USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 68
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had the means which would have enabled him to lay in large quanti- ties even had the roads been such as to admit of hauling heavy loads. Effort was accordingly directed early to secure the opening of avenues of communication. For years the only mail service was by carriers who made their rounds on foot and then on horseback, and highways, even of the roughest, came slowly. But the tide of immigration from New England to our county and St. Lawrence, becoming considerable in the early years of the century, a highway of a sort was cut through Malone and on into Lawrence and beyond. Some conception of its character may be imagined from a reference to it by Judge Ford of Ogdensburg in a letter in which he was pleading for a road to connect his city with Central New York and Albany. He sneered that it scarcely deserved the name of an apology for a road, and added that if his proposed high- way were built the Chateaugay road would yet be " good enough for any use that will be made of it." We may derive still further idea of what roads must have been in that time from an additional statement by Judge Ford, to the effect that he had just let a contract for the build- ing of one through a forest section at the price of sixteen dollars a mile, or hardly more than a thousandth part of what the State pays to-day per mile for work in open country, with grading already accomplished ! Of course the country was extremely poor a hundred years ago, and aid in road building had to be sought by localities from the State, and was given often upon the grounds that considerations for public defense and of facilitating possible military operations along the frontier required their construction and maintenance.
Chapter 124 of the laws of 1810 incorporated the St. Lawrence Turn- pike Company, to build a road from Black river in Jefferson county to Malone, but the company was subsequently released from obligation to proceed farther east than Bangor. The act authorized toll-gates to be established every ten miles and the rates and terms for tolls as laid down in the charter ranged from six cents to twenty-five cents, according to the character of conveyance or the number of cattle or sheep to pass, but none was to be collected from any one living within a mile of the gate through which he might desire to proceed, nor from any one going to or returning from worship or a funeral, from a court which he might be required to attend as a juror or a witness, from an election at which he was a voter, from grist-mill or blacksmith shop, from summoning a physician or midwife, or from performance of military duty on train- ing day. The diary of a Hopkinton resident carries the entry that a road which became a section of this turnpike was cut through that town
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to Dickinson between 1807 and 1809. The charter was subsequently repealed, and the turnpike declared a public highway.
Chapter 177 of the Laws of 1810, after reciting that owners of lands had cut at their own expense a road from Hopkinton to the west line of the Old Military Tract (i. e., to the western border of the town of Franklin), and that it had become impassable by reason of fallen trees and bridges carried off, appointed a commissioner to cause it to be repaired, and authorized him to raise by tax for that purpose not to exceed seventy-five dollars in each town traversed by it. Chapter 170 of the laws of 1812 appropriated a thousand dollars from the State treasury to rebuild a bridge on the same road which had been destroyed by high water, and Chapter 196 of the same year provided for levying and collecting a tax on adjacent wild lands, besides appropriating three thousand dollars of State money for completing and improving the road. In 1816 the Legislature granted four thousand dollars additional to the project, and in 1824 passed an act authorizing commissioners to assess every free male inhabitant living thereon, between Saranac river and Meacham lake, not to exceed ten days' work in each year. This is the road known as the Northwest Bay road, extending from the bay of that name on Lake Champlain at Westport through Essex county to Franklin county, and thence across the towns of Harrietstown, Brighton, Duane, Santa Clara and Waverly to Hopkinton, St. Lawrence county. It is said to have been the first route for regular stage-coach service into and through Franklin county, and local belief is tenacious that formerly it was a military road, built or at least worked to a considerable extent by soldiers during the war of 1812. A friend who is an unusually competent delver into such matters, and who tried to establish the truth or falsity of foundation for that belief, has submitted to me his correspondence on the subject with the offices of the secretary of State and the adjutant general both at Washington and at Albany, and there is nowhere "a scrap of paper " sustaining the prevalent local opinion. Upon inquiry myself at Washington I am advised, further, that there is no record in the war department showing this road to have been used by troops at all during the war of 1812, though records do prove that military organiza- tions moved through Hopkinton to Sacket Harbor from Plattsburgh, but having made the trip from the latter place via Chateaugay. It is of course difficult to reconcile this record with the facts that parts of guns, bayonets, canteens and canister shot have been found in recent years at points along this highway in the town of Santa Clara, together with the presence of graves at Jennings clearing which antedate any known settle-
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ment in that vicinity ; but may it not be possible that Sir John Johnston crossed this route during the war of the revolution in his flight from Central New York to Canada, and that the relics and the graves referred to may have originated with that movement instead of dating from the war of 1812? The Northwest Bay road was for long in practical disuse over a considerable part of its course, but is now to become again a thoroughfare. In 1914 a few miles at its western end were converted into a State highway at probably a greater cost than that for construction of its entire length in early days. This improvement is scheduled to be continued from a mile or two south of St. Regis Falls to Everton, and thence to a junction near Lake Meacham with the county highway that leads to Paul Smiths and Saranac Lake. It will then be a far better highway than its projectors ever dreamed for it, and will be more traveled than it ever was in the past.
