USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 55
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lishment was burned, and not rebuilt. Until corn drove the potato product out of the market there were several starch factories. The first of these, and one of the first in the county, was built in 1851, and operated by Colonel Christopher A. Stone, from Plattsburgh, and Captain William R. Tupper, from Burlington, Vt. Its foundation walls are still to be seen at the Farrington brook just west of Brushton, at the point that used to be called Tupperville. Colonel Stone removed to Geneseo, Ill., and Captain Tupper located at Chateaugay Lake, where he ran a small steamboat for a number of years. At a later date D. W. and C. J. Lawrence had two starch factories, one in the northern part of the town, just south of South Bombay, and the other in the western section; and Dexter B. Lewis, and then George Farrington, ran the Stone-Tupper mill. D. D. D. Dewey was also a manufacturer of starch at one time. Forty years ago and more A. C. Slater & Son had a saw mill northwest of Moira, and D. D. D. Dewey and N. C. Bowen had a steam saw mill and planing mill at Moira, which was destroyed by fire; and in the years when the large lumber output at St. Regis Falls, Santa Clara and Brandon (now Bay Pond) all had to find outlet via Moira a planing mill at the latter place, operated first by Patrick A. Ducey, later by William W. Wheeler, and still later by Wm. S. Lawrence, did a considerable business, but is now idle. John J. Tomb had a carding and spinning mill as early as 1828, and is under- stood to have been induced to undertake the business there by Philip Kearney, who was active in persuading skilled artisans to establish themselves in the town.
O. H. P. Fancher, who is said to have been the father of the Rarey system of horse training, operated a brickyard near the Farrington brook for a few years after 1877. Before coming to Brushton he was said to have been tied to a stake three times by Indians, and fire kindled for the torture.
The modern tendency to consolidation and the competition created by condensaries and milk shipping stations have operated in Moira, as everywhere else, to diminish the number of creameries. One south of Moira Corners, owned by Edward Barnett, has become a skimming station for a creamery at Alburgh, and another, north of Moira (built by George Elwood on the site of one owned by W. J. Congdon, that was burned) is now owned by F. L. Richards, and is similarly used in con- nection with the latter's creamery at Brushton. Four creameries are now in operation, viz .: Stiles & Erwin's, west of Moira Corners; F. L. Richards's at Brushton; James O'Connor's, north of Moira; and Clay-
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ton Tryon's, also north of Moira. Others that are now out of existence include one owned by J. H. Griffin in the Wangum district; one that used to be in the old Methodist church building, burned, and which was run by George Whitman and Melburn Demo; and A. C. Slater's and H. F. Keeler's. The Borden Condensed Milk Co.'s milk shipping station at Brushton manufactures cheese whenever the demand for milk in New York city is not equal to the supply, and there is also a shipping station at Moira, owned by the Levy Dairy Co. Besides the many thousands of pounds of milk which these two concerns send to the metropolis by the regular milk train, large quantities of cream go from the town daily by express to New England points.
Sanatoria are many in this day, here and elsewhere, but it will doubtless surprise all except the oldest readers that there was announce- ment fifty-odd years ago of the opening of one near Brushton by Dr. H. G. Parker. The advertisement indicated a really pretentious estab- lishment, called a retreat for the afflicted, located at the farm of Coomer Brown, control of which Parker had acquired; and it empha- sized that there were two medicinal springs in the vicinity - one of which was, perhaps, the Brush spring, while conjecture suggests that the second may have been the sulphur spring in Westville. Dr. Parker advertised to be in attendance personally at Brushton three days in each week, one day at Dundee, Que., and the remainder of the time at Cote St. George, and to cure consumption, asthma, heart disease, cancer, rheumatism and other ailments. I understand that the sana- torium had few patients, if any at all, so that it did no one any good, nor any one except Mr. Brown any harm. Parker was a negro or mulatto.
A chalybeate spring was discovered at Brushton by Henry N. Brush through having stepped into it and afterward observing that his boot was covered with iron rust. The spring was walled in, and for years its waters were used by many visitors for its curative properties. It was believed to be beneficial in cases of scrofula, erysipelas and nervous ailments. Latterly it has been little frequented, though occasionally people in the vicinity still drive there, and take the water home. It will not bear long keeping, however, as when bottled a sediment forms, and the curative properties are lost. A curious feature in connection with it is that hardly more than a step from it is a spring that flows perfectly pure water, without even a trace of any mineral impregnation.
