USA > New York > Madison County > Our county and its people : a descriptive and biographical record of Madison County, New York > Part 14
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SETTLEMENT OF TOWNS.
procure slate stones to be set up at the graves; " and that "any person living in this town that has a grave opened in any adjoining town, be paid by this town." In one year the town resolved to pay $1.25 for "opening " graves. The grave digger considered this inadequate pay and after digging a grave, refused to fill it, saying he had "opened" it. A special meeting was thereupon called, the wording of the reso. lution changed and the pay raised to $1.75. Another amusing bit of legislation is found in the case of the tailoress, Keziah Roe, who was an invalid, well known throughout the town. It was voted in regular town meeting to appropriate the sum of $40 " to send Keziah Roe to the seashore for the benefit of her health."
In November, 1813, the town was divided into fourteen school dis tricts and John White, Levi Morton and William Manchester were chosen school commissioners. The town meetings down to and includ- ing 1827, with the exception of 1824, when they were held in the vil- lage meeting house, were held at the Center meeting house. Subse- quently and down to the time of building the Military Hall in 1861, the meetings were held in dwellings.
The following report of a census of the town is found in the record books, written by Truman Stafford, and explains itself :
The following table shows the number of acres of improved land, of horses, of cat- tle, sheep, and also the number of yards of cloth manufactured in the domestic way within the town of Madison during the year ending June, 1821, and is inserted in the town book, not as an official record, but as a matter of fact interesting to those who may hereafter enquire into the profits of agriculture, of the useful arts and of indus- try in general. The territory at this time is about six miles square-been inhabited about twenty-five years and contains a population of about 3000.
ABSTRACT.
Acres of Imp. Land
Horses.
Cattle.
12,111
566
2,660
Sheep. 5,593
Fulled Woolen Cloth. 4,404
Flannel yds. 7,422
Cotton Linen yds.
15,779
Signed,
TRUMAN STAFFORD.
Mercantile operations were begun on the site of Madison village be- fore 1800 by John Lucas, who opened his store at the so called " Open- ing," which was a small Indian clearing adjacent to the little body of water that has been called Madison Lake, lying a little north- west of the village. At that point the early business interests gathered. When the Cherry Valley Turnpike was constructed in 1807 it attracted trade and settlements along its line and gave Madison village its incep-
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
tion. Mr. Lucas accordingly removed his store to what became known as the Corners and located it on the corner where the present store of Louis Fuess is situated; there he carried on a successful business many years, retiring at an advanced age. The business passed to his son, John S. Lucas, who conducted it until his death in 1879. With him was associated Alanson Coe for many years, and Robert B. Lane was his partner for a time.
The next merchant at that point, who began business about the date of the formation of the county, was Truman Stafford, who traded in a building which stood on the site of the block of stores built in later years by Henry Hull and Lyman Root, where he continued until his death. His clerk, Erastus Barry, was his partner towards the last and continued the business a short time after Stafford's death. Gen. Erastus Cleveland and Dr. Benjamin F. Cleveland were early in trade here, and E. F. Gaylord, son-in-law of General Cleveland, was also in trade many years, until he removed to Cleveland.
The first post-office was established at a very early day at the " Open- ing." Dr. Asa B. Sizer was the first postmaster; he was succeeded by Ralph Tanner, who was one of the first tavern keepers. The first physician was Dr. Jonathan Pratt, who has been mentioned, and Dr. Zadock Parker practiced from an early date until his death in 1816.
On the site of Bouckville the first merchant was Dr. Samuel McClure, who came on from Vermont with his wife and eight children in 1805 or 1806 and purchased a farm which included the site of the village, on lot 2. He built a small frame store, but continued business only about a year when he removed to Erie county. The early mill, built on the site of Solsville before 1810 by Gen. Erastus Cleveland, and his other industries have been described. At that point there came into exist- ence a thriving business center; but the opening of the canal and other causes have taken away its industrial importance in recent years.
Two churches were founded in this town before the formation of the county. The Congregational church of Madison was organized on September 6, 1796, with ten members, by Rev. Eliphalet Steele, then of Paris. The first pastor was Rev. Ezra Woodworth. Meetings were held during the first six years in John Berry's barn. In 1802 a meeting house was built at the Center. About twenty years later it was taken down and rebuilt nearly opposite the former site; in 1856 it was again demolished and rebuilt on its present site in Madison village. The society has ever since had a prosperous existence. The church has been entirely remodeled in the last decade.
