USA > New York > Franklin County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 49
USA > New York > Jefferson County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 49
USA > New York > Lewis County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 49
USA > New York > Oswego County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 49
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 49
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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with its tanneries and iron works. Then came the era when the Black River Canal brought commerce and made Carthage an im- portant shipping center. Later came the paper manufacturing in- dustry, until as long ago as 1923, when the last survey was made, Carthage had 1,000 wage earners with an annual payroll of upwards of $1,000,000. Carthage impresses one as a modern town, with its wide, paved streets and attractive business places. It has three fine schools, two banks, eight churches and a prosperous weekly newspaper.
The close proximity of Ogdensburg to Canada has made it one of the leading ports of entry in the United States in point of an- nual volume of business. Through the Port of Ogdensburg in 1930 passed merchandise to the value of $153,856,510. Modern Ogdens- burg is a decidedly different town than the straggling village which the British invaded during the War of 1812. It is one of the most attractive cities in the North, located as it is on the beautiful St. Lawrence river. Of course it profits from an enormous tourist trade and in addition it has a number of important manufacturing establishments. Ogdensburg has a beautiful library, formerly the Rosseel Mansion, it has the Remington Museum of Arts, the former Parish mansion, it has the great St. Lawrence State Hospital, lo- cated in the midst of beautiful grounds along the river, the A. Barton Hepburn Hospital which bears a wide reputation, two modern high schools, one a parochial institution, and several fine grammar schools.
The total merchandize imported, exported and coastwise through the port of Ogdensburg in 1930 was 1,278,176 tons, at the value of $153,856,510. Ogdensburg as a port has shown an increase in collections from $71,565.89 in 1920 to $310,081.51 in 1929; has shown an increase in passenger traffic to the United States from 149,236 in 1923 to 278,677 in 1927 to 312,162 in 1929. St. Law- rence district No. 7 ranks eighth on the American continent in the amount of imports and exports flowing through this district, the amount of international trade during the year 1929 being $211,676,578.
Ogdensburg has a number of important churches, including St. Mary's, already referred to, the Cathedral of the Diocese of Ogdensburg. At Ogdensburg the bishop of the diocese, at present Bishop Joseph Conroy, lives and the fact that here is the cathedral
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and the bishop has made Ogdensburg an important church center. There is the old Methodist Church with its square tower, the tall- spired Presbyterian Church, the Baptist Church, the Congregation- alist Church, St. John's Episcopal Church, Notre Dame Church, the Hebrew Synagogue and the little White Mission. Ogdensburg has three important banks and the city is the business and financial center of a wide area in St. Lawrence county.
It is to be regretted that space in a work of this kind does not permit a detailed consideration of all the villages in the North Country. Already something has been said of the history of three important St. Lawrence county villages, Potsdam, Canton and Gouv- erneur. Potsdam and Canton, as we have seen, are essentially school towns. Education is their big industry, and as a result few villages in the North possess a more cultured population. Gouver- neur is one of the most prosperous villages in the county, a business center for a wide area with important mining and quarrying opera- tions going on in its immediate vicinity.
The manner in which the village of Massena has recently come forward is indicated by the fact that its population almost doubled in the decade between 1920 and 1930. The great plant of the Alu- minum Company of America is of course Massena's leading in- dustry and indeed it is one of the leading industries of the North Country. More than 3,000 men are employed by this gigantic con- cern alone. Approximately $7,000,000 is distributed every year in Massena in payrolls. The total amount of freight passing through the Massena office amounts to $3,000,000 annually of which the Aluminum company pays over one-half. The total value of all manu- factured products in Massena in the year 1927 was estimated at $35,000,000, including its milk industry of over $1,000,000 a year.
Its water power is of course Massena's main asset. As this is being written the state of New York proposes the development of the St. Lawrence water power at Massena, estimated to amount of one-twentieth of the undeveloped water power of the United States. It has been said that in the Long Sault rapids is an undeveloped water power capable of yielding 1,000,000 electrical horsepower. Once the state develops the St. Lawrence power, as at present pro- posed, with the great dam near Massena, that village bids fair to become one of the leading industrial cities of the state.