An agricultural society was formed in 1872, and held annual exhi- bitions for seven years. The grounds were south of the railroad station
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at Brushton, and included a race track. The address in 1875 was by " Brick " Pomeroy, and in 1876 by Theodore Tilton. Both lashed the farmers unmercifully for their lack of business methods and for failure to cultivate their lands intelligently and scientifically. The enterprise did not prove a success financially, and no fairs were held after 1878.
Two murders have been committed in Moira. On January 10, 1839, while Oliver Pierce and his son, William, were at work in the woods, an altercation arose between them over the son's request to be permitted to take a horse to drive to an entertainment in the evening. Upon denial of his request the son became sullen, and failed to obey directions given by the father concerning the work, whereupon the father struck him in chastisement. In a paroxysm of rage the son then buried the blade of his axe in the father's breast, and death ensued after a day or two. The son was convicted of murder in the first degree, and was sentenced to be hung; but Governor Seward visited him in the jail at Malone, and afterward commuted the sentence to life imprisonment, which was subsequently modified to imprisonment for forty-nine years, four months and six days. The term expired in December, 1888, but Pierce had become insane, and upon his release was turned over to Superintendent of the Poor Henry A. Miller, who had him transferred to the Willard Asylum at Ovid, where he died.
In the evening of May 28, 1903, J. E. Brady, a respected and popu- lar merchant at Brushton, closed his store at the usual hour, and started for home on his bicycle. He was assaulted, and his skull crushed, though he was able after regaining consciousness to make his way alone to his residence. A part of a sum of money that was known to have been on his person when he left the store was missing upon his arrival at his home. He died from his injuries June 13th. Local opinion to some extent held that the murder was the work of local char- acters, but Mr. Steenberge, who was sheriff at the time, and dug into the matter as deeply as possible, believes that the assailants were tramps.
A fire at Moira May 9, 1900, burned the stores of A. L. Sayles, J. R. Crandall and J. H. Enright, and Dodge & Burnap's meat market. The losses aggregated $30,000.
W. W. W. Belknapp founded and for a few years published the North Star at Brushton. He was burned out in 1884. Charles H. Smith established the Brushton Facts and Fallacies in 1899, and still con- tinues the publication. Mr. Belknapp re-entered the newspaper busi- ness as publisher of the Brushtonian, which was continued for only a
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few months - Mr. Smith buying it and consolidating it with Facts and Fallacies. Moira also had a newspaper, called the Northern Adirondack, for a short time in 1887. It was started by W. E. Clark, and was pub- lished later by V. L. Clark and W. E. Pratt.
The First National Bank of Brushton, a well managed and prosper- ing institution, commenced business January 24, 1910, with a capital of $25,000. Its resources in September, 1917, aggregated $286,533.76, and it had accumulated in less than eight years a surplus of $20,659.55. Its deposits amounted at the same date to $216,159.21. Its deposits more than doubled in the two years from 1915, and its resources increased in the same time by $109,000.
