USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 23
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owners here have been : Whitelaw Reid, H. McK. Twombley, Dr. E. L. Trudeau, George H. Earle, Jr., William W. McAlpin, Anson Phelps Stokes, Robert Garrett, George Fales Baker, Robert Hoe, and others of similar eminence. These and others, campers or inmates of the hotel itself, make a congenial company, and not infrequently during the season unite in giving entertainments or in holding fairs, the proceeds of which are generally applied to some worthy local institution or enter- prise. Net receipts at these affairs not uncommonly reach two or three thousand dollars, and St. John's Church in the Wilderness, nearby, and the Trudeau Sanatorium at Saranac Lake have in particular benefited from them.
The Paul Smith Hotel and allied undertakings have been owned and managed since the death of the elder Mr. Smith, which occurred in 1912, by his sons, Phelps and Paul.
Sanatorium Gabriels, named in honor of the bishop of the Catholic diocese of Ogdensburg, dates from 1895, though not dedicated and opened until July, 1897, and the story of its founding and development is exceedingly interesting. and amazing as well. Sister Mary of Per- petual Help Kieran, of the order of Sisters of Mercy, who became a postulant at Malone when a convent school was conducted on the corner of Main and Fort Covington streets forty odd years ago, and upon the failure of that project located for a time at Hogansburgh, was the originator of the institution. Only a woman of remarkable per- sonality, untiring energy, supreme faith and determined persistence could have carried the enterprise through. She entered upon it with but the beggarly sum of fifteen dollars at her command, and yet in the course of a few years a site had been acquired, a number of buildings erected, an administrative force of nurses and physicians assembled, and more than a hundred tuberculous patients per annum were being cared for. Surely here was a marvelous work, and, while the world speaks of it as Sister Mary's, she herself always said simply. "God did it." Sister Mary died at the institution in July, 1914, admired and respected wherever known, and deeply loved by those with whom she had ever been closely associated.
The only building to be had when Sister Mary entered upon the work was a cheap log cabin, and about the only accessories a donkey and cart that a friend contributed. Sister Mary and her single co-worker occupied the cabin until something better could be had. Dr. W. Seward Webb and Paul Smith each gave fifty acres of land for a site, and a
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third fifty was bought. In addition, there are several hundred acres adjacent owned by the State, which serve to protect the sanatorium against undesirable encroachments, and in effect enlarge its grounds to that extent. Men of wealth in New York and elsewhere, who are summer residents in the vicinity, and women of the Catholic faith pos- sessed of ample fortunes, gave generously to the enterprise, so that, joined to the carnest co-operation of Bishop Gabriels, funds were realized for the erection of buildings. The site chosen for these was an elevation, now called Sunrise Mount, in conspicuous view from the railroad, and on which a dozen or more structures have been reared at a cost of nearly a quarter of a million dollars. The institution carries a debt of something like seventy-five thousand dollars. The largest of the group of buildings is " Restawhile," and above the entrance to it stands out the invitation: "Come apart to the wilderness, and rest awhile." There are also the administration building,# groups of cot- tages, a chapel, laundry, etc .- a dozen or more structures in all. The institution has its own electric light plant and system of water supply, operates a farm of two hundred acres, and issues quarterly a magazine entitled Forest Leaves, which is a most creditable publication both as to appearance and literary merit. Though under the management of a distinctively Catholic order, the sanatorium is nonsectarian so far as relates to the admission and care of patients, who pay if able to do so, but are not denied reception and equal attention when room is available even if without means. The management prides itself that the very best professional skill obtainable composes the staff of physicians, nurses, and attendants generally, and that a gratifying and encouraging percentage of patients released show entire recovery or marked improve- ment. H. J. Blankemeyer is the resident physician, and F. G. Mahoney assistant. The advisory medical committee includes a number of the most eminent physicians resident in New York city, with others of like rank practising elsewhere. A general advisory committee is composed of a number of men of high standing both in business and in a public way.
* The administration building was completely destroyed, with most of its con- tents, by fire January 18, 1916, entailing a loss estimated by the Sister Superior at forty thousand dollars. This estimate is based, however, not on the cost of the building burned, but upon the cost of replacing and refurnishing it. There was an insurance of only seven thousand dollars on the property. A campaign is to be made for subscriptions for rebuilding, and it is hoped to have the new structure constructed in the near future. At the time of the fire there were about thirty patients in the building, all of whom were removed to neighboring cottages without injury.
