USA > New York > Essex County > Westport > Bessboro: A history of Westport, Essex Co., N.Y. > Part 24
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Overseers of Highways. - Ralph Walton. Levi Coll. Union Coll. Tillingbast Cole. Caleb P. Cole, Willard Car- penter. John Greeley. Jr., Myron Cole, Eleazar Randey. Samuel Chandler. George W. Sturtevant, Lemuel Whitney, Lucius Lobdell. Oliver HI. Barrett. Samuel A. Wigbtman, John Kingsley. Johnson Hill. Lyman Smith. Gideon Ham- mond, Henry Stone, Frederick Howard. Arches Dunton. Elijah Sberman. Jonas P. Walker, Abram Greeley, Geo. Skinner, Benajah Douglass.
This year we find mention of another mill on Black river,-Chauncey Fuller's, besides "Steel's, Douglass's, & Smith and Hateh's." The bridge in the village of Northwest Bay which has been so long referred to as that one "west of Halstead's old field," now begins to be called the one "near Myrick's Potash," and for the first time is mentioned Douglass's wharf.
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In 1828 Gideon Hammond was one of a committee of thee appointed to decide upon the question of build- ing a county house for the care of the poor of the county. The house was built in 1833, and from that year until 1842 he served as County Superintendent of the Poor.
This year, or the one before, John and Abram Gree- ley came into town, as is proved by their both being appointed overseers of highways. They were sous of John Greeley, who was born in 1759, and fought as a boy of sixteen at the battle of Bunker Hill. He was a half brother of the father of Horace Greeley, the fa- mous journalist. He removed from New Hampshire to Saratoga county, and from that place to Brookfieldl, iu Essex, before the war of 1812, and he died in 1852, having lived nivety-three years. His son John fought in the war of 1812, and was wounded in the shoulder at the battle of Plattsburgh, afterward receiving a pen- sion .*
1829.
Town meeting in the school house.
Gideon Hammond. Supervisor. John Hateb Low. Clerk.
Alexander Spencer, Diadorus Holcomb. Jesse Braman. Assessors.
*He was the father of James, and of Ruth, who married Henry Frisbie. Abram Greeley was the father of John J. Greeley, now a resident of Westport. Three daughters of the first John Greeley married and lived in Westport. Nancy mar- ried William Olds, and their sons were Wallace and Marshall. Mary married William Viall, and their children were John G., Asa, Mrs. Orlando Sayre, after- ward Mrs. Whitney, and the first Mrs. F. H. Page. Phebe married Elijah Wi !! iams, and their sons were Sammel and Joseph, boat .men on the lake for many years and A. Elijah, one of our druggists.
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HISTORY OF WESTPORT
John Chandler, Collector.
John Lobdell and George B. Reynolds. Poor Masters.
Alansou Barber, Asahel Lyon. John Kingsley, Highway Commissioners.
Charles Hatch, Diadorus S. Holcomb. Barnabas Myrick, School Commissioners.
Asahel Lyon, Caleb C. Barnes, Joseph R. Delano. School Inspectors.
B. P. Douglass. Norris MeKinney, Sumner Whiting. Fence Viewers.
William Frisbie. Peter Tarbell. John Chandler, Joseph Hardy, John D. Lobdell, Constables.
Newton Hays, Pound Master.
Overseers of the Highways. - Joseph Bigalow. Elihu H. Cole, Charles Fisher. Joho Ferris, Caleb P. Cole. John H. Low, Johu Greeley. Moses Bull. Calvin Angier. Heury Royce, Bildad Rovec. Lemuel Whitney, Benjamin Hardy. Augustus Hill, Vine T. Bingham. Samuel Storrs. Leopard Ware, Abram Nichols. Andrew Frisbie. Jonathan Nichols. Nelson Low, Solomou Stockwell. Seth Lewis. Darius Mer- riam, James Marsball, Lucius Lobdell. Nathaniel Hinkley.
