USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 27
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kind of feeble self-respect which was more a tradition than a reality ; " but Father De Pauw corrected disobedience and rebellion, organized temperance societies, and fought whiskey selling and whiskey drinking in the confessional and at the polls. His influence everywhere was for good, and he won the esteem and affection not only of his own people, but of the entire community. In 1885 three thousand confessions were made, and " whiskey law," the dances, the youthful immorality and the public scandals had disappeared. No equal work has ever been done by any priest in Northern New York, so far as I am aware, with the exception of that accomplished during a part of the same period by Rev. Father LeGrand and Rev: Father Blanchard in Malone. Since the completion of St. Patrick's church there have been expended in each of three or four years from five hundred to twenty-five hundred dollars (something like seven thousand dollars in all) for improvements - vestments, a bell, etc .- and also in 1890 the sum of seven thousand dollars for a parsonage. There are now about three hundred families in the parish, Burke, Ellenburgh and Cherubusco having been set off from it since Rev. Father De Pauw assumed charge half a century ago .*
There have been three distinct attempts to establish and maintain an Episcopal church in Chateaugay. The first had its inception in 1833, and had a feeble existence until 1839, during which time such services as were held were conducted by the rector of St. Mark's in Malone. In 1849 Henry B. and Elisha Smith, Oel Sunderlin, Theodore T. S. Beman and others organized St. Peter's church, which also had a languishing existence for three or four years, and was visited once by Bishop Hunt- ington. The services of this organization were held in the Presbyterian church. St. John's Church in the Village of Chateaugay was founded in 1869, and continued as an organization, though without much activity for most of the time, until 1891, when it was declared extinct. Until it erected a house of worship of its own, it occupied the Baptist church ; but services were irregular and infrequent except during one brief period when it had a resident missionary. The mortgage on its own building was eventually foreclosed, and the structure made over into a dwelling house by William L. Collins. It is now the property of the W. B. Ryan estate.
Chateaugay had a Masonic Lodge (Rainbow) as early as 1809, which,
* St. Patrick's church was struck by lightning on Wednesday evening, July 12, 1916, and the belfry flashed almost instantly into flame, which crept under the roof and soon enveloped the entire structure. Only the foundation walls and a mass of debris remained to mark the site. There was an insurance of $7,500 on the building and contents, most of the latter of which were saved. The loss was, of course, much greater.
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however, went out of existence in anti-Masonic times, something like twenty years later. A memorandum among Gates Iloit's papers states that when a British force was in Chateaugay in 1814 some of the men broke into the hall of Thomas Smith's tavern, which was the old Frank- lin House. burned in 1857, and which stood on the site of the present Beman Block, and stole a carpet and the lodge jewels. Mr. Hoit and Samuel Sanborn followed the British to Cornwall in the hope of regain- ing the stolen property, but were denied an interview with the com- mandant, and were ordered to leave the place forthwith; but before departing notified the officer in writing of the purpose of their visit. Though they were given no reply, the commandant must have com- municated the facts to Montreal Masons, as the latter afterward wrote that the missing articles had been taken into Upper Canada, and were not recoverable. However, the Montreal Masons sent in their place new jewels which were more valuable than those that had been stolen. A successor to Rainbow Lodge was chartered as Frontier Lodge, No. 517, June 6, 1862, which now has one hundred and thirty-five members.
Chateaugay Grange, No. 964, was organized in January, 1903, and has a present membership of one hundred and ninety.
Wadhams Council, No. 469, Knights of Columbus, was organized January 14, 1900, with fifty-three charter members, who have now increased to two hundred and thirty.
The Bank of Chateaugay was chartered as a State institution October 16, 1887. George Hawkins of Malone headed the movement to give the town banking facilities, and until his death was the bank's president. It prospered from the outset, and has been of great benefit to the place. Its charter having expired, expediency seemingly counseled liquidation, with the formation of a new bank under the national system, which began business October 16, 1907, with the late Bruce C. Bort as presi- dent. It has a capital of $75,500, surplus and undivided profits in September, 1917, aggregating $73,608.36, and deposits amounting to $429,435.48. It is the fourth largest bank in the county, and, as the figures show, it is strong and thoroughly sound, and its management is excellent.
