USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 24
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customs officer and a militia colonel. He was an unsuccessful candi- date for State Senator in 1871, and was an uncle of Ezra Goodspeed. now of Chateangay, to whom the writer is indebted for a good deal of the information contained in this sketch. Mr. Goodspeed is also a grandson of Jehial Barnum, Jr. Mr. Reed, though married four times, has no known descendants. The only descendant of Israel Thayer, for whom Thayer's Corners was named, now residing in Burke, is Smith W. Thayer, though the latter's father, Lorenzo W., now living in Malone, continues in the mercantile business at Burke Center, and Warren T. Thayer, a grandson of Israel, lives in Chateaugay, and was elected to the Assembly in 1915, 1916 and 1917. Mr. Morse was the first physician in the town, and was the grandfather of A. Cady Morse, former county superintendent of the poor. Joshua Nichols was first judge of the court of common pleas in 1815, and Mr. Mitchell was sheriff in 1822, and a militia lieutenant in 1819. He it was who executed Videto, the county's first murderer, and it is told that upon the occasion he wore his full regimentals, and, mounted on a white horse, sprung the trap with the point of his sword, and then rode straight for his home in Burke. Benjamin Graves was an unsuccessful candidate for the Assembly in 1804. He removed to Plattsburgh, and was three times sheriff of Clinton county. John Twaddle came early from Canada: John B., who is in trade in Malone, is his grandson. Ira Covey also came from Canada, locating in the northwestern part of the town, at the point since called Coveytown. Theodocia Thayer and Alfred Deuel are the only surviving descendants in Burke of Lewis Graves, and Mrs. Lydia McMillan and Mrs. Fred Wood of Joel Andrews. Smith W. Thayer is a great-grandson of Newman Finney, and Austin Finney a grandson. Except for these instances, I think that none of the early settlers have descendants now living in the town.
Later years added a considerable number of stirring and sterling men. among whom it is not easy to overlook Elisha Marks, Abram G. Smith. Martin R. Durkee, Sidney A. Paddock, J. W. and Levi J. Looker, Sey- mour Brown, Milo Baldwin, Allen Ellsworth, Ezra S. Goodspeed, George B. Smith, L. D. and E. P. Deming. John MeKenzie, Edward Mallon. Nathan Mason, John P. Badger, John Featherston, George T. Scovel, George B. Greene, Thomas R. Kane, Robert, John and Nelson W. Johnston, Sheldon A. Ellsworth, William Mckenzie, Thomas S. Craw- ford, Corydon S. Chapman, Isaac B. Farrar, and Everett Brothers - men who with their sons and the sons of the pioneers established or
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operated the industries, the hotels and the merchandising of the town for a long period. They filled, too, the town offices generally, and with such carefulness and efficiency that taxes remained low.
Particular mention should be made of the three men identified with the town who attained to greater distinction than any other of its resi- dents, viz., John P. Badger, Fernando Beaman and Philander Deming. Mr. Badger had no prominence and had achieved nothing of conse- quence until he was approaching forty years of age. He came to the county with his parents from New Hampshire, and in his younger manhood learned the carpenter's trade. Later he was lumberman, mer- chant and manufacturer of starch. At about the age of thirty-five years he began to take an active interest and part in politics, and almost at once became recognized as the Republican leader in Burke. The town had always been strongly Democratic, but by personal argument and organization Mr. Badger soon converted enough of the electors to Republicanism so that that party gained control, and has held it ever since. Not until Mr. Badger was thirty-six years old did he begin the study of law, and after 1872, in which year he was elected to the Assembly, he completed his course in the Albany Law School, and was admitted to the bar. He served three years in the Assembly, and then located at Malone, where he continued to reside until his death in 1912. He had a suave and engaging manner. never antagonized any one with bitterness, and always gained his ends by diplomacy and com- promise if it was possible to do so without sacrifice of principle. In 1817 he was elected district attorney and held the office for six years. In 1891 he was a candidate for the Republican nomination for justice of the supreme court. and failed of success by reason of a deadlock in the convention, which continued for weeks. Mr. Badger came to be regarded as one of the strongest lawyers in the county, and probably the very best before a jury.
Fernando Beaman, a brother of Timothy, who for a long time was one of Burke's most prominent men, died in Michigan in 1882. He was a lawyer, and became a member of Congress. He was appointed United States Senator, but declined the office because of ill health.
