IV.

EARLY TOWN MEETINGS, ROADS AND HOUSES.

1787-1810.

Otsego County was formerly part of Montgomery. Montgomery had before been called Tryon County after the Colonial Governor, William Tryon. Governor Tryon became a Tory during the Revolution and hence the change in name. At the close of the war Montgomery embraced lands enough to have formed a small state—the lands that now comprise the counties of Montgomery, Otsego, Herkimer, Fulton, Hamilton, St. Lawrence, Lewis, Oswego, Jefferson and parts of Delaware, Oneida and Schoharie.

Otsego was formed from Montgomery in 1791, but the need for a division of the large territory comprising Montgomery had been felt soon after it was set off from Albany County in 1772 under the name of Tryon. The Legislative Council in 1775 set apart a certain tract called the Old England district, in which were included settlements on the Unadilla River and Butternut Creek: under this name the tract was known during the Revolution. After the war, it was reorganized under the same name with new officers and so continued until Otsego was set off in 1791 and then the name disappeared.

Otsego first comprised only two towns—the towns called Otsego and Cherry Valley, but in 1792 the town of Otsego was divided and the name Unadilla was given to its southern half. In that town of Unadilla were then embraced lands that have since been made to constitute seven Otsego County towns, and which by the census of 1890 had a population of 20,024, divided as follows: Butternuts, 2,723; Morris, 1,920; Milford, 2,051; Laurens, 1,659; Oneonta, 8,018; Otego, 1,840; Unadilla, 2,723; Oneonta Village,[8] being not only the largest community in Otsego County, but the largest between Albany and Binghamton. When Oneonta was first taken off from Unadilla, it was named Otego from the creek that still flows across its territory—the Wauteghe Creek of earlier times.

The division of the Unadilla territory began in 1796 when Butternuts (with lands afterwards taken from Butternuts and called Morris), Oneonta, (including lands that afterwards were taken from Oneonta to make Laurens), and Milford were erected as separate towns. The present Otego lands remained a part of Unadilla until 1822. This division found its justification in the growth of population which had been surprisingly large before the 18th century closed. As early as 1794, Otsego County was able to cast 1,487 votes for Member of Congress, which would mean a population of probably more than 10,000. The town of Otsego alone in 1795 had 2,160 male inhabitants above the age of sixteen. Six years later the entire county contained 21,343 souls. Spafford in 1813, which was before Otego was taken off, credited the town of Unadilla with a population of 1,426, and the taxable property was valued at $141,896. Unadilla had five distilleries and fourteen schoolhouses. The land was “held in fee.”

A study of the records of this town of Unadilla, as contained in a large pigskin-bound volume, now in the office of the Town Clerk, sheds interesting light on many aspects of frontier life. It contains the record of the town meeting held in 1796, which met in the house of Daniel Bissell, on the site of the present residence of Samuel D. Bacon, which for so many years was the home of Dr. Evander Odell. This meeting was presided over by Nathaniel Wattles of Wattles’s Ferry. David Baits was elected supervisor and Gurdon Huntington town clerk. It was voted that the next town meeting should also be held in Daniel Bissell’s house, but later meetings held their sessions “in the schoolhouse near Daniel Bissell’s.” In 1798 the house of Solomon Martin was used; in several other years the schoolhouse.

Suggestions were often made that meetings be held outside the village, because of the long distances which many persons had traveled for the earlier meetings. In 1817, and some other years, voters assembled at the house of Capt. Elisha S. Saunders, several miles up the river. Motions were afterwards made that meetings take place on the Unadilla river, in the paper mill country, and in Unadilla Centre, but these were lost.

