USA > New York > Delaware County > Delaware County, New York, history of the century, 1797-1897, centennial celebration, June 9 and 10, 1897 > Part 24
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One of the important industries of Delhi is the Crawfords Wagon Works, which was established in 1894, and was enlarged in 1895. They give employment to from forty to eighty men, and their plant now covers about four acres of ground, and comprises four large buildings, and about an aere of floor space. The principal manu- facture is the Stiver gear, pneumatic wagons.
The New York Condensed Milk Company established a milk bottling works here in 1895. "Borden's Condensary," as it is called here, is an important acquisition to our village, and gives employ- ment to fifty or more men, and receives the milk from nearly two hundred farms.
Sanford's Creamery, in the lower part of the village, is an important industry in our village, and has been here a number of years.
Some seventy years ago Mr. Elting had a potash manufactory on the east side of the river, just above the upper iron bridge. Many years afterward James Elwood had a potash manufactory not far from where the residence of George H. Maxwell now stands.
يتبع
Vi 1 e 1 1 ep . it
Deposit and Tompkins. By Hon. G. D. Wheeler.
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T THE town of Deposit is the youngest town in Delaware county, and is among the smaller ones in its area, having 27,622 acres of land; there are two towns having a less number of acres. Iu valuation of real estate, it bears a very favorable comparison with other towns; there is one town of equal valuation per acre, twelve that are lower, and but tive of higher valuation. The personal property of the town, when organized, was greater than cleven towns and nearly equal with that of the other seven. It has been materially redneed within the last two years by the removal of the Deposit national bank to that portion of the village of Deposit situated in Broome county.
The town was organized by the Legistature of the State in 1880, the territory being taken wholly from the town of Tomp- kins, which was the largest town in Delaware county excepting one, Hancock, and is still the largest town in the county, except- ing two, Andes and Hancock.
It is the most western, or south-western town in the county, and is bounded on the west partly by the state of Pennsylvania and partly by Broome county. The village of Deposit is divided by the boundary line which separates Delaware and Broome counties. The greater number of inhabitants of the village, and by far the greater business interests are in Broome county. Yet a majority of the churches, and nearly an equal number of in- habitants, including many of the old residents of the village, are in Delaware county.
AApplication for a division of the town of Tompkins and the erection of the new town of Deposit was twice made to the Board
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of Supervisors of Delaware county. In 1876 at a meeting of the board, a vote was taken which resulted in nine for division and eight against. There was a majority in favor of the new town, but as the law required a two-thirds vote the question was lost. It was fully shown to the board by the applicants for this pro- ject, that their only object in asking for a division of Tompkins was to save the voters and business men of the proposed new town the unnecessary distance which they were obliged to travel in attending every town meeting, and in transacting business at the town clerk's office. There were 350 voters then in the ter- ritory, and more than that number now in the town of Deposit. The extra travel which was always expensive, unpleasant and annoying, was over sixteen miles on an average to each voter, making an aggregate amount, counting all the voters, of about 6,000 miles. The extra travel is now saved to the voters of the town of Deposit, and all the people of the town are accommo- dated in their business interests like other people of the towns of the county. The only objection urged against the passage of the bill by members of the board of supervisors, was that if the new town was organized it would be lost to Delaware county, and the people of the town would "step down and out " and be gathered into the adjoining county of Broome. It was publicly announced before the board, by those who were opposed to the division, that the generous inhabitants at the county seat had such a devoted love for the people of the proposed new town, that they could not allow the petition to be granted. It would be placing a wicked temptation for covetousness within conven- ient and easy reach of Broome county, and would be an efficient move for the dismemberment of good old Delaware.
No protestation of the people of the proposed new town, of their loyalty to Delaware county, was a sufficient guaranty of their honesty, and no declarations of the inconvenience and un- necessary annoyances which they were obliged to suffer eould arouse the sympathy of their loving friends in the eastern por-
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tion of the county. They were obliged to go to the Legislature of the State, and ask of strangers what could not be granted to them by their friends at home.
