USA > New York > Washington County > Washington county, New York; its history to the close of the nineteenth century > Part 43
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When the patent was surveyed a large lot, covered with excellent pine timber, had been reserved for the common benefit, and when the division was made between the two colonies, each further reserved three lots for religious purposes, from which last fact it is evident that, although both factions were Presbyterian, each from the outset designed to have its own church and minister. The settlers from New England at first very generally worshipped with Dr. Clark's congregation, but as early as 1769, they organized a separate church with fifty-two members, and five years later began to erect a house of worship for themselves.
It does not appear that there was any open antagonism between the two companies, but rather that the joining of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon elements in the settlement of Salem tended to produce a healthy rivalry and to stimulate the early development of the place. An illus- tration of the persistency with which each refused to cede ascendency to the other, is to be found in the fact that for a long time the name of the place was a matter of contention. Dr. Clark had had blank deeds printed, after completing his negotiations with De Lancy in New York, in order that the settlers in his party might have the land conveyed to them in fitting legal form. Upon these deeds the name of the settlement appeared as New Perth. Dr. Clark had probably fancied that the three families then settled in the place would offer no opposition to a name agreeable to his much more numerous body of emigrants, and had named the embryo town after the ancient capitol of Scotland. But the Massachusetts settlers, who were of English parentage, were quite content to have the place known as White Creek and had no mind to allow their new home to go by a name so redolent of thistles and heather; as a consequence cach party tena- ciously clung to its chosen name and refused to acknowledge the other.
I On account of the irregularity of the boundary lines of that patent there were some frac- tional lots and some of more than 88 acres.
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GAZETTEER OF TOWNS-SALEM.
On March 20, 1774, this settlement having become the most popu- lous in the county. was erected into a township and called New Perth, which name continued as its legal designation until the close of the Revolutionary War. In 1779 an act was passed directing the holding of courts in Charlotte County, but there is no record of any such court until 1786. On February 5th, 1787, an act was passed re-affirming the previous act and directing that the county courts should be held at "Salem." This was the first recorded use of the name now adopted, and it was probably taken from the name of a fort (Fort Salem) which, as we shall presently see, was erected at the time of Burgoyne's invasion, on the site of the present " Brick Church." The name of the fort was probably chosen by the New England element in the settlement in honor of the Massachusetts town of that name, so that although the Scotch-Irish element enjoyed a temporary triumph, the New Englanders in the end were successful in giving a name to the place. In the following year a state law was passed defining all the county boundaries and dividing the counties into towns. "Salem" was the first on the list of the towns so recognized in Charlotte Coun- ty, so that from that year forth no question was raised concerning the. name of the town which is the subject of this sketch.
The people of Dr. Clark's congregation found their log church, des- pite the elaborate and painstaking work which they had lavished upon its construction, a very uncomfortable place to listen to a two hour sermon twice every Sunday. Whenever the weather permitted the services were held near a spring on the opposite side of the road where there was an attractive open space left by the felling of the trees which had been used in the construction of the building. Here the preacher stood beneath a small tent open upon one side and shad- ing him from the sun, with the Bible and Psalm Book placed upon a stand covered with white cloth, and with the audience clustered upon the rising ground in front of him, sitting upon the shelving ledges of rock and the stumps of trees. But in winter and on rainy Sundays in summer they were forced by necessity to worship in the old log church, so within a few years they decided upon a new building which was completed in 1770. This was looked upon through all the sur- rounding country as a triumph of architecture and workmanship. It was the first framed building in the vicinity, and with the exception of two large houses at Fort Edward, used as barracks and storehouse,
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it was the first framed structure in the county. This building is still standing; it is at the top of the hill on the west side of South Main street and is pointed out to strangers as "The Old Meeting House."
