USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 34
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
319
FORT COVINGTON
the cellar for the confinement of men who should be arrested or of soldiers guilty of infractions of discipline. The fact that this hotel was at one time a military barracks is seemingly well understood in Fort Covington, but generally the date is erroneously thought to have been during the war of 1812. Though I have been unable to get any certain line upon the date of erection of the hotel in question, I am confident that it was not then in existence, because there is good authority that in 1812-14 there were but two taverns in the place ; one at the west end of the lower bridge, and the other the building known in recent years as the Matthews store. Walter H. Payne was a son of Samuel, was district attorney from 1857 to 1860, and was nominated as a Breckinridge elector in the latter year, but declined. While unable to establish the fact with certainty, I am disposed to believe that Samuel was a son of Ezekiel, and Walter a grandson.
Daniel McLean is thought to have been the father of Allan, and the grandfather of the late Mrs. D. J. Stewart and of Mrs. Gilbert A. Wright of Malone.
Of the other pioneers, assuming that all of those whom I have listed from the assessment roll were Fort Covington residents, nothing can now be learned.
James Campbell came in 1808, and for a long time was a prominent figure in the town and county. He was a mechanic, but if he gave due attention to the duties of the many offices which he filled he could not have had much time to work at his trade. He was customs inspector in 1812; adjutant of the Franklin county regiment the same year ; assistant United States storekeeper to receive and care for the immense quantities of supplies sent from Sacketts Harbor and Plattsburgh for General Wilkinson's army while it was quartered at French Mills in 1813-14; one of the associate judges in 1817; sheriff from 1815 to 1818; a Presidential elector in 1828; member of Assembly in 1827. After the war of 1812 he was an ensign in the State militia, and then adjutant again. An advertisement in the Franklin Telegraph shows that he was in trade at French Mills in 1821. He died at Cornwall, Ont., in 1883 at the age of ninety-nine years.
George B. R. Gove, a man of strong character and driving energy, came from New England in 1809, and for many years was one of the leading men of the place. He was supervisor seven times between 1823 and 1840; was elected county clerk in 1825; was member of Assembly in 1824 and again in 1849; was customs officer 1850-4; and was also a commissioner of the United States deposit fund. He had a brickyard
320
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
near the village in 1825, and was in the mercantile business in 1828, built and operated a grist mill, a mill for grinding plaster, and a saw mill on the Little Salmon river, and had an ashery. It was through Mr. Gove that the attempted frauds upon the United States treasury by David Jones, by the presentation of baseless or raised claims for losses and damages in the war of 1812, were exposed. Mr. Gove had an honest claim amounting to about six hundred dollars, which Jones had multiplied by ten. A communication came to Mr. Gove from Wash- ington in regard to it, to which he instantly replied that he had no claim for the larger sum, but did have one for the smaller. A thorough investigation followed, which exposed the enormity of the Jones opera- tions, and disclosed that perjury and false certification had entered into them. But between the question whether a Federal or a State statute had been violated no successful prosecution could be made.
Captain James B. Spencer was another early arrival, having come from Vermont in 1810. For a man who attained to the prominence and possessed the influence which he enjoyed, he must have been most unfortunate or thoroughly bad. At one time or another he was accused of participation in a number of crimes, viz., passing counterfeit money while he lived in Vermont, collusion with Jones, his brother-in-law, in the attempted war claims frauds, smuggling and subornation of per- jury. But he appears to have lived down all of the charges, and to have commanded the respect and confidence of his townsmen and of the county generally. He was commissioned a captain in the regular army by President Madison in the war of 1812, was afterward agent for the St. Regis Indians ; a local magistrate; deputy collector of customs ; twice member of Assembly; surrogate; a Presidential elector in 1832; and in 1836 was elected to Congress over Asa Hascall, though he lost Franklin county by about two hundred majority, and owed his success to St. Lawrence. He died at Fort Covington in 1848.
The McCrea family was also represented carly at Fort Covington, but I am unable to learn much about them. The estate of James McCrea, Jr., was administered there in 1809, by James McCrea of Essex county. John McCrea was a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment in 1817, was one of the early deputy collectors of customs, and a deputy sheriff in 1823. His home was where Timothy T. Kim- ball afterward lived.
