USA > New York > Warren County > Queensbury > A history of the town of Queensbury, in the state of New York : with biographical sketches of many of its distinguished men, and some account of the aborigines of northern New York > Part 16
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The Half-way brook, which was noted in the early colonial times as a halting place and rendezvous for the troops and con-
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voys of supplies in their transit between the great military posts at Fort Edward, and the head of Lake George, is situated nearly midway between these points, and hence derives its name.
Near the banks of this somewhat famous stream, and just north and west of the present plank road crossing, a block house and fort with a picketed enclosure of considerable magnitude and strength was erected about the year seventeen hundred and fifty-six. This, as appears by contemporaneous maps was named afterward Fort Amherst, in honor of the commanding general, to whose prowess was surrendered the hitherto impreg- nable fortresses at Ticonderoga and Crown Point. From time to time this post was enlarged and strengthened by outworks and embankments, rifle pits and redoubts.
About one-third of a mile down the stream and on its right bank there was an outlying fortification with barracks and parade ground, known to this day in local tradition as the gar- rison ground. The remains of the old causeway and bridge on the north side of the brook, to the west of the plank road, are still visible. Here Putnam and Rogers, with their hardy rangers, have halted and bivouacked. Here the gallant Lord Howe, the pride of the English army, stopped to rest on his way to dis- aster and death. Here Burgoyne's advance, its gorgeously accoutred staff, its strange looking mercenaries with the daintily nurtured and beautiful Baroness Riedesel,1 found shelter and refreshment, little dreaming of the defeat and cap- tivity which awaited them down through that sullen, pine
1" On the eighth of August, General Riedesel was detached with three batta- lions to John's farm between Forts George and Edward, for the purpose, not only of covering the communication with Fort George, but to promote the conveyance of the convoy to the army. There, in that place, he was completely cut off from the army. So he entrenched himself in a strongly fortified camp, that he might be able to defend himself to the last man."-Memoirs of Madame Riedesel.
A note to the foregoing states that " this farm was immediately north of Half- way brook two miles from the present pretty village of Glen's Falls.
After the disastrous expedition of Baum and Breymann to Bennington, Burgoyne " entrusted to Riedesel the duty of maintaining communication with Fort Anne and Fort George. The latter, therefore, having with him the German regiments of Rhetz and Hesse Hanau, and the 47th English regiment with six guns of heavy calibre, broke up camp on the 18th, marched to Fort Edward, where he rallied his troops, and, on the 19th, arrived at John's farm and took up a position in a fortified camp."- Memoirs of Gen. Riedesel, vol. I, p. 133.
. This reference to John's farm in the foregoing quotations is understood to apply to Jonathan Pitcher, who, being a rebel, had fled before the approach of the Eng- lish troops, and taken refuge in the American camp below.
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shaded corduroy road leading towards Bemis's Heights. And here, too, Abraham Wing and the pioneer settlers of the town- ship, found a dubious welcome, and their first night's lodging on the scene of their future labors.