The first State recognition of the military road " from Plattsburgh to the east line of Franklin county " appears to have been given in 1811, when an act was passed directing the managers of the lottery for the purchase of the Botanic Gardens to raise an additional five thousand dollars and pay the same into the State treasury, which should in turn pay it over to commissioners for improving this highway. In 1812 a supplementary act, reciting that the drawing of the lottery could not be had for some time, directed that the five thousand dollars be advanced by the State treasurer, to be repaid when the drawing should occur. In the meantime Franklin and Clinton counties were to pay one hundred and fifty dollars each as interest on the sum so advanced, and the super- visors of the two counties were authorized to raise by tax seven hundred and fifty dollars for each county for two years, to be applied on the work. (It is to be observed that while the improvement was to stop at Clin- ton's western border, Franklin was nevertheless to be permitted to share equally in defraying the cost. Clinton was always a canny lot.) 'The act in question recited further that the road had become impassable at certain seasons, and was at all times dangerous. In addition to the help thus extended by the State, General Hampton's troops worked on the road easterly from Chateaugay upon arrival at that place in 1813, and one of his officers reported officially that he had made it " a perfect turnpike." If this were true, such condition could not have long con- tinued, because in his journey through Northern New York in 1817 President Monroe found the road so execrable that upon his return to Washington orders were issued to the soldiers in garrison at Platts- burgh to proceed to work upon it, for which service the men were allowed
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a gill of whiskey each per day and fifteen cents per day per man in addition to their regular pay. But even this work was insufficient to make it a good road, and a State law of 1822 authorized and directed the supervisors of Clinton and Franklin to raise by tax in that year and the next the sum of three thousand five hundred dollars for its comple- tion, but again only to the east line of the county of Franklin, and granted State aid to an equal amount. In 1823 it was made a toll road, the tolls collected to be used in keeping it in repair. In 1829 an act authorized the Franklin county supervisors to assess and collect in the years 1830-31 such sum not exceeding two thousand dollars in the towns of Malone and Chateaugay as might be necessary for improving that part of the road which lies in Chateaugay. In 1843 the State authorized a part of the money raised for the road to be applied to build- ing a bridge over the Chateaugay river - presumably the old covered bridge. Soon after the close of the war of 1812 this highway became a stage route, with regular mail service from Plattsburgh through to Ogdensburg, and was so continued until the Rutland Railroad (orig- inally called the Northern and then the Ogdensburg and Lake Cham- plain) was built. Even later than that, because the post-office depart- ment would not pay the railroad anything like the rate that it allowed to other railroads for like service, stages were again called into use for mail carrying. The coaches were of the old regulation style, with thoroughbraces for springs, and were drawn by four horses. Horses were changed every ten or twelve miles, and arrival at stopping places, always made on a run and with horn sounding, was an event in the life of a community. Local newspapers were almost unknown, and postal rates were high, so that the stage was relied upon for news from the outside world. Hotels multiplied all along the line - which in this county west from Malone was at first through Bangor and Dickinson, but afterward through North Bangor and Moira - and a considerable impetus was given by travel and immigration to business locally. Most of the stage inns went into disuse as such long ago. One of the early owners and drivers of these stages was Jonathan Thompson (grandfather of the late H. DeForest), who started the business with a single horse and a saddle, and when he sold to William Andrus had a hundred horses employed. Inferior stage lines radiated from the trunk at principal points, of which now and then one is still in operation. One of them in Mr. Thompson's time extended from Chateangay to Fort Covington.
