USA > New York > Tioga County > Owego > Early Owego, N.Y.; some account of the early settlement of the village in Tioga County, N.Y., called Ah-wa-ga by the Indians, which name was corrupted by gradual evolution into Owago, Owego, Owegy and finally Owego > Part 5
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41
In 1803 Judge Mack and Henry Steward purchased of Daniel Cruger, Jr., "The American Constellation," a newspaper that Mr. Cruger had printed here two years.' Ile changed the name to "The American Farmer," issuing the first number under that name. August 19, 1803. He published the paper eleven years until his death.
Henry Steward was a printer ;and
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conducted the mechanical department of the paper. Judge Mack was the odi- tor. His editorial duties were not par- ticularly arduous, and did not interfere with his duties as a public officer. The printing office was for a short time in a small building which stood near the northeast corner of Front and Court streets. In 1804 Steward sold his in- torest in the paper to his parther and bought land in the fork of the east and west branches of the .Owego creek at their confluence at .Flemingville and built a saw mill there.
Judge Mack at about this time re. moved his plant to a little red house, a story and a half high, which stood on . the north side of Front street, now the third lot east of Church street. owned by Dr. E. E. Bauer. The building was on the west side of the lot and the printing office was in an unfinished room in the southeast corner of the house, up stairs. This house was torn down in 1826,several years after Judge Mack's death by John Carmichael, who built a larger house on the lot, which was later occupied by Geo. W. Hol: lenback, and still later by . Edward. W. Warner. The house was rebuilt in 1906 by its present owner, Dr. Bauer.
Judge Mack during his residence in this village held various town offices, constable, assessor, commissioner of highways, and excise commissioner. He was for several years a justice of the peace and was supervisor in 1807, 1808, 1811, and 1812. He was appointed First Judge of Broome (now Tioga) county Nov. 9, 1812, by commission of Gov. Tompkins, and served until his death.
He died in Owego April 14, 1814, aged 49 years. His body was buried
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in the old burying ground in Court street. The remains were afterward removed to the Presbyterian yard in Teniple street, and in 1875 to Ever- green cemetery, where his second wife. Mary (Serjants) Mack, is also buried.
In Judge Avery's "Susquehanna Val- ley" papers he thus mentions Judge Mack: "In all his official positions Judge Mack brought to the discharge , of his duties unimpeached integrity of character, and strong native powers of discrimination, improved by a good education: Nor should his good traits of character, socially; be lost among the forgotten things of the past. Some yet live, how aged gentlemen, who bear uniform witness to the generosity of his disposition, his liberality to every one in adversity, whoîn it was in his power to help, and his marked amiability of character." i.
Judge Mack was twice married. His first wife was Mary Chambers, who died while they lived at Cooperstown. Their children were as follows:
1. Elizabeth Mack, born in 1781. Married Benjamin Benedict, of Delhi, N. Y. Died 17. Dec., 1863, at the home of her son-in-law, Putnam Mersercau.
2. Stephen Mack, born 19 Dec.,1784. Graduated from Yale college in 1813 and studied law at Delhi, N. Y. Ro- moved in 1816 to Ithaca, where he practised law until his death. 17 Jan., 1857. He was never married.
. 3. Phoebe Mack, born 29 April, 1788. She married a man named. Crawford.
4. Ebenezer Mack, born 9 May; 1791.
All four of these children were born at Kinderhook, N. Y.
Judge Mack and his second wife, Mary Serjants, daughter of Lemuel Serjants, of Bellows :Falls, Vt., were married in 1797 at Cooperstown. She
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lived with her son-in-law, John Carmi chael, until 1837, and then went to Ithaca and lived with her son. Horace. She died 20 Feb., 1862, in Owego while visiting at Mr. Carmichael's, and her body was buried in Evergreen come tery. Their children were:
1. Horace Mack, born 20 Jan., 1799, at Cooperstown .: Married Eliza Am Ferris, daughter of Judge Joshua Fer- ris. of Spencer; 19 Jan., 1826.
