USA > New York > Essex County > Westport > Bessboro: A history of Westport, Essex Co., N.Y. > Part 22
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for the place on account of bis great learning and piety, . and he filled it with credit for twelve years. The fam- ily remained in Cambridge for four generations. Jona- than, youngest son of President Dunster, was a farmer, and bis wife's name was Abigail Eliot. Their oldest son, Henry, married Martha Russell. daughter of Jason Russell, and his youngest son was named Jason. Jason married Rebecca Cutter, and to him descended the old Dunster homestead in Cambridge, in which he lived for eighteen years, moving to Mason, New Hampshire, in 1769. His youngest son was another Jason, born 1763, and he was.a soldier in the Revolution, serving a part of the time on the Hudson river. His wife was Polly Meriam, and he died in 1828, and was buried at Mason. The third Jason, oldest son of the second Jason, was the one who came to Westport in 1821, a young man of twenty-seven. He had served in the war of 1812, as an Ensign, being stationed at Portsmouth, N. H. His sword is still preserved in his son's family. His first wife was Azubah Felt, (of the same family as Abitha Felt, wife of Jesse Braman,) and they were accompa- nied to Westport by her father, Aaron Felt. After the death of his first wife, Jason Duuster married Hannah Hardy. His daughter Louise married Morris Sher- man, and was the mother of Ellery and of Carroll Sher- man. His son Charles Carroll married Rachel Benson, and has three children living, Clara Louise, Elsie, now Mrs. Frank Hodgkins, and Mary.
1822.
Town meeting "in the school house at North West Bay."
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Gideon Hammond, Supervisor.
Ebenezer Newell, Town Clerk.
John Lobdell, Joel Burroughs and Platt R. Halstead, Assessors.
Levi Frisbie, Collector.
John Lobdell and Caleb P. Cole, Poor Masters.
Norton Noble, Charles B. Hatch and Charles Fisher. Highway Commissioners.
Charles B. Hateb, Platt R. Halstead and Ira Henderson, School Commissioners.
Bouton Lobdell, Asabel Lyon and Diadorus Holcomb. School Inspectors.
Levi Frisbie aud Pbilo Kingsley, Constables.
Charles Hatch, Pound Keeper.
Fence Viewers. -- Timothy Sheldon, Tillinghast Cole. Harry Stone, Enos Loveland, Daniel Wright and John Lobdell.
Overseers of Highways .- Ralph Walton. Charles Wood, James Coll, Jesse More, Caleb P. Cole, Barnabas Myrick, Elijah Angier, Alexander Frazier, Moses Felt. Oliver H. Barrett. Jobn Daniels, 3rd, Joho Kingsley. Johnson Hill. Joshua Smith, Gideon Hammond, Harry Stone, Wasbing- ton Lee. John Chamberlain.
Voted to raise $100 for the support of the poor, $25 to repair the "bridge at Jolin Shearman's" and "double the the sum allowed by the state for the support of common schools. '
Survey of a "road beginning at a Hemlock Tree standing on the Lake shore near the old Wharf in Chauncey Bar- ber's Bay, " and running "to the Lake road a few rods north of the house now occupied by John Ferris, Jun. Also a road beginning at the south wharf of the Widow Huldah Barber, and intersecting the main road "opposite of the s'd Widow Barber's horse sbed. " Also a Road lead- ing from "Wadham's and Braman's Forge" to Braynard's and Mitchel's Forge.
In October of this year occurred the death and fu- meral of General Daniel Wright, the latter conducted with military honors. Only eight years had passed since the battle of Plattsburgh, and it still seemed to these people but an event of yesterday. The annual
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militia trainings had increased steadily in pomp and circumstance, and there is no doubt that this occasion was truly an imposing ceremony. Officers and men at- tended from the three counties of the Fortieth Brigado, and all that horses, uniforms, musket and pistol, sword and cockade, muffled drum, crape and mourning ban- ners could do, was done, to render the funeral of Gen- eral Wright a sight to be remembered. The procession came down the hills from the General's farm, into the village and up Pleasant street to the cemetery, headed by the Brigadier-General of the Fortieth Brigade, who was at that time Luman Wadhams.
