USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 37
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James Farnsworth Pierce, born in Madrid in 1830, practiced law in Fort Covington for a year or two in the fifties. Returning to St. Lawrence county, he was elected county clerk on the Democratic ticket in 1861. He removed to New York in 1865, his Democracy ingratiating him promptly with the machine in Brooklyn, so that he was sent to the State Senate in 1868, and between that date and 1890 was given four more terms in that body. In 1894 he was appointed State superin- tendent of insurance, and in 1897 resumed the practice of law in New York, where William A. Wolff (formerly of Malone) became one of his partners. Mr. Pierce was not a particularly strong man, nor was he regarded as finely serupulous, but he was exceedingly adaptable, very genial and made friends easily.
Samuel Hoard came to Fort Covington in 1827, and purchased the Franklin Telegraph, which had been founded a few months earlier. Discontinuing the publication in 1833, he removed to Ogdensburg,
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where he published the St. Lawrence Republican. Removing to Chicago, he became prominent there and rich. He had a beautiful home, was postmaster, and died in 1881.
Old Grimes is dead, that good old soul, We ne'er shall see him more.
The John H. Hatton letter from which quotations have been made states that old Grimes, the veritable character of song and story, was at one time a boarder at the Spencer House, and a few years ago, while on vacation at Fort Covington, his old home, William Ryan, a newspaper man, wrote for the New York Times what purported to be an authentic narrative of the Grimes character and conduct in the vicinity. Mr. Ryan says that Grimes, whose given name was Ephraim, came from New England, first to St. Agnes, Que., in 1835, and six months later to Fort Covington. He was ostensibly a shingle maker and shingler, though according to Mr. Ryan he performed no labor in all of the time that he was at Fort Covington until just before his departure, and yet always had money to spend, which it is said that he obtained by making counterfeit silver coins. These he is represented to have sent to Ver- mont by a woman to be put into circulation, and in exchange for which she sent good bank notes to Grimes. After quitting the Spencer House as a boarding place he is said to have lived in a hut in the outskirts of the village, and when, towards the last of his stay, his spurious coins began to circulate in the vicinity, and suspicion came to be directed against him, he sneaked away one night, and never returned. The story runs, further, that after his departure his hut was searched, and the dies which he had used were found in it. Mr. Ryan gives to Grimes the character of a fertile and ingenious fabricator, an entertaining raconteur to hear whom the people came from miles around, an inveter- ate jester of an assumed simplicity and ingenuousness that made him a general favorite, and that gained confidence for him until his actual operations became suspected and finally proven.
Charles E. Perrin was the son of Solon of Fort Covington, and a nephew of Henry J. Perrin, a respected farmer in Malone. Charles was a printer, and worked in the Franklin Gazette office. He left Malone during the civil war, and entered upon evil ways. Soon after the close of the war he paid Malone a visit, and created quite a sensation by reason of his ultra fashionable dress and fine presence and manners. A woman who posed as his wife accompanied him, but it was afterward ascertained that there had been no marriage, and that the relations of the two were illieit. Shortly afterward Perrin was convicted for having burglarized
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a wholesale house in New York city by which he realized a large amount of plunder, and was sentenced to imprisonment for four years, which term expired in 1873. There is a story, though not authenticated so far as I know, that he was also guilty of arson in New Jersey. In 1814 he participated in a forgery scheme, the largest of its kind ever successfully carried through, which marketed eight hundred thousand dollars of bonds of the Buffalo, Erie and New York Railroad, the New York Central, and the Chicago and Northwestern. The forging was done by others, and Perrin's part was to sell the bonds, which were so cleverly executed that they deceived not only the officers of banks, trust companies and bond dealers, but even the officials of one of the railroad companies, who redeemed forty thousand