USA > New York > Chenango County > Sherburne > Reminiscences, anecdotes and statistics of the early settlers and the 'olden time' in the town of Sherburne, Chenango county, N.Y. > Part 5
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CENSUS.
According to the Census of 1800, seven years after its first settlement, Sherburne contained 1.282 inhabitants.
In 1810 2.520
1814. 2.607
1820 2.509
F
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
1825 2.493
1830 2.601
1835 3.108
1840 2.791
1845 2.680
1850 2.623
1855 2.776
The Census returns of 1855, give the cash value of farms $1.039.734.
Improved acres 20.702, unimproved 5.544 acres.
Cash valuation of stock $169.867.
Tools and implements $38.332.
There were 523 framed houses and 1 log, 2 stone buildings (should read 5) and 5 brick.
According to the Census of 1830, there were 2.601 inhabitants. In five years, 1835, owing to the influx of foreigners, occasioned by the building of the Chenango Canal, they amounted to 3.108, being an increase of 508. After the public works were completed, many of these settled in the town. In 1355 there were 183 Irish, 27 English, and 14 Germans, amounting to 224 foreigners then residents in the town.
Clark, in his history of the county, quoting from the Census returns of 1830, says, "There were four slaves set down in the enumeration, as belonging to Sherburne, and that no other town in the county contained any per- sons held in servitude; and that three of the slaves held in Sherburne, 1830, had attained to the age of one hun- dred years." This is news to me. I have seen the day when I knew, and could name every individual residing in the town, and never knew but one person held as a slave, and he was only nominally such, having been
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
brought in by a Dutch family some twenty years after the settlement was commenced. The head of this family was heir to certain property, held upon condition that he should maintain the colored person in question, during his life, as he was judged incapable of acting for him- self. Not one of the Twenty Proprietors ever owned a slave. No resident, white or colored, ever attained to the age of one hundred years.
The settlers showed a marked zeal in establishing and fostering the Common School, the importance of which they deemed second only to the moral and religious training of the rising generation, with which it should go hand in hand, in order to prepare them for usefulness in their day, and enable them to form correct principles for their guidance in the management of public affairs, eventually to rest upon their shoulders. In reviewing the result, the honorable manner in which her sons and daughters have acquitted themselves, in every station they have been called upon to occupy, leaves Sherburne no cause to blush. For general intelligence, they would not suffer in comparison with an equal number in any community. Pass through the States and Territories of the Union, Sherburne has representatives in nearly, if not quite, two-thirds of these ; go to the shores of the Pacific, behold they are there; enter our halls of legis- lation, her sons have been found here ; look into the pul- pit, many of them stand there, proclaiming the news of salvation through a crucified Redeemer, to a lost and ruined world ; turn to India's burning clime, there lie the mortal remains of one who, in obedience to her Saviour's commands, left father and mother, kindred and country, the wife of Rev. Mr. Little, an honored Missionary of the American Board ;* cast your eye upon the judicial
* Amelia, daughter of Wmn. Newton.
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bench, they have had seats there; survey the Bar, many of them are filling that with honor and profit to them- selves, and it is to be hoped, without detriment to the communities in which they reside ; pass not by our Col- leges and Seminaries of learning, for they are there occu- pying the highest and most responsible stations ;* turn your telescope upon Jupiter's belts or Saturn's rings, behold ! some of them, in imagination, have wandered there-
"Could plan new worlds without the least misgiving, But on this planet couldn't make a living."
Would you learn more ? Wrap close your mantle of fur, steer for the frozen regions of the north, and among the tumbling mountains of ice, inquire of those who strike the harpoon-more than one of them are there.
GRADUATES OF COLLEGE.
Raymond Dixon graduated at Yale in 1807, and was the first citizen of the town, and probably of the county, who graduated from any College. He became a preacher of the gospel-died in 1861. Abraham Dixon, Yale, a lawyer, honored with a seat in the State Senate; John H. Lathrop, Yale, Chancellor of the University of Wis- consin ; Hubert A. Newton, Yale, Professor of Mathe- maties in Yale College ; Isaac LaFayette Cushman, Yale, no profession-honored with a seat in the New York Legislature; Julius W. Hatch, graduate of Hamil- ton, Lecturer on Astronomy ; Columbus Foster, gradu- ate of Union, farmer; Charles Babcock, Yale, no pro- fession ; Alvin Lathrop, Hamilton, teacher.
