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 19
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1 Elias Goodspeed.
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vast dimensions. Mt. McIntyre, Colden, McMartin, trace their outlines upon the horizon, and far towards the south- west, the group of Mt. Seward limit the view ; on the north, the Whiteface envelops the plain, and on the east, tower the dark and rugged cliffs of the Keene mountains.
The western branch of the Au Sable river flows through the town, and nearly the whole distance along a wide allu- vial valley, almost as broad, and apparently of fertility equal to the flats of the Mohawk river. The soil of this intervale is generally a deep alluvial. Ascending from the valley to the table land, the earth becomes a dark and rich loam free from stones and rock. The growth of hard wood upon this territory is in no part of the state sur- passed in its size, quality, and density. Its maple, birch, cherry and beech, are as stately, and form as highly tim- bered woodland as in the most favored sections of the country. Slightly elevated above the table-land, and re- ceding from the river, commence the plains, which expand far into the interior. This tract embraces, in its general character, a warm, rich sandy loam. This land is scarcely inferior to the other soils of the town in vigor, while it exerts an early and more impulsive influence on vegetation, and is more easily and cheaply tilled.
With a view of instituting a comparison between this rich and beautiful region, and some of the most highly cultivated and productive districts of Vermont, and thus to test the adaptation of the former from altitude and cli- mate to agricultural purposes, I applied to the late venerable and distinguished professor of natural history, in the Vermont University, Rev. Zadock Thompson, for inform- ation on the subject. His reply is contained in a very interesting note in which he states that many of the most valuable and productive farms in Vermont are situated at an altitude of five hundred to one thousand two hundred feet. It will be understood that the elevations mentioned by Professor Thompson, are from the basis of Lake Cham- plain, which is itself ninety-three feet above tide water. The plateau, which embraces the arable parts of North
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Elba, is estimated in the report of Professor Benedict, as ranging from one thousand four hundred, to one thousand eight hundred feet above tide. This town contains nearly eighty thousand acres of land, seven-tenths of which, it is computed, are susceptible of cultivation.
The great beauty of this town, its agricultural capabili- ties, and its peculiar history as well as the general absence of information relative to its character and importance, seem to require a somewhat extended view of its progress and condition.1
A few pioneers, near the commencement of the century, with their families, entered into this remote and deeply secluded region. They seem to have encountered severer hardships and trials than the ordinary privations incident to a frontier life. Divided from civilized society by a chain of almost impenetrable mountains, they probably reached the place then known as the Plains of Abraham, by the circuitous route, now traversed by a road, along the course of the Saranac. While they waited in expecta- tion of the scanty harvest yielded by their improvident agriculture, they subsisted by fishing and hunting, and from supplies transported by their own labor from the nearest settlements. The numerous beaver meadows furnished an abundant supply of fodder and grazing for the cattle. Until 1810 little progress was made either in the agricultural or social condition of this remote colony. The construction about that period of the Elba Iron Works, by Archibald McIntyre and his associates, gave
1 The vestiges of Indian occupation in North Elba, and the territory around the interior lakes which remain, leave no doubt that at some former period they congregated there in great numbers. I found in the county a obscure tradition that the partisan Rogers attacked and destroyed a village in the absence of the warriors, situated on the Plains of Abraham; that he was pursued and overtaken, and a battle fought on the banks of the Boquet, just below the village of Pleasant Valley. Relics of both Euro- pean and savage weapons of war found on the scene of the supposed con- flict, seem to corroborate the legend, or at least indicate the probability of an engagement between Europeans and Indians having occurred at that place.
