USA > New York > Franklin County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 25
USA > New York > Jefferson County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 25
USA > New York > Lewis County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 25
USA > New York > Oswego County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 25
USA > New York > St Lawrence County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 25
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
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Joseph's mistress, Annette Savage, remained in Northern New York until the day of her death. The former king erected a house of massive stone for her not far from Evans Mills, long known as the De La Foille house. Here she resided with her daughter, Caroline Charlotte, the only surviving child of her left-handed union with Joseph. Later she married Joseph De La Foille, a young Frenchman of good family who squandered his wife's money. They moved to Watertown and Madame De La Foille assisted in the keeping of a small store. After the death of De La Foille she married a Harry Horr and moved to New York City where she died. The daughter of Joseph Bonaparte and Ann Savage, Caroline, married Zebulon H. Benton in Watertown. She received a large wedding dowry from her father and for a time the two lived in luxury. During the Second Empire Caroline had her moment of glory when she was recognized by Louis Napoleon. She sailed for France with her two children. Her son was put in a French military academy and her daughter, Josephine, became a maid of honor to the empress. During the empire Caroline received a small pension, but when the royal family went into exile she returned to this country, was reduced to poverty and finally died at Richfield Springs in 1890 when seventy years of age. She is buried in the little churchyard at Oxbow, Jeffer- son county, and few who pass through the quiet, little hamlet realize that there sleeps the niece of the Napoleon Bonaparte.
PRINCE MURAT
Prince Napoleon Francois Lucien Charles Murat was a boy in his teens when he first came to Northern New York with his uncle, Joseph Bonaparte. He was the youngest of the sons of Napoleon's brother-in-law, the dashing cavalry leader, Joachim Murat, whom the emperor later placed on the throne of Naples. Prince Murat was a rough, strapping, young fellow, eternally in debt, always drinking and more interested in horse-racing than anything else. Arrested in Bordenstown for assault and battery as the result of a drunken brawl, he came to Northern New York and conceived the idea of founding a city between Evans Mills and Theresa to be known as Joachim after his father. He did build some roads, erected a grist mill and started the construction of a hotel. He opened a store in
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his "city," stocked it with Parisian finery to the amazement of the country folk around about and then proceeded to give himself up to horse racing and boisterous living.
The Baroness de Feriet accosted Murat while traveling to Utica from Northern New York by stage. Murat and a gay company of cronies were on the stage, "all young men, very common and ignor- ant of any courtesy to women," writes the Baroness indignantly. "Only one was married and he was of still less account than the rest; we know him very well, but no one is more ordinary or has the appearance of a more evil person than he. In short it was Prince Murat, who has been to the Hermitage with his uncle. When I recognized him and saw the others he was with, I took great care not to make myself known nor to appear to know him, in fear less he should annoy me with some marked impertinence."
Murat continued to trade horses and default on his obligations until finally he was haled into court at Theresa and his creditors became so annoying that he left for other parts. The "city" of Joachim soon fell into decay. Today the name is found only on the bridge and dam which were built when the "city" was planned.
JOHN LE FARGE
About this time another Frenchman of an entirely different type bought lands in Northern New York and came there to live. Jean Frederic Le Farge, born in France about 1786, had been a soldier in the expedition Napoleon sent against Santo Domingo under Gen. Victor Emmanuel LeClerc. Le Farge was captured but made his escape and landed in Philadelphia in 1806. He returned to Europe, became interested in the mercantile trade and soon gained wealth. In 1817 he first purchased lands in what was known as "Penet's Square" in Jefferson county and later acquired other holdings until eventually he owned a great estate.
