USA > New York > Madison County > Our county and its people : a descriptive and biographical record of Madison County, New York > Part 4
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1 Referring to the present Oneida Castle. A village situated near Oneida Lake is designated the "New Oneida Castle." The Documentary History, I, 526, alludes to the line of this trail in 1757, which had then become a passable road, as follows : " The road goes to the Great Oneida Village, about two leagues from the Lake. A picket Fort with four bastions, had been con- structed in this village by the English. It was destroyed by the Oneidas in observance of their promise given at a council held between them and the Marquis De Vaudreuil. Each of its sides might have been one hundred paces. There is a second Oneida Village, called the little village, situated on the bank of the Lake There is no fort in the latter " In this connection the accom- panying ancient map is of great interest and is self-explanatory.
Jellis Funda
Peter's Serviss
Lord
Attland
SF! Bute
Lr
Fis 2 "Vive Back
Black E.
N
Roy al Block House
៛ Bay
If way
Pieters Hole
Betagendena
Fe Briwington
>. this Brach
Sinooth WE
Onondaga Falls
Marmor
Carolana
Rapid
Onondaga R
War Bayai
opis
Rapid
439
Three Rivers
T
I
RY
N D
Şenekas R
Salt Lake
Onondaga
Old Map of Central New York.
R
Ha la Planche
que - Sables
Salmon R.
Fart Ontario Os wego
Pisora Ur
Opfriscany Patent
Granted to " Westham !) EyCoxborough
C:
Rapid all along
rapwarog hare
Canassarand Castle
Canadasscoa
Rapid
BREVET
drin
Edineston
C.W Edmeston
' 'Butler
a R
DI Middleton
I
A
N
Rapid
Old Onegeta Cast
Wood
General bage:
27
EARLY SETTLEMENT-TRAILS AND ROADS.
called on the map "Canowaroghare, " and "Canadasseoa " (correspond- ing apparently with the position of East Boston) and Canaseraga Castle to Three Rivers. From a little southwest of Canaseraga a branch ex- tended to Onondaga. Another map indicates a trail extending from the site of Oneida village in a general westerly direction, passing through Canaseraga and on through Onondaga to Niagara. This and the last preceding described trail correspond, doubtless, with the trail which is well known to have crossed the northern part of Madison county, passing through Oneida Castle, Wampsville, Quality Hill and Canaseraga, leaving the county at Deep Spring. This road was im- proved in 1790, just as the first settlers were coming into the territory of Madison county, by William and James Wadsworth, who passed over it with oxen and cart on their way to the Genesee country. These narrow and winding trails could not long suffice for the travel of the pioneers, and local roads were opened and somewhat improved so rap- idly after settlemeut began, that in 1800 there were forty-seven laid out in the territory of Chenango and Madison counties; this was only six years after the first settler came in.
The Mohawk River was of vast importance to the incoming early settlers for a number of years. It was navigated by many so-called Durham boats, a flat-bottomed oblong scow, propelled by poles thrust against the bottom of the river. The crews consisted of five or six men and ten miles up the current was considered a good day's journey. A Schenectady paper of 1803 gives the dimensions of one of these boats as follows: "She is sixty-three feet keel, eleven feet wide, and two feet three inches deep. When loaded she draws two feet of water and carries twenty-four tons. She now brought down 250 bushels of wheat and will next trip bring 800." Many of the Durham boats were smaller than this one.