The Half-way brook has its source in the same mountain range, and but a short distance west from the head waters of its sister stream, the Meadow run. Near the foot of the moun- tain, and nearly encircled by hills, is a natural basin, which, during the past season has been artificially enlarged, and cleaned; and a massive wall of masonry thrown across its outlet, for the formation of a reservoir to supply the Glen's Falls water-works, a public and much needed improvement, which has been but recently completed at a cost of about eighty thousand dollars. The surplus and waste water is directed back to its wonted channel immediately below the reservoir. Running a tortuous course south eastwardly across the plains, the Half-way brook expands into the Forge pond, a small sheet of water, about one and a half miles west of the village of Glen's Falls, and for a long period the favorite resort of the disciples of the gentle Isaac Walton, in pursuit of the speckled trout which once abounded in this stream. At this point, as far back as the year eighteen hundred and eleven, a forge and trip hammer shop were erected by an enterprising pioneer named Johnson. At the same time, a saw mill was built which is still in operation, and which for years supplied the neighborhood, and sent to market the products of the neighboring forests. The manu- facture of iron for some cause did not prove remunerative, and the enterprise, after languishing a few years, was finally aban- doned leaving its name, however, to the pond as a parting legacy, and a reminder of the old French proverb, that "it is only success that succeeds." About a mile below, and nearly oppo- site to the garrison ground already referred to, is an enlarge- ment of the Half-way brook called Briggs's pond, at the foot of which stands a dam and race way, affording power and facili- ties for the works of the Glen's Falls brick company. Here, at the close of the last century, stood a saw mill; while across the flat, some forty or fifty rods further west, in a ravine partly natural, but enlarged by the hand of art, stood a large grist- mill, carried by water, conducted by a canal, artificially con- structed, and leading from the pond above named. These mills were owned and run by Walter Briggs, and were resorted to
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by the inhabitants and farmers from far and near, at a period when there was no grist-mill at Glen's Falls. The buildings have long since been torn down or removed, but the embank- ments of the canal, and the foundations of the mill are still con- spicuous in the green meadow. From this point the Half-way- brook bears north eastwardly through a continuation of swale, marsh, and meadow, creeping sluggishly along at the base of the ridge, and passes the Kingsbury town line in the neigh- borhood of a settlement bearing the euphonious name of Frog hollow. A basin among the hills, half a mile to the west of the settlement called the Oneida, contains a circular sheet of water, a few acres in extent, known as the Round pond. Here was built, among the pines, on its shore, the first Baptist church of Queensbury. A small enclosure near by, contains one of the oldest burial places in town.
Butler brook, near the north bounds of the corporation limits of Glen's Falls, has its source in three small brooks, one of which receives the drainage of the Wild Cat swamp and west part of the village, the second crosses the plank road at the old Mallory place, and the third has its source in a swale a little north of the Warren county fair grounds. It was on this branch, tra- dition informs us, that in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-three, while on his way to visit, and inspect the fortifi- cations at Lake George, Ticonderoga, and Crown Point, General Washington and staff halted to slake their thirst, and were waited upon with a cup and pail and a supply of water from the brook, by Jeremiah Briggs, who was at work in a neighboring field. This stream derived its name from one of the earliest settlers, who lived in its vicinity. Espousing the royal cause, at or during the war, he buried such of his effects as he could, and fled to Canada. His house shared the fate of most of the buildings in this vicinity at that time, being burnt by the savages and tories in one of their numerous eruptions. The Butler brook after the confluence of its branches winds around the cemetery grounds, and unites with the Half-way brook about two miles north of Glen's Falls, midway between the Ridge and Bay roads.
These ponds and streams, during the early days of the set- tlement, were abundantly stocked with trout, which, with the game, then so plentiful in the surrounding forests, constituted a large portion of the resources of the inhabitants. . It was
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related to me by one of the patriarchs of the town that in a winter of uncommon severity, some of the families in Harrisena carried through their stock of cattle on a supply of salted fish of which they had secured a large quantity the preceding season. Until the erection of dams and mills, shad ran up in the spring as far as the Falls where they were caught in consider- able quantities, and were to some extent an article of commerce.
The original survey of the township contemplated the location of the village at the Half-way brook, where the existing clearings and buildings offered a strong inducement to the first settlers to locate their houses. Here the town plot was laid out, ranging due north and south. The lots were of ten acres each and forty- four in number, beside the road ways, four rods in width, sur- rounding the whole, an eight rod road in each direction, bisect- ing the plot into four equal sections. Four central lots at these angles were reserved for church and school purposes and for public buildings. Either half to the east and west was also divided by a north and south road four rods in width.
It is needless to say that no settlement was ever established here, and that Champlain's tannery, and the Pitcher tavern occupying the site just north of the Half-way brook upon which a brick house now stands, are the nearest approach to public buildings erected on the site of this projected village, after the original survey by Zaccheus Towner in 1762. The old Pitcher tavern was a place of considerable note in those days when every log hut was an inn, and every framed dwell- ing a hotel. It was kept by Jonathan Pitcher, whose name frequently appears in the town records, chiefly in connection with matters pertaining to the excise law, on two occasions he being excused by a vote of the people, from paying his license.
