USA > New York > Essex County > Westport > Bessboro: A history of Westport, Essex Co., N.Y. > Part 4
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From Holt's brook to the Raymond brook we call this the "middle" or the "state road," because there is a "lake road" farther to the east. And a pleasant road it is, looking off over the tops of "the Cedars" to the lake and the Vermont shore. There is a lane leading down to the Worman place at Young's bay, and another, much travelled, to the light-house and the ferry at Bar- ber's point. A favorite short drive from the village is to take this road around to the island, and then come back by the middle road, or by the cross road which
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ents through the Westport Farms, and back past the golf links,
Other roads less travelled have often quite as much interest. By turning off the turnpike near the station von can go up the Ledge Hill road. After you have crossed the brook you will never wonder at the mean- ing of the name. When you come to the twin fish pouds at Hoisington's you may take your choice of go- ing ou to Meigsville, and perhaps away off across the Black river to "the Kingdom," (peopled now only by ghosts of the old Days of Iron,) or you may turn and go south between the mountains until you come to the spring whieb supplies the village of Westport with wa- ter. If you choose this road, the first little bridge you cross is called, in local talk, "tea-kettle bridge." The name is the most valuable part of the legend, asthe neigh- bors can only tell you that once, when they mended the bridge they found a new tea-kettle carefully hidden un- der it, whose owner they never discovered.
On this road stood, not many years ago, a charcoal kilo, the last, perhaps, of the large number which might be found all over the town fifty years ago, when there was so much more wood to burn. It was not far from "the old tram road," which leads to Nichols Pond, two miles west of the highway. This pond is a favorite re- sort of hunters and campers, and you can hardly pass this way in the hunting season without seeing a hunter with gun and basket, making for the pond. It lies four- teen hundred feet above sea-level, and there is a camp
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on an island. Another trail to the pond leads in from the south.
When you come to the turn at the old Stacy place, alias the Greeley place, now owned by Mr. Lee, you may go back to the village, or turn up the hill and take the mountain road to "Seventy-five." This road reach- es the highest altitude of any road in town. After you have passed the "John Smith place," where you get such a charming glimpse of the lake through the trees, looking down over Bessboro, and have climbed the hills along the musical tumbling brook, and passed the solitary farm-house of Levi Moore, you come to the summit of the road, fifteen hundred feet above tide. After this there is a descent until you reach the de- serted village of "Seventy-five."
Surely a more desolate place cannot be imagined than this ruined mining settlement, lying high up in the mountains, where the soil is thin and poor, and where the trees have been cut off for miles around, burued to feed the great furnace which is now but a heap of shapeless ruin. Time has veiled the naked hillsides with the thick, slender "second-growth" timber, but the village houses still stand unshielded upon the bare slopes. Most of the houses were well-built, large and comfortable, and it will take a long time for the chim- neys to fall and the roof-trees to sink. All the popula- tion here ha l to be fed by the farming country of the Champlain littoral, and farmers as far away as Lewis and Essex drew hay and other farm produce over the
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mountains to Seventy-five, receiving high prices and a share in the general prosperity.
This is the most direct road to the villages of Mine- ville and Moriah. If you choose you may return to Westport by keeping on around Bartlett pond, (in Mo- riah,) which lies so still and dark, surrounded by the still, dark mountains, and taking the Bald Peak road, through mountain valleys, following Mullein brook to the school house at Stevenson's, then the "back road" to North-west Bay.
The shortest way from the village to the Mountain Spring is to go up the hill past the golf links, cross the railroad and take the turn at Rush Howard's. This brings you to a bit of new road not shown on the map, because it was made after the map wasengraved, which exchanges a stony hill for an easy grade through the meadows for a mile, on the land of the Mountain Spring Company.'
