USA > New York > Tompkins County > Dryden > The centennial history of the town of Dryden. 1797-1897 > Part 10
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Amos Lewis, who lived east from the village, was a great horse deal- er in those times, carefully matching and training horses for the New York market to which he took them, sometimes realizing as high as one thousand dollars for a pair of horses thus prepared by him.
In the year 1836 John Southworth built his brick house on North street and the original section of the brick block on the southwest of the Dryden four corners. In later years (about 1850) Hiram W. Sears, who came to Dryden from Madison county about 1845, ex- tended the original brick store in front as seen in the accompanying cut produced from an old photograph of that time taken by Dr. F. S.
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DRYDEN VILLAGE.
Howe, whose gallery was opposite, and later (about 1865) Merritt Bau- cus constructed the addition on the west side, the original building being less than one-third of its present dimensions. While his house and store were being built Mr. Southworth lived in the little house on East Main street now occupied by Will Mespell, where his first wife had died in 1830, and which it is suspected had been removed from the site of the brick store to make room for it; if so it is the oldest house now existing in town, being the first frame house built by Dr. Sheldon about 1800. This supposition is supported by the fact that it has two sets of sills under it, indicating that it has been moved to
HY BLARS.
THE OLD BRICK STORE.
its present location, and the additional fact that there never was any plastering ou some of the walls and the partitions are made of wide, rough, but clear pine boards such as would naturally be very abundant when lumber first began to be manufactured. The roof, cornice and outside covering are doubtless of a later date.
In 1840 Joseph McGraw, Jr., built the brick store on the opposite, southeast corner known as the hardware block, where he for some years after carried on business as a merchant. At about this time two of the best dwellings in the village in those days were erected on Main street ; one, now occupied by E. Banfield and formerly owned by Esquire Tyler, was built by Bradford Potter, and remains very much as it was originally built, and the other, the Dr. Montgomery house on
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
the opposite side of the street, was built by a Mr. Putnam, and a third story has since been added. Both are said to have been raised on the same day, one with the use of liquor for the workmen, which was the established custom on those occasions, but at the other raising a supper was substituted, being the first effort to promote the cause of temperance which we are able to record in Dryden village. Thus it is seen that the building of the village was materially ad- vanced in this period.
In these days there had come to the village from the farms on the neighboring hillsides, three young men who were all destined after- wards to become Dryden merchants, and one of them to take a leading part in the public affairs of the town and county. All were of humble but respectable parentage and all had been obliged to spend their boyhood at work upon the farms of the backwoods, so to speak, of a lumbering town, with very scanty means of education. But all were entering manhood possessed of excellent habits, and had within them the elements of true gentlemen with all which that term implies, as was afterwards developed in their lives, but neither of them other- wise possessed any apparent advantage over the ordinary farmer boy who goes to town to seek his fortune. They were John McGraw and Jeremiah W. Dwight, both from the rather forbidding South Hill neighborhood, and Edwin Fitts from near Willow Glen. From small beginnings in their business careers the two former accumulated large fortunes, Mr. Dwight in his latter years adding political honors to his business success, while the latter, though no less a gentleman and esteemed and respected by all who knew him, lacked those stern- er qualities which are essential to make up the successful man of bus- iness. It is said that Mr. McGraw commenced his business appren- ticeship with the early Dryden merchant, Daniel J. Shaw, and after- wards served as a clerk in the brick store then kept by his older brother, Thomas McGraw, and John Southworth, and upon the death of Thomas, about 1838, he succeeded to his interest. Mr. Dwight, who was four years younger than McGraw, commenced his clerkship in the year 1838 in the store of Alanson Benjamin, which stood near where Charles Green's shop is now located, and soon afterwards be- came a partner with A. L. Bushnell in the brick store since known as the hardware block. The subsequent careers of these two Dryden boys will be treated of hereafter in special biographies. Mr. Fitts, who was between the others in age, after a clerkship with McGraw & Phillips (Joseph McGraw, Jr., and George W. Phillips) in the brick store, carried on business for himself in the Blodgett Block, and failed.
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DRYDEN VILLAGE.
He was afterwards employed in the custom house in New York.