Harrisena is a neighborhood at the north part of the town, and derives its name from the original founders of the settle- ment. The region comprising this somewhat vaguely defined locality, includes some of the most fertile and productive farm- ing lands in the county of Warren. The Harrisena patent proper embraced two thousand acres of land, and was originally conveyed to Robert Harpur and others, but the grant for some cause was surrendered to the crown, and reissued in 1772 to John Lawrence, Henry Boel and Stephen Tuttle, who relin- quished or sold their title to Moses Harris. He, with another brother, settled upon it in 1787, and in the following January
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obtained certificates of location of the same, with several other rights or claims, embracing in all a territory of between three and four thousand acres. At about the same time, Joshua Harris secured certificates of location for four lots of two hun- dred acres each in the same vicinity. These lands have mostly remained in the hands of the Harris family and their descend- ants to the present day. The first house erected here was a log tenement, built near a spring about ten rods south-east of the Rufus Harris place. Joseph Harris was the first settler, and moved here about the year 1784. The next was a framed house, and was built for Moses Harris by John Phettyplace. It stood near the site occupied by the Henry Harris homestead. This wealthy and thriving agricultural district has in the course of years become thickly and compactly settled, for a farming region, possessing admirable public schools, two churches one of which has a settled pastor ; its ailments cared for by a resi- dent physician ; many of its wants provided for and supplied by home mechanics ; while bordering upon the bays and points jutting in and out around the head of Lake George are several pleasant and attractive places of resort, where travelers, invalids, pleasure seekers, business men, worn out with the wearying and incessant round of business cares, repair year by year in con- stantly increasing numbers, for that rest and recuperation, so difficult to find among the hot, crowded thoroughfares of our fashionable resorts, and summer watering places.
Five miles to the north of the village of Glen's Falls, on the road to Harrisena, is situated a small settlement, which, for up- wards of fifty years has borne in local colloquial phrase, the name of the' Oneida. The attempt has been made to call it North- ville, and Middleville, but no effort to shake off the former appellation has been successful. About the time of the last war with England, this was a place of considerable import- ance, having two good sized and well patronized inns, three stores doing a quite extensive trade, a large lumbering business, in connection with adjacent mills, various mechanic shops, and a Baptist church and society. Here two noted justices of the peace, Dan D. Scott, and James Henderson, held their weekly and august tribunals, at which as many as one hundred and seventy summonses, besides criminal processes and subpænas have been made returnable in one day. Every Saturday, sometimes oftener, from fifty to two hundred people assembled
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here to listen to the encounter of argument, the brilliant collision of wit and repartee, and the splendid oratory of that gifted and eloquent array of legal talent, which then graced the bar of Warren and Washington counties.
The first house at the Oneida was erected by Joshua Chase about the year 1793. The name was derived from a half breed Oneida Indian, by the name of Thomas Hammond. He, with his sister Dinah, were brought up by Capt. Green of Whipple city, now Greenwich, Washington county, N. Y. Some little time previous to the outbreak of the war he removed to Queens- bury, and opened a store of general merchandise in a building which is still standing on the corner opposite and fronting the old tavern stand ; and here, for a number of years, he was en- gaged in carrying on a considerable trade, mixed up to some extent with the lumbering business. From the often repeated expressions, " let's go up to the Oneida's," "I bought this at the Oneida's," " we must send down to the Oneida's," was derived the name which through the vicissitudes of half a century has clung like a burr to the settlement. Hammond married Keziah, a sister of James Reynolds of Caldwell. Pursued by the red man's curse, an unappeasable appetite for the terrible fire water, he finally failed in business, removed to French mountain, and died a wretched inebriate and outcast. Since then, the magnifi- cent pine forests which once stretched their serried ranks across plain and hill side, from the lake to the Kingsbury line, have been cut down, the local traffic has diminished, and the import- ance of the settlement decreased.
One or two stores, however, are still kept up, and a few artisans still ply their craft in a humble way. Some change in the route of travel or the drift of commerce, may yet occur to revive the ' dormant activity of this quiet settlement.