As for the smoothuess of these roads-well, you will not find them planed and sand-papered. It is evident that in township the elevation of whose surface varies from the level of the lake to eighteen hundred feet above it, the roads cannot be expected to maintain a dreary monotony. I am reminded of a story. Driving over a mountain road from Hoisington's to Greeley's, with a friend returned from South Dakota, we came to "tea-kettle bridge," with the little clear, brown stream pouring and gurgling under it. "Oh, stop the horse a moment," said she, "and let me hear the water run." The muddy sloughs of Dakota do not look nor sound
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like that!" And then she told me the story of an Essex county boy who took his degree at a medical college and went west to practice in a prairie state. For years he drove over level roads, with a level horizon around him. One day he was called to go a long distance to a place he had never seen. On his way he saw, in a field by the side of the road, the first rock that had met his eyes since he entered the state. He left the road, drove un- til he came to the rock, and then deliberately guided the horse so that two wheels of his buggy went directly over it. He made a turn, came back, and sent the other wheels over the rock, enjoying the bounce and jolt. Then he made his way back to the main road, went home and told his wife. "Oh, it felt good," said he, "It felt like Essex county once more!" And no one will deny that that is the way Essex county feels, when you are driving, and Westport is no exception.
Nevertheless, our roads are better than those of many other towns, and especially in the fall, when our clay packs into a hard smooth surface, only made smoother by every passing wheel. It is the spring mud, after heavy rains and thaws that make our roads a terror and a penance. Our system of working roads is ex- ceedingly deficient, resulting in a marked line of divis- ion, in some cases, between a one road-district with a business-like "path-master" and high taxes, and another district with a path-master ignorant or unwilling, or with taxes too low to do balf the work.
One characteristic feature of our road-sides is the stump fence. This is made of pine roots from the
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forest primeval, loft after the trees were cut down, and dug out of the earth to leave the laud clear for the planting of crops. We have an invention called a "stump-machine," made for pulling the stumps out of the ground. Then they are set up in rows along the borders of our fields, with the wide-spreading roots joining in an abattis which makes an excellent fence. We have very little of the zig-zag rail fence left, and stone walls are not so common as in the southern part of the state, but a gray, mossy, old stump fence, whose gnarled and twisted outlines take fantastic shapes, fes- tooned with the woodbine and the wild grape, is pic- turesque indeed.
There is a folding road map of Westport, with mile circles, easily obtainable, and also a larger wall map. The map of the United States Geological Survey, on the scale of nearly one mile to one inch, shows every road perfectly, to the least turning, and also indicates with contour lines the elevation of every point. Be- cause of the perfection of these maps, and their acces- sibility, no effort has been made to provide this book with a large and complete map. The small one in the front of the book will give a quite sufficient idea of the town and its vicinity.
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NATURAL FEATURES.
Westport's one supreme claim to consideration is in the beauty of her natural features. Mountains and lake together give this bit of earth a charm which is never unfelt or denied. The natives, born upon the soil, always the last to analyze the influence of nature npon themselves, are by no means the last to feel it, How we pity the people condemned to live in a flat country, and what a keen edge has the regret of the exile who leaves us to live upon the prairies of the West! But we would not have it all mountains. "Keene Valley ?" we say. "We could not live shut in like that, only able to look up, and not ont. We never take a free breath until we get back where we can look off upon the lake." That is what gives us the sense of freedom and distance, and I think we love it best of all.
RIVERS AND BROOKS.
Our largest river is the Boquet. This beautiful mountain stream has its ultimate springs high among the peaks of Keene and North Hudson, and follows a northeasterly course through the "Pleasant Valley" of Elizabethtown, and into the townships of Lewis and Essex. Then it bends suddenly to the south, and makes a loop of five or six miles to enter Westport. Here it comes withiu three miles of the lake, and perhaps in some pre-historie age it flowed iuto Northwest Bay, but now the Split Rock range pushes its foothills to the south and bars the way. The New York and Canada
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railroad, in passing over this divide between the Schroon range and the valley of the Boquet, makes the heaviest grade between Albany and Montreal. This is the reason why a loaded freight train is so often "stalled" near Viall's crossing. After leaving Westport, the river flows through Essex and Willsboro iuto Lake Cham- plain. Some of its most remote springs must be nearly three thousand feet above sea level. At Elizabethtown, it is but a little less than six hundred feet high, and at its mouth it is of course of the same level as Lake Champlain, one hundred and one feet above tide. Such a descent as this proves it to be a clear, swift running river, with many falls. The most considerable of these is at Wadhams Mills, and gave that place its early name, still often used, of "The Falls."
