USA > New York > Jefferson County > History of Jefferson County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 58
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK.
The first girl born in the present town of Watertown was Sally Rogers, daughter of Eli Rogers, who also resided near the Centre. The first death, so far as known, was that of John Arnold, residing on the ereek below Burrville. We are unable to say what couple first led the way into the temple of Hymen (which, in this ease, was doubtless a log cabin), so there is all the better opportunity to imagine the pioneer bride and groom as surrounded throughout their united career with all the blessings which love and joy could bestow.
In March, 1803, Tilley Richardson, commonly known as Captain Richardson, an old Revolutionary soldier, lo- eated himself in the valley, about a mile and a half south- west of Burrville, where he was long a prominent eitizen, surviving until 1852. His daughter (now Mrs. Lydia Skeeles), born in the fore part of 1804, is the oldest native of the town, now resident in it, whom we have been able to diseover. What is also noticeable in this land of change, she resides on the same farm on which she was born nearly three-fourths of a century ago. Joseph Sheldon eame with Captain Richardson, and settled on " Dry Hill," in the south part of the town, where he was long a prominent eitizen.
We have mentioned the distillery at Burrville, owned by the Rev. Mr. Lazelle. In 1803 he sold it to Thomas M. Converse. The original deed is now in the possession of the nephew of the grantee, Hiram M. Converse, of North Watertown. In it the grantor is described as " Rev- erend Ebenezer Lazelle," and the distillery as being " near Captain John Burr's mill." Mr. Converse soon after be- eame the proprietor of a store at Burrville (the first in the present town of Watertown), in company with the late Hon. Jabez Foster, the firm-name being Foster and Converse. After Mr. Foster's removal to Watertown village, about 1807, Mr. Converse continued the business alone, also managing his distillery and an ashery, and being the lead- ing man of the little village until his death in 1811. Or- ville Hungerford, afterwards one of the distinguished men of the State, was a elerk for Foster & Converse during their partnership. Timothy and Anson Hungerford were early and prominent settlers between Burrville and Watertown Centre.
By a law passed March 26, 1803, a State road was pro- vided for from Rome to Brownville, running through the western part of this town, and another running down Blaek river through the northeastern part. Both were speedily constructed, and each has sinee been called the State road.
The first church in town, and probably the second in the county, was the First Congregational church of Water- town, organized at Burrville, in Caleb Burnham's barn, ou the third day of June, 1803, by Rev. Ebenezer Lazelle. The first members were twelve in number, viz., James Thompson, Gershom Tuttle, Thomas Sawyer, - Hinman, Joel Goodale, Mrs. Martha Pettit, Mrs. Sarah Tuttle, Susannah Sawyer, Jeruah Eno, Chloe Bailey, Hannah Eddy, and Sarah Taylor. The first deaeons were Thomas Sawyer and Samuel Calkins, as appears by the early records. When Mr. Burnham wanted his barn to put wheat in, the church held meetings in divers places : in the ball-room of Colonel Tuttle, in the wagon-shop of Deacon Sawyer, in
school-houses and private houses. There was no regular pastor, and the preaching was mostly by missionaries from older localities.
In 1805 the territory under consideration ceased to be a part of Oneida county, the new county of Jefferson being formed by the legislature at that time. The county-scat was fixed at the little village of Watertown, the growth of which rapidly inereased, and the surrounding town of course had a considerable access of immigrants, who desired to be near such a promising market. Among those (it is impossible to give a full list) who located in the east part of the town, from 1803 to 1812, were Jonathan Baker, whose widow died during the present year, lacking but a few weeks of ninety years old, William Huntington, John Gotham, Seth Bailey, Doris Doty, Cyrus Butterfield, Cyrenius Wood- worth, Levi Cole, Samuel Thurston, Captain Job Whitney, Anthony and Andrew Sigourney, William Fellows, and Sam- uel Thurston. In the centre were Corlis Hinds, Reuben Scott, Benjamin Green, and many others. In the west the most prourinent settler was Elijah Field, of Woodstock, Vermont, who, in 1805, purchased the Buell farm on the western line of the township. He had no less than nine sons and three daughters, most of whom were of mature age, and settled near by, but over the line in township number one, now Hounsfield. The whole distriet on both sides of the line has since been ealled Field Settlement. Among those in that part of the town, besides those already named, were Adam Blodgett, Samuel Bates, - Bates, - Spencer, and Asaph Butterfield. In the northwest were Captain James Parker and others. An aneedote eon- eerning the gentleman last named and one of his family was related by Mr. Massey, which we reproduce here in condensed form as an indication of some of the troubles which beset the early settlers.