The Ridge, or Sanford's ridge, is a name applied to a thickly settled farming district, stretching a distance of three or four miles along a crest of rich, arable land beginning about two miles north of Glen's Falls village, and terminating beyond the town line on the east. Toward the close of the last century, this was a settlement of greater size and im- portance than the village at the Falls. At that time, there were two stores, a tavern, several mechanic shops and two physicians. In the year 1800 the Quaker church was built on the corners two miles north of the village. The first settler at the Ridge was Elijah Bartow who plied his trade
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as a blacksmith on what is known as the Gould Sanford farm. He lived in a log house near by. One of the first framed houses in the neighborhood was built and occupied by James Tripp on the site now covered by the residence of Joseph Haviland. Abraham Tucker about the same time built on the farm south- west of the Quaker church. This neighborhood derived its name from David Sanford, Esq., who, in 1795, removed from the town of New Milford, Conn., to Queensbury and established himself in trade at this point. For the next ten years he was prominently identified with the business interests of the town, and the development of its resources. He was frequently chosen to office, and up to the time of his death was a man of mark and consideration.
One and a half miles westward from Glen's Falls is a strag- gling suburb which bears the name of Goodspeedville. This settlement was founded about the year 1845, by a keen, shrewd speculator named Stephen Goodspeed, who in 1842, bought of Allan Gow, a tract of pine plain land, known as the Skinner farm. Meeting with but indifferent success as a farmer, the purchase was laid out into village lots, and was sold in quantities to suit purchasers, many of whom built upon and occupied their newly acquired homes. Thus a small hamlet was gradually gathered, whose residents chiefly find employment upon the neighboring mills, and river, or as laborers at farm work; while a few find more profitable or desirable occupation in mechanical pursuits, for which the outgrowth of the adjacent village occasions an ever increasing demand.
The construction of the Northern canal eventuated in the erection of the big dam across the Hudson river, two miles above Glen's Falls. This structure as originally built was seven hundred and seventy feet long, by twelve feet high, and was primarily intended to secure a permanent supply of water for the summit level of the Northern canal above Fort Edward. The Glen's Falls feeder was a contemporaneous work, at firsta big ditch, afterwards enlarged, with the addition of locks, and completed for navigable use, as elsewhere stated, about the year 1832. This dam was rebuilt in a very substantial manner in 1872, at the expense of the state, about two feet in height added, and its security protected by massive and expensive stone . work at either extremity. A strong and well constructed guard
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HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
lock admits the waters of the river, and permits the passage of lighters to and from the mills on the opposite side of the river. Contemporaneous with the construction of the dam, was the erection of saw mills, and as a consequence of this important industry, quite a settlement has grown up in the neighborhood, the buildings being mostly occupied with the laborers and em- ployes engaged upon these works.
Another thriving settlement in town, has been built up near the upper toll gate on the Glen's Falls and Lake George plank road, chiefly through the energy and enterprise of Mr. George Brown, proprietor of the half-way-house, and a lineal de- scendant in the fourth remove from Valentine Brown, one of the original settlers of the town. The post office at this point, which has been established for more than twenty years, bears the name of French Mountain, while another, situated near the outlet, about four miles eastwardly, is called Queens- bury post office. A blacksmith and wagon-shop, a tin-shop, store, saw-mill, and other industries are here gathered as a nucleus and promise of future growth. The half-way-house, kept by Mr. Brown, is a place of frequent resort by pleasure travelers in the summer season, who find a more than common attraction in the genial hospitalities, and home like' comforts of this place. From the beginning of the century, and even dating farther back, this locality has been famous for its well kept tavern, which, in those early days, occupied the corner on the east side of the street facing the present building. In the first instance this was an unpretentious log dwelling occupied and kept by David Buck. This was at a later date replaced by a framed building, where Buck was succeeded in the course of time by his widow. Here for many years, and until within a comparatively recent period, town meetings, elections, and political gatherings were periodically held. The building was torn down about the time the plank road was constructed, and replaced by the present structure. Until the purchase and completion of the fair ground in the vicinity of Glen's Falls, the Warren county fairs were for several years held in this neighborhood, where with great liberality Mr. Brown had, at his own expense, erected the necessary buildings, secured the enclosure with a suitable, substantial fence, and laid out and graded a trotting course, all of which are now rapidly mouldering to decay.
