USA > New York > Chenango County > Oxford > Annals of Oxford, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and early pioneers > Part 6
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Swear in the presence of Almighty God that we will not on any account or pretense whatsoever, grant any Licenses to any person within the said town of Oxford, for the purpose of keeping an Inn or tavern, but only in such case as appears to us absolutely necessary for the benefit of travelers; and that we will in all things while acting as commissioners of excise do our duty according to the best of our Judgement and abilities, without fear, favor or partiality according to LAW.
Signed, EPHRAIM FITCH, JAMES PHELPS, ANSON CARY.
Resolved at a board of commissioners of excise for the Town of Oxford, held on the 6th day of May, 1800, that Capt. Samuel Smith, Samuel John- son, Benjamin Wilson, John Dibble, Solomon Kellogg, Jonathan Bush, and St. George Tolbud Perry, are suitable persons to be licensed to keep Inns or Taverns in the Town of Oxford, and that it was necessary to have taverns at the above places.
Signed,
EPHRAIM FITCH, JAMES PHELPS, ANSON CARY.
The above is a true copy of the original.
S. FARNHAM, Clk.
At the town meeting in 1801, it was-
Voted, to accept a report of the committee appointed at the last Town meeting to settle the public lot with the following alterations, Viz,, that the Settlers now on the lot should have their Leases and pay five pr. cent. pr. annum; having the same rent free five years from the Ist day of January Last; and that those hereafter going on should have their lots at the same rate and that their interest should begin Jan'y Ist, 1802, and that Uri Tracy, James Phelps, and John Holmes be a committee for that purpose to give leases.
At the town meeting in 1802, it was-
Voted, that Hogs do not run at large, and that the annual Town meeting be held at the house of Elihu Murray next year.
Voted, that the widow Dibble be releas'd from paying the excise for tav- ern license for the last year.
Proceedings of election, 1807 :
At the annual Election began and held in the Town of Oxford, in the County of Chenango, on Tuesday the twenty-eight day of April, 1807, and continued by adjournment from day to day for three days successively, in- cluding the 28th day of April.
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We certify the following persons had the number of Votes for the offices set opposite their respective names as hereafter particularized :
(Viz.)
Morgan Lewis for Governor . 169
Thomas Storm for Lieutenant .. . 169
Daniel D. Thompson, Governor. . 140
John Broome, Lieutenant.
. 140
Caleb Hyde, Senator . 170
Cabel Sampson, Senator . 138
William Floyd, Senator.
123
Alexander Rice, Senator
119
Moss Kent, Senator. 25
Daniel Tompkins, Governor I
Solomon Pier, Reuben Bristol, Gurdon Hewitt, William McCalpin, Ben- jamin Yale, Inspectors of Election.
J
OHN ADAMS, a worthy citizen of Oxford for many years, and who served with honor in the war of 1812, died August 29, 1862. He was a shoemaker by trade and also made shoe lasts in a little old shop that stood on the site of Rafferty's saloon on Fort Hill. His children were John T., who enlisted in Co. K, 10th N. Y. Cavalry, and was killed in an engagement near Stony Creek, Va., Octo- ber 27, 1864; Drayton, who died in the West; Dwight, who enlisted in the 17th Regiment, N. Y. Volunteers serving through the war of the Rebellion; and a daughter, Mary.
F ROM November 7 to 15, 1845, inclusive, 9,965 firkins of butter were cleared at the office of the canal col- lector in Oxford. At this date it would be impossible to secure a third of that number of firkins in the entire county. The shipment of milk has revolutionized the once great butter industry of Chenango county.
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And see the rivers how they run Through woods and meads, in shade and sun, Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,- A various journey to the deep, Like human life to endless sleep !- DYER.
Lyon Family.
David, Samuel and Thomas Lyon, brothers, came from Great Bend, Pa., in canoes in 1792 and settled upon Lyon brook, then called Can-na-wa-gon, which has since become familiar by reason of the high bridge built over it by the Ontario & Western Railway. The brothers purchased three miles square of land at one shilling per acre, and after meeting with various vicissitudes finally cleared the land, developed several fine farms, and erected grist and saw mills. During the winter of 1792-3 snow fell several feet deep and the men could not hunt, though game was plenty, and their provisions gave out. Samuel, on snow shoes, sought the cabin of the Bennetts and found a barrel of peas, which the latter had left on departing for their winter quarters at Great Bend. The peas sustained life until game could be procured. Many of the early settlers almost perished from want of food at times during the first few years.
