USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 54
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Of those comprising the first conscription Malone furnished fifty, and has since added largely to that number. Besides, it has a nice representation from its very best element of young manhood who have taken their courses in officers' training camps, and are now in com- mission with rank ranging from second lieutenant to major.
In contrast with army conditions during the civil war, the differences are striking in many particulars. The volunteers and those drafted are paid $30 per month each as against $13 allotted from 1861 to 1865. Instead of being rushed at once, raw and inexperienced, to the
* They have gone to France since this was written.
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battle line, both volunteers and conscripts go into camps for months of seasoning, drill and thorough practical instruction in the new methods of warfare; and absolute prohibition of places for the sale of alcoholic liquors and of brothels or bawdy houses in or near such camps, under severe penalties, is embodied in the law. Nor may liquor be sold to a man in uniform anywhere. Measures to make camp conditions sanitary are had which would have been impossible a half a century ago, because they were then all unknown to medical science; and the aim is con- stantly in view to keep the men not only physically clean, but morally so also. Still, lack of previous military preparation is about as seri- ously felt now as it was at the beginning of the civil war, and arms, munitions and clothing have been lamentably short of requirements.
As against deprivation of the bounty benefits in the civil war, the government is not only granting larger pay, but makes generous pro- vision for the relief of needy families of its soldiers, and writes insur- ance at low rates in sums of from one thousand to ten thousand dollars for each of the men who may be prostrated by disease, or crippled or killed -the initial appropriations for which aggregate $176,500,000. Soldiers with dependent wives or children are not permitted to draw in excess of half their pay, and must allot the other moiety to depend- ents. To such allotment the government is pledged to add and pay to dependents amounts monthly ranging from $5 up to $50. In addition, there are to be pensions for the disabled or for the survivors of the killed. It thus appears that, upon the whole, the soldiers of 1917 fare rather better as regards remuneration and provision in the event of calamity than those who fought the civil war; and surely the scheme of the present law is saner.
Of Malone's home efforts while its sons are in the field it is writ large that those whose lot is simply to work and wait are doing their best, whole heartedly. and almost to the last man, woman and child. Weeks of time and labor have been given along many lines by many individuals cheerfully and without compensation. A home defense organization took a military census, prepared a registration of those liable for military service, instituted and prosecuted a campaign for increased agricultural production and for the conservation of food, and arranged for and held public meetings at which addresses were made for the fostering of patriotic interest and endeavor. Canvasses for funds for almost innumerable purposes in connection with the war have been successfully carried through. These include large subscrip- tions for Liberty Bonds as an investment, and outright giving for a
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company fund for Company K, for the Young Woman's Christian Association, for the Y. M. C. A. and Knights of Columbus joint fund, for the Salvation Army, for Red Cross membership and for Red Cross activities in all parts of the world. All of this has been pushed with vigor and with a response most creditable. The moneys given outright reach well up into tens of thousands of dollars, and the Liberty Bond purchases close to a million. The Franklin County Chapter of the Red Cross has nearly nine thousand members, inclusive of duplications, and of these more than half are residents of Malone. Twice weekly a hundred or more of these members in Malone assemble and work together in the preparation of surgical dressings, in the knitting of sweaters and socks, and in making comfort bags and other articles for field and hospital uses. Additionally, hundreds of individual women are knitting and sewing in their spare hours at home. The chapter and the Knights of Columbus together have raised funds considerably in excess of forty thousand dollars for the purchase of yarns and other materials, and are drawing upon them unstintedly. A single purchase of yarn by the local Red Cross chapter in 1917 called for $3,000. and nine sewing machines operated by electric motors are kept humming in the workrooms.
When with the federalizing of the national guard it became the policy of the State to establish home defense companies and also a body of troops to be known as the State gnard, Malone formed a com- pany of each sort ; and at a special meeting of the board of supervisors in June an appropriation of $7,500 was voted for arming and equipping the Malone home defense organization and others of the same character that were recruited in Bangor, Chateangay, Saranac Lake. St. Regis Falls and Tupper Lake. The Malone unit had about 100 members, and for several months met weekly for drill. Jav O. Ballard was its captain, Arthur E. MeClary first lieutenant, and V. B. Roby second lieutenant. Uniforms were purchased, but before arms had been pro- oured the State authorities determined that interest and effort be con- centrated upon the State guard organizations, and that the home defense companies go out of existence. Accordingly the Malone com- pany was disbanded; but those elsewhere in the county except in Bangor volunteering for the State guard were mustered into that body. Of the $7,500 appropriated about $3.400 had not been expended, and it is expected that the State will reimburse the county for the $4,100 paid out for uniforms.
