USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 48
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In 1872 Samuel C. Wead began the erection north of the village of a paper mill for the manufacture of wrapping paper from straw. The
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HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
project assumed proportions as the work progressed far exceeding Mr. Wead's original expectations, and involved a heavy expenditure. The plan was changed, a pulp mill was added, and the output became news instead of wrapping paper. After Mr. Wead's death the business was continued by his heirs, but after a time passed into outside hands, who failed to make it a success. Finally the plant was closed, remained idle for a time, and was sold under foreclosure. In 1900 it was bought by Brayton R. Clark and other Jefferson county gentlemen for five thou- sand dollars, the merest fraction of its cost, and after a time the pulp mill at Chasm Falls was also acquired. The paper mill has been oper- ated since 1901 by a corporation entitled the Malone Paper Company, capitalized at one hundred thousand dollars, and was practically rebuilt and new machinery installed. The mill was burned in 1903, and was soon replaced. The pulp mills have been demolished, and a sulphite equipment added in their place. The investment has paid handsomely, and the mill employs about one hundred hands.
The Rutland Railroad machine shops were built in 1857. The number of men employed in them has varied considerably in the past, depending in part upon whether the business of the road was active or dull, and also in part upon the interests that were in control. When the road was under lease to the Central Vermont, most of the machinery was removed to St. Albans, and only a handful of men found work here, at short hours and small pay. At one time all of the locomotives and passenger coaches and freight cars of the road were made at Malone, but now operations consist mainly in making repairs. In the old days a hundred and fifty men or more were employed, and the present number is about one hundred and twenty.
The Adirondack and St. Lawrence Railway Company also has shops at Malone Junction, which give employment to between thirty and forty men. It is intended that these shops shall be enlarged and equipped with additional machinery, so that they may handle all of the repairs of the division instead of sending the worst wrecks to Oswego.
In addition to the employment afforded in their shops, both the Rut- land and the Adirondack and St. Lawrence make Malone headquarters for many of their train crews and bridge and track gangs.
The American Hide and Leather Company has a station at Malone which treats and reships all of the hides and tallow bought by it between New Hampshire and Syracuse. It keeps eight or ten men busy.
Planing mills and sash, door and trim factories are owned and oper- ated by John Kelley on Amsden street, Charles Boardway on Water street, and Cyrel Dupree on Pearl street.
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MALONE
The Malone Shirt Company was incorporated in 1901 to manufac- ture shirts from material to be supplied and cut by the big factories in Troy, and has since been operated with varying degrees of success. It has a building on Duane street erected expressly for the business, and is at present driven with orders. It employs about eighty girls, who make excellent earnings, and would increase the force considerably if additional girls could be found to take on the work.
The same parties who are in control of the shirt factory recently formed the Malone Broom Company, Inc., with W. L. French as president, Morton P. House vice-president, J. E. McSorley secretary, W. H. Gibson treasurer, and Samuel Benoit superintendent. It is hoped to interest farmers in growing broom-corn, and thus to secure the raw material locally for operating .*
In 1907 Kirk-Maher Company succeeded Symonds & Allison in manufacturing ice cream and candy, the volume of business at that time running under a hundred thousand dollars a year. Growth has been enjoyed until branch ice cream factories were established in 1917 at Plattsburgh and at Watertown. The annual sales at the home fac- tory have mounted considerably until they now reach three hundred thousand dollars, about equally divided between ice cream and candy. Something like fifteen thousand gallons of cream are used yearly at Malone, and incidentally it is of interest to note that the existence of this and other similar establishments, supplying a luxury, explains in part the scarcity and high prices of butter and cheese.
The Malone Bronze Powder Company, Inc., was organized in June, 1916, by Canadian capitalists who have a factory at Valleyfield, Que., which had been sending considerable quantities of bronze and aluminum powders to the United States, with payment of heavy rates of duty. In order to develop further the business in the United States, as well as to save the customs duties, a factory was established at the Junction in Malone; almost before it had been completed an enlargement of it was begun, and a second is now building. These works employ about thirty hands, with Merton P. House of Malone as resident manager, and are prosperous.
The Malone Lumber Company was incorporated in 1906 with a capital of $15,000 to deal in lumber and building materials, and estab- lished yards and a finishing shop at the Junction. The property was sold in 1917 to Berton L. Reynolds and Charles W. Wilding, who
* The business has been sold to Canadian interests, which have transferred the plant to Malone Junction, and added materially to its capacity.
