USA > New York > Essex County > Westport > Bessboro: A history of Westport, Essex Co., N.Y. > Part 14
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*Charles Hatch was born in 1765 in Dutchess county, the son of Timothy Hatch and Eunice Beardsley his wife, who had moved there from Connecticut. He came to Brookfield a young man of twenty-two, with a wife whose maiden name was Amy Low, and one child, Elizabeth or Betsey, who afterward married Samuel H. Farnsworth. Soon after his arrival his son Charles Beardsley Hatch was born, and afterward succeeded to his father's business in Westport, marrying' Mar- garetta Ann Winans, daughter of James I. Wirans by his first wife. The children of Charles B. Hatch were Percival, Winans, Mary Elizabeth, who married Amos Prescott, and Sarah, who married Edwin Prescott. In IS20 Judge Charles Hatch married his second wife, Lydia B. Clark, sister of David Clark and half sister of Aaron B. Mack, and had two children, Eunice, afterward Mrs. Stoutenburgh, and Edwin. Late in life Judge Hatch married a third time, Maria, daughter of Jacob and Sarah Ferris, and she outlived him by twelve years. The old Squire died in : $56, aged eighty . eigh :.
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Jesse Braman. His people were early settlers in Norton, Mass., and had clung to the soil for four generations, so that it must have seemed a strange and daring thing to cut loose from every tie and face the long, rough journey into the depths of the wilderness of northern New York. Jesse Braman's wife was Abiatha Felt, and her brother, Aaron Felt, also came from Temple, N. H., and settled at the falls, but it is not quite clear whether the two young couples came together, or whether Aaron Felt came somewhat later. Let us hope that they had the comfort of trav- eling together, that the discomforts and hardships of the way might be the sooner forgotten. With what delight they must have stood at last upon the river bank and looked upon the beautiful foaming fall in the bend of the river, overarched by the giant trees of the primeval forest, conscious of their own ability to make use of all that beauty and power. The river was twice as full as we ever see it now, except in time of flood, and there was no bridge, no mill, no house, not even a tree cut on the bank. How much lovelier it must have been then, dashing downward over the rocks that made it musical, through the ancient forest to the lake !
But it is not likely that Braman and Felt stopped to admire the scenery much until they had raised a roof over the heads of their families. The first house,-a log cabin, of course,-was built on the bank, southwest of.the fall. A clearing was made, and Aaron Felt built a grist mill, -how soon I do not know. His wife's maiden name was Rachel Chase, and it is told that she
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could run the mill as well as ber husband, and that when it was necessary to carry the grain to the mill, she shouldered the bag and walked across the one log that bridged the space between the river's bank and the mill, as fearlessly and securely as he. Such were the pioneer women, and such they had need to be. About 1809 the Felts moved to Pleasant Valley, but the Bra- mans stayed in the place where they first settled. Jesse Braman's wife Abiatha had six children, and then died. Then be married Marcia Rose, and she had seven children. In those days a family of thirteen children was considered only a comfortable houseful, even though the houses were so much smaller than they are now .*
Another early settler was Samuel Webster Felt, who came, like Aaron Felt, from Temple, N. H. He married Lydia Wheeler, in 1804, and they made the long jour- ney to the Falls, but in a few months' time the young wife died, and hers is said to have been the first fune- ral in the townsbip. She was buried "near the big elin," I am told, on the bank of the river, a little below the present cemetery. This was the first burying- ground, but all traces of it are now removed.
*Some of these thirteen children died, some grew up to go west, and six married and settled in this vicinity. Daniel W. Braman was one of the principal business men of Wadhams Mills for many years, and was supervisor for two terms. Horace was also in business there, and his son Jesse is now a practicing physician at the same place. Jason married Laura Hubble and had nine children, Egbert, Mary, Van Ness, George, Estella, Lucy, Henry, James and Lynn. Of the daughters, Asenath married Platt Sheldon, Martha married Henry Brownson and Helen mar- ried Thomas Felt. There are now over twenty descendants of the pioneer living in town, in the families of Henry and James Braman, Henry Sheldon, Albert Car - penter and Guy Frisbie.
