USA > New York > Wayne County > Rose > Rose neightborhood sketches, Wayne County, New York; with glimpses of the adjacent towns: Butler, Wolcott, Huron, Sodus, Lyons and Savannah > Part 16
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Having followed this road through the district, we shall avoid turning on our tracks by imagining ourselves transported to the old home of Chauncey Bishop. It is just south from the old burial ground-some- times called Briggs' cemetery-and opposite. The house is now the home of Elder Anson H. Stearns and his wife, who was Charity M. Bishop, daughter of Chauncey, who found his wife in the present town of Butler, Chloe Wheeler, eldest daughter of Eli Wheeler, one of the earliest comers to that town, then making a part of the old town of Wolcott. She had taught school near in 1817 and 1818, and in the fall of 1818 was mar- ried. The groom's party, about twenty in number, went to Butler on horseback. In common with all pioneers, they began their life in a log house, somewhat south of opposite to the site of the present house, built
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in 1823. A visit to this edifice will repay any one who likes the old. It has been changed very little, if any; large posts and beams, all arranged for strength and convenience. Overhead there is no plastering, but the sleepers are bare, now, of course, being destitute of the nails and hooks which formerly were so handy. From these were suspended many con- venient articles for househould use, as strips of dried pumpkin and beef. Strings of apples were dried by the heat that the wide fireplace afforded. Everything tended toward hospitality, for which the early settlers were noted. The family that grew up here, though not so large as the first generation, was still an extensive one. The oldest, Charles C., is in Man- chester, Ont. Co. Charity M. married Rev. A. H. Stearns, a Baptist minis- ter of Massachusetts birth, being a native of West Hampton. He came to this state in 1861, and has been an especially successful pastor in South Butler, Wolcott and elsewhere. Together, they maintain the honors of the old homestead. Candace W. became Mrs. Chester Williams, of Huron. He dying, she moved to Illinois ; as did also the next brother, D. Clinton, who married Mary Ann Mead, of Phelps. (Clinton Bishop died Feb. 24, 1892. ) The next son, Cicero, was drowned in Stony Lake, Michigan ; John Calvin, a civil engineer, married Mary Avery, of Lyons, and now lives at Pilgrimsport ; Cephas B., having taken Sarah Chaddock as his wife, dwells in the Valley ; Celestia wedded Samuel F. Weaver, of Illinois, while the youngest, Chauncey E., having married Mary Butler, of Weedsport, and after living in these parts for some years, went to Kansas, where he now resides. Chauncey Bishop was another of those devoted men who gave an excellent reputation to the town. One of the constituent members of the Rose Baptist Church, he was for more than forty years its clerk. He died in 1880, in his ninetieth year. His wife, who was born in Cairo, Greene Co., died in 1878, in her eighty-first year.
At one time or another the land near here must have been dotted with the log habitations of the first comers. The small edifice, a little south of opposite, stands near one of the early abodes, that of Samuel Hand ; but in recent times it dates from Elbert Briggs, a son of Jonathan. John Groes- cup came next, then Luman Briggs, Elbert's brother, then S. Wing Langley, who has improved the house. His wife is Mary Brisbin, eldest daughter of James Brisbin, of North Rose. . Mr. Langley is a son of Millens L., who once lived on the old Joel Bishop farm across the way. (The children here are Guy M., Eugene M. and Lillian E.) Being on the old Briggs farm, the house belongs to the North Rose district.
