USA > New York > Essex County > Elizabethtown > Pleasant Valley : a history of Elizabethtown, Essex County, New York > Part 5
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Azel Abel was twice married. His children were Oliver, James, Benjamin, Charles, Polly, Eunice, Betsey and Lucretia.
Oliver Abel married twice, his first wife being Polly Post, a daughter of Dr. Asa Post. His second wife was Almina Bar- num, formerly of Vermont. Oliver Abel's children were Charles L. Abel, who settled in Buffalo, N. Y., 60 years ago.
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marrying and raising a large family there. He is still living, being in the 86th year of his age. Inasmuch as he is a loyal son of Elizabethtown, it will not be out of place to state here that he loaned the United States Government $10,000 at the time of the late civil war, being one of the first men in the State of New York to respond to the call for loans.
Sally Angelina Abel married Jason Pangborn and moved to Maquoketa, Ia.
Leander Abel married Emily Williams. Their daughter, Miss Alice E. Abel, is teacher in the Primary Department of . the Elizabethtown High School. Leander Abel died January 28, 1903, in the 78th year of his age.
Oliver Abel, Jr., married Mary Adams, daughter of Elisha Adams, formerly County Clerk and Sheriff of Essex County. Oliver Abel, Jr., studied law, served as Post Master of Eliz- abethtown during the civil war period and was Essex County Treasurer from January 1, 1873, to December 31, 1881, inclu- sive. The children of Oliver and Mary Abel were Wm. H. Abel who married Lucinda C. Pond, Anna B. Abel who mar- ried Samuel I. Roberts, Mary F. Abel, Helen D. Abel and Marguerite Abel, all of whom now reside in the west. Oliver Abel, Jr., died May 30, 1892.
Mary Abel married Charles N. Williams. Their children are Jennie M. and Clara Williams.
Henry Abel married Annette Baker and went to Fayette, Ia., where he still resides.
Adelaide Victoria Abel, who never married.
James Abel married and lived on Lot No. 9, Rogers patent. Benjamin Abel went away from Elizabethtown in early life. Charles Abel married Polly Brainard.
Eunice Abel married Samson Smith.
Betsey Abel married Nathan Nichols. Their children were Harriet, Willis, Elizabeth, Mason and Eunice.
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Lucretia Abel married Alexander MacDougal. Their chil- dren were Mary, Harriet, Isabelle, Louise, Alexander, Martin Van Buren, Charles Stuart, Ann, William Wallace, Robert Bruce and Jennie.
Indian Occupation of Pleasant Valley.
When Azel Abel came to Pleasant Valley and built his log hotel on the bank of the Little Boquet River there were as many Indians in Elizabethtown as there were white men. Azel Abel's son Oliver, who was a boy nine years old when his father moved here, has often told the writer about the Indi- ans and their occupation of Pleasant Valley. This section of Northern New York was inhabited by an Indian nation of Algonquin lineage.1 The Iroquois were the conquerors of the New World so far as Indians were concerned and were justly styled "The Romans of the West." The Jesuit Father Rague- neau in his Relations des Hurons wrote "My pen has no ink black enough to describe the fury of the Iroquois." A large portion of this region has always been and, in the economies of the civilization that surrounds it, will always be under the dominion of Nature. Here it has always been severely cold and forbidding in winter and it is recorded that way back of the memory of white men, those wild rovers of the country of the Saguenay, who subsisted entirely by the chase, were often during the long winter, when their game grew scarce, driven by hunger into the depths of our forests and compelled to live for many weeks together upon the buds and bark and some- times even upon the wood of forest trees. This led their hereditary enemies, the more prosperous Iroquois who dwelt in palisaded villages and had cultivated fields in their more favored sections, raising an abundance of corn, beans, squashes and to-
1 Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester in Northern New York and the Adirondack Wilderness, page 15.
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bacco, called their less fortunate brethren, in mockery of their condition, Ad-i-ron-dacks or tree eaters.1 This Iroquois name of an Algonquin tribe, thus born in derision, has come to be ap- plied to all of Northern New York where mountains are found.
Since the Jesuit Relations others have made a study along the line of Adirondack Indians and have concluded that the greater part of the Indians inhabiting this region were killed off before occupation by the white man. The writer quotes from a hitherto unpublished poem, on Essex County, as fol- lows :
"'Twas thine to have witness'd, through centuries long,
Dread strife of the Red men; what vengeance the strong
Could inflict on the weak, till they became slaves,
And perish'd from earth unhonor'd by graves,
Or even a sign of traditional fame
Saving one, the insult they bore in their name.