Philander Deming, son of Rev. R. R. Deming, who was pastor of the Burke Presbyterian church from 1850 to 1856, was identified with the town only as a resident during his youth and later as a summer visitor to his brothers, Lucius D. and Edward P. He had a decided literary bent. and was the author of a number of short, captivating
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Adirondack stories, most of which were first published in the Atlantic Monthly, and then in book form. He became a stenographer, made his home in Albany, and, attending a law trial there, took the evidence in shorthand for practice. During the course of the case a dispute arose concerning some point in the testimony, and the trial judge called upon Mr. Deming to read his notes on the question. That was the beginning of stenographic court reporting, the incident having demon- strated the importance and value of the practice, which was almost immediately thereafter instituted, and has ever since been continued. It would be deemed impossible now to conduct court business without it, and Mr. Deming was its originator. He himself was appointed a court reporter, and so served at Albany for many years - his literary work having been performed in leisure hours or during vacations. He was a gentleman of fine character and striking presence, liberally educated, a graceful writer, and an interesting companion.
But with good citizens bad ones came also or developed there, and at one period the hamlet of Burke, known also as the "Hollow " and for a time as Andrusville, was exceedingly tough. That condition did not continue for a great while, however, and latterly there has been no town in the county with a higher reputation for good citizenship, sobriety and morality. Though it has had few men who attained to eminence, the number proportioned to the entire population who are recognized as notably intelligent, useful in their several walks of life, and trustworthy in anything and everything is decidedly large.
The industries of Burke never included any large establishment, and have consisted almost altogether in such mills and shops as used to be common in every settlement. They have included only a grist mill, saw mills, tanneries, asheries, starch factories, brick yards and stone quarries. With the disappearance of the forests and the discontinuance of the manufacture of potato starch, even these have gone out of exist- ence with the exception of the grist mill and the quarries ; and since con- crete came into so common use the quarries are idle, or are worked only on a small seale. In addition to the industries above indicated, in years so remote that information on the matter is almost impossible of pro- curement, Burke had an iron foundry, situate on the Little Trout river about a hundred rods below Hawks's Hollow. It was built by Reuben Allen and Amos Chipman, and is believed to have made, among other wares, stoves and caldron kettles. An attempt was made after abandonment of it as a manufactory to move the building up the
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hill. Thirty yoke of oxen were employed in the undertaking, which nevertheless proved a failure. The structure was then taken apart, moved piecemeal, and made into a barn. The history of the establish- ment as a foundry can not now be ascertained with any definiteness, but it was probably operated for only a short time.
A vague impression apparently prevails that at one time Daniel Smith & Sons had a pottery in Burke, but I have been unable to obtain information decisively confirming it, and, so far as I know conclusively, the only clay product here was brick. Both John Collins and Seymour Brown, and possibly others, operated brick yards years ago.
The first saw mill was probably built by Alexander Church, as he sold a half interest in it in 1811 to James Hatch. It was located nearly west of Burke Center, or about a mile and a half northwest from where the railroad station now is; subsequent operators of it were Simeon Hawks, Walter Dimick and Joseph Goodspeed. It went out of existence in 1858. Other saw mills were: One built by Samuel Smith in the Hollow, at the bridge, which was run afterward by Day & Badger, Day & Greene and William E. Walker; one just below Hawks's Hollow, built by George Keep about 1848 or 1850, and abandoned after two or three years because it was not profitable; one a half a mile farther down the stream, built by William Beaman about 1848 or 1850, and owned later by Talmadge Spencer; one yet farther north, built by David Darling between 1850 and 1855; one in the extreme south- western part of the town, known as Skeelsborough, probably built by Moses Hutchinson about 1850, and since 1859, until it was carried off by a freshet, owned and run by Sidney A. Paddock, who sold Al hem- lock dimension stuff in 1864, delivered in Malone, at seven dollars a thousand feet - which price was nevertheless more than double that realized by Mr. Goodspeed a dozen or fifteen years earlier; one just south of the railroad, built by Gibson Smith ; one built by George S. Adams about 1865, near the tannery, a short distance above the railroad, which was operated afterward for a considerable time by Elisha A. Hare, with Corydon S. Chapman as a partner for a couple of years ; one, a gang mill, a mile and a half south of the railroad, built by Henry B. and Elisha B. Smith, of Chateaugay, about 1855, and afterward owned and operated by Mr. Hare; one built in 1860 by Joseph Featherston as a part of the tannery, near the Adams mill, and owned by Sidney W. Gillett, of Malone, from 1864 to 1869, when it burned; one in the extreme southeastern section, built by John McKenzie, of Burke, and
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James Jordan, of Chateaugay, about 1864 or 1865, and burned in 1871; one on the same site as the last preceding, built by James Danford about 1873, and from which the machinery was removed to Bellmont some- thing like twenty years later; one north of Thayer's Corners, built by Martin R. Durkee about 1853 ; one just north of Durkee, built by Amos Aldrich, and operated from 1857 to 1862; a steam mill, built by George and Henry Jordan in the north central part about 189:, and run until 1905 ; and a small portable steam mill south of Thayer's Corners, oper- ated by Otis S. Witherell and John W. and Daniel Mitchell from about 1884 to 1900. At the present time there is not a single saw mill in Burke.