2. Maria J. Mack, born in Owego 1 July. 1800. Married to John Carmi- chael 25 Dec., 1824. Died in Owego 22 Sept., 1829.
Ebenezer and Horace Mack both be- came : prominent men in Tompkins county. Ebenezer Mack learned the printers' trade, and previous to com- ing to Owego he was foreman in "The Columbian" office in New York city. At the time of Judge - Mack's death Stephen B. Leonard was his partner, owning one-half of the "American Far- mer" office. Mr. Leonard changed the name of the paper to "Owego Gazette" and he and Ebenezer Mack becanie partners in publishing it in June, 1815. Mr. Mack remained here until 1816. when he went to Ithaca and purchased the "Soneca Republican," now known as the "Ithaca Journal." He published the paper with different partners until December, 1833. He built a paper mill, conducted a book store, and was for several years and until his death a member of the firm of Mack & Andrus .. Hé represented Tompkins county in the assembly in 1830, and was senator from the Sixth ' senate district from 1834 to 1837, inclusive. He was at one time state printer. He was offered a cabinet position by President Martin VanBuren, but declined it. He wrote a life of Lafayette, which was published
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in 1841. He collected a large library. which as a gift from him formed a nucleus for the present public library of Ithaca. He died at Ithaca in August. 1849.
Horace Mack was born at Coopers- town-20 Jan., 1799, the same year the family removed to Owego. He was an apprentice in the "American Farmer" office until after the death of his father. Jan. 20, 1815, he was apprch- tieed to. Mayor Horatio Ross in the ' mercantile business for : five years. lle did not serve the full term of his apprenticeship, but in 1818 he went to Ithaca, where he was a clerk in various stores until 1825, when he began busi: ness on his own account. He repro- sented Tompkins county in the assem bly in 1832 and. was county clerk from 1850 to 1853. He was president of the village of Ithaca in 1851. He was a : director in the Tompkins county bank from its organization in 1836 until his : .death, 10 Sept., 1855.
CAPT. LEMUEL BROWN.
The first tanner in Owego was Cap- tain Lemuel Brown: He was born at Stockbridge, Mass., Feb. 1, 1775, and was .the youngest. of five sons of Abraham and Beulah Brown. Abra- hain Brown was a captain of militia and served in the early part of the revolutionary war. He died Jan. . S. 1777, of small pox, which was com- municated to him by a letter. His Wife was a daughter of Joseph Patterson, of Watertown, Mass., and she was his cousin:
Mrs. Beulah Brown was one of the sixty associates in the purchase of the tract of land known as the "Boston ten townships." She
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came in 1796 to. Brown's Settle- ment in , the town of Berkshire with her five children, when Lemuel Brown . was 21 years of age. Mrs. Brown was a woman of strong mind and great vigor. It is related of her by D. W. Patterson that when she was nearly eighty years of age she made eighty cheeses and took care of them .. with her own hands.
The local "histories" give the date of the building of the first tammery in Owego by Mr. Brown as 1795, but as the Brown family did not come to this county until the next year, this is ob- viously incorrect. He probably . came here in 1797, and he was mar- ried the next year.
By deed. dated Dec. 21, 1801, and for a consideration of $75, Capt. Luke Bates conveyedto Capt.Lemuel Brown two pieces of land, in Owego. One of these pieces was on the south side of the highway now known as Front street and was east of and adjoining Thomas Duane's house and store lot and nearly opposite where the Tioga .. national bank now is. It extended about forty-five feet on the street. The other piece contained one acre of land and was on the west side of the old Cayuga road, now known as North avenue. It was a little north of what is now the southeast corner of George street and North avenue.