dollars of them without sus- picion that they were spurious. Three bond houses bought so heavily of them that their losses forced them into bankruptcy. Perrin's individual share of the clean up is said to have been a hundred thousand dollars, and when discovery of the forgeries was made he had sufficient warning to enable him to escape to Europe. But in 1875 he was once more in New York and again in a similar deal. He was recognized, arrested. and sent to Sing Sing for a term of fifteen years, but within eight months plotted and organized with others a scheme for escape by firing the bake-house. The attempt was successful as regards Perrin, and he again took refuge in Europe, where he operated along his customary lines, first in Paris and then in London. While he was not himself a forger of engraved securities he appears to have been an expert in similar work where the pen would serve his purposes, and in London he succeeded in swindling a bank heavily, for which he was sent to prison in 1877 for ten years. But he turned State's evidence. and was released in 1883, when he returned to this country by way of Canada, and pro- ceeded to St. Louis, Mo. There he opened large accounts in a number of banks preparatory to plundering them later by means of forged drafts. Again he was caught, convicted. and sentenced to ten years' imprison- ment. which, with allowances for good behavior, expired in 1892. Upon his release he was delivered to the New York authorities to serve out at Sing Sing the term to which he had been sentenced in 1815. He was transferred from Sing Sing to Dannemora about 1898, and was dis- charged from the latter institution in 1902. In the winter of 1903, while pretending to be in the real estate business in New York city, he made a fake purchase of a country place in Dutchess county for $10,000, and insured the buildings on it for $19,000. Fire soon followed, and Perrin (then operating under the alias of ITall) was arrested upon a
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charge of arson. According to Perrin, the seller of the property was really the chief conspirator, and because he turned State's evidence he was released upon his own recognizance in 1904, since when I have not been able to trace him. Inspector Byrnes in his book telling of extraor- dinary crimes and professional criminals says of Perrin that some of his aliases were Stevens, Franklin, Cherwood, Williamson and Vincent, and that he generally wore a full black beard, dressed well, and con- versed in an easy tone. Byrnes characterizes him as "one of the most extraordinary criminals that this country ever produced, and a man of great ability, imposing appearance, and iron nerve," having been credited among his pals and the police as one of the two " smartest people in his line in the world." Except at the times when he was in prison Byrnes says that few extensive forgeries were undertaken in which Perrin was not depended upon for the dealings by which capital was to be duped into buying the output.
Amos S. Kimball entered the United States volunteer army as quartermaster of the 98th regiment at Malone in 1862, served through- out the war, and then was continued in the regular army - eventually becoming quartermaster general. The final years of his service were spent in New York city. He died in Washington, D. C., in 1909. He is said to have been worth a million dollars.
David, William and Allen Streeter are sons of Grindal and grandsons of Benjamin. They removed to Chicago several years ago, engaged in business there and prospered. At least one of them is now rated as a millionaire. David is at present a resident of California, and the old home in Fort Covington is packed with interesting art objects and curios that he collected in his travels over all the world.
James C. Spencer was the son of Captain James B., and was a lawyer of bright mind and good attainments. He moved to Ogdensburg in 1854, where he practiced law and held the office of United States attorney for the district of Northern New York. Removing to New York city in 1866, he quickly formed friendly relations with the Demo- cratic leaders, and enjoyed preferences and benefits through their influence. He became judge of the superior court, and was appointed receiver of the Erie Railroad. His first wife was a daughter of Benja- min Raymond and a sister of Mrs. Joseph R. Flanders. Miss Sarah Spencer, a student at Franklin Academy more years ago than she would now confess, and in recent summers an occasional visitor to Malone as Mrs. Spencer-Browne, is his niece. Judge Spencer died in New York city in 1902.
