USA > New York > Essex County > The military and civil history of the county of Essex, New York : and a general survey of its physical geography, its mines and minerals, and industrial pursuits, embracing an account of the northern wilderness > Part 18
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The lumber required for their buildings was procured at Vergennes. The saw-mills at the Boquet, destroyed in the course of the war, had not, at that time, been rebuilt. Meanwhile, other embarrassments gathered around to darken and accelerate the decaying fortunes of Mr. Gilli- land. In several of the claims purchased by him in good faith, and for valuable considerations, and regularly located, he had filed the requisite applications in the appropriate colonial offices. The confusion incident to the convulsed period which ensued, impeded, and finally prevented the consummation of these grants by patents. Others appropri-
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ating, as he alleged, a transcript of the boundaries of the premises, contained in his documents, had applied to the new government, and obtained patents of the territory embraced in his previous locations. Litigation ensued. The antagonist titles were sustained. Costs and expenses followed, which absorbed the remnant of his property, and led to his imprisonment upon the jail limits of New York.
He returned at length to his former residence, despond- ent, and cherishing a disgust at the cold ingratitude of many, who in brighter days he has fostered and protected, and partially alienated in mind, he wandered into the soli- tudes of the forest, and there perished, stricken by some sud- den attack, or overcome by exposure. His lacerated hands and knees, worn deeply into the flesh, attested how long and fearfully he had struggled with hunger, cold and exhaus- tion. Thus died the pioneer of Essex county ; the former possessor of a baronial domain, and the dispenser of muni- ficent hospitalities.
A strong current of emigration from New England rapidly diffused a hardy and valuable population along the western shore of Lake Champlain, and gradually pene- trated the interior. Ticonderoga and Crown point were settled by American emigrants at the close of the revolu- tion. George and Alexander Trimble were among the earliest and most prominent of these settlers. Two lots upon Whallon's bay were occupied the same year by Amos and David Stafford. The name of Charlotte county was in 1784 changed to Washington, and the eventual arrangement of the Vermont controversy limited its terri- tory in the Champlain valley to the western side of the lake.
On the division of Washington county, in 1788, a new county was organized, embracing the territory which now constitutes the counties of Essex, Clinton, and the eastern section of Franklin. The new county was called Clinton, and was divided into the four towns, Champlain, Platts- burgh, Crown point and Willsboro', which were incor- porated at the same time with the organization of the county. The town of Crown Point, in its original limits,
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comprised the present town of that name, Ticonderoga, also Moriah, Westport, Elizabethtown, Schroon, Minerva, New- comb, North Hudson and a part of Keene. Willsboro' embraced the residue of the present county of Essex, and three towns now included in Clinton. Each of the towns of Crown point and Willsboro', at the period of its organ- ization, spread over a territory of about nine hundred square miles.
At the first town meeting of Willsboro', Melchior Hoffnagle was elected supervisor, and Daniel Sheldon town clerk. The first town meeting of Crown Point was held in December, 1788. At this epoch, the ordinary civil func- tions ofincorporated towns were little regarded or enforced. A plan was adopted, and although not ratified by any legis- lation, was conceded by common consent, by which the town officers were apportioned to the various prominent settlements. Each locality, designated in a primary meet- ing the individuals who should receive the several appoint- ments appropriated to them. A delegate bore the respective nominations to the general town meeting, in which they were almost uniformly confirmed. At the general elections, the polls were held on the two first days, one-half a day in a place, and on the third at some central or populous point. These expedients facilitated and secured as far as practicable, the exercise of their civil rights to the settlers.
A claim instituted by the Caughnawaga and St. Regis Indians in 1792, to a vast tract of land, embracing nearly the entire territory between the St. Lawrence and Mohawk rivers, was urged for many years with great pertinacity and earnestness. It was resisted on various grounds, with- out violating any principle of public justice and private rights; investigation amply established the facts, that these tribes had no original title to the district, but that it was held exclusively by the Iroquois, who had alienated it to the whites by sales to individuals and by cessions through public treaties.
