USA > New York > Warren County > History of Warren County [N.Y.] with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 46
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1970
John Toffy.
150
44
Hulet Toffy
100
44
James Ferriss
150
57
Nathaniel Taber
100
57
William Taber
100
3
Ephrahim Woodard
150
3
David Ferris
100
I2
Benjamin Collins
100
I2
Ichabod Merritt,
150
I
Joseph Merritt.
100
I
James Stephenson
125
88
Jacob Stephenson
150
90
Stephen Stephenson
100
90
3545
Again on the Ist of April, 1790, the following were released in a similar manner :-
POSSESSORS' NAMES.
NO ACRES. NO. LOTS.
Peter Peck.
I30
25 & No. 3 Town Plot.
Reuben Peck
125
30
William Tripp.
125
II
Jonathan Tripp
125
II
Jeremiah Briggs
150
3I
Nathaniel Varney
160
30
805
An account in settlement with the auditor also appears in the records, wherein Reed Ferriss is credited with eighteen pounds nineteen shillings and four pence for the release of 510 acres in one tract ; and Enoch Hoag with seventeen pounds, three shillings on 250 acres.
It will have been observed that among these names appear several the de- tails of whose settlements have already been given; others will be noted in succeeding pages.
Town Formation. - Queensbury is one of the original towns erected by act of Legislature on the 7th of March, 1788, and its boundaries were defined as follows : " All that part of the said county of Washington, bounded easterly by Westfield and Kingsbury, and separated from Westfield by a line begin- ning at the northwest corner of the town of Kingsbury and running in the direction of Kingsbury west bounds till it strikes the water of Lake George ; westerly by Fairfield, northerly by Lake George and a line running from the mouth of McAuley's Creek near the south end of said lake direct to the north-
395
PATENT AND TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
east corner of the town of Fairfield, and sontherly by the bounds of the county," (namely the Hudson River, which at this point runs nearly a due easterly course) "shall be, and continue a town by the name of Queensbury."
The town then embraced the territory which in the year 1813 (according to Spafford's Gazetteer of New York, published in that year) comprised the towns of Bolton, Caldwell, Chester, Hague, Johnsburgh, Luzerne, Queensbury, and Thurman, being all that part of the county of Washington lying west of Kingsbury and Lake George; in other words, more than the entire present county of Warren.
An act of the Legislature of April 6th, 1808, changed the name of the town of Westfield to Fort Ann, and that of Fairfield to Luzerne, for the very good reason of the " considerable inconvenience which results from several of the towns in this State having the same name."
On the 22d of October, 1798, the division line between the towns of West- field (Fort Ann) and Queensbury was run out by the supervisors of the two towns, assisted by Aaron Haight, surveyor, and " that portion of the town of Queensbury usually called Harrisena " was annexed and erected into a sep- arate road district. About the same time a strip of territory one mile wide was taken from the eastern limits of the town of Fairfield (Luzerne) and an- nexed to the western side of Queensbury. Following are the present bound- aries of the town as provided by law :
" The town of Queensbury shall contain all that part of said county bounded southerly and easterly by the bounds of the county; (viz. 'by the middle of the said [north] branch and of the main stream of the said [Hudson's] river, until it reaches the southeast corner of the patent of Queensbury, with such variations as may be necessary to include the whole of every island, any part whereof is nearer to the north or east shore of the said river than to the south or west shore thereof, and to exclude the whole of every island, any part where- of is nearer to the said south or west shore than to the north or east shore afore- said ; and easterly by the east bounds of said patent, and the same continued north to Lake George,') westerly by Luzerne, and northerly by a line begin- ning at the southwest corner of Caldwell and running thence easterly and north- erly along the bounds of Caldwell to Lake George; and then along the east shore of Lake George to the bounds of the county."
Natural Features, Localities, etc. - The natural characteristics of the town, names of localities, etc., are thus clearly described by Dr. Holden : I "The eastern and northern portions of the town are rolling and hilly, while the west- ern part is one extended sandy plain, originally covered with a densely tim- bered pine forest, which for the first half century gave employment to a large per centage of the population and to the numerous saw-mills which were erected in the early days of the settlement on nearly every brook and rivulet in the
1 History of Queensbury, p. 144, etc.
396
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
town. Since then, and long within the memory of many living, these exten- sive pine plains have been periodically cropped of the second growth yellow pine to supply the increasing demand for fuel. Now there is less than five hundred acres of woodland all told between the village and the mountain, and under a more thorough and intelligent system of agriculture these barren sand plains are rapidly being reclaimed and becoming the most remunerative of our farming lands.