Elizabeth Lyon, a sister, married Cornelius Jacobs in 1784, who was one of the body guard of General George Washington, and of whom mention is made in another article.
Thomas Lyon became a major, and led a regiment of State troops from this county in 1812. When they were
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recruiting in this village and sending soldiers to defend the frontier, the old red house on Greene street, known as the Thurber homestead, razed to the ground in August, 1904, served for a short time as a barrack for the enlisted men. Young lads gratified their curiosity by going on the sly to look upon the raw recruits, and to see them arranged on the floor for sleeping. Those same young lads were present at the military funeral of Major Lyon held not long after, who was killed at Toronto.
Toward the close of April, 1813, General Dearborn, under whom Major Lyon served, crossed Lake Erie with seventeen hundred men with the intention of attacking York, now Toronto, and the chief depot of the British posts in the west. A landing was made before York on the 27th of the month under hot fire, but the Americans pushed on and the enemy were driven from their works. The Americans were still pressing towards the main works when a magazine of the fort containing a hundred barrels of powder, exploded, a plot of the British. Two hundred Americans were killed or wounded, among the mortally hurt being Major Lyon, who was carried on board the commodore's vessel and there died the death of a hero.
David Lyon was for many years in partnership with James A. Glover in the old stone blacksmith shop which stood east of the Congregational church on the site of the residence of Melvin Walker.
George R. Lyon, son of Samuel, learned the blacksmith trade of Mr. Glover, and in 1822 moved to Greene, where he began the iron business, which has since developed in- to the Lyon Iron Works, an important industry of that village.
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A wild and broken landscape, spiked with firs, Roughening the bleak horizon's northern edge .- WHITTIER.
Bennett Family.
Moses Bennett and sons came from Great Bend, Pa., in April, 1792, ascending the Susquehanna and Chenango rivers by canoe, there being no road or other means of conveyance. They saw but one house between Bingham- ton and Oxford, and that at Chenango Forks. They erect- ed cabins and raised a crop that year on two miles square of land which they bought at one shilling per acre. After passing the winter in Great Bend they returned with their families the following spring. As there had been no mill erected they were obliged to break up their grain in a mortar, until Mr. Bennett had contrived a small hand mill, which supplied not only their wants, but was fre- quently resorted to by the pioneers near and far. There were no settlers between the Bennetts' and what was called the Castle, occupied by the Oneida Indians, two miles south of Norwich. The Indians were numerous through- out the valley at this time and had a favorite resort near the Halfway House. Mr. Bennett used to relate that one summer's day the chief returning to the Castle after a short absence found the camp in an uproar, caused by one of the tribe bringing in a keg of rum, which he had bar- tered for with a trader in Binghamton. Unable to control the drunken lot he hastened for assistance, soon returning. with Mr. Bennett and his nine sons, and a few Indians who
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had been following a hunt. A fight ensued in which fifty were killed or wounded, those who were sober enough fled to the forest. The rum was poured out on the ground and peace was soon established again in the camp.
James Bennett, the eldest son of Moses, enjoyed telling of those days when pathways through the forest could only be traced by means of marked trees. He visited Norwich when it was without a house, to find the trees swaying with pigeon nests, the remnant of a feathered encampment of the previous year, upon the present site of that village. On the 25th of November, 1858, he fell from a ladder and received injuries which proved fatal. Mr. Bennett was 85 years of age, and had resided nearly sixty years upon the same farm. Catherine, his wife, died April 2, 1847, aged 73.
James C. Bennett, son of James, born November 4, 1807, resided upon the old homestead till his decease, which oc- curred suddenly April 6, 1878, at the age of 70. He was twice married, his first wife, Catherine, died February 3, 1836, aged 21; Sarah A. Sherwood, his second wife, born in 1819 in Guilford, died September 15, 1901, in Norwich. Children :
ANN AUGUSTA, married J. J. VanAllen.
DEALETTE, married Daniel E. Comstock ; died suddenly June 7, 1905, in Norwich. Mr. Comstock died April 20, 1901, in Norwich.
ALICE, married Charles L. Turner.
J. HOWARD BENNETT, lived on the place for many years, then moved to Bainbridge, where he still resides.
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Trumbull has painted him,-a face Filled with a fine, old-fashioned grace, Fresh-colored, frank, with ne'er a trace Of troubled shaded .- DOBSON.
Samuel Miles Hopkins.
Samuel Miles Hopkins was a son of Samuel Hopkins, a soldier in the war of the Revolution, who marched to the defense of New York in 1776. He was descended from Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower, whose great grandson wrote " Stephen Hopkins, "with a weak hand but a stout heart, beneath the Declaration of Independence, while the signer's brother was Ezekiel Hopkins, the first Admiral of the American Navy, and the equal in rank with Wash- ington himself.