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Charles Platt was appointed the first judge of the newly organized county, and William McAuley, of Willsboro', one of the side judges. Plattsburgh was made the shire- town of the county. At this period no road had been con- structed from Willsboro', north of the Boquet river. The traveler was guided solely by blazed trees over the Wills- boro' mountain. The route thus indicated, extended through the forest to the Au Sable river, which was crossed at the High bridge, about three miles below the site of Keeseville. A wood road had been opened from that point to Plattsburgh. A similar track, it is probable, was the only avenue of intercourse between Crown Point and Split rock. The settlement at Ticonderoga was about seventy miles distant from Plattsburgh, at which place the in- habitants were compelled to appear, to assert their rights as litigants, or to discharge their duties as jurors and witnesses. Jay was incorporated as a town in January, and Elizabethtown in February, 1801. Chesterfield was organized in 1802, and Essex and Lewis, April 4, 1805.
In 1790, Platt Rogers established a ferry from Basin Harbor, and constructed a road from the landing to a point near Split rock, where it connected with the road made in an early period of the settlement. He erected, in the same season, a bridge over the Boquet, at Wills- boro' falls, and constructed a road from that place to Peru, in Clinton county. These services were remune- rated by the state, through an appropriation to Rogers and his associates, of a large tract from the public lands. The venerable Judge Hatch, who until recently, survived, was one of the earliest settlers in the interior of the country. He moved, in 1792, into that part of the town of Essex now known as Brookfield, which was surveyed and sold in 1788. " This district," he says, "was at that time chiefly in a state of nature." In 1804, he " removed to the village of Westport, then called North West Bay. The distance was eight miles, and the removal of his family occupied two days, and the labor of four men, to open a passage for a wagon. At Westport, a small
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improvement had previously been commenced, and one frame house, three log houses, a saw-mill, and one barn had been erected. No road extended south beyond the limits of that town. A track had been opened to Pleasant Valley, where an infant settlement had just been formed. A road which was almost impassable, extended to the new colonies, in Lewis, and Jay, and Keene.1 The alarm and excitement which agitated the whole country at the defeat of St. Clair, in this year, and the apprehension of a gene- ral combination of the Indian tribes of the west with the Six Nations, extended to these humble hamlets.
A block-house was erected for the protection of the inhabitants, near the village of Essex. The enterprise of the pioneer of New England had penetrated the gorges of the mountains, and his keen eye had fastened upon rich and alluring districts far in the forest paths I have men- tioned. The table lands of Jay, the fertile valleys of Schroon, and the ravines and slopes in Lewis, Elizabeth- town and Keene, were all occupied previous to 1798. An exploring party from the east had reached an eminence in Elizabethtown, that looks down upon the beautiful vale now occupied by the county seat of Essex county, embo- somed among a lofty group of mountains, and adorned by the branches of the Boquet, which glide through its ver- dant plains, and gazing in delight upon the scene, they pronounced it Pleasant Valley. It still preserves, by com- mon sentiment, the name and the same preeminence. Schroon was settled about the year 1797, by Samuel Scrib- ner, Thomas Leland, Moses Patee, Benjamin Banker and Simeon Rawson, who were all men of New England. Thomas Hinckley made the first purchase in the town of Lewis, in 1796. The most important measure designed to open and develop the interior sections of the country, was the enactment of laws which authorized the construction, by Platt Rogers, and others, of public roads. I have already referred to one. Another was authorized to be constructed
1 Letter Hon. Charles Hatch.
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from Sandy Hill to the Canada line, and passing along the Schroon valley, through Elizabethtown and Lewis, and crossed the Au Sable river at a fording place near Keese- ville. This highway is still designated as the Old State road. Numerous appropriations, at more recent periods, have been made by the state, for the construction of public roads, which traverse the county in various directions. One of these, opened many years since, extending from Westport to Hopkinton, traversing Elizabethtown, the gorges of the Keene mountains, and the plains of North Elba, penetrated what was then denominated, the fifty miles woods. A road, constructed under acts of 1841 and 1844, from Lake Champlain to Cartharge, in Jefferson county, was gradually built by an application of specific road taxes. It passes through the towns of Crown Point, Schroon and Newcomb, penetrating the heart of the Adirondacs. These avenues are of the deepest importance in promoting the progress and improvement of the county. Rogers and his associates received an enormous grant of unappropriated lands, covering an area of about seventy- three thousand acres. It costs, in the construction of these roads, according to the estimates preserved by tradition, " one penny and two farthings per acre."