B. F. Roberts Post No. 576, G. A. R., was organized in August, 1885 - the name supposedly having been taken in honor of the town's first settler, who was, however, B. S. instead of B. F. The name was changed to Admiral Bailey Post in 1890. Admiral Bailey was born in Chat- eaugay in 1805. The post had a hundred and twenty-five members at one time, and now has only fifteen.
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An agricultural society for the eastern towns of Franklin county and the western of Clinton county was organized in 1871, but no exhibitions were held. In October, 1906, the Chateaugay Agricultural Society for Bellmont, Chateaugay, Clinton, Ellenburgh and the surrounding coun- try was incorporated with a capital of $10,000. Grounds south of the railroad station were bought and fitted up with buildings and a race track, and annual exhibitions were held for four years, when a too ambitious offer of purses for trotting races (one of which was $10,000) brought the society to grief and bankruptcy. Its grounds were sold under mortgage foreclosure. James A. Farley, the strike breaker and owner of a number of fast horses, confident that he himself would win the race, guaranteed the purse, but when the horse of another came first under the wire he welched, and the society collapsed.
The first newspaper published in Chateaugay was the Journal, estab- lished June 4, 1867, by I. VanBuskirk and A. N. Merchant, with C. H. Boynton associated with it later. Its life was short, and after three or four years it was displaced by the Star, with Mr. Merchant as pub- lisher. T. K. Milne eventually bought the Star, and, failing to make a success of it, discontinued publication in 1877. The same year A. H. Merritt and Chas. H. Huntington of Malone started the Record, inde- pendent in politics, and sold in 1884 to Julius D. Beckwith. In 1892 Ferrell & Neher published the Franklin County Democrat as a cam- paign paper, and in the autumn of the same year bought the Record, consolidating the two. The Record is still published, with Frank W. Ferrell as editor and manager. Hon. Warren T. Thayer, now the county's representative in the Assembly, founded a new Chateaugay Journal in 1896, and after a few years sold it to A. W. Roberts, who continued its publication until his death, when Walter Murray bought the property. The office was destroyed by fire in 1906, and thus the paper died.
The Chateaugay Electric Light and Power Company, incorporated in 1894, with a capital of $6,000 and with Ernest A. Douglass owning nearly all of the stock, installed a plant at the Douglass grist mill, and for a few years lighted the streets, residences and business places. In 1902 the Chasm Power Company (present capitalization $35,000) was incorporated, with Charles L. Bentley president, and developed a superb power at the chasm. The dam is nearly fifty feet in height and the actual head ninety-odd feet, with an estimated potential develop- ment of twenty-five hundred horse power. After a few years the new company acquired the Douglass plant. which has since been dismantled.
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The Chasm Power Company's transmission lines extend into some of the farming districts of the town, to Brainardsville in Bellmont, and through Burke into Constable and Malone. Dr. John S. Van Vechten is the present president, R. R. Humphrey secretary, and E. S. Duffy treasurer. Dr. Van Vechten and Hon. Warren T. Thayer hold a majority of the stock.
The first creamery in Chateaugay, and the second in the county, was built by Adam M. Bennett south of the village in 1871, and was after- ward owned by B. O. Roulston. It was discontinued about 1909. Two or three others were built in 1872, and from that date onward ten or a dozen more. The builders were: Watson Sunderlin, Maple Grove Creamery, operated for only two or three years; Porter W. Douglas, Big Spring Creamery (once rented by C. C. Douglas), which went out of existence about 1900; William L. Collins, Maple Street Creamery, once burned, then rebuilt by C. C. Douglas, and afterward owned by Wills Bros., but closed within the past year or two; W. S. Douglas, east of the village, and run only four or five years ; Don E. Seabury, Board- man Spring Creamery, built about 1878, and owned later by George Green, who discontinued it about 1888; Tim. Costello, in the Quaker settlement, about 1878, and operated afterward by A. W. Miller until about 1906, when it burned; Sam. Cook and Harrison Hill, near the confluence of the Marble and Chateaugay rivers, about 1878, and operated for three or four years, when it burned; Selden Phelps, Crystal Spring Creamery, prior to 1876, in the southern part of the town, and afterward owned by W. B. Ryan, and then by O. F. Chase ; Charles L. Bentley, on River street, about 1893, but operated for only two or three years, and also the Electric Creamery, near the railroad, which has become a part of the Spellman produce store; Ira Doud, in the Jericho district in 1885, which was burned after five or six years : a stock company, in the Jericho district, now known as the Alder Spring Creamery and owned by J. E. Leach ; and a stock company in the village in 1909. The only creameries now in operation are the Alder Spring and the stock company's in the village. Ralph Swinburne built a cheese factory in the northern part of the town in 1842, and operated it for several years.
