USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 18
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85
159
BANGOR
Eventually the business was put upon a paying basis, but a process was then invented for pressing the used bark into bricks salable in cities for fuel, so that tanneries remote from the forests could better afford to buy bark than the extract, and the industry had to be abandoned. The mill at West Bangor burned in 1870, when all of the partners except Mr. Adams and Mr. Stancliff withdrew, and these rebuilt at Bangor. The latter mill having also burned, it was not rebuilt. The loss by the two fires was between forty and fifty thousand dollars.
Among the early mercantile ventures at West Bangor was the " Protective Union Store," in the ownership and management of which James Bigelow was prominent. The building, owned by Mr. Bigelow, was burned in 1856. Joseph Ross also had a store early, which was run later by Milo Hinman, Sumner Sweet and Josiah Crooks. Other mer- chants have been Dana Adams, Gustine Adams, William L. and George W. Taylor, S. D. Lawrence, Dr. Ira A. Darling, Nelson C. Lawrence and John O'Connell. At present the only stores are those of B. K. Fish and George Haley.
About fifteen years ago the late George R. Taylor, born in the town and residing there for most of his life, prepared a history of Bangor (largely genealogical), in which it is stated that a Mr. Gallup, from whom the Gallup road was named, built a saw mill near his home, about a mile north of the turnpike. If this be true, the mill must have disappeared before 1840, as William Ross then built one at this point, which was owned in 1859 by Stephen Gates, and in 1870 by Elijah N. Wilson. It ceased to be operated in 1879, when Mr. Wilson removed to California. In the same vicinity Isaac Adams used to have a chair factory.
The southwest quarter of Bangor was owned at an early day by Asahel Bacon of New Haven, Conn., and after his death a large part of the tract was purchased in 1842 by his grandson, Charles C. Whittelsey, then of Roxbury, Conn., and subsequently one of the foremost business men in Malone. A grist mill and saw mill were erected, though by whom is not ascertainable with certainty, but as Charles, a son of Asahel, looked after his father's interests here prior to Mr. Whittelsey's owner- ship, it is believed that, acting for the father, he was the builder. Mr. Whittelsey sold the mills and a part of the land to Charles Bacon in 1851, and the latter sold in 1863 to Wells S. Dickinson and Edwin L. Meigs. The property next passed in 1870 to Robert Dunlop. There are no mills there now, they having burned in 1883, and at its busiest
160
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
the settlement comprised only the mills, a shoe shop and a few houses. The locality still goes by the name of Baconville, and the cross highway leading to it as the Bacon road.
A half mile or so west, on the same stream, there used to be a saw mill owned by Levi Orton, and afterward by E. and F. Orton, which I think was built by John L. Rowley.
A mile and a half west of West Bangor the "Half-Way House " (so called because it was approximately midway between Plattsburgh and Ogdensburg) was kept in stage-coach times by James Lawrence, and then by Leonard Fish. It was a commodious structure, painted red, on the north side of the turnpike, and was famous for a long time for its fine table of good home cookery and also as a favorite resort for large and jolly dancing parties. The house was burned in 1883. Still another stage-coach tavern in the same vicinity, dating from about 1836 or 1837, was that kept by Willard Jepherson or Jefferson, a mile west from Fish's.
North Bangor was incorporated as a village in 1914, and then had a population of 307. It has electric lights, the current for which is transmitted from Malone. It lies near the north and south center of the town, but only about a mile from the Malone town line. The Rutland railroad runs through Bangor from east to west about a half a mile north of this village, which it has doubtless been as helpful in building up as any other one factor. When the road was built all of the imme- diate country lying to the north of the line was a dense forest, and George H. Stevens sold from it a thousand cords of wood, delivered at the station, at five shillings (631%c.) per cord. It cost him a quarter of a dollar per cord for the chopping, and the same price for hauling, so that his return for stumpage was barely a shilling per cord, though something should be added to his meagre profit account by reason of the fact that the chopping and hauling were paid for in merchandise from his store.
Nearly sixty years ago, when Baker Stevens was postmaster and North Bergen mail used to come to North Bangor and vice versa, Mr. Stevens suggested a change in the name of the office in the hope of curing such confusion. Having only recently returned from California, where there is a town called Amador, he proposed that name for the North Bangor office, and the department approved. But when Elijah A. Hyde became postmaster a few years later the name North Bangor was resumed.