Again crossing the road, we may find a new house, an ornament to the street, where lives Michael Londrigan, whom we first met in the Lyman neighborhood. He came originally from Waterford, Ireland. His wife is Bridget Dunn. There are fifty acres in the farm. He has a family of two boys and one girl growing up, James, Willie and Theresa ; one daughter,
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Mary, is dead. He bought of John Stewart, who held only a short time, having come from Lyons, to which place he returned on selling. Stewart bought from Chauncey Bishop, 2d, who built the new house, the old one, built by his grandfather, having been burned while he was away in Weeds- port to get his wife. Though the new house is undoubtedly an improve- ment, one cannot help regretting the old, especially if of the least antiqua- rian disposition. Before him was John Briggs, one of Jonathan's sons, whom Myron Langley preceded. Myron was a son of Millens L. His wife was Elizabeth Hibbard, of Butler, a sister of Marshall and Hamilton. The Langleys came from Huron to Rose. Millens' wife was Nancy Mosher. They had several children, as Melissa, Myron, Willard and Wing, then Julia, Emeline, who married a Whiting of Sodus, and Mary, wife of John D. Proseus, of Sodus. Elder John Bucklin, who preceded Langley, was one of the early Baptist preachers. To this place, the first Joel Bishop brought his sons and daughters, at any rate those who were not old enough to make homes of their own. He was an old Revolutionary soldier, born in Guilford, Conn., Oct. 2, 1757, but coming hither from Charleston, Montgomery county, where he had already essayed a pioneer's life. He prospected in the winter of 1810-11, and in the spring his oldest son, Chauncey, and son-in-law, John Burns, came through afoot and began work. Burns was on lot 132, and Chauncey built a log house just where Londrigan's mansion is. The family followed in sections, but all were here in March, 1812. Here he lived for many years until a desire to be with his sons, Elijah and Reuben, prompted him to go to Ohio, where he and his wife, Phoebe Avery, died in Havana, Huron Co. Their family was a large one, so large that the largest modern house, with our notions of comfort, would not hold the young Bishops. Four sons and nine daughters lived to have homes of their own and to add lustre to the family name. Joel Bishop was the sixth in descent from John Bishop, who, in 1639, settled in Guilford, Conn. During the Revolution he was for a time a prisoner of war in New York City. He never had any love for a Redcoat. In 1837, when 80 years old, he went to the Wilderness for the fourth time. He died at the age of 84 years. Chauncey and his family we have already passed, but there was a Joel, Jr., who made his early home on the Bender place. His wife was Zemira Slaughter (a cousin of the famous John G. Saxe), whom I find among the very first members of the Methodist Church in Rose. He afterward went to Butler, some- where in the forties, and lived many years, finally dying there. Elijah married Jerusha Howard, a niece of Mrs. Flint, and began living his con- nubial life in a log house just south of his father's. Reuben married Sarah Ann Gardner, of Lock Berlin. He lived with his father until the western fever took both him and the elder Bishops to the state of Ohio. Then come the nine daughters, viz .: Anna, who married, first, Elijah
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Bundy, whose children were : Sally, who married George Stewart ; Phoebe became the wife of Thomas Lewis and went west; Joel married a distant relative, also named Bundy, and died forty years since, near Fulton, N. Y. Another brother, Stephen, lived just west of Stewart's corners, in a little house only recently destroyed, and being in the south at the begin- ning of the War, he is supposed to have lost his life in some way as an enemy to secession ; and yet another, Truman, who moved to Missouri and died single. For a second husband Anna married Asahel Valentine, a brother of Dr. Peter. For a while they lived on the Vanderburgh place, then in the Valley. Joel B.'s second daughter, Clara, married John Burns, and was one of the first, if not the very first, settlers on the Benjamin Seelye place, in the North Rose district. He sold either to Henry Graham or Seelye. He also had a good sized family, as Bishop, who took for his wife Olive Fuller, the daughter of Jonathan F., met in District No. 5. Jane Burns was the wife of Asahel Lamb, son of Peter; Nancy married John Palmington; Hollister died in 1862, in the army ; then there were Achsah, who married John Ballantine; Polly, who became Mrs. Sylvester McDerby, and Roxy, who married Jerome Palmington. All of them, old and young, went west. John Burns was a good Baptist, and leader of the singing. It is proper to state that I find John Burns recorded, in 1812, as the purchaser of lot 153, i. e., 108 acres, just opposite the old Dickinson farm. Sally, Joel B.'s third daughter, was the second wife of John Skid- more. His first wife was a sister of Davis Hand, by whom he had a son and a daughter, Sally. He was early on the Ellis Ellinwood place, whence he went to Ohio, and returning bought what is now the Collier place, south of the Valley, and later went to Michigan. His children by second marriage were Truman, Chauncey, George, Catherine, John, Mary Ann, Rachel and Marilla. Like nearly all the Bishops and their affiliated branches, he was a Baptist. Sally Bishop taught the first school in town, in a small log house a mile and a half north of the Valley. Chauncey Bishop has been named. Phoebe