General Wadhams may not have moved his family from Lewis to Westport at this time, but he must have bought property at the Falls before this, as we find ref- erence in the road surveys to "Wadham's and Braman's Forge," and he came here to live soon after. The name of Wadhams is probably the oldest to be found in con- nection with Westport history. It dates back to the days of King Edward I., in merry old England. The family was an honorable as well as an ancient one, "and became allied to many great and noble houses," says Prince in his "Worthies of Devon." The most illus- trious names in the line are those of Nicholas Wadham and Dorothy his wife, who together founded Wadham College at Oxford in 1609. The first of the name to come to America was John Wadham, who came from Somersetshire, England, to Wethersfield, Connecticut, in 1650. For three generations the family sojourned in Wethersfield, and it seems to have been in this pe-
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riod that the letter "s" was added to the name. For two generations they were in Goshen, Connecticut, and it was in Goshen that Luman Wadhams, the first of the name in Westport, was born, in 1782. He went to Char- lotte, Vt., on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain, about 1800, and there he married a widow, Lucy Prin- dle, born Bostwick. (The first of her family to come to America was Ebenezer Bostwick, from Cheshire, in 1668.) 1u 1809 Luman Wadhams came from Vermont to Lewis, and soon after 1822 he was living at the place soon afterward called Wadhams Mills. The mill prop- erty there remained in the Wadhams family for over forty years.
General Luman Wadhams and Lucy his wife had five children :
1. Lucy Alvira married Dr. Dan Stiles Wright as his second wife. Dr. Wright was practicing medicine 10 Westport before 1831. He does not seem to have been at all related to General Daniel Wright, since he was the second sou of Ebenezer and Lucretia ( Wood) Wright. of Shorebam, Vt. His first wife's name was Eleutherwa. and she died in Westport, and was buried in the cemetery here. Not long before her death, in 1831, the house iu which they were living, on Pleasant street, (the site is now occupied by Mr. Henry Richards house, was burned. and Mrs. Wright was carried out, while her only child, a babyboy, was thrown from an upper window. After his second marriage Dr. Wright removed to Whiteball, anu was there sent to both branches of the State Legislature. Dr. Wright and Lucy his wife bad six children. one of whom, bleutheria Farnham Wrigut, married Willett Rog- ers, son of Eli Rogers of Whallonsburgh. and her daugh- ter. Kate Rogers, (now Mrs. Edgar G. Worden, Lewistown. Moutaua. ) taught school in Westport for several years.
2. Jano Aon Wadhams married Benjamin Wells of Up- per Jay. N. Y.
3. William Luman Wadhams, (universally known as ".Deacon Wadbams, ") married Emeline L. Cole, daughter
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of Samuel and grand-daughter of Edward Cole of North- west Bay; also grand-daughter of Diodorus Holcomb, M. D. They had thirteen children, of whom four died in in- fancy.
William married Lucinda Skinner.
Luman married Elizabeth S. Staynor, in San Francisco. Children, Ida, Edward, Virginia, George, Bertha.
Lucy Bostwick, married Herbert L. Cady. Children, William Lewis, Frank Blish, Frederick Wadhams, Her- bert Aldeu.
Frances Burchard, married Ist, George D. Davenport, 2nd, Ebenezer J. Ormsbee, Governor of Vermont.
Harriet Weeks, married Dr. George T. Stevens, now of New York. Children, Frances Virginia, Charles Wad- bams, Georgina Wadhams.
Samuel Dallas married, in Elmira, Georgina Ogden. Child, Harry Albion.
Albion Varette, married in Annapolis, Caroline Hender- son. Children, William Henderson, Albion James, Eliza- beth Wadhams.
Frederick Eugene, married Emma, daughter of Dr. E. D. Jones of Albany. Child, Elizabeth Jones.
Emneline Elizabeth, married John E. Burton of Albany. Children. Mary Landon. John Wadhams.
4. Abram E. Wadhams married Sophia Southard, of Essex, and resided at Wadbams Mills. Children: Edmund Abraham, born 1833, died at Blaine, Wash., 1900; several times mayor of the city. Pitt Edgar, born 1836, killed at Chancellorsville, Va., May 3, 1863.
5. Edgar Prindle Wadhams, the only one of the family to embrace the Roman Catholic faith, became the first Bishop of Ogdensburgh.