Essex county was organized in 1799, in the division of Clinton county, and is now bounded on the north by Clin- ton and Franklin counties, on the west by Franklin and Hamilton, on the south by Washington and Warren, and on the east by Lake Champlain. The area of this county embraces one thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine square miles, or one million one hundred and thirty-eight thousand five hundred acres. It is the second county in territorial extent in the state, being only exceeded by St. Lawrence. New towns, by repeated divisions, have been occasionally formed, as circumstances and the convenience of the population required. The county now comprises eighteen incorporated townships, several of which com- prehend more territory than some of the counties in the state. Nearly all of them are too extended for the con-
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venient exercise of their civil and political functions. The village of Essex was originally constituted the county shire, and the old block-house, mentioned before, was appro- priated for the public use, and was occupied for these pur- poses, until the removal of the county seat to Pleasant Valley. By the census of 1800, the combined population of Clinton and Essex counties, was eight thousand five hun- dred and seventy-two, including fifty-eight slaves. The next decade exhibits a very decisive increase. Essex alone contained, by the census of 1810, nine thousand five hun- dred and twenty-five population, and Clinton eight thousand and two. The tabular exhibit, Appendix D, will present the progress of the county in population.
Essex county voted with Clinton, until after the census of 1800. Thomas Stower was the first representative of Essex, when voting independent of Clinton.1
· The war of 1812, although it closed many of the ordi- nary channels of business in this county, accelerated its progress by the new demands created for all the products of industry and agriculture, and by the general and abundant diffusion of money it produced. The enemy appeared on several occasions in the waters of Essex county, and in the summer of 1813, entered the Boquet with two galleys and two barges for the purpose of seizing a quantity of government flour which had been deposited at Willsboro' falls. Landing at different points, and committing many wanton ravages on private property, they retired after a slight skirmish with a body of militia under General Wadhams near the former entrenchments of Burgoyne. The fire of the militia killed or wounded nearly all that were in the rear galley. She floated down the river a disabled wreck and was towed into the lake, by boats sent to her assistance.1 After this repulse the British flotilla returned to the Isle aux Noix.
The citizens of the county exhibited promptitude and zeal in responding to the calls of patriotism, during the war, and particularly on the approach of the British forces,
1 For the complete civil list of Essex county, see Appendix C.
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in 1814, upon Plattsburgh. Many of the volunteers and militia of Essex, creditably participated in the events of that brief, although glorious campaign.
The masses of the settlers of Essex county were of New England origin, and in a congenial soil and climate, familiar to their habits and experiences, they implanted the usages and characteristics of their puritan fatherland. No county of the state embraces a population of higher intel- ligence, of purer morality, or more industrious and frugal habits. Its early history presents only a counterpart of the aspect of every new colony, where among the virtuous and worthy, there always drifts from more mature com- munities, the loose and reckless.
The disorganizing and demoralizing effects of the war of the revolution exerted a malignant influence upon the character of the frontier population. Essex county was not exempt from these consequences. The testimony before me, of aged citizens, presents a striking portraiture of the state of society, in some sections of the county, where the restraints of government were scarcely recog- nized and where laws seem to have administered only to evil passions. I quote the language of a judicious observer, in speaking of a town, now second to none in its high moral and social position : " When an individual wished to secure a piece of land, he erected upon it a cabin, and repelled others by physical force; if unsuccessful or absent, his cabin was prostrated, and the last aggressor took pos- session of the coveted premises, and claimed the title. The parties, with their partisans and a supply of whiskey, met on the soil, and ' tried their wager of battle.' The victor maintained the possession. To correct these evils an association was formed, and a system adopted, which required a person desiring to occupy a lot, to perfect a sur- vey of the premises, and to file a transcript with the secre- tary of the society. The title thus established was held sacred, for the purpose of that community."1 The vene-