The town of Deposit is too young to furnish anything like an ancient history of its early settlement. All the early records apply to the old town of Tompkins, which was organized Feb. 28, 1806, from the town of Walton and was called Pinefield. It retained this name about two years, until the 10th of March, 1808, when the name was changed to Tompkins in honor of Gov- ernor Daniel D. Tompkins. The first supervisor of the town was Peter Pine.
Very little is known of the territory included in the present towns of Tompkins and Deposit before the war of the Revolution. It was inhabited by various tribes of Indians; the Loni Lenapes (or Delawares) and the Mohawks were the principal occupants. Their council ground was located near Deposit village, on the east side of the Delaware river, at a place opposite the point where the Tewbeac (Butler Brook) and Oquaga Creek empty into the river. This is at the most western bend of the Delaware, on land formerly known as the Peter Pine farm, and later as the N. K. Wheeler farm. On this place the Indians had several acres of cleared land, where they planted their corn. About two miles below Deposit they had another clearing. The place at Deposit they called Big Coke-ose, and the place below was Little Coke- ose. These names were afterwards perverted by the white in- habitants and the village of Deposit was called Cookhouse; Lit- tle Coke-ose lost its name entirely.
Deposit was incorporated by the Legislature of the State in ISII, and was the first village incorporated in Delaware county. It included only 156 acres of land, being Lot No. forty-three, Evans Patent, lying between the river and the county line. It was wholly within the County of Delaware and had very few in- habitants. In 1851, the charter was amended so as to include the territory within its present limits.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
The first white man known to have resided in the vicinity of Deposit, or in the territory of the present town, was Peter Hyn- back, (usually pronounced Hinepaw). He was a Dutchman, and came up the river in a canoe with his wife and several children to Big Coke-ose, and settled on the bank of the river about forty rods from the Indian council ground. He was a trader with the Indians, was very familiar with them, and after they left the country in 1785 he remained four or five years and then followed them to Canada. He purchased quite a large tract of land of the Indians with their improvements; these consisted of their clear- ing on which a few apple trees had been planted or grown, and nothing more. Several of she apple trees are still standing and bearing fruit. About the year 1790 he sold his possessions to a Mr. Vandervoort, and Mr. Vandervoort sold to Andrew Craig. This last sale was of 400 acres and included all of the old Peter Pine farm. The consideration of this sale and purchase was a dark colored boy about fifteen years of age who was to be owned and treated as a slave. He was to be delivered to Mr. Vander- voort at Carpenter's Point, now Port Jervis, and two men were hired to "deliver the goods."
These men were Conrad Edick and Henry Sampson. The boy's name was Jolin Magee, generally called Jack. He was placed in a canoe and all started down the river. They were obliged to stay over night on the way, and stopped at Skinner's Eddy. All were tired and all slept, but in the morning there was no "Jack in the box." He had made his escape and not long after he returned to Mr. Craig, his former owner, and lived to grow up a free man. He was regarded as a man of consider- able ability. He held the office of Justice of the Peace in the town of Tompkins for a number of years. His residence was at Trout Creek, above Cannonsville.
This farm which was sold in 1790 for the price of a slave, may be considered historie ground, not only as the council ground of the several tribes of Indians who roamed over the hills and
Vilija f Concen ville
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valleys of this region before the Revolutionary war, but as their permanent settlement and home for many years, as shown by their rude farming plot, their orchard and burying ground. Many arrows and spear heads and stone pestles for grinding corn have been found on the premises. Here too, as stated, lived the first white settler, and here was the first ground broken for the con- struction of the New York and Eric railroad,
On the 7th of November, 1835, James G. King, president of the railroad company, with a few representatives of the organi- zation. met with citizens of Deposit and the surrounding country to break the first ground for the road. President King commen- ced the work with the shovel, and Hon. Samuel B. Ruggles with wheelbarrow moved the first earth into line for the road. Mr. Stuyvesant, treasurer, and Win. Beach Lawrence, another official of the company, took part in the work; Gen. Root, of Delhi, and Judge Drake, of Owego, were among the number. All present participated in a very moderate way in removing some of the earth by shovel or wheelbarrow, in the very first work upon this enormously expensive road of 483 miles. Forty miles of the road from Deposit to Callicoon were then put under contract, and the grading was immediately commenced.