At the meeting in 1797 it was voted that “the town will be at the expense of sending after Esquire Scramling, or some other magistrate, to qualify the town officers”, and in 1797 that “the town will allow the Town Clerk five dollars for his services for the last year.” The same sum was voted in 1803 to Solomon Martin and David Baits for “services done heretofore as supervisors of this town.” Lawful fences were declared to be those “four feet nine inches high”, with the “poles or rails not more than six inches asunder.” Earmarks were registered as follows: Abner Griffith, “slots in the right ear”; Daniel Bissell, “a square crop on ear, with a half penny on the under side of the left ear”; John Sisson, “a hole through the right ear and a half penny the underside of the left”; William Fitch, “a half penny under side each ear.”

It was voted that hogs “with yokes eight inches long above the neck and four inches below be allowed to run as free commoners”, and that “the town will give for each wolf killed within the limits thereof forty shillings.” Wolves seem to have been plentiful until a rather late period. Dr. Odell in 1872 said men were then living who could remember the site of the railroad station in the village as “a tangled thicket from which the cry of the panther and howl of the wolf were frequently heard.”

In 1796 the number of persons assessed in Unadilla was ninety-nine; the total real and personal property was set down at £2,275, and the tax at £52. A year later the persons assessed numbered 106; the property was $12,045 in value and the taxes were $370. In 1808 a memorandum declared the number of “Quakers returned in this town, 1, viz: Stephen Wilber, tax $4.”

Signs of the discontent, due to an inconveniently large town, which eventually led to taking off Huntsville (Otego) from Unadilla were seen very early. One was the holding of the town meeting at the house of Captain Saunders; another was a proposal in 1817 to divide Unadilla by adding to Chenango County “all that part lying in Upton’s Patent”, which was the valley of the Unadilla River, and coming east to the “west end of the village of Unadilla.” This proposal emanated from “the western portion of the town.” But the town meeting of 1817 resolved to “use all due diligence to prevent such division.” Nine-tenths of the people were declared to be opposed to it, its strongest advocates lying outside the town, and their motives being “to divide and distract the citizens of our territory.”

Some twenty-five years after Otsego County was formed a project was started for setting off a new county comprising parts of Otsego, Chenango and Delaware, and to be called the County of Unadilla, with the village of Unadilla as the county seat. In 1818, the sum of $250 was voted to defray the expenses of a committee while attending the Legislature “for the purpose of obtaining a new county.” Other papers on this subject may be found in the State archives down to a period so late as 1856.

In 1802 it was resolved that the town should have two pounds. One was to stand “not to exceed half a mile from Hubbell’s Mills, so-called, and the other within half a mile of Yates’s Ferry, so-called.” The two were to be built of “logs rolled up in form or manner of a house.” William Potter was Poor Master in 1793, and in October he charged the town with “a winding sheet for F—— twelve shillings”, and “for F——’s attendance and doctrine £3, 12s. 3d.” In March 1794, he received as license money $10 each from Isaac Gates, Nathan Hill and Barrett Overheyser, and in 1795 the same from nine other persons.

First among enterprises having in view the general good came roads which at the start were mere clearings through the forests. Above all things the scattered settlements in the upper valley needed communication with each other. The road by which they reached the outer world ran from Wattles’s Ferry to Catskill,—a road much older in its first state than the turnpike and one which the turnpike finally supplanted. The original road had been opened about fifteen years before the turnpike was established. A wheeled vehicle as early as 1787 is known to have made a journey over its entire length.

By the summer of 1788 this first road was in passable condition. The State now took its improvement in charge. G. Gelston made a survey of it in August 1790, and during the next year Sluman Wattles did some work on it, his cousin, Nathaniel, having a contract with the State for the work. In 1792, Solomon Martin drove a yoke of oxen over it to Catskill and back, taking fifteen days, which meant an average of six miles a day. The road was only twenty-five feet wide. In the same year a regular weekly mail route was established over it from the Hudson to the Susquehanna.

A State road that dates from 1790, led from Unadilla by the Susquehanna and Charlotte to Schoharie Flats. In that year Sluman Wattles reported to State officials that it was worth £12 per mile “to clear out and make this road.” It became an important highway to the settlers.

