USA > New York > Delaware County > Delaware County, New York, history of the century, 1797-1897, centennial celebration, June 9 and 10, 1897 > Part 30
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Eben Dodge worked on the old road in the west end of the town near the present residence of W. G. Henderson, and Thos. Maxon worked near L. C. Grant's.
About 1800 Ebenezer and David Penfield were running a seythe and axe factory near the Centre, using a trip-hannner to assist in forging. They finally dropped the scythe business, dis- olved partnership, and started separate shops under the titles of E. Penfield & Son, and D. Penfield & Son; both firms doing a jobbing business, and making axes and edged tools, the sons succeeding. The reputation of the Penfield axes extended over Delaware and the adjoining counties. At their first location they were succeeded by Beardsley Sanford, a celebrated manufacturer of spinning wheels and reels; and in those days no young wife's outfit was complete without a set of Sandford's wheels and reel: but the business died ont from the same canse as the cloth works.
The first store, so far as known, was kept by John Montgom- ery in a house afterward occupied by Ebenezer Penfield, which stood across the turnpike from the present residence of H. Ralph Dart. About 1796 Giles Humiston was keeping a store near the residence of Geo. C. Gibbs in the Stamford end of the town; and.
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later Noah and John Davenport had one at the Centre, and Ray- mond Starr at North Harpersfield.
The first distillery was run by a man named Chapman, who also had a small store near Col. Harper's grist mill. Judge Hotch- kiss was running one about 1800, as was also the Davenports and Starr, making four distilleries in Harpersfield all running at the same time. No wonder the town was thriving, and had money to give out of the excise fund, for building churches! But every- body drank; the preacher and his tlock, and the doctor and his patients, and the man was inhospitable who did not offer it to his guests.
Within the memory of the writer, there was almost a riot at a barn raising because the helpers were served with food instead of whiskey.
Many different houses have been used as taverns in Harpersfield. Alexander Harper is believed to have kept the first, as early as 1786 or 1787, at the Centre. After his removal to Ohio, a tavern was kept some years by Nathaniel Skinner, then by John Bristol, then by Asahel Merriam, who kept it as early as 1808, and till about 1820. The house had a reputation extending into the far west, under the management of Johnson B. Bragg, up to 1847, when Mr. Bragg sold it. From that time, as railroads were built, and under bad management, the custom decreased till it was closed.
Prior to 1796 Stephen Judd kept a tavern on the northwest corner of Lot No. 35, which was torn down in 1835. About 1800, and till 1840, Major Isaac Pierce kept a tavern in the north part of the town; and about the same time Samuel Stevens opened a tavern about half way between the Centre and Stamford. A house was nearly completed, and while the workmen were at dinner one day the building took fire and burned down. Another was immediately begun and when finished was used as a tavern for some years. But it was during the ownership of his son, Stoddard, that the Stevens tavern became almost as well known as Bragg's.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
Several other houses were kept as taverns, viz: On Lot 9, H. W. Hamilton; Lot 30, Bradt's Patent, Samuel Wilcox; Lot 41, Harper's Patent, W. P. Pudney; Lot 61, Joseph Hotchkis; Lots 132, 133, Ransom Packard; Lot 156, Samuel Lloyd, James Ells; Lot 181, Joel Mack.
Maj. Isaac Pierce, John Bristol, and James Cooley were early carpenters.
With the building of the Susquehanna turnpike Harpersfield became a very active business place; probably doing more than any other place within many miles. It had three stores, two har- ness shops, two cabinet shops, two shoe shops, two tailor shops, a hat factory, three blacksmith shops, and a wheelwright, and all busy, which looked quite lively for a place of ouly twenty-four houses. Coaches ran tri-weekly, usually with an extra or more, and the writer has seen eight four-horse coaches, besides the family coach of the proprietors, stop at Bragg's for breakfast. Spring and fall the road was fairly lined with teams drawing pro- once east of goods west. During the summer and early fall innense droves of cattle were continually passing through from the western states.
The Delaware turnpike, nine miles long, built in 1843, or 1844, paid for itself in four years. The advent of the Erie Railroad checked those little profits, and the Albany and Susquehanna out them fine. The Ulster & Delaware helped it somewhat, and it is now a little more than paying its way.