If LeRay was a genial landlord, La Farge was not. He dis- possessed squatters, insisted upon rigid adherence to terms of mort- gages and leases and made himself as cordially hated as any man in all Northern New York. Nevertheless La Farge continually in- creased his holdings. In 1835 he bought all the Northern New York lands of Joseph Bonaparte, paying $80,000 for what had cost Joseph
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$120,000. He built what is now known as the Orleans House at LaFargeville where he resided for some time and then constructed a stone mansion at the head of Perch Lake which he furnished handsomely. But enraged tenants were continually shooting out the windows of the Perch Lake house and in 1833 the proprietor started the erection of a great house with embattled walls a mile south of the village of LaFargeville. It was an imposing house of cut granite set in the midst of park-like grounds, the whole estate surrounded by a stone wall. A hall, twelve feet wide, ran the whole length of the first story of the mansion. The woodwork was exquisitely carved and the whole house was furnished sumptously, La Farge resolving to make it the finest private home in the state. Fountains flashed in the sunlight and rare flowers bloomed in the gardens. To this splendid mansion La Farge, then 47, brought his young bride of 19. But if the hatred of the tenants did not disturb the land- owner, they did his bride, and her influence was sufficient to persuade her husband to offer all his Northern New York possessions for sale in 1837 and the estate passed into other hands. Today only a portion of one wing and a part of the cut stone wall remains.
THE "CUP AND SAUCER" HOUSE
Nor was this French migration to Northern New York confined to the great. The advertisements of Vincent LeRay, particularly those in which he recommended Northern New York as an ideal place for vineyards and silk culture, brought many of a more lowly class, a number of whom had served in the Napoleonic armies. Many of these settled at or near Cape Vincent where it was speci- fied by contract that each house must have one door, two windows and a flower garden.
It was at Cape Vincent, so the tradition goes, that Real and his associates plotted to free Napoleon from St. Helena. They caused to be erected on the shores of the St. Lawrence a grotesque residence which came to be known throughout the countryside as the "cup and saucer house" from its unusual appearance. All the living and sleeping apartments were located on the ground floor. The doors and windows were of the French design, of oval tops, two at each open- ing. A wide porch supported by massive pillars extended across the
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front or river side of the house. The upper story, or cup, was much smaller than the lower and contained but two rooms. One of these, luxuriantly furnished, was the room said to be waiting for the emperor. An air of mystery surrounded the strange house by the river. A great pier glass in the dining room was said to swing out, disclosing a passageway to the river. There were stories of secret meetings in the "cup and saucer house," lasting far into the night, when details of the plot were worked out. The presence in Cape Vincent at various times of many closely associated with Napoleon during the time of his might lent credence to the tales. Among them were Gen. Desfurneau, the Depauds, Delafoille, Jean Renier Osy and Galbaud de Fort, who had served all through Napoleon's campaigns, was a chevalier of the Legion of Honor, knight of the order of Maximillian Joseph of Bavaria and the order of St. Joseph of France. He is buried in the little French cemetery at Cape Vin- cent, far from the sunny France of his youth.
About three miles from Cape Vincent toward Chaumont was another settlement of French, most of whom were from Alsace. An- other was located in the Croissant neighborhood in the town of LeRay. Here the houses had galleries and were surrounded with wicket fences after the French fashion. A chamberlain of the em- peror lived here and an old grenadier named Dominique, who had been in the retreat from Moscow. The story is told of another resi- dent of this settlement, a portrait painter, pupil of David, who had more than a hundred paintings of the emperor and his marshals adorning his humble dwelling.
THE LEGEND OF THE LOST DAUPHIN
Did the lost dauphin, the rightful Louis XVII of France, grow to manhood among the Indians of Northern New York? Was that lost dauphin no other than the Rev. Eleazer Williams, so called Indian rector, whose mortal remains have been resting nearly seventy-five years in a simple grave at Hogansburg in the North Country. Back in the early 1850s, there were many in this country who believed that without a shadow of doubt Eleazer Williams was the lost dauphin and they could produce much evidence to support their con- tention. Now it is quite generally-although not entirely-admitted
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that Eleazer Williams was exactly what he seemed to be, a half- breed Indian and had not a trace of Bourbon blood in his veins.
As a background for the lost dauphin legend, it should be remem- bered that the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antionette of France was seized and imprisoned in the so called Prison of the Temple August 10th, 1792, having been given into the keeping of a man named Simon, a cobbler. It is also established that this Simon treated the young prince with the greatest of cruelty, kept him half- starved in a filthy, poorly ventilated place and that the dauphin con- tinued to be a prisoner in the Temple at least until June 1, 1795. He is presumed to have died June 8th of that year but there was just enough mystery about that death to cause the story to be cir- culated that the prince was not dead at all but had been spirited away to some safe place. Certainly the exact place of his burial has never been definitely determined. Undoubtedly a boy died in the Temple but whether that boy was actually the dauphin or not is a question which will probably never be settled.