Bishop became the wife of Gardner Gillett, a brother of Harvey, and began housekeeping in a log house opposite George Catchpole's, possibly on the Weeks farm. In this town and in Lyons seven children were born to them. Those surviving infancy we're Cyrus, who married a Jewell, of Sodus ; Harriet, John, Joel and Cordelia. All went to Illinois. Then came Rachel, the wife of Dr. Peter Valentine, of the Valley. The sixth girl was Roxy, who married David Gates, of Huron ; then Martha followed, the first wife of Lyman Fel- ton, of Red Creek. They went to Ohio. The eighth daughter, Lucinda, wedded Ansel Gardner, of Red Creek, who, a carpenter, lived in the town for a while. In his trade he built the Proseus house, in. the North Rose district, and the Baptist Church in the Valley. Becom- ing a Baptist minister, he went to Illinois and there died. They
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had eleven children. Last of all was Harriet, who followed her sister, Martha, as the second wife of Lyman Felton. There, that is a gal- axy to be proud of. Can a Rose family, during the last twenty-five years, show its equal? Before dismissing the Bishops, I may say that they had their share of frontier adventure. Among many others, Chauncey tells this incident : He and Asahel Gillett once shot a bear, but fearful that the shot was not effectual, they hesitated about approaching the fallen Bruin. They came nearer only to find that their caution had been wise, for his bearship proceeded to arise and to place himself at bay between two trees in a way that he could be attacked in front only. As their last ball had already been sent into the beast, they assailed with clubs, but the beast was smart enough to knock the weapons away in succession, until, finally, going at him simultaneously, they took his life. Bear meat was a luxury for a time. This affair took place on the gravel knoll opposite the residence of Luther Wilson.
Next is found the place long known as the Bender farm, now owned by John York, Jr., of North Rose. As we have seen, Joel Bishop, 2d, was first here and located his log beginning. He sold to Henry Graham. Then came a man named Sweat, then James Weeks, next Mr. Gardener, then Loren Beals, who sold to John Ira Bender. He came to these parts from Manlius, Onondaga county. His wife, Caroline Osborn, was born in Woodbridge, Conn. They have four children-Emily, the wife of James Casler of Manlius ; Jacob, Charles E., and Bertha, who, having married Wright McIntyre, lives south of the corners. With her Mrs. B. makes her home, Mr. B. having died two years ago. Since Mr. York's ownership a fine large barn has been constructed. Charles Moore, a native of the Isle of Man, has the next habitation. An industrious citizen, he is rearing a family of six children, Anna, Maggie, John, William, Joseph and Frank, who command the respect of the community. The building was once a tenant house of Peter Shear. Mr. M. has five acres in his holding.
Beyond the corners on the east side is a small house built by Mr. Shear for his son William, and here the latter with his wife, Elnora Monroe, resides. They have an interesting group of children growing up about them. Their names are Perry, Sarah, Harry and Mildred. (The house and farm now belong to the Welch Brothers. )
The possessions of Eliphalet Crisler attract us next. Mr. C. is a son of Adam Crisler, a resident of the north. part of Rose. Mr. C. has five acres of land, and in the extreme northwest corner, just on the street, is a little house which was once the dwelling house of the former owners. It was moved here when the new house was erected. Just back of it are the remains of a stave cutting and cooper shop, for Mr. Crisler is a cooper by trade, though latterly he has done more at house-building. Eliphalet's wife was Lucina Lake of Huron, and they have one daughter, Ina. Mr.
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Crisler bought of Francis Baker, who came here from Seneca Falls ; before that was from Webster, but remotely was a Long Islander. His son Horatio married a daughter of Leland Johnson. Back of Baker is James I. Vanderburgh, who divided his ten acres, giving half to his daughter, Mrs. Weeks. N. B. Hand preceded, and he went into the army during the War. One Swett also held it for a time, and his predecessor was Elder Andrew Wilkins, one of the most successful of the ministers who have presided over the Baptist Church in Rose. His sons are Hervey, Hartwell, Frank and Fred. All of these young men have proved pronounced successes in life, despite the oft-repeated slander against ministers' sons. The good clergyman died in 1884, at the age of sixty-nine, and is buried with many of his former parishioners in the Rose cemetery. His widow, who was Laurie Barnes, lives now in the Valley, preferring a home of her own to living with any one of her boys. Another minister preceded, Elder Amasa Curtis of the Baptist Church, whose younger two children were, I believe, born in Rose. In those days clergymen apparently found time to till a few acres as well as to attend to the spiritual wants of their flocks. Since the elder performed the marriage ceremony for my parents, his name has always had a special flavor for me. Before the preachers, came John Hyde, who had married the widow of Isaac Gillett, and thereby the mother of Almira Gillett, now of Wolcott. If any one of the feminine gender was ever better known in Rose than the before mentioned " Almi," I should like to know the name. As a peripatetic seamstress, she became the depository of nearly all the secrets in town. Her memory is a pleasant one.
