Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns, Part 5

Author: Seaver, Frederick Josel, 1850- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Albany, J. B. Lyon company, printers
Number of Pages: 848

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By Dr. Sidney P. Bates: " Few horses were raised the first twenty- five years. Plowing and farm work could not be done by them. The stumps and roots which cumbered the ground forhade their use on the plow and harrow. Oxen were in general use, and a nice large yoke would sell for fifty dollars: a good cow in the spring of the year for seventeen to twenty dollars, and to the drover in the fall at from twelve to fourteen dollars. Beef was not much eaten. Rev. Jedediah Burchard, the evangelist, held a meeting here in the summer of 1840, and in the arrangement made with him it was expressly stipulated that he was to be supplied daily with fresh beef. Accordingly it was brought daily from Plattsburgh by stage. The dairy gave no very encouraging pros- pect of wealth. Butter sold from eight cents to twelve and a half cents a pound, governed generally by the season of the year." And again: " I recollect a funeral procession coming down from two miles south of the village of a Sunday. It was made up of six lumber wagons contain- ing the mourners and some of the neighbors, a long cavalcade of gentle- men and ladies on horseback (some of whom were riding double), and quite a procession of men, women, girls and boys on foot."

By Hon. Ashbel B. Parmelee: "At an early day we used to hear of an evening from our house adjoining the cemetery on Webster street the wolves howl in the western forest, and occasionally the scream of a panther. Game of all kinds was abundant. I have seen wild deer in the old cemetery."

By former Vice-President William A. Wheeler: "I bought my first broadcloth coat at Fort Covington, or 'thereabouts." I may now safely

FRANKLIN COFFT.

say that the purchase was made just inibe de village. a: our national Imite - a measure Ito Falch ! war led by aodbor sal considerations and by the example of my older. Prins to the police my attire in the cool monthe way of fiel diana. So, ha of that day, . foll cloth '- the prodirt of domestic Rome staple of my wear for pante was Rar. In my own estimation ! . cisse: been so well dressed as when attirel in tow pante of the out and mace of Munt Nabby Harley, who sembrano sally scale the sound of the hamlet, and warte coming with her - que" was always looked for with pleasure, ad with retentive memory and mdr to .. zne -ne ponad us In detail in the interior affairs of our Belo. The dead a

earned by posting his books, and ral .. hed with blacking manufactured by applying water with a little reclames to the bottom of a kettle from the crane of the open Saplace, I wended my way to the old church. where " Father" Parmelee, perched ten feet alde hid bearers in a pulpit shaped like the torret of & monitor, horled hot shot of drine law into the rebellinge house of the ' adrewary of would at close range. with the fase cut short."

Aneler Lincoln came to Malone in 1615. and in 1885, when no was ninety-one years of age, I avent an afternoon with him, questioning him concerning conditions here at the time of ble arrival and late: - taking notes of bis answers, which were afterward weiter out. The year 1816 is known as "the year Without a sammen." There was a frost in every month. The cold ves not local, hot pas in wideip:cal a to cause a partial failure of crops throughout the counter, with results so calamitous as to cante a reference to be male thereco or the President in his annual message to Control, and so great white the dis- tress among the St. Regis Indiana because of the destruction of their corn that the Legislature directed that their annuity, paraMe In August. might be paid in advance of that date. I quote from Mr. Limenla: " The heaviest frost in Franklin county came in Semember. blighting sch crops as had in part escaped destruction in earlier months. Wh. c. rye, oate and vegetables were so badly lamageri that time was worth harvesting. Potatoes were not larger than hors ezes. Benjanin Clark and Jacob Wead had a store where the Baptist church nom -tand .. and a part of their business was the handling of para-h. Whenare: a sufficient quantity had arrumulated they would hau! fr o Fort

HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY

Covington for shipment to Montreal, and the teams would bring back mer- chandise for the store. In the fall of 1816 supplies of all kinds had run low in Malone, until a state of famine prevailed. A boat had been long overdue at Fort Covington with flour, and in the expectation that it must have arrived and that Clark & Wead's teams, absent on a trip with potash, would surely return with a supply of food, the store had filled with people to await them, each having his bag to be filled with flour. But the wagons came home empty. When the crowd learned that none could be had the disappointment was great and bitter. 1 saw strong, hardy men ery like children, sobbing that they could bear hunger themselves, but that it was hard to see their children starve. On another like occasion Colonel Holmes, a jocular character, marshaled the men who were waiting at the store, and paraded them through the street. There were fifty of them, and each carried a bag that he had brought to have filled with flour. Finally a boat-load of flour arrived at Fort Covington, a part of it was brought to Malone, and the anxiety and suffering were relieved. The same year Mr. Moody went clear to Troy, purchased a quantity of flour there, and brought it here. I paid him sixteen dollars for one barrel of it, and was glad to get it even at that price."

Lot Lincoln, a brother of Anslem, was farming in 1816, and had twenty acres sowed to wheat and ten acres planted to corn. He did not harvest a kernel of either, and his experience did not differ greatly from that of many others. However, Jonathan Lawrence's rye field in Moira escaped in some way, and he had a fairly good crop. It was told of him later that the next spring he was called upon widely for seed, and that as long as his supply held out no one went away empty handed whether he had money to pay or not.

Quoting further from Mr. Lincoln: "Though our community was composed almost wholly of poor people - many of them young, and just married - a common spirit of helpfulness seemed to pervade all hearts. If one lost a cow, his neighbors contributed to help him to buy another. If one were sick, we watched with him and took care of him. If he were unable to put in his crops, his friends put them in for him. If a road needed repairing, a bee was made to do it, or a subscription was raised to have it done. I remember that when the road from the Brewster place to Norman Wilcox's farm was a continuous stretch of corduroy, in wretched condition, all of the foremost men of the town and village celebrated the Fourth of July by turning out and fixing it.

FRANKLIN COUNTY

I can not help thinking that in those early times the people were more neighborly than now, and worked together more unselfishly for the good of the community and prosperity of the town."

In an interview, also in 1885, Christopher Briggs said to me : " I used to do teaming between Fort Covington and Plattsburgh, and my employers would give me only three dollar: for expenses of the round trip, which required three nights and four days on the road. I had to pay seventy-five cents for tolls, and thus would have only two dollars and a quarter for my own lodging and stabling the team. When my father came from Washington county he did not have a single dollar in money with which to pay expenses on the way. He came, however, with a Mr. Woodbury, who had fourteen dollars. There were eight in the party, and when we left Plattsburgh there was only three shillings left. Mr. Woodbury and family went on ahead with the team and the money, and we followed on foot without a penny."

One of the pamphlets referred to was written by William Read, of Fall River, Mass., in 1882, and was entitled " Life on the Border Sixty Years Ago." Mr. Read came to Bombay from New Hampshire with an uncle and aunt in 1823, and continued to live there until 183%. The uncle purchased a farm. of which seven acres had been sowed to winter wheat the previous fall, a half acre planted to corn, and a small patch to potatoes. For these so-called " betterments " one hundred dollars was paid. The living accommodations on the place are thus described by Mr. Read: "The cabin was built of medium-sized logs, some twenty- four feet long and eighteen feet in width. There was only one room. The floor consisted of loose puncheons; that is, thick, short plank made by splitting straight-grained basswood logs, and hewing them a little, so that they would lie in position on the floor sleepers. There was no hearth or fire-place ; only a place for each. and a backing of rude stone- work against the logs at one end. At the foot of this. on the ground. the fire was built, and the smoke gradually found its way up along this chimney - back and out of a hole in the ridge of the roof. There was no window, only a place cut through the log wall on the side opposite the door. The floor overhead was of loose unplaned boards. and the roof was covered with rough boards, and the joints battened with wide heavy =labs, nailed down firm; and this roof was always tight in the most driv- ing storms. There was no piazza or shed or inclosed door-yard, no oven, no well, no cistern, no cellar, no outbuildings of any kind. Within the fire-place an iron crane had been securely fastened into one of the

HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY

jambs, and a half a dozen iron hooks, longer and shorter, were used with this to lower or elevate a kettle, according to the fire. As we had no oven until one was built the second year out-of-doors, all the baking was done in the baker, or on flat tin surfaces placed at an angle to the fire. In this latter way the famous johnnycake was baked.