Within our borders, the Boquet flows for the greater part through a fine farming country, cleared and culti- vated, except where it is crowded by the rocky base of Coon mountain. It is crossed by the railroad, which follows closely along its northern bauk for several miles.
The river is used extensively for logging. Logs are ent by gangs of lumbermen in the forests of Elizabeth- towo and Lewis, and floated down in time of high water to the mills at Wadhams or Whallonsburgh or Wills- boro. All this logging business is very interesting and picturesque, and oue may pick up many a quaint bit of experience out of it. An old farmer who had watched the river many years told me one day that he could tell at a glance whether the river was rising or falling. If the logs are all in the middle of the river it is falling.
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If they are floating along upon each side next the banks the river is rising. When the water is rising it is high_ est in the middle, and the logs take the lower level next the bank. When it is falling it is the lowest in mid- stream, and there the logs collect.
There are two dams in the river within Westport, one at Wadhams and one at Merriam's Forge. The high- way crosses it but twice, onee at each of the two places just mentioned.
The name of the river is commonly a stumbling- block to strangers, in the matter of its pronunciation. A true native never calls it boo-kay, but always bo- kwet. As it is evidently a French name, the stranger is likely to set this pronuciation down as a result of crass ignorance. On the contrary, it is a most inter- esting linguistic proof of the real origin of the name. That sound of final "t" has survived for one hundred and seventy years, and, like most survivals, has an ex- cuse for being.
The Boquet river was named by the French before 1731, as is conclusively shown by maps of that date. This point has been thoroughly investigated by Mr. Heury Harmon Noble, who has had every opportunity to examine the documents bearing upon the subject in the State Historian's office. In a letter written to the anthor he says :
"I find in New York Colonial MSS., Volume XCVIII, page 24, 'Carte du Lac Champlain, dupuis le fort Cham- bly jasquan fort St. Frederic. Levee par le Sieur Anger, arpenteur du Roy en 1732. fait a Quebec le 10
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Octobre 1748, signe de Lery.' That is to say, a map of Lake Champlain from Fort Chambly to Fort St. Frederic, surveyed by Mr. Anger, Surveyor to the King in 1732, made at Quebec October 10th, 1748, On this map the river is put down as 'R. Boquette,' showing that it was called by that name as early as 1732.
"Also in Doenments Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, volumm 9, opposite page 1022, is a map, a copy of which was procured in Paris in 1842 by John Romeyn Brodhead. On this map, date 1731, 'Carte du lac Champlain avec les Rivieres dupuis le fort de Chambly dans la Nouvelle France, jusques a Orangeville de le Nouvelle Angleterre, dresse sur divers memoirs,'-it is called R. Banquette. The'a' is quite plain."
In a very interesting article upon the naming of the Ansable river, in the Essex County Republican, in Oc- tober of 1894, Mr. Frederick HI. Comstock, a well-known anthority on the history and nomenclature of this re- gion, speaks of both the maps mentioned by Mr. Noble, and says :
"The French being established so near the lake soon familiarized themselves with it, and gave names to prominent natural features of its shores-Roche fendre (Split Rock), Carillon (Ticonderoga), Isle La Motte. Sorel, Chazy, St. Armant, Boquet, Valeour, Grand Iste, ete., many of which remain even to this day." And he calls special attention to the fact that the rivers were named from their mouths.
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So it is plain that the French had given our river its maine before they built the first fortifications upon the lake, at Crown Point, in 1731. As for the meaning of the name, it seems probable that it was derived from the word "baquet," that is "a trough," from the forma- tion of the river banks near its mouth. The French named the Au Sable river, that is, the Sandy river, from the long point of sand at its month, and remarked that it was so choked with sand at its entrance into the lake that it was impossible for boats to enter it at all except in time of high water. After passing this river mouth, their eyes were quick to notice that the next one to which they came, on their southward way, was of a very different character, flowing deep and full into the lake through steep banks. There was no obstruc- tion to the entrance of boats of large size, and their passage was clear almost to the foot of the falls. It will be remembered that Burgoyne encamped here in 1777 because the river afforded a shelter for his boats, and in 1812 it was entered by British gun-boats. So the French voyageurs described it as the "river which is like a trough at its mouth," - Baquet, or Banquette, afterward written Boquette or Boquet.