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Rev. Nathaniel Colver, who, next perhaps to Rev. Ashbel Parmelee, was the strongest man intellectually who ever served in Franklin county as a clergyman, visited a relative in Fort Covington in 1820. and the next year was solicited by a number of residents, irrespective of their several denominational affiliations, to settle there as pastor of a church to be formed. He accepted and remained for eight years - a tireless worker, delighting in controversy and reveling in agitation of one kind or another. His biography was written and published forty- odd years ago by a fellow clergyman, and I condense from a copy of the work: Mr. Colver was a tanner and currier by trade, and never had any schooling except during winters. His first service in a pulpit was near Albany, where he had gone from his Massachusetts home merely to hold a prayer meeting. Though without the slightest ministerial training, the circumstances at this meeting seemed to compel him to preach, and he delivered three sermons without any previous prepara- tion, and under protest that he had not even a text and that he had utterly refused in advance even to consider the suggestion that he preach. Mr. Colver officiated not only as pastor of the Baptist church which he organized at Fort Covington, but also held mission services at many points in Franklin and St. Lawrence counties. He became a Mason at Fort Covington. but formally renounced connection with the order in 1829, having practically withdrawn from it some years pre- viously. That was during the fierce anti-Masonic times, and his course was productive of angry resentment on the part of those who con- tinued to adhere to Masonry, and of eager approval by the anti-Masons. Mr. Colver's first public utterance in denunciation of the order was in the court house in Malone before an audience that packed the room, and thereafter he continued the crusade vigorously by speaking on the sub- ject at many points in Northern New York and throughout Vermont. In 1829 he accepted a call from a church in Washington county, where he remained for ten years, though often during the period engaging in revival work at Poughkeepsie, Philadelphia, Richmond and other cities. In 1839 he went to Boston to take the pastorate of Tremont Temple. which was purchased at a cost of fifty-five thousand dollars to be made over into a church expressly for him. There he remained until 1852, and then removed to Detroit, Mich .- visiting Malone and Fort Coving- ton on the way, and preaching at both places. In 1856 he located at Cincinnati for five years, and next was in Chicago until 1867, when he went to Richmond to found a school for the training of negroes for the Baptist ministry. This school had its beginning in a slave pen, known
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as Lumpkin's jail, and has grown into the Virginia University, a good sized college. Mr. Colver died in Chicago in 1870. He is said to have had a striking presence, with a power of address that entranced his hearers and often moved an entire congregation to tears. Once in a church convention debate on slavery he replied to a Governor from a Southern State, speaking for an hour practically extemporaneously, with so impassioned force and eloquence that the Governor declared that though he had heard Henry Clay and Daniel Webster at their best, he had never before listened to such oratory. Almost unlettered when he began his work at Fort Covington, and never attaining to fine scholarship, and at times dropping even into crudity of expression and trampling upon grammatical construction, yet men in the ministry who were distinguished for their educational acquirements pronounced him one of the most engaging and strongest speakers that they had ever heard. He was by nature impulsive, radical and intense. Besides his anti-Masonic agitation, he became a zealons temperance apostle and a hot abolitionist and open crusader against slavery. Men who were leaders in the latter cause took him to full fellowship, warmly com- mending his work, while as a speaker on temperance it was said that not even John B. Gough was more dramatic or effective.
Charles A. Gardiner ought not to be omitted from these biographical sketches notwithstanding he originated just north of the border, in Dundee. After completing his academic studies at Malone he took the full course at Hamilton College, then taught for a time, and studied law. Locating in New York city, he came to have entire charge of the law department of the elevated railway companies, with sixty or more clerks under him, and was also the personal counsel of the Goulds. He was regarded as one of the ablest lawyers in the State, especially in matters of interpretation and construction of the State and Federal Constitutions, and for some years preceding his death was a member of the board of regents of the university of New York. He died in 1909, aged fifty-four years.
CHURCHES
According to a historical sermon by one of its pastors the Baptist was the first church organized in Fort Covington, and dates from 1821 or 1822, though Dr. Hongh gives the date as 1824. It was formed by Rev. Nathaniel Colver, the original membership comprising but eleven persons if the sermon account be accepted, or nine if Dr. Hough be correct. The society had a comfortable growth for a few years, but was weakened not a little by Mr. Colver's activity and rancor in the anti-
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Masonie agitation. Services were held at first in the townhouse, schoolhouses or private residences. In 1829 a church edifice was erected, which was enlarged and improved and a bell purchased in 1852. Schism arose in 1843, growing out of opposing views concerning the pastor, and seemingly paralyzed church activities. The pastor was dropped from 1844 to 1848, when he was reinstated, and concord pre- vailed until 1868, when dissension again developed, but from what cause, to what extent or with what duration does not appear. With few exceptions the church had regular pastors continuously until 1882, when a vacancy occurred for four years, since when there have been many times when there was no pastor; and now, for five or six years past, the society has been moribund because of deaths and removals of members. Revivification is not contemplated.
