USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 42
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F. M. Bull Post No. 621, G. A. R., was organized in 1897. Its largest membership was twenty-six, which had decreased to eighteen in 1915, when Warren Flanders was commander.
George A. Berkley, proprietor of the Riverside Inn at Saranac Lake, was shot by Charles Brown, a guide, June 22, 1888. The shot took
395
HARRIETSTOWN
effect in the abdomen, and the victim lived only twelve hours. Brown had been drinking, and had been refused liquor by Berkley, an alterca- tion and a scuffle following. Brown left the hotel with a threat to " fix" Berkley, and, proceeding to his father's (Calvin Brown) home, got his riffe, and returned to the village, where, in the store of his brother-in-law, Spaulding, he awaited the appearance of Berkley. As the latter stepped from the hotel to the veranda, Brown fired, with the result stated. He then fled to the woods, and hid for the day. The next day he showed himself, and upon learning that Berkley was dead again disappeared. He was reported to have been seen a few days later in Hamilton county, but, though recognized, no one was willing to undertake his arrest, notwithstanding a large reward had been offered for his apprehension. A Saranac Lake man claimed to have seen him later, working in a livery stable in Denver, and to have accosted him by name - Brown denying his identity. When the man looked for him later he had disappeared, and is not known to have been heard from since. It is quite generally believed, however, that he fled from Denver to Alaska.
Gardner McLane, whose home was at Santa Clara, but temporarily located at Saranac Lake, shot his wife while intoxicated July 27, 1898. An ante-mortem statement by Mrs. McLane gave the affair the charac- ter of an accident, but McLane was nevertheless indicted for murder in the second degree. He was found guilty of manslaughter in the second degree, in December, 1898, and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment at Dannemora.
November 4, 1902, Allen Mooney at Saranac Lake shot Fred McClel- land in the breast, Viola Middleton in the hip, and Ellen Thomas or Faysette in the abdomen. McClelland and another man were in the house with the two women, and Mooney had asked to be permitted to take the place of one of the men. Upon refusal, he forced an entrance, and at once began shooting. Of course he was drunk. The Thomas woman died from the wound. Mooney was indicted, found guilty of murder in the first degree, and was sentenced to death.
CHAPTER XVIII
MALONE
Malone was erected from Chateaugay March 2, 1805, at Harison, so called because Richard Harison (never spelled with two rs) was a leading member of the Macomb syndicate, and consisted originally of all of great tract number one of the Macomb purchase and the St. Regis Indian reservation. Yet quite inexplicably a section of the act of 1808 by which the county was created annexed to Harison " all those parts of Plattsburgh and Peru lying within the county of Franklin west of the old military tract," when, as a matter of fact, such parts had been detached by the act of 1805. Thus all of the county's nineteen towns except Bellmont, Burke, Chateaugay and Franklin are offshoots, directly or indirectly, from Malone, which originally had an area of more than three-quarters of a million acres, exclusive of water. It now includes only two townships, aggregating 63,200 of assessed acreage. The name Harison was changed in 1808 to Ezraville as a mark of Mr. Harison's respect for his friend, Ezra L'Hommedieu of Long Island, and on June 12, 1812, Ezraville became Malone. For nearly three-quarters of a cen- tury no one appears to have speculated concerning the origin 'or deriva- tion of the latter name, but in 1885 Vice-President Wheeler believed that he had ascertained that it had been taken in compliment to Malone Constable, assumed to have been a daughter of William Constable. That theory was generally accepted as correct until Dr. C. W. Collins, under- taking investigation of the matter for the Historical Society, found that there had never been a Malone Constable, and learned from a descend- ant of Richard Harison that the name had been given to the township for Edmond Malone, the Irish Shakespearian scholar and critic, who was Mr. Harison's friend. The change of 1812 was therefore merely appli- cation of the name of the township to the whole town; the other town- ship (number nine) was called Shelah. Each of the townships in great tract number one of the Macomb purchase had not only a number, but its distinctive name also; and, the original owners having been almost all Irishmen, the names were for the most part those of places in Ireland. There are nine other towns or villages in the United States called Malone - one each in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Ken- tucky, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin, all except those in
[396]
397
MALONE
Iowa and Wisconsin having sprung up since 1882. The two exceptions received their christening through the influence of men who had lived here, and most of the others, if not all, from residents thereof who were themselves Malones.