From 1800 to 1812 the history of the town is uneventful. The town furnished its quota by draft and enlistment, but most of the soldiers had an easy time, hardly any of them being in battle. A notable exception was General John Ellis Wool, who gained un- dying laurels in that and the Mexican war. A private from Har- persfield named Zenas Berse was so perfectly fearless that the General said if he had a thousand men like Zene he would drive all the British off the continent.
It is unfortunate that no record can now be found to show
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TOWN OF HARPERSFIELD.
the names of enlisted men during the war of the Rebellion. nor the amount paid for bounties.
The town was injured much more by the booming of values. leading to extravagance in many ways, than by the taxes for bounties, though they were very large.
Before the boom had subsided, the railroad fever struck us, and the town was bonded for $100,000; and after twenty-four years of paying principal and interest we were out over $206,000 for a rail- road we didn't get.
During that time there was occasionally more excitement than during the war. Candidates for town and county offices were elected, or defeated, according to the ingenuity of the stories for or against them about the railroad. Complaints before the railroad commissioners were prosecuted, and actions were carried to the court of appeals, only to be defeated, and fill the pockets of the lawyers. Litigation must have cost the town twelve or fifteen thousand dollars. Since this great debt has been paid taxes have been lower, and the town is slowly recovering from its depression, and if no further tariff agitation arises, we shall again feel as though Harpersfield was a good town to live in.
Harpersfield state tax for 1788, $19, or about $30. Harpersfield state tax for 1888. $760.80, with less than one-twentieth the territory.
The price of eut nails in 1797, as appraised in the St. Leger Cowley inventory, were as follows: Ten pounds Id eut nails, $1.44; thirty-five pounds Sd and 204, 86.37. In 1897 the writer bought fifty pounds 4d for $1.25.
HON. ROSWELL HOTCHKIS
was born in Cheshire, Conn., July 24, 1762, and came to Har- persfield with his father, Joseph, and his brothers, Thelus and Joseph, in 1784. In 1785 he married Margaret, eldest daughter of Colonel John Harper, and settled on Lot No. 132, now owned by Stephen Van Dusen, but afterward removed to Lot No. 181.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
where he continued to reside during the remainder of his life. During the war he served in the army, part of the time acting as orderly for one of the officers. Being a bright, active young man he became secretary, thus acquiring the plain, peculiar hand which makes his writing admired wherever seen. At one time, while serving as one of the outpost guards to one of the forts on the Hudson, they were raided in the night by a troop of British and nearly the whole guard slain. Hotchkis had stooped to tie his shoe, but seeing the trooper elose upon him he dove into a «lump of bushes close by and escaped.
In civil lite Judge Hotelkis served as Supervisor, Town Clerk. Justice of the Peace, and various minor offices, being supervisor when the county was formed. In the county he was Judge of the Common Pleas, Sheriff, 1805-09, and member of the Constitutional convention in 1801. Soon after the Federal Government was formed a post office was established at West Harpersfield, of which he was postmaster till his death, when the office was discontinued. Judge Hotchkis and his wife united with the Presbyterian church in 1792, and at his death, December 28, 1843, he was the oldest member. His wife died in the spring of the same year. His only descendants now living in town are Daniel N. Gaylord, and his sons, Harper and Edward. The most of this sketch and the Har- per family history was obtained from Mr. Gaylord.
REV. HARPER BOIES
was born in Massachusetts in 1797. He came to Harpersfield in 1830, and became the successor of Mr. Fenn, in July of that year, which position he held for five years, when he returned to Massa- chusetts. During the first year of his ministry in Harpersfield an extraordinary revival took place, and more than one hundred members were added to the church. In 1850 he returned by invitation of the church and supplied them for the succeeding five years; during which time,-he being a widower,-he married
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TOWN OF HARPERSFIELD.
Margaret, youngest daughter of Judge Hotchkiss. After 1855 he continued to reside in Harpersfield, preaching for that and the neighboring congregations, as his failing health permitted.
Of a very loving disposition, the mild deportment and affable manners which characterized Mr. Fenn, belonged equally to him. His death, which took place March 7th. 1867. the writer felt as it personal loss. Mr. Boies took great interest in the early history of the town and church, giving material aid to Jay Gould for his history, and the memoranda left by him have materially assisted the writer.
REV. STEPHEN FENN.
The materials for this sketch were derived from Mr. E. A Dayton, an aged neighbor who knew and remembers Mr. Fenn, from notes by Rev. Harper Boies, his successor, and from his fare- well sermon.
