Chenango & Unadilla Valleys 50 years ago - 1872

Chenango & Unadilla Valleys, Fifty Years Ago
by S.S. Randall
Chenango Telegraph, May 15, 1872

Lewis Ebbal

 

I am indebted to an esteemed and valued female acquaintance in New Berlin [Chenango Co., NY], for a brief sketch of an eccentric pioneer of this town, calling himself, and known among his neighbors as Lewis Ebbal.  His real name appears to  have been Louis L. Abbe de Roffecourt, born near Verdan, on the Mense.  He was a Commissary in the French army, and having, in an evil hour, been tempted to embezzle a portion of the funds committed to his charge, was under the necessity of flying from his native country, without even the formality of taking leave of his family whom he never again saw.  He left France in the fall of 1787, and emigrated to America and effected a temporary settlement near the present village of Cooperstown [Otsego Co., NY], where he opened a store for the sale of foreign wines and liquors.  "In 1796," observes my informant, "while yet the Indians hunted and fished through the woods, and panthers, wolves and bears still roamed the forests, he found his way to the primitive valley of the Unadilla, a little south of the present village of New Berlin, on the banks of the river, where he purchased a small piece of land, and erected a cabin containing only two small rooms, poorly furnished, with the exception of his library, which consisted of many rare and valuable books, and to which he made frequent additions in subsequent years.  His wearing apparel was extremely elegant--his silken hose and fine linen, ruffled shirt frill and wrist bands, attracting universal admiration among the rude settlers, especially when on "general training" days he proudly marched by the side of the troops, inspirited by the martial strain familiar to his ears in his own native land.  Among his effects was a large ironbound trunk or chest, kept carefully concealed under his bed, and which was supposed by those who caught occasional glances of it, to be his money chest, or strong box--as he was known, in his pecuniary transactions in the neighborhood, to receive only gold and silver, and to require delivery personally at midnight, under an old bridge in the neighborhood.  His doors and windows were heavily barred with iron, he seldom admitted visitors, and never left them for a moment during their stay, frequently receiving and entertaining them in front of his cabin.  He never either invited or encouraged confidence; and from these unsocial habits, and his general eccentricity of behavior, extravagant reports of his wealth were circulated.  Unfortunately, those into whose society he was most frequently thrown, were rude, turbulent, avaricious and uncultivated men, not peculiarly adapted to win either his confidence or regard.  His time during the day was chiefly devoted to business and the accumulation of wealth, but "his night," says my informant, "were given to reading and study, his solitary light burning far into the night, while all around him were wrapt in sleep."  He appears to have been a frequent and welcome visitor of the Franchots, Van Rensselears and Morrises, of Butternuts [Otsego Co., NY], painfully threading his way on horseback, through the dense intervening wilderness, accessible only by a narrow, winding path, and surrounded on every hand by wild beasts, from whose fury he occasionally had a narrow escape. On one of these hazardous excursions, he was pursued, toward night fall, by a bear, whose dismal and appalling howls,  Lewis in his fright he mistook for the deep gutturals of the Indian tongue.  Hastily ascending a tree, he lustily roared for quarter.  "I did beg, he said,--I did pray--I did speak in the English and in the French--but the dam savage would not remove himself, and he was compelled to spend the entire night in vain remonstrances with his supposed "dam savage".  Thus he lived in solitary seclusion until 1813.  He had considerably enlarged his rural domain, and become an agriculturist on quite a large scale--raising cattle for the market, cultivating fruit trees, and devoting much of his time to a large collection of bee hives, from which he was accustomed to supply a great extent of the surrounding country with honey.  His well-fed bees and the fine fruit from his orchards were also in great demand, and as his expenditures were on a very lauded scale, and as receipts extensive, his wealth must have rapidly increased.  He was earnestly advised by his friends in Butternuts, and his legal counsellor in New Berlin, Noah Ely, Esq.,--so to invest his funds as to benefit those whom he had left behind him in la belle France.  but his only and invariable reply was "My money, it is safe, it is safe."  My informant, while a child, was frequently shown by her mother, the retired recess in a garden adjoining the post office, then kept by her father, where the solitary recluse was accustomed to retire, with streaming eyes for the perusal of his letters from home, whither he dared not return, and whence, during the pendency of the long war succeeding the accession of the Emperor Napoleon, he could not bring over his loved ones.  "Time passed, and all prospered well with Mr. Ebbal," continues my correspondent.  "For some time he had been much engaged in planting a vine yard on a ten acre lot near the river, set apart for that purpose, having obtained cuttings from a distance at great trouble and expense.  The climate proved but ill adapted to the purpose, but the poor Frenchman did not live to witness the results of his experiments.  he died after a few days' illness, at the house of a neighbor, to which he had been removed, for such care and attendance as was practicable in the fall of 1826, at the age of sixty-five years."  Mr. Ely, having been appointed administrator upon his estate, proceeded to the examination of his effects, when a little over $600 in specie, and a few small bills, were all that could be found upon the premises, the iron bound trunk, with all its contents having entirely disappeared and no traces of either having ever subsequently been discovered, although diligent but ineffectual search was made in the cellar of the house, in the orchard and under and in the vicinity of the old bridge.  Mr. Ely having, through the politeness of Mons Marchard an attaché of the French Monarch, obtained the necessary letters of attorney from the heirs of the deceased in that country, sold the land, stock, library, etc., and transmitted the avails, amounting in all to some three or four thousand dollars only, out of the forty or fifty thousand, which he was generally supposed to have accumulated.

My fair correspondent thus concludes her interesting recital.  In the small burying ground overlooking the river, and within sight of his own little dwelling, the poor, solitary recluse lies buried.  At the best, how sad and lonely a life he must have passed, how cheerless and desolate to one who had known better days, the amenities of social life, the charm of home, the converse of friends, and the excitement of martial ardor and ambition.  What a humiliating and ignoble ending to a life opening before him with all the advantages that education and high culture could give, in the gayest and most polished capitol in the world  "Peace to his ashes!"

An inexplicable mystery seems to hang over this tragic tale, which now, in all human probability, after the lapse of nearly half a century, will never find its solution.  Was this treasure hermetically sealed up and buried in some secluded nook, so carefully concealed as to evade all other search than his own, and does it still remain there, awaiting some chance accident of discovery?  or--who shall say, until the secrets of all hearts are known.