The first permanent settlement in the territory included in the towns of Tompkins and Deposit seems to have been made by a Mr. Fitch, of Bainbridge, father of Jabez Fitch, who afterward became a merchant in the village of Deposit. He came to what is now called Stilesville in 1785, and located on a small clearing made by the Indians near the month of the Astraguntira (now called Cold Spring Brook) two miles from Deposit village. He built a log house for his family and erected a very rude saw mill with a wooden erank, and with a log carriage which had to be " gigged back " with the foot and hand. The running of the mill was found to be rather muprofitable, and Mr. Fitch soll out to Hubbard Burrows and Aaron Stiles and returned to Bainbridge. The next settlement was made by Jesse Dickerson in 1786
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at Cannonsville, at the mouth of the Gannuissy, now called Trout Creek. He was a native of New Jersey, a man of great energy and of considerable property. He went from his home in New Jersey to New York city, thence by a chartered sloop to Catskill, then with his family and a stock of cows, horses, oxen, sheep, etc., he worked his way through an almost unbroken wilderness to Stamford, at the head of the Mohawk, or west branch of the Delaware river, and thence down the river, by slow and difficult travel to his new home in the wilderness. He was two weeks on his way from Catskill. There were no roads of any kind, in any direction to or from his place. He purchased a large tract of land and made extensive arrangements for the improvement of his possessions. He laid out grounds and streets for a city, and named it Dickerson city. The place was called " the city" for fifty years or more. He was instrumental in bringing other inhabitants into the territory. Soon after reaching the place he built a saw mill, which was only just finished when it was com- pletely wrecked and torn away by a flood. He built another mill the next year on the same site and soon after built a grist mill. The grinding stones of this mill were quarried out of the moun- tain about two miles below the city and were worked out and fitted in a rude way by hand. They answered better than the pestle which had been used for mashing grain, yet there was no bolting cloth used. To this mill men would bring their grain from the surrounding country, thirty or forty miles away. A man who was hungry considered himself fortunately situated if he lived near the Delaware, so that he could load his grain in a canoe and drag it up or down the river to the city mill. People living in Windsor on the Susquehanna river, brought their grain on horseback by an Indian trail to Cookhouse, fifteen miles, and then by canoe or Indian trail eight miles to Dickerson city. Mr. Dickerson ran the first raft of sawed lumber down the west branch of the Delaware to market. He built several houses and made numerous improvements to his large property, which he called
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the "Milton Estate," but like many a new enterprise the expen- ditures were greater than the income, and finding that his specu- lative ideas were never to be realized, he mortgaged his property and finally turned it over to the mortgagee, and abandoning his cherished project, he left all and went to Philadelphia.
This property was bought by Benjamin Cannon, and was deeded to him in 1809 by the executors of Abraham Dubois, of Philadel- phia. He built a public house and made additional improvements. Other permanent inhabitants came in and the name of the place was changed to Cannonsville, which it still retains.
Among the first settlers of the territory now included in the town of Deposit, who bought lands and remained as permanent inhabitants, were Squire Whitaker and John Hulce. Mr. Whitaker came from the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania with his family, escaping the terrible Indian massacre, to Carpenter's Point, (now Port Jervis. )
In 1786 he went up the river in a canoe with all his house- hold effects and stopped for a year at Shehocken. In 1787 he moved his canoe containing his family and household goods to Little Coke-ose, two miles below Deposit, where he bought a large farm of a Mr. Chapman on which was a small Indian clear- ing. He paid down for the farm by giving a saddle. His first habitation was a very rude cabin covered with bark, and in this cabin was the first wedding of the town. The ceremony was performed by a missionary from Connecticut, Timothy Howe.
The happy groom and bride were Capt. Conrad Edick, a Revolutionary soldier, and Margaret Whitaker.