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a new aspect to the affairs of this region. The history of that enterprise I shall narrate in another place. The re- quirements of these works created occupation for all the population in the vicinity, formed a domestic market, and attracted numerous settlers. Schools were established, religious ordinances observed, and an efficient and benign influence exerted by the benevolent proprietors. Unhap- pily for the progress and permanent prosperity of the district, nearly all the land in the township at this period was held by the state. The emigrant, when he arrived, selected his lot without perfecting a title, or even securing a preemption, relying upon his right and ability to do so at his convenience. This delay eventually defeated their occupation of the farms, and blasted all the anticipated rewards of the toil and privations of the pioneers. In the language of a citizen of the town, " a great landholder heard of this territory of state lands, came and inspected it, returned to Albany and made a purchase at the land office of the entire tract." The settlers, soon apprised of this event, so fraught with evil and calamity to themselves, sought to purchase of him their possessions. He an- nounced to them that the lands were not, at that time, in market. They too well understood the purport of this intimation. They were not, however, disturbed in their occupation, but unwilling to continue a course of improve- ment, which might enure only to the benefit of a stranger, little further progress was made in the cultivation of their farms, and the land was gradually abandoned with the exception of a few lots.
In 1840, only seven families remained on the eighty thousand acres which now forms the town of North Elba. At this time the lands were offered for sale, emigration was again directed to the region, and the evidences of re- turning prosperity were restored. The public highways were again opened and improved. At this period a new episode occurred in the checkered history of North Elba. Mr. Gerrit Smith, who had become an extensive proprietor of the town, made gratuitous conveyances of a large
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number of quarter lots, embracing forty acres each, to colored persons, with the professed design, it was under- stood, of forming a colony, which should constitute an asylum for a peculiar class of African population. I found no difference of opinion in that region, in reference to the character and results of this movement. Whatever may have been the motive of the benefaction, the issue of the experiment has entailed only disappointment and suffering upon the recipients of the gratuity, while the act has exercised a depressing and sinister influence upon the prosperity and reputation of the country. The negro, ill adapted in his physical constitution to the rigorous climate, with neither experience nor competency to the independent management of business affairs, and adverse to them from habits and propensities, soon felt the inappropriateness of his position. He has abandoned his acquisition in disgust and disappointment, or became, in many instances, an im- poverished and destitute object of public or private charity. A very considerable proportion of these freeholds have been sold for taxes ; others have passed into the hands of specula- tors, and when I visited the district only a few if any of the large number of original grantees retained the occupa- tion of the farms they received. A knowledge of these facts has been widely diffused, and although the whole scheme bore in its inception the inherent elements of fail- ure, the result has been imputed not to these causes, but public opinion has ascribed it to an inhospitable climate and the sterility of the soil.
During the brief operations of the Adirondac works, the affairs of North Elba received a fresh impulse. A road cut through the forest, in the gorges of the mountains, gave to the inhabitants a winter communication with that place, where they enjoyed the advantages of a ready market, at liberal prices, for all their agricultural commodities.
North Elba was separated from Keene, and incorporated in 1849. The population of the town is steadily advancing, and now amounts to nearly four hundred souls. Lands may be purchased, which are adapted to farming purposes,
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for from one dollar to six dollars per acre, the price being governed by position, and the condition of the premises, in reference to improvements and cultivation.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE REBELLION, 1849-1861.
Essex county was agitated by the same admonitions which in every part of the republic disturbed and moved the popular heart and presaged the approaching conflict, when the collision of opinion and sentiment should be succeeded by the din of arms. Distant from the imme- diate scenes of the terrible events, that shook the founda- tions of the Union, her territory was exempt from much of the woe and suffering that desolated other sections of the country. But none met the responsibilities of the hour with greater vigor and promptitude, or more freely offered the libation of its wealth and blood, in the common cause.
It is a strange coincidence that in one of the most re- mote and politically unimportant counties of New York, and in one of its smallest and most secluded towns, sepa- rated from the world by vast mountain barriers, an individual should have resided, who impressed a momentous and startling episode upon the history of the nation, and im- pelled a vast stride in the procession of events, which cul- minated in the rebellion.
