USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 26
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States customs officials, but before they could be driven to safety were wrested from the officers by a British raid. It is told as an incident of this affair that an American soldier leveled his musket at Mr. Douglas and would have taken his life had not John Day struck the gun aside at the instant of its discharge, thus sending the bullet wild. Mr. Hoit acted for a long time as the selling and collecting agent for owners of Chateaugay lands who lived in Albany, New York and elsewhere. He was the grandfather of Mrs. G. G. Gurley of Malone. William Bailey, also a conspicuous personage, an extensive land owner, and engaged in many activities, came from Dutchess county in 1796 or 1797. The house in which he lived was on Depot street and still stands. He was the father of Admiral Theodorus Bailey, the hero of the taking of New Orleans in 1863, who was born in Chateaugay in 1805. Mr. Bailey was elected by Clinton and Essex connties to the Assembly in 1801 and by Clinton alone in 1805, was first judge of the court of common pleas in 1806, and was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress the same year. About 1803 or 1804 he opened the Bellows ore mine in Bellmont, and built a forge near the High Falls in Chateaugay. He is said to have built a paper mill also at about the same time near the same point, but accounts are at variance as to whether this mill was ever operated, and possibly it never existed. He built, too, a saw mill and the Douglass grist mill in 1806 or earlier. He removed to Plattsburgh in 1811, and died there in 1840. While in Chateaugay he owned one or two slaves. Justin Day located near what is now the Burke line, and had four sons, to each of whom he gave a farm. John, one of the sons, was the father of Henry S., recently deceased at ninety years of age, and the last sur- vivor of the family. Aaron Beman became sheriff in 1833, and after the expiration of his term made his home in Malone. Isaac Sebring. though never an actual resident, his home and business having been in New York city, one of whose districts sent him to the Assembly in 1809, 1810 and 1811, was intimately associated with the affairs of the town, and passed a good deal of time there. He and Theodorus Van Wyck, also of New York, were joint owners of several thousand acres of land in the town as early as 1806, and still earlier made many mortgage loans to settlers who were in need. Mr. Sebring evinced a zealous interest in the organization of the Congregational church, and besides giving liberally himself to erect a church building secured considerable subscriptions for it from his city friends. He was the grandfather of Dr. John S. Van Vechten and Mrs. Nellie Munger.
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It is impracticable of course to follow the history of all of the pio- neers and their families, but mention must be made of a few of the second generation who became especially prominent. Chief of these was Henry B. Smith, the son of Thomas, who began business life as a merchant, branched out into lumbering and real estate investment, became first judge of the court of common pleas in 1843, and was State Senator in 1852 and 1853, deputy collector of customs at Chateaugay for a long period, and collector of the district of Champlain from about 1853 to 1861. He was a keen, farsighted business man, a capable and controlling politician, and remarkably successful in all of his under- takings. His fortune at the time of his death was probably the largest that any one in the county had accumulated up to that time. Gideon Collins, who came in 1803, was first judge of the court of common pleas, and his son, George C., a man of the highest character and of excellent abilities, was school commissioner from 1869 to 1871. The latter was the father of William L. of Chateaugay and of Grant G. of Malone. Though of a still later generation, Daniel F. Soper and George G. Gurley left their impress upon the place, and afterward became promi- nent in Malone. The former was elected sheriff in 1860, and the latter in 1863. Others of worth and prominence include Daniel S. Coonley, Dr. Hial S. Farnsworth, Major John A. Sabin, John Hughes, James Mitchell, Dr. William Mott, John McCoy, Levi N. Stevens (whose son, Henry, has become one of the leading attorneys of Los Angeles, Cal.), and of course others too numerous to mention, though it must not be omitted to name Dr. A. M. Phelps, who, though located here for only a short time, was yet an appreciable factor in the town, and afterward, as a practitioner in New York city, became one of the most brilliant and skilful surgeons in the State.
The Roberts, Douglas, Douglass (there were two distinct lines). Smith and Beman families were prolific. and some of them addicted to the perpetuation of favorite Christian names to the degree that there were John first, second, third and fourth, and Samuel first, second and third. There was a good deal of intermarrying, and relationships became close and then involved. The survivors to-day are pathetically few.