William. Ware must also have come early, as his estate was admin- istered by his widow in 1809, and Essex county militia officers boarded with Mrs. Ware in 1812. Though I have no positive information to
321
FORT COVINGTON
that effect, I believe that Preserved Ware, afterward well known and prominent in both Fort Covington and Bombay, was a descendant.
Daniel W. Church, who settled here in 1809, was a surveyor and mechanic, and built many of the mills in the northern part of the county. He removed to Morristown, and died there.
Still another estate, administered in 1813, is of interest because of the field of conjecture which it suggests. Elihu Spencer, a soldier in the United States army, was killed at the battle of Chirystler's Field in 1813, and upon the petition of his mother, Martha, a brother. Joseph, was appointed administrator. The record of proceedings affords no further information. Wonder is excited if the administrator named was the father of Joseph Spencer, whom so many of us knew as land- lord of the old Spencer or American House. The assumption that he was is strengthened by the fact that in a later generation there was an Elihu Spencer. Still there is probably no record in existence which could resolve the question, nor any living person who knows.
Jonathan Ordway located in 1809 or 1810 on the east branch of Deer river, three or four miles southeast from the village, where he had large holdings. Besides engaging in farming and lumbering, he was a practicing physician. A grandson, Walter S. Ordway, is a merchant in Westville.
Thomas Erwin was here as early as 1813; perhaps earlier. He was the father of Rev. James Erwin, who was for half a century a Metho- dist circuit rider and pastor, and of whose activities extended mention is made in the sketches of Chateaugay, Malone and Westville. The elder Mr. Erwin was an elder of the Presbyterian church, and a close friend of " Father " Brunton, concerning whom more is told in con- nection with the history of churches in the town.
If there were others who were residents prior to the war, the number could not have been large, and information about them is not now pro- curable. To the war itself the place contributed comparatively few soldiers - possibly its close proximity to the border making residents there apprehensive that if they should identify themselves openly and actively with the American cause their families and property interests might suffer more seriously in the event of the place falling into British hands. As a matter of fact, French Mills was entered by enemy forces but twice during the war: the first time in November, 1812, for perhaps an hour, and the second in February. 1814, for per- haps two or three days. Except for two cases, at neither time were civilians or private property much molested. On the payrolls of the
11
322
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
several Franklin county companies which served during the conflict, on file in the adjutant-general's office at Albany, I find only these Fort Covington names: James Campbell and Seth Blanchard, sergeants; Alpheus Chapman, Silas Cushman, Arthur McMillan, John S. Payne, Allen Danforth, Marcus Harriman, Samuel H. Payne, James B. Spencer, Silas Ware, Joseph Spencer, Ezekiel Blanchard, Alpheus Ellsworth (spelled Exworth), and Noble Sexton. The last named had been a soldier in the war of the revolution.
Fort Covington became an American military ontpost within a month following the declaration of war. a company under Captain Rufus Tilden of Moira having occupied it July 8, 1812, and proceeded at once to erect a block house - which, however, was never finished. It stcod on Covington Hill, but whether near the site of the Presbyterian church, as most residents of the place appear to believe, or farther west, at the crest of the hill above Water street, is, I think, an open question. Other companies, from the vicinity of Troy, arrived in September, and one from Essex county in October. All were under the command of Major Guilford Young of Troy, and, with the exception of Captain Tilden's, were withdrawn early in November, but not until after they had made two expeditions against St. Regis, the first of which was fruitless. On the second they captured the place and a company of British soldiers which was in garrison there. Yet another expedition, of which I have never seen mention except in a private letter written by one of the participants (Lieut. Noble of Essex county), was under- taken November 3d. The battalion was ordered ont by Major Young ostensibly to proceed against plunderers who were alleged to be driv- ing off cattle at a point eight or ten miles away. They marched all day, a distance of about eighteen miles, for eleven of which they floundered through two swamps, when some of the officers revolted because no plunderers had been found and because they had become satisfied that the major was in reality leading them to an attack npon a superior force near Montreal. They returned with their forces to French Mills - their commands being militia organizations, and therefore not subject to service beyond the confines of their own country. Hardly had the Troy and Essex county companies been withdrawn from French Mills when Captain Tilden and his men, numbering forty-odd, were captured by a larger force of British, Canadians and Indians, who remained hardly an hour. The post was occupied soon thereafter by companies from Columbia county. which remained until March, 1813, and then by the company of Captain
