History of Afton, Chenango County, NY
Rev. E.T. Jacobs
Afton Enterprise, March 19, 1886
Editor Enterprise--You requested me to supply you with a few articles on Afton twenty years ago. In doing so I must ask the privilege a man desired in a meeting in which all were expected to take a part. On rising he observed that "he wanted to make a few remarks before he said anything." preliminary to this series of articles I would like to go back to first things in the town.
Afton was long known as South Bainbridge, a mere appendage to the town proper, and the town was the village of Bainbridge, and the village in those days was the merchants, the lawyers, the doctor, the minister and the squire; one leading politician in office, and one leading politician trying to get into office. John C. Clark was the leading politician in office for a long time after the remembrance of the writer. He was a man of stalwart frame, commanding presence, great versatility of talent, and strong magnetic influence with the lumbermen and raftmen of the town. When the ladder was put up on one side and did not quite reach, he could turn and put it up on the other side, but there it did not reach. When President Jackson vetoed the bill for recharter the old United States bank, it was generally supposed that the money for the bank bought him and sent him home with money to buy others, in order to give the bank a new lease of life. How that was it is now difficult to determine. Nicholas Briddle, president of the bank, was generally called "Old Nick," and he seemed for a time to carry a political party in his pocket.
The writer's first vote was for Andrew Jackson, but he did not continue voting for him as some are said to have done, but has tried to take the right and follow his convictions.
South Bainbridge was a significant factor in the political contests, but otherwise was, in the view of the leading men of the town, nothing more than a strip of waste land hardly worth fencing in.
The time came in the progress of human events when a few men in the south part of the old town thought it would be convenient to have a town of their own, and so a move was made in that direction. The measure was opposed and was not accomplished until at the end of a law suit, involving an expense of more than $1,000. Thus the town was a child of the tempest, born in a storm of passion and legal contest. This was Nov. 18, 1857. The contest ended, the next question was naming the bantling. History and poetry, ancient and modern were searched to find a name beginning with the first letter of the alphabet, so that it would go down to posterity at the head of the list, next above Bainbridge, which had always enjoyed that high prerogative.
Scott had sung so sweetly of Afton, and our beautiful river and renowned valley made it a fitting name for the weakling. The town commenced life with a debt of $1,000 incurred in the mighty struggle that gave it existence, and $30,000 bonded debt for the Albany and Susquehanna railroad. Twenty years ago [in 1886] when the town was just nine years old the writer became a resident. In my next I will speak of bridges.
To be Continued.
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