Chateaugay was an important point on the northern frontier in the war of 1812. At the very beginning of the conflict a detachment of regulars under Colonel John E. Wool (afterward a general in the war with Mexico and in the civil war) and Colonel Snelling was stationed
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in the northern part of the town for a short time. In the winter of 1813 a smaller body of troops under Captain Braddum York was there, and at this time a petition, signed by Gates Hoit and others, and approved by Captain York, was presented to the Governor, praying for the com- pletion of a block house, already partly built, and with timber and other material for it assembled on the ground. The Governor subse- quently sent Mr. Hoit one hundred dollars for the project, which had been consummated by the people themselves before the receipt of the money. This block house was situate on the west side of the road, about three-quarters of a mile north of the Four Corners, and not far from Marble river. Captain David Erwin's company was stationed at it for a time. Afterward another block house, called Fort Hickory, was built in the northeastern part of the town, and in it Samuel Hollenbeck alone stood off a party of Canadians who attempted its capture. In the late summer of 1813 General Hampton arrived with an army of several thousand men, who camped on the ground now bounded by the railroad on the south and by Depot street on the east ; at a point on the Johnston farm, about forty rods north of the Catholic church ; and in the vicinities of the two block houses. During this period there was a skirmish with British invaders or raiders on the Coonley farm, now almost in the heart of the village, in which the enemy was driven off. Six Americans are said to have been killed, while the British loss is unknown. Local tradition attributes the attack to a purpose to draw the Americans into an ambush in Canada. It was from Chateaugay that General Hampton invaded Canada, only to be humiliatingly defeated by a greatly inferior force, and shamefully driven back to his encampments. After his crim- inal withdrawal of his army from Chateaugay to Plattsburgh in the autumn of 1813, in practical desertion of General Wilkinson, with whom it had been planned that he should operate against Montreal, other smaller bodies of troops occupied Chateaugay from time to time (a detachment from General Wilkinson's army under Colonel Bissell com- prising one of them) until evacuation in February, 1814, when the Brit- ish poured in for a day or two - proceeding east as far as Marble river, and seizing a good deal of private property as well as military stores that had been abandoned by the Americans. Not a little of the private belongings so taken was rum. Sickness had prevailed to an alarming degree in General Hampton's army, and something like fifty soldiers were buried near the lot on which Thomas Eaton now lives on Depot street, and perhaps an equal or a larger number on the Johnston farm. The gruesome work of burial was performed by John Day. The block
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house near Marble river was burned at about the close of the war, supposedly set on fire by a Canadian.
The next diversion after the war was scheming for bounties on noxious animals. In 1817 the town voted bounties additional to those offered by the State and county for wolves, "painters," bears, foxes and even crows, blackbirds and squirrels. The amount voted for a wolf was fifteen dollars, for a panther thirty dollars, for a fox four dollars, and for a crow one dollar. The amount to be paid by the town for a wolf was later increased to twenty dollars, making with the State and county bounty sixty dollars for cach wolf killed. But the hunters were not satisfied to receive simply what they might honestly claim under the system, and, operating with collusive officials, would collect a number of bounties on a single pate, or even palm off dogs' heads for those of wolves. To reconcile resident taxpayers to these fraudulent practices, the hunters paid the taxes of these, and thus the State at large and non-resident land owners were the only ones who suffered in money, though it must be assumed that others must have lost in self- respect. The story of these frauds is told more fully in another chapter.
Chateaugay has not been without its calamities and tragedies. On July 4, 1841, while firing a national salute on Depot street, the man whose part was to thumb the vent of the cannon became careless, with the result that when the next charge was rammed home fire caught it prematurely, and Cornelius Hugaboom (father of Samuel G. of Malone) was so horribly burned that he died, and a man named Mason had his arm torn off - the injury proving fatal. The ramrod that was torn out of the hands of these two struck a girl at the hotel on the corner below. and injured her severely. The girl was one of a group of twenty-six assembled on the hotel balcony to represent the different States.
At Brayton Hollow about 1850 two young men and three young ladies - James Ayers, Garret Percy, Maria Crippen, Eunice Dailey and Sophronia Perey - were enjoying a boat ride on a mill pond, when the boat struck a submerged limb and overturned. All were drowned. Hundreds gathered to join in the search for the bodies, two of which were recovered where the water was less than four feet deep. Mrs. Matilda Foster, the fortune teller of Burke, was called to direct the search, and is said to have pointed out the place where some of the bodies would be found. The event occasioned widespread horror and sorrow, and the funeral services for all of the victims, held in a grove in the vicinity, were attended by practically every person in town.