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continue the business as a partnership under the corporate name of the original concern. The plant employs ten or a dozen men.
Of course there are also marble, wheelwright and blacksmith shops and small cigar factories, such as are usually common to most small places.
If the list seems scant in proportion to the population of the town and village, suggesting the query whether the professions and trades- men are out of balance with the manual workers, there can be no answer other than confession, with admission that practically every citizen wishes that there were more factory chimneys and more utilized water powers, and a larger number of carriers of dinner pails. Never- theless the facts stand in evidence that a substantial prosperity prevails ; that growth has been continuous through a great many years; that while none are very rich the people generally are in comfortable cir- cumstances ; that as a rule the merchants are prospering; that those in the professions are earning reasonably satisfactory incomes ; that seldom does a house stand vacant for any length of time; and that the two banks in the village have combined deposits exceeding a million and a half dollars. What are the underlying sources of this strength and so gratifying conditions it would be difficult to declare fully and with precision. The shops are a part of course, and that Malone is the shire town of the county, and appreciably larger and more attractive than any other place within sixty miles to the east or west, and nearly twice that distance across barrier mountains to the south, with no competing point at all on the north, explains a good deal more. Much of the surrounding country is good farming lands, tributary to this market. Our churches and schools are magnets constantly attracting people from smaller places, so that they and their children may enjoy a pleasanter environment and greater educational advantages; and that the village has all of the advantages incident to an excellent public library, a fine general hospital, the maintenance of a uniformed police for the protection of persons and property, a fire department that is nowhere excelled, an unrivaled water system, superior gas and electric lighting plants, two lines of railway, and practically no town debt except its share of county bonds issued for building substantial high- ways, must also be deemed of large importance. In a word, there seems to be lacking but a single requisite essential to a progressive municipal- ity ; and that is a comprehensive public sewer system. In lieu of it, however, many streets are cared for by sewers installed and maintained by individual associations.
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MALONE
WATER WORKS
Until 1857 the village inhabitants were wholly dependent for their water supply upon the river, cisterns, wells and springs. Baptiste Monteau had a hogshead on a truck in which he conveyed water to families from the river, and it was customary for many families to fetch water in pails from springs or their neighbors' wells (both of which were more numerous then than now) for drinking uses. In 1857 the Malone Water-Works Company was incorporated, and pur- chased a spring, flowing a hundred thousand gallons a day, south of the village, as a source of supply. Mains which were supposed at the time to be abundantly large, but which proved to be wretchedly insuffi- cient, were laid along the principal streets, and it was thought that provision had been made to cover all domestic and fire needs of the village "for generations to come;" but less than twenty years had elapsed when clamor for more water began to be insistent, and after a time another spring near by, and then still another, to the east, and even the Branch stream, were added one after another to the system. Still the supply was inadequate, and the head for fire purposes miser- ably insufficient. In 1888 the water company was reorganized, with a considerable increase of capital, the Horse brook, seven miles south in the Adirondack foothills, and fed altogether by springs, became the principal source of supply, with mains of a capacity to deliver a million gallons a day at the reservoir, which was located on the Pinnacle, near the village, at an elevation that affords a pressure of ninety pounds in the business center. Though there is no finer system anywhere, nor any purer water, which, however, would be preferable if it were less "hard," there is still complaint at times that the quantity is insuffi- cient. The village acquired the works by purchase at a cost of $225,000 in 1906, and the revenue from rentals is enough to meet interest obli- gations and to cover payment of bonds as they come due, as well as to cover expenditures for maintenance and extensions. The village has no other indebtedness except about $75,000 for brick paving.
THE HOTELS
Real or so-called hotels have been numerous in Malone, though most of them call for but scant mention. The very earliest were apparently outside of the village limits, and were for the accommodation of immi- grants bound westward for settlement. One was kept for a year or two about 1805 on the north road near the Bangor line by Jehiel Berry, and another at about the same time by Oliver Brewster on the same
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HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
road at the top of the hill west of the village. A few years later John Daggett (grandfather of Ferdinand L.) had one on what is now the poor house farm, and Bronson Keeler one a mile west of Whippleville. So far as I know there were never any taverns in the country east or north of the village, nor until recently any south with the exception of Mr. Keeler's and also one at Whippleville built in 1872.