As already stated, the first hotels in the town were those of Appleton Foote at Brushton and of Benjamin Seeley and Jonathan Lawrence at Moira. But these were hardly public houses, inasmuch as they were only the homes of the gentlemen named thrown open to accommodate and entertain the few who sought a meal or lodging. Then followed the really public inn of Clark Lawrence at Moira, which Mr. Lawrence him- self kept until about 1840. From that date until the house burned in 1883 it changed ownership a number of times, and had many landlords, among whom were Wilbur Austin, A. Green Pierce, Horace Salisbury, Ambrose Hosford, Julius Pierce, George W. Dustin, Thomas Murray, James Humphrey, Stillman Burnap and Henry Clark. It was during the latter's occupancy that the building burned, and Mr. Clark then bought a house near the Adirondack Railroad which he converted into a hotel under the name "Adirondack." Not proving profitable, it was abandoned as a hotel and made into a tenement, but in 1915 (the town having voted in favor of license) it became a hotel again under the ownership of Edwin Ross, and with A. H. Plumadore as its landlord. The Railroad Hotel, as it was known fifty or sixty years ago, and after- ward as the Franklin House, is now Hackett's Tavern. It was built about 1850 or 1851, and, as its original name implied, is near the station. It has had as landlords Ransom Harrington, John R. Covey, Oscar Phipps, William W. Shedd, Mckenzie Payne, Thomas Murray and others. William Hackett bought the property thirty years ago or more, has greatly enlarged and improved it, and manages the house him- self. George Prespare recently acquired a saloon building near the rail- road station, made it over into a hotel, and conducted it under the name Moira House. Yet another hotel at Moira, built by W. S. Lawrence in recent years, is modern in construction and fine in its appointments, but has been vacant for several years. It is too good a property for
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promiscuous renting, and yet is not salable at its value because of the uncertainty of obtaining a license for the sale of liquor. Seventy years ago or more Bradford Smith kept a hotel about a mile east from Moira Corners, near the Julius Tryon (now Albion Drake) place. He com- mitted suicide by hanging. Lieut-Gov. Bradish boarded there about 1840.
The date of the opening of the first hotel at Brushton after that of Mr. Foote I have been unable to ascertain definitely, but it was running at least as early as 1846. It was a two-story frame structure on the site of the present Brushton House, and the building had been the dwelling house of Robert Watts, and afterward of Henry N. Brush. When the latter moved to a new home on the east side of the river, it was con- verted into a hotel. Aaron Peck kept it in 1852, and among its other landlords have been S. H. Lyon, Ira Marks, James Humphrey, James Lawrence, Steven Gile, J. J. Mattheson, Woods Brothers, A. E. Barnett, Joel O. Allen, Jr., and Merchant O. Phelps, the present owner and manager. It was burned in 1877 during one of the terms when Mr. Gile occupied it, and again in 1911 under Mr. Allen's ownership. It was rebuilt the last time, in 1914, by a stock company, which sold to Mr. Phelps .* Mr. Lawrence's occupancy had some memorable inci- dents, in connection with one Salisbury, which give interest to the statement that his son, Henry, is now the proprietor of the best hotel in Indianapolis, Ind., is a director in one of the largest banks in that city, and is rated as worth a million dollars. Friends and associates of the writer in his younger years who may chance to read this sketch would deem it strange if special mention were not made of "Steve's" management here, which made it one of the best country inns any- where. Mrs. Gile was a famous cook, and both husband and wife were hospitable and kind. Dance suppers were always fine, and so tempting was the table generally that private parties from Malone and other places frequently drove there for broiled chicken and other appetizing fare. When the number was large enough a dance usually followed the supper. The Giles finally removed to the woods, and have now departed life. A son, known as "Hight," was an officer in the 98th regiment during the civil war, and as a young man was something of a high roller. " Hight's " final years were passed as a cook on a ranch in Arizona, where he was widely known as "Old Dad," and was popu- lar. He was killed twenty years ago or so in attempting to board a moving train at Flagstaff.
* This hotel was burned July 3, 1918, with an estimated loss of $20,000.
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Another hotel at Brushton, called the Commercial House, but more often referred to now as the "brown hotel," was built by A. Green Pierce in 1870 on the opposite side of the street from the Brushton House. It had not been quite completed when it was destroyed by fire, which was supposed to have originated by spontaneous combustion of painters' rags. It was at once rebuilt, partly by donations of timber and labor by the people of the vicinity, and was burned again in Sep- tember, 1884- the guests barely escaping with their lives. Mr. Pierce, W. W. W. Belknapp, Tom Jellico, C. H: Freeman, Steven Gile, J. L. Fish and others were its landlords. The building was owned when it burned the second time by Delong and Stearns, and occupied by Mr. Gile. The same fire destroyed also Belknapp's printing office, the "novelty bazar," and E. A. Whitney's barn and residence. The hotel was not rebuilt.