Samuel Miles Hopkins was born May 9, 1772, at Salem, in Waterbury, Ct. ; died October 8, 1837, at Geneva, N. Y. ; married October 5, 1800, Sarah Elizabeth Rogers of New York city, born February 1, 1778; died December 17, 1866.
In 1784 Samuel Miles Hopkins went to live in the family of his uncle, Dr. Lemuel Hopkins of Hartford, where he laid the foundation of a classical knowledge. On com- mencement day, 1787, he entered the Sophomore class of Yale college. For a year his classical books had been neglected, and he compassed in six weeks, without an in- structor, the usual reading of a year in the classics of the schools. He passed three years at New Haven. He was not in good favor with the faculty, and took no pains to conciliate their good will. They gave him one of the three English orations for commencement, which were then re-
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puted the highest appointments. He refused to attend, and they refused him his degree until thirty years later, when they conferred on him the degree of Doctors of Laws.
In 1791 having resolved on the profession of law, he en- tered the office of Judge Reeve in Litchfield, Ct., whose law school contained more than twenty pupils. In March, 1793, when he had only studied about eighteen months, he was proffered an examination for admission by the gentle- man of the bar. This was in violation of a general rule. Im- mediately after his admission to the bar he had the small- pox. Early in April accompanied by his father, Mr. Hop- kins went on a ride across the Housatonic valley of Con- necticut and Dutchess county to Poughkeepsie, where he put himself under the tuition of Chancellor Kent and Jacob Radcliffe. His object was to acquire a knowledge of the practice of the New York courts, which then was thought no small art and mystery. It was the sole business of a three years' clerkship, and he acquired it in eighteen days, by studying sixteen hours out of the twenty-four and re- citing two in the evening. He kept the life in him by now and then running a mile or two up a hill. Embarking on a sloop he with four New England young men went to New York city, where he had letters of introduction to Judge Hobart, James Watson and Colonel Aaron Burr. Thelatter made the motion, and when the Court sought to exclude them by an ex post facto rule, Burr succeeded in exempting them from its operations. Hopkins passed a most splendid examination and his license was dated on May 9, 1793, the day he was 21 years old. In a sketch of the life of Mr. Hopkins written by himself in 1832, he states :
I was received with infinite kindness by the gentlemen to whom I had letters. I told them I could no longer be a burden to my father, and that I desired them to recommend me to a new country, where I could most certain- ly earn $52 in the first year, since I could live for $1 per week. They recom- mended Tioga, and gave me letters, and I hastened home. My father was
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at Hartford, as a member of the Legislature. My mother searched the till of his chest and found, I think, $10, or perhaps $10.25. With that and with a valise which contained half a dozen shirts, a set of Blackstone, a skin of parchment bought at New York, and some black seals, and on the horse Phoenix, which my father had raised for me, and which Phoenix was the first in official order of all my line of Phoenixes, I bade adieu to my mother and dear brothers and sisters and took the road to an unexplored and unknown wilderness. What a moment for my mother-what a moment for me ! One hundred and ten miles west from Catskill, through a country almost all very new, brought me to the village of Oxford, and to the house of Ben- jamin Hovey, the founder of it, and who about eighteen months before had cut the first tree to clear the ground where this village stood. Here, too, I found Uri Tracy (of the class in college two years older than myself), and whom after nearly forty years I still count among the most valued of my friends.
I settled at Oxford as a lawyer. My first law-draft I made by writing on the head of a barrel, under a roof, made of poles only, and in the rain, which I partially kept from spattering my paper by a broad brimmed hat. In such a village as this, the first framed building was an academy of two stories, and Mr. Tracy was the teacher. No Yankee without the means of education! Judge Hobart, my friend and patron, was to hold the circuit in June at Owego; and his kind notice of me was an excellent introduction to the county. The first case I ever tried was in defending a man indicted for forgery, which was death, and on which the attorney general of the State in person supported the prosecution. Judge Hobart sustained the objec- tion I took, and the prisoner was acquitted. And in this country I rode 80 miles to Newton (Elmira) to attend a Court of Common Pleas in my own county, and was too happy to win a jury cause and get a fee of $8, perhaps the most gratifying I ever received. Sometimes I rode all day in the rain, forded the swift flowing Chenango in water up to my horse's back, found my whole library and stationary wet by the operation and lost my way in returning up the river, the path-not road-being too blind to follow. In attempting to follow the Nanticoke in a freshet I was obliged to go in a canoe and forcing Phoenix into the river, to lead him swimming while the ferryman directed the canoe. But how wonderful is instinct! The horse had never swam before, yet when he felt the force of the torrent, he breast- ed the stream, and dreading to be swept downwards he carried the whole of us up stream so far above the landing place, that the horse became en- tangled in floating tree tops and that I came near losing him. At another time I rode west to Cincinnatus, where at 18 miles was a house, north 18 miles farther off was another house, but in utter darkness at night I lost my way and passed the night in one of the most incessant, steady, pouring rains I ever knew. I visited Onondaga when but two white families were in the "hollow," and attempted a rude estimate of the weight of the water of the salt spring, when not as many as a dozen of the kettles were in ope-
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ration or ever had been. My name is first on the roll of attorneys in Cayuga.
