USA > New York > Tompkins County > Dryden > The centennial history of the town of Dryden. 1797-1897 > Part 14
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The Presbyterian church of Varna was discontinued over thirty years ago and their building was taken down and removed to Brook- ton.
It is not a little remarkable that a town which forms a part of the great watershed separating the St. Lawrence from the Chesapeake sys- tems of water courses-the streams of Dryden being represented in each-should possess such valuable water power privileges as are af- forded by Fall Creek and its tributaries. Rising in the town of Sum- merhill and flowing south through the eastern part of the town of Groton, Fall Creek enters Dryden near McLean and flows diagonally through our town in such a way as to afford an abundance of mill sites for water power. It is the central drainage artery of the township, receiving as tributaries Beaver, Mud and Virgil creeks on the south, and the West Dryden stream from the north, as well as other smaller additions. Although Fall Creek suffers considerable diminution in times of drouth, especially since the country through which it flows
134
HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
has been mostly deprived of the shade of the forests, it still has good lasting qualities even in the dry seasons of summer and autumn. The largest and most constant of these water powers are, of course. situated on the lower part of the stream, the last one in the town of Dryden running the present Crutts mill, which still does considerable business in flour and feed grinding. Peter Talmadge also had a mill near by but on the north side. Next above is the Hart mill, already spoken of, and next above in the order being the Wm. Allen site, the Wm. Bishop or Sherwood Mills, the George Robertson site, later sold to Jonathan Card and Ward Mallory, who there manufactured
MAIN STREET, VARNA.
chairs which are still in use, the Salmon Sharp site, the Rhodes site and the Wadsworth site, which brings us up to the Bartholomew mills in the vicinity of Etna.
All of these water powers were first employed in sawing the pine lumber, which was very abundant in and about Varna, the pine trees. along the northerly side of Fall Creek being the largest to be found in this region, often five feet in diameter and each cutting twenty-five thousand clear shingles or five thousand feet of first class white pine lumber. If any one of our readers is inclined to doubt this statement
135
VARNA AND FALL CREEK.
or consider it exaggerated, we can call attention to the fact as corrobo- rating our accuracy that an occasional pine stump in the fence of this neighborhood is still shown which, split in two in the middle, makes four rods in length of stump fence.
Of the pioneer families of Varna we can only speak of James Mc- Elheny, whose father, Thomas McElheny, came from New Jersey early in the century, first locating near Malloryville, where James married Betsey, a daughter of Judge Ellis. He was a justice of the peace of the town in 1830 at Ellis Hollow, afterwards a hotel keeper at Varna, and died in 1836 at the early age of thirty-five years. His father and the rest of the family had already removed to Allegany county, the children of James who remained here including John E. McElheny, of Dryden, and Thomas J. McElheny, of Ithaca.
Isaac Creamer, although not strictly speaking a pioneer, came to Varna with the clock peddlers whom he assisted, about 1835, and for a long time he remained a prominent character in that section of the town. Although a pronounced Democrat he served as justice of the peace and justice of sessions in 1864, and was a leader among the Democratic politicians of the county.
Esquire Wm. H. Miller, who was a justice of the peace of the town in 1833, came to Varna from Rensselaer county about seventy-five years ago, followed later by his father, Moses Miller; his sister, Mrs. Nancy Grant, now over ninety years of age and residing with her daughter, Mrs. C. D. Bouton, of Ithaca ; and other sisters, Mrs. Sam- uel Rowland, afterwards residing at Willow Glen, where she died ; Mrs. Angeline Brown, widow of Capt. Brown, now of Cortland; and Mrs. Charles LaBarr, now of Dryden village.
Peter Talmadge seems to have been a prominent figure in the early times of Varna, his stentorian voice being employed to advantage in driving his oxen and being heard throughout the whole settlement. Although illiterate and unpolished in his speech and manners, Father Talmadge, as he was called, possessed rugged virtues, and when others of his less independent Varna neighbors bashfully admitted to the out- of-town merchants with whom they traded, that they lived "just in the edge of Dryden, " it is said that he patriotically affirmed in unmistak- able terms that he was not ashamed to own that he resided "in the very bowels of Dryden."
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
ETNA
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Key to the Map of Etna.
