USA > New York > Oneida County > Annals and recollections of Oneida County > Part 17
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Early in 1793 the institution was incorporated, by the name of " Hamilton Oneida Academy." But Mr. Kirk- land's services to the institution did not end here. In April of that year he made it a valuable donation in lands, the preamble to the title-deed of which is as follows :- "A serious consideration of the importance of education, and an early improvement and cultivation of the human mind, together with the situation of the frontier settlement of this part of the State, though extensive and flourishing, yet destitute of any well regulated seminary of learning, has induced and determined me to contribute of the ability wherewith my Heavenly Benefactor hath blessed me, towards laying the foundation and support of a school, or academy, in the town of Whitestown, County of Herkimer, contiguous to the Oneida Nation of Indians, for the mutual benefit of the young and flourishing settlements in said county, and the various tribes of confederated Indians, earnestly wishing
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the institution may grow and flourish, that the advantages of it may be extensive and lasting, and that, under the smiles of the God of wisdom and goodness, it may prove an emi- nent means of diffusing useful knowledge, enlarging the bounds of human happiness, aiding the reign of virtue and the kingdom of the blessed Redeemer."
This preamble is followed by a deed conveying to the trustees of Hamilton Oneida Academy several parcels of land, containing in all several hundred acres. One lot of twelve acres was declared to be inalienable, and this is the " ground plot," as it is termed, upon which Hamilton College now stands. The remainder of the lots were left to the disposition of said trustees. The establishment of this school was the last important act in Mr. Kirkland's life.
The Pennet party caused him much trouble, and in 1791 they made an unsuccessful effort to have him superseded. The Rev. Drs. Belknap and Morse were appointed a com- mittee by the board to investigate the grounds of complaint. and reported favorably to Mr. Kirkland. and upon this report, and the testimony adduced by him, the board dis- missed the complaint.
In 1795, by the stumbling of his horse, Mr. Kirkland was thrown upon the hard ground, with great violence. He never recovered from the effects of this fall, but for five or six years was much of the time an invalid.
In 1797, the Society in Scotland dissolved its connection with Mr. Kirkland, and about the same time the Society discontinued most of its missionary operations in the United States. In 1805 his youngest son, Samuel, died in Boston. and in 1806 his son George W., in Jamaica.
As far as health would permit, Mr. Kirkland continued his labors at Oneida through life. The Christian church at that place, as long as he survived, regarded him as their
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missionary and pastor. In one of his last communications to the Society he says, -" Whether I hold the office [of missionary] or not, while I live, and have any capacity for service, I must do much of the duty. I know their language and manners, I love them, and they me. I have learned to bear with their ignorance, their perverseness, their dulness, and not be angry, or despondent. They must and always will come to me, and expect to receive counsel, instruction. sympathy, and hospitality." IIe frequently expended the whole of his salary in his hospitality to them, and it was no unusual thing for him to furnish seventy, eighty, and even a hundred meals in a single week to the Indians. Even after his death they seemed to expect, and claimed almost as a right, the same attention and hospitality they had ever received in his lifetime.
After a brief but severe illness, he died of pleurisy, on the 28th of February, 1808. IIis remains were carried to the church in Clinton, where a funeral sermon was preached by the Rev. Dr. Norton. He was interred in a private grave near his house, where, on one side, rest the remains of his widow* and youngest daughter, and on the other the celebrated Skenandoa.
His daughters were all married : Jerusha, the eldest, (now the sole survivor of the family,) in 1797, to John H. Loth- rop, Esq., of Utica ; the next, Saralı, in 1804, to Francis Amory, of Boston, and the youngest, Eliza, in 1818, to Rev. Edward Robinson, D. D., then Professor in Hamilton Col- lege, and subsequently known as an oriental traveller, and now a Professor in the Union Theological Seminary of New York City. His sons George W. and Samuel died un- married ; John T. married late in life, and had no children,
* Mr. Kirkland was married a second time. His second wife sur- vived him several years, and it is her remains that rest beside his.
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so that there is no descendant of Mr. Kirkland bearing his name.