The story of early Presbyterianism here is obscure and complicated. The Associated Reformed Scotch Church had some sort of an organiza- tion contemporaneously with Mr. Colver's earliest labors, or possibly antedating them a little, under the leadership and ministration of Rev. " Father " Brunson or Brunton. Rev. James Erwin's autobiography gives him the former name, but the latter is correct. " Father " Brun- ton was the father of the first wife of John Burch of Malone and of John Brunton, who made his home in the seventies and eighties with Mr. Burch. He was a quaint little figure of a man, with twinkling eyes, always moving at a trot, and very rarely missing a Sabbath service or a prayer meeting at the Congregational church. Though unbalanced mentally, he had been highly educated, read or spoke a number of languages, and was encyclopedie in his fund of general information. Mr. Erwin pictures what seem to-day to have been amazing conditions as prevalent in the elder Brunton's time. Mr. Erwin's father was a " ruling elder " in the church, and both spiritually and socially was intimate with "Father" Brunton, who used to spend his Saturday afternoons and evenings at the Erwins' home, and npon such occasions invariably using the brandy decanter so freely that he was unable to walk home unattended - Mr. Erwin's sisters always accompanying him and steadying from either side. Moreover, " Father " Brunton always called at the Erwins' on his way to church Sabbath mornings, and drew upon the decanter to brace him for pulpit service. The morning sermon was never less than an hour and a half in length, and in the afternoon (which service followed after only a half hour's intermission) was still longer. Mr. Erwin adds that Mr. Brunton's and his father's use of stimulants occasioned no reflections upon them, as drinking was then
12
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common even among religious people. Both were accounted examples of righteousness, with the "moral rigidness of Puritanism," but as a matter of course at that time they were animated with " sectarian bigotry." When the younger Erwin united with the Methodists his father drove him from the house for no other reason, though a recon- ciliation was effected a little later through the influence of the mother. According to Dr. Hough, the Brunton régime closed about 1821, after which a Rev. Mr. Crosby, a teacher in an unincorporated academy in the place, started a Congregational church organization, which con- tinued weakly for a short time, and in 1827 a United Presbyterian church was formed by Rev. Alexander Proudfoot, from Salem, Wash- ington county, with Rev. John A. Savage (who became the first prin- cipal of the incorporated academy) as pastor. The next year the form of organization was changed to Presbyterian simply, and association effected with the Champlain Presbytery. The church edifice was erected about 1828 or 1829, and was rebuilt and enlarged in 1866.
Quoting in abbreviated form from Rev. John Talbot Smith's history of the diocese of Ogdensburg, Cornelius, Patrick and Michael Dineen came to Fort Covington in 1822 from Ireland, and were soon followed by other Irishmen and Catholics until the number seemed in 1826 to warrant attention by Rev. Father Moore of Huntingdon, Que., who visited the place and said mass at the hotel. At rare intervals there- after during the next few years Father Moore or some other priest continued such visits, but mostly the Catholics of the place enjoyed their own church privileges only by journeying, always on foot, to St. Regis or Hogansburgh. Rev. Father McNulty of Hogansburgh organ- ized St. Mary's church at Fort Covington in 1837, and a church building was erected - the entire male Catholic population turning out for the work. For the next thirty-two years the parish was attended from Hogansburgh. The church edifice was completed through the efforts of Rev. James Keveney, and it was not until 1869 that the parish became an independent one, comprising one hundred and seventy fami- lies, with a resident rector. A parochial residence was bought at a cost of three thousand dollars, and a little later the church was given a new roof at about an equal expenditure. During the rectorship of Rev. Father Charles J. McMorrow, in 1883, a new cemetery was purchased, and under Rev. Father James McGowan the church was improved - a new floor laid, new pews put in, a tower added and the interior generally beautified. Father McGowan contributed two thousand dollars from his own means to the work, and also gave a bell. During the rectorship
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of Rev. Father J. L. Desjardins, which began in 1911 and still con- tinues, a vestry has been added to the church and $2,300 of debts paid. The parish includes 290 families, numbering 1,213 persons.