To about the same period belongs the building of Main Street in Unadilla village, which was extended westward to the Unadilla River. The survey was made by Nathaniel Lock of Westchester County. The original map made by him may still be seen in Albany. In December 1791, a certificate, signed by Solomon Martin, David Baits, Israel Smith, Elijah Heyden, Nathaniel Lock and other “inhabitants of the Ouleout and Unadilla”, declared that this road had been completed agreeable to Lock’s map by Benjamin Hovey[9] and John Massereau. The signers added that “said road had been amended so that loaded ox teams or carts can pass and repass the whole distance with ease.” Originally the road in Unadilla village ran closer to the river. It was several times altered and once at the instance of Solomon Martin, to whom credit is given for the obtuse angle formed near the Post Office.

Solomon Martin and others certified in 1791 that they had completed a road from the Unadilla to the Chenango River. A road also had been opened down the Susquehanna, where were many settlements, and at Windsor in 1791 one had been started across the hills to Cookoze (Deposit) on the Delaware “to serve”, says Lincklaen, “to transport commodities to the Philadelphia market.” By 1794, a road ran all the way over to Carr’s Creek from the Ouleout, beginning at a point near the stone house on the W. J. Hughston farm. It had been begun somewhat earlier. In that year a bridge was constructed across Carr’s Creek, Sluman Wattles charging 8 shillings for one day’s work on it.

For the records of later road building we must turn to the town archives instead of the State. In 1796, there was made “a return of a highway, laid out through the town of Unadilla, beginning at Abner Griffith’s on the river and running north to the Sand Hill Creek where the patent line crosses; then crossing the creek; thence northerly through lot number 119 until it runs twenty-five rods on the lot of Elisha Lathrop”, from whence it proceeded to the north line of the town. These records show how early the Sand Hill and Hampshire Hollow parts of the town were settled.

The northern central parts of the town were at first approached from the Unadilla River and the Butternut Creek. Earliest among records concerning a road running directly north from the village is “a return for an alteration of a road beginning near Captain Solomon Martin’s on the line between him and Daniel Bissell and running on said line northerly as far as the land will permit.” This return is dated May 10th, 1796; but there is nothing to show anything further in connection with such a road. The present Martin Brook road through to the north part of the town from Martin’s saw mill, was not opened until nearly fifty years after the date of this paper.

In June 1796, commissioners, on the application of twelve freeholders, laid out a road “beginning near Aaron Axtell’s house at a stake, thence running a northwesterly course to a pine tree marked H; then to a pine tree marked with a blaze; thence to a walnut staddle, also marked with a blaze; then running nearly the same course to a pine tree marked with an X; thence running until it intersects the old road six rods north of the five-mile tree.” To this project, which points to what was afterwards the old Kilkenny road, there was opposition and it was referred to a jury of twelve men, who reported that it was “not consistent; neither do we think it necessary and therefore we do protest against said road.” Built, however, this road was in early times, though it had some years to wait. Mention of it first occurs in the list of road districts for 1810.

Earliest of all roads actually opened from the village leading over the hills to the north, seems to have been the one running from near the store of Noble and Hayes, of which mention occurs in the road list for 1809, but a return for the survey of it had been made in 1808. The town in 1800 had already been divided into road districts of which there were fifteen. They show with much force the extent to which the Unadilla township lands had been opened up at that early day. They are as follows:

“First district, beginneth at the town line at Stephen Harrington’s and runneth to the Unadilla River road.

“Second, beginneth at the Butternut Creek and runneth on the said Unadilla road to the Eel Ware Bridge.

“Third, beginneth at the Eel Ware Bridge and runneth on the said road to a pine tree marked No. 4 at the foot of the hill.

“Fourth, beginneth at the pine tree at the foot of the hill marked No. 4; from thence to the State road and from the ferry to the line of Banyar Patent.

