USA > New York > Madison County > Our county and its people : a descriptive and biographical record of Madison County, New York > Part 12
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CHAPTER VIII.
FURTHER TOWN FORMATION AND SETTLEMENT.
This chapter will be devoted to the history of the erection and settle- ment of three other towns that were formed in the year 1807-Nelson, Madison, and Smithfield. The town of Nelson was erected from Caz- enovia on March 13, 1807, and received its name in honor of the dis- tinguished British naval officer, Admiral Nelson. It is No. 1 of the Twenty Townships, lies a little to the southeast of the center of the county, and is bounded an the north by Fenner and Smithfield, on the east by Eaton, on the south by Georgetown, and on the west by Caz- enovia. Its area is about 26,000 acres. The surface is mainly a hilly upland, broken in irregular ridges having a general north and south direction. It constitutes a part of the water shed between Oneida Lake and the Susquehanna River. The principal stream is Chittenango Creek, the northern and larger branch of which rises in Fenner, enters Nelson near the center of the north boundary and crosses the north- west part in a southwesterly direction. The smaller branch rises in the south central part, flows northwesterly and unites with the main branch near the west line of the town. The latter branch is fed by innumerable springs and with a more northerly tributary from the east forms the Erieville reservoir, which was constructed in 1857 as a feeder for the Erie Canal. The Eaton reservoir, constructed as a feeder for
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the Chenango Canal, is partly in the southeastern section of this town. The underlying rocks of Nelson are the Tully limestone, the Genesee slate, and the Ithaca group; a small part of the northeast and southwest corners is underlaid with the Hamilton group. Limestone is found only in boulders and although some quarries have been opened, no desirable building stone has been taken out. The soil is generally a gravelly loam, well adapted for grazing and the production of hay. Dairying is the principal industry of the farming community. The town is at the present time largely an agricultural district.
The territory of Nelson was originally patented to Alexander Web- ster, June 4, 1793, and in the same year was purchased by John Lincklaen, who was the active agent in promoting early settlements.
Two public State roads were laid out in early years that crossed this town; one of these came in from Eaton across the land afterwards cov- ered by the Eaton reservoir, passed on over the hills through Erieville to Woodstock and onward in that direction. The other road came from Morrisville and crossed the town near the center in an east and west direction. The later Skaneateles Turnpike followed substantially the course of the first named road. The Cherry Valley Turnpike, built in 1806, left Morrisville and passes in a westerly course through the northern part of the town. The Syracuse and Chenango Valley branch of the West Shore railroad crosses Nelson in the southwest part, with a station at Erieville.
In 1793 Jedediah Jackson and Joseph Yaw visited and purchased land in the north part of the town in the interest of an association of men in Vermont, and during the two succeeding years twenty six fam- ilies, most of whom came from the vicinity of Pownal, and were largely related, settled on the purchase or in other parts of the town. The names of the heads of these families follow: Jedediah and Asahel Jackson, brothers, Joseph Yaw, and David, his brother, Ebenezer Lyon, Daniel Adams, Sylvanus Sayles, Oliver Alger, Daniel and Isaac Coolidge, Levi Neil, Samuel and Thomas Swift, Roger Brooks, Ethan Howard, Robert and Solomon Brown, Thomas and Jesse Tuttle, Luther Doolittle, Joseph Cary, Jesse Clark, James Green, Eliphalet Jackson, John Everton, Amos Rathbone, David Nichols and Rufus Weaver. Some of these families did not remain permanently in the town, but the larger number retained their farms which they cleared and cultivated; many of them brought with them children who lived to be prominent in the community.
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Jedediah Jackson settled about a mile west of Nelson Flats, on the farm subsequently occupied by Levi Keith, and on the site of that house opened a tavern in 1794, which was the first one in the town. He had a family and was a prominent citizen. He kept the tavern many years and made it a favorite stopping place for the many pros- pectors and settlers who passed that way in early years. He was killed eventually by the kick of a horse; with Joseph Yaw, he had been one of the first justices of the peace. Asahel Jackson settled a little north- east of the Flats on the hill, near the site of the Methodist church.