Perhaps the reader may think that the memoirs of Mr Kirkland have been made too prolix for a work of this kind. The incidents of his life were, however, so varied, and abound with so many important and useful data, that, in the opinion of the writer, they could not have been abridged without detracting materially from the instruction they fur- nish. and the interest they possess. To have omitted more. would have been to mar the fair proportions of the super- structure .- "a well spent life." Much of detail, and many things possessing interest to the various classes of readers, are necessarily omitted for want of room. For the materials . of this sketch, the author is chiefly indebted to the Life of Mr. Kirkland, written by his grandson, Samuel Kirkland Lothrop.
MOSES FOOTE, who was the "leading spirit" of Clinton. was born August 4, 1734. in the town of Waterbury, Conn. He was the son of Moses Foot, who was born January 13. 1702. who was the son of Nathaniel Foote, who was born April 13, 1660, and he the son of Robert Foote, who was born about 1627. and he the son of Deacon Nathaniel Foote, who was born about 1593, and emigrated from England to Wethersfield, Conn.
The subject of this sketch was twice married, first to Thankful Bronson, of Waterbury. August 12, 1756; by this marriage he had one son, Bronson Foote, who was a soldier of the Revolution, and died in Clinton, August 30, 1836, aged 79. The second marriage was to Amy Richards, May 17. 1758, and by which he had nine children, viz. :- Tra, Thankful, Luther, Amy and Anna (twins), Moses, Arunah, Jairus and Betsey (twins). Of these, Thankful,
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(the wife of Major Barnabas Pond.) Amy, Moses, Arunah, and Betsey, (the wife of Deacon Gold Benedict,) died in Clinton. Little is known of the biography of Mr. Foote, other than that related in the account of the early settlement of Clinton. He was engaged as a soldier in securing the independence of his country, the contest for which had but just elosed when he put his fortitude to a severer test, by emigrating to the vicinity of the Oneidas, and subduing a portion of the tangled, heavily-timbered forest.
lle was eminently fitted by nature for a pioneer settler, endowed with an iron frame, full six feet in height, and of a temperament and muscular texture capable of almost any amount of hardship and privation, and also possessing a large share of native shrewdness and sagacity. He lived to wit- ness the progress of society, as it swept like an avalanche over Central and Western New York, making the wilderness literally to "blossom like the rose." He lived to see his own Clinton become a flourishing village, with a well-endowed college within its bounds ; he lived to see also the commence- ment of that stupendous work, the Eric Canal, and its middle section nearly completed, and agricultural products raised upon lands cleared by his own hands, transported upon its bosom to the Atlantic markets ; and this, too, over a route a portion of which, forty years before, he had on foot threaded his way, without even that first impress of civilization, -a road. He died in Clinton, February 9, 1819, aged 84.
It may not be improper here to' say, that John and Ado- nijah Foote, brothers, who were early settlers in the town of Vernon, and the former of whom died in that town, in 1833, the latter still living, were descendants from the same stock, as also was the Hon. Elial T. Foote, who for about twenty- five years was a Judge, and the last twenty years of the time, First Judge of Chautauque County.
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JESSE CURTISS .- In the foregoing sketch of the history of the town of Kirkland, the author has made "honorable mention" of the name of Jesse Curtiss, but since it was penned, he too. "like a shock of corn, fully ripe," has been gathered to his fathers. An obituary, published in the Oncida Whig shortly after his death, and from which the following are extracts, is but a just tribute to departed worth.
" DIED, at his residence in Clinton, Oncida County, N. Y., on the 19th of January, 1850, Jesse Curtiss, Esq., aged 83 years.
" The press is often called upon to record the names of that race of men of fearless hearts, honest heads, and iron sinews, who settled the County of Oneida. One by one the survivors of another gene- ration are departing, and soon the last foot-print of the last veteran will vanish from the shores of time. In this class was found Mr. Curtiss. He was born in Plymouth, Conn., of a sturdy Puritan an- cestry, and at the age of twenty-two years emigrated to Clinton, with no resources save his integrity and his enterprise. 'He came from Utica in the spring, and brought on his back, from the log huts at that place, a skippel (three pecks) of seed wheat.' His was not a life of wild turmoil and lawless excitement ; no bloody feats in arms, no direful carnage, were his to tell. But 'peace has its tri- umphs,' and in these he bore no inferior part.