I became convinced that I could grow up in the country and become as rich as I wished. Col. Burr had, almost by force, made me receive a library of choice law books, which he selected, saying that "I might settle it in my will," if I pleased. But Mr. Watson suggested the idea of a removal to New York for the sake of the society of able men, of mental improvement, and of professional advancement. He afterwards invited me to his house, imported for me about $1500 of law books, the foundation of my present law library. He loaned me whatever money I had occasion for, and left me to pay it (as I did) years after, from the avails of my professional business.
I went to New York in the fall or winter of 1794 and took up my lodg- ings in the princely and hospitable house of Mr. Watson, quitting with a good deal of regret my Oxford friends, my village half acre and charming new office, and taking Phoenix back to my father. The winter I employed in very intense study for counsel's examination, But in the course of that time Mr. Watson began to propose to me the project, which occupied my time afterwards for two years in Virginia and two in Europe engaged in selling Virginia lands, which ended in a complete failure.
Mr. Hopkins married in 1800 and rented a house in New York city at $1000 a year. At that time he had an office full of clerks, and lived in a style sufficiently though not exceedingly elegant, and his connections in the best rank of society brought him public influence and popularity. Later a rapidly increasing family made his expenses enor- mous and a check in business cramped his finances. He saw he must reduce his living and leave the city, which he did though it was with difficulty that he met all his en- gagements. In 1810 he purchased jointly with his brother- in-law, B. W. Rogers, a share in two tracks of land which had been reserved by the Indians, or their agents, at Mt. Morris, and the Leicester tract on the Genesee river in western New York. He bought merino sheep and went to farming. In 1811 he removed to Geneseo and in 1813-14 was a member of the XIIIth Congress. In August, 1814, he laid out the village of Moscow on a plain which far and wide was covered with a young growth of oak and hickory. Here he spent ten years, but the adventure failed and in- volved him in debt, and he had no other resource but to
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sell everything at an immense sacrifice and trace his course to Albany to resume the practice of law in the spring of 1822. Here he made every previous arrangement, having been a member of the Senate during the winter. He never made money by his profession, for he always took the cases of the poor and helpless. His home was an asylum for dependent relatives-young people who were brought there to be educated, or older ones who were given positions in the household, and alse of distressed strangers, and for- eigners, such as exiled Greeks and Poles.
The great chief Red Jacket, the eloquent orator, was a frequent visitor at his "Western home." On a winter evening at Albany a silent figure would glide in, and after a few moments would as silently steal away; this was Aaron Burr, despised by every one, but tolerated and kindly treated by Mr. Hopkins, because of benefits received from him when he was a struggling young lawyer. Daniel Webster, and the Chancellors and Chief Justices; LaFay- ette, on his second visit to America, and the great Sir John Franklin, were friends and callers at the Hopkins home.
In 1832 Mr. Hopkins and family removed to Geneva where after five years he sank peacefully at rest "in the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection."
Mr. Hopkins was a fine figure of a man, six feet high, and perfectly formed for strength and activity. He had soft brown hair with light blue eyes. He ante-dated the era of beards, and always shaved his face carefully. When in Paris he was called "le Phœbus Americain."
The children of Samuel Miles and Sarah Elizabeth (Rog- ers) Hopkins were :
MARY ELIZABETH, born April 13, 1802; died February 28, 1857; married William Gordon Ver Planck.
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WILLIAM ROGERS, born January 2, 1805; died Novem- bor 12, 1876.
JULIA ANNE, born February 22, 1807; died March 5, 1849 ; married William E. Sill.
HESTER ROGERS, born November 5, 1808; died October 8, 1845; married Charles A. Rose.