We would like to impress upon the ambitious young men of the ris- ing generation that although the use of intoxicating drink and tobacco was much more universal then than now, the women as well as the men of those days freely enjoying the use of the pipe as well as the snuff-box, and a bottle or jug of "spirits," if in no larger quantities, being considered a necessity for frequent use in every household, nei- ther of these young men ever indulged in the use of intoxicating bev- erages and the two of them most successful never acquired the habit of the use of tobacco in any form whatever.
At this stage of its development Dryden began to possess legal tal- ent, the first full fledged attorney to reside here being Corydon Tyler, whose home and office were both located on Main street opposite to where is now the Grove Hotel. His office was a nice little building, still interesting to the writer, which was afterwards moved up-town and located on the Pratt corner, where it was used by Milo Goodrich in 1850 for his postoffice, on the exact spot to which the present post- office has recently been removed, and is now, in its old age, annexed in the rear to the Pratt row of business places. Esquire Tyler seems to have been a man of character and ability; although from some anecdotes told of him we surmise that he was almost too aristocratic in his nature and too hasty in his temper to be able to adapt himself entirely to the requirements of his profession in a new country town. He had law students under him, one of whom was Harvey A. Dowe, a native of Dryden village, who afterward made Ithaca his home. Hi- ram Bouton was also a local attorney of considerable ability and tact, who took up his abode here as early as 1833, and held the office of justice of the peace as late as 1872.
Milo Goodrich, then a young man without reputation or fortune, lo- lated here with his wife soon after their marriage in 1844, renting rooms for house-keeping of Thomas Lewis in the building on Main street which has since been enlarged and converted into the Grove Hotel.
The local physicians of this period included John W. Phillips and Michael Phillips, registered in 1820; James W. Montgomery, and Dan- iel D. Page, in 1828; Isaac S. Briggs and Edwin P. Healey, in 1841. Dr. Page resided on what is known as the John C. Lacy corner, and there in his orchard, on the corner of Main and Mill streets, accord- ing to so good an authority on pomology as Charles Downing, origi- nated the Bunker Hill apple, still greatly prized in this locality where it is well known.
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
Dr. Montgomery, who was a man of social and literary standing as well as of professional ability, having twice represented Dryden in the Legislature at Albany, as well as being an active member of the local reading and debating society of that time, lived where his son and daughter still reside on Main street.
Dr. Briggs was also a man of literary as well as of professional ability and an excellent citizen.
At or near the close of this period a terrible scourge, known here and remembered as the Dryden fever, swept over the new country and was particularly fatal in the village and its vicinity. It is now said to have been a species of malignant typhoid fever, developed per- haps by the rapid changes in the condition of the lowlands so recent- ly deprived of their natural covering of foliage and not yet reclaimed by artificial drainage.
CHAPTER XXIV.
DRYDEN VILLAGE IN THE WAR PERIOD.
While the town and rural districts have been decreasing in popula- tion ever since 1836, the village of Dryden has had a slow but steady and continuous growth from the beginning of its settlement. Per- haps, however, at no time was that growth so rapid as at the com- mencement of this period. The building of the stone Woolen Mill by A. L. Bushnell at this time afforded a promise of future business prosperity to the village, but if its somewhat checkered career, in- volving at least two failures, and two fires, in one of which all of the combustible material was destroyed, could have been foreseen, the high hopes based upon its success would have vanished. Still in its periods of prosperity it has been a source of great advantage to the village, giving employment to a considerable number of inhabitants, and at no time has it been capable of yielding products of so much value as at present.
The building of the stone block in 1852-3 by Jeremiah W. Dwight was a great undertaking for a young business man in a small village, but under his efficient direction and management it has always been a success, affording a good and continuous income from the invest- ment.
At about the same time P. M. Blodgett built next west of the stone block the three-story wooden building known as the Blodgett block, which was not so successful, and which was destroyed by fire about
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DRYDEN VILLAGE.
1866. Stimulated by these improvements Col. Lewis Barton, who kept the old hotel opposite the stone block, enlarged it by adding a third story at this time, (1855.)
Col. Barton was a very popular landlord and a public spirited citi- zen, serving as president of the village in 1860, and as marshal on various occasions, one of which was a large temperance parade. He came to Dryden from Virgil early in this period and died in 1863. Among his descendants were Lieutenant Daniel W. Barton, who was killed in the battle of Spottsylvania, May 12, '64; Chas. W. Barton,
DRYDEN WOOLEN MILL.
whose surviving son, Daniel W., resides at Elizabeth, N. J. ; Mrs. Mary E. Hiles, whose surviving son was recently engaged here in tracing out the annals of the Hiles family, and Lucy Ette Spiece, of Ardmore, Pa., who is now the only surviving child of Col. Lewis Barton.