" The western part of the town is bordered by the Palmertown Mountains, an outlying ridge of the great Adirondack range, whose beginning is at the village of Saratoga Springs, and whose termination is at Harrington Hill in Warrensburgh. At the north, lying partly in this town and partly in the town of Caldwell, is the abrupt acclivity known as French Mountain, some sixteen hundred feet in height, whose sharp promontory projects for several miles into the head waters of Lake George. On the northeast the Dresden chain of mountains throws out three considerable elevations called the Sugar Loaf, Deer Pasture, and Buck Mountains, the last two of which slope down to the very verge of the lake, and are still the home of the deer and the rattlesnake, with which all this region once abounded.
"This township, occupying a plateau on the great water-shed between the Hudson and St. Lawrence Rivers, its numerous streams, brooks, ponds, and rivulets, and its surface drainage as well, find widely diverging outlets ; that from the northern and central parts of the town making its way to the Half- way Brook and thence through Wood Creek to Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence, while the rivulets and marshes of Harrisena empty into Lake George, and those of the west, south and eastern parts of the town are tributary to the Hudson. It is noteworthy that the volume of all the streams, the river included, has materially diminished within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, while a few, by drainage and exposure to the sun and air, have ceased to exist. The same remark holds true of several swamps and marshes, which in the early days of the settlement were the lairs and coverts from which wild beasts issued in their predatory attacks upon the stock of the pioneers. Wild Cat Swamp, lying upon the western borders of the village, has been almost entirely re- claimed, while a large portion of the Big Cedar Swamp, stretching away for two miles from its eastern boundary, is now under successful cultivation. Among the numerous brooks, ponds and streams, with which the surface of the town is diversified, the following are considered worthy of mention: Cold Brook, which for a small portion of its extent forms a part of the eastern boundary of the town and county, runs southwardly and empties into the Hud- son immediately opposite an island, which in 1772 was deeded by one of the Jessups of Tory memory to Daniel Jones. This brook and the flat adjacent was the scene of a terrible massacre during the French War, which is elsewhere recorded. Reed's Meadow Creek, the outlet of the Big Cedar Swamp above
397
PATENT AND TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
referred to, flows east and southeasterly, and after receiving various accessions in its somewhat tortuous route it becomes Fort Edward Creek, and debouches into the Hudson at the southern extremity of the village of Fort Edward. Its name is derived from Reed Ferriss, one of the early proprietors here, and one of the commissioners appointed by the proprietors to apportion the undivided sections of the township, two of which were included within the limits of the swamp. Setting back from this outlet was a beaver dam, marsh and meadow, where the first settlers supplied themselves with hay. The Meadow Run de- rived its name similarly from a large beaver meadow, which was almost the only resource of the inhabitants at the Corners for the sustenance of their stock during the long and vigorous winters of this latitude. In some of the military reports and narratives it was called the Four Mile Run, it being about four miles miles distant from the military post at the head of Lake George. This stream has its origin in the Butler Pond, on a summit of a spur of the Palmertown Mountains, in the west part of the town. A neighboring elevation has, from the earliest days, been known as Hunting Hill, from the abundance of game once gathered there. An adjoining eminence is the seat of a rich vein of iron ore, which, three years since, was successfully worked under the auspices of the Corning Iron Company, a body of Albany capitalists.
" The Meadow Run, after passing through an expansion of its waters called Mud Pond, winds around the base of a series of knolls, and is received at the head of Long Pond not far from the outlet of Round Pond, another small sheet of water lying among the hills a few rods to the south. A canal was cut by Dr. Stower from one of these ponds to the other some years ago, for lumber- ing purposes, but was never completed or put in operation. There are two or three extensive peat beds in this neighborhood, one of which, at the head of an estuary stretching westwardly through the marsh which makes back from Long Pond, has been extensively worked during the past few years by the Albany company above referred to. There is at present a saw-mill in success- ful and remunerative operation near the head waters of the Meadow Run.
