USA > New York > Lewis County > History of Lewis County, New York; with...biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88
The descent on Niagara, in April, 1813, was planned and conducted solely by General Lewis, as General Dear- born, the senior officer, was confined to his tent by indisposition. After the evacuation of Fort George, Lewis set off in pursuit, but when just arrived within sight he was recalled by a peremptory order from Dearborn. The next morn- ing the latter ordered Generals Chand- ler and Winder to pursue the enemy, but upon coming up with them, the lat- ter, considering their situation desper- ate, turned upon their pursuers. In the darkness, both of these officers fell into the hands of the enemy, and the Ameri- can troops returned to Fort George. Late in the fall of 1813, General Lewis accompanied General Wilkinson's in- glorious expedition down the St. Law- rence. He continued in the service un- til disbanded, in June, 1815, when he re- sumed the practice of his profession. While on the Canada frontier, he ad- vanced large sums from his private means to pay the expenses of exchanged prisoners, at a time when drafts upon the government would not be received. His indulgence towards such of his ten- ants as had served during the war, either as militia or in the regular army, is es- pecially worthy of commendation.
General Lewis married in 1777, Ger- trude, fourth daughter of Judge Robert Livingston, of Clermont, Manor of Liv-
20
HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY.
ingston. This union lasted fifty-four years. He was a member of the New York Society of the Cincinnati, and president at the time of his death, which occurred in New York city, April 7, 1844. His remains were interred in the Episcopal cemetery at Hyde Park.
The commissioners appointed under the fifth section of the act organizing the county, were Matthew Dorr* of Colum- bia county, David Rogers of Washing- ton county, and John Van Benthuysen of Duchess county. The names of the Coun- cil of Appointment were at that time, John Schenck, Joshua H. Brett, Stephen Thorn and Jedediah Peck, of whom Thorn was an intimate personal friend of Walter Martin, through whose in- fluence the appointments are said to have been arranged. It has been re- ported upon very reliable authority, that the driver of the coach, in which the commissioners came in from Utica, over- heard from their conversation that the location of the seat of Lewis county was already decided upon, and that he made an affidavit to that effect.+
In 1805-'06 the sum of $74 was paid to Dorr, a like amount to Rogers, and $82 to Van Benthuysen as compensation for their services in locating the county seat. The county drew $293.54, from Oneida in 1806, as its share of the pub- lic money that then happened to be on hand, when the division was made.
CHAPTER II.
COUNTY BUILDINGS AND COUNTY SEAT.
T HE act erecting the county, made no provision for a court house and jail, beyond the designation of their site,
and the expense of these was left at the request of the Denmark convention till the end of five years. Mr. Martin had as early as 1803, began to grub up the stumps for the site of a court house, but upon being assured of the decision of the commissioners, the measure was not pressed for some years. At Lowville, active efforts were at once made to se- cure if possible the location, and a wood- en building was erected on the site of the stone church at the north end of the main street, with the design of offering it to the county for a court house, but failing in their enterprise, the citizens of that place converted the edifice into an academy.
The first session of the court of com- mon pleas, was held at the inn of Chillus Doty in Martinsburgh, Dec. 8, 1805 ; present, Daniel Kelley, Jonathan Collins and Judah Barnes, Judges, and Asa Bray- ton Assistant Justice. This court adopted as the county seal, a design having a balance for its devise supported by a hand in clouds, with the words "County of Lewis," on the margin.
The jail liberties adopted at the first session, although not peculiar in their day, or essentially different from those of other counties, will doubtless be con- sidered by many as a curious illustration of the absurd legal form and usages of the olden time, and as belonging to a barbarous period in the history of our penal code. The limits comprised the site of the court-house, a path two feet wide across the street to the store opposite, a path eight feet wide along the west side of the street to the premises of Chillus Doty, afterwards a brick tavern, (including the store, the house, garden and front yard of General Martin, and the house, garden, barn and shed of Doty); a path eight feet wide from the middle of Doty's shed across to the premises of David Waters, with the house of Mr. Waters, and a space eight
* Mr. Dorr, was a native of Lyme, Conn., and at the time of his appointment lived at Chatham, Columbia county, N. Y. His business was that of clothier, and he died in Dansville, Livingston county, N. Y., at an advanced age.