In October, 1851, Willie, son of John Kane, aged four years, wandered
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from his home in the southern part of the town. The father and neigh- bors searched vainly for him through the night and the two succeeding days, when some wretch, callous to the father's grief and anxiety, gave a further tragic phase to the case by insinuating that, the ground having been covered foot by foot for a considerable distance without finding the child, the father must have killed him in a paroxysm of rage, and secreted the body. Philander Deming told the story graphically in one of his Adirondack tales some twenty years later -how Mr. Kane instantly called a meeting at the school house, and with amazing calm- ness and yet righteously indignant confronted those assembled, deny- ing with dignity the aspersion, and characterizing it as a lie. The search was resumed after a few days, when " Logan " ( Elijah Heading of Bellmont), while on his way to join the searchers, stumbled upon the body on the bank of Little Trout river, three miles from Mr. Kane's home. The child was the brother of Mrs. John R. Bush and of Harvey Kane of Malone.
In 1856 a tornado swept through the central part of Chateaugay. An account published at the time stated that in the village there was " com- plete desolation ; not a building escaped injury, and many were com- pletely destroyed," while farther cast in the town sixty to seventy struc- tures were destroyed or seriously damaged, and to the west like devasta- tion was wrought. In the village alone one hundred and twenty-eight dwelling houses, four stores and the Catholic church were wrecked, and the Methodist and Presbyterian churches and three school houses were injured. Many were made destitute, and relief was provided by con- tributions from Malone and other places. In August, 1885, a wind and hail storm broke large quantities of window glass and severely damaged the crops of more than sixty farmers and many gardens. The estimated loss was thirty thousand dollars.
In 1858, when a new Baptist church was in course of erection, the roof timbers fell, and injured a dozen workers - some of them very severely.
During the 1868 campaign the Grant and Colfax Tanners' Club of Malone attended a political rally at Chateaugay, wearing their uniforms and carrying banners and torches. Party spirit ran high everywhere, and in few places was partisanship more virulent than in Chateaugay. After parading through the principal streets of the village the procession was entering the hall where the speaking was to occur when a gang of toughs directed a shower of brickbats and stones upon the members. A number of persons were badly cut and bruised, one of whom (Millard Greeno of Malone) so severely that he never recovered.
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A fire in the business section of the village in 1867 wiped out prop- erty of the estimated value of twenty-five thousand dollars. In 1891 the Douglas tannery, employing a hundred and fifty men, was burned, with a claimed loss to the owners of sixty-five thousand dollars and the loss to the village of an industry whose pay-roll was five hundred dollars per day, and that had contributed largely to its prosperity. In Jan- uary, 1893, with the wind blowing a gale and the temperature at twenty- five degrees below zero, a fire swept eastward from River street, destroy- ing the entire business quarter on the north side of Main street, with first figures of loss placed at a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, though this was probably an overestimate. Yet a fourth fire in 1915, west from River street, involved a loss of about twenty-five thousand dollars.
The village of Chateaugay was incorporated in 1868. Its present (1915) population is 1,196, which is a gain of 151 since 1910. The place has about everything needed to make it attractive and residence in it comfortable. It has a strong bank quartered in a fine building, one of the best school houses and the very best town house in the county, good church buildings, a gravity system of water works, established in 1880 by a private corporation with a capital of ten thousand dollars, which takes its supply from springs that are the source of Boardman brook, and which affords a good pressure for fire purposes. The village is electrically lighted, its main street is brick paved, and since 1895 it has had a public sewer system. Its store buildings are principally two and three story brick structures of a substantial character, and the mercantile establishments are enterprising and well stocked. The town house is the outgrowth of a benefaction of William Johnston, Jr., who bequeathed six thousand dollars to build it. But the town determined that if it were to have anything of the kind it would have nothing less than a structure that should be adequate and entirely satisfactory. It therefore voted three separate appropriations, aggregating thirty-four thousand dollars, to add to the bequest, and proceeded in 1910 to erect an edifice in which the two polling places are accommodated, and containing an office for the town clerk and a large assembly hall for town meetings, with rooms to rent for a post-office and other business uses, and a cosy and neat theatre, with a seating capacity of more than six hundred, for entertainments.