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The dining room of the institution was furnished by former Governor Flower; one patient's room by ex-Governor Morton ; a second by the Benjamin Harrison family, called the B. H. McKee room ; a third by Paul Smith and a fourth by contributors residing in Malone. The buildings throughout are finished in hard wood, and many of the sleep- ing rooms have fire-places. The system of ventilation, plumbing and drainage is scientifically planned, and executed in a thorough and workmanlike manner. Neither care nor expense has been spared for these particulars.
Services in the chapel are held regularly by priests who are patients or by the resident priest at Lake Clear.
The sanatorium's capacity is about fifty, but as those treated are con- tinually going and coming nearer three times that number are cared for in the course of a year.
The hamlet of Gabriels sprang up with the building of the Adiron- dack and St. Lawrence Railway in 1892. There is nothing in the location except the railroad (not even good farming land) to attract settlement or to serve as a basis for business. Yet from a scrub barrens twenty-odd years ago it has grown to a place of perhaps two hundred inhabitants, and consists of the Sanatorium Gabriels, two stores, one small hotel (the Robear House), a blacksmith shop, a garage, and, unfortunately, three saloons .* Until the Paul Smith Electric Railroad was built, with Lake Clear Junction as its eastern terminus, Gabriels was the point of arrival and departure of nearly all visitors to Paul Smiths.
Considering the paucity of its population and the small aggregate value of its taxable property, Brighton has always exhibited a good deal of public spirit and enterprise. Forty years ago it had won the dis- tinction of having the best roads and the neatest school houses in the county, and it was the first of our towns to bond itself for building a macadam highway. It has a neat and sufficient town house on the road leading from Paul Smiths to Gabriels and Rainbow. Its good farming lands are extremely limited in area, to which handicap is to be added the prevalence of late and early frosts, so that agriculture offers only indifferent opportunity, though the raising of vegetables and the pro- duction of milk for the Paul Smith Hotel are prosecuted to some extent. The occupation of a large percentage of the male inhabitants is guiding, and many of these guides have located in close vicinity to
* The saloons have been closed since this was written.
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Paul Smiths. making the settlement here greater than at any other point in the town except Gabriels. The cottages of the guides are generally neat and comfortable, and each has its well kept garden. One of these localities goes by the name of " Easy street," which is perhaps a misnomer, because while the business of modern guiding is not as strenuous as the service formerly required by sportsmen, and the pay is excellent, the season is short, with the consequence that the surplus of wages over the cost of living in summer is usually found to be only sufficient to carry a guide and his family through the winter, thus leaving no balance. or only a small one, for the year as a whole.
The writer's first experience in Adirondack hunting and fishing was in Brighton in 1863. Game laws were then practically a dead letter, and deer hunting in August, openly with dogs, was indulged in as a matter of course. But this kind of hunting interested me far less than pigeon shooting. The numbers of pigeons in Brighton in 1863 were so great that the flocks almost darkened the sky, and when at rest. usually on a dead pine, they so covered its branches that nothing of the tree itself except the trunk could be distinguished. Their favorite feed- ing grounds were the blueberry patches and the grain fields of the few lands under cultivation in the vicinity. I recall that near the hotel of Mr. Wardner there was a field of buckwheat, and that one morning the ground was literally black with the birds feasting on the grain. Mr. Wardner crept near to it with a single-barrel shotgun, and, firing into the flock, killed twenty-seven birds at a single shot: and on the shore of Rainbow it was no trick at all for me at one discharge of my gun to drop four or five out of a tree or as the pigeons rose in flight. S. H. Hammond, an Albany editor, made a trip of several weeks' duration through the wilderness in 1853 from Chazy Lake to Chateaugay Lake, Meacham, St. Regis Lake, the Saranacs and Tupper Lake, and in a published account of his experiences told of having visited a pigeon- roost near the latter water: "We were startled in the gray twilight of the morning by a distant roaring; not like a waterfall, or far-off thunder, but partaking of both. * * As the light grew more dis- tinet we saw vast flocks of wild pigeons, winging their way in different directions across the lake, but all appearing to have a common starting point in the forest, a mile or more down the lake. 'I understand it all now,' said my guide: 'there's a pigeon roost down there.' % We had no difficulty in finding it, for the thundering sound of those vast flocks, as they started from their perches, led us on. About a mile
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from the lake we came to the outer edge of the roost. Hundreds of thousands of pigeons had flown away that morning, and yet there were hundreds of thousands, and perhaps many millions, old and young, there yet. It covered acres and aeres - I have no idea how many, for I did not go round it. The trees were not of large growth, being mostly of spruce and stunted birch, hemlock and elm, but every one was loaded with nests. In every crotch, on every branch that would support one, was a nestful of all sizes, from the little downy thing just escaped from the shell to the full-grown one just ready to fly away. *
* The great limbs of the trees outside of the brooding place were broken and hanging down, being unable to sustain the weight of the thousands that perched upon them." Mr. Hammond tells, further, of hawks and car- rion birds and foxes lurking about the roost, apparently gorged with food that they had raped from it. To-day not a single bird of the species is known to be in existence.