161
BANGOR
North Bangor's only manufacturing industries are the condensary and creamery combined and Fred M. Johnson's feed mill, which was built by Wm. H. Plumb for a shingle mill, and changed by George Taylor into a feed mill.
The place merits particular mention as the center from which fruit raising throughout the county was largely developed by the enthusiasm and efforts of Elijah A. Hyde, who demonstrated that certain varieties of choice apples, pears and grapes could be grown here successfully, and who induced the planting of thousands of trees and vines. William H. Plumb now has an orchard here of three thousand five hundred thrifty apple and pear trees, the largest in the county, and producing fine fruit.
Particulars of early life at North Bangor are even more difficult to gather at this day than similar data for Bangor and West Bangor. Benjamin Seeley, locating a mile east of the "Corners," evidently remained for only a short time, inasmuch as in 1814 he had become a resident of Malone, and in that year deeded to the supervisors of the county the land on which the county buildings are now established. While in Bangor he is said to have opened his house for the accommoda- tion of settlers and of those journeying to points farther west. Joseph Plumb passed the remaining days of his life there, dying in 1837. He also carried on a sort of hotel business upon much the same lines as Mr. Seeley had done, and built and operated both a distillery and a tan- nery. He became the agent for the sale of the Bangor lands of McCor- mick, O. A. Brodie and Bacon, and was succeeded in this capacity by his son William. The latter and one of the Barnums became mighty hunters, and added appreciably to their usual earnings by killing wolves and panthers for the bounties. The Plumb farm aggregated eight hundred or a thousand aeres, and what remains of it is now divided between William H. and Howard Plumb.
The stage route from Plattsburgh to Ogdensburg had been at first through Bangor and West Bangor, which fact led to a development in these places before North Bangor began to find itself. But when the route was changed to the north road, business other than farming began to be prosecuted.
The first person professing to keep a real hotel at North Bangor was Timothy Barnes, and the house, small and insignificant, stood on the north side of the highway on the first lot west of the Corners. George H. Stevens kept it after the death of Mr. Barnes. The next landlord
6
.
162
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
was Abel Harvey, who in 1842 or 1843 built the hotel which stood for fifty-odd years on the corner where Hotel Eldred now is, and ran it for a good many years. Later landlords at this stand have been many, and include Thomas Barney, Jonas and William H. Barney, Daniel Guernsey, George Doty, Silas Cornish, S. C. Horrigan, Orson Carpen- ter, C. L. Hazen, Orrin Harris, Clark Coffrin, William B. Steenberge, Hiram Doty, E. R. Baxter, Billy Orr, Wash. Smith, Judson Geer, F. D. Rich, D. McGiveny and Steve Fosburg. During the latter's tenancy in 1896 or 1897 the building burned, after which the site was bought by Charles T. Eldred, and in 1899 a three-story structure erected, the landlords in which have been Mr. Eldred, Fred Eldred, E. A. Rich, Ernest Macomber, Alfred F. Brockway and Cecil I. Whitcomb. Mr. Whitcomb is the present proprietor.
Stores at North Bangor appear not to have been many, nor to date to very early times. The earliest merchant so far as now ascertainable was George H. Stevens, whose store was next east of the Corners. J. D. (" Den.") Fisk was there at about the same time, and these were fol- lowed by Baker, Henry and Clinton Stevens and Solon Reynolds. The Stevens brothers, except Henry, afterward became residents of Malone, George H. coming here as sheriff. Mr. Fisk removed eventually to New York, and prospered there. The Stevens experience proved that though Bangor lacked in large manufactories it was an exceptionally good trading point, because of the general excellence of its lands and. the superior quality of its citizenry. Baker Stevens, who was a mer- chant here from 1855 to 1865, doing a credit business, told me that in the entire ten years he lost less than two hundred dollars in bad accounts. Other merchants have been John L. Rowley, Mathias Stan- ley, P. J. Stickle, William H. Hyde in partnership with Mr. Reynolds, Elijah A. Hyde and Ransom, Harrison Lee, James S. Lytle and Sons, W. H. Plumb, William B. Steenberge, Charles T. Eldred, Leon Chapin and Herbert Burr. The Patrons of Industry also had a store for four or five years prior to 1903. The present merchants are Fred W. Mckenzie and Alfred Brockway, Orville S. Rhoades, L. E. Farrington and Robert Todd, and Fred M. Johnson, dealer in flour, feed and agricultural implements. There are also a meat market, kept by Fred Murphy, John B. Mallette's blacksmith shop, Herbert Griffin's marble works, and W. A. McLennan's undertaking rooms. The Masons have a hall of their own here, the lower floor of which is rented to the town for a town hall.