Voted $100 for the support of the poor.
Town meeting adjourned to the house of Elijah New- ell, which stood ou Pleasant street. After holding the town meetings for twelve years in the all-accommoda- ting school house, the custom was adopted of holding them in some ion, and maintained until 1863, when the Armory was first used.
We notice the name of Norris MeKenny, who was a tailor, and built the house just north of the Baptist church, burned in 1876, which answers to the Baptist parsonage of to-diy. It was afterward owned by Dan Kent, by Ralph Loveland and by Victor Spencer.
In 1829 was published the first map of Essex county, by David H. Burr, with statistics from the latest cen- sus given at the bottom. Here Westport is credited
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HISTORY OF WESTPORT 357
with having about one-fifth of the land improved. Real estate is valued at $86,423, and personal property at $1,400. There were 675 males and 647 females in the population, 167 subject to militia duty, and 287 enti- tled to vote at elections. There were eleven school districts in town, school had been kept an average of six months in the year, and the amount of public money received was $191.46. 424 children had been taught in the schools the past year, and there were reported 340 children between the ages of 5 and 15. As for live stock, there were 1550 neat cattle, 237 horses, and 3801 sheep. The most remarkable figures are those of the number of yards of cloth of domestic manufacture, woven by the women on hand looms. 3282 yards of fulled cloth, 4045 yards of woolen cloth not falled, and 2659 yards of cotton and linen. Think of those women, with their large families to care for, standing at the loom day after day, and weaving the blankets and sheets for the beds, and the linen for the table-cloths, and clothing for themselves and for their husbands and children. And they spun the thread before they wove it, remember, and carded the wool before that, although the two carding machines in town were by this time re- lieving them of some of this part of the toilsome pro- cess. And this bomespun, homewoven work was often very beautiful, as pieces of the linen still preserved will show. Ouly one grist mill is reported, which must have been that of Myrick and Wadhams at the Falls, and this seems to prove that Hatch's two grist mills at Northwest Bay and the one at Coll's Bay were no
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longer running. Also, there is but one "iron works" reported, which must mean Myrick's forge at the Falls, and would indicate that all the forges on the Black river were now idle. One trip hammer is reported, eleven saw mills, three fulling mills, two carding ma- chines, no distillery, four asheries and one oil mill. What an oil mill in Westport can have been I cannot imagine. There were two post offices then, as now, West- port and Wadham's Mills.
Joseph R. De Lano, whose name is now first mentioned in the town records, came from Ticonderoga and opened a store and inn at Wadham's Mills. He was a son of Nathan DeLano, 2nd Lientenant in Capt. Mackenzie's cavalry company in the war of 1812, and brother of Thomas DeLano of Ti. We soon find his name given as the incumbent of many town offices, and in 1841 he was elected the first supervisor from the village of Wadhams. His first wife was a Kimpton, of Ti, and their daughter Mahala married Col. John L. Merriam. afterward Governor of Minnesota. His second wife was Relief Law, and their children were : Electa, mar- ried Walter Merrill of Port Heury ; Albertine, married Duncan Thompson, now lives in Washington ; Rush, drowned in the Boquet when a boy, and Antoinette, married Isaac Wood of Wadhams.
1830.
Town meeting held at the Inn of Elijah Newell. Gideon Hammond. Supervisor.
John H. Low. Town Clerk.
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Platt R. Halstead, Charles Fisher and John Kingsley. Assessors.
William Frisbie. Collector.
George B. Reynolds and Barnabas Myrick, Overseers of the Poor.
Hezekiah Barber. Newton Hays, Calvin Angier, High- way Commissioners.
Ira Henderson. Joel A Calhoun, Charles Hatch, School Commissioners.
Diadorus S. Holcomb, Joseph R. DeLano, Asabel Lyon, School Inspectors.
Wm Frisbie. Joseph Hardy and Asahel Lyou, Consta- bles.