323
FORT COVINGTON
David Erwin of Constable, who continued in charge until the arrival of General Wilkinson's army in November of the same year. The year following Captain Tilden's capture was without notable incident locally. The story of General Wilkinson's stay is recited in considerable detail in another chapter, and need not be repeated. Hospital Surgeon James Mann, from Massachusetts, says that at this date the vicinity of French Mills was a wilderness, and letters written by members of Major Young's command, a year earlier, complained bitterly that. though the officers were able to find accommodations of a sort in the homes of residents, the body of privates had to live in tents and huts, with altogether inadequate protection from the cold. The many sick soldiers in General Wilkinson's army had mostly to be transferred to Malone, though local tradition is to the effect that a house opposite the American Hotel was converted to hospital uses. But even if every habitation in the place had been so taken, no great number could have been accommodated, as a map of date 1818 shows only thirty buildings in all, including mills, in the mile square. The army remained until February, 1814, a part camping on Covington Hill, near the block house, and others on a site on the west side of the river, about a quarter of a mile south of Chateaugay street. Both positions are believed by present residents to have been fortified, and there is an impression on the part of some that the military reservation adjacent to Canada on the east side of the river also had defensive works. But apparently more intelligent examination of this latter locality resolves what had been deemed a fortification into a reservoir for supplying water to a distillery just across the border. Pipe logs leading to the place from the mill pond have been cut at a number of points. The army here was under the immediate command of General Jacob Brown of Jeffer- son county, General Wilkinson having transferred his headquarters to Malone. When General Brown's command was withdrawn and departed for Sacketts Harbor in February, 1814, the block house is said to have been burned and the barges which had brought the force from Sacketts Harbor scuttled and burned down to the ice. Of the truth of the latter representation there is no doubt whatever, as the wrecks of the boats are still to be found at the river bottom. but the block house is claimed by some to have continued to stand for a good many years. Upon evacuation by General Brown the British marched in, February 19, 1814, and seized such stores as were to be found.
The presence of an army in a community, its individual units freed from the restraints of home, and prompted often in periods of camp
324
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
idleness to excesses and unmoral acts, is always demoralizing to the citizenry, and French Mills undoubtedly suffered in this regard, though it is doubtful if it had ever been a particularly godly place, as it is stated in a biography of Rev. Nathaniel Colver that in 1820 there was not a "praying man" in the town. It is altogether probable that business throve when the soldiers were paid, as their scant and miser- ably poor rations disposed them to buy supplies locally whenever they were in funds. But after the departure of the troops a sharp reaction was experienced, and for years a tremendous scarcity of money pre- vailed. Christopher Briggs told the writer thirty-odd years ago that when he arrived in Fort Covington in 1820 the place had not recovered from the effects of the war. Only from Judge Campbell or Allen Lincoln could cash be had, and even as late as 1827, when Mr. Briggs engaged in trade, he did not handle a hundred dollars in money in an entire year's business ! Confirmatory of Mr. Briggs's story of hard times, I find in the advertising columns of the Franklin Telegraph in 1821 no less than seven notices of sheriff's sales of the property of prominent Fort Covington men, viz .: Ambrose Cushman, Benjamin and Samuel Sanborn, John Drum, Samuel and Jonathan Rich, and James McLean.