The establishment of a milk shipping station by the Sheffield Farms Slawson Decker Company about 1910 has doubtless been a contributory cause to the closing of some of the creameries, and it would not be sur- prising if it should eventually shut up the two that have managed to survive, for it pays more for milk than a creamery can earn for its
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patrons in making fifty-cent butter. This concern in the season of flush production in 1916 distributed to the farmers $25,000 a month, and is now of such volume even in the winter that its milk pur- chases are a third more in dollars, with expectation that they will at times mount to $75,000 or more per month. The prices paid by it in 1917 for three and eight-tenths per cent. milk ranged from $1.80 to $3.60 per hundred pounds, and for milk richer in butter fat it paid as much as $3.95. In 1917 it acquired additional land, and began a work of alteration and enlargement which will involve an expenditure of about a quarter of a million dollars. It is to make condensed milk, and has a contract with the government for its entire product. This line of business is said to be very profitable, and will enable the company to pay high prices for milk.
The story of the many mills which at various times have lined the streams in Chateaugay runs to a period too remote and is too involved to make present recital of it in detail possible. Of the grist mills the first was built by Elisha Howard in Platt's Hollow in 1797 for Nathaniel Platt of Plattsburgh, though Hough tells that even before this David Mallory had hollowed the top of a stump, bowl shaped, and, suspending a pestle above it from the limb of a tree, undertook with so rude a contrivance to crush the scant crop of corn raised in the locality. What became of the Platt mill no one appears to know, though the premises would seem to have been owned thirty-odd years later by Benjamin Blackmore. Doubtless the next real grist mill was built by William Bailey, earlier than 1806, which he sold in 1817 to George W. Douglass and Simeon Bellows. It was situate on the west bank of Chateaugay river, a mile west of the village, and in 1835 was replaced by the present mill, on the east bank. Bellows sold his interest in 1823 to John Scriver, and he to Douglass in 1839. The property has remained ever since in the Douglass family, but has been idle for a number of years. Next came the mill in the northern part of the town, at Earlville, which was built by Reuben Church at an unknown date, and sold by him in 1852 to David and John Craik. It passed out of existence about twenty years later. In 1859 John A. Sabin and John B. Bort built a grist mill on the Boardman Brook, in the village, which was bought by Willard S. Alvord and W. W. Scriver in 1868 - Scriver selling in 1872 to Alvord, who continued to operate it until it was burned, a number of years later. Still another mill was built by Mr. Bort in 1868, on the Chateaugay river, just above the Douglass prop- erty. It passed to the ownership of Eli B. Smith, who sold it in 1874
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to William W. Seriver and John W. Roberts, who operated it for several years. It was dismantled eight or ten years ago.
The sawmills have been numerous, but none of them large. The first was erected in 1797 or 1:98 for Mr. Platt, near the grist mill in Platt's Hollow. William Bailey is understood to have built one carly, but at what point is unknown. Simeon Bellows had one near the Douglass grist mill, and leased it in 1822 to George W. Douglass. It was burned. Of the many others only the following are traceable, and even as to these dates and chains of ownership can not be followed with certainty : William Hilliker, John Vernal very early, George Hilliker, Rufus Copps, Alfred Copps, Alexander Lewis, John H. Keese in 1833, Thomas Ben- nett, James Brown and Hiram Palmer (afterward leased to Henry B. Smith, and then to John P. Badger), Eli B. Smith and Willard S. Alvord -eleven mills in all on the Marble river, some of them more than three-quarters of a century ago: Ephraim Percy and Comfort Brayton at Brayton Hollow, the Percy mill having been owned later by Garret Percy. William Wood, and John P. Badger and John A. Johns- ton, and that of Brayton having been built by George Beach before 1834; Samuel Cook, a short distance below Brayton and Percy ; Frank Atwater, above Brayton, and owned subsequently by Samuel Stewart, and then by Ezra Sweet ; Edward Lancto, about 1850, near High Falls ; Reuben S. Church, in the northern part of the town, at an unknown date, but sold to the Craiks in 1851, and by them to William Philp; Selden Phelps, near the Bellmout line -the property going later to Oscar F. Chase; and Harrison Hill in the northern part of the town. It was from this mill that Mr. Hill, then an ardent Democrat, drew a load of slabs to the village for a bonfire in celebration of the election of President Cleveland, and in his enthusiasm burned the wagon as well as the slabs. The Alvord mill was erected as a steam mill because the flow of water in the Boardman brook had been diminished by taking the spring as a source of supply for the village, and its surplus power was used in operating the grist mill. The only sawmill now in operation is one in the village, owned by Harrison Hill, and operated by steam power.