The first newspaper published in the village came from the hand- press of H. D. Rumsey, in 1856, and was first known as "Rumsey's Companion." After several changes in the name and ownership it was discontinued, within two years after it commenced publication. It had, however, fortunately for us, published and thus preserved under the title of the " Old Man in the Clouds, " the series of articles which
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
have been of great aid in the preservation of the early history of Dry- den. In July, 1858, it was revived under the name of "The Dryden Weekly News, " by Asahel Clapp, who continued its publication suc- cessfully until 1871, when he removed it to Ithaca where it is still published by his son as The Weekly Ithacan. Soon after, a new pa- per was published at Dryden village under the name of The Dryden Herald, which, after changing hands several times, was greatly en- larged and improved under the management and ownership of A. M. Ford and now under the proprietorship of his son, J. Giles Ford, is one of the most enterprising local papers to be found issued in a country village.
The war itself left but very little impress upon the village, and, as already stated in the town history, it was from a business point of view a time of unusual prosperity.
The advent of the Southern Central railroad in 1869 has already been referred to and produced no great immediate change in the af- fairs of the village. To the merchants the advantage of reduced freight rates and quicker transportation was offset by the ease and frequency with which their customers sought places in larger towns to do their trading. To the farmers, because it offered a better and nearer market, especially for such bulky articles of produce as pota- toes and hay, the permanent benefit of the railroad has been consid- erable, and without railroad facilities to-day our condition would in- deed be deplorable. A proposition was made when the Ithaca & Cortland railroad was being built that by raising the sum of twenty- five thousand dollars, the junction could be secured within the limits of Dryden village, and at almost any other time it would have been seriously entertained, but at this time the village had almost exhaust- ed itself in the effort to secure the Southern Central, and affected with the reaction already being experienced from the decline of the unusu- al prosperity of the preceding years, the people were content to let the opportunity pass by.
The merchants of this period included J. W. Dwight & Co., (the company including E. S. Farnham, Isaac P. Ferguson, and A. F. Tan- ner) in the stone block, George L. Truesdell and William H. Sears, in the Exchange block, and Hiram W. Sears, Eli A. Spear, and later Merritt Baucus, in the brick block. Hiram W. Sears, who married a daughter of John Southworth, for a number of years carried on an ex- tensive business in packing pork, buying wool and other mercantile enterprises.
Cyrus French developed a flourishing business in the hardware
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DRYDEN VILLAGE.
block. G. H. Sperry and Alanson Burlingame inaugurated the coal and lime business at the railroad station. H. F. Pierce conducted a moderate furniture and undertaking business, while Harrison Marvin and Otis Murdock conducted the boot and shoe business.
The Woolen Mill flourished in the hands of E. Rockwell, the tan- nery was greatly enlarged and improved by the Kennedy Brothers, and the grist-mill was managed by John Perrigo, assisted later by his son, Charles M.
The medical profession was reinforced during this time by the ar- rival of Dr. Wm. Fitch, from Virgil ; and Dr. J. J. Montgomery suc- ceeded to the practice of his father.
The old hotel passed from the proprietorship of Col. Lewis Barton to Deuel & Jagger, then to Jagger alone, and afterwards into the hands of Peter Mineah, whose co-partner at one time in the business was Ex-Sheriff John D. Benton, while James H. Cole developed the Grove Hotel after the Blodgett House was destroyed by fire. Mills Van Valkenburgh, Garry E. Chambers, W. W. Hare and Silas S. Montgom- ery developed into lawyers from law students in the office of Milo Goodrich.
A literary society, existing sometimes in the form of a reading cir- cle and at others as a debating club, flourished in these days and many of the older citizens will remember with what earnestness and zeal Dr. Briggs, J. W. Dwight, T. J. McElheny, John C. Lacy, and many others maintained the affirmative or negative of numerous ques- tions in debate at the old school house. Our attention has recently been called by one of the old members of this literary organization, to the beneficial results which were seen in the subsequent careers of some of its members, and a little reflection should awaken in us of the present generation an appreciation of such means of self-culture.