1 C. Fenton, Esq.
14
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rable author, since deceased, of a communication, describ- ing the primitive habits of the county states: "that justices' courts, at that period, were usually held in taverns the innkeeper himself being the justice. The most frivo- lous difficulties were nursed into lawsuits ; these, attended amid intemperance and revelings, led to assaults, and trifling controversies which engendered further and debas- ing litigation.1 Essex county presented in this rude and demoralized class of its citizens, a stage of society exhibited along every frontier of civilization. Wherever I have suc- ceeded in tracing the history of the early settlement of this county, I almost universally have found one promi- nent feature developed, and which strongly marks the character and descent of the people. The first impulse, and almost instinct of the settlers, even when their cabins were scattered over a wide area of several miles, seems to have been to secure the erection of a school-house. For many years in the early stages of the settlements, these schools had no legal organization, and were sustained alone by the voluntary contributions of the people, unaided by the public bounty.2 The school-house supplied the place of public worship. The missionary at an early day ap- peared in the midst of these settlements, superseding in the religious duties, the humbler offices of the private Christian. Churches were soon organized in various sec- tions of the county. Many colonies were accompanied in their emigration by their own spiritual guides.
The cold season of 1816, which produced such universal distress and suffering, inflicted a scarcity upon this new country, that visited it almost with the horrors of famine. So close and pressing was the destitution, that the indigent, gathering from many miles about a mill, would crave the privilege of collecting its sweepings, to preserve the lives of their families. A few sufficiently provident to cut the corn in the sap, saved it sound enough for planting. In the succeeding spring, many traveled fifty miles to procure
1 Levi Higby, Esq.
2 John Hoffnagle.
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this seed. Partial failure of crops had before occurred, but the season of 1816 will long be memorable, as the only instance in the history of the county of extreme destitu- tion and suffering.
Ticonderoga and Crown Point present, upon the margin of Lake Champlain, a low and beautiful tract gently un- dulating and gradually ascending as it recedes, and swell- ing towards their western limits into bold and abrupt eminences. Clay predominates in these towns in the vici- nity of the lake, intercepted by occasional seams of sand, and in the interior the soil is generally a gravel or sandy loam. Several sections of these towns are distinguished for the great excellence of their meadow lands. A view of Westport, Essex, and Willsboro', from the lake, presents ranges of highly cultivated and fertile farms, mingled with a combination of hills and plains which beautifully adorn and diversify the scenery. The two former spread into the interior bosoms of choice land, more elevated, and which are environed by lofty hills and mountains. Willsboro' point is a low, flat peninsula, projecting several miles into Champlain, having the long estuary, formerly known as Pereu bay, on its western side. This portion of Willsboro' affords some of the best farms in the county. A ridge of high, warm and rich land traverses the town of Essex dia- gonally from near the lake to Whallonsburgh, embracing a territory of great natural fertility and inferior to few sections of the state in the advanced character and excel- lence of its tillage. The soil of these towns is very diver- sified, although a sandy loam is its prevailing character. Moriah and Chesterfield, both bordering upon the lake, are more broken and stony than the other lake towns and contain less arable and cultivated land. The former ascends abruptly, and in a series of terraces or high valleys, until it attains an elevation of several hundred feet a short distance from the lake. The soil of this tract is deep and strong. Chesterfield contains many ranges of sand and rocky districts, but embraces much territory of very supe- rior land. Elizabethtown and Lewis, lying among the
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gorges of the mountains and intersected by various branches of the Boquet, expose chiefly a light soil, with some alluvial flats and valleys enriched by the debris of the upland, which form tracts of the choicest land. Parts of these towns are managed, in their agricultural affairs, with great skill and sagacity. North Hudson and Keene, while they include several fine farms, are, in the aggregate, broken and mountainous. The Keene flats are unsur- passed in beauty and fertility. The territorial limits of Schroon equals the area of some counties, and is exceed- ingly diversified in the face of the country and the nature of the soil.1 The centre of the town forms a beautiful rich valley of warm alluvial soil, through which flows, along high and even banks, the waters of the upper Hud- son. Successful cultivation has been extended into the ravines and recesses of the mountains traversed by tributa- ries of this stream. Fertile and cultivated tracts occur in various other sections of the town.