SAMUEL MILES, D. D., born August 8, 1813, for many years Professor in the Auburn Theological Seminary.
WOOLSEY ROGERS, born July 14, 1815, now resides at Stamford, Ct.
SARAH ELIZABETH, born August 20, 1818; married John M. Bradford.
B ALLOON ASCENSION .- Saturday, June 28, 1862, Prof. H. Squires made the first balloon ascension in this village. A large number of people witnessed the then novel exhibition, while the Norwich and Oxford Bands contributed much to the pleasure of the day. At 4. p. m., Prof. Squires took leave of his terrestial audience in front of the Exchange block, rising rapidly and gradually mov- ing up the river for a mile or more, when the balloon took a south-easterly course, having been visible more than an hour, and sank out of sight in Guilford, about six miles distant. Previous to the ascension a company of fantas- tics made an amusing appearance on the streets.
The whole number of inhabitants of the town of Oxford in September, 1830, according to the census taken by An- son Mead, was 2,041.
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The hungry Judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that Jurymen may dine .- POPE.
Anson Cary.
Anson Cary came from Windham, Ct., to Union, Broome county, where he resided for a short time, and then de- parted for Oxford in 1792. He came up the Susquehanna and Chenango rivers in a canoe paddled by an Indian named Seth, and took up the lands now owned by the Charles A. Bennett estate and John Cary. Mr. Cary was a Revolutionary pensioner, having entered the army at the age of 16 and served in three campaigns of the war. He was a very large and obese man, and was the first blacksmith to locate in Oxford. He worked at his trade and carried on his farm a great many years, and was also famous as a pettifogger before Justice's courts. He held the office of justice of peace, was appointed sheriff of the county March 1, 1805, and for a considerable time one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas. He died May 3, 1842, aged 80. He married March 4, 1784, Miss Han- nah Carew, who died July 9, 1842, aged 78. Children :
HORATIO, born March 27, 1775; died February 10, 1855, in Lockport, N. Y. Married Betsey Rhodes.
MINERVA, born October 15, 1778; died May 23, 1859, in Wisconsin. Married Amos A. Franklin.
HARRIET, born July 29, 1789; died on the old home- stead, August 9, 1863. Married Adolphus B. Bennett 2d.
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GEORGE A., born May 8, 1793; died suddenly April 21, 1869 ; married (1) Sarah Wattles of Oxford, died June 18, 1821; married (2) Adaline Crandall, died suddenly October 26, 1882. Child by first wife: Sarah, married William H. Mason of Norwich.
PALMER C., born March 31, 1798; died May 13, 1875; married Rowena Osgood. Children : Anson, died Jan- uary 28, 1877, aged 50; married Hannah Franklin. Lucy, died unmarried. Rowena, married Theodore Waters of North Norwich. Jane, married Charles Clark. Frances, married January 8, 1856, Francis L. Cagwin of Joliet, Wis.
ZALMON S., born August 31, 1800; died August 23, 1854 ; married Pamelia Randall of Connecticut. Mr. Cary when but three years old set fire to his father's unfinished resi- dence, which was destroyed. He lived and died on a portion of the old homestead, now occupied by his son John R. Children : Harriet, married Elijah A. Bradley of Macon, Ga. Sarah Elizabeth, married February 22, 1857, Rev. Stephen L. Roripaugh. Helen, married James Wiswell. Mary, died unmarried. John R., married Mrs. Josephine (Converse) Williams and has one son, Robert.
HANNAH, born June 17, 1802; died October 8, 1855, the day set for her marriage.
ALBERT G., born July 20, 1807; died suddenly July 26, 1881; married Melissa Mathewson. Studied medicine with Drs. Perez Packer and William G. Sands. Practiced in several localities, but a deformity of his lower limbs pre- vented him from getting around with ease. Child : George, died in early manhood.
On the 12th of October, 1836, snow fell to the depth of over two feet in this vicinity.
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None but himself can be his parallel .- THEOBALD.
Jonathan Baldwin.
Prominent among the first settlers was Jonathan Bald- win, born in Egremont, Mass., February 11, 1765, who came on foot, accompanied by Theodore Burr, with his axe upon his shoulder by the Catskill turnpike in the spring of 1793. These young men were architects, mill- wrights and bridge builders in search of a location and em- ployment. Mr. Baldwin took up several acres on the site of the village, extending from State street as far as the resi- dence of Mrs. Richard Youngs on Clinton street and in the rear enclosing the old cemetery, a gift from him to the vil- lage. He paid for the land from such wages as five dol- lars per month.
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