Captain Parker desired some hemloek-gum to use in the manufacture of potash, and also wanted some groceries frou the little store at Watertown village. So he gave his oldest son, Alexander, a youth of fourteen or fifteen, a silver dol- lar, bidding him take an axe and a bag, proeure some gum, and purchase the groceries, all on the same trip. After dinner young Parker proceeded to the foot of the Folts Hill, where there was a large hemlock forest on the south of the road. To avoid the risk of losing his dollar (a great sum in those days), he struek his axe into a tree and placed the coin in the noteh. The task of gathering the gum was a long one, and he unthinkingly strayed far from the point where he had located his primitive bank. When, at length, he had obtained a sufficient quantity, he started baek, loaded with his axe and bag of gum. He traveled far longer than he thought was necessary to reach the road, but saw no sign of the desired pathway. Then he suddenly remem- bered that he had passed three springs looking just alike, and each covered with the yellow scum of iron-ore. He was old enough to know that traveling in a eirele was a common phenomenon with those who were lost, and it quickly oceurred to him that he was precisely in that posi- tion.
Meanwhile, night was rapidly coming on. The wolves were disappearing before the settlers, but there were still some in the forest, and the prospect was not pleasant.
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK.
Convineed, however, that he could not find his way out in the darkness, Aliek seated himself at the foot of a large tree, and with his bag of gum beside him, and his axe be- tween his knees, he prepared for sleep or battle, according to circumstances.
In the mean time, Captain Parker had become alarmed at the approach of night without his son's return, and started out to see what was the matter. Finding, on his arrival at the village, that the boy had not been there, the alarm was instantly sounded. The men and boys at the village rallied promptly, while Parker hurried home to call out his own neighbors. All met, late in the night, ncar the hem- lock wood, which they rightly conjeetured he had entered. Half of them had guns, and many of the others were pro- vided with horns, which then filled the place of bells, telegraphs, and other means of eonveying signals. The company, having organized in bands, provided themselves with pitch-pine torehes, and agreed on a few necessary. signals, moved forward into the forest; every rod of ground being inspected, and the horns being sounded at regular intervals, both to preserve the line of march, and to attraet the attention of the boy.
Meanwhile, the youth himself, after keeping himself awake as long as he could, had dropped into a profound slumber at the foot of his tree. Whether he dreamed of the comforts of his rude home, or was disturbed by visions of ravenous wolves standing open-mouthed and fiery-eyed around him, our account does not say. At all events, he remained in deep slumber until past midnight. Suddenly he was awakened by a tremendous blast, only a short dis- tanee away; on springing up he heard the well-known sound of horns along the line of searchers, and saw their torehes gleaming among the trees. Comprehending the situation, he put his axe on his shoulder, took his bag of gum in hand, and advaneed to meet the reseuers. After the first expressions of joy, three shots were fired in quick sueccssion to notify the line that the boy was found; the men quiekly collected, and then, with many congratulations, dispersed to their homes. But in one respeet the history of this event is deficient ; we are not informed whether Alick found the dollar which he had deposited in the side of the tree. Perhaps it is there yet.
On February 17, 1806, the town of Hounsfield was formed from Watertown by the legislature, corresponding in size to survey-township number one, and reducing Water- town to the size which it retained up to the incorporation of the eity in 1869.
There was not much chanee for anything but farms in the western part of the town. A distillery was early erceted on the Wadleigh place on Mill ereek, which was afterwards changed to a grist-mill, but this has long sinee been abandoned.
Burrville was at this period quite a rival of Watertown. William Lampson, the pioneer blacksmith, had also an axc- factory, with a trip-hammer earried by water, where he made edge-tools, and which was kept in operation till about ten years ago. James Mann built a tannery there about 1806. A few years later it passed into the hands of Theophilus Redfield, best known to the old settlers as Deaeon Redfield. He kept six or eight men at work in
his tanncry, and as many more in his shoe-shop. About 1809 a earding-machine was built a little below the grist- mill. Afterwards, but before the war, a cloth-dressing establishment was put up nearer the falls. There had been a hotel from the first, the earliest landlord whom any one remembers being Scptimus S. Adams.
