by him estimated as part of the aggregate num- ber of votes given at such election in the county of Franklin, and that the said county of Franklin be considered as part of the said district to which the county of Franklin belongs, as it respects all proceedings under the act entitled, " An act relative to district attorneys."
The following remark, in relation to the origin of the name of this county, occurs in Spafford's Gazetteer of the State of New York, pub- lished in 1813:
" It can hardly be necessary to say, that this county received its name from the illustrious Franklin; and that nothing was meant by attaching it to the least valuable county of this state, though the doctor, who always saw a meaning in every thing, might be displeased with it, should he appear here in his butt of wine."
It was from insinuations like these, that northern New York has hitherto been looked upon by the law makers of the state, as unworthy of attention ; and hence has led to a neglect of the just claims of its inhabit- ants to a participation in the benefits of our system of internal improve- ments. In 1813, there were four post offices in the county, Chateaugay, Constable, Dickinson and Ezraville, since changed to Malone.
By an act passed April 3, 1801, dividing the state into counties, the territory now embraced in St. Lawrence and Franklin counties was made a part of Clinton county, which included " all that part of the state bounded southerly by the county of Essex and Totten & Crossfield's purchase, easterly by the east bounds of the state, northerly by the north bounds of the state, and westerly by the west bounds of the state, and the division line between great lots No. 3 and 4, of Macomb's purchase, continued to the west bounds of this state.
By an act passed April 7, 1801, dividing the state into towns, the terri- tory now embraced in Franklin county, was made to comprise the town of Chateaugay, when first erected, in 1799, this town included only that part of military townships in Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 8.
On the 22d of March, 1822, township No. 11, in the OLD MILITARY TRACT, was taken from Franklin and annexed to Essex county. The territory so transferred, was annexed to the town of Jay, and is embraced in the present town of St. Armand.
The building erected for an academy, and still standing on the premises of the Franklin Academy, continued to serve the purpose of a court house and jail until after the war. Measures were meanwhile taken as early as the beginning of 1809, to procure public buildings, and petitions were forwarded for the purpose.
From the journal of the assembly, February 20, 1809, it is learned :
" That it appears by the petition, that Noah Moody's dwelling house which stood on the rising ground a few rods west of the bridge, in the cen-
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tre of the town of Malone, in the county of Franklin ; has been selected by the inhabitants of the said county, for the site of their court house and gaol; that in consequence of such selection, the inhabitants of said town have bound themselves to contribute the sum of fifteen hundred dollars towards erecting the said court house and gaol within two years; that the act for the erection of said county does not designate the site, by reason whereof, it may be questionable whether the payment of the said bond can be enforced, wherefore the petitioners pray that the site be designated by law."
The committee reported favorably, and the act subsequently passed. The location of the public buildings of this county was accordingly determined by an act passed March 24, 1809, which directed,
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