A dry saw mill (so called because the brook was small and the power
163
BANGOR
insufficient) was built a mile and a half west of the Corners on the main road, by Benjamin Walker, probably eighty or ninety years ago. It was a small affair and disappeared in the early forties.
Cooks Corners, partly in Fort Covington, lies along the northern border. In the part which is in Bangor there are perhaps a dozen dwelling houses and one store, kept by Joseph Taillon. Earlier pro- prietors were George Washburne, Samuel Southworth, Samuel Vidger and Joe Labarge.
In this neighborhood during the night of October 15, 1881, when there was a fierce wind, a house owned by James Riley and occupied by him and John McCarthy and family, caught fire, and before the inmates, numbering twelve persons, were awakened they were hemmed in by the flames. Mr. Riley and his brother, Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy, Mr. McCarthy's father and three of the children managed to fight their way out, though not without serious hurts, but four of the McCarthy boys in one of the chambers were burned to death.
Another Cooks Corners incident of a different character created a good deal of excitement and speculation in 1887. Michael McCaffrey, a resident of good character and of generally accepted veracity, claimed to have had repeated dreams, in which a British officer appeared to him, stating that he had been killed by the Indians, and directing McCaffrey to dig at a pine stump on the premises for treasure buried by the officer between flat stones. McCaffrey represented that after a time he obeyed, and that, precisely as had been predicted, he found the stones, and between them a certificate of indebtedness for four thousand pounds, which purported to have been issued by the Bank of England, and to be payable by it on demand with interest. Rev. Frank N. Jewett, a native of the vicinity and at the time a professor in the State normal school at Fredonia, examined into the matter as thoroughly as possible, and satisfied himself that the find had been made as McCaffrey stated and that the certificate was valid and genuine. Mr. Jewett placed the matter for McCaffrey in the hands of New York city attorneys for collection, but nothing has ever been realized on it. Faith in the truth- fulness of McCaffrey's story still prevails among his neighbors. Mr. Jewett himself visited London, and had an interview with the bank officials, who gave as excuse for not honoring the certificate that time had made the writing so faint as to make identification impossible.
Including the condensary at North Bangor, there are two creameries in the town, and formerly there were five others, besides the one on the
164
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
north road, which was really a Bangor enterprise, though located just across the town line in Malone. It was built in 1870 by Lytle Bros., and was the first in the county.
A creamery in the southeastern part of the town, originally a co-oper- ative concern, but owned later by Isaac Carpenter, then by Gaius A. Lane, and finally by Fred Lawrence, was torn down a few years ago. Still another, built by Joe Labarge at Cooks Corners in 1888, was afterward run by O. Harrington and used as a skimming station for the condensary. It was torn down six or eight years ago. The cream- ery at Bangor, owned by Frank L. Allen of Springfield, Mass., and closed down at least temporarily in 1917, was originally a cheese fac- tory, built and operated for a few years on the co-operative plan. It burned, and in 1877 was rebuilt by Alexander S. Knapp, and operated by him, and then by W. B. Burr. Besides making butter when it was operated by Mr. Allen it turned out a large product of cottage cheese in a crude form, which was shipped to New England cities to be seasoned and finished for market. It is now operated by another party as a cheese factory. The creamery at West Bangor, formerly owned by G. L. Donaldson, and then by Barber & Fish, passed to the control of non-resident interests, and made fancy Italian cheese in 1917. The operators failed with several thousand dollars owing to farmers, 'and the plant is now idle. When it was run by Barber & Fish as a creamery it made caseine as a by-product. Caseine is used as a "binder " for cheap paints, as a "filler " for wood and heavy fabrics, for buttons and billiard balls, and for sizing paper, to which it gives a smooth finish. There are two creameries between North Bangor and Brushton; one owned by George and Charles Walker, and the other by Frank Aldrich. The Walker creamery closed in 1917.
