USA > New York > Essex County > Westport > Bessboro: A history of Westport, Essex Co., N.Y. > Part 15
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"And whereas it is also represented, that there is a tract of vacant land belonging to the people of this state, lying in the town of Elizabethtown aforesaid, on the north side of a tract of land belonging to the said Jonas Morgan, on which he has already erected a forge, and adjoining to the same, which will be useful, and in time perhaps absolutely necessary for carrying on the contemplated works to advantage, therefore"-the state not only granted Morgan and Walbridge the land, but lent them three thousand dollars for the prosecution of the work, on condition that the furnace be running within three years, a condition which was probably ful- filled, since we find mention of "Morgan's New Forge" in the town records of 1815. Whether he really cast stoves and hollow ware I do not know, nor whether he made or lost a fortune on the banks of the Black river. Before 1818 he had sold out to Brainard and Mitchell, who built a grist mill a little further down on the east side, and since that time the place has always been known as Brainard's Forge. Mr. Wallace Pierce, to whom I am indebted for much information in regard to the Black river country, had the impression that al- though the dam went out in the great freshet of 1830, the forge was not carried away. Mr. Pierce also told me this story about Jonas Morgan. "The south line of
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his smaller patent and the north line of his larger pat- ent are about a half mile apart. In building his dam at Brainard's Forge he flooded this strip of state land, and at once applied for another grant, asking for a thousand acre's more, claiming that he had flooded that much state land. An engineer was sent from Al- bany who scaled Morgan's pond and found ouly eighty- four acres of state land covered with water, a patent for which he received in 1810."
It seems to have been in 1808 that the first Justice of the Peace was appointed for our side of the river, an official quite necessary for the adjustment of small dis- putes and for the transaction of ordinary legal busi- ness. The appointee was Platt Rogers, Jr., and it may be assumed that his justice courts were held in the bar- room of the ion of his brother-in-law, John Halstead. The first book containing the records of the Baptist eburch was presented to that body by Platt Rogers, who probably held a strict monopoly of the trade in blank books at this time.
It was also in 1808 that James W. Coll came from Ticonderoga and settled at the mouth of the Raymond brook, building his mills where Raymond had built his before him. Here a thriving colony soon sprang up, its population for some years exceeding that of Northwest Bay, with a saw mill, a grist mill, lime kilns, a blacksmith shop and a brickyard. Coll built his house a little way north of the mill site, on the corner, where it still stands, with its massive square timbers, eut from the trees of the forest primeval. It was a red
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house with long, sloping roof, with a great chimney and fireplaces, and was used, like so many of the pioneer houses, as an inn. The house, with all the land of the neighborhood, now belongs to the Westport Farms.
James W. Coll was born in 1783, came here a young man twenty-five years old, and lived to the age of nine- ty. He must have visited these shores some years be- fore his final settlement, since he was accustomed to say that he saw Northwest Bay when the only house there was built of logs and thatched with bark. He had two brothers, Samuel and Levi, who came and set- tled near him at Coll's Bay. Notice that the name is Coll, and not Cole. They were not at all related to the family of Edward Cole, who lived at Northwest Bay. The disentanglement of these two names in the history of the town would be to a stranger a hopeless task, as both Colls and Coles were exceedingly numerous, and the pronunciation exactly the same. It is of the less importance to-day since there is not a single person in town now bearing either name since the recent death of Hinkley Coll, who was the son of Levi Coll. Coll's Bay is often mis-spelled on the maps as "Cole's," the distinction being too fine for the average engraver to apprehend. In the county atlas it is Odell's Bay, this name being sometimes heard, from a family who seem to have lived at the bay in early times .*
*James W. Coll had four children. Thomas went west. and lived in Cleveland, Ohio; Polly married Washington Lee, of Moriah: Elinor married Israel Pattison, and Isabe: married James H. Farnsworth. All the descendants of James W. Coll now living in Westport are children anti
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grandchildren of his daughters Elinor and Isabel. Tbe family of Hinkley Coll is now represented by his daughter Susan. who married Adelbert Sherman, and his grand- daughter Bessie Sherman.
About 1810 Joseph Jenks came from Pleasant Valley, where he had settled in 1801, coming there from Nine Partners, Dutchess county, a place well-known as a stronghold of the Friends, or Quakers. The Jenks family held this serene and unwarlike faith, and had come to Dutchess county from Rhode Island. Joseph Jenks became a man of consideration in Pleasant Valley, was appointed Justice of the Peace and Assistant Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, March 27, 1805, and advanced to First Judge of the Court of Common Pleas April 6, 1811. He died at Northwest Bay in 1815, and was buried in the "south burying ground." His wife's name was Hannah. His daughter Mary married Ira Henderson, who was born near Fort Ann, Washing- ton county, in 1791, and came to Northwest Bay from Whitehall before 1815. Their children were : George, who married Clarissa Richards, and went west before the war ; Elvira, (Mrs. Andrews); Caroline, (Mrs. Big- alow, of Chicago); and Mary Ann, who married William Richards, son of Cyrus Richards, and has always lived in Westport.