1. Mrs. C. Turner.
2. J. T. Primrose.
3. E. F. Weaver.
4. James Rawley.
5. Geo. Cowdrey.
6. L. Dusenberry.
7. Arthur Burr.
8. Mrs. H. Ralph.
9. Mrs. D. Weaver.
10. L. Freeman.
11. Wm. Smith.
12. School House, No. 11.
13. Shoe Shop.
14. David Brotherton.
15. Dr. G. L. Rood.
16. Baptist Church.
17. M. E. Church.
18. Wm. W. Sherwood.
19. Mrs. J. S. Weidman.
20. Dr. J. Beach.
21. Edward Gaston.
22. E. Snyder.
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creek
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ETNA.
23. C. Bartholomew.
24. Mrs. Davenport.
25. E. Freeman.
26. L. Hemmingway, shop.
27. L. Hemmingway.
28. D. B. Conklin.
29. Mrs. John Reed.
30. Barbara Rulison.
31. Arthur Burr.
32. P. Brady.
33. Smith Stevens.
34. D. Brotherton.
35. Cabinet Shop.
36. Wagon Shop.
37. Blacksmith Shop.
38. Blacksmith Shop.
39. Houtz's Etna Roller Mills.
40. Store.
41. Ai Van Horn.
42. Ann Merchant.
43. Geo. L. Snyder.
44. Mrs. William Haskins.
45. Ladrew Sherwood.
46. Eli Conklin.
47. Wm. Tichenor.
48. Store.
49. Arthur Coggswell.
30. Meat Market.
51. H. A. Root, Hotel.
52. Geo. H. Houtz.
53. Mrs. C. Houtz.
54. Geo. H. Houtz.
55. W. Marsh.
56. Etna Hotel, C. Westervelt.
57. Depot, L. V. R. R.
58. Mrs. Mary H. Bartholomew.
59. T. Rhodes.
60. Freeman Bros.
61. J. Bartholomew.
62. S. Ralph Estate.
63. Milo Snyder.
64. Emma Snyder.
65. Mrs. Hurley.
66. Etna Creamery.
67. Blacksmith Shop.
68. Machine Shop.
69. Hannah Lee Estate.
70. Wm. H. Sherwood.
71. Geo. H. Houtz, Store.
72. Mary H. Bartholomew.
73. Mrs. G. B. Davis.
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CHAPTER XXXIII.
ETNA.
We are not able to give the year when Rev. Wm. Miller and his brother Arthur, who was a blacksmith, commenced building in the wilderness of what is now known as the village of Etna, but was first called, after them, Miller's Settlement.
The first grist-mill there was on the same spot and in the same building lately occupied by Jesse Bartholomew as a planing mill. The date of the erection of this mill cannot now be accurately given, and it has been claimed that it ante-dated White's mill at Freeville, but so far as we can learn, without authority, and, as it seems to us, without reason, for Capt. Robertson would not have gone to mill at Ludlowville with his crops of 1799 and 1800 if there had been a mill so near to him as Etna.
The first date of Etna which we can give with any accuracy or cer- tainty is that of the organization of the first religious society in the township, the first and we believe to this day, the only regular Bap-
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
tist church of Dryden, which was organized February 29, 1804, at the home of William Miller. The meeting was opened with singing and prayer by Mr. Miller, Samuel Hemmingway being elected deacon, and John Wickham, clerk of the society. Among the original members are said to have been Francis Miller, Elijah Dimmick, Silas Brown, Ebenezer Brown, Nathaniel Luther, Job Carr, Ziba Randall, Timothy Owens, Jonathan Dunham, Joshua Jay, Abraham Woodcock, Nathan Dunham, Joel Whipple, Samuel Skillinger, Morris Bailey, Orpha Lu- ther, Asher. Wickham, Mehitable Carr, Betsey Brown, Abigail Dim- mick, Mary Owens, Lucy Dunham and Katie Woodcock.
A saw-mill was built at about the same time as the grist-mill, upon the site lately occupied by the Houtz saw-mill, and afterwards a full- ing mill owned by Joseph Newell and Stephen Bradley, on the ground now occupied by the blacksmith shop of Bert Conklin. Daniel Carr and John McArthur carried on the first store in the house formerly occupied by Wm. Miller and now owned by the Houtz family. The first blacksmith shop stood where is now the center of the road be- tween Houtz's store and grist-mill. The first church building was of logs on the lands of Nathaniel Luther, but was replaced by a frame building on the same ground, which is where the Etna Creamery Co.'s building now stands, and the building is the same one which Caleb Bartholomew used as a pattern shop. At that time there was a bridge across Fall Creek at that point. The first school house stood on the site now occupied by the Houtz store and was the building afterwards used as the old cooper shop, which was finally taken away by high water a number of years ago.