When the first White man came, the Sieur de Champlain,
To thy shore on the east, the ancient domain
Of the Iroquois here held its northerly line,
Mark'd by rude hacks on the tall mountain pine.
On this fateful line the watch-fires were lighted,
And braves in the war-dance new fealty plighted, And o'er it one step no Algonquin dare go Unless he would meet with a fierce Mohawk foe.
Mid thy wild, rugged hills, so peaceful to-day,
The war-whoop oft echo'd from stern, bloody fray,
And the stones in the vales would tell, could they speak,
How savage, in fury, his vengeance could wreak ; What fate, sudden, awful, one hardy tribe met Which pass'd o'er the limits the Iroquois set ; How hundreds came up on the Lake for the fight,
How few, that fled back through the woods in the night, Wandered in cold, without game, denied fruits, And starv'd till they ate of the trees, like the brutes, And bore, from thenceforth, degredation's low mark,
The "Ha de ron dacks, " meaning "Eaters of bark." Be this legend, tradition, or tale hand'd down
By the last of his race, 'tis all the renown
That stricken tribe left in its woe and lament- No history tells whence they came, where they went."
1 Jesuit Relations.
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When Azel Abel built his log hotel between the bank of the Little Boquet River and where Maplewood Inn now stands there was a collection of Indian wigwams on the opposite side of the stream, under the bank where the Post Office block is located. Up where the John Barton homestead is located there was another collection of wigwams. On the north side of the stream to-day known as Barton Brook there was then (1798) a well worn Indian trail, a path of a foot or more in width and several inches in depth. This well-worn path com- menced just above where Azel Abel's log inn stood and con- tinued up to the Indian village located on what is spoken of to-day as the John Barton homestead. The late Oliver Abel, Sr., often described this Indian trail to the writer and as the description is recalled it seems to agree substantially with that given of an Indian trail in Morgan's League of the Iroquois. Young Abel used to go up the Barton Brook trail with Indian boys from the wigwams on the opposite side of the river from his father's log hotel. One day while on a visit to the Indian village where the Barton homestead is now located he got his first glimpse of a papoose. The Indian babe cried loudly and young Abel, to use his own words, "ran home as fast as possi- ble," being thoroughly scared. There was then no structure inhabited by a white man between Azel Abel's inn and Stephen Roscoe's saw-mill settlement where Lobdell Brothers are now operating.
According to the late Oliver Abel, Sr., the Adirondack In- dians, while they never forgave an injury, never forgot a kind- ness, and were good natured, easy going fellows, given to the chase almost entirely. They used stone mortars and other utensils of their own invention. They hunted with bows and ar- rows mostly and were successful. Oliver Abel, Sr., used to relate an incident which the writer readily recalls at this time. One day after his mother had broiled a piece of meat she put
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it aside to cool.1 While attending to her other work in con- nection with getting dinner a dog belonging to one of the In- dian neighbors across the river relieved her of the cooked meat. She saw the dog getting away with the meat and was angry. The next time she saw the Indian who owned the dog she told him she would scald the cur if he touched any more of her meat. To her angry threat the Indian calmly replied : "You no scald my dog. Me pay you back meat." The next day the Indian went out and killed a deer, making his word good by giving Mrs. Abel a quarter of venison, a payment of both principal and interest.
There were other Indians in Pleasant Valley beside those mentioned. Near the present residence of Alonzo W. Still in the Boquet Valley ample evidence of former Indian occupa- tion has been observed by the writer within the past 30 years, arrow heads, etc., having frequently been found there.
The Indians, however, who were numerous here a little over a century ago, gradually fell back before the advancing wave of civilization. "He will not," says Parkman of the Indian, "learn the arts of civilization and he and his forest must per- ish together. The stern unchanging features of his mind ex- cite our admiration from their very immutability ; and we look with deep interest on the fate of this irreclaimable son of the wilderness, the child who will not be weaned from the breast of his rugged mother. And our interest increases when we discern in the unhappy wanderer the germs of heroic vir- tues mingled among his vices,-a hand bountiful to bestow as it is rapacious to seize, and even in extremest famine, impart- ing its last morsel to a fellow sufferer ; a heart which, strong in friendship as in hate, thinks it not too much to lay down life for its chosen comrade; a soul true to its own idea of
1 The old home-made broiler upon which that piece of meat was cooked has been in pos- session of the writer for several years.