It is sometimes asserted that our river was named after Colonel Henry Bouquet, a British officer during the French and Indian War. This is not possible, since Colonel Bouquet never saw America until 1756. twenty-five years after the river was named. Turning to the second volume of "Montcalm and Wolfe," by Francis Parkman, we may read :
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"The Royal American regiment was a new corps raised, in the colonies, largely from among the Germans of Pennsylvania. Its officers were from Europe ; and conspienons among them was Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Bonquet, who commanded one of the four battalions of which the regiment was composed."
The gallant Colonel, afterward made a General by a grateful sovereign, distinguished himself in his opera- tions against the Indians of Pennsylvania and Ohio, but at no period was he in service upon Lake Cham- plain. His own letters and journals, and the records of his campaigns, prove this. There were parts of the regiment of Royal Americans with Abercrombie in his attempt upon Ticonderoga, and with Wolfe at Quebec, but not Bouquet's battalion in either case.
The name of Bouquet was a famous one in the colon- ies at the time of the "oll French war" and immedi- ately after it. How famous it was we can hardly real- ize since the Revolution has lighted so many greater lights. It would have been in no way strange that any unnamed river should be named after him, and I have no doubt that at this time a misconception of the facts arose. The great majority of the English had never seen the original French maps, and were quite ignorant of the early history of the lake. What more natural than for them to suppose that the name "Baquet" or "Boquete" referred to their own admired General? In this way it may be admitted that the river was, in a certain sense. r-baptized after General Henry Bouquet,
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and so the newer spelling and pronunciation might be allowed. But your true native will always sound that final "t" and thus bear witness, often unconsciously, of that Loyalty to the Oldest which makes so large a part of the historical sense.
The river next largest in size is the Black, a tributary of the Boquet. It defines about five miles of our west- ern border, the boundary line between Elizabethtown and Westport following its eastern bank. It rises in the southeastern corner of the township of Elizabeth- town, in Long Pond, whieb lies nearly sixteen hundred feet above tide. "Long Pond" is the name given on all the old maps, but I see that the latest Government sur- vey has changed it to "the Four Ponds." Doubtless that which was one continuous pond in the early days of thick forests and deep, full streams, has now dwin- dled to four small ponds connected by slender brooks. From Long Pond runs Brandy Brook, falling over five hundred feet in less than two miles, into Black Pond, which is commonly given its modern title of Lincoln Pond. Black Pond was named, like the Black river, from the color of its water, derived from the iron in the soil. From Black Pond the river runs north-east, and all along its course you may find its banks dotted with the ruins of mills and forges.
At "the Kingdom" lies the most memorable ruin, ri- valing the mournful interest of "Seventy-five." I have always wished some one would tell me why a soulless corporation ever chose the name of "the Kingdom Irou Ore Company." Was it with a bounding hope for the
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future like that expressed by the southern negroes in their song of "Kingdom Come?" At any rate, the name is all that is left to remark upon now, and as even that does not belong to Westport, we must hurry on down the river. 1
It is six hundred feet above sea level at Meigsville, and four hundred feet above it at its junction with the Boquet in Lewis. It has a descent from Black Pond to the Boquet of six hundred and fifty feet. It will be seen that with this fall, and with the volume of water here in early days, the stream was of great value to the first settlers, and as long as there was a demand for the products of mill- and forges. To-day there is but one mill running along all its course,-the one at Brainard's Forge,-but, alas, for the ancient pride of the river, the saw is driven by steam ! A hundred years ago the river ran with full banks, deep and still, all the year, but now in summer it dwindles to a thin stream, spread over a pebbly bed. The water is not now noticeably dark, except as it rans over stones which show the coloring of iron ore. I suppose that when the first settlers saw it, it had something of the inky blackness of the AuSable river in the Chasm, flashing into white at the falls and rapids.
Four bridges eross the Black river from one town- ship to the other.