After coming to Owego Capt. Brown married Elizabeth McQuigg, daugh- ter of the pioneer, Capt. John Mc- Quigg. He lived in part of a double house on the Front street lot and John Murphy, a barber, at one tinie occupied the other part as a barber shop and residence. The building
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was several years afterward removed to the lot which is now the north- west corner of Main street and Spen- cer avenue. It was for several years occupied by undesirable tenants. The last one, in spite of the protests of the . neighbors and the occasional inter- ference of the village health authori- ties, persisted in raising his pigs in that part of the house which is usually occupied as a kitchen. One night, between 1852 and 1856,
while the house was tempor- arily unoccupied, several young men with saws and axes partly dismantled it, to prevent a new tenant from mov- ing in, but the house was so strongly built that their labor anade little im- pression, and a few nights afterward some one set fire to the house and it was burned to the ground, the fire- . men, who were in evident sympathy with the purpose of the incendiary, refusing to make any effort to ex- tinguish the flames.
Capt. Brown's first tannery was built of logs and is said to have been on the bank of the river about where Goodrich's & Co.'s store now stands. The . vats were in the open air. Whether the tannery was built before he purchased the property or after- ward is not known. The vats were in the open air on the bank of the river. The high water undermined the bank and the side of the vats. broke and slid into the river.
At about this time Capt. Brown built another tannery, a frame build- ing, on his one-acre lot. It stood on the west side of where the railroad tracks now are and on the south side of the private driveway leading into
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the Brown farm, and was a story and a hah high. The vats of this tannery were also in the open air and they were near where the railroad tracks al'e how, and covered with boards, to keep out the rain.
After Capt. Brown's death, in 1815, the tammery was conducted until 1819 by his son, Richard Brown, and Capt. Brown's brother-in-law, Capt. Jesse MeQuigg. The building was after- ward used as a place in which to man- ufacture oar stems for river rafts during rainy weather, when ; men conid not work out of doors. " Capt. Brown's sons were all river raftsmen. The building was subsequently moved fo another part of the premises and converted into a tool house.
Manuel Brown derived his military title from his service in the state militia. In 1800 he was. adjutant in Cal. David Pisley's regiment. In 1802 he was promoted to Captain, and in 1807 he was again promoted to second major in Col. Asa Camp's Broome and Tioga regiment.
Capt. Brown's oldest brother, John Brown, was the first man elected su- pervisor of Owego upon the organiza- tion of the town April 3, 1800, and he was re-elected five times, serving six successive years. Lemuel .Brown was' also elected town clerk at this first election and served seven yearsin suc- cession. He also filled the offices of pound master, fence-viewer, and com- missioner of highways. In 1805 he was appointed the first sealer of weights and measures in Tioga coun- ty, and he was one of the incorpora- tors of the old Owego and Ithaca turn- pike in 1807. John Brown was one of
1.
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the first justices of the peace in this town. In October, 1809, he was ap- pointed a judge of the Broome county court of common pleas, and held the office until his death, October 14, 1813.
Lemuel Brown died Nov. 28, 1815, aged 40 years, 8 months, and 28 days. The date inscribed on his grave stone in the Presbyterian church yard is Dec. 5,1815, which is incorrect. Inscriptions on tombstones are notoriously un- truthful. A written obituary of Capt. Brown, in the possession of his grand- daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth H. Chatfield, signed by two of Capt. Brown's sons, Richard and Abram Brown, and dated "Owego Village, Dec. 2, 1815, gives the date of death as Nov. 28, and this also agrees with the family record.
Lemuel Brown was the first treas- urer of Friendship lodge, F. and A. M., of which Capt. Mason Wattles was the first niaster, in 1804, and of which John Murphy was junior warden. He was also one of the Royal Arch masons named in the original war- rant of New Jerusalem chapter, granted Feb. . 8, 1816.
The children of Capt. Lemmel and Elizabeth (McQuigg) Brown were as follows:
1. . Richard Brown, born 10 Oct., 1799. Died in Owego 2 Feb., 1879. He was unmarried.
2. Abram Brown, "born 20 No.v.,
1800. Married Catherine Geotschuis. who was born 29 Dec., 1810. He died 24 Oct., 1878; she died 9 March, 1881. Abram Brown was elected overseer- of the poor of the town of Owego in 1845 and served eighteen years.