The children of William and Mary Ann Richards :
1. Henry H. married Clara Eusign. and had one son. Fred. After the death of his first wife he married Electa Boynton, daughter of J. S. Boyuton of Jay.
2. Fred married Alice Sweatt. daughter of Frank Sweatt of Wadbams. He was accidentally thrown from a buggy, receiving injuries from which he died.
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3. Frances married Montford Weed. and bas two chil- dren. Harry and Dolly.
4. Lillian married Merritt Clark, and has three daugb- ters. Jessie, Florence, and Cornelia.
Cyrus Richards came from southern Vermont as a young man, and settled at Barber's Point, afterward moving to Northwest Bay. He married Isabella Mac- Conley, sister of Mrs. James W. Coll. The MacConleys were Seotch, and lived at Coll's Bay. One of the daughters married a Mckenzie of Port Henry.
The children of Cyrus Richards :
William married Mary Ann Henderson. Samantha mar- ried Jobu R. Nichols .. Eliza married Hezekiah Frisbie. sou of Levi. Mary married Ephraim Bradley. Cyrus mar- ried, first. Mary Meintyre, second. Julia Marsh. Charles was drowned in the lake when only a boy. Clarissa mar- ried George Henderson. Barton married Almira Newell.
In 1810 occurred the survey of the Iron Ore Tract, called the "Kellogg survey," rendered so difficult to the surveyors employed because of the variations in the magnetic needle cansed by the attraction of the iron ore in the rocks and mountains. There is an interest- ing old map of this Tract, then lying in two townships, Moriah and Elizabethtown. The map, now hanging in the village Library, gives us the old name of Nichols Pond, Spring Pond, indicating that the source of its water is to be found in a number of springs in the bot- tom. Other ponds are shown where the latest survey shows. only a marsh. Perhaps another hundred years of forest cutting will dry the surface of the earth so that we shall have no ponds left at all. Our Mullein Brook is called "Bever Creek," as it is on Sauthier's map of 1779. There are 234 lots in this great traet, and some
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of them are marked with the names of owners, in many cases quite illegible. Six lots in the eastern part are marked "Stacy," ten lots "Noble," two "Douglass," one . C. Hatch" and three "C. B. Hatch." "Essex Court House" stands at Pleasant Valley, and the roads all run very much as they do to-day, with some small dif- ferences which are interesting as showing the trend of carly settlement. The map seems to have been used by the committee which divided the towns in 1815, and it is probable that it once belonged to Squire Hatch.
That there was a school-house at Northwest Bay be- fore 1811 is proved by a receipt found among the pa- pers of Peter Ferris, which runs as follows :
"Received of John Ferris ten dollars in full for two Rights in the school-house at Northwest Bay, which I authorize said Ferris to occupy or dispose of for his own proper use, as I myself could do. Witness my hand, signed at Elizabethtown, this 10th day of Sep- tember, 1811.
Signed, LEVI COLE.
This John Ferris must have been the father of Peter Ferris, often called "John Ferris, Jr.," to distinguish him from his father, John A. Ferris. John Ferris, Jr. married the widow of Rowland Nichols, whose maiden name was Patience Cole, and who married Rowland Nichols Oct. 24, 1802, at Pittstown, Rensselaer county, as her wedding certificate attests. This brings in a family of Coles entirely separate from the family of Edward Cole, and whose names recurring in town and church records add to the confusion in regard to this
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surname. The father of Patience Cole seems to have been Reuben, a sea captain who traded from New York to the West Indies, and whose quaint silver watch de- scended to Peter Ferris. There was a Calamus Cole in this family, but in what relationship I cannot tell. I am also very much puzzled with the early Ferrises. There was a "Squire Ferris," and a Diadama Ferris among the early members of the Baptist church, but I have not been able to connect them with any succeed- ing Ferris. No doubt there is some one in town who could disentangle all these threads and lay them out in perfect order, but I have not yet had the good fortune to appeal to the right one.