In the village the first hotel, built by Cone Andrus earlier than 1807, was near the railroad, on a part of the lot now occupied by the Howard House, which was a tavern or hotel stand for more than a century. Its first landlord was Abijah Abbott, the second a Captain Perry, the third Benjamin Seeley, and the fourth Obadiah T. Hosford, who sold to Abel H. (" White") Miller. In 1851 while continuing to use the old structure, Mr. Miller built the brick hotel that was burned in 1866, which he called at first the Malone House and subsequently the Frank- lin House, and which was connected with the original hotel by a wing. After Mr. Miller the establishment had a number of landlords, includ- ing Charles Nash and James L. Hogle. It was replaced after the fire by the Ferguson House and Empire Block, one of the most imposing structures ever erected in the town. Then Oliver Howard purchased it, and was its owner when it burned in 1888. A year or two later Mr. Howard rebuilt, and for twenty years and more the house was the principal hotel of the place. It has been vacant as such since 1914.
Joel Amsden had an early hotel in the village, nearly opposite the Baptist church, and a few years later built another, which he called the Franklin House, about where the Commercial or Paddock Block is, and William Cleveland had a tavern on Webster street, just north of Franklin street. The latter became a private residence, and was burned in 1882.
The date of the building of the Appleton Foote tavern, where the armory stands, is not ascertainable with certainty, but was probably 1807 or 1808; unquestionably before 1810. It flourished until the winter of 1813-14, when it was taken for a hospital for the sick of General Wilkinson's army, and afterward, for a day or two, as head- quarters for the British commandant who raided this locality in the winter of 1814. It was never reopened as a hotel, but was occupied by Mr. Foote as a residence until his death, and then by James W. Sawyer. When the armory was built it was moved to Franklin street, and a part of it now occupies the lot on the north side of the street next west from Webster street. Mrs. Foote was from New Jersey, and as a child had carried water to the Continental soldiers during the memorable battle of Monmouth.
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MALONE
The Miller House, originally a dwelling house, enlarged and con- verted into a hotel by Orlando Furness, stood where the Flanagan House now is, and for a long time was the leading inn of Malone. Philip B. ("Black ") Miller kept it after Mr. Furness, and it was there that Alexander Flanagan made his reputation as a landlord. In 1866 and again in 1870 it was the Fenian headquarters when raids upon Canada were contemplated or attempted, and was also headquarters for Generals Meade, McDowell and others when they came here with troops in Fenian times to compel observance of the neutrality law. The building almost tumbled down.
The Flanagan Block, built for stores and offices and now so used, was made to serve for hotel purposes by the Flanagans for a time about a third of a century ago, following the burning of the Ferguson House.
The Smith House, opposite the court house, was built about 1866 or 1867 by James L. Hogle, who was its landlord for a number of years. Since his occupancy it has had no end of managers- most of whom failed to make it pay. It is now managed by Fred A. Smith, and has a good business.
The original Methodist Episcopal church at the corner of Main and Fort Covington streets was made a boarding house and later a hotel by Alonzo R. Paddock soon after the new church was erected in 1866. Frank A. Eldredge succeeded Mr. Paddock, and for several years past Charles H. Moody has been the proprietor. The house has never had a bar, nor until now has it particularly sought custom other than boarders and county transients. In 1917 and 1918 Mr. Moody greatly enlarged the building, and improved many of its interior arrangements and equipment - making it an attractive structure architecturally and enabling him to offer guests fine accommodations. It is called the Franklin House, the third in Malone to bear that name.
In 1872 John A. Hogle erected a two-story-and-a-half hotel building at Whippleville for his son-in-law, Merrill Hungerford, and Egbert Platt, who ran it for a few years, and were succeeded by S. Boutwell and Mrs. Hogle. It had little custom of a hotel character, and its business was more properly that of a boarding house. The building burned fifteen or twenty years ago.
In 1875 James L. Hogle bought the old William King homestead at the corner of Main and Pearl streets, which had been in use as a fur- niture store, enlarged it, made many alterations to adapt it to hotel purposes, and ran it for many years as the Elmwood House. Henry A. Gray, now county superintendent of highways, came into possession in
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1898, refitted and refurnished the house, changed its name to The Olympia, and six months after his opening the property was entirely destroyed by fire.