3. Robert Brown, born 14 Aug., 1802. Died in Owego 2 Feb., 1869. He was unmarried.
4. Sarah Brown, born 29 March, 1804. Died 23 Dec., 1851. Unmarried.
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5. Lemuel Brown, born 14. March, 1806. Died July 5, 1835. Unmarried. In 1815 he and Dr. Jedediah Fay formed a partnership in the mercan- tile business and conducted a general store in Owego and also established a branch store at Spencer, which was then the county seat of Tioga county. Richard Brown . was a clerk in the Spencer store. They were unsuccess- ful and failed in business.
6. Ransom Brown, born 22. Nov., 1808.' Was accidently killed while hunting 13 Dec., 1837. . Unmarried.
7. Horatio Brown, born 30 Nov .; 1810. Married Eunice Goodrich, daughter of Alanson Goodrich. She was born Nov., 1822. He died at Big Rapids, Mich., 21 July, 1874, and -she 6. June, 1852. His second wife, was Jane Mosher, daughter of Seth Mosher, of Owego.
8 :. Eliza Brown, born 4 Feb., 1813. Married William Barnes. She died 4 Nov., 1894.
9. Frederick Brown, born 1 May, 1816: Married Charlotte . McQuigg, daughter of Daniel McQuigg, 18 Oct., 1842. He died in Owego 8 April, 1873, and she 6 Jan., 1893.
The house built by Capt. Lemuel Brown in 1801 still stands in a. dis- mantled condition and unoccupied on the old homestead. It is the only one of the old farm houses of the" kind now remaining in this village. After Capt. Brown's death his widow and her mother, Mrs. John McQuigg, with Capt. : Jesse McQuigg and Capt. Brown's children lived there, and there most of them died.
ELISHA FORSYTH.
One of the first comers to Owego in the days of its first settlement by white people was Elisha Forsyth. He was of Scottish descent, born at Wyalusing, Pa., Sept. 10, 1773, a son of Jonathan Forsyth, of Connecticut, who purchased land in the Wyoming
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valley of Pennsylvania under the Connecticut title, and who in the Wyoming massacre lost everything he owned, escaping with his own life . and the lives of his family. The fam- ily subsequently returned to Wyom -: ing, where they remained until peace was declared. Then they removed to Towanda, Pa., and thence up the Sus- quehanna river to Choconut, N. Y., which was a little distance above the present village of . Union on the easterly side of the river. The For- sythes afterward removed, to Geneva. where Jonathan Forsyth died in 1788.
The next year Elisha Forsyth, who was now sixteen years of age, re- turned to Choconut, where he attend- ed school. He was living there in 1794 when he married Freelove Park. daughter of Capt. Thomas Park, who was the earliest settler at Park set- tlement on the west side of the Owe- go creek, near Flemingville. Previ- ous to his marriage he worked eight months at Catskill learning the car- penter's trade, and afterward came to Owego. He assisted in framing the first frame building erected here, and he built the first ark made on the Susquehanna river. 1
Capt. Thomas Park's father was also named Thomas Park, and there were four of that name in succession. He was born in Connecticut March 19; 1744. He came with his family in the summer of 1787 to Catskill, N. Y., where he lived two years. In the fall of 1789 he removed to Vestal, Broome county, and in the spring of 1797 he came to Park settlement, where he settled permanently, building a saw mill and clearing a. farm: Capt.
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Park's wife, was .Hannah Fiddis, widow of Hugh Fiddis. They were married in 1768. They had one son, Capt. Daniel R. Park, and eight daughters. When the family came to Park settlement in 1797, Capt. D. R Park was twelve years old. He was a soldier in the war of 1812. He died in the town of Candor, April 7, 1874. Capt. Thomas Park was a sea cap- tain and privateeersman in the revo- lutionary war. He died 19 Nov., 1838. His wife, Hannah Park, was born 25 Jan., 1743, and died 25 June, 1828.