* John H. Lathrop, Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin ; Hubert A. Newton, Professor of Mathematics, Yale College.
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
CITIZENS WHO BECAME PREACHERS OF THE GOSPEL.
Ebenezer Raymond, graduate of Union ; Eleazer La- throp, and Isaac Adams, graduates of Hamilton; Caleb Johnson, graduate of Hamilton, died before he had com- pleted his Theological studies. Lyman S. Rexford and William Robinson, graduates of Yale; Nathaniel Smith, graduate of -; Blackleach Gray, -; Jared W. Fox, Shubel Carver, Jonathan Copeland, Hiram Lec, graduates of Oberlin; Israel Foote, graduate of Episcopal Rector ; Smith Curtis, Union.
SHERBURNEITES ADMITTED TO THE BAR.
John H. Lathrop, Joseph Guthrie, Benj. F. Rexford, De Witt Rexford, John Babcock, Joseph Benedict,* Pitt Lynde, Oliver M. Benedict, Warren Newton, Isaac New- ton, Nathaniel Foote, Wm. Hopkins, Wm. Lathrop, Julius K. Rose, David Follet, Herchell Hatch.
GEOLOGY.
From the Geological Report of the State, published in 1842, by Lardner Van Vexem, we copy what relates to the town of Sherburne :
The lowest rocks of the county are those belonging to the Hamilton group, (named after Hamilton in Madi- son county.) It contains the Tully limestone, the Gen- esee slate, the Portage, the Ithaca, the Chemung and the Catskill groups. The whole of the Hamilton group is con- fined to the towns of Sherburne and Smyrna, and a strip extending along the Unadilla river, through Columbus and New Berlin, below the village of which it passes under the higher rocks. It is well exposed along Hand-
* Author of "Benedict's Treatise."
F2
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
some Brook, to the north east of Sherburne village, exhibiting a mass from sixty to one hundred feet thick, chiefly of the dark colored shale of the group, and abounding in its characteristic fossils. The falls in the creek are over the shale, which extends towards the mouth of the creek, and is lost under a covering of allu- vion and soil, being the most northern part of the Che- nango Valley where seen. The same mass makes its appearance to the east of the village of Smyrna, beyond which, at a lower level, are those of the upper rocks of Hamilton Seminary, and of Ladd's quarry, on the Canal, above Sherburne. The ridge, from Madison county, composed of the Hamilton group, appears to incline rapidly near Sherburne, so as to admit the Sherburne flags to appear at the level which they present, at less than two miles below the village.
PORTAGE AND ITHACA GROUPS .- Numerous quarries are opened in all the towns in this group, for building stone, and for flagging. The better kinds of the latter occur in the lower part of the group. Several points south of Sherburne were examined, among which was Mr. Skinner's quarry, where the flags were large and smooth, but the quantity of shale and slate upon them was considerable. At Church's quarry, about two miles from the village, they were more accessible, but not so good. The opening here is about twenty feet in depth upon a hillside, rising about forty feet above the valley, and showing dark blue or blackish slaty shale, with the sand stone.
On page 160, he says : "Though but"little is exposed of the group in the county, there are four points of interest. The first is Ladd's quarry on the canal, near Madison county line, and is the continuation of the
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
range of West Hamilton. The quarry is rich in many of the fossils of the group.
" The next point is the falls and banks of Handsome Creek, (should read Sulphur Springs Creek,) north of Sherburne. The water falls for sixty or more feet, and the sides of the Creek expose about one hundred feet of the finer kind of shalc."
On page 234, speaking of Sulphur Springs, he says: " A Sulphur Spring issues from the slate of the Hamil- ton group, at the foot of the Falls, on Handsome Brook, near Sherburne."
Locating the Falls and Spring on Handsome Brook, is an error. They are on a stream, east of the village of Sherburne, called promiscuously Sulphur Spring, Harris or Mad Brook, which enters the Chenango river, about one mile below the village-the Handsome Brook nearly one mile above.
CLIMATE.