In the February, 1853, number of Putnam's Magazine, the Rev. John H. Hanson, an Episcopal rector, who at one time had lived in Waddington, St. Lawrence county, published an article which stirred the country. In this article Mr. Hanson endeavored to prove that the dauphin had not been put to death in the Temple but indeed had been spirited away to America and still lived in the person of the Rev. Eleazer Williams. Later Mr. Hanson went more exhaustively into his subject in a book entitled, "The Lost Prince." It should be said that the Rev. Mr. Hanson was a particularly logical and enter- taining writer and made a good case for Eleazer Williams, such a good case in fact that there are persons to this day who believe that it is a rightful king of France and not a half-breed Indian who is buried in the simple cemetery at Hogansburg.
Eleazer Williams was supposedly the son of one Thomas Williams of Caughnawaga, who, in turn, was presumably the grandson of that Eunice Williams, daughter of a Deerfield clergyman, who was cap- tured by the Indians at the time of the Deerfield massacre. Eleazer was one of twelve children, but whereas the other eleven were said to be unmistakably Indian in appearance, Eleazer, according to con- temporaneous accounts resembled more a Caucasian. At any rate about 1800 Eleazer was sent to school in Massachusetts and remained
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in school until about 1812 when the war broke out. During the War of 1812 he was engaged to mingle with the St. Regis Indians and keep them loyal to the United States. Later he was at the head of a corps of rangers, saw some active service and was indeed severely wounded at the Battle of Plattsburgh. He was ordained a priest in the Episcopal church, spent a large part of his time at Oneida and in Wisconsin and finally returned east with his wife, a French woman, about 1850, locating in St. Regis and Hogansburg. He died August 28th, 1858.
So much for the facts. Now as to the lost dauphin legend. It seems that the Rev. Mr. Williams and the Rev. Mr. Hanson had a chance meeting on a train in 1851 in the vicinity of Malone. Williams told Hanson that he knew nothing whatever about his earlier years and that his mind was a blank until one day, when about 14, he cut his head on a rock in diving which restored his intelligence. Still he could not recall his earlier life definitely but had certain vague memories such as seeing troops drilling in a garden and of lying on a carpet with his head against the silken dress of a lady.
Williams also told Hanson that he had recognized instantly a portrait of Simon, the Cobbler, that even then he did not suspect his royal origin until 1841 when the Prince de Joinville, son of Louis Philippe, who was touring this country, sought him out in Wisconsin and told him he was the dauphin and tried to enduce him to renounce his rights. Then Williams said he started to investigate for himself and discovered a number of strange things. One was that his birth had never been recorded on the church register at Caughnawaga, although the births of all his reputed brothers and sisters were so registered. He further found out, so he says, that a man named Belanger on his death bed in New Orleans, in 1848, confessed that he had brought the dauphin to this country and had hidden him among the Indians of Northern New York. Furthermore Williams had on his face scars such as were said to have been inflicted on the dauphin by Simon, when he was a prisoner in the Temple.
Mr. Hanson, greatly interested in the subject, continued his inves- tigations. He obtained a statement from the sole survivor of a din- ner party given to the French ambassador, M. Genet, in New York, in 1818, that Genet had said at that time that the dauphin was not
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dead but residing then in Western New York and that M. LeRay de Chaumont, the Jefferson, knew something about it.
The secretary of the Prince de Joinville emphatically denied Williams' story and said that the prince and the Indian met only by chance and their conversation was entirely upon historical matters. Mr. Hanson retaliating by submitting good evidence to show that the meeting between the two was not accidental and indeed had been sought by the prince. But neither the prince nor his secretary would have anything further to say on the matter. Furthermore Vincent LeRay de Chaumont, son of James LeRay de Chaumont, wrote indig- nantly denying that his father ever knew anything about a lost dauphin being in the North Country woods.
Since then the story has been discussed pro and con many times. The church records at Caughnawaga were examined again and it was found that while they contained no record of the birth of Eleazer, neither did they contain records of the births of several of the other Williams children. Witnesses were found to testitfy that the scars on Eleazer's legs and face were caused by a fall from a rock on Lake George. Two affidavits were secured from Eleazer's reputed mother, one testifying that he was her natural son and the other that he was her adopted son, thereby furnishing ammunition for both camps.