Mr. Feun was born at Watertown, Connecticut, in 1769, and graduated from Yale College in 1792. He was of medium height, thick set, with rather sandy hair and florid complexion; and is described as being " mild in his deportment, affable in his manners, witty, as well as grave in his conversation, with a mind stored with a fund of amusing anecdotes connected with the experiences of himself and others." He came to Harpersfield in 1793, where he officiated as pastor of the Presbyterian church for more than thirty- tive years, and is said to have been the first college graduate who ever preached in the county.
During that time he performed seven hundred and thirteen baptisms in that and in societies around, and he also performed three hundred and sixty-seven marriages. He was a universal favorite with old and young, being always sympathetic, whether the occasion was a wedding or a funeral. Probably no man during this time had a greater influence for good over the moral and social development of the town than Mr. Fenn.
He might probably have spent his life in this pastorate, but
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
for the abduction of William Morgan in 1828, as supposed, by Masons which rendered the order especially obnoxious in Har- persfield. Mr. Fenn belonged to the order and refusing to with- draw the occasion was used (by some in abhorrence to the Masons, and by others who thought their pastor instead of being cheerful, like Mr. Fenn, ought always to be singing "Hark from the Tombs,") to procure his dismissal. About four years after leaving the pulpit in Harpersfield he was siezed with a fit of apoplexy while in his wagon, on his way to fill an appointment, and lived but about thirty minutes after the attack. He died September 26, 1833, and his funeral was attended in the church where he had so long proclaimed the gospel.
One of Mr. Fenn's anecdotes shows him as a boy. His family lived near the church and an old lady used to come to their house every Sunday between sermons, when Stephen was called upon to till and light her pipe, which was a large one, from the family crib; and after smoking awhile she would stick the pipe in her garter and return to church. Stephen got tired, and one day loaded the pipe as full as he dared with powder, and not have it go off in the house. The old lady had her smoke, put her pipe in the usnal place and started for church, but before she got there an explosion took place which raised ber about a foot from the ground, and Stephen was freed from his servitude.
This one was rather at his expense in two ways: A colored couple came to the tavern one night and sent word up the hill to Mr. Fenn that they wished him to marry them. Mr. Fenn went of course found a crowd there, and the party had lots of fun. After awhile Mr. Fenu began to dun the groom for his foe. " No," said the groom, "You've only half married us." "Yes, I have," said Mr. Fenn, "I've married you just as usual." "No," said the darkey, "You haint kissed the bride yet, and I won't pay till you do." Mr. Fenn went without the fee and called on the flip.
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TOWN OF HARPERSFIELD.
HON. JOSHUA H. BRETT,
the first practicing physician in Harpersfield, was born about 1750, and came to Harpersfield about 1788. The record shows that he was elected assessor in 1789, 90, and '91; and in 1791 he is first noticed as one of the justices of the peace. In 1795 he first pre- sided at the annual town meeting, previous to which a moderator had always been chosen. In 1796-7 he was Member of Assembly for Otsego county, and it was largely owing to his exertions that the county of Delaware was formed at that time, against a strong opposition. In 1797 he was appointed first Judge of Delaware county, which office he held till 1810. when being sixty years of age he was disqualified by the constitution from holding it longer. He was State Senator eight years, 1804-11, member of the Council of Appointment in 1805, and continued to hold office of some kind nearly to the time of his death, which took place December 24, 1822. None of his descendants reside in town.
Members of Assembly from Harpersfield: William Harper four years, Joshua H. Brett, James Ells twice, Stoddard Stevens, Nathan Bristol, George C. Gibbs.
Judge: Joshua H. Brett.
Sheriffs: Roswell Hotelkis, John J. McArthur.
District Attorney: John P. Grant.
HON. PYRENT'S GIBBS
was born in Litchfield, Conn., April 17, 1768, being nineteen years old when he removed to Harpersfield with his father, Deacon Caleb Gibbs, in 1787, and settled upon Lots No. 33 and 34.
During the Revolution the Deacon was a member of the Com- mittee of Safety of Litchfield, and at a special town meeting held Oct. 7, 1777, it was voted: "That Messrs. Caleb Gibbs and others be a committee to purchase and provide shirts, frocks. overalls, stockings, and shoes, for the non-commissioned officers and 'privates in the Continental army belonging to this town." Several of his daughters had previously moved to Harpersfield,
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
which is supposed to have been his reason for moving, as he was nearly sixty years old. The Deacon and his son cleared and im- proved their land, and upon the death of the former in 1801, the farm came into the possession of the son, and continued to be his through life.
