USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 31
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85
Denison S. Smith came with his parents to Hopkinton in 1833, and for years thereafter his life was full of hardship and privation - his clothes in winter being wholly of cotton, and work in the woods even in childhood being required of him. Indeed, his people were so poor that the boy's shoes were made by his father from old boot legs, and his stockings from shreds of wool picked up a bit at a time from bushes and fence corners where a neighbor's sheep had shed it, and cleansed, carded by hand and spun and knit by his mother. Even his summer hats were braided by his mother winter evenings from straw gathered by her at harvest time. Mr. Smith's years from about 1843 to 1852 were spent in New England and in California. The story of his life during this period was graphically written by himself, and is intensely interesting, but as it does not bear at all upon Franklin county only very brief extracts from it are given. His trip from New York to California - by sea to a Texan port, thence overland into and across Mexico, and thence by boat to San Francisco - was crowded with hardship and thrilling adventure. He reached San Francisco with barely sixty-two cents of his money remaining, but finally managed to journey to the mines, where the cost of living was incredibly high - meals of the most ordinary sort two dollars each, and sleeping accom- modations proportionately dear. Flour sold at a dollar and a quarter per pound (equivalent to two hundred and forty-five dollars per barrel), and most other eatables at a dollar per pound. At one time when suffering with seurvy, and vegetables being necessary to save his life, Mr. Smith paid half a dollar apiece for a half bushel of onions not larger than English walnuts. Cigars sold at twenty-five cents each, and drinks at one dollar. Mr. Smith did some prospecting for gold, but for most of the time worked for wages at whatever he could find to do. He returned home in 1852, and soon afterward took up his residence in
10
290
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
Dickinson, where he lived respected and usefully until his death, a year or two ago. He held various town offices, and during the Civil War was enrolling officer for the town of Dickinson, preparatory for a draft, under Colonel S. C. F. Thorndike, and afterward was deputy provost marshal. Later he was assistant United States assessor of internal revenue under U. D. Meeker. Before this he had been a deputy sheriff, and as such was assigned to pass the last night of the life of Madison Bickford (who had shot Secor in the town of Franklin, as told in Chapter XVI) in the cell with him against a possible attempt at suicide by the prisoner. Bickford had left a prayer meeting in Dickinson to follow Secor and murder him. Mr. Smith speaks of Bickford, who was only nineteen years of age, as " a young man of more than ordinary ability, and a favorite with the young people." Bickford visited pleasantly with Mr. Smith until two o'clock in the morning, saying, among other things, that he would not change his fate for ten years in prison, and then slept soundly until morning. At Bickford's funeral, held in Dickinson, the officiating clergyman declared that he had died a martyr, and Bickford's father characterized the execution as " Franklin county's murder." Justus D. Smith of Dickin- son is Denison's only child. He was for twenty years the private secretary of William H. Russell, of New York, who built a Swiss chalet on the Zina Roys brook in Dickinson for a summer home.
David and Ebenezer Parks, brothers, and Rev. Richard Parks, Syl- vanus Niles, Patrick Fleming and Jeremiah J. Sampson were all an excellent type of citizens. The Parks brothers were comparatively early arrivals. Ebenezer had a son and a daughter, but the family is now extinct, while David's descendants are numerous. He had six sons and three daughters, of whom John, William, Mrs. John McNeil and Mrs. Silas Crocker are dead - all leaving children as follows : By John, Fred, Walter, Hazel and Newton, the latter of whom lives at Utica ; by William, Joseph and Earl, of Worcester, Mass., and Sadie; by Mrs. Crocker, Edith Wylie of Boston; by Mrs. McNeil, Mrs. Ernest LaBounty and Mrs. Roy Harris of Montpelier, Vt. Descendants of the others named are: Of Frank, Claude, Leo, Vernon, Anna and Lenna; of George, Kyle and Daniel; of Thomas, Edward, Howard, Beatrice, Nellie, Bessie of Carthage, Grace of Newton Falls, and Wil- liam and Burt of Tupper Lake; of Ira, John of Dickinson, and Mrs. A. S. Smith of Saranac Lake. All live at St. Regis Falls except as otherwise noted.
Rev. Richard Parks was of another family, and did not come to
291
DICKINSON
Dickinson until about 1860, when he was called to the pastorate of the Free Will Baptist church, which, first and last, he served faithfully and acceptably for a good many years. He preached also in Burke and at a number of other places in Franklin and St. Lawrence counties, and was everywhere esteemed a high-class man. Ile had three sons, George and Nelson, both dead, and Ovett, who resides in the West. Ovett E., now living in Potsdam, and Frank, a teacher in the school at Dickinson Center, are sons of George. Nelson had no children.