" Rocky Brook, designated in the early road surveys and records of the town as Hampshire Creek, is a bright, sparkling mountain stream, leaping and flashing along the ravine at the western base of French Mountain, propelling two saw-mills on its route, and winding along through meadow, woodland and marsh, empties into the Meadow Run about twenty rods above the head of Long Pond. On the flat west of its banks, was one of the three picket posts referred to in Governor Colden's proclamation, elsewhere quoted, and which is designated on one of the early maps as Fort Williams.
" In the western part of the town, having its rise in the mountain ridge which separates it from Luzerne, is the once famous trout stream variously known as the Pitcher, the Ogden, and the Clendon Brook, deriving these names from persons once living in its vicinity. In former years it furnished the mo-
.
398
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
tive power for a number of saw-mills, whose decaying debris encumber its banks at varying intervals with their unsightly accumulations. Still further west, on the confines of the town, Roaring Brook, bounding from crag and cliff, pours its cold and foaming waters fresh from their mountain sources into the Hudson near the reefs.
" The waters of Long Pond are discharged through the Outlet, a stream which, flowing eastwardly, effects a junction with the Half-way Brook at a set- tlement called Jenkins or Patten's Mills, near the eastern boundary of the town. This brook supplies the power for several saw-mills, a grist-mill, a cider-mill, and a woolen factory.
"The Half-way Brook, which was noted in the early colonial times as a halting-place and rendezvous for the troops and convoys of supplies in their transit between the great military posts at Fort Edward and the head of Lake George, is situated nearly midway between these points, and hence derives its name.1
" The Half-way brook has its source in the same mountain range, and but a short distance west from the head waters of its sister stream, the Meadow Run. Near the foot of the mountain, and nearly encircled by hills, is a natural basin, which, a few years since, was artificially enlarged, and cleaned, and a massive wall of masonry thrown across its outlet, for the formation of a reservoir to supply the Glen's Falls Water-works, a public and much needed improvement, which has been but recently completed at a cost of about eighty thousand dollars. The surplus and waste water is directed back to its wonted channel immediately below the reservoir. Running a tortuous course south- eastwardly across the plains, the Half-way Brook expands into the Forge Pond, a small sheet of water, about one and a half miles west of Glen's Falls, and for a long period the favorite resort of the disciples of the gentle Isaac Walton, in pursuit of the speckled trout which once abounded in this stream. At this point, as far back as the year eighteen hundred and eleven, a forge and trip hammer shop were erected by an enterprising pioneer named Johnson. At the same time a saw-mill was built which is still in operation, and which for years supplied the neighborhood and sent to market the products of the neighboring forests. The manufacture of iron for some cause did not prove remunerative, and the enterprise, after languishing a few years, was finally abandoned, leaving its name, however, to the pond as a parting legacy, and a reminder of the old French proverb, that 'it is only success that succeeds.' About a mile below, and nearly opposite to the garrison ground already re- ferred to, is an enlargement of the Half-way Brook called Briggs's Pond, at the foot of which stands a dam and race way, affording water power. Here at the close of the last century stood a saw-mill; while across the flat, some forty or
1 It was on the banks of this famous stream that were erected two of the picketed enclosures about the middle of the last century, as described in an earlier chapter.
399
PATENT AND TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
fifty rods further west, in a ravine, partly natural, but enlarged by the hand of art, stood a large grist-mill, carried by water conducted by a canal artificially constructed, and leading from the pond above named. These mills were owned and run by Walter Briggs, and were resorted to by the inhabitants and farmers from far and near, at a period when there was no grist-mill at Glens Falls. The buildings have long since been torn down or removed, but the embankments of the canal, and the foundations of the mill are still conspicu- ous in the green meadow. From this point the Half-way Brook bears north- eastwardly through a continuation of swale, marsh, and meadow, creeping sluggishly along at the base of the ridge, and passes the Kingsbury town line in the neighborhood of a settlement bearing the euphonious name of Frog Hollow. A basin among the hills, half a mile to the west of the settlement called the Oneida, contains a circular sheet of water, a few acres in extent, known as the Round Pond. Here was built among the pines, on its shore, the first Baptist Church of Queensbury. A small enclosure near by contains one of the oldest burial places in town.