All these establishments, together with the store, ashery, and distillery of Mr. Converse, made quite a lively little place. There was no organized ehureh in Watertown vil- lage, and many of its people used to go on foot and on horsebaek to attend religious serviees at Burrville. Mr. Hart Massey made the journey very regularly ; he and his boys walking, and his wife riding on horseback, with her daughter behind her on a pillion. When there was no minister, sermons would be read by Dr. Brainerd or Judge Strong.
But Watertown was all the while gaining ground, and the people did not like the idea of going five miles to church. It was proposed to build a church edifiee at Watertown Centre (where there was a tavern and a few houses) for the accommodation of both villages. In Feb- ruary, 1811, the "Religious Society of Watertown" was formed, with the view of carrying out that idea. The trustees were Tilley Richardson, John Sikes, Thomas Sawyer, and William Fellows, representing Burrville and vicinity ; Hart Massey and Isaae Benedict, on the part of Watertown Village; and Aaron Brown, the tavern-keeper, at the Centre. It was voted to build a church at the latter point ; but nothing further was done, and the next year the breaking out of the war prevented all action in that diree- tion for the time being.
Log school-houses, covered with "troughs" (i.e., half-logs hollowed out and laid in a row with the hollow part up, covered by another row with the hollows down), were the first educational temples of the town. In these assembled not only great floeks of children (for the pioncers were a prolifie race), but the congregations which listened to the in- spiring words of the early preachers, as they made their toil- some way from one rude settlement to another. Among those who preached through this town, besides the Reverend Mr. Lazelle, already mentioned, were "Father Puffer," celebrated for his knowledge of the Bible, which a doubtful tradition asserts he eould repeat from beginning to end, Rev. B. Ty- ler, Rev. N. Dutton, Father Bliss, Rev. Libbeus Field, one of the Fields of Field Settlement, who still survives, a resident of Hounsfield, at the age of 98. Rev. Hezekiah Field, another member of the same family, and Rev. David Speer (" Father Speer," as the latter was affectionately ealled), resided in Rodman, but he preached throughout Watertown in the pioneer days, beginning as early as 1805. He continued his services for more than fifty years, and died in extreme old age, attended by the respeet and affee- tion of all who knew him.
The principal physician in town was Dr. Craft P. Kim- ball, who began to practice at Burrville before the War of 1812, and continued to do so till his death, in 1872. The manufacture of potash was, of course, a most important business during the settling up of the town, for this would bring cash when hardly any other production of the country would pay the expense of transportation to market. When
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK.
the embargo was declared in 1808, stopping intercourse with Canada, and thus preventing the exportation of potash by the only available route, which was down the Saint Law- rence, the people of Jefferson County felt as if they were ruined, and many of them did not hesitate to evade the law by every means in their power. Numerous were the expedients resorted to to facilitate the removal of the precious article.
We have before spoken of the Folts hill, on the road from Watertown to Brownville. It was so called from a shrewd Mohawk Dutch farmer of that name, who lived there, and who was reputed particularly expert in conducting the secret traffic in potash. Many a score of barrels of potash, either belonging to the surrounding farmers or pur- chased from them by William Smith, the Watertown mer- chant, was quietly forwarded by secret roads to the St. Lawrence and thence into Canada, through the sharp man- agement of the person referred to. Hart Massey, the col- lector of this district, was well aware what Folts was about, and was constantly on the watch to detect him in some overt act, but without success. Once Folts himself thought he was caught. He had had a lot of potash stored in his barn, waiting a good chance, and one dark winter night he was engaged with one or two assistants in loading it into the sleigh of a neighboring farmer, preparatory to starting for the Saint Lawrence, by way of a secret road cut through the woods north of the river, for this very purpose. Sud- denly up drives Collector Massey in his cutter.
" Hello, men ! what are you doing here?" cried the officer, dimly seeing through the darkness what was going forward. Folts was hard pushed for a moment, but his shrewdness did not desert him.