I have elsewhere described the romantic town of North Elba and its beautiful plateau, embosomed among the Adirondacks and encircled by its stupendous amphitheatre of rocks and mountains. Nature, in such a scene, would cherish the reveries of religious fanaticism and stimulate visions of a social or political enthusiast. We have referred to the abortive scheme of Mr. Gerrit Smith for establishing in Essex county a colony of emancipated negroes. Benign and worthy in its designs it bore the inherent elements of failure. It was evident that the experiment was languish-
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ing and must eventually fail. In the year 1849, a man called upon Mr Smith and representing to him, in refer- ence to the project which had been announced in the public papers, that the negro, without experience in his contemplated occupation and unaccustomed to the climate, was not adapted to the intended colonization. He proposed to take up a farm in North Elba, and by affording the negroes instruction and partial employment to aid in the enterprise. Mr. Smith acquiesced in his views and promptly conveyed to him a lot. This person was John Brown. At that time he was a resident of Massachuetts, but the same or the next year, removed to North Elba with his family and flocks and herds. He ereceted a humble dwell- ing house on a slope of the Adirondacks, and almost beneath the shadow of their pinnacles. This was his nominal home during the eventful scenes of the succeed- ing ten years; his family continued to reside there until after his death and there in a picturesque spot which he himself selected, repose his remains.
A brief notice of this remarkable person seems to be imposed on me by his relations to Essex county. No one can resist the conviction, that John Brown, by the texture of his spirit, and the qualities of his mind, was no ordinary character. He was a lineal descendant from a pilgrim of the May-Flower, and appears to have been preeminently imbued with the stern religious enthusiasm, the ardent zeal, the self-reliance and the inflexible devotion to truth and the peculiar convictions of right and justice he che- rished, that marked the early Puritan principles. His reli- gious fervor was inflamed by fanaticism. He believed that he maintained direct communion with heavenly wis- dom, and that he was guided by specific visions and spiritual teachings. His biographers represent him to have been a man of constant prayer, and that the Bible was uniformly consulted as the guide and counsellor of his course. Religious ordinances he not only observed in his own practices, but they were maintained and inculcated in his relations with others. In the wildest period of his
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Kansas career, twice each day he observed public prayer, and at every meal offered a grace of thanksgiving and praise. He united in youth with the Congregational church, and at an early age commenced studying with a view to the ministry, but this purpose was arrested by a. severe affection of the eyes.
Before his settlement in North Elba, he had engaged in varied business pursuits without any considerable success, and usually with decided reverses. In 1848, he visited Europe in the execution of a wool speculation, which re- sulted in a disastrous failure. During his sojourn in Europe, his native taste and love for fine stock prompted him to the inspection of the choice herds of the various countries he had visited. By this means he acquired a knowledge of their respective qualities and value, which rendered him subsequently a useful citizen and intelligent. breeder in Essex county. Brown embraced at an early period the most vehement anti-slavery sentiments, and in 1839 imagined that by a divine consecration he had been constituted the liberator of the African race. This idea. became the all absorbing passion of his life, and to its real- ization he subordinated every other feeling.
We may not assert that John Brown was insane, and on his final trial in Virginia he peremptorily refused to allow that defense to be interposed, although he admitted that. in his maternal line a strong taint of insanity prevailed which had been frequently developed. It is certain that. several members of that branch of his family were inmates of lunatic asylums, and that the mind of a son who perished in Kansas was disordered. On the subject of negro emanei- pation, it can scarcely admit of doubt, he was a monomaniac. This fervid enthusiasm had disturbed the balance of his: powerful and ardent mind. An inherent predilection for military affairs, cultivated by historical reading, had appa- rently suggested the idea that he was predestinated to become the military leader of a slave insurrection. We can only conjecture of his proceedings before visiting Europe ; but while in England, he sought intercourse with
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the prominent abolitionists of that country and exposed to them his plans. It is evident that these men did not approve or sanction his violent designs. In reference per- haps to his visions of military duties, he constantly attended reviews in England and upon the continent, and was a close and intelligent observer of the organization and tactics of the armies of the several countries. Stimulated by the same feeling and avowedly to prepare himself for an impending crisis, Brown visited many of the battle-fields of Napoleon, and with the self-complacent reliance on his own powers, or perhaps presumption, which was a striking trait of his character, freely criticized the campaigns of the great commander and often objected to his strategy. It is a singular fact that Brown, in his Kansas warfare, brought into practice on a diminutive scale the manœuvres he had theoretically preferred to those of the French emperor.
