USA > New York > Essex County > Westport > Bessboro: A history of Westport, Essex Co., N.Y. > Part 20
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*Platt Rogers served in two Dutchess County regiments, Col. Brinckerhoff's and Col. Hopkins, and in both regiments was in Capt. Brinckerhoff's company. He had a nephew, Ananias Rogers Sackett, (son of his sister Mary, who married Na- thanie! Sackett, member of the Council of Safety,) who was also in Col. Brincker- hoff's regiment, Capt. Van Wyck's company. Platt Rogers was often given the title of Captain in our local records, but his right to that rank I cannot prove. By the way, there is no known relationship between Robert Rogers the Ranger of the old French war, and Platt Rogers the Road-maker of Northern New York. Rogers pond and Rogers brook in Schroon are named after the Road-maker, from his survey of the road patent along the west shore of Schroon lake.
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John Greeley, born 1759, died 1852, fought at the battle of Bunker Hill as a boy of sixteen. He came into Westport from Brookfield in 1828.
Ebenezer Durfee's tombstone declares him to have @been "a soldier of the Revolution."
Samuel Pangborn died in this town in 1843, and the notice of his death in the Essex County Times declares that he was aged 86 years, and had been a soldier of the Revolution, fighting at Brandywine and Yorktown. In the list of pensioners after the war of 1812 we find the names of both Samuel and David Pangborn. This family seems to have been here very early, as one Joseph Pangburn was made pathmaster at the first town meeting, in 1798.
John Whitney served in the Revolution.
It is very likely that many of our early settlers who were old enough, like Enos Loveland and John Hal- stead, may have fought the battles of their country be- fore their emigration, but in the absence of definite family record, it is a long and toilsome task to settle the question by research.
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Quoth the cedar to the reeds and rushes. "Water-grass, you know not what I do : Know not of my storms, nor of my hushes, And-I know not you."
Quoth the reeds aud rushes, "Wind ! O waken ! Breath, O wind, and set our answer free ! For we have no voice, of you forsaken, For the cedar-tree. "
Quoth the hero, dying, whelmed in glory, "Nany. blame me, few have understood ; Ah, my folk, to you I leave a story , -- Make its meaning good."
Quoth the folk. "Sing, poet ! teach us, prove us ; Surely we shall learn the meaning then ; Wound us with a pain divine, O move us,
For this man of men.
-JEAN INGELOW'S "WINSTANLEY."
Quoth orr dead-and-buried forebears, lying Deep in ancient acres of the town, "Look, the tombstones that our children gave us Grudge us our renown.
Go. and when ve find a heart reflective, Where the thrill of kinship shall not fail,
Of the lives we lived within your borders, Tell the homely tale."
C. H. R.
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.
VIII. 1815 to Civil War.
After the war the town settled back into its old life, the same, and yet not the same. Men's pulses had been quickened by a call to action which had wider reaching consequences than the daily life of the farm- er and wood chopper. They felt themselves of the more importance since they had been called on to fight battles of the nation, and their acquaintance with the older civilization of the seaboard had increased marvelously. The frontier life, "at once more romantic and more sordid than on the civilized seaboard," as Fiske says of a similar condition, had become in many ways less sordid and perhaps less romantic. After the war the men on this western shore of the lake felt themselves for the first time citizens of the state of New York. A large portion of the men who fought in the war were born in New England, and could but feel themselves emigrants not long from home, with men- ories and sympathies reaching backward to the old homes which seemed so much nearer than New York or even Albany. Now, with the growth of the Repub- licansor Anti-Federalist, party as the predominant po- litical sentiment of the town, the last link that bound them to Federalist New England was snapped. Along the Hudson river, from the days of the first Dutch comers, New England had been considered a foreign country and its people aliens, but in the Champlain Valley it had been otherwise. Here, and especially in
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Elizabethtown and Westport, (which had not the pro- portion of Dutchess county immigrants found farther to the northward,) New England was the beloved moth- er country which was out-grown rather than cast off, as the development of the town progressed.