The importance of the Mohawk as a navigable stream led to early measures for its improvement. In 1791 Gov. George Clinton urged upon the Legislature the importance of improving the natural water- ways of the State, and in that year one hundred pounds was appropri- ated for a survey of the portage at Rome and of the river eastward to the Hudson, with a view of constructing locks where needed and a canal around Little Falls. In the following year the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company was incorporated, with a capital of $25,000, which was afterwards increased to $300,000. The improvements were made and for a number of years the region along this route was con-
28
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
siderably benefited; but the tolls were high,1 forcing the settlers to still use the roads that were frequently almost impassable. This fact and the great cost of maintaining the locks and other improvements ulti- mately, and notwithstanding several loans made by the State, caused the company to fail and its rights reverted to the commonwealth. In 1791 it cost from $75 to $100 per ton for transportation from Seneca Lake to Albany; in 1796 the cost was reduced to $32 per ton and to $16 on return cargoes. These rates were almost prohibitive to very many pioneers, who toiled over the roads and at the same time made their influence felt for highway improvement.
The road over which the Wadsworths had passed in 1790, as before noted, and which crossed Madison county, was improved by the State in 1793, when $2, 700 was appropriated for roads on the Military Tract (which included Onondaga county); the principal road thus improved extended westward from Deep Spring and was the extension of the Wadsworth road. In 1794 an act was passed by the Legislature ap- pointing Israel Chapin, Michael Myers and Othniel Taylor, commis- sioners for laying out a highway from "Old Fort Schuyler," to the Cayuga ferry, "as nearly straight as the situation of the country will allow."' This road was to be six rods wide. In the several acts relat- ing to this highway it is called the "Great Genesee Road." It gener- ally followed the line of the road before mentioned, which was called the State Road. In 1797 the Legislature authorized three lotteries for the purpose of raising $45,000 for the furthur improvement of roads. Of this sum $13,900 was expended on the Great Genesee road through- out its length from Utica to Geneva. The inhabitants along the route made a voluntary subscription of 4,000 days' work in aid of the im- provement. In writing to England on this subject, Capt. Charles Williamson, said :
By this generous and uncommon exertion, and by some other contributions, the State Commissioner was enabled to complete this road of nearly one hundred miles, opening it sixty-four feet wide, and paving with logs and gravel the moist parts of the low country. Hence the road from Fort Schuyler, on the Mohawk river, to Genesee, from being in the month of June, 1797, little better than an Indian path, was so far improved, that a stage started from Fort Schuyler on the 30th of Septem- ber, and arrived at the hotel in Geneva, in the afternoon of the third day, with four passengers.
1 In his Origin and History of the Erie Canal, George Geddes, wrote; "The high tolls and other expenses of this navigation were so onerous that land carriage on the poor roads of that day still continued to be the usual mode of communication between the interior and the sea- board."
29
FIRST SETTLEMENT-TRAILS AND ROADS.
For the further improvement of this highway by private capital the Seneca Turnpike Company was granted a charter in 1800, authorizing $110,000 capital, and appointing as commissioners, Jedediah Sanger, Benjamin Walker, Charles Williamson and Israel Chapin. An amend- ment to the charter of 1801 gave the commissioners discretion to de- viate from the line of the old road. When it became known that they intended to straighten the line and avoid the Canaseraga Hill and Onondaga Hill there was active opposition to the westward of Chit- tenango, the inhabitants of Manlius and Onondaga fearing the selection of a northern route that would be to their great disadvantage. They sent a delegation to meet the commissioners at Chittenango. The clever citizens led the commissioners up the ravine to the northwest of Chittenango, which was practically impassable, and then along other equally unfavorable routes until the officials were weary and ready to return to Chittenango and allow the road to follow its own course. Eventually learning that they had been imposed upon, the company in 1806 secured a further amendment to their charter, authorizing them to "build a new road from Sullivan [Madison county] to the Onondaga Reservation near the Salt Springs to Cayuga Bridge," and $50,000 was added to the capital stock. This road was finished in 1812. The great Genesee Turnpike was completed to Buffalo in 1809.