'. The following account of the building of his house is taken from the 'Early History of Clinton,' and it develops at once the rudeness of the land and the energy of the man : -
" About the 20th day of October, 1789, the snow fell to the depth of nearly two feet, upon a bed of mud not much less; the weather became cold and inclement, and most forbidding to the wayfarer and laborer. Precisely at this time, a settler, zealous to build a frame house before the winter should set in with its full severity, went to Capt. Cassety's saw mill, and for three days and two nights, alone, and without rest or intermission, continued to saw the lum- ber necessary for the building. When the task was ended, his hands were glazed as if by fire, from using so constantly the cold iron bars of the saw mill; he felt himself well repaid, however. for all his toil and fatigue, for in a few days he reared a frame dwelling sixteen feet square. That dwelling is now the kitchen of Mr. Horatio Curtiss, and that diligent settler was Jesse Curtiss, already mentioned.'
"With but little confidence in mere theory, he was a practical farmer, and furnishes one of the most striking examples to be found
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in the county, of the success which follows unceasing industry and economy. On the same farm of fifty acres on which he first located, he lived for more than sixty years, engaged in no other pursuit except such offices of trust and honor as his fellow-citizens conferred upon him. With no other means of acquiring property, he made the farm a garden, and himself a man of good estate ; he brought up and established in life his children, and retained to the day of his death a handsome competeney. The golden stream, if it was not quick and violent, was constant and unceasing.
. Mr. Curtiss was eminently an useful man in all the departments of life; a man of decided piety, and yet no zealot. A firm sup- porter of public and private morals, he was always in the foremost rank in the promotion of every useful and benevolent enterprise. Education never had a more steadfast friend. For sixty years the common school was not beneath his fostering care, and our acade- mies and college can bear grateful witness to his repeated benefac- tions.
" In the political history of the county, and especially of the ' Old Town of Paris,' Mr. Curtiss was a prominent actor. A decided politician, he all his life maintained an uniform course, and was ever found doing valiant service for his party and his country. No resistance ever dismayed him, and no obstacle ever diverted him from his path. The confidence of the county honored him with a seat in the Legislature, and for twenty-eight successive years he was Supervisor of the town.
"The Old Town of Paris!" How many striking recollections are stirred up by these words. and what changes in that town have been witnessed by the departed ! When he became one of its citizens, it was a wilderness, embracing nearly the present Second Assembly District, with here and there an opening eut by the pioneer. Two hundred souls was its whole population, but they were the seed of a mighty people. Now, they have grown to 20,000 in number, and its village spires, its massive manufactories, and its schools, testify to the sterling character of its earlier inhabitants, and to its present prosperity, morals, and intelligence.
" It was no small honor to have the confidence of such a commu- nity ; and for almost half a century, the names of Jesse Curtiss, Isaac Miller, Henry MeNiel, and Kirtland Griffin, were identified with the political power of the town. All these have departed ; the sharpness of party polities may at times have produced dislike and politieal, or even personal unkindness, yet that was transient, and they have sunk to their graves in peace, honored and beloved by the generation that succeeded them."
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At the time of his death, Mr. Curtiss was possessed of one of the oldest. if not the oldest, Bible in the United States. It was published in Geneva, by John Crespin, in 1568, and is, therefore, 282 years old. On its blank leaves it contains written evidence that it was owned by the Curtiss family as early as 1636. Although it carries unmistakable proof in its appearance of having been thoroughly " search- ed." yet it is in good repair and preservation.
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CHAPTER XIII.
LEE
THE first settlement made within the town of Lee, was by two brothers, Stephen and Reuben Sheldon. in the year 1790. They located on the west bank of the Mohawk River, on the site of the present village of Delta, at that time there not being one house between them and Fort Stanwix. Others soon moved into their immediate vicinity, among whom were David Smith, Daniel Spinning, John Spinning, Benjamin Spinning, Stephen Salisbury, and Nich- olas Salisbury. Soon after the arrival of these pioneers, Nathan Barlow, William Taft, Dan Miller, Smith Miller, John Hall, Frederic Sprague, and a Mr. Hale. moved into the present limits of Lee, and commenced the settlement of "Lee Centre" and its vicinity. As early as 1795, James Young, Charles Ufford, Elisha Parke, a Mr. Potter, and some others, whose names can not be ascertained, had re- moved to the place, and reinforced the settlement at the Centre. The first settlers of Lee in general were men of limited means, and with their but small capital had to over- come the hardships of a new country, and to endure many privations before they had cleared and cultivated sufficient land to insure a competence. They were, however, indus- trious and frugal, they labored hard and fared hard, but they were persons seemingly raised up for the purpose of settling a new country ; they were temperate and healthy,
15
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and. with the blessing of Providence, were prosperous. con- tented, and happy.