Immigration increased after the war, probably in nearly equal proportions from the east and south. The necessary facilitation of land and water ways for the transportation of men and military stores from the south had made travel from that direction less difficult. Albany was nearer after the war than it had been be- fore it. Commerce had been helped and not hindered by the necessities of the war, and by the smuggling which reached its height just before. The industry of boat-building had increased immensely, and it is said that many of the first wharves were built at this time. In regard to Westport this has been impossible to verify, and it can only be said that the conjecture that Charles Hatch built our first wharf, at the foot of Washington street, during the war, is exceedingly plausible.
Colonial dress and customs still prevailed. The spinning wheel and loom were in every household, and homespun was the universal wear. There were more log cabins than frame houses in town, and the center of every home was the great chimney with its fire- places. Stoves were almost unheard of, and all the cooking was done over an open fire or in a brick ov- en. Matches were not yet invented, and if you were so careless as to let the fire die out, you must light
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it again with flint and tinder, or send one of the children to the nearest neighbor with a close covered iron kettle in which to bring home some coals. The only lights were tallow candles, letters were folded and sealed without envelopes, pins were just beginning to be manufactured, and there were more foreign coins in circulation than United States money, but not much of either, as all exchanges of value were made by the medium of barter. The difference between a "York shilling" and a "Vermont shilling" was of vital import- ance to remember, as the former was twelve and one- half cents, and the latter but nine-pence, and accounts were still kept in pounds, shillings and pence.
In regard to the means of communication, early Westport was like early colonial Virginia, -all journeys were made on horseback or by water. If General Wright had occasion to go to Plattsburgh, either he called the horse out of the pasture, saddled and mount- ed and rode away, or he went down to the lake shore at Northwest Bay or at Essex and found some sailing craft which would take him thither. Lake travel was easier than land travel and more full of interest. Those were the days of the great rafts sent into Canada. As Robinson says: "The great pines, that fifty years be- fore had been reserved for the masting of bis Majesty's navy, were felled now by hardy yeomen who owed al- legiance to no earthly king, and, gathered into enor- mous rafts, voyaged slowly down the lake, impelled by sail and sweep. They bore as their burden bar- rels of potash that had been condensed from the ashes,
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of their slain brethren." Bales of furs went often, too, and when the raftsmen came back on sloop or schoon- er from St. John's they brought salt and manufac- tured goods, often of European make.
These facts give us an outline of the town in 1815, when the division was made between the present towns of Elizabethtown and Westport. That it was neces- sary to divide the town shows a large increase of pop- ulation, with the corresponding rise of the civic spir- it. The obvious boundary line was the Black river in a part of its course, with the mountainous area, which stretched through the southern part of the town divided by a north-and-south line drawn from the river to the town line. The Hon. Charles Hatch was on the committee of division, and the matter was soon settled. That the settlement at North-west Bay had already become the commercial centre would ap- pear from the name adopted. The legal change was made March 21, 1815, and the first town meeting of the new town was held "on the first Tuesday in April," at the house of Charles Hatch, which stood on the site of the large brick house so long owned by F. H. Page, and now by D. F. Payne. Hatch's house was at that time &sed as an inn.
The proceedings of the town meeting were entered by the clerk in a large, leather bound book, bright and new, with "Westport Town Records" stamped on the back in neat gold letters. It was "made and sold (with the old fashioned long "s") at the "Troy Bookstore, Sign of the Bible." Now the glaze is worn from the
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leather, the gold letters are tarnished, one cover is loose, and the old book no longer represents a future, but an ever-receding past. It was in use until 1870, when a new book was bought, not because the old one was full, but because the old-fashioned paper, made with a surface adapted to the use of quill pens, was very difficult to write upon with a steel pen. The most perilous period during the life of the old town book was at the time of the great fire of 1876, when the building containing the town clerk's office, (the corner store,) was burned. As the town has never provided a safe or an iron box for the keeping of town records, it was only a chance that this book was saved. Per- haps the next fire may not spare it.