Mail was first carried through Madison county territory in 1797 or 1798, by a Mr. Langdon, who traveled on horseback from Whitestown to Gene- see. He was succeeded by a Mr. Lucas, and by 1800 the mail had become so large as to require a wagon for its transportation. The first four- horse coach with mail was driven through by Jason Parker, who re- moved in 1794 from Adams, Mass., to Utica and found employment as a post rider between Canajoharie and Whitestown. He began running a stage between those places in 1795 and thus announced his enter- prise :
The mail leaves Whitestown every Monday and Thursday at 2 o'clock p. m., and proceeds to Old Fort Schuyler the same evening; next morning starts at 4 o'clock and arrives in Canajoharie in the evening, exchanges passengers with the Albany and Cooperstown stages, and the next day returns to Old Fort Schuyler. Fare for passengers, $2.00; way passengers, four cents a mile, fourteen pounds of baggage gratis. Seats may be had by applying at the post-office, Whitestown, at the house of the subscriber, Old Fort Schuyler, or at Captain Root's, Canajoharie.
On the 31st of March, 1801, the Oneida Turnpike Company was in- corporated by the Legislature, with the purpose of constructing a turn-
30
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
pike road from the "dwelling house of Jonathan Dean, in the town of Augusta," through the Oneida and Stockbridge Reservations to the "dwelling house of John Lincklaen in the village of Cazenovia."
By 1810 daily stages were running over the Genesee turnpike line and travel was extensive. In 1804 Parker and Levi Stephens were granted by the Legislature the exclusive privilege for seven years of running stages for the conveyance of passengers between Utica and Canandaigua. The fare was five cents per mile. In 1803 the Cherry Valley Turnpike Company was chartered and a road was constructed from Cherry Valley to Manlius, passing through the towns of Madison, Eaton, Nelson and Cazenovia. Prior to 1804 the so called Peterboro Turnpike was constructed, which extended from Vernon through Peterboro to Cazenovie. The Hamilton and Skaneateles Turnpike was laid out in 1806, but was not completed until a few years later. It ex- tended from Richfield through Brookfield, Hamilton, Eaton, Erieville, and New Woodstock, and on westward to Skaneateles. Joseph Morse, a resident of Eaton, was largely interested in this road and had at one time $30,000 of the stock. To these various avenues of travel and transportation, which were of immense importance in the early times, was soon to be added the Erie Canal, which crossed the northern part of Madison county and gave the inhabitants greatly improved facilities for reaching the markets and for travel.
By this time (1806) Chenango county had a population of not far from 30,000, the census of 1810 giving it and Madison county nearly 47,000, and the annual influx of settlers was large. The local highways and bridges were being rapidly improved and extended; saw and grist mills had been built on many of the turbulent streams, and the homes of the pioneers were rising on every hand. Chenango county was a large one, more than fifty miles in length from north to south, and the time had arrived when the convenience of the inhabitants in reaching the courts demanded a division.
31
ERECTION OF THE COUNTY AND TOWNS.
CHAPTER IV.
ERECTION OF THE COUNTY, TOWN FORMATION AND EARLY SET- TLEMENTS.
The act of the Legislature erecting Madison county was passed March 21, 1806. Its first section is as follows:
Be it Enacted, That all that part of the county of Chenango lying north of the following described bounds, to wit: beginning at the southeast corner of the town of Brookfield, on the Unadilla river, and thence running west on the south line of said town of Brookfield, to the east line of the town of Sherburne; thence north to the southeast corner of the town of Hamilton; thence west on the south line of said town of Hamilton to the east line of the town of De Ruyter; thence west on the division line between the sixth and seventh townships in the said town of De Ruyter to the east line of the county of Onondaga; shall be and hereafter is erected into a separate county, and shall be called and known by the name of Madison, and that all the remaining part of the said county of Chenango, shall be and remain a county by the name of Chenango.
The act further provided for the proper division of the town of De Ruyter, through which the new county dividing-line passed. Also, for holding a Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace, three terms a year, in the new county. The two counties, Chenango and Madison, were given each two members of assembly, and were made a part of the Western district of New York and of the Sixteenth congressional district. A section provided for the confine- ment of prisoners in the Oneida county jail until one should be pro- vided.