How the present product of butter in Bangor, and indeed in the county as a whole, compares with the output of a few years ago is not deter- minable accurately except by a comprehensive investigation which I have not found it feasible to undertake; but the general consensus of what must be regarded as authoritative opinion is that it is very much smaller. Twenty-five years ago there were nearly thirty thousand milch cows in the county, and to-day the number is only about a thousand larger. But in almost every town the number of creameries has dimin- ished, and the receipts of milk at most of those which are still in opera- tion have fallen off generally. In addition, the business of shipping milk and cream to New York and other cities is altogether new within
165
BANGOR
the past eight or ten years, and the quantity so withdrawn from butter making is very great. The butter product of Bangor in creameries in 1904 was reported to the State department of agriculture as having been 711,000 pounds, which was nearly fifty per cent. more than Malone's, and double the quantity made in any other of the towns of the county. With only a single creamery now in operation, it is doubted if the butter product of the town can be more than an eighth of what it once was. However, the average butter-fat yield of the cows now kept is probably at least a quarter more than it was a few years ago, due to the process that is systematically going on of weeding out from the herds the poorer animals. Cow-testing associations are doing a great work in this regard, and more and more farmers ought to join them. Along that line lies the way to make dairying more profitable, and progressiveness should characterize farming operations as well as other enterprises. Just how much this may mean to a farmer is seen in the result reported from one series of tests, wherein the ten best cows showed four times the production of the ten poorest, all in herds from which the poorest cows had already been eliminated. The farmer who hopes to realize results will not remain blind to the importance of having such tests made, nor hesitate in acting upon them.
The condensary at North Bangor was built in 1904, and is owned by O. Harrington of that place and Tait Brothers of Springfield, Mass. Three gallons of milk are required to make one of condensed. The full milk is used in a part of the product, while in making other brands, used principally in confectionery, a part of the cream is first taken out. Both the sweetened and the unsweetened are made. The former is shipped in barrels, and the latter, which is used in making ice-cream, goes to market in forty-gallon cans. The condensary also ships plain cream at times, and occasionally makes butter. All shipped cream is pasteurized, which not only removes the impurities, but gives it better keeping qualities.
Perhaps the most notable distinction that attaches to Bangor is that the invention of one of its citizens, Benjamin F. Jewett, revolutionized the business of dairying. Until 1870 each farm had made its own butter, the milk being set in small pans, the care of which entailed unspeakable drudgery, with results not at all satisfactory. Mr. Jewett had pondered speculatively and theoretically from boyhood the general idea underlying his new pan, and after he began actual experiment was four years in perfecting his invention. His principal aim was to
166
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
produce a pan which would prevent the premature souring and thickening of the milk in hot weather, and keep the milk sweet long enough for the cream to rise. This was to be accomplished by having cold water con- stantly under the milk. The pan as put upon the market had a double bottom, the outer skin divided into compartments or channels which opened into each other at alternate ends, in order to assure thorough circulation of the water. There were incidental features to make it easy to draw off the milk after skimming, for rinsing, etc. The first of these pans used in a co-operative creamery was installed in a factory by Lytle Brothers in Malone, near North Bangor, and soon afterward Lucius R. Townsend and William H. Hyde began their manufacture in large quantities at Malone. The results of their use were to lighten labor on the farm, to increase largely the average quantity of butter realized from a given quantity of milk, to make a better product, and to command a better price for it. In the ensuing five years more than twenty creameries were built in Franklin county, and the Jewett pan installed in them. In the period from 1870 to 1900 the number of dairy cows in the county increased from about seventeen thousand to nearly thirty thousand. Improved pans having come into use and separators having followed, the Jewett pan is no longer made, but it accomplished a magnificent work, and every dairyman and dairyman's wife and daughters owe much to it for the labor that they have been saved, and for the larger earnings that their cows have made.