In the latter part of October, 1771, the people of New Perth were called upon to offer hospitable protection to some nine families whose homes had been raided by a gang of Green Mountain Boys and who had fled thither to seck shelter. The story of Charles Hutchinson, formerly a corporal in Colonel Montgomery's Highland regiment, will illustrate what happened to all the families thus rendered homeless. Hutchinson said that while he was quietly at work in the field a gang of nine men, among whom were to be recognized Ethan Allen, Re- member Baker and Robert Cochran, came up and began demolishing his house. When he asked them to desist they declared that they had decided to burn his house as an offering to the gods and proceeded to suit the action to the word by kindling fires under the logs they had torn down. Allen and Baker held clubs over poor Hutchinson's head and admonished him forcefully to get out of the vicinity at once; if he ever dared come back again he might look for even worse treat- ment than it was then their pleasure to administer to him and his household. It was of no use to remonstrate so he fled to Salem.
This affair was an episode in the great controversy, described at some length in the earlier pages of this work, over the New Hamp- shire grants. The trouble arose from the unfixed condition of the boundary between New York and New Hampshire (as yet Vermont did not exist) and the matter at once becomes clear when it is explained that the disputed territory had been given out in grants by the gover- nors of both states. This famous dispute began in 1749 when Gover- nor Wentworth of New Hampshire wrote Governor Clinton of New York asking " where his government began," and raged for over forty years. Salem and all the eastern part of Washington County was in- volved in the embroglio but she was always true to New York. In the end those possessing the patents of New Hampshire held their ground, but becoming involved with New Hampshire itself, formed a separate state. When in 1791 Vermont was admitted into the Union as a state, the hatchet was at last buried.
The life at New Perth in the few years which elapsed between its settlement and the outbreak of the Revolution was, aside from the few incidents which have been mentioned, very free from important happenings. Dr. Clark every year collected his one thousand five
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hundred dollars rent and rode on horseback with it two hundred miles to New York. He was untiring in his efforts to promote in every way the welfare of the community. "He was minister, doctor and real estate manager all in one."1 But at length the secular business and especially the collecting of rents seems to have involved him in some trouble and in the summer of 1782 he relinquished his charge. The last ten years of his life (1786-92) were spent as pastor over the part of the original company from Ballybay which had settled at Cedar Spring and Long Cane in South Carolina.
The news of Lexington and the daring stand taken by the revolted colonies, although it must have produced a profound impression on the people of New Perth, did not affect the routine of their daily lives more than to prompt military preparations and to bring those capable of bearing arms to a regular attendance at drill. But when Ethan Allen, the Green Mountain Boy, whose very name struck terror to the hearts of the devout colonists of New Perth, had with Benedict Arnold, in May, 1775, taken possession of Fort Ticonderoga "in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress "-neither of which authorities had, up to that time, seemed to inspire him with any especial awe-the people of Charlotte County, not to be outdone in promoting the cause of liberty, by their old enemies of the New Hampshire grants, speedily enlisted in the patriot cause and setting their old rivalries aside, organized a county committee and formed a regiment of militia.
Prominent in this movement was Dr. John Williams, a young phy- sician who had emigrated from England and settled at New Perth in 1773. He was admitted to a seat in the Provincial Congress, on pre- senting a certificate of fourteen men from White Creek, Camden and the towns to the east, and organized a regiment of militiamen who mingled occasional drilling with the labors of their farms. On the 2nd of July, 1777, General St. Clair, then at Fort Ticonderoga await- ing an attack from the English who were advancing southward under Burgoyne, wrote to Colonel Williams directing him to march to his assistance and adding: "If I had only your people here I would laugh at all the enemy could do." Colonel Williams immediately started north with his regiment-regiment by name but consisting, so far as records show, of only three companies, of which the largest
1 From a paper by Rev. James G. Robertson.
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
(that from New Perth, commanded by Captain Charles Hutchinson, who had been mobbed by Ethan Allen)-numbered but fifty-two men.
But Ticonderoga fell before Colonel Williams reached there, and then spread through the whole countryside the terrible news that General Burgoyne was advancing toward the Hudson valley, spread- ing desolation in his path and openly countenancing the atrocions depredations of the hordes of Indians whom the English ministry had seen fit to allow him to marshal with his British and Hessian forces. The people of New Perth at once set to work to strengthen them- selves against the impending peril by fitting up a fort, which they named Fort Salem.
