USA > New York > Oswego County > History of Oswego County, New York, with illustrations and Biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 76
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William Stoby. Enlisted in the 1st Regt., in 1864. Robert Stone. Enlisted in the 14th Regt., in 1865. Dennis Stratton. Enlisted in the 110th Regt., in 1862; died in New Orleans, La., Feb. 19, 1863.
David Tanner. Enlisted in the 101st Regt., in 1862.
Frank Tarpenny. Enlisted in the 6th Regt., in 1864. David B. Taylor. Enlisted in the 110th Regt., in 1862.
James Martin Taylor. Enlisted in the 147th Regt., in 1862. Philo R. Taylor. Enlisted in the 93d Rogt., in 1861. William A. Taylor. Enlisted in the 189th Regt., in 1864. Spofford L. Thayer. Enlisted in the 24th Regt., in 1864. L. Tetur. Enlisted in the 189th Regt., in 1864. Thomas N. Tracy. Enlisted in the 110th Regt., in 1862.
Harry Thompson. Enlisted in the 14th Regt., in 1865. John Town. Enlisted in the 189th Regt., in 1864. Aaron V. Vandenburg. Enlisted in the 12th Regt., in 1863. Andrew J. Vandenburg. Enlisted in the 14th Regt., in 1861. Peter E. Vandenburg. Enlisted in the 189th Regt., in 1864. Henry P. Vanderweaken. Enlisted in the 189th Regt., in 1864. George A. Vamier. Enlisted in the 97th Regt., in 1861. H. VanIercook. Enlisted in the 8Ist Regt., in 1861. Russell Volney. Enlisted in the 147th Regt., in 1862.
George Warren. Enlisted in the 110th Regt., in 1862.
Alexander Waters. Enlisted in the 24th Regt., in 1865.
Arthur Jones Watson. Eulisted in the 189th Regt., in 1864.
David W. Weed. Enlisted in the 2d Regt., in 1864; died of wounds at Cold Harbor, May 15, 1864.
Albert Harvey Wells. Enlisted in 1863.
Charles A. Wells. Enlisted in the 110th Regt., in 1862.
Henry Wells. Enlisted in the 81st Regt., in 1861.
Wm. Wills. Enlisted in the 81st Regt., in 1861; died at Newport, April 18, 1862, of sickness eaused in the service. Wm. Edwin Wells. Eulisted in the 13th Regt., in 1863.
Isaac P. West. Enlisted in the 81st Regt., in 1861.
Peleg E. West. Enlisted in the 189th Regt., in 1864.
David Whipple. Enlisted in the 110th Regt., in 1862.
David White. Enlisted in the 2d Regt., in 1861.
George Widrig. Enlisted in the 13th Regt., in 1864; died in Jan., 1865, of sickness caused in the army.
Squire Widrig. Enlisted in the 13th Regt., in 1864; died at Wash- ington, D. C.
Valentine Widrig. Enlisted in the 13th Regt., in 1864; died in Aug., 1864, of sickness caused in the service.
Albert Wilbur. Enlisted in the 14th Regt., in 1865.
Andrew J. Williard. Enlisted in the 110th Regt., in 1862; died at Key West, Fla., June 25, 1864.
George Williard. Enlisted in the 13th Regt., in 1863.
Russell G. Willis. Enlisted in the 147th Regt., in 1862.
Charles D. Wilson. Enlisted in the 81st Regt., in 1864. Ellis Wilson. Enlisted in the 110th Regt., in 1862.
George Wilson. Enlisted in the 110th Regt., in 1862.
Charles H. Wines. Enlisted in the 104th Regt., in 1864.
David Wines. Enlisted in the 147th Regt., in 1862; died at Belle Plaine, La., May 2, 1863, of accidental wounds.
George Wines. Enlisted in the 147th Regt., in 1862.