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The First Baptist Church in the Town of Madison was organized with about twenty members, by Rev. Joel Butler, as The Second Bap- tist Church of Hamilton, on December 20, 1798; the title was not for- mally changed to the present form until 1861. On February 16, 1799, a committee was appointed to invite Rev. Joel Butler to preach and he accepted the invitation. The incomplete records indicate that he served about two years, receiving for his first year $32.50, and for the second, $35. The society was admitted to the Otsego Association in August, 1799. In 1801 a meeting house was built at the "Opening " and on August 18 of that year the society was incorporated under its original name. The trustees were then Thomas Leach, Levi Morton and Chauncey Butler. Other early pastors of the church were Revs. Sal- mon Morton, the second one, Eliphalet M. Spencer, John Blair, Richard Clark, P. P. Brown, S. S. Wheeler, Nelson Palmer, L. C. Bates, Carlos Swift, E. S. Davis, G. W. Barnes. The present church was built in 1833 and has been improved at times. The first parsonage was super- seded by one purchased in 1835, which has recently been sold and a new one erected.
This chapter will be closed with an account of the early history of the town of Smithfield, the last of the five towns erected in the year 1807. This town was set off from Cazenovia on the 13th of March of the year named, and derives its name from Peter Smith, who at the time of the organization owned all the territory of the town, ex- cepting a few farms which he had sold to settlers, and a strip one mile wide across the northern end. The town contains nearly 16,000 acres, over three-fourths of which are improved. It is centrally situated in the county and is bounded on the north by Lenox and Stockbridge, on the east by Stockbridge, on the south by Eaton and Nelson, and on the west by Fenner. At the time of its formation Smithfield included the territory of the present Fenner, which was set off in 1823.
The surface of the town is rolling, with a large cedar swamp extend- ing through it north and south which in some places is nearly two miles wide; most of this is unimproved, and is underlaid with marl which is covered with a thick deposit of muck. The soil on the uplands is sandy and gravelly. The drainage is by streams flowing mainly northward, the principal ones of which are the Chittenango and the Cowasselon Creeks; in the southern part the Chenango receives a part of the drainage.
Smithfield was founded by Peter Smith, who was born at or near
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
Tappan, Rockland county, N. Y., in 1767. In his youth he resided in New York city and there formed the acquaintance of a fellow clerk with whom he engaged in the fur trade; this partner was John Jacob Astor, founder of the noted millionaire family of that name. Mr. Smith's part in the business took him into the interior in quest of furs, while Astor remained in New York to attend to the sales. The part- nership continued ten years, after which Mr. Smith sought out and purchased largely of the best lands he could find in central New York. In 1794 he leased from the Oneida Indians for 999 years a tract contain- ing over 50,000 acres, which included nearly all of Smithfield and Fen- ner as at present constituted, that part of Cazenovia lying north of the Gore, a part of Stockbridge and a large portion of Augusta in Oneida county. Smith had made warm friends among the Oneidas, particu- larly of the Chief Skenandoah, through whom he was enabled to per- fect his valuable lease. But the pagan section of the nation revolted against a transaction which took from them this immensely valuable territory for a trifling return and made more or less opposing trouble when a survey was attempted. In the following year, however, the land passed to the possession of the State by treaty purchase and Mr. Smith was given the opportunity of securing title to his purchase upon payment of $350. Strange as it may now appear he hesitated for a time, but in 1798 finally accepted the proposal and was allowed $1.50 an acre for his expenses in surveying, etc. In 1799 he began selling farms at auction, mainly in tracts of fifty acres each, and none larger than 200 acres; the price received varied from $6 to $15 an acre, and mortgages were taken for unpaid moneys which were turned over to the State on the original purchase. This land became known as the New Petersburgh Tract, was confirmed and settlement rapidly pro- gressed. Mr. Smith did not then become a resident on his purchase, but sent on in 1795 Jasper Aylesworth, a native of Rhode Island, born August 7, 1773; he walked from Utica, carrying most of the distance a heavy iron kettle. Arriving on the site of the village of Peterboro he began a clearing of two acres which now constitutes the public square. This he planted with corn and then cleared the site of the Gerrit Smith mansion. In the spring of 1797 he married Polly, daughter of John Taft, who had come into the town as a settler; this was the first marriage in the town, and their child, named Safety, born March 14, 1798, was the first white child born in the town. She passed her whole life in Peterboro and died there in 1872. Their second child
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SETTLEMENT OF TOWNS.
was Hiram, born June 5, 1800, and there had been then no other birth in the town. The other children of Mr. Aylesworth were Oran, Loren, Henry, John, Adaline, George, Eliphalet, Van Ranssville and Sophro- nia. Members of the family remained in Smithfield many years, Eli- phalet being the last of these children in the town.