" Vell," said he, " Bill Smit, he got me to keep some potash for him till he can sent it off to Utica, 'cause dis tam embargo won't let him sell it in Canada, vere it would pring sometings, and dese mens is just pringing it to my parn. Come, poys, hurry up; it is so colt as der tuyvel !" and forthwith the men began to roll the barrels into the barn instead of out of it.
Massey watched them to the end, saw the barn door fastened and the team start for home, and then, as he could not prevent Folts from keeping potash in his barn on its way to Utica, he drove on to the village. The smugglers watehed him till they were satisfied that he was safely housed, then returned and loaded up the potash, which was soon on its way to Canada. After being circumvented in similar ways a number of times, Massey was at length de- lighted to be informed very privately that Folts had a quantity of potash stored in an old building belonging to him, situated in such an out-of-the-way place that it was very evident the article was destined for illicit exportation. Obtaining a team and driver, he proceeded to the designated place, and sure enough after much searching he found two tca-boxes and three barrels, evidently all full, and carefully concealed from the ordinary observer. Loading them up, he returned to the village with his prize, and, as it was then evening, placed a guard over it lest it should be carried off in the night. For once he had got ahead of old Folts.
The next morning he proceeded to examine his eapture. Alas! the tea-boxes were filled with sawdust and a few
stones, while the barrels were packed with other refuse matter. His wily opponent had carefully prepared the decoy, and had then purposely managed to have information furnished to the collector. Not satisfied with this triumph, the farmer sued the officer before a justice of the peace for carrying off his boxes and barrels, and, we believe, actually collected a small sum from him.
Not only was an immense amount of potash illegally ex- ported to Canada, but large quantities of manufactured goods were imported in the same way, and nobody felt very bad about it. It seems as if we had heard long ago of very respectable members of society engaging in these transac- tions, and of deacons of the church hiding smuggled goods in the old long clock-cases then so common, while the revenue officers made a cursory examination of the house. There were very good people in those days, but they were not quite so immaculate as some are disposed to claim. They certainly had the virtues of industry, energy, and perseverance to an almost unlimited degree. By the time of the War of 1812, Watertown looked very much like an old settled country. On the principal roads more than half the houses were of frame, the trough-covered log school- houses were abandoned for frame ones, and the whole town was pretty well cleared up, except on some of the hills and along the river in the northeastern portion.
Among the settlers of 1809 were Anthony and Andrew Sigourney, brothers, who located in the Woodruff settle- inent in the eastern part of town. Anthony Sigourney's son, Alanson P., born the following December, is still living on the old homestead, to whom and to his brother, James M. Sigourney, four years younger, we are much in- debted for information regarding that part of the town. Anthony Sigourney bought the farm of Enos Scott, who died about a year ago, aged a hundred years and six months. Mrs. Simeon Woodruff died last summer, in Illinois, at the age of ninety-nine. A hardy, long-lived race were the pioneer men and women of Jefferson County. Another instance of this hardihood is to be found in James Brintnall, who was among the few new-comers of 1812, settling on the farm in the western part of the town, on which he now resides at the age of eighty-eight, though apparently as strong as most men of seventy. He has been our principal authority for events occurring in that locality.
When the War of 1812 broke out, general consternation spread over all this seetion of the country. Instant in- vasion was expected, accompanied by all the horrors of Indian massacre, which the events of the Revolution had but too sadly taught our fathers to look for as the inevit- able result of British hostilities. With the first news of war came an order directing Gen. Brown to call out all the militia of the county. After the first excitement was over, the service of the militia was principally performed by alternate drafts from the various regiments. The principal events of that war on this frontier are detailed in the military history of the county ; we shall only refer here to a few matters pertaining especially to the town of Water- town. Its militia belonged to the 76th regiment, under Col. Tuttle, and whenever there was considered to be danger of invasion, which was frequently the case, they were called out en masse. Ah, then, what hurrying to
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK.
and fro among those who went ! what tears and trembling on the part of the women and children who remained dc- fenseless behind ! Old ladies long told how, in their hus- bands' absence, they took their children and some blankets into the wheat-fields, night after night, and slept there, hoping thus to cscape the tomahawks and scalping-knives of the Indians, should those terrible marauders seek their houses.