This is the first entry in the old book, written in a careful, plain, old-fashioned hand, with ink which is faded but not illegible.
Westport Town Records.
The first Town Meeting in the Town of Westport, County of Essex and State of New York. is opened at the house of Charles Hatch in said Town, on the first Tuesday in April; agreeable to a Law of the Legislature passed 1815.
1. Voted Enos Loveland Supervisor.
2. Bouton Lobdell. Town Clerk.
3. John Lobdell, Gideon Hammond, Diadorus Holcomb. Assessors.
4. Levi Frisby, Collector. (This office be held until 1828.)
5. Joseph Stacy, Charles Hatch, Overseers of the Poor.
6. Jesse Brayman, Gideon Hammond, Crosby McKin- zey, Commissioners of Highways.
7. Charles Hateb. Bouton Lobdell, Diadorus Hoicom. Commissioners of Schools.
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8. Uriah Palmer, Samuel Cook. Junr., John Lobdell, Inspectors of Schools.
9. Amos Smith. Jednthan Barnes, Levi Alexander, Constables.
10. Elijah Angier, Daniel Wright. Silvanus Kingsley, William Denton, Charles Hatch, Nathaniel Hinkley. James Coll. Uriab Palmer, Fence Viewers.
11. Elijiah Angier, William Storrs, Charles Hatcb, Elij ah Denton, Poundmasters.
12. Ralph Walton, Elijal. Dunton, John Ferris, Jupr .. Caleb P. Cole. Thomas Emmons. Jesse Hardey. Samuel Denton, Warren Harper, John Daniels, 3rd, William Storrs. William Denton. Elijah Storrs, Joseph Stacy, Harvey Summer, Overseers of High ways.
13. To Raise Double the sum allowed by the State for the Support of Common Schools.
14. To Raise ten Dollars to Purchase Town Books.
15. To Raise twenty Dollars for the Support of the Poor.
16. Horred Cattle Commoners from the first of April till the first of November no Longer.
17. The owner of a Ram Sball pay five Dollars that lets hini Runat large from the first of September to the fifteenth November.
18. The Town Meeting adjourned to the house of Bou- ton Lobdell, the first Tuesday of April 1816.
Division of Highway Districts in the Town of Westport for the year 1815.
No. 1. Beginning at the South Line of the Town on the Lake Road thence North to the north bank of Mullins Brook. (Ralph Walton. overseer.)
2. North to south end of the first Bridge North of Coll's Mills, including the Road west to Asa A. Andrews as far as the Sbearnen Brook. (Elijah Dunton.)
3. Beginning at the south end of the first Bridge North of Coll's slills theuce North to the South Line of Holcomb's farm Including both Roads to widow Barber's ferry. (Jobu Ferris, Jr.)
4. Beginning at the south line of Holcomb's farm thence North to the two mile marke Between N. W. Bay and Coats' Mill Including the Road to Essex to the east. (Caleb P. Cole.)
5. Line of the Ferris lot Including the Road to the
-. .....
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east line of Silvanus Kingsley's oald field. (Thomas Em- mod's.)
Beginning at the East line of the Ferris Lot, thence -North to the town line, Including both Roads to Rock harbor and the Road by Obediah Vaughan's place to the road that Leads from Coats Mill to N. W. Bay. (Jesse Hardy.)
7. Beginning at the two Mile mark between N. W. Bay and Coats Mills, thence North to the Town line, Including the road from Brayman's east to the Town line. (Samuel Denton.)
8. Beginning at the West end of the Bridge at Coats Mill. thence west to East line of Joel Finney'sfarm. (War- reu Harper.)
9. Beginning at the east line of Silvanus Kingsley farm, thence westerly on the New Court House Road to the west line of the same, including the Road from Sam'i Storrs farm, thence north to Jonas Morgan's Barn. In- cluding the Road from Joel Finney's east line to New Court House Road. (John Daniels, 3rd.)