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In the latter part of the nineteenth century Massena was the center of a very prosperous agricultural section. The village de- pended for its existence upon the trade from the surrounding towns. The fact that the level of the St. Lawrence river, which was surging its way to the sea, scarcely three miles distant, was nearly fifty feet higher than that of the Grass river, which runs through the center of the town, apparently occasioned no interest. Finally a man with the keen instinct of an engineer awakened to the fact that by digging a canal not more than three miles long, the waters of the Grass river would receive the waters of the St. Lawrence with the same fall as they obtain in ten miles of rapids, and return them to the St. Lawrence seven miles below. The St. Lawrence River Power Company's canal and the power house at Massena now stand to prove the truth of that idea. The St. Lawrence River Power Company, incorporated in 1896, not only cut the canal but har- nessed the great power thus made available. As a result the Alu- minum Company of America, with a ready supply of power avail- able, started building its plant. But so fast did this plant expand that more power was needed and a great transmission line was con- structed from Cedar Rapids in Canada to Massena, thus making available 75,000 additional electrical horsepower. At the same time another power line was built west of Massena to the Racquette river.
Massena is in no sense a boom town but it has had a tremendous growth. It has modern stores and banks and several beautiful churches. What is more it has one of the most active Chambers of Commerce in all Northern New York which has contributed in no small measure to the industrial and civic growth of the village. In 1880 Massena had less than 1,000 population. It did not have a bank until 1884 but today it is as modern a village as can be found in the entire state.
Massena is essentially an industrial town. Malone, on the other hand, is not distinctly a manufacturing center, although there are important industries there. It is the county seat of Franklin county and profits from the business which comes from the holding of the county courts and the meetings of the county board of supervisors. It is the center, too, of a rich rural area. Malone has nearly 9,000
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inhabitants. One of the four daily papers in Northern New York is located there. It has Franklin Academy, one of the leading high schools in the North Country, St. Joseph's Academy, founded by the Ursuline Nuns in 1898, and the Northern New York Institute for Deaf Mutes, a state institution, conducted at an annual ex- pense of about $35,000. It has two important banks. And it has a number of beautiful churches, the fine, large Presbyterian Church, erected in the early eighties, the Baptist Church, dedicated in 1874, the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was dedicated in 1867, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, erected in 1884, and St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, dedicated in 1882. Malone also has the Alice Hyde Memorial Hospital and the Farrar Home for Deserving Old Ladies.
Lowville, the county seat of Lewis county, is a progressive rural village with a population of about 3,500. It has the new Lowville Academy which cost a half a million dollars to construct and was opened in 1926, the fine, new Masonic Temple, dedicated in 1929, the Lowville Library, erected on Dayan street in 1927 at a cost of $40,000, and two banks, the Lewis County Trust Company with re- sources of over $3,000,000, and the Black River National Bank & Trust Company, which observed its fiftieth anniversary in 1929. There are five, fine churches, the new St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church, which cost $190,000, and was dedicated in 1929 by Bishop Joseph H. Conroy, Trinity Episcopal Church with the new Anna House, Easton Parish House, added to the church in 1924, the Pres- byterian Church, sometimes called the Old Stone Church, which was built in 1831, the Baptist Church which observed its centennial in 1924, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, also a century old.
This, then, is the North Country of today. Wide, concrete high- ways have replaced the Indian trails and the crude roads of the pioneers, and filling stations and tourists lodging houses stand where once were the stage coach taverns. Where Montcalm's guns bat- tered to pieces old Fort Oswego, one of the greatest harbors on the Great Lakes is now in the process of construction. Where Henry Coffeen hewed out a clearing in the woods, the thriving city of Watertown stands. Where once little Fort La Presentation stood with the lily banner of France waving over its ramparts is Ogdens- burg, bustling with commerce and industry. There is little in this
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modern Northern New York with its prosperous cities and villages, its hydro-electric developments and its chambers of commerce to remind one of the North Country of yesterday. Only the crumbling chimneys of old Fort Haldimand at Carleton Island, the great cha- teau of the Le Rays at Le Raysville, the solid masonry walls of old Fort Ontario at Oswego and the level expanse of the battlefield at Sackets Harbor serve to recall days when the fate of a continent was being decided in the woods of Northern New York.
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