Malone's company of the State guard has eighty-odd members. John
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W. Genaway is captain, Daniel W. Flack first lieutenant, and Frank S. Steenberge second lieutenant. It has been provided with rifles and uniforms. With similar companies at Chateangay, Saranac Lake, St. Regis Falls, Tupper Lake, Plattsburgh and Ogdensburg it comprises a battalion.
ADDENDUM
One of the fiercest electric storms ever known in this section, accom- panied by a high wind, swept over the eastern part of St. Lawrence county and through Franklin about to the east line of the town of Malone on the evening of August ?, 1918. There was hail also, with some of the stones of prodigious size. Probably no other as destructive storm covering so considerable a territory has ever been known in the county with the exception of the Chateaugay tornado of 1856. Its track was eight or ten miles wide at some points, and while individual Josses were generally slight the aggregate of destruction was considerable. Few buildings, or none at all, other than barns and silos, were wrecked, but of these the number destroyed was large; and crop losses were heavy - in hop gardens the poles having been blown down and the arms of the vines broken or badly whipped, and orchards and fields of grain and corn having suffered severely. In the village of Malone the great- est destruction was of shade trees. Trees of from a foot to three feet and over in diameter were snapped off near the ground or uprooted by the hundreds, and giant limbs were wrenched off. In a number of instances the trees or limbs fell upon dwellings, which were partly wrecked, and nearly every street was blocked to traffic by fallen trees which spanned the roadways. A few buildings in the village were stripped of their tin roofing. Electric light and telephone wires every- where were broken, and streets, places of business and residences were in darkness without exception until the lines could be repaired. One marvels in considering the evidences everywhere apparent of the force and fury of the wind that no substantial structures were demolished.
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CHAPTER XIX
MOIRA
Moira was erected from Dickinson April 15, 1828, and consists of a single township. At the date of its erection there were but few inhabit- ants in all of the other seven townships to the south of it, comprising the remainder of Dickinson, and it would thus seem to have been entitled fairly to assume the parental name had the people so chosen, but the township had been designated as Moira (for the Earl of Moira, in Ireland), and the new town was so called.
The first settlers were Appleton Foote and Benjamin Seeley, who came from Middlebury, Vermont, in 1803. The former was the resi- dent land agent of the then owners of the township, viz., Robert Gil- christ and Theodorus Fowler, who afterward disposed of their hold- ings to Luther Bradish, Robert Watts and Peter Kean. Jonathan Law- rence and Joseph' Plumb came the same year with Foote and Seeley, but did not bring their families until 1804. Samuel Foster, Isaiah and Rufus Tilden, Jason Pierce, Captain Thomas Spencer and David Bates came at about the same time, or a year or two later. Mr. Foote and Mr. Seeley did not remain long, the former removing to Malone. Mr. Seeley and Mr. Plumb removed to Bangor, and Mr. Foster to Dickin- son, Mr. Seeley locating a little later in Malone. Mr. Foster succeeded Mr. Foote for a time as agent for the proprietors. Philip Kearney, father of the one-armed general of the same name, as gallant an officer as ever lived and the idol of his men until he was killed in 1862, also represented the owners at one time, and lived in the town. Upon Mr. Kearney's removal Jonathan Lawrence became the agent, and with his son, Hon. Sidney Lawrence, sold most of the Gilchrist and Fowler lands that were disposed of to actual settlers, and thus contributed most to bringing new blood and additional people into the town. In a word, Moira was long a Lawrence town, this family having had a larger part than any other in the town's development, and having made the greatest impress upon it. Jonathan Lawrence had been a revolutionary soldier, and took an active part in preparing for the defense of Franklin county against a possible British invasion in 1812. He conducted the first hotel after Benjamin Seeley in Moira, held many town offices. and
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always took an active and useful part in all of the general affairs of the community. He died in 1851 at the ripe age of ninety years.