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honor and burning with an unquenchable thirst for greatness and renown.
The imprisoned lion in the showman's cage differs not more widely from the lord of the desert, than the beggarly frequenter of frontier garrisons and dramshops differs from the proud denizen of the woods. It is in his native wilds alone that the Indian must be seen and studied."
With this faithful portrayal from the pen of Francis Park- man, that greatest delineator of Indian character, as given on page 44, of volume 1, of The Conspiracy of Pontiac, which cor- responds with our idea of the Adirondack Indian as handed down by the late Oliver Abel, Sr., the writer dismisses the "noble red man," who once fished the streams and hunted the forests of Pleasant Valley, enjoying his natural birthright to his heart's content.
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Organization of Essex County.
Oh, County of Essex, stern land of the North, Disfavor'd and rudest New York has brought forth. Of sixty-one parts of the broad Empire State What other, like thee, has so struggl'd with fate. Not one so rough made, as though Nature would doom, And none so long linger'd in mystr'y and gloom.
Essex County was set off from Clinton County by act of the New York Legislature March 1, 1799, as is shown by the fol- lowing act copied word for word from the bound volume of Session Laws for the year 1799 :
CHAP. 24.
An Act to divide the County of Clinton.
Passed the 1st of March, 1799.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of New York rep- resented in Senate and Assembly, That all that part of the County of Clinton lying south of a line beginning at the south west corner of the town of Peru, and running from thence easterly along the south line of said town until it intersects the great river Ausable, from thence down the said river along the north bank thereof, until it comes to the forks of said river, and from thence along the north bank of the south branch of said river until it strikes Lake Champlain, and from thence due east to the east bounds of the State of New York, shall be and hereby is set off and erected into a new County by the name of Essex : And the freeholders and inhabitants of the said county shall have and enjoy within the same, all and
CAPTAIN JOHN CALKIN,
of Battle of Plattsburgh Fame. Surrogate of Essex County 1821-1831.
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singular the rights, powers and privileges, as the freeholders and inhabitants of the other counties within this state are by law entitled to have and enjoy.
And be it further enacted, that all the remaining part of the said county shall be and continue a separate county by the name of Clinton.
And be it further enacted that there shall be held at the Court House in Plattsburgh in and for the said county of Clin- ton three terms of a court of common pleas, and two terms of a court of general sessions of the peace in every year, to com- mence and end on the days following to wit, one term of the court of common pleas and one term of the court of general sessions of the peace to commence on the first Tuesday in May and end on the Saturday following; one other term of the said court to commence on the first Tuesday in October and end on the Saturday following ; and one other term of the court of common pleas to commence on the third Tuesday in Janu- ary and end on the Saturday following.
And be it further enacted, that there shall be held at the block house in the town of Willsborough in and for the said County of Essex, three terms of the court of common pleas, and two terms of the court of general sessions of the peace, in every year, to commence and end on the days following, to wit, one term of the court of common. pleas and one term of the court of general sessions of the peace to commence on the second Tuesday in May, and end on the Saturday following ; one other term of the said court to commence on the last Tuesday in September, and end on the Saturday following ; and one other term of the court of common pleas to commence on the second Tuesday in January, and end on the Saturday following. Pro- vided that in any of the terms aforesaid, the court may adjourn previous to the day assigned, if the business thereof will admit.
And be it further enacted, that all that part of the town of
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Peru, which is by this act made a part of the County of Essex, shall be annexed to and become a part of the town of Wills- borough.
And be it further enacted, That the block house in the town of Willsborough in the County of Essex, shall when completed be deemed to be the goal of the said County until another suf- ficient goal shall be erected in and for the same; and until sufficient provision can be made in the premises it shall be lawful to and for the Sheriff of the said county at his discre- tion, to commit any of his prisoners to the goal of the county of Washington, there to be detained until they shall be legally discharged.
And be it further enacted, that until other provision be made by law, the freeholders and inhabitants of the said county of Essex, shall give their votes for one member of the assembly in the same manner as if this law had not been passed ; and the votes taken in the said county of Essex at each election for member of assembly, shall be delivered by the clerk of the said county, to any of the supervisors thereof who shall carry the same to the clerk of the county of Clinton without delay, to be delivered by him to any one of the supervisors of the said county of Clinton on the last Tuesday in May in every year ; and the same together with the votes taken in the county of Clinton at any such election shall be canvassed by the super- visors of the county of Clinton, and by such of the supervisors as may attend for that purpose from the county of Essex.