Early merchants at Moira, besides Clark Lawrence, were Captain Rufus Tilden, Sidney and Orrin Lawrence, D. W. & C. J. Lawrence, Warren L. Manning (afterward at Fort Covington, and then at Malone), Ira Russell and Baker and Dana Stevens; and somewhat later M. V. B. Meeker, D. D. D. Dewey, Clark & Crandall, L. J. Dickinson, Horace M. Stevens, Wm. E. Dawson and A. L. Sayles. The place now has six or eight mercantile establishments, all in the immediate vicinity of the Corners with the exception of the wholesale and retail house of C. W. Brush, which is near the railroad station. Clark Lawrence's day book as merchant from 1829 to 1840 is interesting. Not a few items in it are for whiskey, sold to men who were pillars in society and in the church. In that day practically all merchants sold liquor as a matter of course, and no one thought either the traffic or the drinking wrong. Even clergymen used liquor commonly, and not infrequently to the extent that they became "mellow." Moreover, everybody who can remember back to those times is pretty sure to include in his remarks concerning them the reflection that though liquor was so cheap and so commonly used, it did not seem to induce disorder and riotous con- duct as it does now. One particularly suggestive item in Mr. Law- rence's day book is a charge which couples "one quart of whiskey and four fishhooks," so that the " bait " peculiar to the sport of angling has been deemed essential from a very early time. Lieutenant-Governors would doubtless enjoy procuring butter at the price that Luther Bradish paid in 1829, when it cost him ten cents per pound, or eggs at about the same figure per dozen.
Early traders at Brushton included Henry N. Brush, V. Parsons Hill, James Farnsworth, - Case, B. F. Whipple, and John S. Hill.
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Charles Durkee was there for a few months sixty-odd years ago as man- ager of a store opened by Edwin L. Meigs of Malone. While Mr. Brush's name appears in the list I am informed that he engaged in trade for a short time only, and less for profit than to accommodate the little community, so that residents might be spared the expense and inconvenience of having to go elsewhere to satisfy their small require- ments. Now Brushton has eighteen or twenty stores of one kind or another, or just about the same number that there were dwelling houses there sixty years ago.
At Moira there are a Congregational and Methodist Episcopal church, and at Brushton one each of the Methodist Episcopal, the Christian, the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Episcopal.
The Congregational dates from 1823, when Rev. Reuben Armstrong, representing the Berkshire and Columbia Society, and Rev. John Kennan visited Moira, held a meeting at the residence of Thomas Oakes, and formed the church with nine members, viz., Thomas Beals and wife, Thomas Oakes and wife, Simeon Harwood and wife, Rachel Stickney, Abigail Spencer and one other unknown, who "entered into covenant with each other, and were pronounced a church." So far as the clerk's records show, preaching during the next four years occurred only about once in six months. The membership in 1915 numbered about twenty-eight, and forty years previously was twice as large. Decrease in the number continued steadily from 1915, and in 1917 the organization held what it was thought would be its last service, and was deemed practically extinct. The church enrolled with the Presbytery of Champlain in 1827, but withdrew in 1866 to affiliate with the St. Lawrence Association. For a number of years following organization the school house was used as a house of worship; the church edifice was erected in 1844, and was dedicated in 1845 by Rev. Ashbel Parmelee. It was remodeled in 1871. An examination of the church records dis- closes conditions very like to those told in the story of Dickinson con- cerning the Free Will Baptist church. A standing committee was appointed early in the life of the society to inquire of all members who should become delinquent the reasons for such delinquencies, and to have temporal watch and care over the brethren. In one case in 1829 a complaint was made against both Mr. and Mrs. Beals. The committee reported that they had been visited more than once, and told of their fault, but "they did not hear me," and "I now tell it to the church." As learned from a source other than the record, their offense consisted in having walked one Sunday afternoon from their home to a neigh-
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bor's to see a panther or " painter " that the latter had killed on Satur- day, leaving it on exhibition in his door yard until Monday, when it was to be skinned and presented to the authorities for the bounty then payable on those animals. Mr. and Mrs. Beals having refused to con- fess that they had done wrong and declined to express penitence, the church, after many hearings and admonitions, excommunicated them. Complaint was made against John Tomb for a number of offenses, one of which was the " manifestation of greater anxiety for his temporal prosperity than for the prosperity of Zion," and another "neglect of prayer." He also was heard many times, and finally excommunicated. Another member was rejected for instability and "inconsistency of practice in running after other denominations, especially the Chris- tians," and for neglect of family prayer. Still another, who applied for a letter of recommendation in view of a contemplated union with the Free Will Baptists, and who had been immersed, was refused; and yet another was suspended because it was shown that she had been re-baptized.