Rufus Tilden became prominent in business, and was a militia captain in active service in the war of 1812, with higher rank after peace was restored. Captain Spencer was a man of forceful character, and removed to the west in middle age.
Settlement was slow until about the time of the war of 1812, and even as late as 1830 the whole number of people in the town was barely eight hundred. Thirty years later the number had more than doubled, and in 1875 the population reached its maximum, 2,512. Since then it has fluctuated, but not more than a hundred or two either way between census periods, the number reported by the enumeration of 1915 being 2,413, of which one-half or more are in the two hamlets Moira and Brushton. The enumeration of the former, treating the electric light district as coequal with the hamlet, gave it four hundred inhabitants, while Brushton claims to have at least twice that number. But if the latter be the larger, Moira may perhaps be reconciled by the fact that a grand jury inquiry in 1859 established that it had imported by rail during the year 1858 nearly two hundred barrels of whiskey while Brushton had received in the same way during the same time only sixty-two barrels.
Agriculturally Moira is one of the good towns of the county, and used to be called the very best for corn, though it is told that the crop having failed there in one year some of the people had to go over into Bangor for their supply, and that thus a section of Moira came to be called Canaan, while the part of Bangor which relieved their wants has since been known as Egypt.
The first school house was built in 1807 near the present hamlet of Moira. Provision for the support of the common schools was one of the first acts of the town after its erection, and always since has been generous. Interest in educational matters has continuously been marked, and both Moira and Brushton have high schools of exceptional excellence and superior facilities considering the size of the places. Both do work of an academic grade, have fine school buildings and are at pains to have a high class of teachers - of whom there are nine employed at Brushton and five at Moira.
The Northern Railroad (afterward known for many years as the Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad, and now as the Ogdens- burg division of the Rutland Railroad) passes through the town near its center. It was completed in 1850, and has a station at Moira and another at Brushton, which was formerly called Brush's Mills. The
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improved shipping facilities thus afforded gave a decided impetus to the business of the town and to its growth in population, so that the latter increased thirty-four per cent. in the ensuing ten years. In 1883 the undertaking of lumbering operations in Waverly and Santa Clara upon a scale never before known in the East led to the con- struction of the Northern Adirondack Railroad from Moira to St. Regis Falls, with extension afterward to Santa Clara, Brandon or Buck Mountain and Tupper Lake, and in 1889 to the building of a railroad by Ernest G. Reynolds of Bombay, in association with the Central Vermont Railroad, north from Moira to Bombay, where it made a connection with the Grand Trunk system. The latter propo- sition proved to be very unprofitable, and was wholly abandoned and the rails taken up in 1896. Still later, when the Northern Adirondack Railroad and its extensions had been acquired by New York Central interests, a new line, bearing west and north from Moira, was built to and across the St. Lawrence river at a point just west of St. Regis, and carried thence to Ottawa.
Orrin Lawrence, a son of Jonathan, was sheriff of the county in 1830. Clark Lawrence, also son of Jonathan, and father of Clark J., if Malone, was the town's first real merchant, an innkeeper, and For thirty years postmaster. With his brother, Orrin, he commenced in 1824 the erection of the "Tavern House" on the corner now occupied by Enright, and took over the property alone in 1829. He operated also for a number of years one of the most important asheries in the county. Darius W. Lawrence (son of Orrin) and Clark J. Lawrence were prosperous merchants for many years, making more money there than they ever made afterward in Malone. The former was active and influential for a long period in local Democratic politics. He was elected to the Assembly in 1851 and 1852, and the respect in which he was held and the wide popularity which he enjoyed caused him, even against his inclination, to be drafted many times in after years as a candidate for one or another county office in times when the Democracy was particularly anxious to poll a heavy vote. Clark J. Lawrence, though as pronounced as any member of the family in his political preferences and faith, never cared for the activities of politics, and never sought public office. In business enterprises his part has been large and varied, and no one has enjoyed a higher reputation for acumen and soundness of judgment and integrity. He and Darius W. removed to Malone in 1867, three or four years after the organization of the Farmers National Bank, to become associated in its manage-
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ment. Further reference to them will be found in the chapter of biographical sketches.