James O. Wines. Enlisted in the 147th Regt., in 1862; died April 27, 1863, at Washington, D. C., of sickness acquired in the serv. John P. Winn. Enlisted in the 81st Regt., in 1861. Moseley Witt. Enlisted in the 110th Regt., in 1862.
Ellis A. Wood. Enlisted in the 81st Regt., in 1861 ; died May 18, 1862, at Fortress Monroe, Va.
Kimball Wood. Enlisted in the 50th Eng. Regt., in 1861; died at Washington, D. C., November 3, 1861.
Lovell M. Woolman. Enlisted in the 13th Regt., in 1863; died in service, September, 1864.
Frederick Wright. Enlisted in the 189th Rogt., in 1864.
Charles F. Yates. Enlisted in the 189th Regt., in 1864. William York. Enlisted in the Ist Regt., in 1864. Charles H. Zee.
RES. of PATRICK HOPKINS , CONSTANTIA, N.Y.
RES.OF I. W. BENNETT, ORWELL, OSWEGO Co., N. Y.
ORWELL.
"THE year of the great eclipse," 1806, otherwise known as "the dark days," is an epoch often referred to by the few now surviving who were then old enough to remember that startling phenomenon.
In that year Frederick Eastman and Jesse Merrill, with their families, made their residence on the north bank of the Salmon river. about a mile below the site of the pres- ent village of Molino or Pekin, being the first settlers within the limits of the present town of Orwell. One of Mr. Eastman's children was Elliott, who, being born with the century, was then six years old, and is now seventy- seven,-being a resident of Molino, and the sole survivor of the little party which took possession of Orwell in behalf of the white race seventy-one years ago.
His memary flies back readily along the intervening path of time to the "year of the great eclipse," and to him we are indebted for much of the early part of the town history.
For a year the two families dwelt alone in the wilderness. In 1807, Nathaniel Bennett and Nathaniel Bennett, Jr., set- tled in the same locality, and Captain George W. Noyes located on the site of Orwell Corners. Noyes moved away after a few years, but the Bennett family has ever since remained in the vicinity of the place of its first location. In 1807 or 1808, also, Silas Maxham settled half a mile east of Pekin, and Elias Mason made his home near Salmon river falls. In 1808 or 1809, Timothy Balch came from Sandy Creek, and built a log house at Orwell Corners. His son John, who was then sixteen, is now, at the age of eighty-five, the earliest surviving resident of that village.
Old Mr. Balch, who had lived in what is now Sandy Creek but two or three years, had been, like many others, attracted away from the valley of the Mohawk to this northern region by the excellence of the water. That around Utiea was not good enough for them. Yet, much as the settlers liked good water, they also liked good whisky, and Mr. Balch soon began selling it to them. This was about all that was necessary in those days to constitute an inn-keeper, and Mr. Balch's house consequently ranks as the first hotel in Orwell.
In 1808, David Eastman, son of Frederick, and Betsey Bennett, daughter of Nathaniel, were united by the first marriage ever celebrated in Orwell. Their daughter Sally, afterwards the wife of Silas Clark, was the first white ehild born within the same limits, and the young mother was the first victim of death, unless it was old Mrs. Baleh, Timo- thy's mother, who died in 1810, about the same time as Mrs. Bennett.
And what manner of country was it in which was thus begun the hard task of subduing the wilderness to the uses of civilization,-in which was thus opened the unending drama of wedlock, of birth, and of death ?
The territory of the present town of Orwell, on the east- ern side, was high and rocky, and covered with numerous evergreens,-pines, hemlocks, spruce, etc. The ground deseended westward, but was still uneven, though the soil was well adapted to cultivation. Here, besides an abun- danee of hemloek, were large quantities of beech, maple, and the other hard-wood trees 'comnon in an American forest.
Through the southeastern portion of the traet ran Salmon river, following a southwesterly direction, and a large part of the way flowing through a deep gorge lined on either side with immense walls of earth and rock, overhung with evergreens at the top.
