The Chenango and Unadilla Valleys Fifty Years Ago
By S.S. Randall
Chenango Telegraph, May 8, 1872
Bainbridge
Bainbridge originally constituted a portion of the township of Clinton, south of Fayette, which was in part appropriated by the State for the relief of the "Vermont Sufferers," including about 148 persons, whose titles and property had been affected by the cession of Cumberland and Gloucester counties to the State of Vermont. the town was formed in 1791 as a part of Tioga County, under the primitive name of "Jericho," which was changed to Bainbridge in 1814. The first town meeting was held at the house of William Guthrie, at which time the town included within its boundaries portions of the present towns of Greene, Oxford, and Norwich, all of which were set off prior to 1800, and the whole of the present town of Afton set off in 1857. The village of Bainbridge was not incorporated until 1821, and is situated on the Susquehanna river, a few miles below the junction of the Unadilla with that river, and nearly in the center of the town. It contains, at the present time [in 1872] four churches, two hotels, two grist mills, a foundry, two planning mills, fourteen or fifteen dry goods and grocery stores, three harness shops, two carriage shops, one drug store, a printing office, and about one thousand inhabitants.
From information gathered by the enterprising compiler of the "Gazetteer and Directory of Chenango County," Mr. Hamilton Child, it appears that one of the earliest settlers of this town was Reuben Kirby, at about 1787, on a farm now occupied [in 1872] by his son, bearing the same name, and that in 1789, Henry Evans removed into the east part of the town, where he had obtained from the State three lots of 640 acres each, as one of the "Vermont Sufferers"--taking up his residence on the farm now [in 1872] owned by Paul C. Underwood. His son, Jehiel Evans, still living in 1869, was born here in 1795, and removed into the village in 1808. The brother of the latter, Ansel Evans, was also, in 1869, still living, eighty years of age, on one of the farms included on the original purchase. That portion of the grant on which the present village of Bainbridge stands, was sold by Maj. Evans, the proprietor to Col. Church, in 1793 for the sum of eighteen cents per acre. Samuel Bigsby [Bixby] became a settler of the town in 1789. Elnathan Bush, with his family consisting of four children--Charles, Japhet, Joseph and Polly, left Cooperstown in the spring of 1786, and passing down the Susquehanna river in canoes, effected a settlement on Stowell's Island, in the present town of Afton, where he remained until the spring of 1790 when he removed to Bainbridge, and settled on the farm now [in 1792] occupied by his grandson, Joseph Bush. His death in 1791 at sixty-three years of age, was the first which had occurred in the town. His eldest son, Charles, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War.
William Allison became a settler in 1795, on the farm now [in 1872] occupied by Williams S. Sayre, Esq. Gould Bacon, an eccentric old bachelor, located himself in the same year, in the vicinity of the river, where his residence, having been inundated by a heavy spring "freshet," he was driven to take refuge, with a satchel of provisions and his run, in a neighboring tree. Having, unfortunately, dropped his satchel into the raging floods, he was compelled to eke out a scanty subsistence upon pumpkins, bro't down by the water from the adjacent fields. Well may he have exclaimed, in the midst of his perplexities and troubles, "Pity the sorrows of a poor, old--bachelor."
Among the other early settlers, according to Mr. Childs, were William Guthrie, Abraham Fuller, Heath Kelsey, Eben and Joseph Landers, James Graham, Samuel Nourse, John Campbell, Asahel Bigsby [Bixby], Deacon Israel Smith, Reuben Bump, Jared Redfield, Simeon Smith, David Hitchcock, James B. Nichols, Richard W. Juliand, Edward Noble, Cesar [Czar] and Jervis Prince, Richard L., and Frederick H. DeZeng, Richard L. Lawrence, David Sears, Soloman Warren, Moses Stockwell, Abel Connant, Reuben Beals, the Pearsalls, Peter Betts, Jabez S. Fitch, Charles Curtis, Ezra Hill, Samuel Banks, Aaron Myers, Perry Peckham, Joshua Mersereau, Hiram Dennison, John Y. Bennett, John Thompson, Timothy Davis, Eli Seeley, Orange Benton, Nathaniel and Thomas Humphry, Abner Searles, Jacob, Thomas and James Ireland, William, Charles, Samuel and Daniel Lyon, Seth Johnson and John Nichols. William Bush was the first male, and Relief Landers the first female child born in the town--the latter in 1791. The first inn was kept by William Guthrie, on the place now [in 1872] owned by Philo Kirby, about two miles south of the present village. Phineas and Reuben Bennett erected a grist mill on Bennett's Creek, in 1789. The first church (Presbyterian) was formed in 1790, by Rev. William Stone. A Congregational church was subsequently organized in 1797 or 1798, with the Rev. Joel Chapin as pastor. The first school house made its appearance at about the same time, in the village, on a piece of land given for a church, school house, public green, and burying ground, by Benjamin S. Carpenter.
to be continued
No comments:
Post a Comment