In a historical sermon in 1876 the pastor of the Presbyterian church stated that the first religious service in Chateangay was held in 1801 or 1802 by a Presbyterian clergyman named Huntington, and that the
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organization of the Congregational church, in 1816, was effected by Rev. Ashbel Parmelee of Malone and Rev. James Jordan of Potsdam. All local records of the society of date earlier than 1830 having dis- appeared, only fragmentary particulars are obtainable concerning the movement during the fifteen years following its inception. The three clergymen named are understood each to have visited the place occas- ionally during this interval as missionary preachers, and the minutes of the Presbytery of Champlain show that Rev. Jacob Hart was ordained there in 1822. Mr. Hart is known to have been pastor for several years subsequently, and since his time the church has had resi- dent pastors continuously except as a vacancy may have existed now and then for a few weeks or possibly a few months. Prior to 1822 the school house had been used in common with the Baptists for a place of worship, but the latter claimed right of occupancy for three-quarters of the time, which meant contention between the denominations or that other accommodations must be had. The difficulty was surmounted through the generosity of Isaac Sebring, who provided a meeting place for a time at his own expense. Then, in 1825, steps were taken looking to the erection of a church edifice, Mr. Sebring securing subscriptions to the amount of $228 and two hundred and forty-five acres of land from his city friends, and himself giving the sum of $469.42, The frame was raised in 1828, Mr. Sebring taking pains in his report of the affair to state that the work proceeded " in great harmony, without acci- dent, dispute or intoxication." The building was not completed until 1842. In the same year the form of organization was changed from Congregational to Presbyterian. The society had included Burke until 1845, when twenty-five of its members were given letters of dismission to form a church of their own in the then new town. The church build- ing was wrenched and unroofed by the tornado of 1856, and was repaired and inclosed with brick at a cost of three thousand dollars. Further improvements were made in 1866, and ten years later new fur- nishings and a new organ were procured. The old edifice having come to be regarded as not commensurate with the wealth and necessities of the society, it was razed in 1902, and the present building erected on the same site at a cost of nearly ten thousand dollars. The society is clear of debt, and has a membership of about one hundred and twenty.
Methodism had a beginning in Chateaugay at about the same time with Congregationalism, as Rev. Henry Ryan, a circuit rider, visited the town in 1802, and three years afterward a class of six members was formed, with Benjamin Emmons as leader. It is supposed that from
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1805 Methodist services were held more or less irregularly, but by whom until 1831 I have no knowledge except that Rev. James Erwin says that "Barzillia Willey, James Covel, Jonathan Newman, William Chase, Isaac Puffer and others carried the gospel through the valleys of St. Lawrence and Franklin counties from the year 1800." The first regular appointment by conference to Chateaugay was that of Rev. Lyndon King in 1831. Mr. King had been a Bangor man, a brother of John, Rev. Rufus and Harry King, and was the father of the late Alden King, of Malone, and of former Congressman William King, deceased, of Minnesota, and an uncle of William A. King and a great uncle of Floyd P. King, of Malone. At the time of his Chateaugay appointment he had just been ordained, having previously been a local preacher. He is said to have been a good sermonizer, and especially strong in exhortation; but after a time he became discontented, and went over to the Wesleyan Methodist denomination ; then denounced all church organization; became a spiritualist : and by his own arrange- ment his funeral sermon was preached by a Universalist. In 1835 Mr. Erwin was sent to Chateaugay in charge, with Harris Kingsley, a local preacher, and John E. Stoddard as co-workers. According to Mr. Erwin, the latter had been in the district at that time for several years, which suggests that Chateaugay must have had Methodist ministration for some time preceding the location there of Mr. King. Chateaugay circuit at this period had a circumference of four hundred miles - extending south into Bellmont, west to the Malone line, north over to Covey Hill and down to Lachine in Canada; it included Ellensburgh also. It required six weeks for a rider to cover the territory, and thus, with three men working, each appointment averaged to be given a service once in two weeks. Mr. Erwin portrays then conditions vividly. A circuit rider's outfit included a horse, saddle, saddle-bags, and a book or two; and his dress was a white or drab fur hat, a cape
and clothes made as plain as possible, forming a sort of uniform, so that "you could tell a Methodist preacher anywhere by his dress." His pay was a hundred dollars a year if he were single, with a hundred dollars additional if married, together with an allowance of sixteen dollars for each child under seven years of age, and of twenty-four dollars for each child between the ages of seven and fourteen years, and also of from twenty-five to fifty dollars for "table and feed." For his own first year in the ministry as a circuit rider Mr. Erwin received only fifty dollars, and even divided that amount with his associate rider, who was a man of family. A rider customarily traveled from fifteen to thirty miles on a Sunday, always on horseback, and spent from six to eight