The New England element at New Perth had, in 1774, begun to erect for themseles a house of worship which they began on plans similar to those adopted by Dr. Clark's parishioners in their famous framed meeting house. . This structure was on the site of the present " Brick Church " and though, at the time of which we are writing, it was not yet fully completed. It had, nevertheless, been used repeat- edly as a house of worship by the Presbyterians of the New England colony. It was this incompleted church that served the people of New Perth as their fortress. The people of the Scotch-Irish colony did their part by tearing up their original log church and setting up the logs thereof in a stockade around the frame structure of the New Englanders. This primitive fort was provisioned, equipped with ovens, garrisoned and in every way fitted up to serve as a retreat and place of safety to the people, in case their town should be attacked by the enemy.
As has been said the people of the district were almost unanimous in espousing the cause of liberty but nevertheless here and there a father or a son would take up the king's cause and join the forces of the invading army.
The presence of Burgoyne's army within so short a distance, his open threats to wreck vengeance on all who did not seek protection within his lines, together with the news of the atrocious cruelty prac- ticed by the Indians in massacring Jane McCrea and several other helpless victims, aroused the inhabitants of New Perth to find a pro- tection more efficient than that of their flimsy block-house and to seek safety in flight. In the latter part of the summer of 1777 the place seems to have been for the most part abandoned and Fort Salem was burned, probably by Tories in the vicinity, in the early autumn. But
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GAZETTEER OF TOWNS-SALEM.
with Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga and the subsequent abandon- ment of Ticonderoga by the British, a feeling of security spread through the country and the householders of New Perth returned un- molested to their firesides and spent the winter in comparative quiet and peace, with no apprehension for safety other than the dread of Indians and wild beasts, which we can imagine to be a very common- place sensation to them after the goose-fleshing and marrow-freezing experiences of the past year. Another block-house was built at New Perth early in 1778. or possibly in 1779, made of logs, twenty feet square, and like its predecessors provided with a stockade. It was named Fort Williams, after Colonel John Williams, and was for a time garrisoned by a regiment of Connecticut militia. From time to time there came rumors of invasion, but none of the invasions ever materialized and the men of New Perth plowed and sowed and reaped in comparative tranquility during the succeeding years of the war.
We have at hand schedules giving the names of the possessors of land on the Turner patent and showing the numbers of the lots in their possession. These bear the dates of 1789 and 1790; they were signed by David Hopkins, one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas for the County of Washington, and audited by Peter S. Cur- tenius, the state auditor. Their object was to show that the persons therein listed had actually resided on " the respective farms named to their names" before the outbreak of hostilities between the colonies and the Mother Country, that they had been obliged to leave their farms by the invasion of the enemy, and that they were consequently entitled to possess their land from that time forth free of quit-rents past or futurc.
These lists comprise two hundred and eighty-two proprietors and one hundred and twenty family names. Several householders pos- sessed two or three lots and several family names appear two, three and four times on the schedules. The number of families therefore who actually resided on the lands of the Turner patent previous to the Revolutionary War would be somewhat less than two hundred and eighty-two but considerably greater than one hundred and twenty. These statements however, must not at best be taken too seriously as denoting those who "actually resided " on the lots of the patent previous to the war. The authorities were of course anxious to smooth over old Whig and Tory differences when once peace had been proclaimed and in cases
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
where substantial citizens were intent on establishing themselves in a certain state it does not appear that the officials enquired any too closely into their claims of "actual residence " before the war. Still these cases, if any, must have been comparatively rare at a time when the difficulties of travelling necessitated an extreme immobility in the population, and the figures above given may be accepted without any considerable marginal allowances.