The earliest pioneers, as they made their way cautiously into the untried country before them, following the bank of the Salmon river as their only guide, heard afar up the stream the thunder of falling water, and on progressing still farther, saw the river plunging over a precipice more than a hundred feet high into a dark abyss below. The cataract need not be more particularly described here, as we shall have occasion to refer to it again, a few pages farther on.
It is almost needless to say that these hills furnished admirable covert for unnumbered deer, bears, wolves, and panthers, and for multitudes of the smaller animals then 80 common in the forests of New York. Salmon in immense numbers came up the river-so properly named after them -as far as the falls, and the early settlers could eke out their seanty supplies by illimitable quantities of this savory fish. In fact, it was so abundant as to lose its savor to the palates of many of its too frequent partakers. As in the case of the traditional hired man and the bean-porridge, they liked it well enough for sixty or seventy meals, but didn't want it for a steady diet.
The territory under consideration was then known as survey-township No. 11 of the Boylston tract, and in official documents was sometimes denominated Longinus. Muniei- pally speaking, it was, at the time of its first settlement in 1806, a part of Williamstown, Oneida county, but in 1807 it was included in the new town of Richland.
Settlers came slowly in, for there was more level land a little farther west, though perhaps it was not superior in the quality of its soil. In 1810 or 1811 a man named Millan Aiken built the first saw-mill in town. It was situated on Salmon river, above the falls, at the point now occupied by the Cross mill. A little later one James Hughes built a trip-hammer shop on the little creek which runs through Pekin, and about eighty rods below that point. Here scythes and axes were forged by the pioneer Vulcan, rudely finished, it is true, but perhaps all the better fitted for the rough work of that primitive period.
297
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298
HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
Among those who are known to have settled in the town before the war of 1812, besides those already named, were Joshua Hollis, near the line of Sandy creek; Orrin Stowell, near the present village; Ebenezer Robbins, on the hill cast of the village ; John Reynolds and Eli Strong, Jr., between Orwell Corners and Pekin ; and Silas West, in the Bennett neighborhood. There were doubtless some others, but either their names are unknown or the times of their arrival uncertain. A Presbyterian church was organized in 1809, but it was very feeble, and had no settled minister for over thirty years.
During the war of 1812 the road from Rome through Orwell and Sandy Creek was an important thoroughfare. While the State road through Redfield was the principal one, a considerable part of the travel and transportation from Rome to Sackett's Harbor took the more western route through the localities just named. Large bodies of troops occasionally followed the same track, startling the deer from their lairs with the rumble of cannon-wheels, and bringing to the doors of all the scattered cabins, in open-eyed wonder, every man, woman, and child within them. The militia of township No. 11 were then too few to form a separate com- pany, and whatever deeds of glory they may have performed in marching to Sackett's Harbor and back are lost in the mists of time.
After the war, as was usual throughout the new settle- ments, there was considerable increase in emigration. Sam- uel Stowell, then a young man of twenty-five, made a visit to his brother Orrin in 1816 (the celebrated "cold summer"), and the next year became a permanent resident of the town. His memory now, at the age of eighty-six, is something remarkable, and he gave us, without hesitation, the name and docation of nearly if not quite every resident of the township at the time of his arrival, in 1816.
Beginning on the road to Sandy Creek, at the present line of that town, the first man was Joshua Hollis ; the next south was James Wood, and the next John B. Tully. Next were Allen Gilbert and his two sons,-Edward and Allen,-who lived about a mile from the village. In the vicinity of the site of the village were Frederick Brooks, Orrin Stowell, Timothy Balch, and his two sons Tim and John. On the hill south of the village lived Ebenezer Robbins, and farther on were John Reynolds and Eli Strong, Jr. Asa Hewitt and Frederick Eastman lived near the river. Up the river from Pekin were Millan Aiken, two Lewis families, and Perley Wyman.