“Fifth, beginneth at Banyar Patent line and running to the two-mile tree on the State road, and from Colonel Baits’s.

“Sixth, beginneth at the two-mile tree and from thence to the Grog Shop Creek to include the bridge.[10]

“Seventh, beginning at the east end of the village, thence to the foot of still water.

“Eighth, beginning at the foot of still water and up the cross new road as far as Laban Crandall’s house; from thence to the eight-mile tree.

“Ninth, beginning at the eight-mile tree; from thence to the Otsdawa bridge.

“Tenth, beginning at the Susquehanna River road up the Sand Hill Creek road to the north line of the town.

“Eleventh, beginning at Merriman’s sawmill; from thence to the northwest line of the town.

“Twelfth, beginning at Laban Crandall’s house; thence through the north line of the town on the Sisson road.

“Thirteenth, beginning at the river road; thence up Wheaton Creek to Joseph Peam’s house.

“Fourteenth, beginning at the Wheaton road; from thence to the Sand Hill Creek road.

“Fifteenth, begins at the west branch of the Otsdawa Creek; thence to the town of Otego [now Oneonta] at or near Thurston Brown’s.”

Such were the roads that established communication among the settlers—primitive highways the most of them, and greatly inferior to the turnpike that came in in 1800 as the model road for all this territory and which remained for many years the chief highway to many parts of central and southern New York. One of the earliest highways in the State west of the Hudson and south of the Mohawk was this one from Wattles’s Ferry to Catskill, and it stands as a historic landmark of that great turnpike era which began with the new century.

The turnpike grew out of stern necessity. So great had been the demand for roads pouring in upon State authorities from all neighborhoods, that it was impossible to meet them. The State in consequence gave to private corporations permission to open and improve roads and impose tolls as their recompense. Among the men who took stock in the Catskill Turnpike were Stephen Benton, Solomon Martin and Sluman Wattles, the price of shares being twenty dollars and the amount of stock twelve thousand dollars. Caleb Benton, who lived in Catskill and was a brother of Stephen, at one time was president of the company. Two stages were kept regularly on the road, the fare being five cents per mile, making the cost of the trip from Unadilla to Catskill about the same as the fare by rail from Unadilla to New York now, while the time consumed was three days.

Dr. Dwight came over the road in 1804 and tells how he saw “a few lonely plantations recently begun”, and how he “occasionally passed a cottage and heard the distant sounds of an axe and of a human voice”, while all else “was grandeur, gloom and solitude.” He describes Franklin as “for some miles a thinly built village, composed of neat, tidy houses”, in which everything “indicated prosperity.” Further down the Ouleout the country “bore a forbidding aspect, the houses being thinly scattered and many of them denoted great poverty.”

At Wattles’s Ferry he was unable to find a boat. Even a dinner was denied him. A bridge had been begun but he had to cross “a deep and rapid ford.” Further down the river William Hanna supplied him with a dinner. It was the opening of this turnpike[11] which, as I have said, determined that a village should grow up at its western terminus. Here was a stopping place, the end of the land journey, a place for stores and hotels, the point where pioneers might enter boats and thus be conveyed to destinations south and west.

The number of houses standing in the village in 1808 could not have been more than fifteen or seventeen. At the extreme eastern end near the bridge lived a man named Morgan. His house was a rude affair dug into the bank.

To the west of Morgan came one of the yellow houses, then occupied by Guido L. Bissell, who seems to have built it.

Next was the home of Curtis Noble whose family comprised at this date his wife and his two sons George and Charles, then five and two years old respectively, and an infant daughter.

Beyond stood the Isaac Hayes residence, built four years before, and already famous as the most attractive dwelling between Catskill and Ithaca.

Beyond this lived Captain Amos Bostwick, whose wife was Sally Hayes, an aunt of Isaac Hayes. Captain Bostwick had served in the Revolution in the same regiment with Elijah Boardman of New Milford. His wife died in 1825 at the age of seventy-seven, and he in 1829 at the age of eighty-six. Clark I. Hayes could just remember him as “an old, infirm man, sitting by his open fire on the hearth, cane in hand, poking the ashes.”