Newtou Hayes. Pound Master.
No fence viewers, and the first Justices of the Peace mentioned. The entry in the town records is certified to by three Justices. Diadorus Holcomb, Jesse Braman and Alexander Spencer.
Overseers of Highways, or Pathmasters -- Apollos Wil- hams, Jr .. Levi Coll. Jr .. Charles Fisher, Asahel Havens, Caleb P. Cole. Asabel Lyon, Elijah Williams. Horace Hol- comb, William Olds, Samuel Chandler, James Fortune, Francis Hardy, Jason Dubster. Augustus Hill. Samuel A. Wightman. John Lobdell. Johnson Hill. Abraham Nichols. Audrew Frisbie. Henry Stone. James McConley, Archey Dunton, Elijah Sherman, Ephraim Colburn, James Mar- shall. Lucius Lobdell, Nathaniel Hinckley, Leonard Ware. Jonathan Cady.
We find mentioned "Colburn's Mill," one belonging to Chester Taylor, and one to Garfield and Walker.
A new road district is made, No. 38, "beginning at the lane west of Nathan Wallis's, then running north and east by James Pollard's, Erastus Loveland's, Leon- ard Ware's and Eldad Kellogg's, until it intersects the Court House road." Still "Sherman's brook," which was the Raymond brook, called in its upper course the Stacy brook.
The decade of the thirties saw the height of the Im-
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ber business. Myrick and Wadhams, the Douglasses and the Hatches gave employment to large numbers of men in the forests, and upon the roads, hauling logs to the mills and the "dock sticks" and the sawed lumber to the wharves. All this brought custom to the stores which were kept by Hatch and Douglass. and Cutting. and by Myrick and Wadhams at the Falls, and the boat-loads of merchandise from New York began to contain more and more articles of luxury. By this time there were no log houses left in the village of North- west Bay, though many were still standing on outlying farms, and some of the best houses in town were built before 1835. Most of the brick houses belong to this period, and the heavy-timbered frame houses, like the one now owned by Dr. Shattuck, on Washington street. The Baptist church was built this year, the first church edifice in town, on the hill at the top of Washington street, opposite the house now occupied by Mr. Case Howard. The latter place was then owned by Platt Rogers Halstead, who kept a bachelor's establishment, with a middle-aged houskeeper, always known as "Aunt Melinda," though she was no relative, and his sister Car- oline, then a girl of twenty-one. She began keeping a diary the first of July, and on the ninth she writes, "Yesterday our meeting house was raised. Everything went on in good order. A prayer was made at the commencement by Elder Isaac Sawyer. We witnessed the good effects of temperance, as no ardent spirits was drank on the ground." It was indeed a novelty tohave no liquor at a "raising," and this incident shows that
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tempérance as a principle, and not simply as a matter of individual choice, was beginning to be advanced. That it was literally but a beginning could not be shown more conclusively than by the following incident, re- lated by Dr. S. S. Cutting twenty years after, when he was a Professor in Rochester University.
"My earliest recollection of the Rev. Isaac Sawyer is associated with an incident illustrative of his charac- ter. It was, I think, in the summer of 1827, before the tender of the cup had ceased to be an acknowledged part of the hospitalities of a Christian family. The minister of our church, - the Baptist church in West- port, N. Y.,-had resigned, and Mr. Sawyer had been invited to visit the place with a view to the pastoral office. He, with the retiring minister, was a guest at my father's house, between the services of the Sabbath day. I, as the boy on whom that duty naturally de- volved, was directed to bear to our Reverend visitors the refreshment of brandy and water, with sugar at- tached; and this I did without a thought to that mo- ment of any connection between conscience and drink- ing, except that conscience forbade intemperate drink- ing. With the air of a true gentleman, quietly but friendly, Mr. Sawyer declined the cup. "It is a point of conscience with me," said the already venerable man; "I have united with some of my brethren in an obliga- . tion to abstain entirely." "A point of conscience !" thought the astonished boy,-and he never forgot the lesson, or ceased to honour the minister of religion from whose lips those few words had fallen. Thank
HISTORY OF WENTPORT
Heaven, the cup ceased to be among the hospitalities of that home.