Martin Durkee was the father of Colonel Charles Durkee of Malone. He was big (weighing nearly three hundred pounds), bright and bluff - his language upon occasion being picturesque, not to say lurid. A brother, Charles, residing in the West, was a United States Senator from Wisconsin, and Governor of Utah. He died in 1870, and a few years ago the Malone Durkees had expectation of realizing a part of the fortune which he was supposed to have had, but the securities which he had been reported to own could never be found. Judge Adams was a Bangor man, and was elected county judge by the Knownothing party in 1855. Simeon Hawks is said to have been engaged with James Hatch in smuggling cattle into Canada for the British in the War of 1812, and the story is told that upon one such expedition, being obliged to cross the Chateaugay river and unable to swim, he was towed over by clinging to the tail of one of the steers. He became a militia ensign in 1817 and a lieutenant in 1820. Joseph Goodspeed was for many years the political boss of Burke, holding the town securely in the Demo- cratic column, and dictating all nominations and the town's affairs gen- erally. He was the lieutenant and representative here of Henry B. Smith, of Chateaugay, and never lost his grip on the town until Jolin P. Badger contested supremacy with him and his son, Ezra, and won against them, though infrequently the Republicans had previously carried it.
With the exception of the feed mill of Hill & Darling near the rail- road, which is of recent date, Burke has had only one grist mill. It was built in 1832 by Jehial Barnum. Jr., and Joseph Goodspeed, and is now operated by William McKenzie. Intermediate owners or operators include Eli Goodnow. Samuel Starks. T. L. & Harry Douglass, Albert Stebbins and John McKenzie. The last named (as good a man and
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as expert a miller as the county ever had) bought the property in 1860, and ran it until 1877. Just below this mill there had been a building, erected by Mr. Goodnow for a stave mill, and used later by Jolin W. Marks and John P. Badger as a furniture factory, which Mr. Mckenzie converted into a mill for making pearl barley. This building was burned.
Burke has had four starch factories. The first was built in the Hollow in 1846 by Elisha Marks for his brother, Ira. Elisha afterward acquired ownership, and ran the mill. Subsequent owners were Myron Derby, and Andrew Day in partnership at different periods with George B. Greene, John P. Badger and Everett Brothers. It was burned under the latter ownership in 1887.
The Sidney Paddock factory in the southwestern part of the town was built prior to 1854, probably by Andrew J. Day. In 1867, when the latter was operating the Marks mill, he invaded the Paddock terri- tory for stock, and the rivalry thus provoked jumped the price of pota- toes to forty-five cents per bushel, creating no little excitement and alarm among manufacturers in other towns. The statutes against com- binations in restraint of trade had not then been thought of, and a meeting of all the manufacturers in the county was held at Malone to consider the situation. It was finally agreed that Paddock and Day might fight out their own battle as they liked, but that elsewhere forty cents should be the maximum price. Starch sold in that year at better than seven cents a pound.
A factory was built in 1857 east of Burke Center by A. J. Day and William G. Dickinson of Malone. It burned in 1862 or 1863, and was rebuilt by the original owners. It was owned and run later by George T. Scovel alone and in partnership with W. W. & H. E. King of Malone, and with George B. Greene; then by Greene & King, Grant Wilmarth and Morse & Walker, who tore it down.
A fourth factory was built by J. J. Jameson in the northern part of the town, but was run for only a few years. It burned in 1878.
There were asheries of course in an early day; four in all; one by John Mitchell in the northeastern part of the town; one by Daniel Mitchell, near Thayer's Corners; one by Colonel Stiles, near Burke Center ; and one by Lewis & Andrus on the Canadian frontier. These bought black salts from the farmers, converted it into pearl ash, and sold the product in Montreal. It was for a long time the only commodity that was equivalent to cash.