Elisha Forsyth spent the greater part of his life lumbering and: farm- ing: He died at Park settlement March 1, 1857. His wife, Freelove Forsyth, who was born 19 Sept., 1775, died Oct. 21, 1862. The children of Elisha and. Freelove (Park) Forsyth were as follows:
1, Catherine Forsyth, born 18 Sept., 1795, at Union. Married Nathaniel Webster. Died 21 . Nov., 1884.
2. George Forsyth, born 2 July, 1798. His first wife was Mary Chap- man .and his second Rachel Puffer. He died in Owego 5 Oct., 1876.
3. Elisha Forsyth, Jr., born 14 Feb., 1801. Married . Wealthy Law- rence, of Newark Valley, 1 Feb., 1827. He died in Owego 14 Feb., 1873; she 19 Dec., 1875. Elisha Forsyth, Jr., in the civil war was' fife major ofthe 50th regiment, New York engineers.
4. Azor Forsyth, born 17 Oct. 1803. Died 20 April, 1863, in Elmira. 5. Experience Forsyth, born . 17 Sept., 1806. Married Martin Smith. Died at Sparta, Wis., 6 Dec., 1882. 6. Gilbert Forsyth, . born 4 Oct., 1808. Died 29 Nov., 1840.
7. Eldridge Forsyth, born '5 Aug., 1812. Died 26 April, 1889. His first wife was Mary A. Fisher, and his sec- ond Eunice A. Tyler.
Gilbert and Azor Forsyth were por- trait painters; the other brothers
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were house painters. Gilbert For- syth , was possessed of much talent as an artist. In . his youthful days he and Thomas LeClere, who later become one of the most cele- brated portrait painters in America, were boys together at Park settle- ment.
Thomas LeClere was a son of Louis LeClere and was born in 1818 in a small house, just above the Owego creek bridge in the town of Candor, about a mile below the Flemingville . church. When a child he exhibited a taste for portrait painting. His first productions were painted from paint made by squeezing the juice of poke- berries and green grass together, and with this kind of pigment he painted his first pictures. His first attempt at portrait painting was made when he was only nine years of age with a mixture of lampblack, Venetian red. and white on a piece of pine board. Eldridge Forsyth assisted young Le- Clere in mixing his first colors. These two painters afterward went in dif- ferent directions. `One came to Owe- go and painted houses at from twenty to fifty dollars a house; the. other went to New York city and painted portraits at from five to ten thousand dollars a head.
In 1832 Louis LeClere removed with his family to London, Ontario. In February, 1844, Thomas LeClere returned to Owego and opened a studio over the Gazette office 'in a . two-story wooden building; . which stood on the south side of Front street, just west of Park street, where he painted portraits and gave instruc- tion in oil painting and pencil draw- ing. He remained here only a short
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time and went to New York .. He never returned to Owego but ofice. In 1882 he came to visit his birthplace and to call on some of the people he had known in his boyhood days.
While he was living in Owego he painted the portraits of various :peo- ple. The execution was rough, but the likenesses were. excellent. . He gained distinction after going to New York. He painted the portraits of Edwin Booth, Daniel S. Dickinson, President Millard Fillmore, Bayard . Taylor, Chief Justice . Taney, Whi. Cullen Bryant, and many other men of 'eminence, and at the time of his death an almost finished portrait. of Gen. Grant, for which he was to have . received $10,000, was in his. studio. He was twice married. He died at Rutherford Park, N. J., Nov. 26, 1882. He left six children, one of whom, a daughter, was the wife of Wm. H. Beard, the famous painter of animals in grotesque and humorous situations
Gilbert Forsyth went to New York city, where he was employed as a scene painter at. Niblo's garden theatre. While thus employed he was engaged to go, in 1832, to the Canary islands for the purpose of . making sketches of scenery and painting them. He afterward went' among the Indians of Upper Canada for the same purpose .. Later he re- turned to. Owego, and subsequently went to Elmira, where he was taken ill. He returned to Park settlement, where he died at his father's home November 29, 1840.