10. Beginning at the Town line near Morgan's New Forge, thence East to the Road leading from Coats' Mill to Joel Finney's. (William Storrs.)
11. Beginning at the town line near Abraham Slaugh- ters, theace easterly by J. Storrs till it Intersects the Court House Road near Silvanus Kingsley Including the road to Eldad Kellogg's. (William Denton.)
12. Beginning at the town line near South well's Forge. thence east to the Bridge west of Halstead's field, Includ- iug the road by Aaron Bingham's. (Elijah Storrs.)
13. Beginning at the Southwell road near Abuer Slaughter's. thence south to the south line of the Low farm. jehiding the road by Hammond's to the aforesaid South- well road. (Joseph Stacy.)
14. Beginning at the Southwell road near Esq. Love- land's. thence easterly by John Nicholds and Stacys till it intersects the lake road near Elijah Dunton's. (Harvey Sumner.)
15. Beginning at the Crotch of the Road Between Sbar- man's and Mullins Brook, thence Northerly by George H. Audrews until it Intersects the Road by Joseph Stacys. Including the road from Howard's east to the Sbarmau Brook including the road to Danl. M 'Conlev.
Signed John Lobdell and Gideon Hammond.
Commissioners of Highways.
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Then there are alterations of old roads and survey bills of new, ones, with the surveyors' directions, too tedious to yessunt, signed by Samuel Cook, Jr., and by Ithar Judd as surveyors.
Enos Loveland was already supervisor of the uudi- vided town of Elizabethtown at the time of the division. He had been supervisor in 1809, 1810 and 1811. Then for two years Azel Abel filled the office, and in 1814 Enos Loveland was again elected. Bouton Lobdell was Sheriff of the county in 1815 as well as our town clerk. He and his brother John were doubtless sons of Sylvanus Lobdell, first clerk of the town of Eliza- bethtown.
"The new court house road" was the present stage road from Westport to Elizabethtown. It would seem that up to this time the regular route to Pleasant Val- ley from the Bay was by way of Meigsville. Early roads followed high ground, avoiding marshes and swamps, and it took a great deal of corduroy to make the present road passable. Since Enos Loveland lived on the most travelled road to the county court house from the Bay, his house was much more accessible for the transaction of town business than would appear at first thought.
"The road from Howard's" was a part of the back road. The allusion is not, I think, to the present fami- ly of Howards, who came in somewhat later from Ver- mont, but to a "Deacon Howard" who came from the south by way of Pleasant Valley. July 12, 1817, "Dea- con Howard and wife" presented a letter to the Baptist
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church which was accepted. Nov. 12, 1817, the death of Bro. Kendrick Howard is recorded in the church berk. On Nov. 13, 1819, a letter from the church "at Jamaica," (probably on Long Island,) was presented by "Sister Phila Howard." Deacon Howard was often mentioned after this in the church transactions, until ยท February of 1822 letters of dismission were given "Dea- con Howard and wife and sister Phila Howard," indi- cating that it was their purpose to move away. A son of this Deacon Howard, Leland Howard, received the degree of A. M. from Middlebury College in 1828, and became a Baptist minister, preaching in Troy and in Rutland. James Howard, son of Leland, was at one time Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut.
This year and the next the Angiers came in from New Hampshire, and settled in the northern part of the town, near the Essex line, in the vicinity of "Angier Hill." There were three brothers, Calvin, Elijah and Luther, graudsous of Silas Angier, a Revolutionary soldier .*
*Calvin Angier's first wife was Betsy Chandler, of Fitzwilliam, N. H. She had one child, Eliza, who afterward married Sylvester Young. The second wife was Polly Denison, from Walpole, N. H. Her children were.
Nancy Loraine, married a Hammond and lived in Ticonderoga.