J. A. J Wilcox Boston
Jerome Laphume
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TOPOGRAPHY AND DESCRIPTION.
The Warren county fair grounds, which are located a short distance above the north bounds of the corporation of Glen's Falls, were purchased in the year 1868 by a company of gentle- men residing in the village, who with greatliberality advanced means for erecting suitable buildings, grading, preparing and ornamenting the grounds, and making the enterprise not only a success, but in no way inferior by comparison with similar undertakings. For his special efforts in behalf of this society, its officers and members, in the fall of 1873, presented Hon. Jerome Lapham,(a) one of the stockholders in the above named association, with a service of plate.
(a) The Hon. JEROME LAPHAM, second son of Jonathan and Elizabeth S. (Healy) Lapham, was born in Queensbury on the 4th of December, 1823. He was the grandson of Stephen Lapham, whose name figures conspicuously in the early town records, and who, accompanied by his wife and six daughters, came to this town from the island of Nantucket, as nearly as can be ascertained, about the year 1785. He was born in 1762, and was killed by the falling from the shed of the then new Quaker Meeting House at the Ridge, in 1802. He was engaged in shingling the roof, slipped, fell, and struck his head upon a pile of stones, which caused his immediate death. He was a farmer by occupation. When he came here he bought several hundred acres of heavily timbered land lying between the Bay and Ridge roads, afterwards cleared and sold off for farms to various parties. The Lapham homestead was on the site covered by the dwell- ing owned and occupied by the late Grant Haviland. Stephen Lapham was a member of the society of Friends, and was a person widely esteemed, and of con- siderable influence.
The subject of this sketch removed with his parents to Glen's Falls in the spring of 1832. His early education was derived from such advantages as were afforded in the district schools of his neigborhood, and one term of tuition at the Glen's Falls Academy. At the tender age of twelve he commenced the great struggle of existence, by working out on a farm. From that date, the rapidly shifting views of his life, find him variously employed, up to his twe ty-second year, as canal driver, boat hand, teamster, errand boy, clerk. He then went to New York and remained about six months in partnership with an uncle in a retail tea and sugar store. At the end of this time, he returned to Glen's Falls, not much better off than he left, but with a fund of valuable experience. He now en- tered into partnership with James Morgan, in whose employment he had already served a long apprenticeship, and who, at the time named, was carrying on an extended, and well established mercantile business on the corner of Glen and Ex- change streets, on the site now occupied by Messrs. Coolidge & Lee. In 1850 he became largely interested in a heavy lumber purchase in the 16th town- ship, which was increased and extended by the firm afterward from time to time as opportunity offered. In addition to this, their business was augmented by the establishment of a freighting and transportation line on the Northern canal, and Glen's Falls feeder. This, at first small in its proportions, was gradually extended to a line of eight boats. The mercantile business was disposed of to Mr. Charles Rice in 1856. The lumber interest increased in its extent and importance until 1863, when Mr. Lapham disposed of his share, and retired on what he considered a competency. Since that time, he has been largely identified with the public
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interests and improvements of the place. Has been elected supervisor of the town four terms ; held that responsible position during the important crisis of 1864-5, when, by virtue of his office, he was also chairman of the town war committee, and for three years gave almost his entire time to the many complicated questions growing out of that relation. He was also elected to the assembly of 1865, and served ably, and satisfactorily to his constituents in that capacity. He was one of a few public spirited individuals whose action in favor of a horse railroad to Fort Edward resulted in securing our present steam communication with the great busi- ness and commercial centres. He has been for several years a director in the First National Bank of Glen's Falls, and of the Glen's Falls Insurance Company. He was also one of a few whose public spirit, despite clamor or calumny, has pushed through, to successful operation, the admirable system of water-works which our village now possesses.
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