The story of Bangor's town houses is obscure and curious. A town meeting in 1830 voted to build, appropriated the poor moneys in the hands of the overseers for the purpose, and created a committee com- posed of residents of other towns to select a site. Such committee recommended that the house be located on a lot near the Powell Wilson place, but the people on the north and south roads were disposed then as now, each to magnify their own claims and to gain advantage over the other. Consequently the town repudiated the committee's finding, and after holding three other town meetings for consideration of the question decided to have two houses - one on the north and one on the south road, with the use thereof to be free to all religious societies in proportion to the amount that each should contribute to the building funds. Individuals contributed their labor to the work of erection, and thus each felt that he had an individual share in ownership of them. The house on the south road, at West Bangor, is of stone, and in its face is set a tablet with the inscription, "Town House, erected in
167
BANGOR
1835." The other is now the so-called union church at North Bangor, which was remodeled in 1873 at a cost of $5,000. Strangely enough, there is no record in the County Clerk's office vesting title to the latter lot in the town, nor any showing relinquishment of rights by the town in either lot to the churches now in possession with actual or assumed ownership. There is, however, record of the conveyance of the town house site at West Bangor by Asahel Bacon in 1829 for twelve dollars and a half, and also by C. C. Whittelsey to the Union Church Society in 1860, and a quitelaim of same by William L. Taylor and Henry Storm in 1887, but none showing title to the town house at North Bangor in any church. Few of the younger generation have been aware until recently that the town had ever had any town house at all, though older men are able to recall uncertainly that forty or fifty years ago the tax- payers concluded that the upkeep of the halls was greater than the cost of renting would be, and so voted to relinquish their interest in them. It would be proper business for both town and churches to straighten out the matter of record if practicable.
North Bangor Lodge No. 556, F. and A. M., dates from 1865, and has over one hundred members. It owns its lodge building, which is at North Bangor, and a part of which the town occupies for its records and for a polling place.
Bangor organized a Grand Army Post in 1883, with over a hundred members. It was named in honor of William Dutton, one of the colonels of the 98th regiment. The number of veterans in the town having become small, the organization was permitted to lapse in 1891.
Bangor Grange, No. 967, was organized in 1898, has about two hun- dred and fifty members, and owns the building in which its hall is located - renting the ground floor for commercial uses.
Rev. James Erwin, born in Fort Covington in 1813, and a preacher at the age of sixteen years, says in his "Reminiscences of a Circuit Rider," that " Barzilia Willey, James Covel, Jonathan Newman, Wil- liam Case, Isaac Puffer and others carried the gospel through the val- leys of St. Lawrence and Franklin counties from the year 1800," and, therefore, unless there are actual records, it would be presumptuous to assert positively that any known religious meeting in any Franklin county town was the first held therein, for the Methodists especially, and the Presbyterians only in less degree, were given to invasion of every locality as soon as it had inhabitants in any appreciable number. It is probable that the latter were first in the field in Bangor. The
168
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
early records of the church of this denomination were lost by fire a few years ago, but William M. Hinman, the then clerk, remembers dis- tinctly that they recited that the church was organized in a barn in 1809, which other authority says was owned by Constant Southworth, near Cooks Corners, and that preaching had been had the year before by Rev. Alexander Proudfoot of Salem, Washington county, who was active in that period in establishing United Presbyterian churches in Northern New York, though the actual organization in Bangor was by Rev. Jacob Hart of Constable and Rev. Ashbel Parmelee of Malone. Actual incorporation was effected February 9, 1833, as the " First Congregational Church of Bangor," though the society's own records give the date of organization as June 8, 1826. The seeming contradic- tion in dates is explained by some members of the society by attributing to 1826 the action which changed the church from Presbyterian to Congregational instead of its having reference to the original organiza- tion. A church edifice was erected at South Bangor in 1842, meetings in that part of the town having been held previously in barns or in the school house. At North Bangor and at West Bangor the society has had the use of one or the other of the two town houses since about 1835, and of late years practically the exclusive use of the one at the former place. The church enrolled in 1827 with the Presbytery of Champlain as a Presbyterian church, but for a long time now has been incorporated as Congregational with the St. Lawrence and Black River Association. It has a parsonage at Bangor, built in 1883, and services are held every Sunday at that place and at North Bangor, and on every alternate Sun- day in the union church at West Bangor - a single pastor serving all three stations.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.