Chapter 287 of the laws of 1827 appointed commissioners to lay out a route for a road from Hopkinton to Lake Champlain. They reported
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that four different routes had been surveyed, and agreed in recom- mending as the most feasible that which came to be known as the Hop- kinton and Port Kent turnpike, having its western terminus at the place first named, and its eastern at Port Kent on Lake Champlain, in Essex county. It runs through the town of Dickinson, a mile or two north of St. Regis Falls, crosses Santa Clara and Duane in a generally easterly direction, and then swings through Franklin by way of Loon Lake, Hunters' Home, Merrillsville and Alder Brook into and across Essex county. The commissioners found its length as proposed seventy-four and one-half miles, of which over fifty miles lay through an unbroken forest. Chapter 165, laws of 1829, appropriated $25,836 of State money for building it, and authorized the commissioners to assess a tax on adjacent lands to the amount of $12,500 additional. It was made a toll road. In 1831 the State loaned Clinton county $9,500, of which $5,000 was to be expended in building a road from Plattsburgh by way of Redford and Goldsmiths to intercept the Hopkinton and Port Kent turnpike at Loon Lake, and in 1832 the Legislature gave $3,000 for completing it. An act of 1838 directed town highway commissioners to keep the Hopkinton and Port Kent turnpike in repair notwithstanding it was a toll road.
Altamont has a so-called "military road ", the history of which is obscure and uncertain. My conjecture is that it is a part of a highway authorized by the Legislature in 1810 to be built from Canton in St. Lawrence county to Chester in Essex county. It is not shown by any map in the State engineer's office, and was utterly abandoned after a few years. ""Twere idle waste of time to guess whence came, or whither gone."
These several enterprises, with the construction of the many laterals at the cost entirely of the towns or of individuals, were a tax upon the small and poor population heavier and more burdensome than we of more fortunate times and larger resources can easily realize ; but, though the improvements gave an immeasurable relief from former conditions, still they were felt to be inadequate, and failed to satisfy. The building of the Erie and Champlain canals had progressed as our highways were somewhat grudgingly authorized and assisted, and the benefits which these waterways had brought to the eastern, central and western coun- ties were seen to have been marvelous, naturally exciting envy. Thus the idea occurred to enterprising men in Northern New York that a similar work here would be tremendously helpful; and, chimerical as the plan would be deemed to-day, agitation was begun and vigorously
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.prosecuted for the building of a canal from the St. Lawrence river to Lake Champlain, whence by way of the latter water and the Cham- plain canal and the Hudson river a through boat route might be opened to Albany and New York. Public meetings were held to arouse popular interest and to secure pledges of material aid by individuals, and the Legislature was memorialized in 1823 to authorize the undertaking and to vote the money for its prosecution. The proposition as it was definitely put forward was for a canal to begin at a point near Ogdens- burg and to terminate near Plattsburgh. The petition for it to the Legislature argued that preliminary examinations, already made at private expense, justified the belief that the work would not involve any special difficulties, and that its cost per mile would not be greater than the average per mile cost in building the Erie. The length of the canal was estimated at one hundred and twenty-five miles, and the advantages to be derived from it were set forth to be: To make New York city instead of Montreal and Quebec the natural market for the products of our section ; to foster the potash, pearlash and lumber indus- tries of the locality ; to induce the development of vast iron deposits; to make timber for ship-building accessible, and to create a demand for and increase the value of lands owned by the State, as well as to pro- vide facilities for inexpensive and expeditious transportation of troops and military supplies in the event of another war with Great Britain. President Monroe commended the project on the latter ground to the favorable consideration of Congress, but nothing further ever came of the matter in a federal way.
Some of the other arguments are amusing now in the light of changed conditions and policies. The making of potash was as destructive of the forests as charcoal came to be in subsequent years, and it would seem a calamity now rather than a benefit to have revived that industry. Again, the State has ceased to be a seller of forest lands, but has been, and is once more to become, a buyer, and, therefore, would prefer lower rather than higher prices.
No action having been taken on the petition of 1823, the Legislature was again memorialized in 1824 on the subject, with these alternative routes suggested : From Plattsburgh via the Saranac river to Saranac Lake, and thence by way of the St. Regis system of waters to Hopkinton, and so on by the Grass, Indian and Oswegatchie rivers to Ogdensburg; or, if it should be thought that such course would not adequately serve the northern part of Franklin county, the Saranac could be left at Loon Lake and the Salmon followed to Malone.