One of the most noteworthy structures on the street, is that which we must cross the street to inspect. It is built of brick, one of the few farm houses in town thus constructed, and is the home of " Ham" Closs, the youngest son of John, the first comer. His wife is Lydia Ann Jones, a sister of the late Mrs. David Ellinwood. Their two sons, John and William, have already received mention in this volume. Every- thing about and within the premises indicates care and taste. Mr. Closs, in addition to his farm, has given much attention to speculation, and few men in Rose are better known.
We come next to the home of Mrs. Catharine Weeks, widow of Rufus K. We met the name when near the Catchpole farm, and can now learn a little more about the family. She was herself a sister of the W. S. Vanderburgh who lived so long on the Waldruff farm. As Sarah K. Vanderburgh she was born in Greene county. Her maternal grandfather Steinhart was one of those hated Hessians who came to New York with Burgoyne's army. . A native of Hesse-Cassel, he had been impressed into the service of his prince, and so came to America. Once here he did not care to return, and marrying on the Hudson passed the remainder of his life there. Her father
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was James I. Vanderburgh, and her mother Hannah Steinhart. Of a large family of boys and girls, we are interested chiefly in William S. ; Elizabeth, who married Matthew Mackie, the Clyde nurseryman ; Abram D., who once lived east of John Lymans and who married Hannah Finch of Dis- trict No. 5. Her home she has somewhat improved since buying of Dudley Wade. This was only a small portion, which, joined to the five acres had from the father, makes about six acres. Before Wade, Hamel Closs had owned it. The Vanderburghs were Baptists, while Mr. Weeks had been reared a Quaker.
Our southmost station is attained when we come to the home of George Seager, who, formerly from Huron, having married Jeannette Howland, daughter of George, purchased the property from the Talton heirs. There is a new house here supplanting the old one, which some years since was burned. These people have three children-Claude, Clara and Floy. Mr. Seager's predecessor, John T. Talton, was also known as Williams, there being some mystery about his name, but his tombstone in the ceme- tery, beside giving his name as Talton, tells us that he was a soldier during the War. It was during his holding that the house was burned. After this the family lived for a time in the barn opposite, and here, in 1882, at the age of fifty-four years, Mr. Talton died. His widow, having married Mr. Walmsley, resides in the Valley. Mr. T. left three sons. There are some more than fifty acres in the farm, and here, years since, Joel N. Lee reared his family. As we have stated elsewhere, he and his family were Vermonters, and no better people ever made their home in this town. Exemplary members of the Methodist Church, they lived and exemplified Christianity. One of their daughters is well known as Mrs. Charles S. Wright, of the Valley, and Lovina we have repeatedly met as Mrs. C. C. Collins, now living in Wolcott; Theresa married Charles Kingsley, son of Harris R., a former Methodist minister in Rose. On his death she returned to the village of Rose, and with her, until their deaths, the aged parents made their home, having given up their farm. Mrs. K. now lives in Batavia. The only son, Addis C., became a soldier during the War. Mr. Joel Lee finished his earthly pilgrimage in 1880, a little more than eighty-three years old. His wife died in 1876 at the age of seventy-five. Mr. Lee sold his farm to his son-in-law, Charles S. Wright, who rented it to different people, among others to Sidney J. Hopping, now living on the Dudley Wade farm, in the confines of Butler. The farm has- had many mutations. Taken up by Stephen Brooks, there were at first 115 acres, all but 15 being on the east side of the road. Brooks sold 46 acres from the north side of his farm to Zenas Fairbanks. The remainder was sold to Joel N. Lee in 1826. In 1827 Mr. Z. F. sold ten acres on the road to his cousin, C. W. Fairbanks, and going down to the east end of the lot- went into extensive mercantile business, shoe making, lime burning, etc.