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In 1808 or 1810 John Whitney came with his family from Springfield, Vt., and followed the newly cut road through the pine woods from the Bay to the Falls, choosing his farm about a mile above the falls, on the east side of the river. When he had prospered suffi- ciently to build himself a new frame house, and the neighbors were called in to help raise the frame, his principles forbade his following the general custom of giving the men liquor. Thence it was known as the first house in all this region which was "raised with- out rum." This house stood until December of 1901, when it was unfortunately destroyed by fire. The land has never been out of the family since it was first taken up by John Whitney, who was a de- scendant of that John Whitney who was born in Eng- land in 1589 and came to Watertown, Mass., in 1635. This English John Whitney was a descend- ant of Sir Robert Whitney, and through him the family claim kinship with English nobility, and even with royalty. Many of the family became distinguished in the new world. The father of our pioneer was Lemuel Whitney of Spencer, Mass., of whom it was said that he and all his brothers and brothers-in-law were in the Revolutionary army. His wife was Elizabeth Safford, born in Rowley, Mass., daughter of Daniel Safford, who fought in the Revolution, and afterward became one of the early settlers of the town of Essex .*
*John Whitney's seven children all settled in this new land which he had chosen. His oldest daughter, Abigail, married Oliver H. Barrett, and had four sons. John Whitney Barrett died in Chicago in 1000. Benjanun Albert Barrett was a volun - teer in the Civil War, and is now a druggist in North Topeka, Kansas, Oliver
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The Hardy family also came to the banks of the Boquet very early. There were three brothers, Francis, Joseph and Benjamin, who came first and se- lected the home, then returned and brought their mother and sister Hannah, all the party traveling on horse back. This was about 1811. They settled a mile or so below the Falls, at the most southern bend in the river, Frances building on the west shore and Benjamin on the east. This land has never been out of the family since it was first taken up by the three brothers.
Returning to the village at Northwest Bay and re- tracing a few years in time, we find the village rapidly increasing, as well as the outlying population. The fact that a man lived in the village was no proof that he was not a farmer. On the contrary, every one who owned anything at all owned land to clear and cultivate, and as soon as the clearings were made fit for pastur- age, and the wolves were subdued enough to make it possible to keep cattle, the village streets were lanes
Dana Barrett, a graduate of the University of Vermont, practiced law in Wash- ington, D. C .. from 1867 until his death in 1901. Henry Safford Barrett is a farmer in Thomson, Ill.
Lemuel Whitney died in 153S, leaving no children.
Thankful married Thomas Hadley and spent her life near her early home.
Elizabeth married Benjamin S. Fairchild, of Willsboro, and died recently, the last pensioner of the war of 1812 in this section.
Caroline married Laertius Tuttle of Essex.
John Russell Whitney will always be known in the annals of Wadhams as "Dea- con Whitney,"holding that office in the Congregational church from his election in 1564, upon the death of Deacon Sturtevant, to his own death in ISSo. Of his chil- dren, two daughters married clergymen, one daughter prepared herself for teach- ing music, two sons have been in business, one was a missionary in Micronesia for ten years, and a son and a daughter still reside on the home farm.
Joel French Whitney was a farmer and business man, One son resides at Wad . hams and two are in the wes !.
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through which the cows came home at night. There had been a saw mill on the brook as early as the ear- liest houses, and soon after there was a grist mill. There is an old "Agreement" between the miller aud the mill owners which has been preserved, and though the date has been torn off, it seems to have been made out before 1807. The agreement is between Ananias and Platt Rogers and Asa Durfee, and it sets forth that the owners "have let unto him the Grist Mill at Northwest Bay on Shares, each to have half the toll. And the Mill and Dam to be kept in repair by the said Asa, ordinary repairs of less than one dollar, at his own proper expense; and all extraordinary repairs of more than one dollar, (not occasioned by improper negligence of the said Asa,) are to be made by the said Ananias and Platt at their proper charge and expense, for the Term of one year next ensuing the date hereof. On condition that the said Asa shall faithfully keep the said Mill and Dam in good repair as aforesaid, and well. and truly perform all the duties of a skillful, trusty aud obliging Miller." The miller was to have his house rent besides his half of the toll, and "the pasture lot east of the road leading from the saw mill southward, the ensuing season, for three dollars and thirty-seven and a half ceuts for the season; and also the new cleared ground on each side of the Mill brook to plant with Indian corn" on shares. "And also, one-half of the Grass lot whereon has been wheat the last season, south of the Mill brook," on shares.