For years Williams had a robe which he claimed belonged to Marie Antionette of France and which he said had been given him by a lady who came from France and who considered him to be the lost dauphin. After his death this robe passed through various hands, being worn at one time in an amateur performance of Richard the Third in Fort Covington and also at an amateur ball in Malone. Sometime later it was cut into pieces and sold, bringing a total of $23.
Eleazer Williams, whether Indian or French prince, left an estate of exactly $106.11 to be divided among his creditors after the ad- ministration expenses had been paid. His "tin box with journal and other manuscripts" brought only three dollars.
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FRENCH INFLUENCE IN NORTH COUNTRY HISTORY
It was a colorful chapter in the history of Northern New York, the period of the emigres with their pitiable attempt to maintain the splendor of the old world in the drab woodland of the North-King Joseph and his gay company gliding across the bosom of his lake in his gondola, the Baroness de Feriet with her grand piano and her flowers, Count Real plotting away in his grotesque house on the banks of the great river, LeRay in bumping coach and liveried outriders, poor Eleazer Williams playing at being a prince, and in a hundred stumpy fields, veterans of the Imperial Guard working their little farms.
Over all loomed the shadow of L'Homme, the Eagle on the Rock, the Corsican. They toasted him in splendid mansion and humble log dwelling, waiting for the day when he would come to lead them once more. Now all is past. No longer does one hear the polished French of the boulevards in tiny, North Country villages. The Reals, the LeRays, the Le Farges and the de Feriets have long since gone. The "cup and saucer" house is no more. A French name over a shop in Cape Vincent, a gallic inscription in an old cemetery is all that remains to remind one of the time when the soldiers of Napoleon found refuge in the woodlands of the North.
CHAPTER XI.
STAGE COACH, PACKET AND CANAL BOAT
THE OLD TIME STAGE COACH-STAGE COACH LINES AND JUNCTION POINTS- TAVERNS OF STAGE COACH DAYS -- THE OSWEGO CANAL AND ITS EF- FECT UPON OSWEGO-THE OLD BLACK RIVER CANAL THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC-MEACHAM'S BIG CHEESE-THE MORMONS IN NORTHERN NEW YORK.
It was no light thing to embark on a journey in Northern New York in the thirties. Most people solved the problem by staying at home. He who must travel, packed his carpet bag, often made his will, wrapped himself in his cloak, kissed his wife affectionately and waited at the village tavern for the stage coach. The stage coach was a colorful vehicle, drawn by prancing horses, its deck filled with merry passengers, or it was an uncomfortable, jolting instrument of torture, according to one's point of view. Mrs. E. J. Clark, an old time resident of Adams, Jefferson county, recalled the Rome stage as a highly varnished, bright yellow vehicle, drawn by four well-fed horses, bedecked with red and yellow tassels, which came dashing into the village with a flourish, the driver sounding his arrival with a blast on a tin horn.
The late H. H. Lyman of Lorraine had similar recollections. As a boy, the arrival of the stage was always a great event to him. "It was a great sight to watch it come up the road from the 'Huddle,' " he writes, "with its four horses on a sharp jump, with a deck load of laughing, joking passengers, the driver sitting straight as a cob in his seat, holding the four lines in his gloved hand and occasionally swinging and cracking a long whip over the heads of the leaders, or with the long lash entangling a chicken or touching up a saucy dog beside the road. As they came alongside the old distillery near the
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corner, the team was put to a sharp gallop, whirled up to the tavern door with a spurge and a hurrah which brought things up standing. The passengers jumped out and ranged up to the bar in a jiffy, assuaged their thirst, climbing aboard and were off again like a shot for the next tavern. They did not always stop at every house; the passengers or their appetites controlled that. A load that could take their sap at every tavern from Watertown to Rome was said not to be uncommon in those times when tippling and rum drinking was thought to be the right thing for almost everybody."
But Baroness Janice de Feriet, whose mansion, "The Hermitage," stood a hundred years ago at the great bend in the Black river, has different testimony. Describing a stage trip to Utica in the thirties, she writes : I journeyed until 7 o'clock in the evening when we stopped at Leyden for supper. I had had nothing to eat since breakfast and the road was more and more detestable so that I was very tired and faint and vexed with everything. I would not sleep and feared every instance that I should not be able to resist the jolts of that wretched vehicle I went like this all the way to Utica where we arrived yesterday, Thursday at 8:30 a. m. in a great rainstorm."