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Rather strangely, New York city, which had fought bitterly the. building of the Erie, sent petitions to the Legislature favoring this projeet.
The Senate committee on canals reported that it had had the pro- posed enterprise under consideration, expressed the belief that it was practicable, and recommended that the prayer of the petition, to the extent of ordering a survey, be granted. The report declared, further, the opinion of the committee to be that a canal as proposed would tend to divert to New York city from Montreal and Quebec the products of this region, and it estimated that the cost of a survey would be two thousand five hundred dollars, of which there was reason to believe that one thousand dollars would be provided by subscriptions along the line. An appropriation of one thousand five hundred dollars for a survey was accordingly recommended. Chapter 230, laws of 1824, authorized and required the canal commissioners to cause such survey to be made upon condition that the expense to the State should not exceed the amount stated.
Survey was made in the same year by Holmes Hutchinson, who reported to the Legislature in 1825 that the route followed was 133 miles from Ogdensburg to the Chazy river, near the village of Cham- plain, and thence four and a half miles by the river to the lake. The elevation of the summit was found to be 811 feet above Ogdensburg and 960 feet above Lake Champlain. The route ran by the Oswegatchie . river and the Grass to Canton; thence to Potsdam, and on easterly through St. Lawrence county to Moira, Bangor, Malone, Burke and Chateaugay. It was proposed that it enter Malone village in the vicinity of the Barnard bridge over the railroad on the Fort Covington road, and cross the Salmon river by a stone aqueduct at a point a few rods north of the Main street bridge. The cost of construction for this mile, including the aqueduct, was estimated at $18,873; and about the same each for the mile spanning Trout river and for the mile crossing Chateaugay river at a point two miles south of the village. Other miles were estimated to cost anywhere from $3,750 at the lowest to $101,558 at the highest, for the mile just west of the Mooers town line in Clinton county. The mile at Boardman Brook in Chateangay was estimated at $26,758. The whole cost, including wooden locks, would be $1,744,673.72. If the locks should be built of stone it would be about $300,000 more.
There ended the matter. It was a splendid dream for the period, but, unfortunately, it could be no more than that. Nevertheless material
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benefits doubtless resulted to the locality from the agitation. Half the State or more was clamoring at the time for canals as laterals to and feeders of the Erie and Champlain, and a good many people are under- stood to have believed that our work would go through. Local tradition is to the effect that outside interests began investing in lands here as a consequence, and that many settlers were attracted by the expectation of an increase in values and a boom in business which the canal was expected surely to bring.
There should not be omission to note, however, that the county has not always been altogether destitute of water transportation facilities. Beginning more than a hundred years ago, ship timber and lumber were floated down the Salmon to Fort Covington, and thence in great rafts to Montreal and Quebec; and for many years Fort Covington was an export point by water for potash and pearlash from all of the settled portion of the county, as well as a port of entry for flour, salt, hides and other commodities. Years later there was steamboat traffic to and from there, and Captain James Sawyer is claimed to have been the first, in 1848, to run the Long Sault rapids with a steamer. Formerly the Salmon permitted ascent by boats drawing eight or nine feet of water, and large steamboats docked regularly at Dundee, and smaller craft a mile or so farther up the stream and south of the international border. In this period canal boats in tow, laden with the produce and manufactures of the region, were run directly through from Fort Cov- ington to New York city. In 1866 two large steamboats ran regularly between Fort Covington or Dundee and Montreal, with a rivalry so keen that the fare was only a sixpence. As late as 1881 there were four lines of steamers in and out from Dundee - one running to Cornwall, one to Lancaster and St. Anicet, one to Ogdensburg, and one to Massena. In 1884 an appropriation for a survey of the Salmon was voted by Congress upon the ground that the barges sunk by General Brown in 1813 and 1814 had caused silt to lodge around their hulks, filling the channel. and a year or two later the stream was dredged to the Canadian border. Effort to secure like action by Canada failing, the money was practically thrown away. The channel clogged again, and in places between Fort Covington and the St. Lawrence is now navigable only by pleasure launches which draw not to exceed three or four feet.
Small steamers used to ascend the St. Regis also from the St. Lawrence as far as Hogansburgh.