Stories are told, and true ones too, of the minister calling at some house which was temporarily destitute of spirits, and of the small boy of the family being smuggled out of the pantry window and sent in great secrecy for a new supply, all hoping that the minister might not suspect, as he drank with them the social glass, that it was not drawn from their own cellar. Mr. J. S. Boynton tells a story of a house in Jay, in the wall of which the owner imbedded a bottle of whisky, and theu bricked it over, saying, "It shall never be said of me that I was at any time discovered without liquor in the house." I never heard of such extreme measures being taken in this town to escape the social disgrace of the times, but all these things show the condition of public opinion.
Elder Isaac Sawyer was called to preach in April of 1828, and was pastor of the church six years, receiving, according to the church book, the salary of $200 a year, which was the largest salary yet paid up to that time. While he was here his son Miles married Caroline Hal- stead, and his daughter Mary married Austin Hickok. Elder Sawyer lived in the house on Washington street now owned by Dr. Charles Holt, and it would seem to have been built for him since my grandmother writes one day of calling on Mrs. Ira Henderson, and adds, "Mrs. H. came with me over the bridge as far as the Elder's new house."
This diary gives pleasant glimpses of the social life
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of the place for one year. These were the days when matches, envelopes and steel pens were still unknown, and the only means of lighting was by tallow candles, dipped or moulded in each household by hand, wax candles being brought from the city for extraordinary occasions. The parlor candle-sticks had become very elaborate affairs, arranged with circles of hanging prisms to reflect the light and add brilliancy to the room. Wall paper was still unknown, but I doubt if there were wainscoted walls in Westport, although a wainscot half way up the wall, with plaster above it, is seen in all the old houses. The height of fashion in china was the beautiful flowing blue, of which so few pieces have survived.
The women wore the short-waisted dresses, with skirts short and scant, showing feet clad in the thinnest of slippers and beautifully elceked stockings. The neck and arms were commonly left bare, and a cape carried on the arm to throw over the shoulders when it was cold. Perhaps this style of dress might account some- what for the number of deaths by consumption in those early years of the century. The hair was worn in high puffs and curls, with a high back comb, and sometimes with a curl falling each side of the face. The men wore high stocks, and their dress coats were cut away in front to show the most elaborate waist coats. Their hair was allowed to grow long enough to brush straight up in front and to curl back behind the ears in a manner munch admired. The trousers were held neatly in place over the boots by straps under the instep, and the hat
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was bell-crowned with curling britu. Ruffled shirt fronts were completely out of fashion, but were still worn by some of the older men, and John Halsten ! wore long hose and silver buckled shoes as long as he lived. His son Platt never wore an overcoat, but wrapped his military cloak about his spare figure when the weather was inclement, and it is partly on this ac- count that I am told by people who remember him that he strongly resembled the portrait of Von Moltke. The women's bonnets were the great flaring "pokes," which stayed in fashion so many years, though the shapes changed slightly, so that a fine Leghorn bonnet might be bleached and "done over" on a new block from the city as often as once in two or three years, and it is no exaggeration to say that such a bonnet was often worn ten years without fear of comment from one's neigh- bors. In the simple life of the little lake shore village; people had plenty of leisure, and my grandmother's diary records many an afternoon visit, with neighbors . coming in uninvited to spend the evening in pleasant chat. On more formal occasions you were invited for the afternoon and to stay to tea, like the company which Mrs. Katy Seadder invites in the first chapter of "The Minister's Wooing." Mrs. Stowe's description of manners and conversation might have been given of Westport in the thirties, when it was etiquette to praise everything on the table, beginning with the weaving of the linen, which was of course the work of your hostess, and in perfectly good form to inquire of your ris-u-ris if he or she enjoyed religion. Once the diary records:
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"Received compliments from Mrs. Wightman, with an invitation to visit her this p. M. Other company ex- preted, quite a little party." And after it was out, "Mary Sawyer, Mr. MeKinney, Miles and I took a short walk, the evening being very inviting and called at Mr. Holcomb's." She had Jane McKinney and Julia Hickok and Mary Sawyer and other girls to stay with her over night, and once they went on horseback to Tillinghast Cole's to eat warm sugar. There was also an invitation to a party at "Mr. Newel's," and after Mrs. Van Vleck had come to tea, as she frequently did, it was always endorsed "had an excellent visit." Then as for the religious meetings, they were an occupation in themselves. What would you think now of listening to two long sermous every Sunday, with a Sabbath school session between, and a prayer meeting in the evening. and then two or three more "conferences" through the week ?