About the year 1815 the place took quite a change. Wm. Miller sold out his property to the Houtz family and the new settlement from that time bore the name of Columbia until about the year 1820, when the postoffice was established under the name of Etna. In the mean- time Bradley & Newell sold their fulling-mill to Rice Weed. Stephen Bradley owned and occupied the place now owned by Hiram Root, which afterwards became the property of Joseph Hemmingway. Here he built the hotel, and the original "Bradley House " of former years is a part of the present hotel.
The first shoemaker was Jacob Lumbard, whose descendants are well known in the town of Dryden. About the year 1818 a store was built on the ground where Ed Carbury now lives, just east of Root's Hotel. At the same time there was another store kept by H. B. Weaver in the building now known as Houtz's white shop. Henry Beach built a saw-mill which was burned on the island about where
-
ETNA, WEST SIDE.
Photo by Silcox
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
is now the center of the Houtz dam. Beach sold his interest in this property to J. H. Houtz, who rebuilt the mill, but later took it down to make room for a distillery. On that particular spot one saw-mill and two distilleries were burned and the last distillery was taken off by high water a few years ago, being remembered by the present gen- eration as the old sash factory.
Another distillery stood on the island just back of Conklin's shop and was owned by John Dodge, who came from Maine.
Columbia had two bridges at that time, one of which has been men- tioned, and the other extended across the creek nearly in front of where Dr. Rood now lives.
When Henry L. Beach sold his property to J. H. Houtz he moved to what was known as Lower Etna, where Truman Rhodes now lives in a house which was then built by Mr. Beach as a hotel, from which there was a road running south to the corner of the pine woods. At that time Lower Etna possessed a hotel, paper mill, blacksmith shop, store, wagon shop and several other buildings. The first tailor was John Weaver, who had a little family of children from which only nine attended shool at one time.
The First M. E. church of Etna was organized April 13, 1835, and their meetings were held in the village school house until 1837, when the present church edifice was erected at a cost of about two thousand dollars, seating two hundred persons. The first trustees were James Freeman, Alvah Carr, Michael Vanderhoef, Richard Bryant, Thomas J. Watkins, Oliver Baker and John H. Porter.
Fifty years ago Etna had a hard name, being then noted [for its horse running and liquor distilling proclivities, there being no less than ten or twelve stills within two miles square of this section of the town. While the general business of the place has not increased in recent years the character of its inhabitants and industries has very much improved, and a stranger who now visits Etna finds it very pleasantly located upon the opposite banks of Fall Creek, which are here connected by a very substantial iron bridge, one of the largest and best in the township, and the dwellings and public buildings, in- cluding churches and schools, show abundant evidence of the thrift, good taste and enterprise of its inhabitants. The butter factory, re- cently incorporated, is one of the recent manufacturing enterprises which flourish, and for the past twenty-five years Etna has not been behind her neighboring villages in mercantile enterprise or in the educational advantages furnished by her excellent school.
The following pioneers of Etna have been brought to our notice :
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ETNA PIONEERS.
BARTHOLOMEW, JESSE, SR., was born in Branford, Conn., in 1763, and about 1783, in Lee, Mass., married Mamra Bradley, who died in Dry- den in July, 1823, after which he married Betsey Locke Updike in Dryden in 1831. He came in 1798 to Herkimer county, from which place, after living in Locke, Cayuga county, he moved to the town of Dryden in 1812 or 1813, and purchased and settled on the land now known as the Hanford farm, one-half mile east of Etna, from which he was subsequently driven off by a man who claimed a better title. While he yet lived on the corner where the Etna road joins the Bridle Road, and in the traditional cold season of 1816, he raised a field of corn, said to have been the only crop of that kind matured in the town of Dryden that year. He died in 1846 aged 83 years. He was a devoted Baptist and is said by his children to have been so even- tempered as never to have been seen in a passion. He was the father of fifteen children and the grandfather of over seventy. Among the former were Jesse Bradley, who carried on a distillery in Dryden vil- lage in the Pioneer Period and moved to Michigan, where he died leaving a large family ; Lemi, who served in the War of 1812, having enlisted as the record says at Dryden, Cayuga county, N. Y., in Au- gust, 1814, in Col. Fleming's regiment, which rendezvoused at Caynga Bridge, and was one of the volunteers who took part in the celebrated " sortie of Fort Erie. " He died in Westfield, N. Y., in 1872. Daniel, Sr., was born in Locke in 1798, and in 1819 married Jerusha Griswold, whose children, Mary (Wheeler) and Daniel, Jr., are still well-known residents of Dryden. Caleb and Jesse, Jr., have for many years been prominent business men of Etna, where they both still reside, Caleb having been largely engaged in the manufacture and sale of scales and iron bridges, while Jesse has manufactured specialties, one of which was the first machine used in Etna which would do planing and matching of lumber at the same time.