" Butler's Brook, near the north bounds of the corporation limits of Glen's Falls, has its source in three small brooks, one of which receives the drainage of the Wild Cat Swamp and west part of the village, the second crosses the plank road at the old Mallory place, and the third has its source in a swale a little north of the Warren county fair grounds. It was on this branch, tradi- tion informs us, that in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-three, while on his way to visit and inspect the fortifications at Lake George, Ticonderoga and Crown Point, General Washington and his staff halted to slake their thirst, and were waited upon with a cup and pail and a supply of water from the brook by Jeremiah Briggs, who was at work in a neighboring field. This stream de- rived its name from one of the earliest settlers who lived in its vicinity. Es- pousing the royal cause, at or during the war, he buried such of his effects as he could and fled to Canada. His house shared the fate of most of the build- ings in this vicinity at that time, being burnt by the savages and Tories in one of their numerous eruptions. The Butler Brook after the confluence of its branches winds around the cemetery grounds and unites with the Half-way Brook about two miles north of Glens Falls, midway between the Ridge and Bay roads.
"These ponds and streams during the early days of the settlement were abundantly stocked with trout, which, with the game then so plentiful in the surrounding forests, constituted a large portion of the resources of the inhabi- tants. It was related to me by one of the patriarchs of the town that in a win- ter of uncommon severity, some of the families in Harrisena carried through their stock of cattle on a supply of salted fish, of which they had secured a large quantity the preceding season. Until the erection of dams and mills shad ran up in the spring as far as the Falls, where they were caught in considerable quantities, and were to some extent an article of commerce.
400
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
"The original survey of the township contemplated the location of the vil- lage at the Half-way Brook, where the existing clearings and buildings offered a strong inducement to the first settlers to locate their houses. Here the town plot was laid out, ranging due north and south. The lots were of ten acres each and forty-four in number, beside the road ways four rods in width, sur- rounding the whole an eight rod road in each directing, bisecting the plot into four equal sections. Four central lots at these angles were reserved for church and school purposes and for public buildings. Either half to the east and west was also divided by a north and south road four rods in width.
" It is needless to say that no settlement was ever established here, and that Champlain's tannery, and the Pitcher tavern occupying the site just north of the Half-way Brook, upon which a brick house now stands, are the nearest ap- proach to public buildings erected on the site of the projected village, after the original survey by Zaccheus Towner in 1762. The old Pitcher tavern was a place of considerable note in those days when every log hut was an inn, and every framed dwelling a hotel. It was kept by Jonathan Pitcher, whose name frequently appears in the town records, chiefly in connection with matters per- taining to the excise law, on two occasions he being excused by a vote of the people from paying his license.
" Harrisena is a neighborhood at the north part of the town, and derives its name from the original founders of the settlement. The region comprising this somewhat vaguely defined locality includes some of the most fertile and pro- ductive farming lands in the county of Warren. The Harrisena Patent proper embraced two thousand acres of land, and was originally conveyed to Robert Harpur and others, but the grant for some cause was surrendered to the crown and reissued in 1772 to John Lawrence, Henry Boel and Stephen Tuttle, who relinquished or sold their title to Moses Harris. He, with another brother, set- tled upon it in 1787, and in the following January obtained certificates of location of the same, with several other rights or claims, embracing in all a territory of between three and four thousand acres. At about the same time Joshua Harris secured certificates of location for four lots of two hundred acres each in the same vicinity. These lands have mostly remained in the hands of the Harris family and their descendants to the present day. The first house erected here was a log tenement, built near a spring about ten rods southeast of the Rufus Harris place. Joseph Harris was the first settler, and moved here about the year 1784. The next was a framed house and was built for Moses Harris by John Phettyplace. It stood near the site occupied by the Henry Harris home- stead. This wealthy and thriving agricultural district has in the course of years become thickly and compactly settled, for a farming region, possessing admi- rable public schools, two churches, one of which has a settled pastor; its ail- ments cared for by a resident physician ; many of its wants provided for and supplied by home mechanics ; while bordering upon the bays and points jut-
401
PATENT AND TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
ting in and out around the head of Lake George are several pleasant and at- tractive places of resort, where travelers, invalids, pleasure seekers, business men, worn out with the wearying and incessant round of business cares, repair year by year in constantly increasing numbers, for that rest and recuperation so difficult to find among the hot, crowded thoroughfares of our fashionable re- sorts and summer watering places.