The first conference appointment of a resident minister to the Meth- odist Episcopal church was in 1850, and the next year the society was reported as having one hundred and thirty-eight members. Of course these could not all have been gained in a single year, but must have been mostly the fruits of labors when the place was served by eircuit riders, which Hurd's history of Clinton and Franklin counties says were begun there in 1831, at which date Moira was in the Malone circuit, but was transferred to the Bangor circuit in 1835. Thus the locality would appear to have had services with more or less regularity for nearly twenty years prior to becoming an independent charge; and I have before me an account of a camp meeting held in the town in 1833 or 1834, written by a man who was present. Rev. Jesse Peck was one of the preachers, and the number in attendance was large. Meetings of this character have been held in Moira probably more often than in any other town in the county. Years ago they were held on the Irving Peck farm in the western part of the town, and also at a point between Moira and Brushton. In more recent times, and until 1914, when the camp-meeting custom was abandoned, they were held in the medicinal spring grove at Brushton, where were erected stables, a preachers' stand, fifteen private cottages and a dining hall, with a large tent in which to hold the services. Several of these buildings have been torn down, though some still remain. The pastor informs me that the pres- ent church building at Moira was finished in 1869, and dedicated in
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1870, and that at Brushton in 1844, though it looks much older. The members of the Moira charge number one hundred and twenty-one, and of Brushton one hundred and one. A single pastor serves both.
Hough's history, which was published in 1852 and is reliable, states that a Christian church was organized by James Spooner in Moira in 1816, and that the next year it had seventeen members. It adds that " in connection with the Methodists they have a church at Moira vil- lage." This edifice stood on the site of the present Methodist church, and the description in a deed to other premises, as recorded in the county clerk's office, refers to the lot as having been marked and con- veyed by Jonathan Lawrence. The date of this other deed is 1833, which is the nearest I can come to the time of the church's erection. In a letter to the Palladium in 1870 Warren L. Manning stated that it was the first built in the county. No deed to the church lot is on record, but a copy of a lease of it by Mr. Lawrence for "as long as the same shall be used for the purposes of a church " is on file in the office of the town clerk. It was executed to the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal church and to the trustees of the Christian church in 1845, and the consideration was one dollar. Though the lease denotes that the church was of the "union" order, the fact is that it was used exclusively by the Methodists for a long time previous to the building of the present church, and came to be known as the Methodist church. When the new building was erected the old one was moved to a site a few rods east of the " Corners", and after a time was converted into a creamery. It burned a few years ago.
Mr. Spooner, the organizer of the Christian church, came from New Hampshire, and though only a common laborer found time and asserted the force to establish two churches in the county. The Christian church was removed to Brushton probably about 1849. Its records are very incomplete, but it is known to have held its meetings in the school house at Brushton until it erected a church building of its own in 1869. For sixty years or more it has maintained a resident pastor, who sometimes officiated at East Dickinson also, and it continues to be an active organization.
St. Mary's Church at Brushton was a part of the Malone parish until 1850, when it became an independent charge. The first mass here was said in the " old red store," since burned, but which was on the main street, on the east bank of the river. There were then only thirty Catholic families in the district. In 1855 a church building was erected, and a parochial residence provided in 1870. Thirty years ago the church had three hundred and fifty families in membership, and, though Ban-
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gor and West Bangor have since been set off from it, it nevertheless now has over four hundred families. For a time a few years ago it had a parochial school, but abandoned it because of lack of support.
St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal church at Brushton was organized in 1867, largely through the efforts of Mrs. H. N. Brush, and a church building erected in 1869. For a part of the time since then it has been served by clergymen from Malone, though generally it has had, and now has, a resident rector.
North Star Lodge, No. 107, F. and A. M., was organized at Law- rence April 8, 1846, removed to Moira January 31, 1855, and to Brush- ton February 9, 1887. It has a membership of ninety-two, and owns the building in which the lodge room is situated. The first floor of the building is unoccupied except as the town leases it for a polling place.
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