Sidney Lawrence was a justice of the peace continuously for more than half a century, supervisor and assessor a number of times, sur- rogate of the county from 1837 to 1843, State Senator in 1843 and 1844, member of Assembly in 1846, and representative in Congress in 1847 and 1848. He was an intimate friend of Silas Wright, who more than once urged him to be a candidate for Governor. My inference from references to him found in local newspaper files between 1840 and 1855 is that he was not especially interested or initially active in the minutiæ of politics or in manipulating nominations, but that managers and candidates had to make their peace with him when it came to a question of the principles or policies for which they were to stand in a campaign. Pilgrimages to Moira for this purpose appear to have been usual almost every year, and it was not often that a candidate failed upon such an occasion to give in his adherence to "the Moira platform." To Mr. Lawrence certainly they all did claim to stand upon it, or else they failed to command his support; and it is to his credit that he counted principle higher than mere success. At times shifty candidates were understood to have professed in Moira a faith which they disavowed in Chateaugay, Fort Covington and elsewhere. But they all had to "knuckle " to Judge Lawrence in one way or another if they hoped to win. Had he so chosen he might undoubtedly have continued in office, but he became disgusted with political methods, and absorbed in business affairs, in which he accumulated a consider- able fortune. He was for a number of years president of the National Bank of Malone.
It has been my privilege recently to examine an account book kept by Clark Lawrence as postmaster at Moira for a part of the terms that he served in that office. Starting in 1840, it runs to 1847, and appar- ently about every person who sent or received mail at Moira in this entire period is charged for postage thereon. In one of these years a hundred and thirty-three persons had such accounts -some of them for single separate items at various dates, and others with larger cor- respondence having a continued running account for perhaps three or four months between settlements. The rate of postage then was deter- minable by the number of sheets or pieces of paper contained in a letter and also by the distance that it was carried. The postage was payable at the office of origin or of destination at the option of the sender. Thus I find in this book one letter from California charged
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at twenty-seven cents, a number from nearer points in the West and in the South at twenty-five cents each, Vermont letters at twelve and a half cents each, other New England letters, as well as those from Albany, New York and Washington, at eighteen and three-quarters cents each, those to or from Clinton or St. Lawrence county, and Duane, Fort Covington, Franklin and Hogansburgh, at ten cents each, while to and from Bangor, Malone and Chateaugay the rate was six cents. On one letter to Washington the postage was fifty-six cents, so that it must have consisted of three separate sheets or pieces. In 1845 rates were reduced ; Boston, New York and the West and South to ten cents, and to all places in Northern New York and Vermont to five cents. To England and Ireland it was twelve cents. Luther Bradish, Henry N. Brush, Robert Watts and Sidney Lawrence (the latter a brother of the postmaster) had the most frequent charges, and the largest in amount. The latter's account continued without a payment for several years, and totaled about sixty-two dollars. Of course the postmaster must have had to report and remit to Washington at stated times, while his collections evidently had to wait upon the pleasure or con- venience of the patrons of the office. It is improbable that many other postmasters of that time had the accommodating spirit or possessed the means thus to advance the funds for the postage bills of the customers of their offices generally, so that it is not presumable that Mr. Law- rence's practice in this regard was usual. But even as an exceptional case it is so radically at variance with modern methods, and would be so utterly impossible in the present, that it possesses a unique interest, and is illuminative of old conditions.
Luther Bradish came to Moira from New York in 1826, and quickly became an important figure in the life of the town and county. He continued to reside there for about fifteen years, and loomed large. A sketch of his life is given in another chapter.
Henry N. Brush located at Brush's Mills (now Brushton) in 1835. He was a man of finished education, an engaging public speaker, and a man of strong parts. He disputed primacy in the town with Sidney Lawrence, and if less prominent it was in part at least because he was a Whig, while the town was strongly Democratic. His holdings of land were large, and the business and industrial development of the eastern part of Moira were due largely to his activities. He died in 1872.