The baker (or Dutch oven as generally called) was capacious - made of cast-iron, and with a movable cover that not only covered the whole oven part, but was turned up around the circular edge so as to prevent live coals from falling off. Into the baker Aunt Ann would place her batch of dough, making allowance for expansion, and, drawing out from the fire-place a lot of live burning coals, she would fix a bed on which the baker would be set. Then the cover would be put on, and piled two or three inches deep with coals, so that a severe heat would be enjoyed by the bread from above as well as from below. The coals on top or bottom could be renewed if necessary, and a right food baking secured with the requisite attention." The description gives a graphic picture of the accommodations and shelter of most of the then inhabitants, at least of those in the more remote localities, for Mr. Read says that this cabin and its surroundings were " as good as any other settler enjoyed." But " a revolution was soon begun within the cabin. * A door was constructed and hung upon wooden hinges, with a wooden latch opened from without by a leather string. Then three window sash were bought and glass to be set, and a double window was fixed in the west side of the cabin -one to slide sideways upon the other instead of being raised, as with us. Another sash was fixed on the front side, and these, with the door, made our cabin light and airy. Next a common table with crossed legs was constructed for every-day use, and it was kept for that purpose some ten or more years. Then a fire-place was built by laying down a good solid hearth of flat stones, and on this a chimney was constructed. Two jambs were built up on either side some four or five feet apart, of stone carefully laid in mortar, an iron support was fixed at the right height to hold the front of the chimney, and the stone work carried up to the attic floor. From there the chim- ney was constructed to the ridge, and a couple of feet above, out of straight cedar sticks some two or three inches square, laid up in a square form, and plastered within and without with clay, so as to render it completely fireproof. And this chimney stood the wear some twenty years. Next a new floor was laid of white ash planks sawed in a mill, but unplaned. Consequently Aunt Ann had a jolly good job before her

FRANKLIN COUNTY

to scrub this floor smooth, which she did faithfully, so that in four years, by her exercises on washing day, with a splint broom she rendered this rough floor as smooth and white as could be wished. * * The cabin was built of rough logs, hewn only on the inside, but between the logs were numerous cracks, more or less wide, and nice openings for letting in the cold. To remedy this, straight cedar plugs or wedges - more or less triangular in shape, so as to have a sharp edge- were driven in between the logs on the inside of the house, and a large part of the difficulty removed. But to finish the improvement moss was gathered from the large old trees in the forest, and, by means of a sharpened wire-edged punch, driven into the cracks on the outside until they were completely chocked, and then clay mortar was plastered over that, rendering the walls of the cabin as secure against the frost as though they had been built of brick. * The capacious fire-place would hold an eighth of a cord of wood without crowding. * * The blazing fire so illuminated the interior that no other light was required. Reading, sewing, spinning, knitting or talking could all go on merrily around such a blaze, and the occupants of the cabin cared not whether it was cold or not outside." Mr. Read adds that the fire-place took fifty cords or more of wood a year to feed it, and tells of a similar fire-place in a neighbor's house in which he had seen a quarter of a cord of wood blazing at one time, the logs used being eight feet long.

The other pamphlet to which reference has been made was written by Mary Ann Duane, eldest daughter of Major James Duane, and wife of Rev. R. T. S. Lowell, a brother of James Russell Lowell. In its way it is one of the most charming bits of literature that it has ever been my fortune to read; but it is in larger part simply a recital of the home life of the family and an affectionate tribute to a mother of exceptional graces and superior womanhood, and much of it, therefore, so intimate and private that it would be an intrusion to reproduce it for the general public - it having been written to inform the youngest sister (who afterward become the wife of Rev. C. F. Robertson) of the life in the Duane household at a period earlier than the memory of Mrs. Robertson could reach. However, the book contains some gen- eral matter that it seems permissible to quote, and because it breathes so vitally the spirit of the times which it covers these extracts are here given :

While building in Duane and opening a road there through ten miles of forest from Malone, Major Duane established his family for

HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY

three years in the Dr. Waterhouse dwelling (now occupied by S. C. Dudley) on Webster street, Malone. Mrs. Lowell thus describes the place as it was in 1824: "We had a pasture, an orchard, a barn, a garden, a front yard full of plum trees, and a wood to pick flowers in. * Malone was a queer little backwoods village. The people were colonists from Vermont, so cut off from all communication with seaboard cities that their manners and standards were quite their own. There was but one carpet in the place ; that one Mrs. Willson had, made by her husband's first wife, a lady of extra elegance. [The lady referred to was Mrs. Abel Willson, whose husband was county clerk, and the grandfather of George Willson, superintendent of Malone's water- works.] It was made of some sort of thick white blanketing, with red and black snakes cut out and sewed on in a sort of scroll work. The people all lived with their help on terms of perfect equality. They were generally of the same stock, and had been brought up in very much the same way. When mother went to return the visit of the principal lady, the girl stood arranging her hair by the parlor mirror, addressing all sorts of visiting talk to her till the lady should come down; and this was for politeness - she would not leave her alone. * * There was something very pleasant, I have heard mother say, in the way the villagers regarded going on the town. There was not yet a county poorhouse; the poor of each town were looked after by the overseers. It was not thought disgraceful to have lost one's means of living. A person was under obligations to nobody; it was only avail- ing one's self of a right which all had, and any one might be forced to accept. She spoke of one woman who had been somebody's help, and when taken sick had no wages laid up. Accordingly the over- seers of the poor paid her board at the house of one of the most respectable couples in the place. Everybody was expected to call on her and carry her some little present, a fancy night cap, shawl or the like. She was waited upon and petted, the center of quite a little sociability. * * *

" The people up in 'Number Twelve' without any bashfulness con- sidered our house in Malone as the 'putting-up place' if they could get to the village, and hard work enough it was. The road could be traveled only in a sleigh or on horseback unless one walked ten miles from the town line; and many lived back of that. *

* * Either at the time of the hanging of Videto, which everybody went to see, or perhaps on an occasion when one of the Duane people was being tried

FRANKLIN COUNTY

in county court, our house was filled to overflowing with guests from ' Number Twelve.' Father was not at home, and old Deacon Ester- brooks sat at the foot of the table and 'helped.' He gave a portion to each of the numerous guests, then turned to mother and said, 'There is none left for you, Mrs. Duane.'

"As I remember Malone, it was the most perfect representation of the ideal puritanical village. Mr. Parmelee, the minister of the Con- gregational Church, had come there just at the close of the war of 1812. [He came before the war.] The place had been occupied the winter before by English soldiers, and had suffered the demoralization usual in such cases. He had gone to work on the place with a strong will and hard principles, and so carried things that it was the fashion to be a church member; no one was of any social account who was not. No amusements were tolerated but prayer meetings and singing schools. * *

" Nearly everybody in Malone was a Congregationalist. They used to have a church meeting on the Thursday before communion Sunday, where any member, young or old, could make a complaint against any other member who, he thought, had done injury to the cause.

The people then kept the Sabbath from sundown on Saturday till sun- down on Sunday. One Sunday evening mother and father walked to look at a house, and after inspecting it they said they would take it. Dr. Waterhouse was the owner; the chance was too good to bring the ungodly habits of the first representatives of the Episcopal Church to light; and Dr. Waterhouse was disciplined for making a bargain on the Sabbath day with one who would not be expected to know any better. * * *

" The taverns were wholesome, rustic little things made of logs, with a kitchen and parlor and bar-room; a bed-room for the mistress of the house, off the kitchen; a best bed-room off the parlor, not intended to be used ; a garret-room up stairs, slightly partitioned - one end for women, one for men."

One further illustration may be cited of the almost primitive condi- tions that existed at the date of the county's erection and for a few years subsequently. So few residents held their lands in fee that an act had to be passed by the Legislature in 1815, providing that those should be eligible as jurors who held land under contract and were worth one hundred and fifty dollars in personal property, or who had improved their lands in that amount.