When the trees of the forest reigned monarchs of the soil, they exerted such controlling influence over the winds and storms of this valley, as to give them a differ- ent character from those of the present time. The rays of the sun being obstructed by these masses of foliage, rarefaction could only take place when the sun shone with its greatest warmth, at which time the humidity which had been collecting during cold and cloudy days, was taken up and condensed in large quantities. In these days, when a greater extent of the surface of the earth is exposed to the direct rays of the sun, evapora- tion goes on with more constancy and uniformity, and the sky is oftener overcast with clouds of less density, which discharge their contents in the form of rain or
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
snow, in much smaller drops or finer flakes, forming & noticeable contrast with storms of former times. The early showers would generally be seen rising in the western horizon, in a dark lowering cloud, advancing with greater or less rapidity. All knew that this por- tended a violent rain, and no time was to be lost in seek- ing a shelter from the drenching torrent. These clouds were frequently accompanied by flashes of lightning and peals of rolling thunder, far exceeding in sublimity those of the present day. The forest trees, acting as con- ductors, rendered the electrical phenomena compara- tively harmless. Accidents from this cause were almost unknown for twenty years or more, if we except rare cases, where men or cattle imprudently took shelter under tall trees. When the outpouring was over, the sun shone out as suddenly as it had been obscured, in brilliant contrast with the gloom which before prevailed.
Sudder showers of rain, are not now so marked! and frequent, they are more di zling, and an approaching shower is not, as a general rule, so distinctly foreshad- owed by the appearance of the clouds. When the snow had covered the ground at the commencement of winter, it usually remained three months or more, and the inhab- itants could and did rely upon having good sleighing for that length of time, with the exception of what was termed " the January thaw," which was almost as regu- lar and certain as if governed by fixed laws-usually taking place about the middle of the month, and con- tinuing two or three weeks. These thaws are now more varying and uncertain. Sudden thaws during the winter months, are more frequent; as a natural consequence, winter grain is more liable to be injured by freezing and thawing, causing its cultivation to be in a great measure abandoned.
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
Between the middle of October and the fifteenth of November, there used to be from nine to eighteen days of mild, balmy sunshine, usually termed Indian Summer, or smoky days. Their beauty and genial influence was such, that their advent would be hailed with unusual delight. The peculiar features of that period are now less marked, and have changed their character and dura- bility, to such a degree, as scarcely to attract attention.
According to the State census of 1855, four-fifths of the area of Sherburne have been brought under cultiva- tion. Along the banks of Chenango river, from the north line of the county to its junction with the Susque- hanna, we now rarely see trees of primitive growth. The consequence is, that an unobstructed avenue is left for winds to circulate up this valley, from south to north. South winds, (such as we experience at the present day,) were unknown to the early settlers. Their severest storms were from the north-east, and the prevailing wind from the north-west. Both these appear now to be modified by the increasing prevalence of those from the south. The northeast winds have nearly disappeared, are less intense, and of shorter duration ; the west and north-west are more fitful, and at times assume the char- acter of a tornado, whose general direction is from west to cast. Early settlers remember the time when the seasons were more uniform-when the snow as it fell upon the tops of stumps, would heap in cones twelve or more inches from base to apex, and stand there for days and even weeks, before the wind would disturb them.
As the country becomes cleared, our rivers, brooks and rivulets have less water in them, than when their margins were skirted with trees. Many of them, which now are dry most of the time in summer, would then contain more or less water throughout the year, and
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
many of our "mountain streams" would flow more months than they now do weeks.
It is supposed by some, that the cold winds from our northern lakes, especially Ontario, exert an influence upon the climate of this valley. This was more or less the case, in the early days of the settlement, when the prevailing winds were from that direction. But the south wind at this day overpowers and drives these back .* There is one peculiarity in the snow storms of Sherburne at the present time, which, probably, has some connection with the winds from the lakes. The snow falls decidedly deeper, near the north line of the town, than south of it. Sherburne is bounded north by the county of Madison, through which runs in an east and west direction, a range of hills, nearly, if not quite, one thousand feet above the waters of the Ontario, and extending westward, nearly the whole length of the lake, and casterly along the valley of the Mohawk river. The cold winds, as they sweep over the northern seas, are rolled against and along the northern slope of these hills, where numerous clearings admit the rays of the sun, which warm their sides and tops to such a degree, as to rarefy the air from the lake, and cause its currents of mist to ascend into the cold regions of the clouds, when they are borne in an eastern direction by their own impetus, until checked by the south winds of the Valley of Chenango, near its head, where they are con- densed into snow and fall to the earth near the south line of Madison county. As the trees of the forest daily diminish, and the changes in the topography of the val- ley gradually advance, and as the habits, manners and customs of the people, rise in the scale of refinement and
* Ontario, at the nearest point, is 80 or 90 miles north-west.