CARR, JOHN, is said to have come to Etna from Pennsylvania as early as 1800, settling in the western part with his three sons, Job, Peleg and Caleb. His wife it is said used to call her sons in the morning, saying : "Come, boys, the birds are saying Job, Peleg and Caleb."
DUNHAM, JONATHAN, with his three sons, Henry, Louis and Nathan, coming from Pennsylvania, settled near Etna about the year 1800.
MCARTHUR, REV. DANIEL, from Scotland, arrived in New York May 29, 1811. He was originally a Presbyterian, but changed his religious views and went to Edinburgh, where he was baptised and united with the Baptist creed. Soon after he took passage for America in the hope that the change of climate would prove beneficial to his wife,
.
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
who was in poor health but died upon the voyage and was buried on Staten Island. After spending some time with friends in America from his native land he met Mr. Quigg, of Ithaca, on the Hudson riv- er and was influenced by him to come to Dryden, as he did, and died here in 1847, leaving many descendants.
HOUTZ, REV. ANTHONY, with his father, Philip Peter, migrated from Germany in 1768, when the former was only ten years of age, locating at Lancaster, Pa., where the son learned the trade of a tailor, and using this occupation as a means of support he studied theology and was licensed to preach by the German Reformed Church. The origin- al family name was "Hauz"; but as they soon began to speak English they changed the spelling and pronunciation to Hautz and later to Houtz, which with the English spelling is the exact German pronunciation of "Hauz." During his pastorate in Pennsylvania, his first wife died and in 1803 he married Katrina Keller, who became the step-mother of his four children and in the year following the mother of his fifth child, John Heinrich Hauz, who was the old merchant and miller, John H. Houtz, so well known to the older residents of Etna, where now lives and toils at his roller mills his son, Col. George H. Houtz, the great-grandson of Philip Peter Hauz. In the years 1804 and 1805 Rev. Anthony Houtz preached at Canoga and Lansingville and as early as 1806 located at Etna, where he served the people not only as their preacher but also as a tailor, jeweler, or "time keeper," as they were called in those days, and as druggist and physician. His books, still preserved, show that the most universal diseases of the section at that time were the usual new country plagues, the ague and the itch. He was a very useful and much respected man in the new settlement, where he died in 1813 and was buried in the Etna cemetery.
THE RHODES FAMILY of the town of Dryden are of English descent, their ancestors having originally settled in Pennsylvania before the Revolutionary War and their great-great-grandfather was a cooper by trade who worked for Washington's Army and was killed by Indians in the massacre of Wyoming.
One of his sons, George Rhodes, came to Lansing from Northumber- land county, Pa., in 1792, coming by the way of the Susquehanna river to Owego, from there to Ithaca through a forest road, and from there to Lansing, where they settled. They cut their way through the original forest, going east from Ithaca to a spot just east of Forest Home, where they crossed the creek and from there went north to the farm now occupied by John Conklin.
Of a numerous family, one son, Jacob Rhodes, left home in 1804,
ETNA, EAST SIDE.
Photo by Silcox.
144
HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
when he was twenty-one years old, to go for himself. Taking his rifle, ammunition and hatchet, he came to the present town of Dryden, sleeping the first night on the banks of a small stream a short dis- tance southwest of the present site of the village of Etna. From there he went east to where Freeville, McLean and Dryden now are, camp- ing the second night near the forks of the creek near Freeville. After prospecting for a number of days he came back to where he camped the first night and located, buying a claim owned by a Revolutionary soldier named Savage, from Rutland, Vt. His early life was the usual one of the early settlers. For years he kept house by himself and de- pended upon the forest and streams for provision. He was noted for his woodcraft and marksmanship. In fact, he was barred from taking part in shooting matches, for, with him, to shoot was to win, and at the present time spots can be pointed out where he killed deer, bear, etc.
He married Margaret, daughter of Christopher Snyder, and of a family of eight, four sons grew to an old age, the four daughters having died in childhood or youth. The sons were Wm. S., Geo. W., and Miles and Truman Rhodes. The old home of Jacob Rhodes was until recently owned by Miles Rhodes, and is now occupied by W. J. Davis.
Jacob Rhodes, by combining farming with a distillery, accumulated a large property, which is now owned by his grand-children, consist- ing of about one thousand acres of land, lying in nearly a solid body south and west of Etna.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
ISAIAH GILES AND GILESVILLE.