" Five miles to the north of the village of Glens Falls, on the road to Har- risena, is situated a small settlement, which, for upwards of fifty years, has borne in local colloquial phrase the name of the Oneida. The attempt has been made to call it Northville and Middleville, but no effort to shake off the former appel- lation has been successful. About the time of the last war with England this was a place of considerable importance, having two good sized and well pat- ronized inns, three stores doing a quite extensive trade, a large lumbering bus- iness, in connection with adjacent mills, various mechanic shops, and a Baptist church and society. Here two noted justices of the peace, Dan D. Scott and James Henderson, held their weekly and august tribunals, at which as many as one hundred and seventy summonses, besides criminal processes and sub- ponas have been made returnable in one day. Every Saturday, sometimes oftener, from fifty to two hundred people assembled here to listen to the en- counter of argument, the brilliant collision of wit and repartee, and the splen- did oratory of that gifted and eloquent array of legal talent which then graced the bar of Warren and Washington counties.
"The first house at the Oneida was erected by Joshua Chase about the year 1793. The name was derived from a half-breed Oneida Indian by the name of Thomas Hammond. He, with his sister Dinah, were brought up by Capt. Green, of Whipple City, now Greenwich, Washington county, N. Y. Some little time previous to the outbreak of the war he removed to Queensbury, and opened a store of general merchandise in a building which is still standing on the corner opposite and fronting the old tavern stand ; and here, for a number of years, he was engaged in carrying on a considerable trade, mixed up to some extent with the lumbering business. From the oft repeated expressions, ' Let's go up to the Oneida's,' ' I bought this at the Oneida's,' ' We must send down to the Oneida's,' was derived the name which through the vicissitudes of half a century has clung like a burr to the settlement. Hammond married Keziah, a sister of James Reynolds, of Caldwell. Pursued by the red man's curse, an unappeasable appetite for the terrible fire-water, he finally failed in business, removed to French Mountain, and died an inebriate and outcast. Since then the magnificent pine forests which once stretched their serried ranks across plain and hill side, from the lake to the Kingsbury line, have been cut down, the local traffic has diminished, and the importance of the settlement decreased.
" The Ridge, or Sanford's ridge, is a name applied to a thickly settled farm- 26
402
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
ing district, stretching a distance of three or four miles along a crest of rich, arable land beginning about two miles north of Glens Falls village, and termi- nating beyond the town line on the east. Toward the close of the last century this was a settlement of greater size and importance than the village at the Falls. At that time there were two stores, a tavern, several mechanic shops and two physicians. In the year 1800 the Quaker church was built on the corners two miles north of the village. The first settler at the Ridge was Elijah Bartow who plied his trade as a blacksmith on what is known as the Gould Sanford farm. He lived in a log house near by. One of the first framed houses in the neighborhood was built and occupied by James Tripp on the site now covered by the residence of Joseph Haviland. Abraham Tucker about the same time built on the farm southwest of the Quaker church. This neigh- borhood derived its name from David Sanford, esq., who, in 1795, removed from the town of New Milford, Conn., to Queensbury and established himself in trade at this point. For the next ten years he was prominently identified with the business interests of the town, and the development of its resources. He was frequently chosen to office, and up to the time of his death was a man of mark and consideration."
Returning now to the subject of the early settlements in the town and the . incidents and enterprises connected therewith, we may properly first make fur- ther mention of Benedick Brown, who was one of the original settlers and probably came into the town as early as 1772, as his name appears in the rec- ords as overseer of the poor in 1773. He had a family, the sons being named Valentine, George, Justus, Howgill, Silas, and Timothy. They were Quakers and at one period the descendants of the family were so numerous in the town that a settlement between the outlet of Long Pond and Glens Falls was locally known as " Brown-town." Valentine Brown built the first saw-mill north of Glens Falls. He was grandfather of George Brown, now of Lake George (Caldwell). In this family was also Daniel V. Brown, a descendant in the fourth generation from Bededick ; he was sheriff in the county from 1861 to 1864, previous to which date he had been supervisor. He was a prominent business man of Glens Falls and an active Democratic politician. He was drowned on the steamer Melville on the 8th of January, 1865, while on his way with Edward Riggs to South Carolina to procure volunteers or substitutes for the Queensbury quota in the anticipated draft. (See biography herein.)
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