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HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
The town had tanneries, too, but apparently not as soon after the first settlements as was usual in most places. Nathaniel Day had one in the vicinity of Thayer's Corners, the date of which I have been unable to ascertain. Nathaniel Witherell also had one later in the same locality, and Hezekiah Olin built one about 1850 in the Hollow, east of the bridge, and on the north side of the turnpike, where Hiram Cartwright afterward had a shop and planing mill, and still later James Toland had a cheese factory. A half mile distant, in the East Hollow, Joseph Featherston built one about 1858, which burned in 1860, when he built another south of the railroad, near the Adams saw mill, and combined a saw mill in the same building, together with a shoe and harness shop. This property, which was sold in 1864 to S. W. Gillett of Malone, burned in 1869.
Earlier than 1850 Moses Keefe and George Jordan had a cabinet shop in Taylor's Hollow, east of Burke Center, and at about the same time and in the same vicinity John Taylor had a chair factory, while from 1845 to 1849 Taylor & Baldwin operated a bedstead and wooden bowls factory below the Hawks saw mill, near where Sheldon A. Ells- worth now lives. The bedsteads were the old-fashioned post and rail variety, with seventy-two feet of rope in place of the modern slats and springs. E. F. Bellows had a tub and wheelwright shop' near the Hollow, which was burned in 1885, when James Danford built a planing mill on the same site. This was also burned about 1900.
Two quarries of a handsome, durable sandstone have been opened - one in the extreme southwestern and the other in the southeastern part of the town. The former was worked as early as 1850 for stone in building the old Northern Railroad, and then lay idle until 1876, when Sidney A. Paddock, its present owner, proceeded to develop it, and filled large orders from St. Albans, Vt., and from Chateaugay, Saranac Lake, Malone and other places - getting out great smooth flags. window sills, foundation facings, etc. The other was formerly owned by Daniel Crip- pen, and now by his sons, Martin and Fred. It was worked extensively a few years ago by "Jack " Anderson as lessee, whose principal market was Montreal. At present the Crippens themselves get out fine stone in limited quantities as orders come to them. But with the prevalent use of concrete for walks, curbing and even walls the quarries can not be operated profitably except on special orders where price is less a consideration than appearance.
Burke's hotels have been numerous. The first one was built prob- ably by Charles Dunham, as he had a liquor license in 1805 and 1806,
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issued by the town authorities of Chateaugay, and James Constable's diary of his visits to our county in 1805 notes that he stopped there on two occasions. Its location is not determinable, and probably it was not long in existence, as it had no license after 1806. Mr. Constable refers to it in one place as eleven miles from the southeast corner of the town of Constable and five miles from Chateaugay four corners, and elsewhere as if it were near the western border of Burke. Another inn of about the same period was built by James Hatch at least as early as 1806, as he was licensed in that year. It was located at the top of the hill west of the Hollow, and still stands, being occupied at present by William Porter as a residence. Other landlords there after Hatch were John Smith, Samuel Smith and Abram G. Smith, by whose estate the property is now owned. James Hatch was the father of Harry B. Hatch, a pioneer in the town of Franklin, the grandfather of Mrs. O. W. Moody and Harry Hatch of Malone, and the great grand- father of Charles H. Moody of the Franklin House, Malone. He was a militia lieutenant in 1817 and a captain in 1820. He removed to Ellenburgh about 1829, and kept a hotel there until his death.
Moses Eggleston had a hotel early east of the Hollow, and Norman Percy one in North Burke between 1840 and 1850. Joshua Beaman had one at a very early date a half mile west of Thayer's Corners, and Rufus Jones one in a log house just across the road. Chateaugay's town meet- ing was held in the latter in 1813, and the general election in the former in 1828 and 1832. Joseph Goodspeed had a tavern from 1831 to 1851 near the Center, and during a part of the same period Hiram Miner kept a temperance house where Fred Countryman now resides, about a third of a mile west of Goodspeed's. The sign. "Temperance House," is still partly traceable on the front of the building. Mr. Miner was the father of the wife of Rev. Andrew M. Millar. Prior to the time of Miner this house had been kept by Stephen Cook, and then by Nelson Cook.