The town is approximately seven miles in width east and west by fourteen miles in length north and south, and abounds in hills, plateaus, and ravines and valleys. Considerable areas are utterly barren, notably hills and ridges and plains that had been almost denuded of their once heavy forest growth, and then swept by fires .- The most striking of these are peaks and ridges in the southern part of the town which are almost bare rock for miles where the merchantable timber had been cut, with fire following, and erosion then removing every particle of soil. There are also considerable rocky areas that almost defy cultivation. The greater part of the town, however, is adapted to agriculture, and some of it as productive as any land in the county.
Entering the town near its southeastern corner, the Salmon river, trending a little west of north, courses the entire length of the town, and at the village is almost exactly midway between the eastern and western boundaries - the exact center of the township, but not of the town, being in Frank E. Mason's garden on Francis street. "The Branch " flows northerly for nearly eight miles from its source (Lake Titus, which was formerly known as Branch pond) to a confluence with the Salmon in the village limits. Trout river traverses the northeast quarter of the town, and there are brooks almost innumerable, but none of sufficient volume to admit of the development of a good power. The only ponds are Lake Titus, the Twins and a part of Lake Ayers, all in the southwestern section. The Salmon falls perhaps six hundred feet in the first ten miles of its course in Malone, and possibly a couple of hundred feet more from the village northward to Constable. There are four falls or cascades within these distances. Almost throughout its length in Malone the river winds between high banks, so that there is seldom serious damage by floods.
State, State and county or distinctively county highways connect Malone with North and South Bangor on the west; with Duane via Lake Titus and also via Whippleville and Chasm Falls on the south ; with Constable and Westville on the north ; and two roads with Burke on the east, while another highway into Bellmont and to Chateaugay lake is projected - nine lines in all, covering perhaps forty miles of really good road. The Ogdensburg division of the Rutland Railroad (originally the Northern, and then known as the Ogdensburg and Lake
398
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
Champlain), completed in 1850, runs east and west through the northern part of the town, and the Adirondack and St. Lawrence, built in 1892, traverses the eastern part, affording direct connections with Montreal and New York.
There are deposits of iron and of mineral paint in the town, and also a number of quarries of excellent building stone. In the southwestern quarter there is limestone from which lime was burned a good many years ago, and here and there a clay formation is to be found which makes fairly good brick.
SOME OF THE PIONEERS
The first settlers in Malone were Enos, John and Nathan Wood in 1802, with Noel Conger accompanying them or following very soon afterward. Enos and Conger had assisted Joseph Beeman of Georgia, Vt., in surveying the township for Mr. Harison in 1801. This survey, together with one a little later by Nahum Baker, laid out Main and Webster to be the principal streets of the " Center," as the village was long known, but unfortunately no map of either is now to be found. Main street was to be six rods in width, and Webster the same as far south as Franklin ; but one night about twenty years later Noah Moody, Samuel Hyde and Appleton Foote built a fence cutting off two rods of Webster street on the west, so as to enlarge their own lots, ,and that encroachment was suffered to continue. One of the surveys established a reserve of one hundred acres in the vicinity of Webster street, but reserved for what purpose there is no record to show, though conjecture suggests that Mr. Harison intended that such tract should not be included as farms, but be held for residential and store lots. Certainly his ideas of the probable importance of the place seem to have been ambitious, for some of his earliest conveyances were of parcels which are described as " city " lots.