The first prominent appearance of Brown before the people of Essex county was in connection with the agri- cultural fair of 1850. The report of the society for that year, thus refers to the subject : "The appearance upon the ground of a number of very choice and beautiful Devons from the herd of Mr. John Brown residing in one of our most remote and secluded towns, attracted great at- tention, and added much to the interest of the fair. The interest and admiration they excited have attracted public attention to the subject, and have already resulted in the introduction of several choice animals into the region. We have no doubt that this influence upon the character of the stock of our county will be permanent and decisive.1
While a resident of North Elba his earnest and energetic character attracted jealous friends, and often aroused strong hostility. A peculiarity of temperament, which moulded his whole career, was a proneness to assert what he be- lieved to be right and just, with no regard to any personal interest. An iron will and the determination of a self-reli- ant and decisive spirit sustained by great native intellectual
1 Transactions of New York State Agricultural Society, 1850.
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properties conferred those qualities by which he exercised a magnetic power over the masses.
When the disturbances arose in Kansas, four sons of Brown were already there, and he instantly hastened to the participation in events; and he went as to a congenial field, in which he recognized the first scenes of the opening drama of conflict and blood. In the council of the Free State party, he at once attained an ascendancy, and was promi- nent among its active and controlling spirits. He was everywhere present, in all the acts of lawlessness and violence which debauched both parties and demoralized society. He manifested no insignificant skill and science in organizing the forces and constructing fortifications appropriate to that warfare, and fought the battles of his party with great conduct and intrepidity. A partial subsi- dence of the turmoils in Kansas allowed Brown and his sons to return to the east, with the ostensible object of rejoining his family at North Elba. His traces were exposed in various sections of the northern states, as the active and efficient emissary of the free state agitation. At Boston he appeared by request, before a committee of the legislature, to whom had been submitted a proposition to extend material aid to Kansas, and delivered an elaborate and inflammatory address on the public affairs of that territory.
In the ensuing summer we again discern him in Kansas, and his advent was signalized by renewed agitation and conflicts. Soon after his return, Brown entered the state of Missouri with an armed band, and by violence liberated twelve slaves. He led them into Kansas and by a slow and scarcely disguised progress conducted them through Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan, and placed them in security upon the shores of Canada. This extraordi- nary and lawless act astounded the country through its whole borders, and was severely reprobated by many of his own sympathizers. The governor of Missouri offered a reward of three thousand dollars for his arrest. The pre- sident of the United States proclaimed an additional
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reward of two hundred and fifty dollars, with the same object. Brown subsequently avowed, that a prominent motive which suggested this action, was the desire of de- monstrating the practicability of a forcible liberation of the American slaves.
By the sole authority of his own name and influence, he assembled a secret convention at Chatham, Canada, com- posed of all classes of his associates. Its proceedings were private, and have never been clearly disclosed. A colored minister presided, and we are authorized to assume that an early invasion of the south was on that occasion discussed and arranged. From this convention emanated the constitu- tion that proposed to establish within the United States a pro- visional government; Although this instrument professed in one article to denounce all interference with the existing state or federal political organizations, it was calculated to subvert both. The negro preacher, who presided over this assembly, was constituted president of the contemplated government. This fantastic and extravagant chimera, was accepted by Brown as an actuality. In his brief subse- quent career, he professed to act under the obligations of the oath it imposed, and holding the appointment by its provision of a commander-in-chief, he signed with that designation the commissions of his subordinates. Large numbers of printed copies of this document, designed to be disseminated, were found in his possession at Harper's ferry. The movements of Brown from this period, until the final catastrophe closed his turbulent career, were more disguised than they had been, but were not less active or zealous. Occasional glimpses are detected, where he ap- pears inflaming the abolition sentiment, haranguing public meetings, and never slumbering in his assaults upon the existence of slavery.