Ebenezer Lyons, a veteran of the Revolution, born in Connecticut, married his wife at Wallingford, Vt., and thence came to Nelson and settled in the western part of the town where his grandson, Wallace Lyon, now lives. He became a prominent citizen ; was the first super- visor of the town, several years justice of the peace, and an early judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He was succeeded on the homestead by his son, Eliphas, who also died there. Joseph Yaw located in the northwest part of the town near the site of the cemetery; he finally sold to Peter Morey and moved out. Daniel Adams located north of the Flats and was a prominent citizen. Roger Brooks settled in the east part of the town on the farm recently occupied by Deacon D. E. Davis; was a practical cabinet maker, and followed this trade for many years. Luther Doolittle located in the northeastern part of the town on the farm now owned by John Hughes, and there kept one of the earliest taverns in that section.
Eliphalet Jackson settled a little west of the Flats, built a log house and in it kept the first store in the town. A little later he sold goods in a frame building erected by him soon after 1800, which stood a little east of the site of Levi Keith's residence. There is a little question as to whether Jackson or Daniel Russell began trade first.
Russell Weaver lived on his home farm until 1814, when he died at the age of sixty-eight years, and was succeeded there by his youngest son, Rufus. His daughter Elizabeth became the wife of David Nichols.
Samuel Kinney was young and unmarried when he accompanied the Jacksons to their new home in 1794. The anecdote is related that on the night before they reached their destination they stopped at the western edge of Eaton. The next morning the question was discussed as to who of the party would be the first to enter the land of promise; thereupon, young Kinney and a daughter of Rufus Weaver, and Lu- cinda Jackson, daughter of Jedediah, settled the matter in a foot-race.
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It is not recorded which won the race and perhaps the value of the story is impaired by the fact that neither Eaton nor Nelson was erected until 1807, thirteen years after the party came in. Kinney subsequently married a daughter of Sylvanus Mowry and removed to Fenner, where Mr. Mowry was an early settler.
The pioneers of Nelson were early favored with a near-by grist mill, which saved them many weary journeys and gave them better food products. James Annas was a settler before the beginning of the century, coming from Vermont and locating in the western part of the town. He was a millwright, and either brought with him a pair of mill stones, or made them from native rocks, a point which is unset- tled. It was a common practice in the very early years to split out rude millstones from field boulders. He at once built on Erieville Creek, about a mile and a half north of Erieville village site, a small mill and soon had it in operation. Ere long the property passed to possession of his youngest son, Truman Annas, who sold it about 1818 to Oliver Pool. The father of this Oliver Pool, whose name also was Oliver, came from Bennington, Vt., soon after 1800 and settled a mile and a half west of the site of Erieville. He was a carpenter and com- bined his farm work with that vocation; he lived there until his death in 1814. The younger Oliver Pool a few years later removed the mill across the road to obtain greater fall of water, and in 1833 built a new and larger mill a little below the first one; this he operated until 1848, when the privilege was purchased by the State and the water taken for the Erieville reservoir. Pool went to Michigan to follow his trade and died there, his family remaining in Nelson. He was a prom- inent and popular citizen, and served as supervisor and member of assembly. James Annas in his old age went to Locke, Cayuga county, to live with his son and died there about 1829.
Levi Brown was a settler of 1796, coming from Utica in March with a sled drawn by two yoke of oxen and driving ten sheep and a number of cattle. It is related that when he reached Eaton Brook, a little be- low West Eaton, they found it swollen by spring flood and ice and diffi- cult to cross. When one of the sheep refused to enter the water Mr. Brown's boy took it upon his shoulder and attempted to cross upon a log. The sheep was frightened and its struggles precipitated both into the stream, which was then of vastly larger volume than now. The situation of the drenched and freezing boy was not an enviable one, with five miles yet to travel before they would reach a fire. The boy
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was Levi Brown, jr., who was then seventeen years old. Mr. Brown settled on 150 acres of land about a mile west of the site of Erieville, a part of which with the dwelling passed in later years to Thomas Riggalls. He afterwards removed to another farm half a mile south of Erieville, where he resided until his death.
The Richardson brothers, Eldad, Lemuel, Asa, Benjamin and Eri, removed to the territory of Nelson at about the time under considera- tion, from Keene, N. H., and settled on lands adjacent to the site of Erieville; Eldad located on lot 147, which was taken up by him and his brother Lemuel jointly. He was a popular early tavern keeper, and probably stands alone in Madison county as the father of as many as thirty-three children; only six of them lived to maturity. He died in April, 1829, at the age of fifty- nine years. Lemuel, who settled on the same lot, died in August, 1832, aged sixty-one years; he had nine chil- dren. Eri represented this county in the Assembly in 1828 and was a prominent citizen; he died in August, 1844. Benjamin died in Octo. ber, 1855.