After the Raines law was enacted a number of places were opened on Catherine street and at outside points in the town which were termed hotels solely that the privilege of selling liquor might be obtained, and some of them became no better than pest holes. At one time there were a dozen or more pseudo hotels in the town, about some of which the less is said the better. Happily most of them are now closed by reason of the town having voted " dry."
John Soper built a hotel at the Junction something like fifteen years ago. It is still running, and has a considerable custom.
The new Hotel Flanagan, on the site of the old Miller House, and the most modern and probably the largest hotel in Northern New York, was begun in 1913, and opened in July, 1914, by Samuel J., John A. and Joseph J. Flanagan. It contains over a hundred rooms, and every item of equipment is high class. The cost of the house, including site, was over a hundred thousand dollars.
BANKING
The data subjoined in regard to Malone's banks are taken largely from a paper prepared by Matt C. Ransom, and read by him at a meeting of the Franklin County Historical Society held June 12, 1903:
Prior to 1846 Malone had had only such banking facilities as were afforded by Mr. Wead's representation here of the Ogdensburg Bank and the Clinton County Bank at Plattsburgh, and by an individual institution called the Farmers' Bank, organized in 1842, but not now remembered by anybody, and which perhaps never did any actual busi- ness. The accommodations thus provided, though better than none, could have afforded only slight convenience and benefits. The Farmers' Bank continued to have a nominal existence until 1850. In 1846 Samuel C. Wead, in partnership with four gentlemen of New York city who probably supplied most of the capital, organized the Franklin County Bank as a private or individual bank, which did business in the store of Meigs & Wead, with Mr. Wead as manager. It early issued bank bills or circulating notes to the amount of $15,000, increased later to $79,370, but what its deposits were, or if it had any at all, is unknown, though, if any, they must have been insignificant in amount. This bank ceased to do business and went into liquidation in 1851, when the Bank of Malone, capitalized at $100,000 and afterward increased
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to $150,000, was incorporated by Mr. Wead, John and Hiram Horton, Edwin L. Meigs, William King and William Andrus of Malone, Henry B. Smith of Chateaugay, Leonard Fish of Bangor, and a number of individuals residing in Vermont. Mr. Wead was the first president, and William A. Wheeler the first cashier. Business was begun Septem- Ler 15, 1851, and while a bank building was in course of erection was continued in the law office of Asa Hascall on or near the site of the present Episcopal Church. The bank building was a one-story stone structure located where the Wead Library now stands. The bank's first report of condition, as of November 20, 1851, showed deposits of only $5,220.81, and profits of $73.71 - which, however, were fictitious because the loss and expense account (carried in resources, but in fact a liability) was $431.94, so that the capital was actually impaired. Even four or five years later the deposits ranged only between about $20,000 and $75,000, and at the bank's final report in 1864, a few months before it closed its doors and transferred its business to the then newly organized National Bank of Malone, the deposits were only $158,688. Mr. Wead continued to be president of the bank through- out its existence, but Mr. Wheeler resigned as cashier in 1863, when Harry S. House succeeded him, and was in turn succeeded in 1865 by George Hawkins.
The Farmers National Bank of Malone (the first national bank formed in the county) was chartered in December, 1864, with a capital of $100,000 (since increased to $150,000), and began business January 14, 1865, in the store now occupied by Frederick I. Stockwell, and two months and a half later had deposits of $48,944.74. Edwin L. Meigs was the first president, and his successors have been Nathan Knapp, William G. Dickinson, Andrew W. Ferguson, Darius W. Lawrence from 1874 to 1913, and now Matt C. Ransom. The cashiers have been H. S. House, D. W. Lawrence, B. S. W. Clark, William F. Creed, O. S. Lawrence and Fred F. Fisk. Besides the Stockwell store its places of business have been in the Empire Block, the railway passenger station temporarily after the Empire Block fire, the Howard Block, and since 1915 in its own model banking house at the corner of 'Tain and Pearl streets, which was erected expressly for it at a' cost of about $60,000.