As the men of Moira who have been prominent in politics and in business pass in mind - the Stevenses, the Petits, the Dickinsons. the
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Farnsworths, the Mannings, the Burnhams, the Russells, the Perrys, the Bueklands, the Harrises, the Bowens, Mr. Dewey, and too many others even to mention -one is impressed that in point of native ability and good citizenship the quality of Moira's people has averaged high. But further detailed individual sketches are impracticable within the limits assigned to this chapter, except that it must be added that the town has been especially fortunate in having had always an exceptionally fine class of physicians - men of skill and character, whose mere presence in a stricken home carried hope and reassurance, and whose sympathetic kindness and interest bound their patients to them in affectionate regard. Among these were Dana H. Stevens, who was also the county's first superintendent of common schools in 1843; Frederick Petit, the first school commissioner in the second distriet in 1850, and who died in the army in 1863; and also Luther A. Burn- ham and Elisha A. Rust. Though lacking the education and special training which these enjoyed, Samuel Barnum must be included in the list. He was a follower of the Thompsonian school, whose teachings were against the use of mineral medicaments, and whose disciples held that the tendency of vegetation being to spring up from the earth, therefore vegetable remedies upheld man from the grave. More simply, Mr. Barnum was an herb doctor. Nominally his home was at Moira, but his habit was to tramp from place to place through Vermont and Northern New York, and at one time at least he was absent from Moira for years. Like the famed Johnny Appleseed, he had a passion for planting - only he ran to the herbs used by him in treating the sick instead of to apple trees, and all through this section he set out mint, tansy and carroway. There were far fewer physicians, both actually and relatively, in his day than there are now, and in his humble way he was useful.
The industrial enterprises of Moira were never numerous or large. The community is distinctively agricultural, but with two small unin- corporated villages - Brushton and Moira. Each is a station on the Rutland Railroad, and each is on an improved trunk-line highway. Almost with the first settlement in the town, Appleton Foote, as the agent of Gilchrist and Fowler, erected a saw mill at what is now Brushton, and a grist mill there in the year following. which was dis- placed by the present stone mill in 1823, built by Robert Watts, and later improved and enlarged by Henry N. Brush. Latterly it was operated by Irving Peck, but has been acquired recently by Neilson Brush. The saw mill was rebuilt by Mr. Brush, but went into disuse
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and was torn down long ago. Mr. Brush had also a second saw mill in the northwestern part of the town. Another saw mill, north of Brushton, was built by Phillips and Bowen, and owned later by B. F. Harris, and then by R. C. Martin and C. A. Arnold, after which it became J. S. Hill's chair factory, and is now owned and operated as a steam mill by Conger Brothers. J. S. Hill and Julius Tryon built a small saw mill in 1871 south and west of Brushton, ran it for seven years, and then dismantled it. Asahel Green also has a steam saw mill near Brushton, and both he and Conger Brothers are sawing hard timber almost exclusively. S. Farnsworth formerly had a carding mill north of Brushton, and the place has also had four tanneries and a dis- tillery. The earliest of the tanneries were one built prior to 1835 by Merritt Crandall for Robert Watts, and another, probably still earlier, on the road leading south from the railroad crossing just west of Brushton, on the Stevens brook, by Samuel Stevens. This was a small and primitive affair, with the bark mill run by horse power, the horse hitched to a sweep or beam connected to a revolving post, and the horse traveling continuously in a circle. The vats were simply holes dug in the ground, and walled up with plank so as to be water- tight. The skins or hides were put into the vats, usually in the autumn, which were then banked over with earth. In some cases the contents remained in the vats for a year or longer. Mr. Stevens used to tell that at the time he began operations there were only three families (Lawrence, Bradish and Watts) who killed their own beeves, and that the first year of his operation of the tannery he had only three hides to tan. He afterward turned out all kinds of leather, from that used in harnesses and in soleing boots to fine stuff for women's shoes, and also sheepskins with the wool on, which farmers formerly used so commonly as wagon cushions. Mr. Stevens died in 1885, but long before that the tannery had disappeared. Another tannery, built by Henry N. Brush, was afterward owned by D. W. Lawrence and Martin Bushnell. Webster Brothers of Malone operated it forty-odd years ago. It was burned during their occupancy, rebuilt by them, and again burned. A fourth tannery, on practically the lines of that built by Mr. Stevens, was located north of Moira Corners, and was run by Mason Wilcox, who afterward lived on the Duane road south of Malone village. The distillery was a Brush enterprise, with Richard Tryon and James Pickering in charge, but, of course, it has long been out of existence. B. F. Harris engaged thirty years or more ago extensively in the manufacture of sash, doors and trim at Brushton, but his estab-
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