Other settlers followed the Woods and Conger almost at once in what were considerable numbers for the period, and nearly all came from Vermont. They were mostly of the Puritan type, and of what Deacon Jehiel Berry used to call " the white oak " strain, and of whom generally Gail Hamilton strikingly wrote: " Every church, every school house, every town house from the Atlantic to the Pacific has Plymouth Rock for its foundation. Wherever Freedom aims a musket. or plants a standard, or nerves an arm, or sings a song, or makes a protest, or murmurs a prayer, there is Plymouth Rock."
James Constable noted in his diary of a trip through this section in
399
1
MALONE
1804 that there were then thirty or forty families here, while the people claimed sixty. Upon a second visit in 1805 he concluded from repre- sentations made to him locally that, absurd as it now seems, the town- ship was "nearly full," and that it was time to expect to be able to market lands in township number nine, Shelah; but it was not until nearly twenty years later that that expectation began to be realized. What the population had become in 1805 we have no means of deter- mining accurately. The assessment roll for that year, however, which covered all of the lands in the county outside of Bellmont, Burke, Chateaugay and Franklin, contained 140 names besides those of non- residents, and of this number nearly or quite 100 were living in the township of Malone. Seventeen of those whose names appear thereon possessed no real estate, and 46 others had lands, but no houses. Every parcel of realty was listed as a farm or mill, and of the latter there were only three -Appleton Foote's at Brushton, Asaph Perry's in Con- stable, and Nathan Wood's in Malone. The assessment of personalty suggests an inquisitorial spirit and determination that no one should escape from sharing in the public burdens. There were only 37 persons who were not assessed for personalty in some amount, and the items ran from $10 as the lowest to $375 as the highest, to Zebulon Mead. These valuations are remarkable, too, for their odd totals, like $18, $58, $65, $95 and even $99, indicating manifestly that the assessors meant to be exaet in screwing out the last farthing that any one was supposed to have. The total of personalty as listed was $1,584, and of resident realty $9,857. Non-resident lands outside of Malone were assessed gen- erally at 50 cents per acre, and in Malone at three times that figure, or at almost as high a rate as farms. In 1807, after Constable, Bombay, Fort Covington and Westville had been set off from Malone, an electoral census by the State gave Malone 113 voters. Of these 67 were listed as owners of lands in fee, and 46 as having their holdings under contracts. The number of votes actually cast in 1807 was 96, while the year pre- vious, when the northern part of the county was still a part of Malone, it had been 122, and 66 in 1805. Malone's population by the census of 1810 was 767, while the territory detached from it in 1807 (viz., Con- stable, Bombay, Fort Covington and Westville) had 916, and that detached in 1808 (including Bangor, Dickinson and Moira) had 411.
From 1805 to 1812 the assessment rolls gave no data except the names of property owners, the kind of premises (i. e., whether a farm, mill, ete.) and the valuations ; and the roll for 1813 is the first from which it is possible to glean definitely where the residents lived and the
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HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
number of acres which each held. From it I copy the following data, only translating the technical descriptions so as to make locations more easily grasped :
Cone Andrus, 26 acres east of Arsenal Green and 2 acres on Elm
$500 00
St., the Clinton Stevens, place, next east of the Wead Library .... Samuel Andrus, 14 acres on Elm street, beginning near where John H. King lives, and extending east. 118 00
Joel Amsden, 50 acres near Amsden farm, west of village, and 1 acre, house, barn and store, near Dr. Bates's place 1,000 00
Christopher Austin, 50 acres on Constable town line. 125 00
Ezekiel Blanchard, 50 acres near Dimick cemetery 112 50
Nathaniel Blanchard, 149 acres, the G. C. Cotton (now Harmon W. Spencer ) farm 409 75
Timothy Bemis, 130 acres in the Gleason dist. 227 50
Oliver Brewster, 200 acres at the top of Brewster hill
1,150 00
Ebenezer Berry, 142 acres, on north road to Bangor (Bicknell farm) .
528 00
Ebenezer Brownson, the Dewey farm, south of village.
400 00
John Barnes, on the road to Chateaugay Lake.