Few of the Wadhams family seem to have been born to obscurity, and that one of them who has most en- . gaged public attention is perhaps Bishop Wadhams. This has come partly from essential and dominant characteristics of the man himself, and partly from the fact of his change of faith from Protestantism to that form of belief maintained by Roman Catholics. As a rule, in our country, Catholics are born and not made,
:
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and this is no truer anywhere than in the town of which this is a history. The writer cannot recall an- other single instance of such a change in belief. On this account, if for no other reason, great interest has always been manifested in this man. I do not know that there is any complete biography of his life, but there is an interesting little book called "Reminiscences of Bishop Wadhams" written by Father Walworth of Albany, who made the change from the Protestant Episcopal to the Roman Catholic church at nearly the same time as did Wadhams. In this book we find that Wadhams was born in Lewis in 1817 ; entered Middle- bury College in 1834 aud graduated with honors in 1838, Though brought up a Presbyterian, he became an Epis- copalian while in Middlebury, of so earnest and de- voted a type that he was accustomed to lift his hat upon passing the church. There was no settled rector and no regular service, and Wadhams and a friend of his often conducted the service themselves, one playing the organ while the other read the service. In 1843 Wadhams received deacon's order in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and was sta- tioned in Essex county, his principal station being in Ticonderoga, with occasional services in Port Heury aud Wadhams Mills. It was during this period of his diaconate that the remarkable attempt to found a mou- astery at Wadhams Mills was made. It sounds wild and romantic enough, but nothing could show more clearly that his final entrance into the Catholic church was but a natural sequence to the whole bent of his
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mind from his first entrance into the Episcopal fold.
In' Walworth's book is given a picture of "the mon- astery at Wadhams Mills," which is none other than the old Wadhams house in the village, next to Payne's store, now occupied by Mrs. Joel Whitney. The house is given that name because during the winter of 1844-5 Wadhams and Walworth lived there, keeping up as far as possible the rules and discipline of a monastic life. Mrs. Wadhams, then a widow, lived in the house also, but the young men occupied three rooms by themselves and lived their own life, doing their own cooking, and fasting according to rules adopted by them. Walworth says : "Wadhams' favorite idea was to educate boys of the neighborhood, training them specially to a relig- ious life which should serve finally to stock our cou- veut with good monks. A handful of boys who gath- ered with other children on Sundays in the school- house for catechism seemed to afford a nucleus which might afterward develop into a novitiate. We actually laid the foundations and built up the sides of a convent building. It was nothing, indeed, but a log-house and never received a roof, for the winter was intensely cold, and the ensuing spring opened with events which sent me into the Catholic church and to Europe, leaving nothing of the convent but roofless logs and a commu- unity of one. But I mistake ; Wadhams had a Cana- dian pony which, in honor of pious service to be there- after rendered, we named Beni, and a cow which for similar reasons we named Bonte. Our log-house clois- ter was built on a lovely spot under the shelter of a hill
V
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which bounded a farm inherited by Wadhams from his father. The farm contained a fine stretch of woodland on the south, while the greater part from east to west was open and cultivated field, the half of which, high and terraced, looked down upon a lower meadow land which extended on a perfect level to a fine stream bor- dering the farm on the east. Beyond the brook and along its edge ran the road from Wadhams Mills to Lewis. There was mach debate before we fixed on the site of our convent. A fine barn stood already built on the natural terrace on the south side, while under the terrace at the north end was a magnificent spring of the purest water. Where Should the convent be, near the barn or near the spring ? Every present convenience lay on the side of the barn, and horse and cow were actual possessions. But our hopes looked brightly for the future. What would a great community of hooded cenobites do without a holy well near by? So we laid the foundations of the future pile on the edge of the terrace just above the spring. We did not consult either Beni or Bonte."
Walworth says later: "St. Mary's Monastery in the North Woods had turned out to be a vision. That vision had vanished, and in its place was left nothing but a roofless log house on the Wadhams farm." This means that both the young men had decided that they could not find what they wanted in the Episcopal Church, and therefore sought further in the . Roman Catholic Church. Walworth "went over" in 1845, and immediately brought all his powers of persuasion to
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bear upon his friend. He writes from a convent at St. Trond, Belgium, February 17th, 1846, "Ah! if the quondam abbot of Wadhams Mills were only here, where the discipline of the religious life is found in all its wisdom, vigor, attractiveness, he would weep and laugh by turns with me at our little 'monkery' among the hills of Essex."
Before the year was out Edgar Wadhams had also joined the Roman Catholic Church, being received by the Sulpicians of St. Mary's Seminary at Baltimore. He was ordained a priest at St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral, Albany, in 1850, and resided in that city until he be- came Bishop of Ogdensburgh in 1872. He died in 1891.
It will be remembered that the time at which Edgar Wadhams made the momentous change from one faith to another was also the period of the Oxford movement in England, when the hearts of men were so stirred by the questions of the divine authority of the church, the validity of the sacraments and of priest's orders, and many other things. It was at this time that John Henry Newman changed his allegiance from the Church of England to that of Rome, and so distinguished an example may well have had its influence upon the mind of Wadhams, as it had upon that of many others, both in England and in America. The hymn Lux Benigna, which is such a favorite with both Protestants and Catholics, was written by Newman at the time of his mental struggle in regard to his duty.
"Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thon me on;
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The night is dark, and I am far from home, Lead thou me on; Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me."
To Newman the one step amid the encircling gloom seemed that into the bosom of the Catholic Church, and thus it also seemed to Wadhams.
This sketch has carried us far beyond our chronolog- ical order, but it is believed that it will be more satis- factory than presenting the successive incidents in the dates at which they occurred.
In the summer of 1822 Major McNeil, who had been on the staff of General Wright in the war of 1812, came to Westport, and lived on Pleasant street. His wife, Hannah, (a sister of Asahel Havens,) presented a letter of recommendation to the Baptist church in September, and was received into membership. Four years after- ward the church gave her a similar letter, "to the church at Peru," upon the removal of the family from Westport.
1823.
Town Meeting held at the school house at N. W. Bay. Gideon Hammond, Supervisor.
Samuel Cook, Jun., Town Clerk.
Caleb P. Cole. Enos Loveland and Calvin Angier. As- sessors.
Levi Frisbie, Collector.
Caleb P Cole and Joseph Stacy, Poor Masters.
Platt Sheldon, George B. Reynolds aud Jesse Braman. Highway Commissioners.
Charles B. Hateb. Ira Henderson and Platt R. Halstead, School Commissioners.
John Chandler, Caleb C. Barnes and William S. MeLeod, School Inspectors.
----
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Philo Kingsley, Levi Frisbie and Samuel Chandler, Con- stables.
Fence Viewers .- Platt Sheldon, Asa Loveland, Abner Fish and Josephus Merriam.
Charles Hatch, Pound Keeper.
Overseers of Highways .- Joseph Ormsbee, Timothy Sheldon, Samuel Coll, Tillinghast Cole, Asahel Lyon, Jo- sephus Merriam, George Sturtevant, Amos Lock, Samuel Denton, Elijah Sherman, Samuel Storrs, Abner Fish, Wil- liam Denton, Gideon Hammond, Harry Stone. Peter Tar- bell.
There is no year more memorable in the bistory of Westport than this, which saw the completion of the Champlain canal. It was began June 10, 1818, and finished to Waterford, Nov. 28, 1822, so that it was pos- sible for boats to pass from the Hudson to Lake Cham- plain before winter. Thus was this long portage, which had had such power over the desigus of men since boats floated on lake or river, conquered and annulled, and the Champlain valley stretched out to the very sea- board. The canal is sixty-four miles long, and follows the route which Burgoyne took at the advice of Skene, to the utter undoing of his army and himself.
Now opened a new era of commerce and immigration. For the first time merchandise could be brought from the metropolis directly to our wharves, and travelers who ventured into the wide, wide world were not nec- essarily cut off from home and kindred by barriers which required more than ordinary resolution to over- come. Naturally, a rapid increase of immigration took place, and one of the first additions was the family of Sewall Cutting.
The first American ancestor of this Cutting family
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was Richard, who came from Ipswich, England, to Bos- ton, Mass., in 1834. The line is traced through three Zechariahs to Jonas, who served in the Revolution as private and corporal in a New Hampshire regiment. His son Jonas, of Weathersfield, Vt., Colonel of the 25th U. S. Infantry in the war of 1812, was the father of Sewall, who was born at Berlin, Mass., Ang. 16, 1786, and died at Westport, April 21, 1855. He married at Windsor, Vt., Aug. 3, 1806, Mary, daughter of William and Mary (Newell) Hunter, and sister of Mrs. Asa Aikens and of William Guy Hunter. They moved from Windsor to New York city in 1821, and in 1823, at- tracted by the new possibilities of life on Lake Cham- plain, the position of which as a highway from Canada was much talked of at the opening of the canal, moved to Westport. Dr. Sewall Sylvester Cutting, son of Sewall, has left an account of the journey which gives an interesting sketch of the mode of travel at that time, "We left New York about November first, ascending the Hudson on a sloop bound for Troy. My father's merchandise was here transferred to two canal boats, and on one of these boats my oldest brother, William, and myself took passage for Whitehall, my father and mother and the younger children going thither by stage. At Whitehall we took the sloop Saratoga, and sailing at 8 P. M., with' a strong south wind, reached our destination at Westport, Nov. 13, 1823, at two o'clock in the morning. Here my father opened a store, and having had the misfortune to lose the building which he had previously engaged, he was obliged, in order to
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get the only unoccupied store in the village, to take with it, and keep, a hotel of which it was a part. Now once more I bad an opportunity to attend school --- the district school of the village -and I am bound to say it was a good school though certainly it would now be regarded as exceedingly primitive." Dr. Cutting's manuscript continues with an account of his school days at the boarding school of Miss Hatch, at Elizabeth- town, the next year. He himself taught district school in Westport in after days. He obtained his further ed- ucation at Waterville College and at the University of Vermont, receiving his degree of Doctor of Divinity from the latter institution in 1859. He entered the Baptist ministry, preaching about ten years, and theu devoted himself to literary work. He was editor of the New York Recorder, of the Watchman and Reflector of Boston, and of the Quarterly Christian Review. He was made Professor of Rhetoric and History in the Uui- versity of Rochester in 1855. Dr. Cutting's collected writings, both prose and poetry, would make a valuable book. His long poem on "Lake Champlain," recited before the alumni of his class in Burlington, June 26, 1877, has both strength and grace, and the teuder tribute to the little town where his mother lies buried is very touching. What a pity that he did not write a history of the place. He had the true antiquarian zeal and the exhaustless interest which turns the real into the ideal. One of his contributions to local history was "The Genesis of the Buckboard," so often quoted.