Three brothers named Wells (Gardner, Joshua and Robert), settled in Nelson in 1796, locating in the south part of the town about a mile east of the site of Erieville. Gardner and Joshua married in Rhode Island before coming west. The former was a blacksmith and proba- bly the first one in the town. He followed this vocation until near the time of his death, and made many of the early rude plows used in this section and much of the primitive mill machinery. He had a son Gard- ner who was also a blacksmith. He died on his homestead in May, 1839. Frank Isbell now lives on the place.
Joshua Wells resided on the fifty acres he first took up until a short time before his death, when he went to live with his sons, Clark and Jonathan Wells; he died at the home of the latter in January, 1864, aged ninety-two years. He was twice married and had sixteen chil- dren. His first child, Palmer Wells, born June 12, 1796, was probably the first white child born on Nelson territory; he died at the age of twenty-eight years. Joshua Wells held many town offices, was one of the organizers of the Erieville Baptist church, and was a much re- spected citizen. Robert Wells, the third brother, lived to near the time of his death on the farm he first took up, which subsequently constitu- ted a part of the Jeremiah Blair farm, now occupied by Frank Blair ; he died in Erieville in October, 1842, aged sixty-one years.
David Wellington settled in the town in either 1796 or 1797, about
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
two miles east of Erieville, near the site of the reservoir, his farm be- coming in later years a part of the Isaac Blair farm. He cleared an acre in his first season and sowed it with wheat; his first habitation was a log shanty roofed with bark and floored with puncheons split from soft wood logs. He then went back to his former home in Cheshire, N. H., and brought in his wife. He was father of an estimable family and late in his life went to live with his son David a mile south of Caz- enovia village, where both he and his wife died. He was one of the first justices of the peace of Nelson, holding the office about twenty years, and was honored with other public stations.
Simeon Haswell was one of four brothers all of whom served in the Revolutionary army; he came from Granville, Mass., where he was born, in 1799, with his family of his wife and nine children and settled on the State road two miles southeast of Nelson Flats, on what is now known as the Ezra Booth farm. He was a practical mason and mingled that occupation with farming. His children were named Simeon, Par- sons, Horace, Daison, Thomas, Leonard, Sally, Sophia, Orpha and Abigail, and many of them married and settled in this region. He had a younger son, Jabez, who was born in Nelson. The father died while living with one of his sons in Fenner, in 1846, aged eighty-nine years.
Jesse, Abner and Seth Bumpus settled in the north part of the town previous to 1800; they were brothers. Aaron Lindsley and Moses and Solomon Clark also settled just before the beginning of the century in the northeast part. Paul Griffiths, a Revolutionary soldier, Joseph, Chauncey and David Case, William Knox and David Hamilton, all lo- cated in the town about the year 1800. Griffiths was from Berkshire county, Mass., and located four miles west of Erieville; he had four children : Isaac, Otis, Abigail and Diana. After his wife died he moved to the west part of Georgetown where he died after reaching the great age of 100 years. The Cases were brothers from Simsbury, Conn., and settled in the northwest part of the town on the Cazenovia line, and each remained on the farm first taken up throughout his life. Joseph died in 1855; Chauncey in 1859; David in 1873. Lester M. Case, a prominent citizen, member of assembly in 1858, and member of the Con- stitutional Convention in 1867, was a son of Joseph, as also was J. Milton Case, who died in Cazenovia in 1875.
William Knox and David Hamilton were brothers-in-law and settled on farms in the northeast part of the town, the latter on the farm sub- sequently occupied by his son, S. W. Hamilton, and the latter where
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O. D. Knox afterwards resided; Knox was a son of a brother of William named John who came into the town a little later. Hamilton died in 1858.
Jeremiah Whipple was an early settler in Cazenovia where he kept an excellent hotel many years and was the first sheriff of Madison county, holding the office a number of years. He removed to Nelson and settled at the Flats, held the office of justice of the peace, and was a merchant with his son Jeremiah, who was born in 1800; the latter re- moved to Fenner and died there in 1869. Another son, Hull Whipple, married a daughter of Col. Aaron Ballou, of Fenner, went South in 1832 and died there. William Whipple, a brother of Jeremiah, was an early settler in this region, located in Cazenovia, where he was a car- penter and constable. He lived on the site of the Lincklaen House, and contracted to make the brick for the first court house, built in Caz- enovia.