435 00
Stephen Bailey, house lot near Baptist church and tannery on west side of river. 450 00
Zenas Blodgett, 50 acres in Manson district.
100 00
Samuel Broughton, 75 acres in Sperry dist., northwest of village. 187 50
250 00
Samuel Brigham, 5 acres, part of Ferguson or Jones & Lester farm .. Leonard Conant, 50 acres near Paddock spring.
100 00
Abel Conger, 50 acres, part of Ferguson or Jones & Lester farm.
400 00
Noel Conger, 145 acres, part of Ferguson or Jones & Lester farm.
125 00
Lemuel Chapman, 103 acres on Potash road.
283 25
Zerubabel Curtis, 155 acres on Flat and east.
786 25
Joshua Chapman, 100 acres in Williamson dist., near Burke line
250 00
Horace Chapman, 50 acres in Williamson dist., near Burke line.
112 50
Ambrose Chapman, 50 acres in Williamson dist., near Burke line 112 50
John Crooks, Jr., 100 acres west of poor house, off Bangor road
250 00
William Cleveland, 114 acres on Webster St.
400 00
Edmund Chapman, 15 acres near G. W. Hubbard (now L. L. Sayles) farm . 45 00
John Daggett, 150 acres, the poor house farm.
487 50
Pliny Daggett, 50 acres on road to North Bangor
100 00
Stephen Dunning, 200 acres west of poor house
550 00
Joel Dow, 50 acres in the Gleason dist.
261 00
David Fisk, 57 acres in northwest corner of town.
250 00
Rufus Fisk, 592 acres at " whiskey hollow ".
1,485 00
Zenas Flagg, 1% acre, the P. B. Miller ( now Smallman) place, Elm St. 250 00
Appleton Foote, 4 acres and tavern (the armory lot) . 1,000 00
275 00
John L. Fuller, 34 acre near bridge, south of Main St., store, house and barn, and 1 acre on Elm St., ncar Smallman place 275 00
137 50
David Gates, 90 acres in northwest part of town.
225 00
Hiram Horton, 42 acres, beginning near Main St. bridge, running th. east to about Willow St., th. south to river, and th. down river to place of beginning (including mills) $1,500, and 5 acres, residence, at passenger depot, $300. 1,800 00
1,015 00
Jesse Chipman, 230 acres on Potash road*
550 00
Wheeler Branch, 100 acres east of village, near Burke line.
50 00
Eleazer Crawford, 50 acres near Bangor line, on north road.
. Ira Foote, 100 acres in Sperry dist.
Ira Gates, 50 acres in northwest part of town
* The Potash road is the highway leading out of the North Bangor road, two miles west of the village, to the Fort Covington road.
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MALONE
401
Francis L. Harison, 12 acres, residence, the E. E. Muller place, on Web- ster St.
$608 00
John Holley, in Howard dist. 625 00
Zenas Heath, 100 acres in northwest part of town. 150 00
Elisha Haskins, 100 acres in Manson dist. 150 00
Harry S. House, 100 acres on Trout River 250 00
Stephen D. Hickok, 150 acres just east of village
675 00
Jonathan Hapgood, 50 acres on north line of town 125 00
David Hoit, 49 acres in the N. M. Foote dist.
110 00
Obadiah T. Hosford, 1% acre, the F. P. Allen (now J. W. Fay) place on Elm St ..
250 00
Aaron Hascall, 100 acres in northwest part of town
150 00
Noah Harrington, 2 acres on Webster St. 50 00
133 00
Joseph Jones, 90 acres in northwest part of town.
217 50
Phineas Jones, 50 acres in northwest part of town.
125 00
Silas Johnson, 135 acres near G. W. Hubbard (now L. L. Sayles) farm.
540 00
Reuben Keeler, 100 acres in Dimick dist ..
300 00
Elijah Keeler, 200 acres on continuation of Webster St.
600 00
Brownson Keeler, 170 acres on continuation of Webster St.