An interesting paper in the Wis- consin state historical society's col- lection, obtained by Lyman C. Draper.
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the historian, from the heirs of Judge Chas, P. Avery, of Owego, is the .statement made in Owego in 1854 by Elisha Forsyth. The statement is as follows:
STATEMENT OF ELISHA FOR. SYTH, MADE FEB. 20, 1854.
"I live in the town of Owego. I was born in 1776-1777 in Connecticut. Mly father's naine was .Jonathan. My grandfather was a full-blooded Scotch- man from Edinburg, Three brothers: John, Jonathan, and James, came. My father lived below Shawuce, just above Nanticoke falls, and kept a public house. . My first recollections are of that place.
"My father was in the battle and his house was burnt.in the affair of 1778. His writings were then lost. His and other families went aboard of a Durham boat at the time of the battle and pushed on down and after- ward lived at Carlisle. My father escaped and joined his family.
"I was quite a boy when we got back to Wyoming; came back in a boat. We emigrated from Wyoming to. Towanda and then to . Choconut in. big boats. On the trip .] .must have been six . or seven years old. We saw nobody but In. dians. One white man, Patterson, lived at Tioga Point and my father let him have a quantity of provisions, . while he (my father) was living at Towanda. My father left Wyoming on account of the Pennamite war.
"We were on the premises, near Gen'l. Stoddard's,before Amos Draper came into the country. My father gave the Indians seven barrels of corn per year for the use of the land. The Indians were settled all around us. We were living there when Mc. Master came in.
"Major Coe (from Wyoming) was then living on the south side of the river, opposite Mersereau's flats. We then removed above. Binghamton, up the Chenango.
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"Amos Draper lived upon the flat called the old Mersereau flat.
"Amos Draper was a nice man-one of the finest. men in the world. My father moved next to Geneva, in three or four years, and he died there in 1788, in the fall. We went from Union in a boat to Tioga Point (some fam- ilies were there then), thence up the Chemung to: Horseheads, to Seneca Lake, and thence to Geneva, where some people (Tuttle for one) lived. Ile lives now on a corner of the farm my father bought. : I signed away a quit claim for it after iny father's death .. My father's children . were Alexander, Elisha, William, Azor, liv- ing in. Michigan, in Prarie du Chien, and Hannah, wife of Alexander Hewitt.
"My mother married a man by the . name of John Gansen. He went be- yond the Gonesee and bought . 600 acres of land with the money for the : land which had been deeded after my father's death to my mother. I lived there about one year after my father's death and then came to Jabez Win- ship's (then on the lower end of the Mersereau flats.) { recollect being . caught at his house when the water rose and stayed all night with him, and the next morning he took me .on his back to the woods and built a fire and warmed us. His family was not with him then. . The next morning my father took a canoe to look for me, and. Draper saw him and hallooed, and he took me home. This was called the pumpkin fresh.' 'He lived at that place with his family but one. summer; he then came down here.
"The man Patterson who lived at Tioga . Point and whom my father helped came down from the Che- mango, where he had removed to, and came down to. a meeting at his father's house; all the inhabitants of the country gathered to it. The man then ignored the charity of Mr. For- syth and it ended in an encounter brought on by the insults of Patter- son. There must have been a dozen or more people there to go to school.
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The log school house was on the road back of the flat, up toward the creek.
"From there I came to work at Owego village at carpenter and joiner's work. I helped frame the first- building for a jail on the west side of the public square, not. far from where the church stands. Mr. Laning moved it afterward and made it a part of the old tavern house, and it stood there when it was burnt down. It was the bar-room part.
"There was a saw mill with the grist mill just below Indian . spring put up by Pixley. I built the first ark that was over made on this river. 60 feet long, white oak tinber, calked and taned, for Judge Ashbel Wells, He ran wheat in it.
"Old Captain Thomas Park helped me build it and I was foreman. Judge Wells had seen an ark on the west branch and came up to my house. and .. chalked it out and explained it. 1 went to work and built it.
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