The people of Salem have not been "amused by strange lights " and led away from their family homesteads to as great an extent as the present resident might fancy. We find the following names on recent assessment rolls, in many cases in the same neighborhoods and very near the same lots attached to the names in the schedule of 1789: Edgar, Duncan, Fitch, Craig, Conner, Cleveland, Hanna, MeMurray, Scott, White, Rogers, Wilson, Steele, Moore, McNitt, Brown, McMil- lan, Clark, McFarland, Martin, Lytle, McAllister, McNish, Arm- strong, Law, Moncrief, Lyon, Nelson, McArthur, Gray, Campbell. Bartlett, Conkey, Gibson, Sillis, McCarter, Murdock, Robinson, Rice, Stewart, Simpson, Stevenson, Smith, Turner, Thomas, Webb, Wright, Clapp, Jackson, Kennedy, McDonald and Mills.
The following family names appear upon recent township maps attached to the same lots that their ancestors are certified to have occupied a century and a quarter ago: Boyd, Beattie, Carswell, Cruik- shank, McClaughrey, Thompson, Hopkins, Law, McCleary and Wil- liams.
In addition to the Turner patent, the present township of Salem comprises several other patents and portions of patents which were occupied to some extent before the Revolutionary War. On the west there are two lots of the Argyle patent lying between the Battenkill and MeDougall's lake; in the northeast corner of the town is a small triangle consisting of a portion of the Farrant patent, and the whole Camden valley in the southeast part of the township is composed of the patents of Douane and Cockburn.
On May 19th, 1770, a patent for two thousand three hundred acres of land was issued by George III to a number of officers and privates who had served in the late French and Indian War; this was the land of the original Camden tract and became the property of James Douane two or three years after it was granted. From the possession of Donane these lands passed into the hands of Philip Embury, under a perpetual annual rent of six pence per acre. Philip Embury headed
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GAZETTEER OF TOWNS-SALEM.
a band of Irish Methodists and settled in this districl in 1769 or 1770. Embury, though an adherent of the Anglican church, had been favor- ably impressed by the teachings of Wesley and is generally considered to have been the founder of Methodism in America. His early death in 1773, left his people without any one competent wisely to advise and lead them, and nearly the whole of his flock became dispersed and sought other localities, most of them finally settling in Canada.
. The first town meeting of which the minutes are now to be found, was held in 1787. At this meeting it was voted that a pound be built on a corner of the ministerial lot belonging to the New England con- gregation ; that the excise and fines be inspected and that the justices, supervisors and poormasters be called to an account respecting the same ; that hogs be shut up or confined so as not to do damage; that a petition be written to the Legislature respecting immorality; that none of the inhabitants of Salem be found in the tavern, except upon necessary business, after nine o'clock at night; that any man who takes a family upon his farm shall return the number and names of such family within forty days after their arrival, to the poormasters of the district, etc. In 1791 it was voted "that every inhabitant of this town shall stop travelers that travel unnecessarily upon the Sab- bath." In 1797 again, it was voted that the supervisors and justices give no license to Sabbath-breakers.
In 1810 it was voted that five dollars be raised by a tax of the town and be appropriated (together with another sum) for the purpose of building a stocks for the town and that the supervisors and town clerk superintend the building of the same. In 1811 the sum of four hun- dred dollars was voted towards finishing the academy. In 1815 it was resolved that one hundred dollars be raised by tax for the purpose of searching for stolen property and the thief or thieves, and that the money be paid over to the inspectors of election and they be appointed a standing committee to carry the above resolution into effect. In 1818 the following certificate of manumission appeared in the records: ." Know all men by these presents that I, Edward Savage, master and owner of a female slave named Lott, have manumitted and dis- charged her, the said Lott, from her servitude, and do hereby manu- mit, discharge and set free the said Lott." This was in pursuance of the act of the Legislature upon the subject of slavery in the state. The birth of slave children is occasionally recorded in the town book as in 1809: "Peter, born of my negro woman named Beck;" in 1814,
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
" Kate, born of my negro slave woman Amy," and in 1817 " Cato born of Amy, a negro woman." In the village records we find mostly the voting of money for fire implements, street lighting, hay scales, a public market, etc., and in 1820 we find an ordinance forbidding any person to fire for amusement or sport any sort of gun or fire-arms or throw any squib or exhibit any fireworks in the village within "he dis- tance of one hundred yards from any church, meeting house, . Ming house, store house or barn.