The following tabulated statement shows the genesis of the several towns of Madison county, and indicates which were in existence when the county was erected :
Brookfield, formed from Paris (Oneida county), March 5, 1795.
Cazenovia, from Paris and Whites- town, March 5, 1795.
--
De Ruyter, March 15, 1798. Sullivan, February 22, 1803.
Nelson, March 13, 1807. Smithfield, March 13, 1807.
Fenner (part of), April 22, 1823.
L
32
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
Hamilton, from Paris, March 5, 1795.
Eaton, February 6, 1807. Lebanon, February 6, 1807. Madison, February 6, 1807.
Sullivan, from Cazenovia, Febru- ary 22, 1803.
Lenox, March 3, 1809.
De Ruyter, from Cazenovia, March 15, 1798. Cazenovia, March 5, 1795. Smithfield, March 13, 1807.
Georgetown, April 7, 1815.
Fenner, April 22, 1823.
Smithfield, March 13, 1807.
Lenox, March 3, 1809.
Vernon. 1 Stockbridge, May 20, 1836.
Augusta.
Lenox, March 3, 1809.
Oneida, 1896.
Lincoln, 1896.
As will be seen by this diagram, there were only five towns in the county when it was erected-Brookfield, Cazenovia, De Ruyter, Hamil- ton and Sullivan. But five more were formed in the year following the county organization; since that date five others have been erected, making the present number sixteen. Coincident with the erection of the county, Sullivan was constituted a half-shire town in the new county, with Hamilton, which had formerly been a half-shire town of Chenango county, as the other. The early courts were held alternately in the school house in Hamilton village and the school house near David Barnard's in Sullivan in the part set off for the town of Lenox.
As a result of the first general election for Madison county, Erastus Cleveland, of Madison, and Sylvanus Smalley, of Sullivan, were elected members of assembly; their opponents were Jonathan Morgan, of Brookfield, and John W. Bulkley, of Hamilton. The first county offi- cers and justices of the peace were appointed by the then existing Council of Appointment and were as follows:
First Judge, Peter Smith, of Peterboro.
Associate Judges, Sylvanus Smalley and David Cook, of Sullivan ; Edward Green, of Brookfield; Elisha Payne, of Hamilton.
County Clerk, Dr. Asa B. Sizer, of Hamilton.
Sheriff, Jeremiah Whipple, of Cazenovia.
Surrogate, Thomas H. Hubbard, of Hamilton.
Coroner, Jabish N. M. Hurd, of Cazenovia.
ida Lake.
Sullivan.
Lenox.
Stock: bridge.
Fenner.
Smithfield
Twenty Township Line.
oiza
fazeno
Nelson.
Oliory's ville. Eaton.
Madison.
De Ruyter
Georgetown.
Lebanon.
Hamilton.
Brookfield
> Cuore Line
Outline map of Madison County, previous to the division of Lenox in 1896.
33
SETTLEMENT OF TOWNS.
Justices of the Peace-Brookfield, Oliver Brown, Daniel Maine, Henry Clark, jr., Jonathan Morgan, Samuel Marsh and Edward Green.
Cazenovia-David Tuthill, Samuel S. Breese, Phineas Southwell, Perry G. Childs, Elisha Williams, Daniel Petrie, William Powers and Joshua Hamlin.
De Ruyter-Eli Gage, Hubbard Smith and Eleazer Hunt.
Hamilton-Joseph Morse, Simeon Gillett, Benjamin Pierce, Gen. Erastus Cleveland, Elisha Payne, Amos Maynard, Russell Barker, George Crane and Winsor Coman.
Sullivan-Gilbert Caswell, Samuel Foster, Walter Beecher, Joseph Frost, Sylvanus Smalley, Peter Smith, David Cook, William Hallock, James Campton and Joseph Yaw.