Mr. Niles came about 1838, and was a blacksmith for fifty years. A sister was the wife of Denison S. Smith, and Samuel is a half brother, still living in Dickinson. Sylvanus's sons were Noble, Jay and Sylves- ter, all now residing in Dickinson, and his daughters were Mrs. Almeda Spears, living in Essex county, Mrs. Cora Winters of Dickinson, and Mrs. Nettie Day of Lake Ozonia.
Patrick Fleming was of the highest character, and remarkably capable. He was town clerk for a number of years, and two or three times supervisor. He kept the first store at Dickinson Center. His sons, Silas P. and William Alyn, were at one time well known figures in the town. The former was in trade and also built, and for a short time kept, a hotel, the Centennial, at Dickinson Center. He was a fun-loving, rollicking fellow, never contented unless engaged in some prank that outraged the sense of propriety of the sober-minded. William Alyn became a lawyer, practiced at Brushton and Malone, and removed to Minnesota, where he was elected a member of the Legislature.
Mr. Sampson located about 1850, and was a millwright. He had thirteen children, none of whom was born in Dickinson. All are now dead except Mrs. Anna Kingley, who resides at Racine, Wis., and Esquire, who lives at Dickinson Center.
Joseph Bailey, one of the most genial and most accommodating of men, came about 1845 or possibly a little earlier, and was a farmer, a tanner, a shoemaker and a cooper - turning his hand also to many other things if thereby he could help a neighbor or a friend. He was town clerk for most of the time for half a century, and served as post- master at Dickinson Center during the Civil War. A daughter married John Dawson, and still lives in the town. Joseph B. Dawson is his grandson.
A resident of a different sort was Alonzo Clark, born in 1843. At the age of forty-six, twenty years of his life had been passed in prison, and later he served at least one more term - all for horse stealing. He seemed to have a passion for that sort of thievery. In 1889 he was
292
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
credited with having stolen no less than 120 horses, and boasted that not one had been the property of a townsman. His operations extended all over Northern New York and through the middle West. Upon his release from prison in 1898 he announced a reformation, and I think stole no more. But he had no penitence, and reformed only because he was getting old and had found that stealing did not "pay." In 1898 he claimed that he had stolen 370 horses in all. He died in 1910.
Dickinson contains no village, and only one hamlet, though there are two or three neighborhoods rather more closely settled than the average of farming sections - each of which has its distinctive name. East Dickinson lies in the extreme northeastern part of the town, and here there are a store, a church and a few scattered farm houses. Formerly the place had two starch factories, one of which was burned, and the other has been converted into a feed mill. Some four miles to the west, and on the northern border, is Alburgh (the name indicating plainly that the people there were originally Vermonters), and at this point there are a store, a blacksmith shop, a creamery and eight or ten families. Years ago there was a Methodist chapel near by. Dickinson or Harwood's Corners is on the direct road from Moira to Dickinson Center, and has a store, a creamery and five or six families resident in the immediate vicinity. Dickinson Center, the hamlet referred to, is south of the center of the township. Deer river flows through it. It contains four or five stores, two churches, a Grange hall (which used to be a Second Adventist church), a school house and town house, a rail- road station, two grist mills, two saw mills and a creamery. Its population is between four and five hundred.
Dickinson has been the scene of two tragedies of melancholy interest. The dwelling house of Esek Hawkins burned September 3, 1852, and Mrs. Hawkins and a daughter, aged seven years, perished in the flames. In 1865 Henry Meacham, believing his wife unfaithful, shot her through the heart and cut her throat as she was clasping her infant child to her breast, and then shot himself through the brain. Mrs. Meacham was a sister of Cook, the accomplice of Bickford in the murder of Secor.
The list of those who have been merchants at Dickinson Center includes Patrick Fleming, Thomas Leonard, Theophilus Olena, Luther Hurlburt, Tuttle & Peck, S. P. Fleming, Tuttle & Conger, George W. Dustin, Alfred H. Olena, S. & Lannis Wilcox, L. M. Stowe, Richard P. Lindsay, Harvey Harrington, H. G. Baker, Watson Page, George Chase & Co., Lyndon Young, W. D. Dustin, Fred L. Conger, F. L. Curtis, B. L. Orcutt, Rev. A. F. Bigelow and C. A. & C. E. Morehouse. Mr.