The only hotel in Brighton conducted especially for sportsmen and pleasure seekers other than Wardner's and Paul Smiths is known as " MacCollom's," situate near Lake Meacham, and about thirty miles south of Malone. It was originally a small log structure, built by Amos Rice, and then owned and managed by the sturdy Scotchman from whom it took its name. In MacCollom's day it catered only to those who sought good deer hunting and were willing to accept rude accommodations. Game in the vicinity was abundant, and "Mac's " interest for the success of his guests and his skill as a woodsman were so marked that fine sport was always enjoyed. Clarence McArthur suc- ceeded MacCollom, and greatly enlarged and improved the house. But upon his death it was found to be heavily incumbered, and was sold under mortgage foreclosure. Malone creditors were the purchasers, and these subsequently sold to Colonel William C. Skinner, of Hartford, who is the present owner, but who has nothing to do with the manage- ment of the hotel. In recent years it has come to entertain a different class of guests - vacationists and idlers rather than hunters. It is a favorite resort for Malone people, especially for motoring parties who go there for a Sunday dinner.
Brighton's first church is the Church of St. John in the Wilderness, near Paul Smiths, and was the outgrowth of services by Episcopalian clergymen stopping at the hotel, held in the hotel parlor from time to time prior to 1876. In August of that year Bishop Doane visited the place, and officiated at services in the hotel. A lot had already been
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given for a church by Mr. Smith and Mrs. S. C. Faitoute of New Jersey, and some pledges of funds obtained for building a "log chapel," which was dedicated in August, 1877, though not listed as a mission in the records of the diocese until 1878. The late Dr. E. L. Trudeau had supervision of the erection of the chapel, and except such amounts as were contributed by guests at Paul Smiths the funds were raised by Mrs. Julia A. Livingstone of New York. The chapel originally had a seating capacity of two hundred, which was increased by seventy- five in 1893 through the erection of a transept. The church is free from debt. Services are held in it regularly throughout the summer, but not in winter.
The Adirondack Mission of the Presbytery of Champlain was created in 1889, when and a part of the time since it has included Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake, Piercefield, Moody, Paul Smiths, MacCollom's, Harrietstown, Lake Clear, Island Chapel in Upper Saranac Lake, Corey's, Childwold, Guide Board in Waverly, and Santa Clara. A number of the places named have now become independent churches. A church building was erected at Keeses Mill, three miles from Paul Smiths, about 1900, when Rev. Wm. B. Lusk officiated as pastor there until 1906. From that time until 1909 there appears to have been no regular resident pastor, but in the latter year Rev. T. Bertram Anderson became superintendent of the entire mission and pastor of the church at Keeses Mill, which relation he still holds. His territory as superin- ยท tendent of the mission covers four hundred square miles and embraces nine preaching stations, at all of which except MacCollom's and Santa Clara churches have been built. Divinity students officiate at the various missions throughout the summer season. The cost of maintaining the mission is about three thousand dollars a year, a goodly part of which is subscribed by visitors to the region.
A Methodist Episcopal church on the road between Paul Smiths and Gabriels was erected about 1893, the money therefor having been raised by Mrs. Smith, though herself a Presbyterian. Services are conducted every other Sunday by the clergyman resident at Bloomingdale, who officiates at Rainbow also once a fortnight.
The Church of Angel Gabriel at Paul Smiths was organized in 1894 by Rev. Ferdinand J. Lussier, who was at the time rector of the church at Brandon. It is located about a quarter of a mile from Paul Smiths, and the edifice must have been erected soon after the mission was established. as the church was blessed in 1896 under Rev. Michael
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Holland, who, located at Tupper Lake, was then serving the mission. It has since been attended by the priests at Tupper Lake, Brandon, Derrick and Lake Clear Junction.
In addition, there is a Catholic chapel connected with the Sanatorium Gabriels.