2. William Denison, mirried Amy Reynolds.
3. Mary Ann, married Lorenzo Gibbs.
4. Merlin Ward, married Jane Gibbs.
Elijah Angier was thrive married. His first wife was Orilla Chandler, and her children were Calvin, Lucy and Levi. His second wife was Orissa Chandler, presumably the : is:er of Orilla, and she had no children. His third wife, whom he married after coming to Westport, was Narcissa Loveland, daughter of Enos, and her children were Orilla, Charles, Perrin, Persis and Salinda. Mary Jane and Anson died in infancy.
The wife of Luther Angier was Sarah Huntly, and their children were Enity Luther, Aaron, George, Margaret and Allen.
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HISTORY OF WESTPORT
1816.
Town Meeting opened agreeable to adjournment at the house of Bouton Lobdell ou the first Tuesday in April, 1816.
1. Voted Charles Hatch Supervisor.
2. Bouton Lobdell, Town Clerk.
3. Jobu Lobdell. Joseph Stacy, Jesse Braman, Assessors.
4. Levi Frisbie, Collector.
5. Joseph Stacey, Enos Loveland, Poor Masters.
6. Jobn Lobdell. Gideon Hammond, Joseph Stacey, Coms. of Highways.
7. Charles Hatch, Samuel Cook, Jr., Bouton Lobdell, Com. of Common Schools.
8. Levi Frisbie, Amos Smith, Timothy Sheldon, Con- stables.
9. Timothy Sheldon, Asa A. Andrews, John Lobdel!, Enos Loveland, Jesse Braman, John Weston, Inspectors of Common Schools.
10. Timothy Sheldon, Elijah Dunton. Caleb P. Cole, Joseph Stacey. Joel Finney, Daniel Wright, John Weston. Epos Loveland. Fence Viewers and Pound Masters.
11. Amos Pangborn, Thomas Dunton, George B. Reyn- olds. Thomas Emmons. Daniel Wright, Jesse Braman. John Harper. Joel Finney, John Lewis, Samuel Storrs. Enos Loveland, Jobo Stringham, John Nicholds. Asa A. Andrews, Overseers of Highways.
12. To raise double the sumn allowed by the State for the support of Common Sebools.
13. To raise twenty Dollars for the Support of the Poor.
14. Town Meeting adjourned to the house of Bouton Lobdell on the first Tuesday in April, 1817.
Surveyof the road from the house of Almon Phillips in the town of Essex to the upper falls in the town of Ticon- deroga, according to an act of the Legislature passed in the session of 1814.
The points mentioned are Thompson's house, Northwest Bay. Dunton's. Deacon Uriah Palmer's, and "opposite Stone's house." Surveved by Jonathan Wallis, Jr .. 1814. Sigued by Charles Hatch, Levi Thompson. Ransom Noble. Commissioners. Recorded March 20, 1817.
I am not sure where the house of Bouton Lobdell, in which the second town meeting was held, stood in 1816.
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I have been told that he built the house in the north part of the village, at the top of the "MeIntyre hill," now owned by Dr. Morse of Boston, but it is doubtful if this house was built as early as 1816.
The summer which followed this town meeting was known as "the cold summer," or "eighteen hundred and starved to death," when it is said that snow fell dur- ing every month of the year. Some accounts modify this by excepting August. It is certain that it was a season phenomenally cold and dry, with an almost uni- versal failure of crops. It was felt through all New England, as town histories of that section attest. Al- most every family has legends to relate of the experi- ences of that year. In my own family we tell the story of my grandmother, then a little girl seven years old, being sent out into the garden to pick green currants in the snow, because a snow storm had fallen after the currants were formed, and it was plain that there was no use waiting for the fruit to ripen.
In this year the Red Bird line of stages, running from New York to Montreal, was established by Peter Comstock, and marks a great advarce in the meaus of trM2. State aid in the maintenance of the principal roads followed, and Westport took another step nearer the seaboard.