293
DICKINSON
Hurlburt was a brother of former Congressman Calvin T. Hurlburt of Brasher, and A. H. Olena, now a prosperous merchant in New York city, is a grandson of Jeremiah Sampson. Both were partners for a time with George W. Dustin, ex-county clerk. Those who are at pres- ent in trade there are H. N. Ramsdell, H. H. Briggs and Guy H. Dawson.
Hotels other than those of Reuben Cady, Samuel Foster, Benjamin Heath and Silas P. Fleming, already sufficiently mentioned, were: One established by Warren Ives, and purchased about 1840 by Eldred Baker, on the Port Kent and Hopkinton turnpike, about a mile east from its intersection with the highway leading from Dickinson Center to St. Regis Falls, which was kept by him until about 1854, and from that date to about 1860 by Moses A. Dustin, Jr .; one at Dickinson Center, next north of B. L. Orcutt & Sons' office, known as the American House (torn down in 188?), which Henry N. Bickford, the father of James Madison, the murderer, kept for two or three years, though he was more a pettifogger in justice's court than a landlord, and then for a number of years by Eldred Baker, and, finally, until it burned, but not in a particularly attractive way, by a man named Cheney ; and the present hotel at Dickinson Center, the only one now in the town, which was a conversion of the office of Dr. Hiram N. Smith of Nicholville into a tavern by Moses A. Dustin, Jr., and kept by him until his death in 1894. It was next managed by Steve Fos- burg, then by Homer Dawson, deceased, and now by Joseph B. Dawson. The tavern on the turnpike where Ives, Baker and Dustin presided still stands, but has not been used as a public house for half a century or more. Of Mr. Bickford it is said that in manner and temperament he resembled the late Hon. John P. Badger, and he was rated a man of considerable abilities. Before locating in Dickinson he had made his home in Moira.
The industries of Dickinson were never numerous nor of large importance. The local demand for manufactured products was of course insignificant, the streams permitted no large power developments, and until about thirty years ago all transportation had to be over poor roads, with a considerable haul to the railroad.
The original grist mill at the Center was almost directly across the river from the present Tuttle mill. It was sold by Warren Ives in 1843 to Allen Lincoln of Fort Covington, and by him to Alpheus Conger of Moira in 1863. Conger executed a contract of sale to E. N. Tuttle and L. M. Stowe, but before the conditions had been fulfilled
294
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
sold to Frank B. Peck of Hopkinton. While the mill was owned by Mr. Lincoln it was run by Elkanah Shaw, whose son, Levi, was the last person to operate it. After acquiring the property under their contract, Stowe and Tuttle built a new mill on the opposite side of the stream, and the old mill eventually rotted down. Stowe sold to Tuttle, who afterward had as partners George Macomber, and then William Downey. This mill is now owned and operated by Everett Markham, better known, however, as Tuttle, he having been adopted by E. N. Tuttle. Upon retiring from partnership with Tuttle, Downey built a new mill in 1907 a few rods down the stream, and continues to run it.
The town formerly had four starch factories. One at the Center was built by H. M. and Jeremiah J. Sampson about 1857, and was sold by them to Milton Heath and George B. Farrar. Rev. R. Parks and Dyer L. Merrill afterward operated it, and Mark Page next owned it and ran it successfully for a long time. One at Alburgh was built by D. W. and C. J. Lawrence and Ira Russell of Moira in 1856. H. H. Thomp- son of Malone bought it ten years later, and sold to R. S. Brown and Tabor C. Meigs in 1867. It was next owned by Clark Dickinson and Thomas F. Mulholland of Bangor, who in turn sold to Wells S. Dickin- son and Fayette W. Lawrence. At East Dickinson there were two starch factories, one of which was built by Leonard Fish, James Spooner and William Rice about 1855, sold by them in 1864 to Sumner Sweet, bought in 1866 by R. S. Brown and Tabor C. Meigs, and by Horace A. Taylor in 1873. It still stands, but has been converted into a feed mill by Horace Lincoln. The other, I think, was built by Charles Taylor, who sold it in 1865 to A. G. Perry, and the latter to John V. Bowles in 1875. It burned in 1877, and was not rebuilt.