Capt. Edick came to Big Coke-ose from the Mohawk Valley and became identified with all the early incidents of Deposit his- tory. He was highly respected by all the people of the surrounding country. He reared a large family in the Cookhouse, where for many years he kept the only tavern, or publie house, and died in 1845. Squire Whitaker lived to rear a large family on the
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farm for which he gave his saddle. One of his descendants now occupies the same premises.
John Hulse who is named as one of the first settlers who bought land and beemine a permenent inhabitant, located just north of the present village of Deposit. He came from Orange county, N. Y., in 1789. Many of his descendants remained on the premises purchased by him, and were honored and respected inhabitants of the town. His grandson, M. R. Hulce, lately de- ceased, was a native of Deposit. His acquaintance with people of Delaware county and in the surrounding country has been as extensive, perhaps, as that of any man in the Delaware valley. He has for years been the historian of Deposit. To him the author of this sketch is indebted for most of the items of the early his- tory of Tompkins.
The town of Deposit, as is well known, was formerly a rough lumbering territory. Its hills and valleys were covered with pine and hemlock, and the quality of the lumber was of the very best. That lunber has all been rafted down the Delaware river to market, and yet no man in all the town, or in the valley of the Delaware, ever became wealthy by the business of lumbering. A few sharp men who bought lumber and took it to the Philadel- phia market were fortunate in making a little money, but the men who took off their coats and did the hard work and suffered the risks of the business, were never the better for all their harassing labor.
The village of Deposit received its name from being the place of deposit of lumber from the Susquehanna valley and the sur- rounding country. For at least fifty years this place was the lumberman's favorite rafting ground, and the Delaware was the great water way to the Philadelphia market. All is now changed. There are no rafts of lumber run from this section of country.
The town of Deposit, like many of the towns of Delaware county, has a large portion of its area in unproductive and al- most worthless land. Along its few creeks and river flats and
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Village of Trout Creek.
Village of Ruck Rift.
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ou some of its hills the farmers are spending their quiet lives iu dairying.
There is very little other business in the town. Nearly all the mercantile and manufacturing business of the village of De- posit is done in Sanford, Broome county. There is occasionally found in the hills of the town a stone quarry which furnishes a few working men with hard labor, but produces little money. This is something like the hunbering business, and both remind one of the old adage of the value of a horse hide, "The skin of a horse is worth a dollar, and it is worth a dollar to skin him."
In all the improvements which have been made in Delaware county within the one hundred years of its existence, perhaps Deposit has had its full share. The building and opening of the Erie railroad furnished the first permanent advancement of the business interests in all the southern portion of the county. Lands have been cleared and cultivated, manufactories have been established, mercantile business has been opened for the accom- modation of the increasing population, schools and churches have been built and the whole people are now enjoying the ad- vantages of a great commercial thoroughfare.
In the village of Deposit many comfortable modern residences. and business houses have been erected, and although the limits of the corporation inelnde a portion of Broome county, yet the division line of the two counties does not separate the people in their social and business relations. They are at peace with each other and with all mankind. They have what they deem a be- coming pride in their own prosperity, and in the prosperity of Delaware county. Those who are inhabitants of the county wish to be regarded as loyal subjects of "The powers that be" in the good old county of Delaware. Yet they do not feel indebted to many of the towns of the county for their improved condition. Their resources for business are almost entirely derived from the adjoining county of Broome and the state of Pennsylvania.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
There are still living some of the old inhabitants of the vil- lage who can remember seventy years ago when the "Cookhouse" had not more than twenty dwelling houses in the settlement. There was but one church which was built in 1818, to which some of the members occasionally came to worship from ten miles away. A number of years passed before any other church was built. One of the worshippers at this first church was some- times brought by her only son in a canoe from Hancock. She was the widow of Major Ebenezer Wheeler, a soldier in the war of 1812. The only physician, Dr. Thaddeus Mather, who then guarded the health of the people, rode his old gray horse by night or day twenty miles up and down the river to visit his patients. There were few bridges across any of the streams. The hills and many of the narrow valleys were then covered with a dense forest growth which afforded comparatively sate protection to the deer and other wild animals which abounded in this locality. Everything is now changed.