One of the earliest settlers was Nathan Hammond, upon the western border of Skene's Patent, a little southwest of the Bay. The place is now occupied by Rush Howard. Whence the Hammonds came, and in what year, I cannot tell, but it was certainly before 1809, and probably several years earlier. Nathan Hammond had two sons, Calvin and Gideon. Calvin married Wealthy Holcomb, sister of Dr. Diadorus. Gideon was married three times, his first wife being Sally Bar- ber, daughter of Hezekiah. Her children were Saman- tha, who married Dan Kent, and Huldah, who married a Colburn. The name of the second wife I have not been able to discover, but her children were Cornelia, Charlotte, Sarah and Rensselaer. The third wife was Nancy Chandler and her children were Caroline, Mary Aun and Jane.
Gideon Hammond was a prominent man in his day,
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-upervisor, Member of Assembly, and the incumbent of many other public offices. He was elected deacon of the Baptist church in 1817, and filled that office until his death in 1846. He dealt largely in lumber, sending out great rafts to Canada and later to New York. He also collected herds of cattle and drove them to the south, sometimes taking them as far as New York, fol- lowing them on horseback or on foot, a journey of weeks. These droves of cattle or sheep were a feature of the life before the railroad came, every summer seeing the passage of many of them through our streets. Mrs. Harriet Sheldou remembers her father, Hezekiah Bar- ber, accompanying Gideon Hammond on one of these trips, rendered memorable by the red cashmere dress brought back to the little girl from the great city. After the Deacon's death, the Hammonds led a large party of «migrants to Iowa, then considered the far, far west.
Another prominent family was that of the Holcombs. The name of Deacon Abner G. Holcomb is first found in the church records in 1812. He came from Dan- bury, Connecticut, with his wife, Mindwell, aud accom- panied or followed by four children, Horace, Wealthy, Jonathan and Diadorus. Horace went west and died in Ohio at the age of eighty-six, Wealthy married Cal- vin Hammond, and Jonathan, commonly remembered as "Uncle Jock," lived all the latter part of his life at Basin Harbor. Of all the family, that one who seems to have had the most varied and interesting career was Diadorus. He was the first physician at Northwest Bay, and the only one for many years. He and Dr.
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Alexander Morse of Pleasant Valley rode over all the country from the mountains of Keene to the lake shore, with their official saddlebags, carrying help and heal- ing to a people who often sorely needed both. No one did better or more unselfish work in the pioneer days than these early doctors, whose medical education was usually obtained by reading in the office of some older practitioner. Dr. Holcomb was Surgeon's Mate in the 37th regiment in the war of 1812, and did good service at the battle of Plattsburgh, being afterward promo- ted Surgeon of his regiment. He was a Free Mason, and the mystic symbol of the order is cut upon his tombstone, which also states that he was born in Con- necticut, Feb. 2, 1780, and died in Westport, Sept. 25, 1859. He was appointed Justice of the Peace in 1811 and in 1814, and in 1815 Assistant Judge of the Court of Common Pleas.
Diadorus Holcomb's first wife was Sybil Spalding. of Pantop. Vt. After his marriage be moved to Schroon. and at the first town election there in 1804, was elected collector. He afterward moved to Northwest Bay, where his wife died. at the age of thirty-one, leaving six little children, Amos. Rebecca, Lucinda, Diadorus, Jr., and two little girls who were twins, Maria and Minerva. The widower, married again, a young widow who was the oldest daughter of Enos Loveland. Her name was Sylvia. and her first husband was Marcus Hoisington, by whom she had one child. Marcus, By Dr. Holcomb she bad four children. William, Henry Harrison, Franklin B. and Al. mira. After the death of his second wife Dr. Holcomb married Harriet Sturtevant, grand-daughter of Gen. Daniel Wright. The teu children of Dr. Holcomb married as fo !- lows:
1. Amos married Harriet Barber, daughter of Hezekiah.
2. Rebecca married Samuel Cole, son of Edward.
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3. Lucinda married first a Ferris and afterward Isaac Lyon.
4. Diadorus, Jr., married twice, and each time a Cole. The first wife was Roxy. daughter of Caleb Cole; the second was Maria Samantha, daughter of a Dr. Cole, not at all related to the Coles previously mentioned.
5. Maria married Harry J. Persons.
6. Minerva married William J. Cutting.
7. William married an Everest.
8. Franklin was in business in Westport for some years, but I cannot tind whom he married.
9. Henry Harrison married Aurilla. daughter of Darius Ferris. He was the last survivor of this family, dying in 1902, aged eighty-six.