The first board of supervisors of the county was composed as follows: Brookfield, Stephen Hoxie; Cazenovia, Lemuel Kingsbury; De Ruyter, Jeremiah Gage; Hamilton, Erastus Cleveland; Sullivan, Jacob Patrick. Complete lists of the supervisors of the various towns down to the present time, as far as they are accessible, will be found in the later Gazetteer of Towns.
In 1810 Cazenovia was made the county seat by act of Legislature passed April 2, and Col. John Lincklaen and Capt. Eliphalet Jackson were appointed commissioners to superintend the erection of a court house and jail. (See Chapter XXV.)
Settlement in Madison county territory began almost simultaneously in the northern and southern parts, in what became the towns of Brook- field and Sullivan. The town of Brookfield is the extreme southeast town in the county and the largest in area. It was formed from Paris, Oneida county, March 5, 1795, and originally included numbers 17, 18 and 19 of the Chenango Twenty Townships. The former was set off in the formation of Columbus in 1805. Settlement began in the terri- tory of Brookfield in the spring of 1791, when Captain Daniel Brown, a Quaker from Stonington, Conn., came on with a few friends whom he had persuaded to accompany him, but who returned in the fall. Stephen Hoxie and Phineas Babcock came in at about the same time as agents of a company from Rhode Island and Connecticut. Captain Brown was sixty-six years old at the time of his migration and started westward with the intention of locating in the productive Genesee val. ley; but taking a southern route he and his companions toiled on with an ox team for twenty-one days, when in the latter part of June they arrived at the dwelling of Percifer Carr, who had settled on the east
3
34
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
bank of the Unadilla in the town of Edmeston. They were hospitably received, and the charm of the season, the beauty of the surroundings and the character of the land prompted them to remain; Mr. Brown selected for his homestead land on the west side of the Unadilla, a short distance above Mr. Carr's residence, on lot 82 of the 19th township, and there he built his dwelling on a hill a mile west of the site of Leonards- ville. He passed the remainder of his life there and died December 14, 1814. Others of the little party of immigrants settled near by, among them David Maine, Samuel H. Burdick, Samuel Billings and Stephen Collins. All returned east in the fall excepting Mr. Brown. In the fol- lowing spring Captain Brown's family moved in and in that year he built a saw mill on Mill Creek, which was the first one in the town and one of the first in the county. The first town meeting was held in Brown's dwelling on the 7th of April, 1795. Captain Brown had two children by his first wife and twelve by his second, all but four of whom were daughters. One of them, Anna, married Nathan Steward, who came on from Stonington in 1794 and settled about two and one-half miles northeast of Clarkville. Another daughter, Fanny, married George Palmer, who settled in 1792 between Leonardsville and Clark- ville, near the river; there in 1793 he built the first frame house in the town. He removed to the Genesee country about the close of the war of 1812. Jabish1 Brown, son of Daniel, left Stonington, June 12, 1794, and after a journey of seventeen days arrived in Brookfield with an ox cart and his family ; he built a log house near his father's, but two years later removed a half mile south and erected a frame house. Both he and his wife died on that farm, he on July 18, 1843. Their descendants still live in the county. Nathan Brown settled on a part of the home- stead. Isaac married and lived on the homestead until near his death, when he removed to Leonardsville, where he died May 3, 1840. He has descendants in the county.
Stephen Collins, before mentioned, settled in 1791 about one and one half miles south of Clarkville, on Beaver Creek; there he soon built a grist mill, which he sold to Daniel White, by whose name it was long known. It passed to his son, Daniel D. White, who operated it until the dam was destroyed about 1861, and it was not rebuilt.
Samuel H. Burdick settled on the farm occupied until recent years by a descendant of his, where he died February 14, 1813. He had only one son. Samuel Billings, who came in 1791, kept a public house sev-
1 Spelled in later years "Jabez."
35
SETTLEMENT OF TOWNS.
eral years in the dwelling now occupied by William Whitford. He sold his property about 1817 to William Brown and removed to the West.