So far as the records of the " First Methodist Episcopal Society in Fort Covington " show, the church was organized under the labors of Rev. Arzu J. Phelps, pastor, at a meeting held December 17, 1838, at the town house, "the usual place of worship," and the certificate of incorporation as recorded in the county clerk's office bears the same date. But this was by no means the beginning of Methodism in the town, for the conference records show the appointment in 1830 of two ministers to the charge, which was even then reported to have one hun- dred and seventy members, or nearly three times the present number. Yet further, we know from Rev. James Erwin that there were Methodist activities there at least as early as 1828, but whether under the care of circuit riders, local exhorters or class leaders can not now be told. It was in 1828 that Mr. Erwin, a mere boy, was won to the faith and united with the denomination at the cost of expulsion from his home because of the intolerance and anger of his father, who had designed that he should become a Presbyterian minister. While we have no evidence or record in the matter, it may probably be safely assumed, considering the then comparative importance of the place, that Methodist ministration began even quite a bit before Mr. Erwin's conversion. The explanation of formal organization having been delayed until 1838 is doubtless that there was at about that time a religious awakening of considerable proportions, as Rev. C. L. Dun- ning, then stationed at Malone, had been holding protracted revival meetings there, and had been followed in like effort by Rev. Jesse Peck (afterward a distinguished bishop of the church), and in 1836 the mem- bership had jumped to nearly three hundred, but decreased in 1838 to eighty-six. The church edifice was originally located a short distance from its present site, to which it was moved in 1838, when Warren L. Manning gave the lot to the society and also erected the parsonage at his own expense. In 1844 and 1845, for a year or two following 1866, and from 1877 to 1901 it was joined with Bombay as a conference appointment, and in 1875 with Westville Center. Otherwise it has always been an independent parish by itself, with no out-charge. The present membership is about sixty.
Unless, as is conjectured to have been the case, army chaplains of the Episcopalian faith may have held services occasionally during the war of 1812, the first ministration with the Episcopal ritual was by
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Rev. Eleazer Williams in the old town house; perhaps in the thirties, or possibly along toward 1850, at both of which times Mr. Williams was located at St. Regis or Hogansburgh. Then there was no further mani- festation of Episcopalianism here until about 1870, when Rev. William Stone Hayward, from Hogansburgh, visited the Fort occasionally, and held services in private residences. With the coming of the railroad in 1883 there were accessions to the feeble few who were striving to build up an organization, rectors came to be engaged regularly, and services were held in the Masonic Hall and then in the Baptist church. The society's own church building was erected in 1898, and though small is of fine interior finish. The parish is at times without a rector, and even when so supplied has usually to depend upon divinity students from Montreal. The church numbers twenty-two members.
Aurora Lodge, No. 383, F. and A. M., was organized in 1855. It has seventy-eight members, and, with the exception of the fire company, is the only fraternal association in the town.
The Aetna Fire Engine Company was formed in 1850, and has nearly always been strong and enthusiastic both as a distinctively protective and as a social organization. It has a building of its own, erected in 1900, which contains, besides quarters for apparatus, a hall for meetings and entertainments, a room for one of the town's polling places, and a store. The town contributed two thousand dollars toward the erection of the edifice upon condition that it be privileged to occupy a part. The engine of the company is of the old man-killing, hand-brakes pattern, and has been the only protection of property from fire ravage that the village has ever had, though a year or two ago seven thousand six hun- dred dollars was appropriated to lay adequate water mains through the principal streets, to be connected with a powerful force pump at the electric light works. Thus there will be little use hereafter for the old engine, as the pumping facilities will furnish several strong streams capable of reaching well above the highest buildings in the place.
The Franklin County Bank at Fort Covington was incorporated by Lewis county men in 1840, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, with power to increase it to half a million dollars. Though four thousand dollars of the capital was paid in in cash and two thou- sand dollars in bonds deposited with the State banking department as security for the redemption of the circulating notes which it was expected to issue, the institution never opened for business. Ela Mer-
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