Dr. Cutting's first wife was Evelina Charlotte, daugh- .
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ter of Gardner Stow, then of Keeseville, afterward of Troy, and Attorney-General of the State by appoint- ment of Gov. Seymour. The issue of this marriage was Gardner Stow Cutting, who graduated at Rochester in 1858, and studied law in the office of his grandfather in Troy. Dr. Cutting's second wife was Elizabeth, widow of Thomas Waterman, and daughter of Hugh HI. Brown, who was grandson of Gov. Elisha Brown of Rhode Island. One son by this marriage, Mr. Church- ill Hunter Cutting, has for a number of years spent his summers at Westport with his family.
To return to the elder Sewall Cutting, stepping off the sloop Saratoga in Northwest Bay that dark Novem- ber morning. The family whom he brought with him became important parts of the community life as they grew up. All were connected with the Baptist church in its most prosperous days, and played leading parts in its history. Mr. and Mrs. Sewall Cutting brought letters from a Baptist church in New York when they
came. Most of the Cuttings were singers, and for years the family formed a large part of the choir. People fa- miliar with the workings of a large and active coun- try church will recognize the fact that leadership in the choir brought with it social leadership as well. William J. and Franklin H. Cutting (sons of Sewall) were in business together in Westport for years. William J. Cutting built the large brick house on the hill at the head of Liberty street, with the porch suggestive of the Parthenon at Athens, which shows above the village from the lake. His daughters were Mary, now Mrs.
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F. H. Page, Helen, now Mrs. Kingsland of Burlington, and Lucy, now Mrs. Jacob Hinds of Vergennes. His wife was Minerva Holcomb, daughter of Dr. Diodorus.
Franklin H. Cutting lived in the Hatch house, since owned by F. H. Page and G. C. Spencer. He married Ann H. Tiffany, at Southbridge, Mass., in 1840. Other sons of Sewall Cutting were Wallace and Dan.
Sewall Cutting the elder married again after the death of his first wife a Miss Burchard, and her children were Lucy and John Tyler Cutting. The latter after- ward went to California, and became a successful mer- chant in San Francisco. He entered the army, served throughout the Civil war, and was for nine years con- nected with the National Guard of California as lieu- tenant, major, colonel and brigadier-General. He also went to the Fifty-second Congress as member from California.
Up to this time there had been but one post-office in the town, and that at Northwest Bay, but now the vil- lage at the falls on the Boquet had reached the size and importance which demanded, and received, a post-office of its own. When its official title came to be decided, the name of Wadham's Mills was chosen, after the name of the mill-owner, who had come into the place the previous year. The document which establishes this postoffice, appointing Gen. Lumau Wadhams as the first postmaster, is dated February 25, 1823, and is now in the possession of his grand-daughter, Mrs. E. J. Orms- bee, of Brandon, Vt.
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182-1.
Town Meeting held in the School bouse.
Gideon Hammond, Supervisor.
Samuel Cook, Jun .. Town Clerk.
Enos Loveland, Calvin Augier, Platt R. Halstead, As- sessors.
Levi Frisbie. Collector.
Caleb P. Cole and John Lobdell, Overseers of the Poor.
Platt Sheldon, George B. Reynolds and Jesse Braman. Highway Commissioners.
Platt R. Halstead, David B. McNeil and Charles B. Hatch. School Commissioners.
Diadorus Holcomb, Asahel Lyon and William S. McLeod. School Inspectors.
Levi Frisbie, Philo Kingsley and John Smith, Jr., Con- stables.
John Hatch Low, Pound Master.
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