+ This information was given the author by Isaac W. Bostwick, in 1852.
21
EARLY JAIL LIMITS.
feet wide in front and at the ends, and twenty feet wide in the rear, and a path eight feet wide northward to, and in- cluding the house of John Waters. These were subsequently extended to other houses, and finally included nearly every building in or near the village, from Foot's tannery on the north, to the inn then kept by John Atwater, on the south, with narrow paths between, and crossing places at distant intervals. These liberties were duly surveyed and recorded, and the unlucky debtor who might find himself upon them, would need a sober head and steady eye to keep himself within the straight lines and right angles which the court had so precisely marked out for his footsteps. An obstacle in the path might stop his course or an inadvertent step subject his bail to prosecution and himself to close confinement. In 1814, the jail lib- erties were extended from Adoniram Foot's tannery, on the northern border of the village, to John Smith's hat shop, on the site of the present Methodist church, with a breadth of twenty-five rods, and after, about 1822, they were made to em- brace a square area of 500 acres around the court house. The boundaries where they crossed the public roads were, at a later period and until they rotted down, designated by posts painted red. One of these posts stood by the northeast corner of Foot's tannery, at the foot of the hill, towards Lowville; another on the hill by the roadside, west of the grist- mill; another just north of the present residence of Martin Sheldon, and an- other at the foot of the hill east of the village, near where there was once a distillery.
The county courts were held during nine terms at the house of Chillus Doty, and during the succeeding eight, at the house of Ehud Stephens. One term of the court of Oyer and Terminer was held by Judge Ambrose Spencer, at the
Lowville academy, previous to the erec- tion of the court-house.
In 1809, General Martin undertook to raise means for the erection of a court house by subscription among his towns- men and those living south, leading off on the list with a liberal sum himself. The Lowville people were not indifferent to the movement, and procured the sig- nature of nearly every taxable inhabitant north of Martinsburgh, to a petition against the final location of the courts on the site already designated .*
The petitioners indirectly charged the commissioners with having acted upon slight and superficial examination,appeal- ed to the map for proof that Lowville vil- lage was nearer the center of the county, and to tax lists,t military returns, and opinions of gentlemen who had traveled through the country, and were acquaint- ed with it, as evidence that more than two-thirds of the population lay north of the court house site. They stated the want of accommodation in the little village where the site had been located as compared with the larger village of Lowville, and ask the Legislature to fix by direct act, or appointment of sound and candid commissioners the county seat in what shall appear to be the center of population ; closing their memorial with the sentiment, " that however mis- representations may succeed, for a time, justice and discernment may ultimately be expected of the Legislature."
The remonstrants claimed by the map, that the center of the county lay a mile south of the site, and showed by the tax list, that over $200,000 more of taxable property lay south of the court house .;
*A package of these papers has 682 names for and 474 against a change of site.
+The assessment rolls of 1809, gave Leyden 137, Turin 167, Martinsburgh 126, Lowville 206, Denmark 169, Harrisburgh 82, and Pinckney 63 taxable inhab- itants. Of these 813 names, 630, or over 77 per cent. were claimed north of the court house.
#The valuation of 1809 was, Leyden, $188, 700 ; Turin, $297,715.25 ; Martinsburgh, $70,921 ; Low- ville, $90,257 ; Denmark, $83,556 ; Harrisburgh, $29,- 405 ; and Pinckney, $27,077.
22
HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY.
They denied the assertion that the southern portion of the county was in- capable of tillage, and proved by affi- davits that one principal cause of non- settlement was because the lands had not been opened for sale. They stated that nearly $2,000 had been subscribed in good faith, for the erection of a court house as located by law, and claimed that justice entitled them to a continu- ance of the site. These memorials led to the introduction of a bill entitled, " An Act relative to the establishment of a scite for the Court house and gaol in the county of Lewis," which failed to reach a third reading in the House. It was introduced by Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, of New York, as chairman of the committee to whom the subject was referred.