HISTORY OF FRANKLIN COUNTY

The more important acts of the board of supervisors, which may be regarded as comprising the official history of the county, will be con- nectedly outlined in subsequent pages, while the incidents and events in the general development and affairs of the county that stand out largest will be given in separate chapters. The story of the war of 1812 as that conflict touched us; the particulars of the attempt in 1817 to loot the federal treasury through the presentation of fraudu- lent or wholly fictitious war claims, backed by perjury ; the actual rob- bery of non-resident land-owners in 1821, 1822 and 1823 by the pay- ment of enormous wolf bounties, many of them fraudulent because not earned; the effort in 1823 to secure the building of a canal from Ogdensburg to Lake Champlain, and the struggle through more than half a generation, from 1829 to 1850, for railroad facilities ; the political history of the county; the Fenian movements in 1866 and 1870; bio- graphical sketches; and other matters each receiving separate treat- ment, or being comprehended in the several town sketches, it is essen- tial here to outline only the story of general growth and progress which the collective enterprise and individual efforts of our fathers wrought.

Until after 1820 the inhabitants were practically one in race, in religious faith, and in political and economic views, though of course this does not mean that there was no foreign element, but that it was insignificant in numbers, comprising only five and a half per cent. of the population in 1820; nor that all were adherents of a single religious denomination, or that in politics all were members of the same party ; but only that the people were really united on fundamentals - one in spirit and purpose, making unity of action easier, and conducing to a prevalence of greater equality, of a closer neighborliness, and to more uniform standards of conduct. Individual material conditions were much more nearly equal than they have since come to be. While all were poor, they were thrifty spirited and progressive, and content to live frugally and humbly. Of actual paupers in 1825 there were only eight in the entire county, or one in every thousand of the people.

Yet in the early years, because of insufficiency of capital, there could of course be no large development of general business or of manufac- tories other than those of the simplest character: and with the excep- tion of tanneries, distilleries, a few primitive iron works (most of which were merely blacksmith shops), and grist and saw mills, the industries were wholly domestic and agricultural. And it is significant of the former habits of the people that even as late as 1855 there was

FRANKLIN COUNTY

not one music, milk, fruit or ice dealer in the county, nor any plumber, undertaker or restaurant, and only one telegraph operator, one book- seller, three barbers, and (mirabile dictu!) barely three servants. The farm staples were rye, wheat, corn, oats, potatoes and flax, with neat cattle and sheep comprising most of the farm stock; and the domestic manufactures, apart from potash, were principally cloth - over sixty thousand yards of it in 1835, of which 20,623 yards were from flax, and 39,276 yards from wool. This production in families increased in 1845 to 83,309 yards, with all of the work except some of the carding performed in homes. Horses in the county numbered only 1,261 in 1825, or not much more than half as many as there are now automo- biles, neat cattle 7,499, and sheep 9,568. In 1845 the horses had increased to 3,878, the neat cattle to 20,069, and the sheep to 47,790. The contrast between these figures and those for 1910 is impressive. Of horses in 1910 the county had 9,260, a loss of 477 in ten years ; of neat cattle 46,108, and of sheep only 5,223, a decrease of 15,674 from 1900. The last of the distilleries went out of existence about 1840, and only one tannery of any importance remains.

Churches and schools were of early origin, but something like twenty years had to elapse from the organization of the first church before any society was strong enough to erect a church edifice. The first structure of this type in the county was either the old union church at Moira or that of the Congregationalists in Malone, the latter of which is known to have been built in 1827. The late Warren L. Manning was authority for the statement that the Moira church was the first, but he fixed no date for its erection.

SCHOOLS

Every town had its district schools as a matter of course almost from the day when there were children to attend, but the people felt that something better and broader should also be provided, and in 1806 the Harison Academy was founded in Malone as a private institution, and a few years later there was a like so-called academy at Fort Covington. In 1831 regents' charters for real academies at both places were obtained. Fort Covington's no longer exists as an academy, but continues as a high school with equivalent courses of study. No other academies were ever chartered in the county, but .Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake, St. Regis Falls, Chateangay, Brushton and Moira have each a high school of creditable standing, which do academic work ; and also there are union schools at North Bangor, Bombay and Dickinson

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Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns, Part 5

Author: Seaver, Frederick Josel, 1850- [from old catalog] Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Albany, J. B. Lyon company, printers Number of Pages: 848

Author: Seaver, Frederick Josel, 1850- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Albany, J. B. Lyon company, printers
Number of Pages: 848