A planing mill which did a large business and employed a dozen or fifteen men was built by George T. Hall near the railroad station in 1873, but was torn down after a few years.
There used to be six starch factories in the town, which were under many changes of ownership during their existence. One was built near High Falls by Clark A. Patterson ; one in the extreme southern part of
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the town by George T. Hall, who had as partners later Wm. S. Douglas and Christopher Briggs, and which was owned also by Douglas & Chase ; one on Marble river, built by Thomas Bennett, and then owned by Adams & Jenkins, and finally by Jenkins alone ; one on the same stream, near its junction with the Chateaugay, which numbered among its owners George B. Greene, John P. Badger, Andrew J. Day, George T. Hall, and John B. Hayes; one by Patterson and Douglass, on Marble river ; and one at or near the site of the Craik grist mill, built in 1873 by W. W. & H. E. King, of Malone. Destruction of starch mills by fire was not infrequent, and the Greene factory was burned twice in as many years.
The first tannery was built by Jacob Smith on his farm in the north- eastern part of the town, and the second probably by his son, Colonel Thomas Smith, on the Boardman brook. At least it was sold by him in 1829 to William V. Derby, remaining in the Derby family until 1876, though leased during the Civil War to Enoch Miller of Malone, and in 1872 to Clark Brothers. In 1876 William S. Douglas bought it, and in association with his son, Hiram A., enlarged it to a mammoth establishment, in which over a hundred men were employed. Market conditions for leather were then unfavorable, and the concern lost money. It was burned in 1891. Had this misfortune been averted and business continued a few years longer, the tannery would have earned a fortune, as prices became higher almost at once after the fire. Calvin S. Douglass had a small tannery near his grist mill about 1885. Harvey Higgins operated it for him.
Edgar A. Keeler erected a foundry on the Boardman brook, near the tannery, in 1861, and operated it until 1865, when he sold to P. L. Lyman and Samuel M. Moore, but came into ownership again five years later. During the Lyman-Moore control they added and ran a carding mill. The building was destroyed by fire in 1871.
In 1892 Alexander Johnston and Bruce C. Bort, operating under the name Chateaugay Pulp Company, built a pulp mill a half a mile above the High Falls. Afterward William Johnston came into sole owner- ship, and the property is still operated and owned by his estate.
In 1895 Charles E. Martin and J. Ovette Smith of Plattsburgh and Bruce C. Bort, John S. Van Vechten, Daniel S. Coonley and Adam M. Bennett of Chateaugay organized the High Falls Pulp Company, capitalized at fifty thousand dollars, and built a pulp mill at the High Falls. Some of the original stockholders dropped out, and B. S. W. Clark bought an interest. The capital was increased to one hundred
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and fifty thousand dollars, and a paper mill was added. The business is still continued, and is prosperous. New York World interests are the present owners .*
The Chateaugay Excelsior Company was incorporated by W. T. Thayer, A. M. Bennett, R. R. Humphrey and C. L. Bentley in 1902, and the Star Excelsior Company by W. T. Thayer, F. W. Beman and Dr. J. W. Campbell in 1907. The Globe Excelsior Company was incor- porated in 1907 by C. L. Bentley, Adam M. Bennett and Floyd Shu- felt. Each of these companies built and operated a mill. That of the Globe was bought by the Chateaugay in 1910, and the Star was burned in 1911. The present stockholders in the Chateaugay Company are W. T. Thayer, A. M. Bennett and D. E. Seabury. There are few lines of manufacturing which experience a wider range of activity and depression, and when prosperity prevails the returns are exceptionally good. In one year one of these companies paid dividends of two hundred per cent.