On the 30th of October, 1810, General Martin engaged for $1,500, to complete the court room like that of Jefferson county, and the jail like that of Salem, Washington county, and on the Ist of March, 1811, an act was passed for rais- ing $1,200 by tax in one or two years, and $300 by loan, to complete the build- ing. The commissioners for building were Benjamin Van Vleck, of Denmark; Daniel Kelley, of Lowville; and Jonathan Collins, of Turin; and the sheriff was directed to give public notice by proc- lamation when the work was finished and accepted. The first county courts were held in the new building January 7, 1812, and prisoners who had previously been sent to Rome, were thenceforth lodged in the new county jail.
The body of this building, partly de- prived of its cupola, and with a modern addition for stairways in front, still stands in Martinsburgh. It was used as the court house until 1864, and contained a court room and two jury rooms above, and a jail with three cells on the south side of the hall, in the lower story, with apartments for a jailor's residence in an
adjoining rear wing. Upon the transfer, in 1864, of the courts to Lowville, the title lapsed to the Martin heirs, and the premises were bought for academic and public purposes, as elsewhere described.
The question of a county seat did not remain quiet for a long period, and in 1847, something began to be said about a change, which was quieted for the time being by the erection of a new Clerk's office by subscription of citizens of Mar- tinsburgh.
In the fall of 1852, public notice was given of an application to change the seat of justice to Lowville, or New Bremen, and in the hope of securing this, the citizens of Lowville, partly by subscription, and partly by a town tax, proceeded to erect the building which is now the court house, but which, until 1864, was a town hall.
In 1863, the supervisors adjourned their session to Lowville,* and at that meeting of the Board, passed resolutions requesting the Legislature to change the county seat to that place by a direct act, and without submitting the question to the people at an election. But to secure an expression of opinion that should be equivalent to a vote, the friends of the measure, as the day for town meetings approached, industrious- ly canvassed the subject in the several towns, and secured in many of them, both north and south, the adoption in town meeting of the following preamble and resolutions :-
"Whereas, The citizens of the town of Lowville, have tendered to the county a good and suitable Court House, a site for a county jail and a clerk's office, when the county seat should be located in said town ; and
"Whereas, The Board of Supervisors of Lewis county, at their last annual session, passed a resolution to remove the county seat from Martinsburgh to Lowville,
* Session of the Board had heen held in Lowville in 1859.
23
PAUPERISM.
and requested the Legislature to pass a special act for said purpose ; and
Whereas, To remove said county seat without special act, would require two or three years' time, and involve much contention and strife in said county, to the damage of its interests, and
"Whereas, A law to submit such question of removal to the people, has been declared unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals,* and the holding of a special election, would cost the county several thousand dollars, and protract and increase the dissensions on said subject, Therefore,
"Resolved, That the electors of the town of- , in town meeting assembled, do hereby request the Legislature of the State, to pass said bill now before the Legislature, for the removal of said county seat from Martinsburgh to Low- ville.
"Resolved, That the town clerk be re- quested to transmit a copy of the fore- going preamble and resolution to our representative in the Legislature."
These measures secured the passage of an act dated March 10, 1864, for re- moval of the county seat. The town hall at Lowville, was deeded to the super- visors as a court house, reserving its use for elections, and the sum of $2,000 was voted by Lowville, to purchase the site for a jail, and to aid in the erection of a clerk's office. This action of the town was authorized by a special act, passed May 2, 1864. In the summer of 1875, the court house was enlarged by ex- tending the building back, so as to afford room for halls, a library, consulting room for the judges, sheriff's rooms, and three jury rooms.
Upon the erection of a separate county
* The case referred to is found in 4 Selden, 483, and was that of Himrod and Lovett, arising under the act of 1849, establishing free schools throughout the State. It fixed the principle that " laws must be enacted by the Legislative bodies lo which the legislative power is com- mitted by the Constitution. They cannot divest them- selves of the responsibility of their enactment by a ref- erence to the question of their passage to their consti- tuents."