The small streams entirely within the township are numerous. There are at least five flowing into the Bo- quet, and as many into the Black river. In the center of the town, flowing into the Northwest Bay, and crossed
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near its mouth by the bridge in the village, is Hoising- tou's brook, named after an early settler. In strict justice it should be called the Loveland brook, as the Lovelands preceded the Hoisingtons on the farm near its source, but strict justice does not always prevail in the names of places. In some cases our local names go back to the earliest comers, and generation after generation makes no effort to change them, thus pre- serving a record of early history, and preventing all further confusion. There is something pleasant in the thought of thus honoring the first settlers, who saw the country when it was new, cut the first trees, plowed the first furrow, and did so much to make it habitable for us who were to come after them. Not that J am murmuring that Hoisington brook should be so called. It is a good old name, and that the two fish ponds date back only to the day of the Hoisingtons is sufficient reason for naming the whole brook after them. By the roadside, near the bridge at Hois- ington's, the traveller can see two pretty little ponds, one emptying into the other, and the ontlet falling into the brook. The sources of the brook are much higher in the mountains. This stream was called Mill Brook by the first settlers at Northwest Bay.
Hammond Brook.
The Hoisington brook is joined, not far back of the village, by another stream coming from the south-west, called the Hammond brook. This stream has for one of its sources the Mountain Spring, which supplies the
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village with water. Of late years it is sometimes spok- en of as the Pooler brook, but the old name is much oftener used, and is far more appropriate. Nathan Hammond settled here not long after 1800, and his son Gideon, also a'dweller by the brook, was a prominent man in our history, being supervisor of the town for years, and going to Albany to represent the county in the Assembly. They are all gone, long since, but the name is still used.
On the map of the United States Geological Survey, though it is quite correct so far as the natural aspect of the country is concerned, our Hoisington brook is miscalled the "Hammond brook," while the true Hammond brook is given no name at all.
Raymond Brook.
Often a stream is known by different names at dif- ferent points along its course. Up in the mountains, where Joseph Stacy, one of the first settlers. owned large tracts of land, you will hear of "the Stacy brook." Near its mouth, where it falls into Coll's bay, you will hear it called "Coll's brook." But there is still anoth- er name. Nothing in all my study of our town history Las delighted me more than to find this brook referred to, in the common speech of the neighborhood, as "the Raymond brook." This is the oldest survival of no- menelature that I have discovered. It dates back to that first of all first settlers, Edward Raymond, who came here in 1770, and formed a small settlement at the mouth of the brook. James W. Coll came to. this
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vicinity in 1SOS, and I beard his grandson, without sug- gestion or premeditation, refer to this as "the Raymond brook," thus showing that this was the accepted name in the family. Surely we cannot do better than to keep this up. The lapd in this vicinity may change hands as many times in the next quarter century as it has in the last, but it is to be hoped that the little river may never lose the name of Raymond. The name of the original Coll is perhaps sufficiently honored by giving his name to the bay.
The Raymond brook, then, is our longest stream, with its highest source probably fifteen hundred feet above tide, in the mountains near the Elizabethtown line. On my map it is made to rise in Nichols poud, but I am told that this is a mistake, and that the out- let of the pond is toward the west. It is a beautiful, clear mountain stream, with many a little fall and cas- eade, and still pools full of trout. It makes a most musical companion on the road to Seventy-five, and it is a considerable stream where it flows under the high- way near William Floyd's. When it has come in sight of the lake, and flows under the bridge near the Graeffe residence, it leaps over a steep ledge of rocks in one foaming sheet. Above the fall is the pool where half the town, in ancient times, used to come to wash their sheep.
Mullein Brook.
On Santhier's map, made 1779, of the lake there are two of our streams put down,-Hoisington and Mailein
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brooks. Only one is given a name, and that the latter, which is called "Iron or Beaver Cr." On the map of the Iron Ore Traet, made 1810, it is called "Bever Creek," so that it is plain that this was its early name, unchanged for the time of one generation. ("Bever" is not a misspelling of "Beaver," but the same word in the Dutch language. Albany, you remember, was called by the Dutch "Beverwyck.")
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