Oliver Trumbull came on west in 1798 and bought fifty acres a half mile south of Aylesworth, where he reared a family, members of which and their descendants have lived honorable and useful lives in this and other towns.
From 1797 to 1799 other settlers came in, among them the large Bump family; the first of these to arrive was Ithamar and afterwards his father, Ichabod, and his brothers, Moses, Nathan, David, Jonathan, Gideon, Jacob, and a sister, Hannah, who married Ebenezer Bronson; she was mother of Greene C. Bronson. Several members of this fam- ily remained permanently in the town and occupied prominent positions in the community.
The following particulars regarding the early settlers of Smithfield were furnished to the Madison County Directory of 1868-9 and are worthy of preservation here :
" The Trumbulls and Griffins had families, and all of them located on lot 33, Second Allotment, being the first lot south of No. 26, on which is Peterboro. Aylesworth was unmarried and came as the hired man of Judge Smith, and in that capacity felled the forest trees on the village plat, then an untouched wilderness which had never before been made to echo to the sound of the axman's blows and the hourly crash- ing of falling trees. How long he continued in Judge Smith's employ is not known, but in an early day in the history of the town he married a daughter of John Taft, esq., another early settler who lived in town. Mr. Aylesworth endured the privations incident to the early settlers. On one occasion he brought a five-pail kettle on his back from Utica, to make maple sugar. Some of his first supplies and provisions he brought from Utica in the same manner. He became a permanent resident of the town and was an enterprising and successful farmer.
" Ithamar Bump settled on lot 41 in 1797, where he continued to re- side until removed by death, August 14, 1815. Soon after his first set- tlement in town he was joined by his father, Ichabod Bump, and in the course of a few years, Moses, Nathan, David, Jonathan, Gideon and Jacob, brothers of Ithamar, and a sister named Hannah, the wife of Ebenezer Bronson, all became residents of the town. In their physical 9
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
characteristics this was a peerless family. The brothers were all large, well-developed men, averaging six feet in height, with great muscular power, and as wrestlers and for personal prowess (qualities highly prized in those days) were a terror to the athletes of the county. Some of them were enterprising and successful farmers, among them Ithamar, especially, was an industrious, upright and esteemed citizen. His de- scendants to the third generation still live in the town, and include some prominent business men. Ichabod, the old father, died Decem . ber 22, 1823, at the age of ninety years.
"Capt. Joseph Black came in about the year 1798. Where he first located is not certainly known, but in the fall of 1802 he was on lot 59, N. P., Second Allotment, and in 1803 or 1804 he became a prominent contractor for the construction of a large section of the old 'Oneida Turnpike,' which was made under his immediate supervision. He was proverbially upright and reliable, insomuch that to this day the ques- tion is sometimes asked by those who knew him and still remember him, whether this generation furnishes any specimens of such un- swerving integrity. His memory is precious, and 'though dead he yet speaketh.'
" Between the years 1798 and 1805 many valuable men came in and settled as farmers in different parts of the town, but chiefly on the two southern tiers of lots on the Mile Strip Tract. On this Mile Strip Tract and contiguous thereto were Jacob and Samuel Walker, Allen Bill, Da- vid Shipman, Solomon Merrill, sen., and sons, Robert Streeter, Gideon Wright, Jabez Lyon, Shadrach Hardy, David Tuttle, Ezra Chaffee, Mrs. Moody and her sons David and Samuel, Mrs. Matteson and her sons John, Abraham, Eli and Nathan, Barzillai and Amos Northrup, Syl- vanus Mathewson and sons Winchester and Stephen, Stephen Risley, Moses Howe, Salmon Howard and Francis Dodge. On the two south- ern tiers of lots were Edward Bliss, Wright Brigham, John Lucas, Rod- man Spencer and sons, David Blodgett, Alpheus Thompson, John Ford, Reuben Fitch, Andress Loveland, and others. Most of these, with many more not named in the list, settled permanently, became prosperous farmers and valuable men and citizens."
