Early Bainbridge, NY History

Early History of Bainbridge, Chenango Co ., NY

Covering 1776 to 1876

William J. Eppley

 

Detailed Account of Early Days, taken from bound volumes of history, and offered so that all Villagers can better appreciate reasons for anniversary celebrations this year [1939]. 

 

Settlements:  The territory included in this town was at first claimed by Robert Harper, under a grant from the Indians but the State repudiated the title and granted it, together with the town of Afton, to the "Vermont Sufferers," by whom the first settlements were made.  The Vermont sufferers were persons who, by reasons of their allegiance to the Government of the State of New York during the controversy existing between it and the State of Vermont, immediately after the close of the Revolutionary War, relative to lands which were finally ceded to the latter State, were dispossessed of certain property and otherwise punished by the Green Mountain State; and who, as a recompense therefore, were granted lands in the township of Clinton, afterwards known as Jericho, embracing the whole or the major portions of the present towns of Bainbridge and Afton. February 24, 1786, Col. Timothy Church and Majors William Shattuck and Henry Evans, to the former of whose regime the majority of the sufferers belonged, presented, in their behalf, the following petition to the New York State Government:--

 

"To his Excellency the Governor and the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York, the Petition of the Subscribers in behalf of themselves and others most Humbly Showeth,

 

"That your Petitioners and those they represent are inhabitants of Cumberland County, and by their attachment, zeal and activity in Endeavoring to support the just and Lawful Authority of New York, Incurred a Displeasure from those who stiled themselves Freemen of Vermont, but by the encouragements from the several Resolutions of Congress, and Particularly that of the fifth of December, 1782, and the laws and Resolutions of the State of New York, your Petitioners were induced to believe that the Lawless and ungrateful usurpers would be brought to submit to its Lawful authority, or at least to permit your Petitioners to remain peaceably on their Farms, under the jurisdiction of New York.  But notwithstanding the Resolutions and Laws, these Lawless usurpers, raised in Arms to the Number of four or five Hundred, Drove some of your Petitioners from their habitations, imprisoned others, killed one, and wounded others, confiscated their estates and sold their effects.

 

"Your Petitioners cannot but hope that having thus sacrificed their all, suffered such exquisite Tortures, Banishments, imprisonments in loathsome Gaols, half starved and threatened with being put to Ignominious Deaths.  But that your Honours will take their ease into your most serious Consideration, and grant them some relief in their Deplorable Situation and your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever be good Citizens of the state of New York.

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A portion of the present site of the Village of Bainbridge was sold by Major Evans to Col. Church in 1793, for 18 cents an acre, and that portion of it where we are now assembled, to wit, this beautiful green and the land on which the Presbyterian meeting house and cemetery are located was subsequently donated by Benjamin Carpenter to the Society of Cilicia--a part for a village green and parade ground, and the residue for the purpose for which it is now used. 

 

Probably one of the most eccentric characters among the early settlers of this town, and one who furnished as many anecdotes both as the principle and the narrator, was one Gould Bacon.  he located on the farm where Nelson Humphrey now lives and occupied a small log hut all to himself.  He was industrious and economical and accumulated some property, yet never married.  Of his many hair-breadth escapes by flood and field, we briefly relate the following:

 

Bacon's hut was on the low flat, and there occurred in the Fall a remarkable flood in the Susquehanna River, referred to in after years as the "pumpkin Freshet," from the fact that the corn fields along the river were overflowed and pumpkins swept off.  Bacon was awakened in the night by the waters, which had risen to cover the floor of the cabin, upon which he slept, and found that it was necessary to move.  He made a hasty meal from a pail of cold succotash, and taking his gun and ax started for higher ground, which, however, he was unable to reach.  Owing to the rapidly rising current, he was compelled to take passage on a floating log, which lodged with other flood-wood again a tree, where he remained until found by Deacon Israel Smith and taken off in a canoe.  While occupying quarters on the flood-wood, he was able to kindle a fire and roast a pumpkin that floated to him, on which he subsisted very comfortable.  During his stay, a "painter" which like himself had been set adrift, came swimming towards his miniature island.  When he was sufficiently near, Bacon admonished him that he was an unwelcome visitor by a salute from his rifle, and the varmint sought some other landing.

 

On another occasion prior to this, he shot a large bear on what is now known as Humphrey's hill.  So fat and heavy was bruin that he found it necessary to go after his oxen in order to remove the carcass to his hut.  But the oxen refused to go near enough to the bear to allow him to hook the log chain. Bacon finally resorted to the stratagem of covering the bear with leaves;  he then carefully backed the oxen up and hitched the chain around bruin's neck.  But, as soon as the dead bear made his appearance from under the leaves, the oxen cast one terrified look behind and away they went through the woods, over knolls and down the steep hill at the top of their speed.  Bacon found it no difficult task to track them to his hut by remnants of the bear, which were strewn along the course they had taken' and he never told the story in after years without a sigh for the large fat bear, the loss of which as a store for his larder he sorely felt and deeply lamented.

 

Joseph Smith, the author of the Mormon Bible, and the founder of the polygamous sect by that name, appeared in the southern part of this town, in what is now known as Afton, in 1828 or 1829, and attended school for awhile.....he was prosecuted as an imposter and taken before Joseph P Chamberlin, Esq., a Justice of the Peace, where he was defended by two old pettifoggers, commonly called Elder Reed and General Davidson, pretty well known in those days.  Joseph was allowed to escape punishment by leaving town.  His subsequent career in Ohio and Illinois is matter of history.