From the year 1820 we are on surer ground, with more exact and more accurate data, though trustworthy particulars on some points are still unobtainable. According to Mr. Briggs, there were then about thirty-five dwelling houses in the hamlet, and only one store, kept by John Aiken. The manufacturing establishments included a carding mill, a tannery, a grist mill, a cabinet shop, and a trip-hammer works, which made scythes and nails. The map of 1818 in the Secretary of State's office shows the carding mill, marked as a "clothiery," on the east side of the river, the (Herrick) " bark mill," just above it, the trip-hammer works at about the place where Courtney's carriage shop now stands, and the grist mill on the west side, close up to the dam. The trip-hammer works and nail factory were operated by Jesse Wood- bury, Jr., from Washington county. There were several stores at Dundee in Canada. It was almost impossible at that time to haul goods from Plattsburgh on account of poor roads, and pretty much every- thing that the people required from merchants came from Montreal. The customs officers were not vigilant or strict, and never pretended to collect duties on small quantities bought for personal or domestic use unless the smuggler operated so openly that he could not be ignored with safety. When Mr. Briggs did teaming between Fort Covington
325
FORT COVINGTON
and Plattsburgh his employers would give him three dollars for the expenses of a round trip, of which seventy-five cents had to be paid for tolls, so that two dollars and a quarter was all that he had for other expenses for three nights and four days on the road. But even this was a munificent allowance in comparison with the funds that sufficed for his journey from Washington county with his father. There were eight in the party, and at the start fourteen dollars was the total amount in their possession. Three miles this side of Plattsburgh the sum had been reduced to three shillings, which one member of the company took at Ellenburgh, and pushed ahead on foot. Mr. Briggs and family were two or three days completing the journey, without a cent of money. " We had to live plainly and work industriously. I had lived in the town thirteen years before I had anything but a lumber wagon in which to drive to church, and even then I was the first outside of the village. to own a buggy, while in the village such vehicles were very few. * But the period of stress and stagnation following the war was nearing its end, and a year or two later prosperity came to the town - not in the degree by which we measure success and growth to-day, but in the modest way in which we estimated them then. * * Farmers from all over the county brought their black salts there to market
them. * All these influences combined to build up Fort Cov- ington, and it was from about 1822 to 1832 that the town witnessed its period of most rapid development and greatest prosperity. Men could not come here from all over the country to the southward with their produce without adding materially to the volume of the town's business. They found the place the best market accessible for their products, and these products brought them no cash except in rare instances. They had to take pay for them from the stores, so the town's merchants made money both on what they bought and on what they sold." But the year 1825 was a disastrous one. Lumber tumbled in price, and George N. Seymour, Allan MeHutcheon and Aretus and Myron Hitchcock failed. Indeed, as stated by Mr. Briggs, John Aiken, Benjamin Ray- mond and Warren L. Manning were the only merchants the town ever had in the earlier years who did not fail at some time, though most of them got on their feet again.
The Franklin Telegraph contained advertisements by the following : William Burns, tea and sheetings, 1820: John Davidson, dry goods, groceries and tinsmith at Salmon River lines. 1820; James Campbell, Genesee flour. pork, and a thousand gallons of whiskey. 1821; P. B. Fiske, saddlery and boots and shoes, 1821: William Herrick. soal
326
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
leather at twenty-six cents per pound by the hundredweight, 1824; John & R. Johnson, successors to R. Hawley & Co., in store in rear of Joseph Spencer's tavern, dry goods and groceries, in 1825, to which they added millinery later in the year, with a milliner "from the south ;" Jeremiah Parker, tailor, 1825; A. McHutcheon & Co., a closing out sale of their stock of dry goods, groceries and hard and earthen ware, 1825; James Parker, saddlery, 1826; Miss H. W. Smith, a ladies' school in 1826 at Dr. Paddock's house, at which the tuition for instruction in reading, writing, English grammar, composition and geography was two dollars, and three dollars for rhetoric, history, philosophy, chemistry, ornamental needlework, and painting in oil colors and on velvet; and George B. R. Gove, at the old McHutcheon stand, salt, dry goods, groceries, hardware and whiskey, 1828. Mr. Gove also advertised brick-making in 1825; J. Congdon and R. A. Campbell a carding mill in 1821; and Dr. Roswell Bates vaccination in 1820 at a charge of twelve and a half cents per case "ready-pay " or twenty-five cents "trust."
Spafford's Gazetteer, a standard work published in 1824, states that Fort Covington then had forty-nine mechanics, two storekeepers, three grist mills, one fulling mill, two carding machines, one iron works, one nail factory, three tanneries and one ashery. At one time there were six asheries.