The block house in the town of Willsborough stood in what is now the village of Essex. This block house is said to have been erected as a means of protection in consequence of Gen- eral St. Clair's defeat by the Indians in the west. It was feared that the western Indians would combine with the Six Nations (Iroquois Confederacy) and the scenes of the older frontiers be repeated in the Champlain Valley. This block
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house was used as a County Building for about 10 years, after which it was taken down. Some of the timbers taken from this block house were used in the construction of a large barn which stands on the General Henry H. Ross place in Essex village. The writer personally inspected these old timbers about five years ago, being accompanied on the tour of inspec- tion by Henry Harmon Noble of Essex.
Following is a list of the first officers appointed for Essex County, the original commission being on file in the Essex County Clerk's office :
The People of the State of New York, by the Grace of God, Free and Independent : To Daniel Ross, Asa Adgate and Roger Alden Hiern, Esquires, Judges, and Stephen Cuyler, Esquire, Clerk of the County of Essex, Greeting : * * * * * *
Greeting. Know ye, That we reposing especial trust and confidence in your loyalty and integrity, Have thought fit to appoint you and We Do hereby give and grant you and each of you, jointly and severally, full power and authority to ten- der and administer unto all and every Officer and Officers, civil and military, appointed or elected or to be appointed or elected, for our said county, the several oaths required by law to be taken by the said Officers respectively ; and to receive from said Officers their several subscriptions to the said oaths respectively. In Testimony whereof, We have caused these letters to be made patent, and the great seal of our said State to be hereunto affixed. Witness our trusty and well beloved John Jay, Esquire, Governor of our said State, General and Commander in Chiefof all the Militia and Admiral of the Navy of the Same (by and with the advice and consent of our Council of Appointment, by them given, the day of the date hereof) at the city of Albany on the Ninth day of March in the year of
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our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine and in the twenty-third year of our Independence.
JOHN JAY.
Passed the Secretary of State's Office the 9th day of March, 1799.
DANIEL HALE, Sec'ry.
Isaac Kellogg, John Morhouse, Jr., and Ebenezer Newell, Esquires, were also appointed Assistant Justices of the Court of Common Pleas by John Jay March 9, 1799.
In the list of appointments given the sons-in-law of Wm. Gilliland, the pioneer settler of Essex County, fared well. Daniel Ross, First Judge of the old Court of Common Pleas, married Elizabeth Gilliland, eldest daughter of Wm. Gilliland, Sr., in 1785. Daniel Ross came from Dutchess County, N. Y. Daniel Ross and Elizabeth, his wife, became the parents of William D. Ross and Henry H. Ross of Essex. It was Daniel Ross who built the house in the northern part of the village of Essex which is to-day known as the William R. Derby house, said to be the oldest occupied dwelling in Essex County.
Stephen Cuyler, first Essex County Clerk, married Charlotte Gilliland. Stephen Cuyler and Charlotte, his wife, became the parents of Edward S. Cuyler, who was Essex County Clerk from 1833 to 1839. Stephen Gilliland Cuyler, James Cuyler and Mrs. Charlotte Bower of Chicago, Ill., are sons and daugh- ter of Edward S. Cuyler. Richard W. S. Cuyler of Guinda, Cal., is also a surviving son of Edward S. Cuyler, whose wife was Emily Parkill in her maiden days.
Ebenezer Newell was serving as Supervisor of Elizabethtown when Essex County was organized in the spring of 1799. The other town officers at that time are said to have been as fol- lows : Town Clerk, Sylvanus Lobdell ; Assessors, Jacob South- well, David Calender, Norman Newell; Overseers of the Poor,
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Jonathan Breckinridge, Hezekiah Barber ; Constable and Col- lector, Nathan Lewis ; Constable, Thomas Hinckley ; School Commissioners, E. Newell, William Kellogg, Hezekiah Bar- ber ; Overseers of Highways (Numbered from one to ten) John Santy, N. Hinckley, John Potter, S. Lobdell, Joseph Durand, Simeon Durand, Jacob Seture, Joseph Pangborn, E. Newell, Stephen Eldridge. Fence Viewers, Hezekiah Barber, Elijah Bishop, Elijah Rich. Inspectors of Election, Eben'r Newell, Sylvanus Lobdell, David Calender. Clerks, Norman Newell, Eben'r Bostwick.