Not until March 23 of 1816 did the Baptist church, by a vote of its members, change its name from "Northwest Bay Church" to "First Baptist Church of Westport." And at almost the same time another church was formed in the town. It began as the Bap-
-
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tist church had begun, as a necessity for the spiritual life of settlers from older communities who had brought their religion with them when they came.
Since 1796 this region had formed part of a Metho- dist circuit, with a few heroic preachers who threaded the wilderness in search of souls, and it is quite likely that Westport had been visited by some of them before this, but we have no record before the spring of 1816, when Moses Amadon was sent to preach in the south- ern part of the town. Here the most stirring and prominent Methodist was Capt. Levi Frisbie, not at all the kind of man to hide his light under a bushel. whether the business on hand was fighting or praying. When the first class was organized he was its leader, and there were but four other members. One was his wife, Sally, another was Amy Hatch, wife of Charles Hatch, and there were also Clara Low and Lydia Dun- ton. Soon after were added John Low, Mrs. Good- speed, John Ferris and Patience his wife, Mrs. Widow Martin, Lucy Loveland, wife of Erastus, and Betsey Farnsworth, daughter of Charles and Amy Hatch. Most of these people lived south of the village, except Mrs. Hitch and Mrs. Loveland, who lived at Northwest Bay. Preaching was in the school house on the lake road, in the district which we now call "Graeffe's," and sometimes at the Bay, as we find the next year that the Baptists gave up the use of the school-house there to their Methodist brethren "one-eighth of the time," which is supposed to mean that the Methodists expected the circuit rider only once in two months. The social
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meetings were held at the house of Captain Frisbie, a Jog house standing where the stone house now stands which his son Levi so long occupied, at Fisher's Mill on Mullein brook, and at Low's, which was near the place where Henry Sheldon now lives. The early quar- terly meetings to which people came from all parts of the Ticonderoga Circuit, (which "embraced all the country south of the top of the mountains between the Ausable river and Willsborough to Lake George,")were held in Captain Frisbie's barn, and afterward in the grove in the village just north of the Sherwood cottage.
We know that in September of 1816 Captain Amos A. Durfey was on board his sloop Champlain, as Sam- uel Cook had afterward occasion to make affidavit (in a case where it necessary to prove an alibi) that he went with him to Whitehall. The famous lake pilot, Phineas Durfey, belonged to this family of Westport Durfeys, and they all had a natural love for the water.
1817.
Town Meeting opened agreeble to adjournment in the house of Bouton Lobdell in said town on the first Tuesday in Ceril. 1817.
1. Voted John Lobdell, Supervisor.
2. Bouton Lobdell, Town Clerk.
3. Gideon Hammond, Timothy Shelden, Enos Loveland, Assessors.
4. Gideon Hammond, Timothy Shelden, Jesse Braman, Com. of Highways.
5. Levi Frisbie, Collector.
6. Evos Loveland, Joseph Stacey, Poormasters.
7. Bouton Loodell, Samuel Cook, Jr .. Diodoras Hol- comb, Commissioners of Common Schools.
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8. Levi Frisbie. Warren Harper, Charles Fisher, Charles B. Hatch. Constables.
9. Jesse Braman, Daniel Wright, Caleb P. Cole, Sam- vel Cook. Jr .. Timothy Shelden, George H. Andrews. John Lobdell. Samuel Storrs, Fence Viewers and Pound Masters.
10. Thomas Walton, Thomas Dunton, Jr., Asa Love- land, Jacob Mathews, Calvin Angier, John Weston, Sam- uel Denton. Johnson Hill, Isaac Knapp, Amos Smith, Ly- man Smith. David Chandler, John Nichols, George H. Andrews, Overseers of Highways.
11. To raise seventy-five dollars for the support of the poor.
12. Platt R. Halstead, John Lobdell. Enos Loveland. Timothy Shelden, John Weston, Asa A. Andrews, In- spectors of Common Schools.
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