The Franklin Republican, published at Fort Covington, contained these advertisements in 1828: George B. R. Gove and John R. Johnston, merchants; Ora F. Paddock, druggist; and Thomas Mears, miller. In 1830 the following were advertisers in the same paper : David L. Seymour, potash kettles, salt, strong beer and sole leather ; Orvis & Meeker, by George B. R. Gove, agent, tea and domestic goods ; Aretus M. & M. Hitchcock, general merchants ; and William Cleveland and James Parker, hotels. The senior member of the firm of Meeker & Orvis was Uriah D. Meeker, who afterward became county clerk, and then was for many years deputy clerk and one of the most respected citizens of Malone.
Quoting Mr. Briggs again: "I visited Malone for the first time in 1822, and I should think that the towns were then of about equal size. I do not know whether Fort Covington ever contained actually more inhabitants than Malone. The latter had a larger area devoted to agriculture about it at that time than the former, and may have con- tained the most people. But about 1825 Fort Covington forged ahead of Malone from the business standpoint, and maintained the lead
327
FORT COVINGTON
until the Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad was built, though Malone seemed for a time, when its cotton factory was built, to have recovered at least a part of the ground lost."
Unlike most of the other older towns. which were peopled so largely from New England, Fort Covington's earliest settlers were from Canada, and were of French extraction, with some sprinkling of Eng- lish and Scotch, though there were a few also from Vermont and from Washington county in this State. Indeed, perhaps the latter locality supplied the larger number of pioneers between, say, 1806 and 1820.
The population of Fort Covington has had remarkable fluctuations. Three years after the town's erection it had just under one thousand, which exceeded that of any other town in the county except Malone, which outnumbered it by about 150. In 1825 it had increased to 2,136, or 118 per cent., and in the ensuing five years there was a further gain of 32 per cent. to 2,901, which placed it ahead of Malone by about 700, or by 200 more than in 1825. Only in these years was it ever larger than Malone. In 1835 it had decreased to 1,665, a loss of 42 per cent .- due in the main, if not altogether, to the partition of the town to form Bombay. From this latter date there was a fair rate of growth to 1860, when the figures stood at 2,757 (about half as many as Malone then had), but following that year there was an almost unbroken decline to 1900, since when the population has been prac- tically stationary at a little over 2,000. The figures for 1915 are 2,045, of which 199 are aliens, and the number residing in the village is 757. The village was incorporated in 1889. There are now seven towns in the county each having a larger population, and one other which is of about equal rank.
While Fort Covington never at any time except in 1825 and 1830 had a larger population than Malone, it was nevertheless for a quarter of a century the more important and busier place. Its location gave it advantages which no other town in the county possessed. The Salmon river used to be navigable for barges and for steamboats that drew eight or nine fcet to a point about a mile above Dundee, which made the place the natural port of entry and of exportation for the entire county and for the eastern section of St. Lawrence as well. Flour and other supplies had to be procured there or from Plattsburgh, and for a long time our lumber and black salts went there on their way to market in Montreal or Quebec. Its stores were the best stocked in the county, and it is not easily understandable why its pre-eminence was not greater than the record shows. It certainly had some enterpris-
328
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
ing and strong men. In the number and ability of its members of the bar in early days it was particularly strong, and its physicians stood easily first. Politically it almost dominated the county at one time, when complaint used to be preferred against the interference and arro- gance of the "Fort Covington junta," as it later obtained concerning the " Malone ring." With everything so favoring it, it would seem that until Malone gained its railroad facilities it ought still more to have outranked and outstripped it. Can it be possible that even in early times a spirit of laissez faire prevailed, as it certainly did at a later period, a single illustration of which it is worth while to cite? Thirty- odd years ago Charles W. Breed of Malone visited the place for a part of a day, and dropped in for a call upon a druggist, who soon proposed a fishing trip down the river. Mr. Breed assenting, the druggist in question locked his store, and called upon his competing druggist (who was also postmaster) to join the party. The latter also locked his store and post-office, and the three were absent for some hours. One wonders if something of this attitude may not have been responsible for the deadness which for a long time characterized the Fort. But this is a long break in our story, and there ought to be a return to about 1820.
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.