Thus we learn that they called the stream "Will,
-
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Brook," and that Asa Durfee was one of the first, if not the first miller. An old tombstone in the cemetery reads "Ebenezer Durfie, a soldier of the Revolution. Died 1847, aged 86." Perhaps Asa Durfee was his son,
One of the first settlers at Northwest Bay was Ed- ward Cole, who came from Warren, Rhode Island, probably crossing the lake at Barber's Point, and bought land upon lot No. 14 of Skene's Patent, building his house at the top of the hill in the south part of the vil- lage, on the site so long occupied by Mr. Israel Patti- son. His wife's name was Sarah, and they brought with them seven children, all reared in the Baptist faith, and accustomed to consider their home the natu- ral abiding place of all Baptist preachers who came into the neighborhood .* These preachers, as well as those of other denominations at times, brought into the little lake shore settlement an influence distinctly felt, and one which had much to do in shaping the history of the town.
*Children of Edward Cole :
1. Samuel married Rebecca Holcomb, daughter of Diadorus, and was the fath . er of S. Wheaton Cole of Cedar Bapids, Iowa, and of Emeline, who married William L. Wadhams, son of General Wadhams.
2. Caleb married Eunice Haves, and was the father of Harry, Albert, (married Julia Hickok, ) Roby (married Mr. Douglas), Mary (married James A. Allen), and Roxy (married Diadorus Holcomb, Jr.) To Caleb descended the old place, built by Edward Cole.
3. Paul died unmarried.
4. Tillinghast married Caty Penny, and all their descendants now living in Westport are children and grandchildren of two daughters. Maria married Hez. ekiah Barber, (son of the first settler,) and their son Major still lives on the old Barber place at the Point. Another daughter of Tillinghast Cole, Pamelia, mar- ried Noel Merrill, and their son Henry, with his family, still live on the place where Tillinghast Cole first built his house, on the edge of "the Cedars."
One of Edward Cole's daughters married Jeduthun Barnes, and another married a Culver.
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In 1807 the first church was organized, of the Baptist order, like the first church at Pleasant Valley, organ- ized ten years before. Many of the early settlers came from the older colonies with certificates of church mem- bership carefully packed away among their household treasures-a "church letter," as it is called. One of the vows taken by a person joining a Baptist church is the promise that if he or she shall remove from the place, this letter shall be presented as soon as possible to some other church "of the same faith and order." Not finding such a church already constituted, your true Baptist sets to work to make one, and such was the task before a little body of Baptists who had come into the town. The civilizing influence of an organiza- tion pledged to religious observance and good behavior is especially needed in a new community, and the Con- gregational form of self-forming and self-ruling churches peculiarly well adapted to such conditions as are found on a new frontier. One article of Baptist belief is that which enjoins the faithful keeping of church records, and old "church books" are invaluable in local history. The records of this "Northwest Bay Church" as it was called, were well kept from the very beginning, and are exceedingly interesting. The first entry is dated March 17, 1807, and begins: "A Meeting appointed by a num- ber of Baptist brethren on Morgan's Patent in Eliza- bethtown." "On Morgan's Pateut" is not as definite as we could. wish, as it ouly indicates a region which is bounded, roughly speaking, within the triange formed by the Black river, the Ledge Hill road to Meigsville,
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and the turnpike. This stretch of farming country was settled as early as any in the township, and no doubt here was the greater weight of Baptist sentiment. We would like to have been told in whose house they met, but it is no improbable guess that it was on the Hoisington place, where three roads come together, near the headwaters of the Hoisington brook.