The National Bank of Malone, organized as the successor of the State Bank of Malone, was chartered March 21, 1865, with a capital of $150,000 (afterward increased to $200,000), and began business soon afterward on the corner of Mill and Main streets, in the same building
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HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
where Mr. Wead had operated the Franklin County Bank. Mr. Wead became president of the new institution, and so continued until his death in 1876, when Sidney Lawrence of Moira succeeded him until the bank went into liquidation upon the expiration of its charter. George Hawkins was cashier from 1865 to 1883, when he resigned on account of ill health, and John C. Pease of Rutland, Vt., was chosen in his place. The first report of the bank, of date only two or three weeks after it began business, showed total resources of $416,613.27, deposits of $168,408.87, and surplus and undivided profits of $14,674.59.
It having been deemed more expedient to organize a new bank than to procure a renewal of the charter of the National Bank of Malone. The Peoples National Bank of Malone was incorporated early in 1885, with a capital of $150,000, and began business March 1st of that year with Howard E. King as president, and Frederick D. Kilburn as vice- president in practical charge of the management. The latter resigned in 1896 to accept the office of State superintendent of banks, and was succeeded by N. Monroe Marshall, who became president in 1899, and still holds that relation. Hiram T. French was cashier until his death in 1900, and the position has since been filled by M. F. McGarrahan.
Mr. Pease, having resigned the cashiership of the old National Bank of Malone, in 1885, engaged with others in organizing The Third National Bank of Malone with a capital of $50,000 - a disastrous ven- ture. It never had deposits in excess of about $60,000, and in 1890 it was closed by order of the comptroller of the currency because of unsoundness and unsafety. The depositors were paid in full, but the losses of the stockholders were total. Oliver Howard was the first presi- dent, and S. A. Beman the second and last. There has never been any other bank failure in Franklin county except that of a New York city con- cern which had offices at Tupper Lake and Fort Covington in 1905 with losses to the depositors in the places named.
A comparison of the first reports respectively of the Farmers National Bank and of the Peoples National Bank each with its own like state- ment as of September 11, 1917, shows striking growth, representative not only of successful management and prosperity of the institutions themselves, but measuring also the richer and improved condition of the community :
17 FARMERS' NATIONAL BANK
April, 1865
Sept., 1917
Deposits
$48.944 74
$767,515 51
Profits
3. 480 67
226,011 39
208,557 14
1,196,526 90
Total resources
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MALONE
PEOPLE'S NATIONAL BANK.
March, 1885
Sept., 1917
Deposits Profits
$234,690 24
$868,872 64
1,836 19
373, 373 81
Total resources
320,001 44
1,448,375 48
It is thus seen that in sixty-four years there has been a gain of more than two and a half million dollars in the so-called " banking power " of Malone, while if the comparison be made for the entire county the increase has been over five and a half millions.
NEWSPAPERS
Malone's first newspaper, and also the first in the county, called the Franklin Telegraph, was established in 1820 by Francis Burnap, and continued to be published for nearly ten years. It was Whig in politics during most of the time of its existence, though it supported the anti- Masonic party at the height of that craze. It was succeeded in 1830 by the Northern Spectator, which was founded by John G. Clayton, who came to Malone expressly to give the county a Whig organ. He repre- sented the New York Commercial Advertiser in starting the paper, which he sold after two years to George F. Allen.
Publication of the Spectator was discontinued for a few weeks in 1835, but was revived in March of that year as the Frontier Palladium under the proprietorship of Frederick P. Allen, a brother of George F. Under that title and as the Malone Palladium it was continued until 1909. Francis T. Heath succeeded Mr. Allen as proprietor in 1845, and Joel J. Seaver became Mr. Heath's partner in 1850. In 1854 Mr. Heath sold his interest to John K. Seaver, but returned to nominal ownership and editorship for a time a few years later. The firm of J. J. & J. K. Seaver continued until 1877, when the office and business was leased to Oscar P. Ames and Frederick J. Seaver, who subsequently purchased the paper and plant. Upon the death of Mr. Ames in 1899, his son, Clinton L., succeeded to his interest, and upon the death of the latter in 1904 Mr. Seaver acquired sole ownership, and continued as editor until publication of the paper was discontinued. Mr. Seaver was in the State service during this period, and as he could not give the business adequate attention closed it. The Palladium was aggressively Whig in politics until 1854, when it championed the Knownothing movement for three or four years. From 1858 to 1909 it was steadfastly Republican.
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