In August of this year occurred the great freshet which was felt through all the Champlain valley. The diary says : "It has caused very extensive damages in many different places, not so much in this as in many others. In New Haven, Vt., fourteen individuals were swept away by the torrent of waters rushing upon them in the dead of night." Though no lives were lost in Westport, mills and bridges went out along the Black and the Boquet, and Mill brook in the village carried away all the mills which stood above the pres- ent dam. In September the house of Dr. Wright ou
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. Pleasant street was burned, as is told in detail in the diary.
According to Watson, "Brainard's Forges, contain- ing two or three fires each, were erected in 1830, and stood on Black river, a few miles from the Court House." We know that David Brainard built a forge on the Black iu 1817, and this was doubtless rebuilt after the freshet.
On the first of March, 1830, the First Baptist Church of Westport was legally incorporated as a religious so- ciety, with the following trustees : Gideon Hammond, Platt R. Halstead, Ira Henderson, George B. Reynolds, Dr. Dan. S. Wright, Horace Holcomb and John Kings- ley.
1881.
Town Meeting beld at Elijah Newell's.
Barnabas Myrick. Supervisor.
Diodorus S. Holcomb. Clerk.
Jesse Braman, Diodorus Holcomb and Alanson Barber, Assessors.
George B. Reynolds and John Kingsley, Poor Masters.
Hezekiah Barber, Newton Hays and Willard Church. Highway Commissioners.
Asabel Lyon, Ira Henderson, Horace Holcomb, Sebool Commissioners.
Diodorus S. Holcomb, Elisha Garfield, Aaron B. Mack, Seboot Inspectors.
Joseph Hardy. Collector.
Joseph Hardy. Samuel Chandler and Joel A. Calhoun, Constables.
Phineas A. Durfy, Pound Master.
The entry is certified to by three Justices, Jesse Bra- man. Alexander Spencer and Gideon Hammond. Tiro Justices were elected. Alexander Spencer and Jobn H. Low.
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Pathmasters. - Howard Mitchell, E. H. Coll, James W. Coll. Tillingbast Cole, Caleb P. Cole. Austin Hickok. Bar- naoas Myrick, Myron C. Cole. Butber Angier. Horatio Lovel. George W. Sturtevant. Thomas Wesson, Moses Felt. Joel Finney, Nathan Chase, Ephraim Bull. Harvey Smith. Enos Loveland. Platt Sheldon. William Stacy. John Stacy, Solomon Stockwell, Hollis Sherman. William Mclntyre. Alexander MeDougal, Silas Daniels. Ebenezer Douglass. Erastus Loveland. Jonatban Cady.
Town Meeting adjourned to Elijah Newell's.