Here the church was formed with six members-four men and two women. Elisha Collins seems to have been the leader and the one who kept the record. There were also Rupy, or Rupee Bachellor, William Denton and James Hoysington. (This name, some- times written Hysonton, is, of course, the same that we now spell Hoisington.) Then there were Sarah Ellis and Triphena Bachellor, the latter probably the wife of Rupee Bachellor. At the next meeting two more women joined-Anna Loveland, the wife of Enos Love- land, who joined soon after, and Phebe Fish. At another meeting Peter N. Fish, "Sister" Fish and Avis Hysonton joined. In September the name of Joel Fin- ney is added, and a meeting is appointed at his house "at Northwest Bay." In November was held the "council of sister churches" which is always necessary for the recognition of a newly formed Baptist church. The council was formed of delegates from four churches already established, those of Pleasant Valley and Jay on this side the lake, and of Panton and Bridport iu Vermont. This Council, probably the largest public gathering up to that time, which had yet been held in the little settlement, "met according to appointment at
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the dwelling house of Mr. John Halstead's at N. W. Bay." The "Mr." proves that John Halstead was not entitled to the prefix "Brother," given to all male church members, and the reason for the use of his house is simply that it contained the largest room in the village -- the bar room, in the northwest corner. Not the slightest incongruity was felt between the place and the solemn proceedings of the Council, nor was this a sign of the barbarism of the frontier. At that day, not one man in a hundred had any conscientious scruples on the subject of moderate drinking, and it was more than twenty years after this time that the first "temperance agitation" was begun. Drinking had not yet become a question of conscience. The man who drank too much was frowned upon by society and disciplined by the church, but the man who drank only a little was commended as the community ideal.
This bar room was used occasionally afterward for other Councils and unusually large gatherings, but the regular meetings of the church were held at the houses of the different members. The one most frequently used in this way was Edward Cole. (From this fact arose the impression among some of the older mem- bers of the church, with whom I have talked, that the church was organized in his house, but the facts con- tained in the old records are exactly as I have given them.)
In five years' time the church had increased to more than thirty members. There was no regular pastor. Occasionally one of the wilderness preachers, like Henry
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Chamberlain or Solomon Brown, who went about from church to church in northern Vermont and New York came to preach a sermon, or to observe the ordinances of communion or of baptism, stayed a few weeks and went on his way again. The most of the time the meetings were more like the modern "prayer meeting," with an equal opportunity given each member for ex- pression. This system brought out the natural leaders among them, whose gifts of prayer and exhortation grew with the using. Elisha Collins was evidently per- mitted to "improve the time" with more authority than any other, until Deacon Abner Holcomb came, when the latter seems to have taken the first place.
The clerks of the church were Elisha Collins, and then Peter N. Fish, Levi Cole, Joel Finney and Tilling- hast Cole, son of Edward Cole. Those who acted as deacons were Rupee Bacheller, Uriah Palmer, Horace Holcomb and Tillinghast Cole. Names of members added before 1812 were Ashbel Culver, Squire Ferris Nathaniel Hinkly, Tunis Van Vliet, -- Hazelton, Platt Halstead, Samuel Bacheller, Steven Collins, Titus Wightman. The women were Minerva and Lovina Collins, Rebecca Finney, Sarah and Charlotte Cole, Mary and Sally Culver, Diadama Ferris, Electa Van Vliet, Polly Hammond, Huldah Barber, Mindwell Hol- comb, Elizabeth Barnes, Mehitable Havens.
In the same year, on September 4, 1807, a most nota- ble event in the history of civilization occurred upon the Hudson river. It was the first entirely successful nav- igation by steam power ever accomplished. The Cler-
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mont, built by Robert Fulton, with the assistance and encouragement of Chancellor Livingston and of many of the business men living in towns along the Hudson, made the trip from New York to Albany in thirty-two hours. One of the men on board the Clermont that day, and one who had been interested in every detail of the new invention from the first, was John Winans of Poughkeepsie. He belonged to one of the old, well-to- do Quaker families of that region, and his sister, Mrs. Hannah Southwick, was a well-known Quaker preacher. Another sister, Polly, was Mrs. Darrell, and another married a Reynolds. His brothers were Stephen, who lived in Poughkeepsie, and James, who married as his second wife Ida, daughter of Platt Rogers, and came to live at Basin Harbor. John Winans, the most famous of the family, by reason of his connection with the beginnings of steam navigation, married a Dutch wo- man, Catrina Stuart, and seeing great possibilities in the application of the new power to the means of transportation between New York and Canada, moved to Lake Champlain. Here he built the second steam- boat in the world, and called it the Vermont. It was built in Burlington, by John Winans and J. Lough, and launched at the foot of King street in the spring of 1808. The Vermont was larger than the Clermont, being 120 feet long, 20 feet wide, and S feet deep, with a speed of four miles an hour. The captain was John Winans himself, and the pilot Hiram Ferris of Panton,-a de- scendant, by the way, of that Ferris who entertained Benjamin Franklin and the other Commissioners ou
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their way to Canada in the spring of 1776. The Fer- mont began running regular trips in 1800, carrying pas- sengers and freight between Whitehall and St. John's. In the war of 1812 she carried government stores aud soldiers, and once at least was in danger of capture by the British. She ran for seven years, being sunk near Isle Au Noix in October of 1815. The next steamboat on the lake was the Phomix, but at Vergennes for the Champlain Transportation Company in 1815, and the third was another boat built by John Winans, the Champlain, launched at Vergennes in 1816. The Cham- plain, was smaller and swifter than the Vermont, and was burned at Whitehall in 1817.