There were very few more in township No. 11, and not more than half as many in township No. 6, now Boylston. It was a small population to set up a town on, but the people were enterprising, hopeful of new-comers, and probably ambitious of local distinction, and were willing to endure the extra burden. Accordingly, the town of Orwell was formed by the legislature on the 28th day of February, 1817, embracing townships 11 and 6, of the Boylston tract, now Orwell and Boylston .* - The first towu-meeting was
held at the house of Timothy Balch the succeeding April, and the following officers were elected :
Supervisor, John Reynolds ; Town Clerk, Eli Strong, Jr. ; Assessors, John Wart, Jr., Edward Gilbert, Asa Hewitt ; Commissioners of Highways, John F. Dean, Timothy Balch, Nathaniel Bennett; Overseers of the Poor, Michael H. Sweetman, Timothy Balch ; Collector, Timothy Balch, Jr .; School Commissioners, Thomas Dutcher, John Reynolds, Eli Strong, Jr. ; Constables, Peter Wells, Jr., Timothy Baleh, Jr. ; Inspectors of Schools, John F. Dean, John Wart, Jr., John B. Tully, Asa Hewitt; Fence-viewers, Martin Lillie, John Reynolds, John B. Tully ; Pound- keepers, Martin Lillie, John B. Tully ; Path-masters, John Wart, Jr., Martin Lillie, Allen Gilbert, Eli Strong, Jr., Nathaniel Bennett, Perley Wyman.
At that first town-meeting, double the amount received from the State was voted for the benefit of schools. Hogs and sheep it was decided should not be free commoners. Five dollars bounty was voted for the "pate" of each wolf killed in town, and this sum, growing insufficient to check the dreaded destroyers, was next year increased to ten dol- lars. The latter year a town ordinance decreed that no wood should be drawn in drafts, or " snaked" on the ground more than three rods after the snow was twelve inches decp, under penalty of fifty cents fine for each offense. This was evidently to prevent the spoiling of the roads by tearing up their deep beds of snow.
All the old settlers mention how deep and still the snow lay through the winter. Said old Mr. John Balch : " You might go into the woods with a sled in December, when the snow was a foot deep, and you would probably see the same traeks all winter." That is to say, the snow would keep falling, and sometimes thawing, but lying still, and the de- pression above the original sled tracks would still show in March. Of course it was the existence of the great forests which thus restrained the action of the wind, and as the woods disappear the wind is gathering almost as much force as on the prairies of the west.
In 1818 there were but two school districts in the pres- ent town of Orwell, besides one up in the Boylston section. That summer a school was taught by Lucy Gilbert, at the house of James Wood, on the Sandy Creek road. The same season a small frame school-house was built at Orwell Corners. The funds were not sufficient to plaster it, but wood was abundant, and huge fires kept the children warm on alternate sides, while the snow came down in blankets outside. In the winter of 1818-19, Samuel Stowell taught the first school, in the house at the Corners, and a Mr. Wheelock taught at Pekin.
This name was selected by young Elliott Eastman, though not on account of any imagined resemblance to the celebrated capital of China. The youth, having more of a chance or more of a taste for reading than was common in the woods, had learned of divers great capitals and historic characters, and thought it would be a fine thing to apply those impor- tant appellations to the localities and individuals within bis own stronghold.
So the cluster of two or three houses on the hill, where John French kept tavern shortly after the war, was called Pekin, and the name has endured to the present day, in
* The name is derived from that of a town in Vermont, and is said to have been given by Mr. John Reynolds. This is quite probable, as Mr. Reynolds was unquestionably the big man of the town. He was elected supervisor fourteen times in succession, with only one intermission.
RESIDENCE OF JAMES J. MONTAGUE, ORWELL, OSWEGO CO., N. Y.
7
RESIDENCE OF JOHN WASHBURN, ORWELL, OSWEGO CO., N. Y.