This list contains a representative from every section of the town settled at that time. A glance at the list reveals some family names which have ever since been prominent in the his- tory of the town and some of which are connected with official life here to-day.
Shortly after the organization of Essex County there came to Pleasant Valley a man who had married into one of the first families in New York State. Reference is here made to Theodorus Ross who had married Elizabeth Van Rensselaer and brought his blue blooded bride here to dwell among our grand old hills. Born to affluence and ease, one whose name was connected with the Patroon, the charming bride of Theo- dorus Ross turned her back on the social environments of one of the first families of the land and came to reside in Pleasant Valley, their home being on the Plain in what is now Eliz- abethtown village. To-day no power of fancy can restore to us-sober-clad, pre-occupied, democratic people that we are- the flashing glories of the rank, beauty and worth to which Elizabeth (Van Rensselaer) Ross bade adieu when she came to make her home here in the seclusion of our heavily forested valley.
The great and only General Philip Schuyler, one of the grandest men in the world's history, it will be recalled, married
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"Sweet Kitty Van Rensselaer" and their daughter Elizabeth Schuyler became the wife of Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury under President Washington. Many were the distinguished guests who were entertained by the Van Rens- selaers along the pastoral banks of the Upper Hudson in those palmy days before Elizabeth Van Rensselaer became Mrs. Theodorus Ross. Washington, the Livingstons, Benjamin Franklin and LaFayette had enjoyed the hospitality of the Van Rensselaers in those days and afterwards the memory of it was pleasant to them. Indeed, the scenes to which Mrs. Elizabeth Ross was familiar in her young and tender years belong to a dead century and faded generation and we of the present age strive in vain to reproduce, even in fancy.
Theodorus Ross was a brother of Judge Daniel Ross before mentioned and he became interested in business enterprises here in Elizabethtown soon after the formation of Essex County. Theodorus Ross himself, who had married one of the choicest of earth's maidens, is said to have had a selfish disposition and arrogant mien.
Daniel Ross served as First Judge of the old Essex County Court of Common Pleas for 23 years. The Ross brothers, Daniel and Theodorus, did considerable business in Elizabeth- town for several years after the organization of Essex County. A grist-mill was erected on the south side of the Little Boquet River, the site being that of the store now occupied by Harry H. Nichols. In fact the frame of the front part of the store occupied by Mr. Nichols is the identical frame erected by "the Rosses" over a century ago. The old wooden flume, conveying water for power, came from the Little Boquet across under the street in front of where the Robert B. Dudley law office now stands and thence along in front of where the T. B. Pierce block is now located. Alonzo McD. Finney, who is now in his 90th year, remembers when the Ross grist-mill was in op-
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eration and the old wooden flume is still in his mind's eye, al- though it fell into disuse shortly after 1830. This old flume, according to the only man now living here who can remember it, was built of wood and was square in form, similar to the flume afterwards used at the Noble tannery in this village.
Across the street from the Ross grist-mill was a store, also kept by "the Rosses," who had control of considerable land along the Little Boquet River and also on the Plain. It is said that Daniel Ross was instrumental in building the first saw-mill in the south end of the township, in the section mod- ernly known as Euba Mills.
"The Rosses" also ran a whiskey distillery, which stood near where the T. B. Pierce block now stands. This plant was not operated any to speak of after the freshet of July, 1830.
Theodorus Ross and Elizabeth Van Rensselaer Ross had two sons-Van Rensselaer and Gansevoort-and a daughter Sarah Ann, all of whom grew up here in Elizabethtown.
Another man who came to Elizabethtown about the time Essex County was organized or at least shortly after organiz- tion was effected, was Jonas Morgan, Sr. Jonas Morgan, Sr., came into this section from Lansingburgh, Rensselaer County, N. Y., and probably knew the Van Rensselaers and Rosses be- fore he came this way. March 26, 1799, Jonas Morgan, Sr., received a patent from the State of New York of part of a 4,800 acre tract of land, then all within the township of Eliz- abethtown, which tract was subsequently divided into 46 lots, the greater number of which are now in Westport, the territory having been set off from Elizabethtown in 1815. Two other tracts were subsequently granted to Jonas Morgan, Sr., who built a forge on Lot No. 7, of Morgan's original patent. This was the first forge built along the Black River and is said to have been the first forge erected in Elizabethtown. It stood on the Elizabethtown side of the Black River, as the town line
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