The first saw mill, as already stated, was built by Warren Ives and Abial Chamberlain at the Center, practically on the site now occupied by the lower Orcutt mill. Anson Hutchins bought it fifty years ago, and a few years later he and L. W. Babcock ran it on an extensive scale until it burned in 1878. (Dr. Babcock removed to Minnesota, became prominent in politics, and in 1903 was Speaker of the Assem- bly.) They had also a second mill up the stream, just across the river from the present Orcutt steam mill. Benjamin L. Orcutt came to Dickinson from Massachusetts in 1875, and with his brother-in-law, William D. Dustin, operated for a time the William Dawson mill, east of the Center. In 1879 he and Mr. Dustin bought the old Ives or Hutchins & Babcock mill property, the former soon acquiring the lat-
295
DICKINSON
ter's interest. Since then Mr. Orcutt and his sons, Fred and Harry B., have operated the mills, doing a large business, and building up an enviable reputation as capable and straightforward men. At their lower mill they have an electric power plant, which furnishes light to such of the people of the hamlet as choose to use it.
At an early day Erastus Hutchins and Hardy Hazen built and ran a small saw mill in the vicinity of Alburgh, which Anson Hutchins afterward owned, but upon engaging in business at the Center sold to Milton Lockwood. Alexander Dawson, the elder, and then Jonathan Saunders, had a mill a mile farther south. Still another saw mill was built about 1857 at the Center, near where the Downey grist mill now is, by H. M. and Jeremiah Sampson. This property was, I think, owned and worked later by Anson Hutchins, and then by Stephen Dow and George L. Parks, J. W. Webb, and finally by Webb and Willard E. Seaver as a tub factory. Yet another saw mill was run by John and Alson Dawson on the Zina Roys brook, at about the point where Fair- ladies, the show place of the town (a summer home built of stone by Mrs. Kobbe, of New York, at great cost) is located. There was also a steam saw mill at East Dickinson in the Bowles starch factory. The William Dawson mill, above referred to, was originally called the King mill, and the timber tract and water privilege were acquired by Mr. Dawson about 1870. It shifted ownership between Mr. Dawson and Albert Tebo two or three times, and was as often burned. It is now out of existence. There was also a small saw mill near Barnes Corners, in the same neighborhood as the Dawson mill, built by Rodney Tyler, and owned at one time by O. W. and E. D. Bean. Nothing definite can be ascertained about the man King who first had a mill in this locality. The mill itself had disappeared seventy years ago or more.
Dickinson had a tannery as early as 1835 and two in 1845, both small of course. The first of these was on the farm now owned by Howard Davidson, and was operated by a man named Bishop Kingsley. The second was Josiah Bailey's, and was near the Briggs drug store, on the north side of the river.
In 1887 Dickinson Center was led into the hope that it was to be given an industry which would contribute largely to its growth and prosperity. Rev. C. A. Morehouse was at the time pastor of the Free Will Baptist Church, had strong inclinations toward business under- takings, and had engaged with a brother in a mercantile venture there. He then proposed to establish a chair factory which should give employ- ment to eighty or a hundred men, obtained the promise of financial
296
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
backing by a Chenango county man, and was pledged four thousand dollars as a bonus by the citizens of the town. Something like half of this bonus was actually paid over to him, but the remaining subscribers insisted upon seeing the factory in operation, or at least fully equipped with the special machinery required, before "making good " on their subscriptions. To this demand Mr. Morehouse pleaded that it was necessary that he have the money that had been promised if he were to go on with the enterprise. A building was actually erected and equipped as a saw mill, but the chair machinery was never supplied. As a saw mill the establishment employed from ten to fifteen men, but was not a success under Mr. Morehouse. In 1892 Benjamin L. Orcutt bought the property, and operated it in turning out hard-wood flooring and butter tubs until it burned in 1897.
The Christian church at East Dickinson was the first religious organization in the town, and was formed mainly through the efforts of Elder James Spooner, with the co-operation of Jesse and Jotham Rice, Samuel Foster and Reuben Cady. The date of organization is given as 1815. For a good many years it was a thriving body, but for nearly or quite half a century now it has been inactive, and without a regular pastor. Its records are understood to have been destroyed by fire a few years ago. The church edifice was erected in 1861 .*
The second church organized was the Free Will Baptist, at Dickin- son Center, in 1835, with Elder Charles Bowles presiding, John Rams- dell first deacon, and Jesse Rice clerk. The records are complete from the date of organization to the present, and the minutes of the early church meetings are extremely interesting in parts - particularly where they reveal the watchfulness that the church undertook to exer- cise over the daily walk and conduct of individual members. Any member was free not merely to complain of another, but apparently was expected to do it if cognizant of any impropriety. Thus at meeting after meeting charges appear to have been threshed out, first against one offender, and then against another. Upon one occasion the pastor himself was formally charged with falsehood, but was exonerated. Other delinquencies alleged were that the accused had failed to attend meet- ings regularly ; had been guilty of improper home conduct in having failed to be considerate and gentle with wife or children; had been quarrelsome with neighbors ; had indulged in intemperate language or
* The church was opened again for worship in 1916, a minister of the Holiness Movement (Rev. Philip Guiter, residing at Moira ) officiating, and the attendance at meetings being surprisingly large, and the interest marked. Mr. Guiter held services also in the old Baptist church near Alburgh.
