Ebenezer Landers - Afton, NY

Story of Ebenezer Landers

Early Settler of Afton, Chenango Co., NY

 

The story of Ebenezer Landers life as given by his great-granddaughter, Mrs. Margaret Landers Sanford was an inspiring one as follows:

 

He was born in Sharon, Conn. November 3, 1758, and died in Afton [Chenango Co., NY] February 14, 1846, and his early life was spent in Lenox, Mass.  He served in the war of the Revolution as a private, first in Capt. Aaron Rowley's company in Col John Ashley's detachment of Berkshire County Militia in 1777, and again in Capt. Josiah Yale's company that marched to Stillwater on an alarm in 1781.  He married Olive Osborne about 1780, and to them were born seven children, Polly, Thomas, Stephen, Joseph, Nancy, Isaiah, Hiram and Solomon.

 

The account of their journey westward is as follows:  In 1787 he with his wife and three children and three of his brothers, Joseph, Isaiah and John, joined the westward movement to the unbroken wilderness of the New York frontier.  In the dead of winter they made their slow and toilsome journey with oxen and sleds from Lenox, Mass. to Unadilla, N.Y.  There the men built canoes to float down the river when the ice went out in the spring, but, becoming impatient, they started for their future home on foot, in the snow, following the Indian trail through the wilderness.  After many hardships, they reached their destination.

 

On this weary journey, Ebenezer carried on his back, necessary household utensils including a feather bed, and his wife carried their youngest child, Stephen, who was about 2 years old.  they reached Afton, then called Jerico, the last of March.

 

In the year previous, Ebenezer and Joseph had visited this country, made a small clearing, built a log cabin, and planted some corn on Stowell's Island.  The log structure stood near the spot where now is the home of Ebenezer's granddaughters, Sarah and Margaret Landers.  Here the weary travelers found rest.  The men made several trips to Unadilla for the rest of their belongings.  The other brothers took up land not far away, John afterward removing to Upper Lisle.  Ebenezer at once began the clearing of the ground and planting of crops, only to find after he had made many improvements that the land belonged to someone else. Rather than give up his home, he bought the place, giving in payment the last cow he had.  He was a carpenter by trade, as was his father before him, and worked for many years at it.  There was no mill in Afton where grain could be ground in those early times and the settlers were obliged to go by boat up the Susquehanna as far as Oneonta, then carry the corn on their backs for a mile to the mill.

 

Ebenezer was granted a pension for his services May 8, 1834 of $70 a year with $210 back pay... 

 

Of his descendants, three belong to the Daughters of the American Revolution, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Sayre of the Minneapolis [chapter], Mrs. Cora Bell Landers of Chicago Chapter and Mrs. Margaret Landers Sanford of the Gen. Wm. Floyd chapter, and Charles Jared Austin who belongs to the Sons of the Revolution.

 

Joseph Landers, the fourth child of Ebenezer and Olive was the first white child to be born in Afton.

 

Probably while living in Lenox, Mass., he and his wife attended the famous old Congregational "Church on the Hill," of which, his father, Thomas, was one of the foundation members and at first when reaching this country they were of the same creed, but soon joined the revolt against the stern belief of their puritan forefathers and became Universalists.

 

There is still preserved in the family a letter from the Moderator of the abandoned church to Mrs. Olive Landers, filled with pleadings, remonstrances, argument texts of Scripture and warnings that if they persisted in their course they must take the consequences of their damnable heresy.  In 1817 and 1818 Ebenezer was one of the committee who had in charge the building of the Universalist church in this place and during the remainder of his life he was a man of influence in its councils.  He was an upright and industrious man, such as are the backbone of our country and he always walked in preference to riding.  He died in consequence of a fall on the ice.

 

His ancestry goes back through a succession of Thomases and Ebenezers to the first Thomas, aged 22 who sailed from London in the good ship Abigail in 1635. 

 

Before that nothing certain is known but the probability is that the family originally came from Cornwall, England. the name is spelled in a number of ways and came from the word "laude" which was a pretty and rich piece of grassy sward in the heart of the forest, Chaucer says: 

 

"To the laude he rideth him full right,

There was the hart wont to take his flight"

 

And King Arthur and the knights of the round table went hunting, "At the hartes in these hye laundes,"

 

We, the Daughters of the American Revolution honor ourselves in honoring the man who fought for their country's freedom and happy and proud are we of the Landers blood that we descended from the soldier who lies here.  We wish him peace and rest forever more.

 

"How sleep the brave who sink to rest

With all their country's wishes blest."