Nonresident lands are all wilderness, and necessitate no town expense except when forest fires occur. The possession of such tracts by a town tends to lighten the tax burdens of residents, and in the hope of gaining such advantage Brighton attempted in 1877 to have a township and a half taken from Brandon and added to itself, but the board of super- visors refused to approve.
CHAPTER X
BURKE
Burke was erected from Chateaugay April 26, 1844, being the final partition of Chateaugay, which was mother to all of the towns now comprising the county. It was proposed to call the new division Birney, in honor of the Liberty candidate for President in 1844, but the Legis- lature evidently preferred the name of the English statesman, and so, disregarding the prayer of the petition, substituted Burke. It is one of the smaller towns in area, assessed as containing 27,463 acres. The population in 1845 was 1,285, which increased to 2,240 in 1860, declined to 1,920 during the civil war, gained two hundred in the next ten years, and then remained practically stationary until 1892, when another decline began. In 1910 the population was only 1,772, but in 1915 had increased to 1,835. Until it was erected into a town the place had been known as West Chateaugay.
Burke is watered principally by brooks and the Little Trout river, which enters the town from Bellmont at the extreme southeastern corner, and takes a northwesterly course into Constable. The Chateaugay river cuts across the extreme northeastern corner of the town, and Trout river across the extreme southwestern corner - hardly more than a mile of each being in Burke. The Rutland Railroad runs through the south third of the town, and has a station nearly midway between the Chateangay border on the east and Malone on the west. An improved county highway, extending from Malone to Chateaugay, passes through the town in the southern part, and a State road follows the so-called north route, running through Burke Center and Thayer's Corners. Burke was one of the first towns in the county to undertake for itself the construction of stone roads, and has done some excellent work under this system.
Burke's surface is undulating. as no one familiar with its nomen- clature or its topography would ever doubt. The locality near the rail- road station is the " Hollow;" half a mile distant is the "East Hollow ;" a mile north is " Taylor's Hollow; " and a mile or two west of that is " Hawks's Hollow; " while in other districts, wherever a river or a brook flows, there are hollows almost innumerable, but not dis-
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tinguished by names. The soil, while not the most productive in the county, is yet of so good an average that intelligent farming is profit- able, and consequently the general condition of the people prosperous.
The principal settlement in the town is near the railroad, extending both north and south of the station. Formerly, if not more populous, it was more important industrially, as at one time it had a sawmill. tannery, starch factory and a planing mill, which now are all out of existence. There remain a school house, a hotel, a creamery, a milk shipping station, a feed mill, two or three small shops, a half dozen stores, and a small group of dwelling houses, a Grange hall and an Odd Fellows' hall, and a Methodist and a Catholic church. The resi- dences are generally of a better type and better kept up than are com- monly found in so small a place, and testify in their appearance to enterprise and comfortable circumstances on the part of the owners. The place has been greatly improved from its former estate, when pretty much everything was centered either in the "Hollow " or in the " East Hollow," whereas now, the mills having disappeared and stores, hotels and dwellings there having been burned, almost everything is on the hill on the east side of the river, a vastly better location. The hamlet has a gravity system of water works and it and even the farming sections are electrically lighted from the power development in Chateaugay. The population is probably at least three hundred.
At Burke Center, where it seemed until the railroad was built that the larger settlement might be. there are the town house (built in 1851 and 1852), a Presbyterian church, the store of Lorenzo W. Thayer (the same structure built by Joseph Goodspeed in 1828), and a half dozen dwelling houses.
Sun represents merely the center of the activities of George and Henry Jordan a few years ago, when they did a driving business at that point -conducting a large farm. a creamery, a store, shops and a steam sawmill. Nothing now remains except a milk skimming station, the store kept by J. W. Taillon, and two or three residences.
Thayer's Corners lies directly east of Burke Center, near the Chateaugay line. Formerly the Sons of Temperance had a two-story building here, with the first floor used for religious meetings and the second as a lodge room, but now burned. There are ten or a dozen dwelling houses in the locality, and a store. At one time there was a Baptist church, but the society is no longer alive.