The town of Minerva was organized from a part of Schroon, and incorporated in 1817, when it comprised a few log cabins scattered over its wide surface. It is situ- ated in the extreme south-western corner of the county. A very large proportion of this town is still occupied by the original forest. Separated by a high range of moun- tains from other sections of the county, connected with them by imperfect communication, and with little associa- tions in their business affairs, this most valuable and inte- resting town has been little known or appreciated. In the general improvement of the town, in the appearance of the farms, the erection of new buildings, and its indus-
1 This town derives its name from the lovely lake which it embraces. The legend is, that the lake was visited by the French in their military ex- peditions and in fishing and hunting excursions from Crown Point and Ticon- deroga, and was named by them Scarron, in honor of the widow Scarron, the celebrated Madam Maintenon, of the reign of Louis XIV. Rogers men- tions Schoon creek which was crossed in marching between Fort Edward and Lake George. The islands of this lake afford sites for elegant and re- tired villas and country seats, unsurpassed by the waters of Cumberland and Westmoreland, in picturesque beauty and romantic seclusion.
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trial pursuits, no part of the county exhibited, to my observation, more decisive and gratifying evidences of prosperity and advancement. The physical formation of Minerva is peculiar and striking. The whole territory of the town is elevated, rising in a gradual ascent of a succession of lofty valleys, formed by deep, broad, and sweeping undulations. This formation, viewed from an eminence, communicates a rich rural aspect, and great beauty to the landscape. In the language of one of its inhabitants,1 " Minerva is a rugged and mountainous town, containing about one-third mountain, one-third fea- sible land, and the residue rough and stony."
The town of Newcomb is high, spreading over an ele- vation -apart from the altitude of the mountains -ranging from one thousand five hundred to one thousand eight hundred feet, which presents a broken and rocky surface. Yet its slopes and elevated valleys comprise tracts of much natural vigor, with great depth of soil. These qualities of the earth are exhibited by the dense and stately growth of its primitive and magnificent hard-wood forests. Iso- lated farms have been occupied in different parts of this town, since an early period of the present century.
Jay was settled as early as 1798. Remote, and at that time nearly inaccessible from Lake Champlain, its great natural fertility and beauty attracted the emigrant, who, passing by lands contiguous to that great artery of the country, penetrated to this wilderness by a mere bridle path, and transported thither, on horseback, his family and effects. A large portion of this town is formed of high and precipitous hills and mountains, and its whole territory is elevated. In the valleys, the soil is light, but usually vigorous. Upon several parallel ridges, which traverse nearly its entire length, ranges of land occur, distinguished by a warm, quick, and highly productive soil. These tracts allured the early emigration to this
1 A. P. Morse.
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region seventy years ago, and they still preserve their high character for great and enduring fertility.
Wilmington and St. Armands, recently separated from it, occupy the north-western angle of Essex county. They are generally, in their topographical aspect, elevated, rough, and mountainous. The soil is sandy and gravelly, with occasional alternations of loam. These towns com- prise numerous bosoms and flats of excellent land. The long slopes gradually descending from the mountains to the valleys of the streams, present a highly picturesque and beautiful scenery. Settlements commenced in Wil- mington, in 1800, and in the district now forming St. Armands, not until 1829, by any permanent occupancy.1
The town of North Elba is environed, upon all except its western borders, by a lofty sierra, which separates it from the other sections of the county, by an almost insuperable barrier. It is now approached by a circuitous route through Clinton and Franklin counties by the road which penetrates the mountains at the Wilmington notch, or by the state road, which passes through the deep gorges, and along the high and broken slopes of the Keene mountains. North Elba has little assimilation to the other towns of the county, either in its topographical arrangement or in the character of its soil. The gigantic amphitheatre of moun- tains, which almost encircle the town, form in its outline an arc of nearly sixty miles in extent, and embraces within this area a territory of about one hundred square miles. Upon the west, the plains of North Elba mingle with that vast plateau, teeming with rivers and lakes and forests, which spread to the shores of the St. Lawrence. The grandeur and imposing beauty of these mountain bul- warks, which singularly blending with a landscape of lakes and rivulets, vales and hills, combine to form a scenery of surpassing loveliness and magnificence. From one position, the eye gazes on the lofty group of the Adirondac moun- tains. Mt. Marcy stands out in his perfect contour and
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