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HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
spite of the official appellation of Molino, afterwards given to the post-office there. The settlement at Balch's tavern young Eastman called Moscow, and the name was in use for many years, but finally gave way to that of Orwell. Ilis- tory and mythology, too, as well as geography, were drawn on by the young name-giver. The settlement on the river flats, below Pekin, he ealled " Syphax," because there was a very dark-complexioned man lived there, and Syphax was a celebrated Afriean. But that didn't stick.
A one-eyed man, who lived up the river from Pekin, in a solitary house in the woods, the fanciful youth named " Cy- elops," and a circumstance of the early days confirmed the resemblance to the fierce giants of old. A gentleman of apparent wealth, richly dressed, and sparkling with jewels, came out into the woods to examine lands. He boarded with " Cyclops" while pursuing his investigations, as well as hunting and fishing. Suddenly he disappeared, and was heard of " nevermore." Wealthy relatives came from the east to seck for him, but the gorges of Salmon river told no tale regarding the unfortunate stranger. His one-eyed host soon left the country, followed by dark suspicions, but their truth or falsehood was never made certain to mortal minds.
The spring and summer of 1817 were noted for the scar- city of food, resulting from the meagreness of the erops raised during the preceding " cold summer." As harvest- time approached the old supply became almost completely exhausted, and starvation looked in at the door of many a log cabin, if it did not actually enter. Samuel Stowell re- lates that his brother Orrin went to Adams, Jefferson county, with an ox-sled, and obtained grain enough to last his family till harvest. In two or three days the fact was known all over town. " Orrin Stowell has got some grain," " Orrin Stowell's folks have bread to eat," were statements which passed rapidly from lip to lip, awakening greater interest in the half-famished people than would the return of Bonaparte from St. Helena.
Even the possession of money would not always insure that of food.
" I have known," says Mr. Stowell, " of men going all over Jefferson county with money in their pockets, and then coming back without grain." Still, people with full purses eould generally get something somewhere. But it was hard times indeed for those with neither money nor food. Labor would bring absolutely nothing to eat.
" I know," says to us the same authority just quoted, " of families going without bread that season for six weeks on a stretch."
" But how did they live ?"
" They lived on fish, greens, and milk."
" Well, that is rather a light diet, but we suppose people can exist on it for a while, but it was hard work to work on it. The two Gilbert boys, Allen and Edward, after a break- fast of milk and greens, went out in the woods and chopped till noon ; they returned, declaring that they couldn't work any longer without something in the shape of bread. Their mother hunted around and found some bran that had been thrown aside; this she sifted over, obtaining a little coarse meal, out of which she made a cake. The young men ate it and returned to their work, declaring they had never tasted anything so good before in their lives."
After harvest, scores of ox-sleds were to be seen hurrying (as fast as oxen eould well hurry ) along the dry, hard road to l'ulaski, where the nearest grist-mill was situated, each bearing a bag of wheat, destined soon to make joyful the hearts of some long-famished family. Our friend Stowell made the journey to mill with the usual conveyance. IIe took the usual precautions, too, of guarding against acci- dents by carrying an axe and auger with him. There were but one or two houses between Orwell Corners and Pulaski. On his return, late in the afternoon, his sled ran against a stump, and both tongue and roller were broken. Cutting a couple of saplings (" saddles" the old settlers ealled them) he repaired his vehicle, but it was dark before he was ready to proceed. It was soon "pitch dark," and the stumps threatened more danger than ever. A lantern with a candle in it was something altogether beyond the reach of most of the pioneers, but one of the residents on the road furnished the traveler with a "jack-light,"_that is, a large piece of fat. pine,-and with its aid he made his way home; the pine torch throwing a broad glare over uran and beast, over nar- row road and dangerous stump. The "light of other days" usually streamed from a piece of fat pine, and that primitive torch was in constant demand on both land and water, being the chief means by which the unlucky salmou were be- trayed to the spears of their focs.