Elder John Pray, a Six Principle Baptist minister, bought the John Taft farm when its first owner died and died there in 1830, leaving nu- merous descendants. Stephen Risley, above mentioned, came from East Hartford, Conn., in 1801, and was in many of the battles of the Revolution. Daniel Petrie was an early settler, learned the Indian lan-
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SETTLEMENT OF TOWNS.
guage and became useful to many of the inhabitants in dealing with the natives, and a prominent business man.
James Livingston opened a store at Peterboro in 1801, the first one in the town; he was a brother of Peter Smith's wife. His store stood at the east end of the public green; it was the first frame building of the village, was built in 1800, and stood until recent years. Livings- ton kept a tavern in that building, and it continued to be occupied as such until 1850 under various proprietors, and finally passed to Elipha- let Aylesworth, who occupied it as a dwelling. The old town meetings were held in this house and there also the Indian girl murderess, else- where noticed, was confined on the night before her execution in 1813.
In 1801 Daniel Petrie came from Herkimer and opened a second store. Other early merchants were William Solon and Myron Taylor, Elisha Carrington, Royal and Dorman Cooper, Asa Raymond, Charles H. Cook, Peter Skenandoah Smith, Samuel Forman, Dunham & Clink, Harry Curtis, J. G. Curtis, Eliphalet Aylesworth, Ives & Woodbury, Dr. N. C. Powers, Andrew S. Douglass, Dr. A. C. Baum, James R. Barnett, Charles Cutler, John A. Campbell, William T. Marcey, W. C. Ives and Charles N. Snow. Daniel Petrie was the first postmaster in the place.
Dr. Elijah Pratt settled in Peterboro in 1801 and was the only phy- sician during a number of years; he also taught an early private school, and was sheriff of the county in 1813, but removed west in 1814. Dr Phineas Lucas came to the town in 1804 and died in 1806 when only thirty-two years old. He was followed by Dr. John Dorrance who con- tinued in practice until his death in 1855. Dr. R. Nash took up his residence in Peterboro in 1807. While there is at the present time no lawyer in Smithfield, there were in former years a number who were prominent in their profession, among them Nehemiah Huntington, Greene C. Bronson, A. C. Stone, Harmonias Van Vleck, William Stone and Gerrit Smith.
Smithfield is isolated from railroads and canals and such manufac- tures as flourished in early years have almost wholly passed out of ex- istence, leaving an agricultural district. Far back near the beginning of the century, in just what year no one knows, but certainly before 1809, a glass factory was established in the town; it is believed by many to have been erected in 1808 by Peter Skenandoah Smith with money supplied by his father. An old account book of 1809 contains entries of " whiskey for the glass blowers." In 1811 the factory was
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
operated by Smith & Solon, and it was afterward owned by a company, the principal members of which were Peter S. Smith, William Solon, Daniel Petrie and O. S. Wilcoxen. The sand used, or a part of it, came from the beach of Oneida Lake. When wood near the factory became scarce, another factory was built two miles distant and both were oper- ated in making window glass, which was sold in Albany and elsewhere. Both factories employed more than one hundred hands. In 1818 the property passed to Backus & Fenn (W. H. Backus and Dr. Fenn) who continued the business on a smaller scale until about 1830. The busi- ness was never prosperous, owing mainly to its inconvenient location.
A distillery, which industry was usually one of the first in every town, was started in 1802 by a company composed of Daniel Petrie, Oliver S. Wilcoxen, John Downer, Peter Webber and Elisha Carring- ton; the building stood a little south of the site of the Smith residence, and the business ceased before 1813. Another was built the next year by Elisha Carrington, which was operated about fifteen years.
About 1802 a small saw mill and grist mill were built by William Sayles at Peterboro; this was owned by Peter Smith and was operated until within a few years of the building of the present mill in 1850 by Gerrit Smith. Other early industries came into existence not long after the erection of the county which are described further on.