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
extravagance, many of the "ills that flesh is heir to," take a new form, and require a corresponding change of medi- cal treatment ; and, although there are no diseases pecu- liar to this valley, the hardy, robust constitutions of early days, are seldom seen. The above mentioned prevalence of south winds, undoubtedly is the chief agent in prduc- ing these results. We have reason to believe that this will be modified by the multiplication of fruit and shade trees, and that the increasing value of timber, will so check its wanton destruction, that the Valley of Che- nango will continue to maintain its celebrity, as a healthy and agreeble place of residence.
LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE.
Sherburne is situated in 42 degrees and 44 minutes north latidude ; 1 degree and 36 minutes east longitude from Washington; 96 miles west of the capitol of the State; about 90 feet lower than the head waters of Chenango river in Madison county ; and 546 feet above the level of the Erie Canal, at Utica
INDIANS.
The Valley of the Chenango, had from time immemo- rial, been the red man's hunting and fishing ground, and he continued it as such, until agricultural improvements banished the bear, the wolf, and deer from the valley.
The Oneida Indians were the occupants when the emi- grants first came into it. They were a quiet, peaccable, inoffensive race. Men, women and children, soon became so accustomed to their ways and manners, that the effect of their presence was that of pleasure, unalloyed with the least dread or fear, provided they were not under the influence of intoxicating liquors. I never knew an instance of complaint against any of them, for petty pil-
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
fering. The productions of the field, garden and hen- roost, were more secure from their depredations at that day, than from those of the white people at this. In summer they roamed up and down the banks of the Chenango, in quest of game.
In the winter, they built wig-wams in the vicinity of the settlers, and manufactured baskets and splint brooms, to sell to the inhabitants for provisions to sustain them- selves, until the opening spring, when they resumed . their accustomed practice of hunting and fishing.
They exhibited considerable skill and ingenuity in making baskets and brooms, which were almost the only articles of manufacture they would attempt, and was usually done by the squaws. Their brooms were made generally of black-ash staddles, between two and three inches in diameter, pounded the length of the brush, until the grains would separate, and then split into fine strands; or of water beech, or birch, peeled into fine shreds, and then bound together with strips of the same.
The settlers would frequently make them small pre- sents of articles of provisions, which the children were very fond of conveying, and receiving their thanks in an unknown tongue, or in half English and half Indian dia- lect, which to them was quite amusing.
They appeared to have very limited fastidiousness in their intercourse with the inhabitants. If they wished to enter your house, the first you would know, the door would be noiselessly opened and their heads unceremo- niously thrust in, and in a low tone they would ask : " Want to buy broom ?" receive your answer, and walk away with a fixed monotonous countenance, which seldom changed. They scrupled not [secretly if they
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
could, to spy what was going on in your house, through any crevice they could find. The wife of one of the settlers, at a very early day, was seated before the fire, which was built against a few stones piled upon each other, in order to protect the building from igniting- large holes between the logs and stones being inclosed. She was waiting the return of her husband until dark- ness had spread its curtain around, with two small child- ren playing before the fire, when she discovered an Indian peaking, close by the fire, into her apartment, without any apparent attempt at concealment. With a little natural excitement, she cried "peak-a-boo !" when he quietly retired.
They were a shrewd people, not easily outwitted. A young gentleman of my acquaintance related, that after the war of 1812, as he was sitting on the piazza of an Inn, a young Indian came and seated himself by his side, in an easy, familiar manner, saying, "How do ? how do ? Don't you know me ? Ain't you Colonel P .? Did'nt you command me at the battle of Queenstown ?" "No, I never was in the army." " Me thought you was Col. P .- he brave warrior-he handsome man-you look just like him," tapping upon his shoulder, "now treat-now treat."