Judge Gibbs was well educated for those times, an excellent business man, and he became one of the leading men in town. In the county he held the office of Justice of the Peace, Clerk of the Board of Supervisors 1809-12, and Judge of the Common Pleas. Between 1805 and 1825 he held the office of Supervisor ten years, and at different times he was elected to nearly every office in town. He became a member of the Methodist church early in life, and aided in forming the first Methodist society in Harpersfield, serving as one of the officers and first class leader. He died August 10, 1845.
The name is represented in town by Major George C. Gibbs and son Ransom, Howard a nephew of the Major, and the writer and his son Francis, who occupy the old homestead.
Village of Bloomville.
Kortright. By 1. B. Peters.
. . .
I confess that I feel somewhat proud to-day to represent and to be represented with the good people of old Kortright.
Albany and Ulster counties are a hundred and fourteen years older than Delaware, having been formed in 1683 with the Del- aware river for their boundary, and the territory now known as Kortright was situated in turn in the counties of Albany and Tryon, in the Province of New York, and the counties of Mont- gomery, Otsego and Delaware in the State of New York. A very old map in my possession christens us "The Manor of Court- wright, lying in the county of Albany and the province New York."
Kortright was born of Harpersfield and although not as large as in her childhood, she is still larger than her mother and quite as good looking. Originally she occupied all the land of the Kortright, Goldsborongh, Bradish and Meredith Patents; having the Delaware river for her southern boundary and extending in a westerly direction to a point situated within the corporation limits of the present village of Delhi and within the flight of an arrow from where we are at this moment standing. the line cross- ing Main street in a northerly direction between Meredith and Orchard streets. Kortright is four years older than our county, having been formed in 1793.
The act of 1797 which formed our county directed that the county business be transacted at the house of Gideon Frisbee in the town of Kortright until further legislative action. This house, as luany of you are doubtless aware, is still standing at the mouth of Elk Creek and is occupied by Mr. James Frisbee.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
When Delhi was born in 1798 we rather liked the kid and gave it 15,000 acres as a birthday present. We gave Meredith 15,000 at its birth in 1800. Davenport as much in 1817, and when good old Stamford claimed she was cramped in 1834 we turned in with Harpersfield and gave her enough room to make her comfortable. That our locality was a favorite hunting and camping ground with the aborigines is not only attested by the records of our historians but also by the great number of Indian relies in the shape of flint arrow heads, bits of pottery, tools, such as knives, scrapers, files, spear heads, etc., a fine collection of which may be seen among the towns' exhibits here to-day. It is not within our province if we had the time to go into details of the early experiences of settlers with these somewhat trouble- some neighbors, they having long before the formation of the town passed out from among us and ou to the happy hunting ground which their wild fancy had so often pictured them.
About the year 1844 having been long out of the original article, with some of our neighbors we conceived the idea of stocking up anew with a home-made variety, of a possibly less dangerous if not less useful sort, the outcome of which was the anti-rent movement of that year. Delhi, as I remember, having uone of her own, swooped down on us one day and gobbled up several of our choicest specimens and we were mad about it, and didn't like Delhi just a little bit, and in fact didn't play in her yard much for the next ten years. On July 4th, 1845, we had a celebration at Bloomville. Hon. Ira Harris, then an aspirant for Governor, and later Supreme Court Judge and United States Sen- ator, with others, addressed the people in what is now known as Peters' Grove. Such a multitude as gathered in that little village on that day was never there before or since; beside the civic throng, Indians in most fantastic dress and form and feature poured in from every hill-top. They quietly hang around and listened to the addresses, immediately after which, collecting in the meadows below, they entertained the crowd for an hour with
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TOWN OF KORTRIGHT.
what was designated an Indian training, and which consisted of a very well executed drill of semi-military tacties and evolutions, which in its wierd entirety created, I dare say, on the average beholder an impression and a picture which time would not be likely to obliterate. A lad then of eight years, I observed a re- spectful distance and at the close reached the village just a little ahead of those fellows, where in my excitement I was immediately knocked down and run over by a four horse team, and carried home, what there was left of me, to my Ma on a pillow. The history of the sudden and somewhat tragic end of this- shall I say nonsense ?- is too familiar to most of you to need mention.