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Later the Fairbankses changed places, and afterward Zenas sold to John Hyde and went to the Covell district. In 1836 C. W. Fairbanks sold to Royal Turner, who also bought out Hyde. Mr. Turner was noted for his law suit tendencies. Both he and his wife lived to be more than 90 years old. Through many changes, the place passed to John B. Lyman and to Crisler and to Mrs. Weeks. (Mr. F. H. Closs now owns the Joel Lee part. )
As the next step will take us to the Valley district, we shall delay that move until we have visited the northern portions of the town, preferring to work from the circumference inward rather than from the heart outward. So then, just under the shadow of the hill, at whose base the Miricks located, we must leave District No. 3.
DISTRICT No. 2 .- NORTH ROSE.
-
April 11-June 27, 1889.
The appellation North Rose is a comparatively new one. To the old. inhabitants it was Lamb's corners, and the emigrant who left his native heath in the long ago would gaze in wonderment at our heading, mentally exclaiming : "What terra incognita have we here ? " This hamlet of ours is fifteen years old, dating from the opening of the then Lake Shore R. R., now the R. W. & O. R. R .; up to the seventies, where now are houses, gardens, stores and shops, the Aldriches and Briggses raised crops, for the village lies exclusively on land that was once theirs. The railroad went a long distance out of its course to reach as far south as it does, running on one side of a rather short ellipse, almost a circle, but even then, it could not get nearer the Valley than two miles and a half. Locating a station here, known on the time card as Rose, the village is a consequence. As this is the only railroad passing through the town, it will not be amiss to follow its course from entering to leaving. Having nipped off a corner of Huron, it comes into Rose on P. T. Lewis' land, thence, extending southeast, it crosses the Huron road just north of Richard Garratt's ; still continuing thus, it runs diagonally over the next east and west road a few rods west of William H. Cole's. Coming through a deep cut, trains some- times pick up cattle here. On one of my walks I came along just after a fine cow belonging to Isaac Cole had been thus cut in pieces. (In 1893, Charles Harper lost two. ) Crossing Cole's farm and the next north and south road, just south of Carrier's corners, it passes through Avery H. Gillett's possessions and those of Nelson R. Graham. On the latter's farm the grading covered up a fine spring, and on this account the elder Graham, Henry, claimed extra damages, but the company demurred and
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left the matter out to arbitration. The award was considerably in excess of the amount demanded by Mr. G., thus justifying his claim. Its extreme southern range is reached when it crosses the Sodus road at North Rose, whence it tends northward, with just one variation west of Glenmark, and that a slight one, till a few rods south of the Huron line it runs into Sodus. What might have been is naturally suggested. I understand that neither Rose nor Huron would bond itself to help the enterprise. Had Huron done so and Rose had continued obdurate, naturally the road would have made its Huron station at Port Glasgow, and that place must have regained some of its prosperity destroyed by the building of the Erie canal. Lake navigation and railroad transportation would have made her a no mean rival of Clyde and Lyons, and leaving Wolcott quite in the lurch. Again, had Rose bonded and Huron not, the station could easily have been located as near the Valley as the end of the old Sherman or Merrick Hill, i. e., the present residence of Mr. Isaac Campbell. The Valley would have had the business since located in North Rose and the latter village would not exist. However, our village is a reality, but it is entirely too recent and new to be interesting. Were it placed on a western prairie it would be content with no such modest name as it now bears, but it had long since been Aldrich or Briggs City, or Maltopolis, or some equally sonorous word. Long ago it would have had a race course, half a dozen hotels, so called, a brass band and a national bank. As it is, the neighboring Valley becomes somewhat suppressing, and, perhaps, retards its otherwise more vigorous boom. There is little of the antique in a place only fifteen years old. There are no old houses, no traditions, even the shade trees look new, quite too new for history. We shall find no material here for another Miss Mitford's " Our Village," while the railroad and the immense malt- house quite as effectually prevent a reproduction of George MacDonald's " Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood. The name is a happy one, locating as it does the place. Besides, there was already another Lamb's corners in the state, in Albany county.
Now, then, we will suppose that we have journeyed north from the Valley, have passed through the Lyman district, and leaving the same at the interesting old house of Mrs. Charity Stearns, nee Bishop, we shall find our first stopping place, singularly enough, to be the cemetery.
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