This year New Year's Day fell on Saturday. On Sunday the diary notes "Attended meeting. Elder Sawyer's text was in Jeremiah 28:16; This year thou shult die. A solemn and impressive discourse." Such a text, dwelt upon with the most positive conviction, and delivered to a congregation which had not yet learned to doubt, might well produce an impression. The power of the preaching of those days lay greatly in a fervent faith in the supernatural. One of Elder Sawyer's early experiences had been this. When a rough, untutored lad, living in wilderness Vermont, he learned to play cards. One night he and another boy stole away by themselves, with one half-burned candle for light, to play a game on the floor of a barn. Be- coming absorbed in the game, which called for a keen- ness of observation and of forethought never before re- quired in any recreation of their dull lives, they played all night long, nor thought to stop until daylight began to break. Recalled to recognition of their surround- ings, they saw that the candle was still burning bright- ly, and was as long as it had been when they first lighted it, hours before. Each felt sure that he had neither
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snutfed the candle nor put a new one into the candle- stick since they began to play. The conclusion was obvious. Since it was to the advantage of no one so Inch as to the Evil One himself that they should de- vote themselves to such unholy practices as card play- ing, it was plain that he, and no other, had snuffed the caudle and replenished it, and so prolonged their wick- edness to suit his own ends. Now if you believed that, as Isaac Sawyer believed it, you would look upon a playing card with the same borror that he felt, that is, you would act upon your conviction as he did. The Fornext generation of Sawyers never played cards. In the .. generation after that the spell had weakened, so that when my mother told me the story she explained the absorption of the boys who snuffed the candle and changed it unconsciously, and afterward were made cowards by their own consciences, but nevertheless she still felt the inherited horror stronger than reason, so that the sight of a playing card was actually unpleasant to her. Now the preaching of a man who has such be- lief as that in the nearness of the supernatural, deliv- ered perhaps some night of the camp meeting which was again held this year on the Sisco farm, when the light of the torches was reflected in the water, and made such deep shadows behind the tree trunks, and the voice of the preacher seemed to come from some un- known country, may well have produced an effect such as the great revival which followed. Not that he was the only one who spoke from the strength of such con- victions, and spoke with power. Father Comstock took
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a leading part in these camp meetings, and the Metho- dist preachers of this time were Orville Kyrepton, G. W. Estey, Hiram Chase and P. M. Hitchcok.
Dr. Cutting wrote as follows in regard to the relig- ious history of the year : "I well remember a revival which occurred in 1831. I was a student at the time, at home in search of health. On my arrival, I found preparations in progress for a Four Days Meet- ing.' The frame of the house of worship had been for some time raised, but the work had proceeded slowly. Roof and rough boarding were now hurried on ; a loose flooring was laid; rude benches were to furnish sittings for the congregation, and a carpenter's bench a plat- form for the preachers. The moral preparations seemed to be less adequate. A meeting largely attended was held in a school-house on the evening previous to the great gathering in the unfinished church. The Provi- dence of God had brought to the village, and that even- ing, the venerable Father Comstock, a Congregational minister, long known and honoured in Northern New York. On these aged men devolved the duty of the religious instructions of that evening. Father Com- stock preached, making the union of Christians in love, and prayers and labours, the burden of his message, and reaching a strain of Christian eloquence which it has never been my lot to witness on any other occasion. Father Sawyer followed, reiterating and applying these instructions, and, before the evening closed, the mem- bers of the church, to that hour so languid and so 'wanting in faith as well-uigh to quench the hope of a
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blessing, were brought upon their knees in confessions and prayers which were the sure precursors of a great ingathering of souls. This great revival was, I believe, the last under the ministry of Father Sawyer at West- port, and illustrated, as it seems to me, the excellence and height of his power as a Christian Pastor."
This year the first class meeting of the Methodist Episcopal church was organized at Wadhams Mills, composed as follows : Captain Levi Frisbie, leader, with Nathan Jones, Thomas Wessons, Mrs. T. Wessons, Cyrenus Payne and a Lack family, in all ten persons, as members. From this time on there was regular preach- ing at the Falls by the circuit rider.
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