In the month of April, 1859, he was in Essex county, enlisting associates. Like Mahomet, he found his first and firmest proselytes in his own household and among his own kindred. Five certainly of the youth of North Elba, three sons, a son-in-law and a brother of the latter, embraced
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his views, and all but one son died amid the terrible scenes at Harper's Ferry. Brown devoted, itis believed, most of the eight months preceding the invasion of Virginia to the mili- tary organization of the escaped slaves, that had gathered in Canada. He caused several hundred spear heads, a weapon peculiarly adapted to the hand of an undisciplined negro, in the service he meditated, to be fabricated in New England and transported to Harper's ferry. That posi- tion had long before been designated in the plans of Brown as the point at which to initiate his proposed occupation of slave territory, and it was selected with unusual skill and forecast. He had been for many years perfectly familiar with the topography of that whole region. This sierra he designed as the base of the guerrilla war he proposed to maintain. Harper's Ferry was easily accessi- ble from Canada and in intimate communication with the entire north. The seizure of the guns and munitions de- posited at the arsenal would furnish, he conceived, all the means necessary for arming the slave population.
A large unoccupied farm, embracing three dwelling houses, and situated within a few miles of Harper's Ferry, was hired by Brown, under the name of Smith, and afforded a convenient rendezvous to the initiated, and a safe receptacle for the arms and ammunition which were actively but cautiously collected. The unusual deport- ment of these men excited no small attention and com- ment, but suspicion was eluded by the pretext, that they were preparing to form an extensive wool-growing esta- blishment. The presence, among other females, of a daughter, and the wife of a son, attached plausibility to these professions. With the prudence and care which so singularly contrasted with his reckless and violent schemes, the safety of these women was secured by their secret return to North Elba, directly preceding the outbreak. Brown had designated the 24th of October, as the day on which to strike a blow, that he hoped would secure the fruition of all his dreams and toils. Either alarmed by
15
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a suspicion of treachery among his followers, or from a natural fear of detection, he was induced to anticipate the movement a week. This change in his plans, his friends allege, was fatal to their primary success. It deranged a concerted movement of the slaves, and defeated a co- operation from Canada, Kansas, and New England. Brown, himself, did not sanction by his language at Charlestown, this assertion.
The details of his designs are shrouded in profound and impenetrable mystery. He was too shrewd and cautious to leave anything to the revelations of paper, and main- tained after his capture an inflexible silence, which he earnestly enjoined on his associates in their final interview. This course was the promptings of a determination not to prejudice by any disclosures the cause he had so earn- estly cherished, and to shield his secret coadjutors from the consequences of a complicity in his acts. The dreams and purposes that excited his feverish mind are buried in his grave, and we now can only speculate upon the nature of designs, which, to the calm judgment of history, seem to have been suggested by a wild and insane fanaticism, that inspired the attempt, with seventeen white and five negro followers, to uproot a system the growth of centu- ries, and to oppose and defy the forces not merely of the southern states but all the powers of the federal govern- ment. The facts which have been disclosed warrant the inference, that the plans of Brown embraced the design of the surprise of Harper's Ferry; the capture of the arsenal; the seizure of prominent citizens to be held as hostages and ransomed by a supply of provisions or the liberation of slaves, and an escape to the mountains with the arms and ammunition he might secure. He hoped to maintain himself among the fastnesses of the mountains until he should be supported from the north and relieved by the general servile insurrection, he believed his presence would enkindle. He would possess ample means, with his rifles and spears, to arm the slaves. His schemes were admirably conceived, and the execution attempted with
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