Reuben Pike, Sr., had a hotel a mile west of the Hollow, at what is now the Fred Baldwin place. In 1844, as once since then, campaign- ing was carried on by parties traveling through the county with a four- horse rig, and a stop was made at this hotel. William A. Wheeler was one of the campaigners, and the party "refreshed " at the bar, when the best that the house afforded was served ; and out of the incident grew the expression " Pike's best," which everybody used to call for thereafter.
Samuel Smith built a hotel in 1847 or 1848 in the Hollow, on the
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east side of the river, kept it himself for a time, and had as successors, " Hank " Smith, George S. Adams, Henry Lord, Reuben Pike, Jr., David Schryer and Mary Wilson; the latter the same woman who kept the Hotel Wilson on Catherine street, Malone, when it was burned in 1913 with so awful a loss of life. The house was at times of a character that was very offensive to the good people of the place, and it burned during the tenancy of Mrs. Wilson.
Other hotels that have been located at the Hollow include one south of the railroad, kept by R. P. Shandrew; one in the N. W. Johnston house, since burned, on the site of Thomas Crawford's present resi- dence, kept by William Heading; one called the Eagle Hotel, the first door east of the Maple Leaf Hotel, kept by Mrs. Arthur Smith, mother of Fred Smith of the Smith House, Malone ; and the Maple Leaf Hotel, at the top of the hill on the east side of the river, kept by Henry Lapier. The last named is at present the only hotel in the town.
Burke has had at least nine creameries and two cheese factories. The first of the creameries was built in 1874 a mile west of north from the railroad station by Henry W. Bellows, and others, located in all dis- tricts of the town except south of the railroad, by Ralph N. Bassett, C. C. Mason, Eli Darling, Bromley & Cooper, George and Henry Jordan, Woodbury Wentworth and Ketcham & Bassett. One that was at the Hollow, which was afterward the Toland cheese factory, and one in the eastern part of the town are out of existence. The second cheese fac- tory is a feature of the milk shipping station at the railroad, where at the height of the season a million and a half pounds of milk are received per month, and at one time fifty to sixty thousand pounds of cheese made. The establishment's product now is candy. Some of those who have been proprietors of creameries additional to those who were builders are: Finney & Bromley, Wallace Pearson, Wal- lace Lyman, Jerome Coonley, Roy Clayton, the Columbia Creamery Company, Marshall White, Fred Turner, Myron Avery, A. H. Fay, Judson Santamo, Willard D. Williamson and Karl Walbridge. Fifteen to eighteen years ago the value of the product of these creameries aver- aged perhaps twelve to fifteen thousand dollars each per year, which the business of the milk shipping station must have lessened a good deal.
Probably the first store in Burke was that of Joseph Goodspeed near the Center, built in 1828, though Ashbel N. Sanford is sometimes cred- ited with having preceded him. If Sanford was in fact in trade it was before 1815, at a point west of Thayer's Corners. John Mitchell had
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a store on the Canadian frontier, in the extreme northeastern part of the town, but I think not until as late as about 1837. The place, but not the building, is the same that Minnie Perkins lately occupied, with no enviable reputation. Since Mitchell's time there have been, and are now, other "line" stores to the west, the buildings being partly in Canada and partly in New York. These have been kept by many different parties - Soper & Gurley, J. J. Jameson, Lewis & Andrus, Seymour L. Wyman, Leonard and John Bush, Cartwright & Perrigo, George Anderson and John Helm and others. The Bush store was burned some years ago, but four remain, viz .: J. J. Jameson's, John Patterson's, John B. Flynn's and Minnie Perkins's, now closed because she is in prison. Some of these were altogether respectable and legiti- mate in their business, though always when the profit seemed greater than the risk were a cloak for smuggling operations by their customers - which, of course, is not necessarily a reflection upon the proprietors. Others of these stores, whose stocks consisted largely of "Kentucky hardware," were now and again mere drinking resorts, and an offense to the community.
Merchants at Burke Center, besides Mr. Goodspeed, have included Ezra Stiles, Ezra Goodspeed, Thomas Williams, Dr. William Golding, Finney & Scovel and Lorenzo W. Thayer, whose store building is the same that Mr. Goodspeed erected ninety years ago; and at the Hollow, where there was little trading until 1848, Joseph Goodspeed. Samuel Smith and Elisha Marks as partners, and later Taylor & Mitchell, Marks & Derby, Lewis Arthur, Ezra S. Goodspeed, Day & Badger, Soper & Adams, Warren Clark, Lyman Brown, Everett Brothers, George B. Greene, William Day and Harvey Harrington. George A. Smith and George Jones are merchants there at the present time.
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