The first birth in our town, we are told, was that of Daniel MeGillivrae, the first school was taught by Jane Blakely, the first mill was built at Bloomville by Jacob Every. The first church that on the hill at Kortright Centre, the Presbyterian, the first, pastor, Wilham MeAuley, who was installed in the year 1794 and who continued in that position until his death in 1851. The membership of this church at times reached 500 and the weekly attendance was much more. A rather witty friend once told me in describing his early recollections of attendance at this church, that with the rest of the small boys he was each Sabbath hung up on a barrow seat or shelf at the back of the gallery, where a man by the name of Leal was delegated to pick them up and re- place them as one after the other tumbled off on account of sleep or exhaustion. The service commenced at 9:30 in the morning and continued with an hour's intermission until three in the after- noon. He assured me it was a happy event each Lord's Day when the preacher reached that part of his closing prayer where he pleaded for a safe return to their several places of abode. It was then hurrah boys! we'll be out of this now in just three-quarters of an hour. Mr. MeAuley was a man of the people and yet his reign of over half a century was well nigh regal. One only of his large family survives. Mrs. James G. Blakely, who at the age of eighty-three years is as bright and witty as at forty. During
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
at recent visit to her pleasant home in Kortright she related to me this anecdote: Being called upon at one time to marry a rather cranky parishioner, her father made the ceremony unusually short, hoping thereby to win his approval. The experiment was a failure, however, and the worthy minister was seriously reproached for his shortcomings by the injured benedict. A few years later, wife No. 1 having died, be invited the pastor the second time to officiate in the same capacity; the good work was begun and the parties pledged in the usual manner, then came a prayer of regu- lation length, then a somewhat extended address to the bride at the end of which she was told to be seated, and the exhortation to the bridegroom, who remained standing, commenced and con- tinned for something like an hour, completing at length a cere- mony which the much married man was never known to criticise ou account of brevity. The first Methodist church is believed to have been the one at Bloomville, although the one built on Betta's brook dated back to near the first of the century. John Bangs, one of the pioneers of Methodism, was an early resident of the town and among the first as he was one of the most eminent of the many preachers who have represented that body. Many aner- dotes both humorons and pathetic might be told of these faithful and devoted men which are worthy of record if time would admit. In the year 1837 Bloomville circuit paid its preacher $137 in cash and 870 in provisions, and his preaching places were limited to Bloomville, West Kortright, Elk Creek, Meredith Pond, Federal Hill. Delhi, Peake's Brook, Hamden, Handen Hill, New Road. Walton, Walton Mountain and the Griswold school house. Another of the early churches of the town was that of the Reformed Pres- byterian, organized in 1814, with a church near the residence of Mr. Harvey Bolles at Kortright Centre, at which time a man by the name of Williams became pastor and remained ten years, when Rev. Samuel M. Wilson became pastor and remained incumbent until his death in 1864. A new church was built near the white house a mile west in 1851. Mr. Wilson was a faithful pastor and
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the father of a wide awake family, as I remember of two daughters and as many sons; the latter were full of mischief and their pranks were the bane of the life of at least one of the neighbors, an old lady, who had appealed to the fond father in vain for his friendly interference, and who on one occasion, hearing that the old gentle- man was dangerously ill, was provoked to say that " preacher or no preacher, if the father of those boys dies and gets to heaven, he will make a good summer's work of it."
Rov. J. O. Bayles succeeded to the pastorate of this church in the year 1866, and for about thirty years was a faithful and capable minister of the Word.
The original survey of the Kortright and Goldsborough Tracts were made by William Cockburn about the year 1770, and Alexan- der Mills, a pioneer resident, was made agent for the proprietors.
Alexander Leal, John Mckenzie, and Daniel McGillivrae, who with their famihes came from Scotland to New York in 1773. left their families in that city early in the following spring and in their search for a future home pressed their way through forest and stream and over mountain until they reached the wooded hills near where the village of Kortright Contre now stands. There these sturdy Seots found already gathered together in different localities within the present town limits a few and were soon followed by others as sturdy and determined spirits as themselves, and having each selected one or more of the recently surveyed farris or lots at once began the work of clearing the timber and fitting up as best they could homes for their absent ones who were anxiously await- ing their return.
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