Nolwithstanding this decision, such laws have been repeatedly passed before and since the date of the above decision, which however afforded on this occasion, a convenient argument with those who used it.
no provision was at first made for a county clerk's office, further than by an act passed in 1811, which required it to be kept within a mile of the court house after the first of October of that year. The first county clerk, (Richard Coxe), lived a little west of Collinsville, and it is presumed, he kept the office at that place, in the first years after the county was formed. The office was kept in the dwelling of the clerk, or his deputy in the village of Martinsburgh, after 1811, until, in 1822, General Martin built a fire-proof brick office near his residence, and rented a part of it to the county. In 1829, an act was passed, requiring a clerk's office to be built, but for some reason this was not done. In 1847, the building now used as a store by P. S. Hough, in Martinsburgh village, was built without cost to the county, as already mentioned, and its use given free of rent, until the removal of 1864.
PAUPERISM.
Each town supported its own poor un- til 1825, and under the law of earlier years, the keeping of those that needed support, was let out at auction to the lowest bidders. If persons became a public charge before they gained a legal residence they were sent back to the place from whence they came, and in the prim- itive way of the early period, were car- ried from town to town by constables, and supported in the transit, at the cost of the towns through which they passed.
In 1817, a committee was appointed in Lowville, to confer with one in Martins- burgh, upon the establishment of a poor- house for the two towns, but nothing re- sulted. In 1824, the Secretary of State undertook, by instruction from the Leg- islature, an inquiry into the subject of pauperism, and made statistical inquiries, which resulted in an elaborate report. It
24
HISTORY OF LEWIS COUNTY.
led to the passage of a law in that year, by which the supervisors might estab- lish a county poor-house, and Lewis county lost no time in availing itself of this permission. The county at that time ranked the 46th in the scale of pau- perism, and the 51st in taxation, as com- pared with the rest of the State. Pau- pers formed one-fifth of one per cent. of the population, and the poor-tax was a little over one cent per $100 valuation. Several of the towns had acquired a sur- plus poor fund.
--
:
Jonathan Collins, Charles D. Morse, and Stephen Hart, were appointed to purchase a site and take preliminary steps for the erection of a poor house. The farm of Major David Cobb, a mile west of Lowville village, was bought for $1,650, and the premises were fitted up for the county use. The first county superintendents of the poor, appointed in 1826, were Nathaniel Merriam, Philo Rockwell, Stephen Leonard, Paul Ab- bott and Samuel Allen.
The distinction between town and coun- ty poor, under the act of 1824, was abol- ished in 1834, restored in 1842, abolished in 1845, and finally restored in 1851. In 1846, a stone building was erected, 40 by 60 feet in size, and two stories high, and in 1868, this was replaced by the present brick building, three stories high, 50 by 32 feet, with a wing 32 by 60 feet. It was finished in February, 1868, and cost $11,450. A separate brick building, 30 by 40 feet in size, and two stories high, was erected in 1862, for a lunatic asylum, and was approved and designated as an asylum, February 13, 1863.
By an act passed July 14, 1881, the superintendent of the poor in this county was allowed to be the keeper of the poor-house.
The movement in 1846, was in part at least, the result of the efforts of Miss Dorothea L. Dix, whose former efforts in behalf of the poor and the insane, and
afterwards in aid of the sick in the late war, have given her a world-wide repu- tation as a philanthropist. With the zeal of a missionary, she visited the several counties of the State, in 1844, to inquire into the condition of the poor and the unfortunate, and in the spring of 1844, she visited the old poor-house building, originally built as a dwelling house for one family. It was an easy thing to prove that there was need of a reform, and it needed only such an im- pulse as she understood the way of giving, to secure the improvements which the case required .*
The poor-house farm contains nearly sixty acres, and is in part cultivated by the labor of paupers. We believe the estab- lishment ranks favorably in comparison with those of other counties in the State, for cleanliness and comfort to its inmates, although less elaborate in architecture, and less expensive in proportion to its accommodations than some others.
CHAPTER III. LAND TITLES.