When Stephen Hoxie and Phineas Babcock, the agents before men- tioned, came on they stopped in Albany and purchased lots 79 to 86 inclusive, and 92 to 96 inclusive, thirteen in all, in the southeast corner of the 19th township, for which they paid fifty cents an acre. In that year Mr. Hoxie built a log house. The patent for lot 96, which Mr. Hoxie selected for himself, is dated May 3, 1791, and is still in posses- sion of his descendants in this county.
In 1792 Stephen Hoxie, John and Elias Button, Lawton Palmer, Thomas and James Rogers, Paul and Perry Maxson, Eleazer and Sim- eon Brown, Samuel Langworthy, Elder Henry Clark and Phineas Bab- cock, all members of the company before mentioned, came and settled on their lands-Hoxie on lot 96, the two Buttons on lot 82, Palmer on lot 95, the two Rogers on lot 83, the Maxsons on lots 93 and 94, Eleazer Brown on lot 84 and Simeon on lot 81, Langworthy on lot 80, Clark on lot 92, and Babcock on lot 79. John Button was the only one who brought in his family that year. He settled on the farm occupied in recent years by David Judge, where they resided until their death. In 1792 he bought land on Mill Creek, with the site since known as Button's Falls, and there built the first grist mill in the town. This was a great convenience and was highly appreciated by the early settlers. This mill, together with the saw mill built by Daniel Brown, and one built a little later on the same stream by Jabish Brown, were carried away by a freshet early in the century. A saw mill was built on the site of the Button grist mill, in 1848, by Hosea and David Welch, grandsons of John Button; it was operated until about 1865. Elias Button was a bachelor and lived with his brother until he reached the great age of 105 years. He taught school about sixty years of his life and by some authorities is credited with being the first teacher in Brookfield. Asa Carrier is said, by French's Gazetteer, to have taught the first school in the winter of 1796, but it is certain that Mr. Button taught a school half a mile north of Button's Falls in the winter of 1796-7.
Stephen Hoxie returned to Rhode Island again in 1792, leaving here his son John, then seventeen years old. He returned in 1793 with his family, horse and ox teams, the journey occupying six weeks. His grandsons, Stephen and Thomas, have in recent years lived on the homestead, half a mile above Leonardsville, where the pioneer died October 6, 1839, at the age of 101 years.
11277
36
OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
Lawton Palmer was a Rhode Island man and married a daughter of John Button, settling a little northeast of Five Corners and there died December 3, 1825. He donated from his farm the site of the old First Baptist church. His son Elias succeeded to the homestead and died there March 10, 1866. Lawton Palmer, son of the pioneer, was the first white child born in the town; born April 27, 1792.
Thomas, James and John Rogers were also from Rhode Island, the former settling a mile west from Leonardsville on a farm now owned by his great-grandson, Deloss Rogers. He died there January 17, 1815. James settled on Button Hill and John at Leonardsville and died there. His son Thomas occupied the homestead.
Elder Simeon Brown, one of whose daughters married James Rogers, was from Stonington, Conn., and settled two and one-half miles east of Clarkville, where his grandson, Justus R. Brown, subsequently resided, and now occupied by Clay Brown. He was influential in organizing the First Baptist church and was its pastor for thirty years. He was father of seven children. Eleazer Brown settled on land a part of which went into the John Searls farm.
Paul, Perry, Ray and John Maxson were brothers. Paul and Perry settled at De Lancy's Corners and there resided until their death. Paul operated a distillery many years. Ray settled in Columbus.
Elder Henry Clark settled near the Unadilla Forks; he was a Seventh Day Baptist preacher and organized at Leonardsville the first church of that sect in the town and was pastor many years. His farm was after- wards occupied by Dr. Henry Clark, who lived and died there. George Hall is the present occupant of the place.
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