There are none of the pioneers who first came to this almost inaccessible country, and broke the stillness of the dense forest along the Delaware valley by their rude lumbering operations, who have lived to see the product of the last noble forest tree float away down the river to market. They have not seen the bright and thrifty villages that have sprung up in every town in Delaware county. Nor did they hear the rumbling of the rail- road engine, or its warning whistle as it rushed along the Dela- ware valley contributing its great power to transportation and commerce. Their descendants however are enjoying the comforts and blessings which result from the privations and toils of their fathers.
One of the later inhabitants of the Delaware valley, who was present and took part in the first breaking of ground for the Erie railroad, made the remark, which then seemed a rash proph- ecy, "that the time would come when a traveler could take his breakfast in Deposit and his supper in New York city." That
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time has come. He need not wait for his supper. He can take his twelve o'clock dinner in the city. The railroads that traverse the county of Delaware have indeed afforded the most effective means for transportation, and they are now carrying to the great metropolis of our country the products of every town in the county, and are bringing back the necessaries and luxuries of life from every land and every clime. Yet it seems a strange condition of affairs that the five railroads running through or into the county cannot better accommodate the people of the towns in their inland travel and their connection with each other.
The distance from the head of the Delaware to the lower line of the county is about sixty miles, (a good days travel for a good pedestrian) and yet the mail passing regularly over this distance by railroad and stage is never less than two days on the way and often three. Time may be saved by those " who know how to travel" by sending letters via. New York city, a distance of 250 miles. But why need we complain of our present accommo- dations in traveling. Let us look back a hundred years to the time of the formation of our county, when our fathers had no railroads and no regular mails.
The improvements for Delaware county are not fully aceom- plished. We have yet to see trolley roads running along each branch of the Delaware river and threading the valleys of the smaller streams through every town in Delaware county.
The moral, intellectual and social condition of the people of the county, within the century since the time of its organization, may be attributed to their churches, their schools and public institutions.
Delaware county has more thriving villages with graded schools and first class institutions for the education of the young than almost any inland county of the state. We need these schools to prepare the coming generations for the active duties ·of life.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
The early settlers of the county found a rough and rugged territory, which could only be subdued by the strong arms and courageous hearts of these pioneers. A less daring and persever- ing race would have been discouraged and have sought a more congenial climate and an easier soil for cultivation. By their active, honest, intelligent labor, they opened and prepared the way for the present prosperity of the people of the whole county. The reputation of the people of the county has never suffered by a comparison with others of the state. And now with all the modern improvements of the present age and the facilities for advanced education, the present and coming population will be held responsible for the moral, intellectual and political character- of the county.
Vilase of Franklin.
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Franklin.
By W'm. B. Hanford.
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F RANKLIN was taken from Harpersfield March 10, 1793, while a part of Otsego county, and four years before Delaware county was organized. But its area has been much reduced by the setting off of Walton, Meredith and Sidney. Its surface is uneven, rising into ridges and low mountains. The soil is mostly red clay loam underlaid by hard pan, from one to two feet below the surface. Along the ereeks the subsoil is gravel or elay. There is very little waste land, and nearly all is suitable for agricul- tural purposes.
The Ouleout creek and its branches flow southwesterly across the northern part of the town, to join the Susquehanna, and forms good drainage and some water powers. The hills on either side of the Ouleout and some of its branches were covered with dense forests of the largest and best quality of pine. The gen- eral forest is becch and maple. In localities there is oak, hickory and chestnut, with scattering varieties. The first town meeting held in Franklin was held at Bartlett Hollow, near Edwin Tay- lor's, at the house of Sluman Wattles. Sluman Wattles was elected supervisor and Robert North town clerk; Gabriel Smith, David St. John and Samuel Hanford, assessors. The other town officers were also elected, after which resolutions were passed. The eighth was as follows: "Resolved, that the next town meet- ing be held at the house of Daniel Root, at ten o'clock, forenoon." That place was some tive miles from the present village. That meeting was held as appointed. It was the first town meeting valled by the town. The meeting held at Sluman Wattles' on the first Tuesday of April, 1793, was not called by the town, but
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