John Winans lived for some years at Ticonderoga, but when he died he was buried at Poughkeepsie. He had a son, Stuart, and two daughters, Sarah, who mar- ried a Bingham, and Joanna Stuart, who married Thomas, son of Ebenezer Douglass, and spent her early married life in Westport. Joanna was the youngest child of John Winans, and it was his fancy to take her with him on the first trip of the Vermont, a little girl carrying ber kitten in her arms. She made a most remantic marriage, at the age of fifteen years and six months, to Thomas Douglass, only a few years older than herself. It is told that he fell in love with her when he first saw her, a little barefoot girl in her fath - er's orchard, when both the Winans and the Douglass. families lived in Ticonderoga. A daughter of Thomas Donglass and Joanna Winans, Kate, born in Westport in 1825, and now Mrs. James A. Allen, has kindly given,
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me these details. Other children of Thomas Douglass were Elizabeth, afterward Mrs. Saxe, Mary, and Gib- son, the latter now living in Buffalo.
It was indeed a wonderful day. when the Vermont steamed for the first time up through the Narrows, past Rock Harbor, across the bay and on past Barber's Point, on her way to Whitehall. When the wind was fair the ferry boats out-sailed her, but well knew all these New England men, with their natural insight into the power of mechanic forces, that the day of the sail- ing boat was over. There are amusing stories of the first steamboat on the Mississippi river, and the terri- fied darkies, who believed it the actual presentment of the Evil One, fiery-eyed and snorting, walking on the water, but there was no one on our shores, we may be sure, whose imagination was thus excited by the ad- vent of the puffing and churning little Vermont. Rather the keen-eyed Yankees went down to the Point to see her go by, and tried to explain to the boys who stood with them how the steam inside the boat made the paddle-wheels go round. The early steam-boats seldom or never made shore landings, even after wharves were built, but stopped outside and sent off a small boat to the shore with passengers or freight. This must have been due to timidity on the part of the pilot, and perhaps the timidity was due to the lack of charts in which complete confidence could be placed.
In this same eventful year of 1807 the county seat was changed from Essex to Elizabethtown, where it has remained ever since. The change from the extreme
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eastern edge of the county to a point nearer the centre shows a thickening of the population away from the lake. While this change vastly increased the import- ance of the settlement at Pleasant Valley, it also brought a double stream of commerce and travel to Northwest Bay.
In 1808 the last patent of Westport land was granted,-the smaller Jonas Morgan patent, contain- ing seven hundred acres, and lying in the northwest corner of the township. Only about half of the patent is ou our side of the Black river, the other half lying in Elizabethtown. It lies west of the MeCormick patent, and its southwest corner touches the north line of the larger Jonas Morgan patent, granted in 1799. Jonas Morgan had already built a forge on the Black river, at the place which we now call Meigsville, on the west- ern shore, which was the first forge on that river. This he sold to Jacob Southwell.
The Act of the Legislature granting the smaller pat- ent, April 28, 1808, runs as follows :
"Whereas it hath been represented to the Legislature by Jonas Morgan and Ebenezer W. Walbridge in their petition that they have it in contemplation to erect works of different kinds for the manufacture of iron, in Elizabethtown in the county of Essex, and on account of the great expense and risk attending the erection of such works they have prayed for legislative aid ;
"And whereas the erection of such works, and espe- cially of a furnace for casting of pig-iron, hollow ware and stoves, in that part of the state, where iron ores of
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the best quality and the materials for working the same are abundant, would be so beneficial to the state at large, and particularly to the northern part of it, as justly to entitle such an undertaking to encouragement and aid from the Leglislature ;
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