Settlement in the Siloam vicinity was made early and in. 1804 or a little earlier a tavern was built there by Joseph Black, who was a large contractor in the construction of the turnpike, mainly to accommodate his laborers. The Cowasselon Creek flows through this place and formerly supplied good water power. John Black, son of Joseph, and Samuel Ellinwood built a larger house in 1808 to succeed the first tavern and kept it many years. In 1810 Jeremiah Ellinwood and Elijah Manly built a grist mill and in the same year Ellinwood and David Coe built a saw mill there. Black and Alexander Ostrander built a store at an early date and a post-office was opened which continued until after 1856. Samuel Ellinwood catered to the universal demand for whisky by early establishing a distillery, to which he added a brewery. Between 1824 to 1830, during the construction of the Chenango Canal, there were three distilleries and two breweries in that vicinity, to supply the in- creased demand for beverages.
In the year following the erection of the county (1807) Samuel Stran- ahan purchased the right to build a dam across the stream at Peterboro and erected a fulling mill the same year. This he sold in 1816 to Perry
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SETTLEMENT OF TOWNS.
G. Palmer and Walcott Skidmore; Mr. Palmer two years later acquired the whole property and finding the business unprofitable, took down the building and erected a little lower down a shingle mill and saw mill which he operated more than twenty years. Other early indus- tries of this place were several cooper shops, a small machine shop run by George Peck a little north from the village, where he invented in 1836 the machine for cutting staves, and the usual blacksmith, shoe and other small shops.
The earliest school of which there is definite knowledge was a private institution kept at Peterboro by Miss Tabitha Havens about 1800. A Miss Ambler also taught a very early private school and later a Miss Webster, a cousin of Noah Webster. In 1822 a Mr. Johnson taught a private school in the Aylesworth residence, and in 1815 Elizabeth Kelly had a school in a dwelling. The first district school house was built about 1807, which was superseded by a larger one in 1836.
Peter Smith did not become a permanent resident in the town until 1806 when he removed from Utica and soon after his arrival began the erection of the old mansion, a plain wood structure, three stories in height without cornice or ornament. This building retained its orig- inal appearance until 1854, when Gerrit Smith remodeled it to some extent. Mr. Smith's great landed possessions, from which he made rapid sales, gave him great wealth and prominence in the community. Entering promptly into manufacturing and trade, he was soon proprie- tor, or part owner, of all the industries in that region. He was elected supervisor in 1807 and in June of the same year was elected associate judge of the Court of Common Pleas, which office he held until 1821. While he was not liberally educated, he possessed natural traits and qualifications that enabled him to exert a strong influence upon all with whom he came in immediate contact. He was able to grasp large un- dertakings and to a great extent foresee their results. In the region where he dwelt he handled in all 500,000 acres of land. He was close in his dealings, but above all was honest; highly emotional in tempera- ment, he frequently found it impossible to control himself under excite- ment. For the laws of religious institutions he had little regard; he would swear fluently under provocation, while at the same time he would implicitly obey the dictates of his own conscience. His son, Peter Skenandoah Smith, was somewhat reckless in expenditure and gave his father great anxiety and trouble; and in 1819 he transferred all of his property in Madison county to his other and more honored son,
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
Gerrit Smith, and removed to Schenectady in 1825. There he again entered upon the accumulation of landed property, at the same time devoting much time to religious duties, the distribution of tracts, and exhortations to persons with whom he came in contact. His pecul- iarities in these respects became widely known. On his journeys through the northern counties he would carry large stores of religious tracts and papers, and upon entering a village or town, would call pub- lic attention to his coming by ringing a bell. In this work he acted as agent for the American Tract Society. His death took place in Sche- nectady April 13, 1837. His remains were removed to Peterboro some years later and were buried in the family lot in the cemetery.
The first town meeting for Smithfield was held April 7, 1807, "in the school house near David Cook's." This was in the territory that afterwards became the town of Fenner. It proved to be a very lively contest. There was a strong sectional feeling between the people in the east part of the town and those in the west, and two official tickets were nominated, the candidates for supervisor being Peter Smith in the east and David Cook in the west. A heavy snow storm just previous to the date of the town meetings left a body of four feet of snow on the ground, making travel almost impossible. The inhabitants of the west part feared an adjournment of the meeting to Peterboro, where they knew the friends of Mr. Smith would elect him; while if the storm should prevent the voters from getting out in the east part, Mr. Cook would succeed. But by energetic work at snow shoveling and road-breaking the voters in Mr. Smith's section made it possible to at- tend the meeting and their candidates were elected. The polls were open three days, whisky flowed freely, and many votes were chal- lenged on the property test. The following officers were chosen at the meeting: Supervisor, Peter Smith; clerk, Daniel Petrie.
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