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hours in meetings. At the first service which Mr. Erwin held in Chateaugay, in a stone school house in the northern part of the town, people came from points fifty miles distant, and residents in the locality entertained them all - some single households caring for as many as twenty or thirty each, and even on this scale a part of the visitors had to be lodged three miles away and others in barns, so scant was the population. The occasion was a quarterly meeting; and for lovefeast on Sunday morning, the school house proving insufficient to hold the crowd, the barn of Amaziah. Smith was used. The temperature was below zero, a carpenter's bench served for a pulpit, and seats were arranged in the stable, on the barn floor and in the haymow and even on the hayloft. Rev. Silas Comfort, the presiding elder, was present, accompanied by another nonresident preacher. Judge of the character of the country at this time from Mr. Erwin's statement that on his journeys in Canada he had to sleep in a straw bunk or in a trundlebed with the children, shivering from cold; fowls roosting overhead, and pigs and calves at his feet ; and breakfasting with benumbed hands and wearing his overcoat and muffler. Mr. Erwin says, further, that in Canada wolves then traveled in large packs, while panthers and bears abounded, so that when moving to an appointment at night he had to be accompanied by a guard, carrying firebrands and rifles. Even under such conditions it was customary to proceed shouting hymns, and to stop now and then to hold a prayer meeting in the snow. The first church building erected by the Methodists in Chateaugay was not pro- vided until 1854. The tornado two years later damaged it badly. but it was soon repaired, and answered the needs of the society until 1880, when it was demolished, and the present commodious and substantial brick building erected on the same site at a cost of about twelve thou- sand dollars. The church is free from debt, and has two hundred and thirty members. A Methodist Episcopal church was built at Earleville in 1891.
A Baptist church was formed under the leadership of Elder Isaac Sawyer in 1817, with eleven members, and there were never enough accessions to make the organization really strong. The erection of a church building was begun in 1820 on Depot street, two or three doors south of the Chateau, and it was eighteen years later when it was finished. The parish had originally included West Chateaugay, where, when Burke was erected in 1844, two-thirds of the members resided, and organized a new church - leaving the mother body weaker than ever. Nevertheless the Depot street church was deemed unsatisfactory
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and insufficient, and in 1858 construction of a new one was begun on Franklin street - services being held while the work was in progress in the Presbyterian church. The society, becoming gradually more and more feeble, finally went out of existence, and about 1899 its church building on Franklin street was demolished to make place for dwelling houses.
Though resident Catholics preferred formal request to Bishop Hughes as early as 1840 for assignment of a resident missionary priest to the place, Chateaugay continued to remain a part of the Hogansburgh parish until 1849, and then of Malone until 1863. In 1844, however. Rev. James Keveney of Hogansburgh procured a church building to be erected, but so far as is known no priest held service in it, or even visited the town except in response to occasional sick calls, until Rev. Father McCabe of Malone assumed charge in 1849, and said mass at such infrequent times as he could make opportunity. The church build- ing was destroyed by the tornado of 1856, and rebuilding was begun under the direction of Rev. Father Thaves of Malone. It remained, however, for Rev. Father Edmond De Pauw, who in 1863 was trans- ferred from the post of assistant at Malone to be pastor of the newly formed St. Patrick's church of Chateaugay, to finish the work. The charge then embraced Burke, Ellenburgh and Cherubusco, and included nearly six hundred Irish and French families. During the first year of Father De Pauw's ministration here one hundred and fifty persons were confirmed at one time, and during the year 1868 five hundred. As to conditions prevalent when Father De Pauw assumed charge and as to the results wrought under him I condense from a Catholic writer, the Rev. J. Talbot Smith, who apparently felt privileged to say what a Protestant might hesitate to write: The people had been practically without restraint for forty years, "and their moral conduct found no guide or corrective except those which innumerable whiskey shops and unlimited dancing were able to supply. * * * The church itself was little better than a barn, with no pews, badly heated, and so unfinished that the snow found entrance, and the sacred wine froze in the chalice. When the priest made preparations to introduce pews into the church, the twelve trustees protested, and, finding their protest vain, resigned. A collection was announced for the second Sunday to raise funds for purchasing wine, breads, altar furniture and other necessaries. Twenty- five coppers were collected. * * A people with little faith and low morals, spending their substance on drink, and their virtue and health in riotous living and drunkenness, spurred to attend church only by a
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