Jeremiah Clark, who purchased the Whipple property, built a saw mill in the town soon after 1800 on the west side of the stream near his settlement ; it was not long in operation. Oliver Pool built a saw mill on the east end of the same dam at a later date. Mr. Clark removed to Dryden, Tompkins county, late in his life. The first saw mill in Nelson was built in 1798-9 by Sylvanus and George Sayles, two miles southerly of Nelson Flats; on the site is the present so-called Hamilton mill. This property had been reserved by Mr. Lincklaen with the in- tention of donating it to any person who would build a mill.
Thomas Ackley and Benjamin Hatch, from Plainfield, Otsego county, and Jeremiah Blair, from Blandford, Mass., were settlers of the period under consideration in the west part of the town on the Cazenovia line. Ackley died at an advanced age in New Woodstock. Job Wood, Sam- uel Salisbury, and Benjamin Wadsworth, from Bennington, Vt., settled in the town in 1802. Wadsworth's son, John, now resides in Erieville village. Dyer Matteson, Jesse Carpenter and Robert Hazard were settlers of 1806; the former was from Rhode Island originally, but re- moved to Nelson from Middletown, Vt., and located about a mile north of Erieville; later he removed to a farm about a mile farther east, which was afterwards owned by Freeman Matteson; there he died in 1844. Robert Hazard was a native of Hancock, Mass., and settled on the Colonel Forman purchase of three lots in the west part of the town; he took up 100 acres of lot 146 and lived there until his death in February, 1853; he had three children.
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Jesse Carpenter came from Worcester, Mass., where he was born, with his wife and two children and settled half a mile north of Erieville; he was a basket maker and followed that occupation until his death. The two children who came to Nelson were both married previous to that time, and Elijah, the son, had several children when he came in; he settled two miles southwest of Erieville on the farm subsequently occupied by William Pugh. He was a shoemaker and worked at it in connection with farming. He had eleven children.
Barna Stimson was from Blandford, Mass., and settled in 1809 in the vicinity of Erieville, where he followed coopering until his death about 1816. Among other early settlers were James Hinman, Oliver Stone, Israel Patterson, Horatio Sims, and Abner Camp. Stone was from Connecticut and settled a little to the west of the site of Erieville; later he sold fifty acres of his farm to Dr. Onesimus Mead and Silas Melvin. The latter did not come into the town until 1806; he was associated with William Fellows about 1812 in building a saw mill at the head of the reservoir, which was in operation until about 1845 when the dam was carried away in a flood. Stone subsequently sold his remaining fifty acres, but resided in the town until his death about 1830.
James Hinman settled in the north part of the town, but left this region in early years. Israel Patterson was a pioneer on a farm a little east of Erieville, where he took up 150 acres, but sold seventy-five to Joshua Wells. About 1800 he sold the remainder to Thomas Mallory, who four years later removed to Canada. A brother of Israel Patter- son lived also on the same place, where two log houses were built; they came in together but left the town at an early date.
Horatio Sims, father of Clark Sims, was a pioneer and settled a mile and a half north of Erieville, where William R. Jones afterwards lived; both he and his wife died there. Abner Camp was a settler on the east line of the town south of the center, where he cleared a farm which he afterwards sold and soon after the war of 1812 removed to Richland, N. Y. He was a son of Dr. Abner Camp, a botanic physician, who settled early in Eaton on the southeast side of Hatch's Lake, which for a time was known as Camp's Pond.
Several families came in from New Jersey in 1811 and settled in that region, which is still called Jersey Bush, in the south part of the town. Among them were Thomas and William Harris, Joseph English, Phineas Hamblet, Elijah Carpenter, John S. Brown and a Mr. Abraham. Thomas Harris was grandfather of Dr. George Harris, later of George-
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town. For years past the Harris family has held a reunion at Jersey Bush, the attendance numbering from 300 to 400.
The succeeding list of officers of the town, the list of supervisors given in the Gazetteer of Nelson and Part II contain many names of other pioneers who labored through their lives around the hearthstones they had laid in the wilderness, and left a richer heritage to their pos- terity.