It may not be entirely uninteresting to give the ideas of the old settlers of this section of the county before their removal, together with that of their friends in Connecticut at the time. It is given in their own language, as narrated by one of the descendants of the pioneers of Lee. now resid- ing in the town.
The Military Tract, consisting of the bounty land given by the State of New York to her revolutionary soldiers. - now the Counties of Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, was said to be "so far off, and so near the ends of the earth, they supposed it never would be settled by a civilized people." What is now Lee and Western were described as "away up the Mohawk River, away beyond Fort Stanwix. inhabited only by bears, wolves, and Indians." A land
" Where nothing dwelt but beasts of prey. Or men more fierce and wild than they."
The ideas of these good people of the "land of steady habits," could hardly in these days be considered as very correct in relation to the settling of the Military Tract. but they undoubtedly were as to the inhabitants, "bears, wolves, and Indians" being then the only occupants of this town.
Although the two sections noticed were the earliest settled, the whole of the southern part of this town was soon dotted with emigrants from New England. The westerly part of the town, on the former State Road, now the Rome and Taberg plank road, was not far behind the Delta and Centre sections of the town.
At the time of its settlement, the territory composing the present town of Lee consisted of the following patents or tracts of land :- Serita's Patent, Oothoudt's Patent. includ-
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ing Bowne's Purchase, Banyar's Patent, Fonda's Patent, Matchin's or MeIlwaine's Tract, Boon's, Cooper's, or Mappa's Tract. A part of Seriba's Patent, known as the 6,000 aere tract in township No. 1, and a part of the 4,000 acre traet in township No. 2, were sold to Daniel C. White, John W. Bloomfield, John Hall, George Huntington, and others. There is a tract of land lying in the west part of the town, (and extending into the town of Annsville.) known as the Franklin and Robinson, or Quaker Tract. It was originally a part of Scriba's Patent, but was not a part either of the 6,000 or 4,000 acre tracts, and extended to Fish Creek, and is intersected by the town line.
As the settlement of the "Whitestown Country" pro- gressed, towns were organized with an extent of territory only regulated by its number of inhabitants. As the popu- lation increased rapidly, divisions and subdivisions of the towns and counties followed in quick succession. The earliest inhabitants of this town first found themselves in Montgomery County, then in Herkimer; and then in Oneida; first in the town of Whitestown ; second, in Mexico; third, in Steuben ; fourth, in Western ; and fifth, in the good town of Lee. The town of Lee was organized in 1811, since which time its boundaries have only been changed by having a part of Annsville taken from it. It is bounded on the north by the town of Ava, on the west by Annsville and Fish Creek, on the south by Rome, and on the east by Western. It seems that for a short time previous to its organization, its territory, or at least a portion of it, was known by the name of Worcester, but on its organization, James Young, junior, of Lee, and Joshua Northrup, of Western, who were members of the committee appointed to get the new town organized by the Legislature, and select a name. and who were both emigrants from the town of Lee,
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Mass., proposed that name for the new town, which was adopted by the Legislature. The area of the town contains about 29,000 acres.
By the act of the Legislature forming the town of Lee. the first town meeting was to be held at the school house, near Samuel Darlington's. (This school house is hereafter noticed as the first erected in the town.) The town meeting was held agreeably to the terms of the act, on the third day of March, 1812, and elected James Young, junior, Super- visor, and West Waterman, Town Clerk. The town has now been organized forty years, and the following list gives the names of those who have served as Supervisors, and the number of years cach has served :-
John Young, junior
2 years.