In 1817 the first militia company was organized in the new town ; Supervisor John Reynolds being the first cap- tain, Eli Strong, Jr., lieutenant, and Timothy Balch, ensign. The two subordinates were afterwards successively promoted to captain. When general training-time came, the Orwell militia started for Mexico, where that important ceremony was usually enacted. All went on foot, for there were not two horses iu town. They started the day before the mus- ter and returned the day after its elose, making in all a journey of no slight magnitude.
In 1818, Nathaniel Beadle, with his son John and five others, came into town, and settled near " Moscow" or Or- well Corners. Mr. John Beadle says that even then Balch's was the only house immediately at the Corners. There were only two corners there,-those made by the junction of the Pulaski road with the main highway from Rome to Sack- ett's Harbor. The road eastward had not been laid out.
About 1819 an incident occurred in town illustrative of the danger which, in many varied forms, attended the steps of the hardy pioneer. Perley Wyman, who lived on the road to Redfield, being annoyed by a bear, set a spring- gun to slay the intruder. Unfortunately, the young man himself happened to interfere with the spring-gun before the bear did, and received a bullet in his leg, which shat- tered the bone and necessitated amputation. Yet, in spite of this drain on his vital force, Mr. Wyman survived the hardships of pioneer life until 1876.
Near 1820, or a little later, a man named Jonas Thomp- son built a saw-mill at Pekin, with a run of stone attached, which was the first thing in the shape of a grist-mill in town.
By this time Orwell had got pretty well under way. Set- tlers were coming in so rapidly as to make it out of the question to record their separate names. The forest was falling, and cabins were rising in all directions. School-
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HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
houses increased in number, and their rough walls not only resounded on week-days with the clamorous. " A B C's" and " four times four's" of juvenile sovereigns, but on Sun- days re-echoed to the earnest if not polished eloquence of pioneer preachers. Calkins, Cole, Fairbanks, Finley, and many others at various times delivered the gospel in these primitive temples.
In 1827, Boylston was organized as a town, reducing Orwell to its present limits. Mr. George W. Cogswell, who came in that year, says there were then but two or three houses at Orwell Corners. There was no store, but there was a little grocery at Pekin. People had then begun to have horses ; but such was the state of the roads in spring and fall that a journey to the Pulaski mill, with a horse-team, sometimes involved a two-days' journey.
The first store at the Corners was opened about 1830; but our authorities differ as to whether the earliest mer- chant was Alvin Strong or the firm of Gilbert & Decker. It was near this time, also, that the road was laid out from the Corners east to Redfield. In 1834, when Mr. John Parker settled in town, he states that the farthest house east on that road was only about a quarter of a mile from the village. But immigrants soon made their way in there, and as that locality was the newest it was naturally the roughest settlement in town.
Our friend Eastman, who retained his fondness for giv- ing names, had heard of a place called "Shatagee" some- where, and thought it would well express the primitive character of the neighborhood in question. The name " stuck," and has been retained to this day. "Shatagee," however, is merely a corruption of Chateaugay, the name of a French town or estate, and this in turn is derived from the two French words chateau and gai, meaning gay man- sion or festive castle. So the Chateaugaynians can boast of as high-toned a name as could well be desired.
Afterwards another road was laid out to the northward, which was called Voree, but we are unable to give the derivation of that name.
Ahout 1835, Reuben Salisbury built the first grist-mill at Orwell Corners, and the first of any consequence in town. Though the western part of Orwell was now pretty well settled, yet the wolves and bears were still numerons, especially the latter. Mr. Stowell recounts to us a great slaughter of the ursines at this period, in which he took part. Hearing his brother's bear-dog barking in the woods, he slipped a rope over his own and started for the scene of the fray. Orrin Stowell, however, and his sou, a boy of twelve or fourteen, were there first with a rifle. They found the bear at bay and the dog barking at it.
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