The first settlers came mostly from Vermont earlier than 1800, or
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nearly a half century before the town was erected, and even before the distriet was known as West Chateaugay. A few came a little later from Canada, and settled principally in the north part of the town. Gates Hoit, who was in Chateaugay in 1800 or before, undertook some years afterward to make a list of all who had been in the township at the time of his arrival, but omitted a number. This list included Jehial Barnum, Jr., Azur Hawks, John S. and James S. Allen, Noah Lee and Warren Botsford. To these I am able to add Moses Eggleston, Rufus Jones, Samuel Haight, Israel Thayer, Benjamin and Lewis Graves, Simeon Reed, Jr., and Ira Smith as having been there in 1800 or hav- ing arrived soon afterward. Deed dates are not conclusive, of course, for in the period in question settlers usually held their lands only under contract from their initial occupancy until payments under the con- tracts had been completed, when actual conveyance would be made. Yet John Allen received his deed in 1798, Benjamin Graves in 1799, Mr. Thayer and Mr. Hawks in 1801, Mr. Reed in 1802, Reuben Allen in 1803, and Mr. Smith and Lewis Graves in 1805, while Mr. Thayer, Mr. Hawks, Mr. Haight and Mr. Lee had given mortgages as early as 1798, proving that the section which is now Burke had settlement earlier than any other part of the county except Chateaugay itself. Mr. Barnum was the son of Jehial Barnum, who settled in Bangor about 1807, and came directly from Vermont. He is understood to have been the first settler, probably in 1797, and owned several hundred acres of land -a single sale made by him in 1805 having been five hundred and twenty acres. He was uncle to Phineas T. Barnum, the showman. In the dozen or fifteen years following 1805 arrivals included James Hatch, Ira Covey, Dorastus Fitch, Erastus and Newman Finney, Dr. Stephen F. Morse, Joshua Nichols, James Brewer, John Mitchell, Joel Andrews, Timothy Beaman, Ezra Stiles, Joseph Goodspeed, Reuben Smith (a brother of Ira), William Hilliker, John Twaddle, Peter Bush and Nathaniel and Orada Day, and doubtless others whose names are not recalled. In checking up these lists the contrast with conditions in Bangor is both striking and melancholy. Where Bangor shows a notably large number of descendants of the original stock still abiding there, Burke has scarcely any. Allen, Morse, Fitch, Finney, Jones and Smith are almost, or quite, the only names borne by the early settlers to be found now upon the election registers or assessment rolls of the town, and some even of these perhaps do not trace their lineage to the pioneers, the families of whom have become extinet or
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removed elsewhere. Like the pioneers in other towns, they were mainly strong, manly men, fitted to found and manage the affairs of a com- munity upon orderly lines, and give it enterprise and character.
Azur Hawks resided for a long time at the forks of the Fort Coving- ton-Malone road, which locality thus came to take the name " Hawks's Hollow," and was a lieutenant in the State militia in 1808 and a captain in 1809. James S. Allen was the first clerk of the county of Franklin, in 1808. Noah Lee removed to Malone and then to Bangor at an early day. Moses Eggleston lived near Thayer's Corners, and is said to have come from Vermont on horseback, carrying money in a bag, and armed with a pitchfork for its defense. He was an ensign in a militia company in 1808, a captain in the war of 1812, and a lieu- tenant-colonel in 1818. His company in 1814 appears to have been recruited in Chateaugay, and to have seen no service except for a few days on the march to and from Plattsburgh, which was not reached until after the battle had been fought. The route taken was south from the Chateaugay four corners to near the Bennett place, whence it led east through the forest along a mere trail to the Roberts tavern stand, eight miles east of the four corners. The turnpike was thought to be too near Canada to be safe against attack by the enemy. Of the com- pany's members who resided in the territory now embraced in Burke there were Israel Thayer, first lieutenant, Warren Botsford, Jehial Barnum, Jr., Simeon Hawks and Nathaniel and Orada Day. Addis K. Botsford, formerly school commissioner and until his death a practising lawyer at Saranac Lake, and Elmer Botsford, a prominent attorney at Plattsburgh, as well as Ray Perrigo of Burke, are grandsons of Warren Botsford. Ira Smith had no sons, but Reuben had Samuel, Benjamin, Arthur and John, each of whom left male descendants; and yet the only ones of this line bearing the name Smith now in the town are George A., his three sons and a grandson and his brother Samuel. At one time Reuben and his son, Samuel, owned almost all of the land in and about Burke Hollow, and were proprietors of nearly all of the business concerns there - store, shops, sawmill, etc. Arthur Smith (father of Fred Smith of the Smith House, Malone) and Abram G. Smith (the latter of another family) owned most of the little not in the hands of Reuben and Samuel. Rufus Jones was the grandfather of George, now a merchant. Ezra Stiles, who had been an officer in the war of 1812, was the Methodist class leader in Burke, was one of the early merchants, and later removed to Fort Covington, where he became
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