John Hall
3
William Parke
16
Daniel Twitchell
S
James N. Husted
Freeman Perry
1 ..
Lyman Sexton
4 .
John J. Castle
2
Jerome Cheesebrough -
1
٠٠
Mansir G. Phillips
1
Charles Stokes (the present incumbent)
The southerly portion of the town, which has but a slight elevation from the village of Rome, has a very warm, pro- ductive soil, some sections of which resemble the cobble stone and gravelly plain on which the village of Rome is located. while other sections are a sandy loam. There is no part of the county better adapted than this to the raising of Indian corn ; indeed, it produces well all those kinds of grain and grass cultivated in Central New York. From this portion of the town, the land rises to an altitude approximating the high lands in the north part of the county. This is a good
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section for pasturage, grass, oats, potatoes, etc. ; and its farm- ers are now turning their attention to dairying and the raising of stock, as the most productive farming of which their soil is capable ; and it is worthy of remark, that the more elevated portions of the county, where the agriculturists are engaged in dairying and the raising of stock, are full equally flourishing with those parts adapted to the raising of grain, however much more these sections are inviting in appear- ance. On Fish Creek, where it forms the north-west boun- dary of the town, there are extensive quarries of good building stone. Other than these, there are no quarries, and the in- habitants in the other sections have to use for building purposes, the small bowlders and cobble stone in their neighborhood, or draw them quite a distance.
The early settlers were much annoyed by bears and wolves, committing depredations on their herds of swine and flocks of sheep. The large tract of low land and swamp on Wood Creek, towards its confluence with the Oneida Lake, made a sure retreat in the day time for these pests of the new settlers, and the proximity of their place of shelter to these new settlements, enabled them to gratify their appetites for pork and mutton at the expense of the inhabitants. To obviate this, these domestic animals had to be driven up and yarded each night, and it was surprising how soon the flocks of sheep would learn the voice of their owner in collecting them to their place of safety, their numbers often made minus one or two, even in the day time.
Two sons of the Emerald Isle, by the name of Thomas and Henry Cunningham, were rolling logs, to clear a farm they had purchased, when they heard the most piteous cries from one of their porkers, proceeding from the edge of the forest, in the immediate vicinity of where they were at work. Not wishing to part with their embryo bacon without making
.
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an effort, they flew to the rescue, with no other or better offensive weapons than the handspikes with which they were at work. When they had got to the place of the encounter, they found Bruin had the hog in close embrace, and had already commeneed making a meal from that which its owners had fondly anticipated would in the fall have formed one of the substantials for the feeding of their own honse- holds. The trespasser could very readily have parried the blows of one assailant, but had not an extra eye nor arm for the two, especially when the blows fell in most rapid sue- cession, and soon tlie depredator had to yield the contest and his life, to a well-aimed heavy blow on the cranium. This was on the farm now owned by George Remington.
The first child born in the town was Fenner Sheldon, a son of Reuben Sheldon, one of the two brothers who first settled at Delta. He was born in the year 1791, and yet resides in the town, in the vicinity of "Lee Centre." His parents were advised to apply to the patentees for a land warrant for their son, as the first-born in that vicinity; but if the application was made, it must have been unsuccessful. as the son never received the "bounty land."
The first death in Lee was that of a young man named Job Kaird, aged twenty years, who died in 1798. His disease was the bilious putrid fever, the germ of which he brought from the vicinity of Wood Creek and the Oneida Lake. Alvan Young, Esq., yet residing in the town, well remembers attending the funeral, about one mile from his father's residence, and on the farm now occupied by Freeman Milks, and speaks quite confidently that this was the first death in the limits of the town.
The first marriage was that of Mr. Dan Miller, to Miss Amy Taft, daughter of William Taft. The next was that of two daughters of Mr. James Young, to young men in their
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neighborhood. Unfortunately, the author has not obtained the dates of these first weddings, but they took place early in the settlement of the town.
· The first saw mill erected in Lee, was built either in 1791 or 1792, by David Smith, Esq., on the Mohawk River, on the site of the present mills in the village of Delta. The second saw mill was erected in 1796, by John Hall and Smith Miller. on the Canada Creek, at Lee Centre. There are now twenty saw mills in the town, the most of them loing good business.
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