510 00
Apollos Lathrop, 14 acre west of Arsenal Green.
100 00
Samuel Loomis, 50 acres in northwest part of town
125 00
John Lewis, 146 acres in N. M. Foote dist .. 401 00
Zebulon Mead, 100 acres in northeast part of town 200 00
60 00
Charles Moses, 100 acres in the northwest part of town
250 00
Noah Moody, 414 acres on Webster St .. 500 00
414 00
John Mazuzan, 78 acres west of village.
513 00
Edward Massey, 14 acre on Webster St.
200 00
Benjamin Merriam, 4 acres on W. Main St. and 1 acre on Mill St ..
150 00
Joseph W. Moulton, 50 acres in northwest part and 1/2 office on Web- ster St.
212 50
Elisha Nichols, 188 acres in Paddock dist.
873 00
Elijah Nichols, store in village.
80 00
Reeve Peck, 1/2 acre on Elm St ..
25 00
Samuel Peck, 2 acres, north side of Main St., at the bridge, and tan- nery on east side of river . 400 00
Aaron Parks, 100 acres in Porter neighborhood.
300 00
Lemuel Parlin, 160 acres on North Bangor road.
480 00
Stephen Parlin, 100 acres on North Bangor road.
500 00
Isaac Parker, 170 acres south of village.
305 00
John Porter, 100 acres in Porter neighborhood.
225 00
Asahel Phelps, 4 acres on Webster St.
300 00
Warren Powers, 148 acres west of village, 1/2 acre on Elm St., and store near Baptist church. 1,200 00
John H. Russell, 2 acres on Webster St.
300 00
Calvin Russell, 50 acres in northwest part of town
125 00
David Sperry, 138 acres in Sperry dist., northwest of village
489 00
Lyman Sperry, 213 acres in Berry dist., northwest of village. 564 00
John Sims, 11% acres on Franklin St. 200 00
Benjamin Secley, tavern on site of present Howard Block. 700 00
Ashley Stowers, 50 acres near Dimick cemetery 125 00
Abijah Stowers, 60 acres east of village. 150 00
Benjamin Smith, 175 acres on Potash road.
350 00
David Stratton, 50 acres near Barnard bridge. 125 00
Ebenezer and Alanson Stratton, 62 acres in northwest part of town .. 186 00
Lemuel Holmes, 17 acres and a third of saw mill in paper mill dist .. Samuel Hyde, Webster St.
300 00
Archibald Miller, 14 acre on Elm St ..
William Mason, 138 acres in northwest part of town
250 00 Isaac Parker, Jr., 200 acres south of village
Noah Smith, 137 acres in the Porter neighborhood .. 342 00
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HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
1
Daniel Sherwin, 6 acres on upper Webster St $36 00
Joseph Spencer, 100 acres in Sperry dist. 300 00
Paul Thorndike, I acre on Webster St. 350 00
Elihu Thomas, 2 acres on Webster St. 350 00
Paine Turner, 1% acre on Elm St. and 1/4 acre near Main St. bridge .. 150 00
Abner Whipple, 60 acres on Potash road.
180 00
Roswell Wilcox, 50 acres on North Bangor road, 2 miles west of village
200 00
Asa Wheeler, 50 acres on Potash road.
150 00
Truman Wheeler, 86 acres in northwest part of town.
215 00
Nathan White, 3/s acre (house, lot and shop) on Webster St.
250 00
Enos Wood, 100 acres on Bangor road (the D. Hardy farm).
350 00
John Wheeler, 50 acres on Potash road ..
150 00
John Wood, 134 acres cornering on Elm and Park Sts
1,139 00
Adin Wood, 100 acres on Whippleville road and 11% acres on Frank- lin St. 400 00
Arunah Wood, 1% acre and shop on Elm St.
200 00
Elias Watkins, 50 acres in southwest part of township.
Luther Winslow, 100 acres in Keeler dist .. 75 00
300 00
Oliver Wilder, 50 acres in Porter neighborhood.