The settlers of Salem made it one of their first concerns to provide for the education of their children, and the men of Dr. Clark's colony who left their families in Stillwater in the summer of 1766, occupied themselves during that summer not only in clearing their farms and building their cabins, but also in constructing a church and a school house. This original school house stood near the site of the old frame meeting-house already described; it was built at the time of the irst log church, and like it, was a rough uncomfortable log structure. In addition to this there was a school established in the southern part of the township before the Revolutionary War and subsequently district schools were organized in every part of the town of Salem. The names of these school districts are of interest as denoting early land- marks and traditions. Salem, Shushan, Eagleville, Upper Bla :k Creek, Lower Black Creek, Upper White Creek, Lower White Creek, Upper Camden and Lower Camden are names derived from the vid- lages and the natural features of the country. Perkins' Hollow. Fitch's Point, Stewart's District and Law's District are all namerl from early families. The districts of Upper Turnpike and Lower Turnpike were on the old turnpike respectively north and south of Salem, while Red Bridge was named after a red bridge by which in early times the turnpike crossed the Battenkill. The Bushes district was in a wooded section, the Juniper Swamp school house was near the swamp of that name and Blind Buck Hollow perpetuates by its name an old tradition that a blind deer had its pasture grounds in that vicinity.
In the year 1780 four young men, who afterwards became distin- guished in public life, were fitted for college at the school in Salem and in 1791 this school had gained such high standing that it was incorporated by the Regents of the University of the State of New York as an academy. It was named, like the county, after "the father of his country," and was the fourth incorporated academy in the state.
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GAZETTEER OF TOWNS-SALEM.
In 1852 the courses of instruction at Washington Academy were made free to residents of the village of Salem, making this the first free academy in the state outside the city of New York. The academy building is both handsome and capacious.
The United Presbyterian Church of Salem, may be said to date from .Ily 23d, 1751, on which day Dr. Clark was installed as pastor of +1 Newly formed Presbyterian Church at Ballybay. The present 0 (the Old White Church) was built in 1797 at a cost of four thousand dollars, which sum was more than met by the sale of the pews at auction immediately upon the church being fitted for occu- pancy. There was originally a high tumbler-shaped pulpit with a sounding-board over it, but these have been removed. For more than fifty years after Dr. Clark's resignation, the pulpit was occupied by James Proudfit and Alexander, his son. In 1802, the date of James Prou dfit's death, the membership roll contained three hundred names.
The First Presbyterian church in Salem, the Brick Church, was founded by the members of the New England colony in 1769, with fifty-two members. These people, however, worshipped generally with Dr. Clark's congregation and did not until 1774 begin the erec- tion of a meeting-house for themselves. This was a frame structure, and although it was never completed, it was used by the congregation several times for divine services and was utilized at the time of Bur- goyne's invasion as a fort and was burned in the latter part of the st nmer of 1777 by hostile Tories in the neighborhood. The people were slow in recovering from their loss and from the disorganized condition of affairs during the Revolution, and did not erect a second Imeeting-house until 1783 or 1784. In 1832 the church was remodeled and enlarged at a cost of three thousand dollars, but four years later the building was completely destroyed by fire. The congregation was not, however, daunted and immediately erected a brick edifice, on the lines of the present one, in which they worshipped for about three years. In 1840 this was almost totally burned; the people of the church, however, had no thought of abandoning their good work and in the same year rebuilt their house of worship as it now stands. The chapel was added subsequently.
On February 18th, 1860, a number of Salem people who had been brought up as Episcopalians, being desirous of establishing a church of their denomination, met, elected wardens and vestrymen and in-
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