The first and second town meetings in Nelson were held in the barn of Rufus Weaver on the 7th of April, 1807. At the first meeting James Green acted as moderator and Josiah Hayden, clerk; John Rice and Isaac Bumpus assisted in canvassing the votes. The following officers were there elected: Ebenezer Lyon, supervisor; John Rice, clerk; Jeremiah Clark, Simeon Marshall and Thaddeus Hazleton, assessors; Thomas Holdridge, Moses Boardman and John Knox, commissioners of highways; Day Fay and Moses Boardman, overseers of the poor; Eri Richardson, Asahel Wood, Alvan Henry and Benjamin Bumpus, constables; Alvan Henry, collector; James Bacon and John Jackson, poundkeepers; Elijah Daniels, Daniel Butler, Silas Reeves, Joseph Sims, Rufus Weaver, James Annas, Benjamin Turner, Uriah Annas, Robert Hazard, George Tibbits, Eldad Richardson, Jonathan Wellington, David Smith, Abraham Parker, Ephraim Cone, David Nichols, Daniel Coolidge, Richard Green, John Rice, Stephen Kingsley, Dyer Matteson, Francis Wood, John Knox and Warham Chapman, overseers of high- ways and fenceviewers.
Among the early proceedings of town meetings it is recorded that Jeremiah Clark was voted ten dollars for his services in attending the Legislature in promoting the formation of the town. In 1809 a tax of twenty-five cents was imposed upon every person who kept a dog, the proceeds to be devoted to the purchase of a Merino ram for public use. This is, perhaps, the earliest instance of the imposition of a dog tax anywhere in this vicinity, if not in the State. At the same time a bounty of $20, in addition to the State bounty, was voted for every wolf killed. The remarkable dog tax was repealed in 1810. It was voted at an early meeting that "sheep rams shall not run on the com- mon after the 1st day of September until the 1st day of January, on the penalty of being forfeit."
In 1807 the amount of tax collected was $208.41; when the treas- urer's and collector's fees were deducted it left $195.90. In that year it cost $11.50 to support the poor. Other votes were early passed for the simple government of the town.
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
Early in the century some small business interests were established on the site of Erieville, around which soon gathered a collection of settlers. Josiah Hayden, who settled there about 1807, built a store on the site now occupied by G. C. Moore; that building was afterwards used as a school house, where Dr. John Heffron taught certainly as early as 1810; later it was a gun shop and finally a dwelling.
The first store at Nelson Flats, as it was called (now Nelson village), was opened soon after 1800 and kept several years by Eliphalet S. Jackson, who was succeeded by his cousins, John and Salathiel Jackson. This point was in early years a place of considerable business impor- tance, when many stage coaches passing east and west made it a stop- ping place.
One of the first taverns in the town was kept by Luther Doolittle in the northeast quarter, about 1800; it was known as Tog Hill tavern. Another was built by Eldad Richardson on Eagle Hill a mile east of Erieville not long afterwards; both of these were first built of logs.
Although parts of this town, particularly the northeast part, were occupied as a field of religious labor in very early years, probably be- fore the beginning of the century, by both Baptists and Presbyterians, and by Methodists not long afterwards, no church was organized in the town until after the formation of the county. There was not a physi- cian in the town as a resident, Dr. James Pratt coming in from Eaton to attend the sick until 1809, when Dr. John Heffron, a native of Swan- sey, N. H., settled at Erieville. The town in 1806, while quite fully settled, was not nearly so far advanced in its institutions, its trade operations or mercantile business, as many others, and there was not a post-office until 1822.
Turning now to the town of Madison as another of the five formed within a year after the erection of the county, we find that it was set off from Hamilton on the 6th of February, 1807, and named in honor of James Madison, president of the United States. It is situated on the east border of the county south of the center and is bounded on the north by Augusta and Stockbridge, on the south by Hamilton, on the east by Oneida county, and the west by Eaton; it was No, 3 of the Twenty Townships and contains almost 23,000 acres. The principal streams of the town are the headwaters of a branch of the Chenango River flowing south and the headwaters of a branch of Oriskany Creek flowing north; but there are numerous small spring-fed streams amply watering the town. The surface is a rolling upland, a picturesque
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variety of hills and intervening valleys. There are several small ponds, the principal one of which is the Madison reservoir covering an area of 235 acres, from which a feeder leads to the old Chenango Canal. Some of the ponds, particularly those in the north part, are filled with marl; but it has not been used on account of the swampy edges and the depth of water. The town is underlaid wholly by the rocks of the Hamilton group, which are generally deeply covered with drift, making it practi- cally impossible to quarry with success. The soil on the hills is clayey loam and in the valleys is gravelly loam, most of it fertile and adapted to mixed farming. Hop growing has for many years been the most important agricultural industry and twenty years ago the product of the town was in some years one-fourth that of the whole county. Dairying has always received considerable attention and in recent years has increased. Lumber is still cut to a considerable extent from the remaining woodlands, three steam saw mills being now in operation in the town.
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