297
DICKINSON
the use of "hard expressions "; had shown stubbornness; or even had used ardent liquors; in a word, one had to walk with the utmost cir- cumspection if he would escape rebuke and discipline at the hands of the church. Such inquisitorial methods would not be tolerated to-day for an instant. One resolution adopted by the church provided that a member absenting himself from three consecutive meetings should be considered " as no more of us," and another pledged abstention from intoxicating liquor except upon a physician's prescription, and even then to use it "only for the glory of God." In 1860 the society deter- mined to proceed to the erection of a house of worship, which was com- pleted in 1861 or 1862. The timber used in its construction was given by Mr. Pierrepont, the then owner of such lands in the township as had not been sold to settlers. Mr. Pierrepont gave the bell also. Seemingly there has always been a strong interest in the church upon the part of its members, and it is seldom that it has been without a pastor for any considerable length of time. Its membership is about one hundred, though not all are now resident in the town. Within a year or two it has affiliated with the St. Lawrence Baptist Association, which is com- posed for the most part of regular Baptist societies, the differences between which and the Free Will Baptists are in this day not wide. The former are Calvinists and the latter Arminians. Then, too, the Bap- tists were formerly understood to be close-communionists, while the Free Will Baptists have always been open-communionists - which dis- tinction has now, however, been practically wiped out. But since I am not expounding theology, but only telling a story, enough on this point.
A few words about Elder Charles Bowles, who organized the church, will not be uninteresting. A biographer says that he was the son of a full-blooded negro who was a servant and of a daughter of Colonel Daniel Morgan of Virginia, whose rangers in the revolutionary war were pronounced by General Burgoyne to be the finest regiment in the world, and who was the hero of the brilliant victory by American arms at the battle of the Cowpens. The claimed descent from Colonel Morgan is, however, erroneous, as that gentleman was not born until 1736, while Mr. Bowles was born at Boston in 1761. He served throughout the revolutionary war as a soldier in the American army. A few years after the war, all uneducated, and incapable of debating or expounding doctrine, but wonderfully familiar with the Bible, fervent in faith, and moving in exhortation and in prayer. he became a Free Will Baptist exhorter, and then an elder. For more than thirty years his field of
298
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
work was in Vermont, and in 1835 was induced by his son, a Congre- gational clergyman, to remove to Northern New York. His first work in this section, apart from stirring religious life among the woodsmen with whom he came in contact on his way, was in Dickinson. Then he preached in Moira, in Hopkinton, in Lawrence, in Malone, and in Con- stable - in school houses, in homes, in groves - wherever he could gather an audience. He was full six feet in height, had a deep, heavy voice, and possessed a good deal of magnetism as a speaker. He became blind, or nearly so. His last days were passed in Malone with a Mr. Fuller, in the northern part of the town, where he died in 1843. He is buried in Constable.
The Mormons began a proselyting campaign in Dickinson in 1843. Joseph Smith, to whom the Book of Mormon was revealed, and Apostle Joseph Meacham were relatives of the Dickinson Meachams, and it was doubtless this relationship that directed the movement to this locality. The Mormon meetings were held in the old red school house on the road leading from Nicholville to Dickinson Center, and occasioned a good deal of criticism and excitement. A number of converts were made both among Dickinson and Hopkinton people, and these were per- suaded to journey in ox carts from the locality to Nauvoo, Ill., which was then the Mormon headquarters. The glamour soon wore off with most of the proselytes, however, and many would have returned gladly if they could. Report has it that the hierarchy was not disposed to object seriously to the withdrawal of men, but that it held to the women with an iron grip. One man is said to have attempted to steal away with his family, and to have been shot. Samuel Meacham did return, but came alone, and always thereafter was a desolate and broken man, mourning for the family that remained at Nauvoo.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.