In the year 1857 Dryden village was incorporated, the population then being about four hundred and the corporate limits including 999} acres. The petition for incorporation was signed by Thomas J. Mc- Elheny, Isaac P. Ferguson, George Schenck, Lewis Barton, Freeman Stebbins, Hiram W. Sears, William W. Tanner, David J. Baker, N. L. Bates, Abraham Tanner, Jeremiah W. Dwight and fifty-eight others, and upon the vote taken upon the question of incorporation one hun- dred and twelve ballots were cast, of which seventy-eight were in the affirmative. In 1865 the village was re-incorporated under a special charter (chapter 320 of the laws of 1865) prepared with great care by Mills Van Valkenburgh, then an attorney residing in the village and afterward county judge.
7
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
The first officers elected in 1857 were as follows: Trustees, David P. Goodhue, Rochester Marsh, William W. Tanner, John B. Sweet- land, and Isaac H. Ford; assessors, Augustus H. Phillips, Orrin W. Wheeler, and John C. Lacy ; collector and poundmaster, Godfrey Sharp ; treasurer, Horace G. Fitts ; clerk, Thomas J. McElheny.
The following table gives the names of the presidents and clerks of the village to the present time :
PRESIDENTS.
David P. Goodhue, - 1857-8
Harrison Marvin, - - 1876
Freeman Stebbins,
1859
George E. Goodrich, - 1877
Lewis Barton,
1860
J. E. McElheny, - 1878
Freeman Stebbins,
1861 John H. Pratt,
1879-80
John C Lacy, -
1862
John H. Kennedy,
1881
John Perrigo,
1863
Erastus H. Lord,
1882-3
John W. Phillips,
1864
D. R. Montgomery,
- 1884-5
Rochester Marsh, -
- 1865-6
Albert J. Baker,
1886
Eli A. Spear, -
1867
John H. Kennedy,
- 1887-8
D. Bartholomew, -
1868
D. R. Montgomery,
1889-90
G. H. Washburn,
1869
George E. Goodrich,
- 1891-4
Alvin Cole,
1870
C. D. Williams,
1895
John H. Kennedy,
1871-2
George Sutfin,
1896
Rochester Marsh, -
1873
E. Davis Allen,
1897
G. H. Sperry, -
1874-5
CLERKS.
T. J. McElheny, -
1857
S. S. Montgomery,
1867
M. Van Valkenburgh, -
1858
C. D. Bouton, -
1868
Harrison Marvin, -
1859
S. S. Montgomery,
1869-70
William H. Sears,
1860 George E. Goodrich, -
1871-2
I. P. Ferguson,
1861 William E. Osmun,
- 1873-5
Mott L. Spear,
1862 George E. Goodrich, - 1876
William H. Sears,
- 1863-4
W. H. Goodwin, Jr.,
1877-80
C. D. Bouton, -
1865 L. D. Mallery,
- 1881-2
M. Van Valkenburgh,
1865
D. T. Wheeler, -
1883-94
William H. Sears,
1866
E. D. Branch,
1895-97
CHAPTER XXVI.
DRYDEN VILLAGE IN THE MATURITY PERIOD.
Near the beginning of this time (1872 to 1897) the outlook for the business prosperity of the village was not encouraging. Asahel Clapp had moved his printing office and newspaper from Dryden to Ithaca;
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DRYDEN VILLAGE.
Jackson Graves, who had maintained a flourishing select school, the old Dryden Academy, was about giving up the enterprise, and por- tions of the Blodgett lot where the large hotel building was burned in 1866 had not yet been rebuilt. In fact there had been and was for a few years to come but very little new building in the village ; the time of unusual prosperity had passed and the future was unpromising.
In these dark times for the village, the first sign of returning confi- dence was seen in the establishment of a Union Graded Free School to take the place of the old District School and defunct Academy. The writer well remembers the meeting at the old school house on Main street, where D. Bartholomew now resides, at which this change was made which seemed to be a turning point in Dryden's future pros- perity as a village. Nearly every voter was present at the meeting, including such conservative taxpayers as John Southworth, John C. Lacy and Alpheus F. Houpt, to oppose the measure, and the more confident, progressive citizens, such as Harrison Marvin, Merritt Bau- cus and Barnum S. Tanner, to favor it. The attendance was full, the discussion excited, and the result for a time doubtful. The successful issue of the matter was supposed to have been brought about by a lit- tle strategy practiced by Harrison Marvin, whose duty it was, as clerk of the district, to prepare a list of the voters who answered upon the call of their names to the question, "yes" or "no." Mr. Marvin placed at the head of the list those who were most likely to favor the meas- ure and the responsive "yes" came so frequently at the beginning of the call that the opponents were disheartened and the doubtful voters joined the majority.