10. Almira married Warren Cole.
Though Levi Frisbie came with his brother-in-law, Hezekiah Barber, in 1785, and helped him to clear the ground and build a shelter for his family, he returned to Connecticut at the end of the season, and did not come to make a permanent settlement upon Bessboro until after the death of Hezekiah Barber in 1810. He was here before 1812, and lived for a time in the house with his sister, the original log cabin having been given up for a comfortable frame house a little farther back from the lake. This house is completely gone at the present writing, but one need not be very old to re- member it as the one called "the old Young house." Jerusha, oldest daughter of Hezekiah Barber, married Alexander Young, and to her fell the house at Barber's Point; hence its name. Levi Frisbie built his own house, a log cabin, on the lake road, about balf way be- tween the Point and Northwest Bay. His land lay in the extreme northwest corner of Bessboro, and the road from the Point ran along below the ledge, passing to the east of his house. He had been a captain of mili-
S
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tia in Connecticut, and when the war of 1812 broke out he organized and commanded a company in this town, which did good service, especially at the battle of Plattsburgh, where the gallant captain lost a leg. At the first town election, in 1815, he was elected consta- ble and collector, offices to which he was annually elected for thirteen years. In 1816 a new school dis- trict, was formed, and the "stoue school house" built not far from the captain's home. Now the captain was a man accustomed to command, on the battle-field or in the neighborhood, and was perhaps somewhat arbi- trary. At any rate, there was a famous "school house war" over the new school house, and the story will al- ways be told of the wrath of Captain Frisbie when he was out-voted in school meeting. The point of dispute I never learned. Perhaps he objected to having the windows put in so high from the ground that no mor- tal child could ever see out of them unless he stood ou top of a desk. If so, I wish the captain might have had his way. But he was worsted, and his vengeance was a complete withdrawal from all school district matters from that time henceforth, and to him the stone school house was as a thing which had no existence, to the last day of his life. In the same year, 1816, Cap- tain Frisbie and his wife were very active in the forma- tion of the Methodist church, he being the first class leader, and a firm supporter of the church all his life. In 1840 be built him a new house, of the stone of the neighborhood, choosing a spot a little farther west than his first location By this time the road below the
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ledge was not so much used, and the highway ran as we now see it. Before the old captain could move into his new house he was taken sick and died. The new house was occupied by the family, and afterward Levi Fris- bie, third of the name, owned it, until a few years ago it was sold to Professor Marks of Philadelphia.
The name of Captain Frisbie's wife was Sally Johnson. When they came into town they brought with them a family of eight children. and three more were born after they settled here. These are their names:
1. Levi, born 1794, died when a young man.
2. Willard, b. 1798, married Ann Knapp, half sister of Guy Stevens. Guy Frisbie of this place, is bis son.
3. William, b. 1801, married Mary Peck; second, Mary Orr.
4. Sally, b. 1803, married first, 'Daniel Clark ; second, Mr. MeIntyre. Her daughter Harriet Clark married Aaron Clark, son of David.
5. Andrew. b. 1805, married Sally Nichols. Three of their children with their families, are now living in town ; Henry, married Ruth Grecley; Catherine, married George Pattison; Mina. married Henry Warren.
6. Anna, b. 1807. married Benjamin Beers.
7. Jerusha. b. 1809, married Reuben Nichols.
8. Hezekiah, b. 1811, married Eliza Richards.
9. Emeline. b. 1813, married Dan Platt Pond, whose father. Captain Jared Pond, was on the battle-field of Plattsburgh with Captain Frisbie.
10. Maria. b. 1815, married George C. Whitlock.
11. Levi. b. 1818, married Julia Reed. Their children. William. Fred aud Belle, (Mrs. Charles Sprague,) lived for years in Westport.
One of the earliest settlers was Timothy Sheldon, who bought his land in the south part of Bessboro, and who now lies buried in the cemetery at Mullein brook. One of his sons was Otis Sheldon, and another son was named after Platt Rogers, who must have been carry- ing on operations at his ore bed on the shore of the
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.
lake at about the time that Timothy Sheldon settled here. The Willsboro Sheldons came from Dutchess county, and it is probable that Timothy Sheldon also came from down the Hudson. Platt Rogers Sheldon was the father of Heury Sheldon.
The Lows lived on the back road, on the farm now owned by Henry Sheldon. The daughters were Sally and Clarissa, and the sons Wilson, Nelson and John Hatch Low. The latter married Eliza, daughter of Roderick Rising.
Joseph Fisher came in early, and built a mill ou Mullein brook. His son Charles had four daughters. Lillian, Cynthia (Mrs. Samuel Root), Jerusha (Mrs. Mansfield Howard), and Sally (Mrs. Dorr Howard).