The first railroad in the United States had only begun to operate, and the first in the world had been built not more than four or five
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years, when, smarting from failure to secure its canal, and evidently of the mind that it was entitled to particular consideration by reason of that disappointment, Northern New York began to clamor for a rail- road on practically the line of the lost waterway, as if the isolation of the region, its difficult terrain, and its poverty both in means and popu- lation were no very serious obstacles. Considering the time and con- ditions, the movement seems to have been assertion of the nerviest enter- prise and most optimistic pluck conceivable. Against all discourage- ments and disappointments, and necessarily conscious of course of their inadequate means, lack of " pull " or influence, and with next to nothing to contribute toward a combination with other similar movements, the men of the time nevertheless continued to show their fighting quality until their cause triumphed nearly twenty years later, though not quite along the lines originally contemplated. These were that the enterprise should be distinctively a State affair at the State's cost, and be con- ceded as an offset to the public works created elsewhere, for which our people had helped to pay in proportion to their means, and without having been given anything in return. Of course little could be accom- plished or even attempted in the first stages of the struggle beyond emphasizing the needs of the section for better transportation facilities of some sort, and appealing to the Legislature to equalize us with the upbuilding benefits that it had showered upon other communities. In 1830 a meeting at Ogdensburg, largely attended by prominent men representing the entire northern district, addressed appeals both to the State Legislature and to Congress to inaugurate the work, and a mass convention at Malone a few weeks later, in 1831, spoke similarly. And so matters continued until in 1836 a Lake Champlain and Ogdensburg Railroad was incorporated by act of the Legislature. It was capitalized at $800,000, and was required to begin construction work and expend at least $25,000 within two years under penalty of forfeiture of its char- ter. Commissioners representative of Essex, Clinton, Franklin and St. Lawrence counties and New York city were named in the act to open books for the subscription of stock. Benjamin Clark and Jonathan Stearns were to serve for Franklin county, with David L. Seymour of Fort Covington added in 1837. Residents of Malone subscribed for stock the day that the books were opened to the amount of $21,150, but with all of the canvassing and effort that followed the total for the entire county could be lifted only to $50,200, though other counties apparently did better, as at the end of a week the entire amount placed reached $400,000, which grew eventually to $600,000 - a part of which came
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from New York city and New England. But there were numerous other like companies organizing at the same time - some of them with more influential friends or richer connections, so that they absorbed prac- tically all of the uninvested capital of the country that was available for railroads. Failure for the time was recognized, actual organization was not undertaken, the subscriptions already in hand were canceled, and where cash had been paid in it was returned. A few months of inaetiv- ity ensued, and then, in 1838, at another convention held at Malone, the project was revived on the original lines. A committee was created to collect and marshal statisties which should indicate the volume of freight that the road might expect, and upon presentation of the evi- dence in this regard the Legislature appropriated $4,000 for a survey, which mapped two routes; one to start at Port Kent and proceed by way of Saranac Lake, Parishville and Potsdam, and the other to begin at Plattsburgh and to pass through Chateaugay, Malone and Moira. A road by the route first outlined was estimated to cost two and three- quarter millions of dollars, and it opens a wide field for conjecture regarding the changes it would have effected in the development of the county if it had been followed. By the second route the cost was figured at a million dollars less. The statistical report and the survey together made a strong favorable impression, and in 1840 a bill was presented and pressed in the Legislature for the building of the road distinctively and exclusively as a publie work, and with tolls to be charged, as was the practice on the canals. The report accompanying the bill argued . earnestly that such a road would tend to develop the resources of the northern counties, would be important as a military factor, would induce settlement in a sparsely populated section, and would be no more than a just recompense to the locality for the burdens it had borne for public works elsewhere which conferred no direct benefits upon it. The bill passed the Senate, but was lost in the Assembly on the last day of the session by one majority. In 1841 another report urging the merits of the proposition was submitted by the committee on railroads, and a bill presented which required the State to carry it through. This also was lost. At length, in 1845, by supreme and desperate effort, a charter was wrested from the Legislature barely a half hour before final adjourn- ment by combining our forces with those of another locality which was seeking a similar privilege. Hiram Horton of Malone -to whom more than to any other single individual in Franklin county belongs the credit for keeping alive the fight and for its final triumph - was our Member of Assembly at the time. The capital of the company was fixed at two
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