The first uniformed militia company in Jefferson County was the Watertown Rifles, formed principally in the eastern part of that town in the spring of 1813. William Samp- son, of Burrville, was the first captain ; Jonathan Miles, who lived down the creek from Burrville, was the first lieutenant; the ensign's name is unknown; and John Gotham (after- wards Colonel Gotham) was orderly sergeant. Most of the young men and middle-aged men of that locality were in it. Squire William Huntington had four sons in it; there were five Delanos, three Woodruffs, two Woodworths, two Sigourneys, etc. The company organization was kept up until 1846, when it was disbanded on the repeal of the old militia law.
When Sacket's Harbor was actually attacked in May, 1813, expresses came galloping in hot haste through the county, and on every side the farmers were seen hurrying in hot haste, on foot and on horseback, with guns on their shoulders, towards the endangered post. The Watertown Rifles turned out in full force. Benjamin Woodruff hap- pened to be away from home. Arriving several hours later, he shouldered his rifle and started for the harbor, drawing powder to use from the Watertown Arsenal on the way. Finding it too coarse to prime his flint lock rifle, he bought some priming-powder at a store at Saeket's Harbor while the battle was going on, and then took his place with his comrades. Four citizens of the western part of Water- town were captured in that affair and taken to Halifax. Two of them, Messrs. Ayers and Ingalls, died in Halifax ; Mr. Graves and another returned home. Meanwhile, the women, children, and old men listened with terror to the booming guns, often assembling in large numbers for sym- pathy and counsel. In the Woodruff district they gathered on the highest point of Benjamin Woodruff's farm, wlicnce the smoke of the conflict and the lake beyond could plainly be seen. All the men were gone except old Jonah Wood- ruff, the patriarch of the settlement. Long they listened with fast-beating hearts to the sounds of conflict, but at length the noise died away, and they saw the British fleet, headed by the " Royal George," slowly sailing out of the harbor. All was yet uncertainty ; they could but hope that the invader was defeated, and time soon proved their hopes to be well founded. On Wilson Hill there was a similar assemblage at the house of James Wilson.
After the war the church question came up again. Even during the conflict, the people at the county-seat had organ- ized the " Watertown Eeclesiastical society" for secular purposes, and by this time they were so strong that the Burrville folks evidently thought it useless to continue the struggle. In October or November, 1815, the regular plaee of meeting of the First Congregational ehureh of Water- town was removed to Watertown village. The old religious organization remained the same, but it was united for secu-
lar purposes with the Watertown Ecclesiastical society, and two Burrville men were added to the board of trustees of the latter body. Six years later the church was changed into the First Presbyterian church of Watertown, by which name it is still known.
A little after the war Mr. Abel Brigham came to Burr- ville, from Whitesboro', Oneida county, and replaced Mr. Converse as a merchant, remaining there five or six years. But Watertown village had by this time demonstrated its ability to hold the foremost position in the county. All business centered there, and Burrville found itself more and more left out in the cold.
The tract between the State road and the river, in the northeast part of the town, was the latest considerable sec- tion to be settled. A man named White moved in there and made a clearing about 1820, and about 1821 William Huntington settled at the point now called Huntingtonville (nearly north of the Grove Hotel), built a dam across to Huntington island, and erected a large saw-mill. Shortly afterwards a scythe-factory was built at the same point. This was followed by a shingle-machine and elover-mill, and Huntingtonville bid fair to be an important manufac- turing village. But Watertown and high water were too much for it. Between 1840 and 1850 the buildings just named were carried off one after another by the impetuous floods of Black river. Finally the dam shared the same fate, and Huntingtonville as a manufacturing place ceased to exist. In 1828 a hotel was opened by Charles Tuell, on the State road about four miles east of the centre of Watertown village, now called the Grove Hotel. A public- house has been kept there ever since 1828, except between 1836 and 1844.
About 1825, Captain Sampson erected a blast-furnace at the top of the Burrville cascade. It was kept up only a few years, and was the last serious effort to establish manu- factures in that vicinity. Deacon Redfield moved to Water- town, the tannery passed through several hands, and was finally abandoned. The carding-mill, the cloth-dressing works, and, finally, the axe-factory, all shared the same fate.
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