They would often be seen paddling their canoes along the river, which they used extensively for the purposes of navigation. They kept it free from obstructions, from Smith's Valley, in the town of Lebanon, Madison county, to its junction with the Susquehanna river. Their canoes were constructed of pine logs, made so thin and light, and so skilfully proportioned, that they would glide over the water with admirable grace and rapidity, and could easily be carried upon their shoulders from place to place. Their intercourse with the inhabitants G
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
was peculiarly brief. They were never known to linger around their dwellings, in loaferish idleness for one half hour-their business or curiosity was soon satisfied, and they would depart as unceremoniously as they came.
INDIAN RELICS.
On the farm originally settled by Timothy Hatch, about one mile and a half north-west of the village, on the west side of the river, 30 or 40 rods from its bank, are to be seen, four or five round excavations in the earth, from four to six feet deep, measuring about the same in diameter at the top, lying close to each other; on the edges of which were large trees standing, comparing in height and size, to the average dimensions of those com- prising the rest of the forest, which consisted mainly of hard maples, and was occupied thirty or forty years for a sugar orchard.
While I was spending a few hours at their boiling camp, the celebrated Abraham Antoine, (who, a few years after, was executed at Morrisville, Madison county, for the murder of one of his own race,) was seen approaching. It was proposed to invite him to go and examine these, and see what he would say about them, to which he readily consented. After looking at them a moment, and running his eye up to the top of the trees standing upon their edges, he said : "It's a place where Indian bury corn great while ago." The trees have been cleared away, and the place more or less since plowed over.
In an adjoining field, on the north, which has been long under cultivation, many stone arrow heads have been plowed up; also stone chisels, hatchets, pestles for pounding corn, &c .; and as late as 1846, a stone of a peculiar red color was found in the same field. It was
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HISTORY OF SHERBURNE.
about three eights of an inch thick, five inches long, rounded at each end, three inches broad at one, and two at the other, with a hole near the narrowest end, about half inch in diameter, and polished quite smooth on each surface. It is said that no stone of the same species was ever obtained this side of Mexico. It was undoubtedly worn for an ornament.
When they were constructing the Chenango Canal, which is on the opposite side of the river, human bones were exhumed, which, with a few exceptions, would, on exposure to the atmosphere, crumble into dust.
INDIAN FORTIFICATION.
About four miles north of Sherburne village, and one mile west of the Handsome Brook, are the remains of a structure worthy the examination of antiquarians. It is an embankment of coarse gravel, built in the form of a horse-shoe-the open ends towards the north. It is about four rods wide between the outer ends, and seven or eight rods deep to the centre of the bow. From the lowest point in the centre, to the highest part of the embankment, is full twenty-five feet. There are embank- ments running from each extremity of the bow; the one easterly, fifteen or twenty rods long, terminating in a swamp; that on the west side is much longer, ending at the foot of a hill, nearly in the same range with the other, but disconnected from the main structure, by an opening two or three rods wide. In the front of the whole, is a low swampy piece of ground of small extent.
A gentleman by the name of Champlin, who for- merly owned the farm on which it is situated, says he has frequently plowed upon the top of the bank, and thinks it is three or four feet lower than when he first
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saw it, and that flint arrow points were frequently found in its vicinity. Finding arrow points is verified by other witnesses.
It remains an open question, whether this is a natural or artificial structure. If artificial, for what purpose ? It was originally crowned with trees corresponding in dimensions with those of the surrounding forest. The small extent of the area enclosed within its walls, is a serious draw-back to the supposition that this was an Indian fortification. In whatever light we view it, we cannot but consider it as a curiosity.
WILD ANIMALS.
Wild animals were Bears, Wolves and Deer, which are now entirely extinct. The last wild bear seen in town, was met and killed with an ax, one mile north of the village in the Handsome Brook, by Lorenzo Hatch, the first white person born in the town.
Eli Marsh used to relate, that early one morning, he heard a hog squealing, in a manner so unusual, in the woods near his house, that he took his gun and sallied out to ascertain the cause. He soon discovered a large bear sitting 'in state' upon his haunches, in conscious pride of power and dignity, holding the hog upon the ground ; and on every exertion to free himself from his clutches, Bruin was cuffing him, first on one side of his head, and then on the other. This he would repeat at every attempt of his captive to extricate himself from his grasp-the slightest motion would bring the paw of his majesty about his ears with such force, that from necessity he would drop his head upon the ground, and remain as quiet as the nature of his situation would admit.
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