Early in the history of the country there came to New England from the mountains of Wales three sturdy brothers with their families, bearing the name of Giles or Gyles. They bore the characteristics that marked the sturdy and determined followers of Owen Glendower. Courageous, thrifty and resourceful, they regarded nothing better in man than honor and self-reliance. One of these families or their de- scendants came early into Eastern New York, and it is from this branch that sprang the family that forms the subject of the following sketch. Owing to a serious misfortune that befell the family early in the present century, mention of which will hereafter be made, many records of the history of the family were totally lost, so that much pertaining to such history, prior to that event, has been perpetuated
145
ISAIAH GILES.
more by tradition than otherwise. But in the preparation of this pa- per all the care that the time would permit has been taken to re- ject everything that did not seem to be well authenticated.
In the summer of 1801 Isaiah Giles came from Orange county to begin a home for himself and family in the town of Dryden upon lands that he had recently purchased on Lot 15. He began his little clear- ing about, and built his log cabin near, the spring that in later years has been known as the Cheese Factory spring, just northwest of Free- ville. After building his cabin he extended his clearing sufficiently to put in a piece of corn the next spring. He then returned east and early the next year, in the month of March, he came back, bringing his wife and children. He did not have time when putting up his house to put on the roof, so that one of the first things to be done, when moving in, was to shovel out the snow, and then ent and put on basswood bark for a roof. Then with a blanket hung up at the door- way the home and castle of the Giles family in Dryden was complete, for the time. From that time until the opening of spring, he was en- gaged in splitting and smoothing up puncheons for a door and floor- ing, and in building bunks for sleeping. In all the toil and care inci- dent to such a beginning he had an earnest and efficient helper in the person of his good wife, Sarah Lanterman, whom he had married some nine years before. Their family then consisted of seven children, in- cluding two pairs of twins. There were subsequently born to them two sons and a daughter. To these children we shall have occasion to refer farther on.
Isaiah Giles and his wife were earnest, thrifty, pushing people, and about them soon began to cluster the evidences of their industry and economy. In the fall of 1802 they harvested their first corn and pota- toes. The winter brought many privations and discomforts, but they passed through it without serious sickness or mishap. In the summer of 1803 they harvested their first crop of wheat, and threshed it in the little log barn that they had built the year before. They winnowed away the chaff, and carried the first grist to the mill of Elder Daniel White, at Freeville, to be ground, and then had their first wheat bread in the town of Dryden. The clearings and improvements were ex- tended each year by dint of hard labor and good management. But in spite of the energy and thrift of Mr. and Mrs. Giles a great mis- fortune was in store for them.
About 1806 there came a man by the name of Thompson who laid claim to the land which Isaiah had bought. Investigation showed that Thompson's title was good and that Giles had been defrauded in
10
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HISTORY OF DRYDEN.
his purchase. Instances of this kind were not uncommon in the early history of Dryden. But the same spirit that had begun the first home in Dryden was ready to begin again. Gathering together his effects he went down upon Fall Creek at the point afterwards for years known as " Gilesville, " and bought another tract of land and began anew. It was here that he, with his sons, built a saw-mill and a carding and fulling mill, and subsequently his sons built an extensive tannery.
Isaiah Giles was a man of considerable prominence in the affairs of the town, at one time serving as magistrate. In this connection a funny circumstance occurred. The writer repeats it as it was told him by Samuel Giles in 1870. Squire Giles, as he was then known, was an ardent Methodist withal, and one dark night a man by the name of Pipher, from the town of Groton, came with his wife to the Giles house and aroused the family, saying that they wanted to be baptised, and that the Lord's business was very urgent. They seemed to have the impression that the civil magistrate was the proper one to administer baptism. Esquire Giles explained the matter to them and directed them to Elder Daniel White, at Freeville, whom they aroused, and who administered the ordinance of baptism and sent them on their way rejoicing.
Although a strong Methodist and feeling the interests of the church of paramount importance, it is said Mr. Giles presented a resolution or motion at town meeting, "that the income from the gospel and school fund should thereafter be used wholly for school purposes." The resolution was carried through his influence, and that of some others.
Mr. Giles died when comparatively a young man, in 1822. His sickness was short and his death unexpected, but he died as he had lived, "diligent in business, fervent in spirit," and a firm believer in the tenets of the church of his choice. His wife survived him forty years, dying in 1862, a woman of great force of character, combined with very good judgment. These qualities were manifested in the manner in which she managed her household after the death of her husband.
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