Willard Snow was a boatman, and lived at Barber's Point iu a log house on the shore, near the place where the lighthouse now stands. He ran the ferry for "the widow Barber" after her husband died, and in 1824 moved to Canada.
In the Reveille of Nov. 24, 1813, appears an advertise- ment signed Nathaniel Hinkley, in which he solicits patronage for a new ferry boat just built, saying that he has "been to great expense to erect a suitable Wharf" about one hundred and fifty rods south of the old one "owned and kept by the Widow Barber." The sloop "Hunter," N. Hinkley, cleared at the custom house in 1811.
A large proportion of our earliest names are found in the highlands of the Black river country. Jacob South- well was elected Assessor in 1798, and lived on the
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Black river, his name being perpetuated by the forge on that stream which he is said to have bought of Jonas Morgan.
Sylvanus Lobdell was the first clerk of the new town of Elizabethtown, elected 1798, and was probably father of Bouton and of Captain John Lobdell. Bouton Lobdell lived for some time at Northwest Bay, and was first clerk of the new town of Westport, 1815.
At the town meeting of 1798 Norman Newell was elected Assessor, and E. Newell school commissioner and one of the overseers of highways. In 1801 Ebe- nezer Newell was appointed Justice of the Peace. The Newells seem to have moved from Pleasant Valley to Northwest Bay, and later Elijah Newell kept an inn on the north side of the brook, on Pleasant street.
The name of Joel Finney is first mentioned in the Baptist church book in 1807, and soon after the church was meeting at his house "at Northwest Bay." He seems afterward to have lived on Morgan's Patent, and was buried in the Black river cemetery. He was re- lated to Anna Finney, wife of Enos Loveland.
Joseph Stacy owned large tracts of land along the upper course of the Stacy or Raymond brook, in the John Williams patent and in the Iron Ore Tract. He had a mill on the brook, and his house stood where Abram and John Greeley lived for some time, the place now owned by Mr. Thomas Lee.
The Nichols family went still deeper into the mountains for their home, settling at the place where the trail from Spring Pond comes out to the highway,
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on the farm recently sold by Ed. McMahon to Thomas Lee. The pond has since been called Nichols pond be- cause they lived near it. In the Hoisington cemetery an ancient stone records the death of Benjamin Nich- ols, aged 46, died 1817, and doubtless he was the pi- oneer.
The nearest neighbors of the Nichols, a little to the south, were the Harpers, and Joseph Storrs, Johu Stringham and Abram Sloughter are all named as early settlers, living on Morgan's Patent. Elizabeth Slough- ter was buried in the Hoisington cemetery in 1813. All these names are found in the old book of the Baptist church, and we know that when the Hammonds went to Iowa, sometime in the fifties, the Sloughters and the Nichols and the Stacys went with them, seeking a richer and a deeper soil than their forefathers bad chosen here.
This finishes my attempt at giving a list of the family names of people who lived in Westport before the war of 1812. No one will expect me to perform any such! historical feat as making the list absolutely exhaustive. These names, with an outline of the principal public events in the town, are enough to form a very inter- esting and suggestive picture of the beginnings of our town life, which, in the mind of any one familiar with its later years, will be filled out with many vivid de- tails, irresistibly suggested.
Two men who were never residents of our town have still had so strong an influence upon its history and its fortunes that the story would not be complete with-
--
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out mentioning them. One was the Rev. Cyrus Com- stock, the missionary preacher, and the other was William Ray, editor of the first local newspaper which ever recorded events in the town. Both men left an impress upon the place far deeper than that made by scores of the more commonplace people who had act- nal residence upon the soil.
It must have been about the year 1811 that "Father Comstock" first saw these shores, perhaps coming into Essex county by way of Northwest Bay. He came as a missionary into a wild and untaught region, almost destitute of churches or of any form of religious in- struction, sent out by the Berkshire Missionary Society of Massachusetts to teach and to preach, and to establish churches of the form of New England Con- gregationalism. In this work he spent the remainder of his life, coming into the county a man of forty-six, and living to be eighty-eight. He was born in the west- ern part of Connecticut, a region from which the fami- Jies of Barber, Frisbie, Holcomb, Loveland and Wad- hams, the Nobles of Essex and the Lees of Lewis, as well as William Ray of Pleasant Valley, all came origi- nally. He found in the township of Elizabethtown two feeble little churches of the Baptist order, one at Pleas- ant Valley and one at Northwest Bay, with no regular preaching, holding their meetings at the houses of the few members or in school-houses. It would seem that the good man rejoiced as much over this seed already sown as though he had been the gardener, and had scattered it by means of the sound Congregational ser-
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