The roads in that day were such that passengers very often had to get out and push the stage out of the mud. C. P. Scovil of Low- ville, a state legislator of pre-Civil war days, had a thrilling experi- ence on a stage trip from Utica to Lowville in the winter of 1843. In a letter written some time after the occurrence in question, he says :
"Mr. Ruger (State Senator William Ruger of Jefferson county) and his wife occupied the back seat. Amos Buck, member from Lewis, his niece and myself, had the middle seat, while Preston King (later a United States senator), and George Redington of St. Law- rence mounted the front seat with the driver. The roads were alter- nately snow drift and mud, and we were out half a dozen times hunting up rails with which to pry up the wagon; sometimes going twenty or thirty rods to find them, there being a board fence on each side of the wagon road. Just before we arrived at the Black River House we turned over, injuring Mr. Buck badly and at sun- rise in the morning (for we traveled all night), as we were turning up to the old Boonville House, four miles from Boonville, we went
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over again, breaking Redington's arm and injuring Buck and Mrs. Ruger so that when we got into the house Mrs. Ruger and Buck both fainted away, and we sent to Boonville for a physician."
It was by no means an unusual thing for a stage coach to turn over, as witness this article from the Watertown Register & Adver- tiser of August 3rd, 1831: "Saturday evening last as the Utica stage was proceeding on its way to Sackets Harbor, it stopped at the bridge in this village for the purpose of taking in a passenger. And in choosing ground for the stoppage by some movement of the horses the stage was upset, by which accident, one of the passengers, a gen- tleman from Connecticut, had his arm broken, a Mr. Gillingham and a Mr. McCleary were considerably bruised and cut on the head and a lady was somewhat injured."
In 1833 Moses Eames of Rutland, for many years a prominent resident of Jefferson county, took a stage trip from Watertown to Syracuse. Mr. Eames kept a diary for a great many years and today this diary at the Jefferson County Historical Society building, is as good source material as we have on life in early Northern New York. Concerning the stage trip, Mr. Eames writes: "Feb. 18-I went in the stage to Watertown and staid there all day and night. It was a clear and pleasant day. My expenses in Watertown and stage fare to Syracuse was $4.50.
"Feb. 19-I started at 4 o'clock in the morning from Watertown and got to Syracuse at 1/2 past one in the night and the expenses on the way was 75 cents. There was 3 passengers in the stage with me, one whose name was Pierce from St. Lawrence county and one by the name of Taylor, a pious deacon from Ellisburgh, and the other was a sergeant in the army who was getting recruits for the army and we all had a debate on the Scriptures. But the Deacon Taylor got out at Fort Brewerton and it being late at night the subject was not resumed. The roads were so bad that we walked for a number of miles."
OLD STAGE COACH JUNCTION POINTS
Often the stage, supplied periodically with fresh relays of horses and occasionally with a new driver, traveled all night, the passengers napping between jolts. And even if a stop was made at a tavern for
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the night, long before the sun was up in the morning the stage was on its way again. Moses Eames left Watertown at 4 o'clock in the morning on the Syracuse stage, but the Utica stage left the old American House at Watertown at 2 o'clock. What an epidemic of yawns there must have been as the sleepy passengers, bundled to the ears in their cloaks, climbed aboard the stages, while the drivers with swinging lanterns lighted their way.
Places like Denmark in Lewis county and Central Square and Hannibal in Oswego county were in their heydey then. Denmark, especially, was a stage center of the greatest importance. Today as one drives through the quiet, little village with its fringe of stone houses along the road, it is hard to realize that there was a day when Denmark was known to all travelers through the North. It was at Denmark that the stage coach line from Rome had its terminus. At Denmark, too, the line from Utica turned off for Watertown, and at Denmark the line for Ogdenburg, sixty-four miles away, had its start. A busy place indeed was Denmark then with its taverns filled with travelers, horses being changed and heavy coaches rumbling up its one street every time of the day and night. From Denmark the road to Watertown led through Champion and Rutland. The road to Ogdensburg was by way of Carthage, Wilna, Antwerp, DeKalb and Heuvelton.
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