Chenango and Unadilla Valleys Fifty Years Ago
by S.S. Randall
Chenango Telegraph, March 27, 1872
Continued from posting of January 8, 2017
It will be perceived that the original owners of all the land now included within the bounds of the village of Norwich [Chenango Co., NY], at or about the commencement of the present century, were:
On the east side of Main Street, and extending to the Chenango River, reckoning from South to North, Jedediah Randall, Dr. Jonathan Johnson, Stephen Steere, Capt. John Harris, and Samuel Hammond.
On the West side, extending from the Canasawacta creek on the South and West, Israel, Charles and Matthew Graves, Col. William Munroe (The Garnsey farm) and Josiah Dickinson.
Judge Steere sold off the Benjamin Edmunds and the Dr. Joseph Brooks lots, north of his residence; and donated to the village the East Green. The Graves family sold the Seth Garlick, or G.L. Byder farm, and the James Birdsall property; Col. Munroe sold to Elisha Smith of whom Peter B. Garnsey purchased; and Mr. Garnsey, after giving to the village the west Green and the site of the present court House and public buildings, conveyed the lots subsequently owned and occupied by Joseph S. Fenton, Asa Norton and others, up to and including the dwelling house and lot of Dr. Henry Mitchell on the north, and on the West the houses and lots of Beriah Lewis, Charles Randall and Truman Enos. Mr. Dickinson sold on the North to Elisha Smith and Col. Samuel Randall.
The first clergyman in Norwich was Ma--h French; "a practical and unaffected preacher," who settled upon the Joseph Brown farm, half a mile south of the present village. Was it Mr. French or old Elder Ransom, his successor, who was accustomed in those primitive times to repeat his discourses from the beginning, on the arrival of each tardy member of his congregation as they came entering in? frequently rendering it necessary to go over the same ground some six or eight times in the course of his morning or afternoon sermon.
"The earliest physician," says Mr. Clark, "was Jonathan Johnson, who removed here from Connecticut about the year 1794. During the vigorous portion of his life, he enjoyed a lucrative, and at the same time, most arduous practice. In the earliest years of his ride, the country was infested with bears and wolves--the latter hunting in packs--and ferocious panthers. More than once the Doctor pursued his lonely rides over the thickly wooded hills, serenaded by moans, howls, and screams, proceeding from the midnight orgies of these formidable occupants."
The first male child born in Norwich, according to the same authority was Marcus Cole, and the second Hascall Ransford, Jr. The first female child, and the first white native of the Chenango Valley, was Lucy Power, born on the old Randall Farm.
Col. Monroe took up all that part of the village on the west side of Main St., extending from Garlick's north line, to the Josiah Dickinson farm, which occupied the remainder of the village on that side. On the east, Judge Steere's land extended from the Cole, or Elder Randall farm, to the Harris farm on the hill, and to the river on the east. North of the Harris farm, was the Samuel Hammond property, extending to the Ransford estate. Col. Monroe sold out to Elisha Smith, and Smith to Peter B. Garnsey. This farm extended on the west to the Canasawacta Creek, and for some distance beyond, where the Garnsey Mills were subsequently erected,--"Prior to the erection of these mills," observes Mr. Clark, "the inhabitants either transported part of their grain to Tioga Point, at great expense and endless toil, or they constructed mortars, by hollowing out at one end, a log, from three to four feet in length, and working them by a sweep above with a pestle attached." Such were the hardships, labors and privations of the pioneer settlers of the Chenango Valley, within the memory of some now living! (in 1872)
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