In the year 1876, under the leadership of Capt. Marvin as president, the Village Hall was built on South street at an expense of about six- teen hundred dollars, furnishing accomodations for a fire department and fire extinguishing apparatus as well as a lock-up, and a public hall above. A hand engine was purchased and cisterns were con- structed in different parts of the village as resesvoirs of water for fire extinguishing purposes, but fortunately their practical utility was nev- er very much put to the test.
The business failures during this period included John and Chas. M. Perrigo, at the Grist Mill ; Sears & Baucus, at the Brick Store ; the Rockwell Bros., at the Woolen Mill ; and finally Kennedy Bros., at the Tannery, which, following in too quick succession, combined to depress further business enterprises.
In 1892 another crisis in the public affairs of the village was reached when the question of bonding the village for a gravity system of water-
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
works was submitted to the taxpayers, who, after considerable dis- cussion and much opposition on the part of the more censervative element, decided by a majority of twelve upon a full vote, to issue the bonds and undertake the work, which was completed in the two years following. The system was put in at an expense of about twenty- five thousand dollars, and has since had one practical test in ex- tingnishing a fire under full headway in the third story of the Woolen Mill, and it is now believed that this important step in the progress of the village, supplying excellent water permanently for all purposes, although involving a considerable expense for a small village, will never be regretted.
PARK AND M. E. CHURCH.
Stimulated by this enterprise and by an offer on the part of a for- mer citizen, Hon. Andrew Albright, of Newark, N. J., to present to the village an elaborate ornamental fountain as a memorial to his pa- rents, who were early residents of the town, upon the condition that citizens would provide for the removal of the church sheds which then occupied a part of the village "green " and prepare a suitable foundation and surroundings for such a fountain, this improvement was also undertaken, and at an expense of upwards of fifteen hundred
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DRYDEN VILLAGE.
dollars, mostly provided by voluntary contributions, additional land was purchased to furnish sites for the sheds of both church organiza- tions, which were then removed to the rear ; the " green " was enlarged and graded so as to be worthy to be called the village "park, " and the fountain was accepted and connected with the village system of waterworks.
About the same time another public enterprise, designed to provide a suitable hall for public meetings and entertainments, was instituted by the citizens under the leadership of John W. Dwight, who was the most liberal contributor and most efficient promoter and manager of the undertaking. A stock company was organized under the name of the Dryden Opera House Co., and a building erected on the new Li- brary street in the year 1893 at an expense of about three thousand five hundred dollars, which does credit to the village and to those who contributed the stock as a public benefit, not expecting any immediate dividends on the stock as an investment.
An effort was also made at this time to revive the manufacturing in- dustry at the Woolen Mill, which had been idle for a number of years, and Hugo Dolge, whose brother, Alfred Dolge, built up the manu- facturing interests in Herkimer county, was induced to locate here by a loan of five thousand dollars, contributed equally by the mill own- ers and citizens, to be used as capital in carrying on the business. In spite of the business depression which has paralyzed almost all man- ufacturing concerns during the past two years, the mill has been put in much better condition than ever before and its products seem to be finding ready market, with prospects of increasing success as the times improve.
As a result of these efforts, in the year 1895 a dozen or more new houses were constructed in the village, as many as had been built in the dozen years preceding, and the prospects of Dryden as a flourish- ing country village were very much improved.
The building of the Southworth Library at this time will be con- sidered in a separate chapter.
The thorough and systematic lighting of the streets is a public im- provement recently inaugurated by the board of village officers, which is already much appreciated and completes our list in the review of recent public improvements of the village.
As business developments of this period in our village worthy of note here, we should mention the prosperous marble and granite works of Williams & Bower and the furniture business of the French Bros., both originating in a small way and now much exceeding simi-
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
lar concerns in most country towns. The grocery business, as con- ducted by the Baker Bros., in the stone block, will compare favorably in the variety and quality of its stock with any similar concern in the county.
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