A
N unfavorable impression as to the value of northern lands had been ac- quired from the survey of Totten and
*About 1856, the writer became acquainted with the "Crazy Angel," as the friends of Miss Dix are accus- tomed to speak of her, and assisted in tracing on a map, a route of travel that would lead to every jail and poor- house in the State, at least expense of time, as the lines of travel were then arranged. Afterwards, in the camps around Washington, and in hospitals in the field, we often met her on missions of kindness and of mercy, as she passed from place to place, in her capacity of chief of the female nurses allowed in the army. Some years after the war, upon meeting her at Washington, she showed the writer the photograph of a fine monument which she had caused to be erected from private means. to commemorate the burial place of some of our heoric dead, and had much to say of plans she had in hand, for the building of asylums, and for the relief of the unfortunate.
Miss Dix is still living, at an advanced age, and at the first session of the 47th Congress, appeared before the committee of that body, to obtain justice in behalf of the female nurses, who were recognized and em- ployed in the late war. It is almost needless to say that she secured attention to her appeal, for it was always the easiest and best way to grant her request at once, and without argument or delay.
25
EARLY MAPS.
Crossfield's purchase, before 1776. This tract, embracing the central part of the great northern wilderness, was almost the last that remained free from the In- dian title, and open for settlement, at the close of the colonial period, and was in fact just about being patented to a ring of government officials, when the Revo- lutionary war began. As for "Totten and Crossfield," one was a carter, and the other a ship-carpenter in the city of New York. The real active operators were Edward and Ebenezer Jessup, two distinguished Tories of that period, who were banished from the State in an act of attainder passed in 1779, and whose estates were confiscated. This great plateau region of mountains, swamps and lakes, was found by the surveyors who explored it, as wild and inhospitable as any portion of the country yet visited by civilized man. It began to be poor soon after passing out of the borders of the Mohawk valley, and as it became worse towards the north, the inference very naturally followed that the northern border of the State was not susceptible of tillage.
On old maps this great northern region was variously named, as Irocoisia, or "the Land of the Iroquois;" Coughsagraga, or the "Dismal Wilderness ;" and the "Deer hunting grounds of the Five Nations." An eld map has inscribed across the north- ern part of New York this sentence : "Through this tract of land runs a chain of mountains, which, from Lake Cham- plain on one side, and the river St. Law- rence on the other side, show their tops always white with snow; but although this one unfavorable circumstance has hitherto secured it from the jaws of the harpy land jobbers, yet, no doubt, it is as fertile as the land on the east side of the lake, and will in future furnish a comfort- eble ertreat for many industrious fam- ilies." A map drawn in 1756, says this country by reason of mountains, swamps
and drowned lands is impassible and un- inhabitable.
Sauthier's map, published in England in 1777, and supposed to represent the latest and most accurate information then possessed, remarks that "this marshy tract is full of beavers and otters," and no map of a date earlier than 1795 has any trace of the Black River. The shores of the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario had long been familiar to voy- ageurs, but Black River Bay was evi- dently regarded as only one of several deep indentations of the coast; and in Morse's geography of 1796, this river is represented as flowing into the St. Law- rence at Oswegatchie. This mistake may have come from the fact that that river receives the waters of Black Lake, and that the river was actually called the Black River in some early surveys, doubtless from the color of its waters, which would alike justify the name for both rivers.
The fertility of lands in the western part of the State had become known in the course of military expeditions through them, especially in Sullivan's expedition of 1779, but no such occasion led to a knowledge of the Black river valley,* and it is highly probable that when a proposition for purchase was submitted to the Land Commissioners, the offer was regarded as favorable upon any terms conditioned to settlement.
The Oneida Indians,sole native owners of our county, by formal treaty at Fort Stanwix, on the 22d of September, 1788,+
* Belletres' expedition against the settlement at the German Flatts, in 1755, and that of Lery, which cap- tured Fort Bull, near Rome, in 1757, are supposed to have passed through this valley. In 1779, Lieutenants McClellan and Hardenburgh, were sent through the in- terior to Oswegatchie, more with the view of drawing off the friendly Oneidas and preventing them from being disturbed by the expedition against the Indians of the Genesee country, than in the hope of effecting much against the enemy. Several musket barrels and other military relics have been found in Greig, on the line of this route, which may have been lost in these expeditions. Their occurrence has, as usual, occasioned idle rumors of buried Treasure.
+ Given in full in the History of Jefferson Co . p. 39.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.