125 00
Oliver Wescott, 50 acres in Williamson dist., near Burke line. 250 00
Nahum Whipple, 165 acres east of village
756 00
David Whipple, 11 acres east of village. 70 00
Henry Winchester, 50 acres near Barnard bridge. 150 00
Harry S. Waterhouse, 2 acres on Webster St. 350 00
Ebenezer Webb, 106 acres in northeast part of town.
238 50
Samuel Webb, 100 acres in northeast part of town.
200 00
Oliver Webb, 100 acres in northeast part of town.
225 00
Ebenezer Wood, 50 acres near G. W. Hubbard (now L. L. Sayles) farm
112 50
Almon Wheeler, 1% acre, now the Elks Club on Elm St. 200 00
Nathan Wood, 200 acres near Barnard bridge. 450 00
Abel Wilson, 1% acre on Webster St., near Baptist church. , 200 00
While many of those in the foregoing list are no more than names to the present generation, and not a few of them left little or no impress and have no descendants here now, I conceive that the record is never- theless worth preservation, and that to those who care for knowledge concerning the beginning of Malone it must be found interesting, not simply because it shows where men preferred to settle in the years when choice of location was practically free, but also because with the supple- mental data which follow it is informative of the builders of the town.
Cone Andrus (spelled originally Andrews) came from Cornwell, Vt., though I think that he had lived earlier in Connecticut. He died here in 1821. He was the father of William, Leonard, Lucius, Albert and George, was a farmer, resided on Elm street, and built the first hotel (except Oliver Brewster's log house) that the town ever had -the one that stood just at the present railroad crossing, where Elm street begins. He was conspicuous in the public life of the town, was a member of the committee that had charge of building the court house, and held minor offices many times. During the war of 1812 he served as a cavalry
403
MALONE
lieutenant, and before the war he deeded to the State land for an arsenal and afterward, for one shilling, the Arsenal Green, worth a good many thousand dollars to-day, for a public green and parade ground.
Nathaniel Blanchard was also a man of substance and influence, as is seen from the fact that he was the town's second supervisor, and later was assessor and held a number of other offices.
Oliver Brewster had intended when he started from Vermont to fix his habitation farther west, but found the roads beyond Malone impass- able. The farm at the top of Brewster hill, just west of the village, being for sale, he bought it, and until he moved into the village, locating on the site of the Methodist church, made his home there in a log house and kept the place as a tavern. It was on his farm that a detachment of General Wilkinson's army was encamped in 1813-14. When James Constable passed through Malone September 23, 1805, reaching Brews- ter's between eight and nine o'clock in the morning, he found a dance party just breaking up, with discontent at having to quit so early, but with no alternative, as the violinist's instrument was reduced to a single string. Evidently dancing was no less popular then than now, for the party numbered forty, or probably from a quarter to a third of all the adult people living in what is the present town. Mr. Brewster and Cone Andrus were for a long time overseers of the poor, and in some years had as much as two hundred dollars to expend. Mr. Brewster was the brother of David, who came a little later. The latter was a tailor, with a shop where the Methodist church stands, and afterward at the west end of the Main street bridge. He was one of the influential Demo- cratic politicians of his day, and was postmaster under President Jack- son, with the office in his shop, where the Democratic " slates " for the county used to be made. Henry S. Brewster was the son of David, and became county clerk in 1847.
Ebenezer Brownson resided first on the Elias Dewey farm in the southern part of the town, and then on Webster street, where his home became the rendezvous for the lawyers of the time. Whether he was a lawyer himself, or if he had any occupation at all except that of office holding, there is nothing to show. He was for two terms first judge of the court of common pleas, and was surrogate, county clerk and member of Assembly. He also held his share of the town offices, and was Hari- son's first supervisor. He was a soldier in the war of 1812.
Jehiel and Ebenezer Berry, whose descendants are numerous in Malone, were men of high character. The former, who located on the North Bangor road on what became the Bicknell place, kept a tavern
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