Several rods to the west were the home and shoe shop of Fowler P. Bryan, the father of Alexander Bryan, standing near where the Frank Bacon house is.

To reach the next dwelling, involved a walk to the home of Gurdon Huntington on the corner of Martin Brook Street. This house was built by Guido L. Bissell and Jerome Bates and has long been the oldest house in the village. Except for the rear part, put on afterwards, it has scarcely been altered since its original erection. The flight of time long since raised it to the eminence of a centenarian. Besides Dr. Huntington, those who have owned and occupied it include Dr. David Walker, Dr. G. L. Halsey and Albert T. Amsden, while at one time it was owned by Col. A. D. Williams. The last occupant who owned it was Peter Hodges, who, on the death of his wife in 1889, sold it to Dr. Halsey, who thus became its owner a second time. The design of the house is Flemish. Houses like it may be seen to this day in the older parts of Bruges and Ostend. Readers will perhaps pardon the personal pride which prompts the statement that beneath that roof, on an October day, some time “befo de war,” was born the writer of this chronicle.

Beyond the Huntington house came the store and house of Solomon Martin on the land now occupied by the residence of Marvin P. Sweet. This structure remained standing for more than twenty years when it was torn down to make way for the present house, which was built by the Rev. Norman H. Adams.

The land thence westward was vacant as far down as the site of the present residence of Milo B. Gregory, on which had been erected a few years before the home of Stephen Benton.

No other house existed until one reached the site of the E. C. Belknap home, where a house is said to have existed at that time, but its occupant’s name remains unknown to me.

Beyond this all was vacant until the yellow house of Aaron Axtell, the pioneer blacksmith, was reached.

On the southern side of the street were fewer houses than on the northern—in all not more than six. First at the eastern end came the Abijah H. Beach home, where Oliver Buckley lived in later years. It had been erected as early as 1805. Mr. Beach was a native of New Milford, and thus had for neighbors across the way three other New Milford families,—Hayes, Noble and Bostwick. Next to the west was the Daniel Bissell house, where Mr. Bissell at first had erected a log dwelling. He put up a frame house in 1794, which remained until 1817 when Joel Bragg built on this site his first hotel.

To the west came the home of John Bissell on the site of the Dr. Gregory house. John Bissell owned the neighboring fertile island, a gift from his father. His house was torn down when Joel Bragg erected the brick dwelling.

Further on stood the Sampson Crooker residence on the L. B. Woodruff site, a portion of which still remains at the rear of the later building.

Next came the hotel which Dr. Cone built on the site of the present Unadilla House at the corner of Clifton Street.

Beyond stood Jacob Hayes’s house, just below the site of the Presbyterian Church.

From this point there was no house until the Sliter place was reached beyond the present barns of James White.

Such was the village of Unadilla, twenty-five years after Sluman Wattles and Timothy Beach made their settlements on the banks of the Ouleout. Seven years later the number of houses was thirty, in which fact we see the influence of the turnpike in building up the settlement. Dr. Dwight in his notes of the visit made in 1804, gives as follows his impressions of the place and its surroundings:

“That township in which we now were is named Unadilla and lies in the county of Otsego. It is composed of rocks, hills and valleys, with a handsome collection of intervales along the Susquehanna. On a remarkably rugged eminence, immediately northwest of the river, we saw the first oaks and chestnuts after leaving the neighborhood of Cat skill. The intervening forests were beech, maple, and so forth.

“The houses were scattered along the road which runs parallel with the river. The settlement is new and appears like most others of a similar date. Rafts, containing each from twenty to twenty-five thousand feet of boards, are from this township floated down the Susquehanna to Baltimore. Unadilla [the township] contained in 1800 823 inhabitants.”