If public inns offered less luxurious accommodations in the olden time than those of to-day, the wayfarer had at least a wider choice then, for a tavern was to be found every two or three miles throughout this section. Most of them were at first merely the rude farm residences of the landlords, with a spare room or two for guests, and some were only log cabins. Their customers were altogether either residents who patronized the bar or immigrants from New England requiring a night's lodging and a meal or two on their way to the locations which they had in mind for homes farther to the west. A little later the taverns became a bit more pretentious, but fewer in number, and the distance between them greater. These were usually relay points for a change of the stage coach horses, such changes being made once in every eight or ten miles. The Chateaugay town records show no less than nine licenses granted to taverns in 1806, and I am told that the fee at that time and for a number of years subsequently was three dollars each. Two of the nine were located in what is now Burke, and one in Clinton. The other six of the licenses were to Chauncey Mooers at a point two and a half miles east of the present village; Abner Pomeroy, in the eastern part of the town, or possibly just across the Clinton county line, which was desig- nated in a military order in 1813 as the place where one detachment of American troops should be stationed; and James Ormsbee, Aaron Beman, Nathan Beman and Jesse Ketcham, all of whom except
* This mill was burned April 28, 1918, with an estimated loss of $300,000; insurance, $250,000. It is to be rebuilt, larger than before.
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perhaps Ketcham lived within the present village limits. Ketcham's loca- tion I have been unable to fix, but incline to the opinion that it was near the Burke line. In 1810 these same town records show licenses granted to Barnabas Hatch (the father of James in Burke), whose inn was located about two miles west of Chateaugay village; to John Vernal, who was then at the Chauncey Mooers stand; to Samuel Person, two miles south of the Corners; and to Ralph Shepard and Amos Eldridge, in the village. In 1811 Colonel Thomas Smith was licensed. Accord- ing to the best information that I am able to obtain, Colonel Smith had then built the Franklin House, which stood on the northeast of the Four Corners, and which was continued as a hotel under different land- lords until it burned in 1857. It was kept at one time by Harry Hilliker, and later by Fred Vaughn and Cartwright. Other pioneer landlords were Buckley Johnson, Ashbel and John Sanborn, and William G. and Samuel Roberts. Nicholas Hall had a hotel a number of years later in the now seemingly unsuitable locality about a mile west of the village, Garret Percy one in Brayton Hollow, and Deacon Roberts one on the Boardman brook. The Vernal hotel was sold in 1831 to William Hilliker, who conducted it then for a short time, and again for many years. A part of the original house is still standing, and is occupied by Melvin Hilliker. L. E. Risley was land- lord here for two years, as lessee from Hilliker, when he built a new house near by, on the county line. It was burned twice within two years. Risley continued to keep it until 1852. The Roberts House, now the Chateau, was originally a log structure, built in 1837 by John and Alonzo Roberts, who were landlords there for a considerable time, and who replaced the log with a frame building. Among their successors have been Chauncey Smith, Samuel Roberts, Timothy Ladd, George Ladd & William Mansfield, Julius D. Roberts, George Howe, Luke Brooks & Jefferson Roberts, Cyrel Hutchins, W. H. Finn, Dwyer & Jenkins, and now Thomas Dwyer. Jenkins & Dwyer practically rebuilt and modernized the house a few years ago. The Union House was originally the residence of Theodorus Roberts, and fronted on Main street. When the Mitchell and Jackson block was erected it was moved. a little to the south and made to face on Depot street. Included among its proprietors have been T. P. Roberts, Alanson Roberts, M. A. Knap- pin, Hoel S. Farnsworth & Son, Silas W. Hatch, Jacob Morgan, John Duffin, Robert Simpson, and now Mrs. Duffin. The proceedings of the board of supervisors for 1857 show that Mr. Knappin presented a curious petition. It recited that he had paid forty dollars for a license,
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and demanded a return of the money because the license had failed to give him a monopoly of the liquor traffic- grocers and others having engaged in the business without licenses. Of course Mr. Knappin's petition was ignored.
General Winfield S. Scott was once a visitor to Chateaugay on a military tour of inspection - probably at about the time of the Cana- dian rebellion, when United States troops were stationed along the border for enforcement of the neutrality law. The story is told that his gigantie size (he is said to have weighed three hundred and thirty pounds) occasioned a good deal of comment, whereupon one resident declared that there was a still bigger man living in the vicinity, viz., Matthew Reynolds at Brainardsville. Dispute arising over the claim, a yoke of oxen was sent to Brainardsville for Mr. Reynolds, upon whose arrival it was shown that he weighed thirty pounds more than General Scott.
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