Reminiscences of Early Days in Norwich - 1906 - Part 2

Seventy Years Ago

Reminiscences of Early Days in Norwich, Chenango Co., NY 

Related by George W. Denslow, Who Was Ninety Years Old on Sept. 19, 1906

Compiled for the Union by Leonard W. Cogswell

Chenango Union, November 15, 1906

 

The Norwich Academy was incorporated in 1848.  I remember when subscriptions were taken for the building, there was a great strife between David Griffing and George L. Rider as to who should give the most. Grififng gave $400 finally, and Rider $401.  The first principal of the school was Benjamin F. Taylor, a brilliant writer, then but twenty-one years old. 

 

I was one of the charter members of the Norwich Fire Department organized, I think, in 1838.  The members were as follows and comprised many of the leading men of the day:  George L. Rider, Captain; John Fryer, Foreman; Elisha B. Smith, assistant foreman; H.H. Haynes, engineer; John Dodge, assistant engineer; A.W. Warner, president; John Dean, secretary; James Kershaw, treasurer; Ralph Johnson, Hiram Weller, Abel Chandler, William D. Randall, Justus Plumb, D.M. Randall, George W. Denslow, Luther Hamilton, John Noyes, H. Lettington, Squire Smith, C.G. Randall, Royal Brown, S.R. Hammond, Peter Fryer, LW. Knott, Burr B. Andrews, W.C. Chapman, J.M.D. Carr, N.S. Freeman, T.B. Leek.  Of all these I am the only living member.

 

I feel  like one who treads alone

Some banquet hall deserted

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garland dead,

And all but he departed

 

George L. Rider bought the engine in Baltimore, trading lumber for it.  When it came, the village at first refused to take it, but finally did.  It was one of those old fashioned "piano" engines such as is now in the archives of the Norwich Hose Co., and was worked with a long hand brake.  All of the company were large strong men, and I think I was the smallest.  I think the first fire we attended was in the blacksmith shop where the E.L Smith building is on East Main st.  Then there was a fire in the Chenango Canal Coffee house in December 1845, now known as the Palmer House. Then the Baptist  church burned in 1845 and the Eagle Tavern in 1849, I think.  I worked hard at all those fires.  Mr. Rider was the organizer and father of the fire company, and the apparatus was stored in a barn back of his hotel.

 

In 1837 Norwich was a small village of not more than 600 inhabitants, probably.  Spafford's Gazeteer of New York, published in 1834, has this to say of Norwich, which is of interest today:  "The buildings stand on two handsome streets intersecting each other at right angles, and consist of 100 dwellings, 7 stores, 4 inns, 2 churches, courthouse, jail and clerk's office with a brick banking house.  There are also a very respectable female seminary, some common school houses and about 500 inhabitants, principally of Yankee origin, and sober, persevering and industrious....By-and-by, when experience and chastisement restore the sober senses of the community, people will wonder at the infatuation which ever located a bank at Norwich.  I hope the farmers will have sense enough to keep their lands free from the encumbrances held by such monied institutions."

 

I attended my first church service in the Baptist church on the park in front of L.A. Burr's residence. The Catholics held their services in the second story of the candle factory on Lock st.  The Congregational and Methodist churches were small wooden buildings standing very nearly on the site of the present structures.

 

From 1840 to 1860 our money was constantly fluctuating up and down in value.  Most of the paper was issued by state banks, and was only good so long as the bank was good, there being no security anywhere deposited to protest the public, as is the law  with our present national bank system.  The result was there was no telling whether a bank bill was good or not.  Pamphlets were sent out monthly giving the values of different issues of banks; newspapers printed weekly statements or quotations wherein the standing of each bank was designated by such words as "broke," "busted," "no good," "1/2", "'65", etc.  Before accepting a bank bill, a merchant would consult his latest quotations, and then decide whether he would take a chance and accept it.  Although it might appear from the quotations that a bank bill was good, yet the bank might fail before you got rid of it.  It finally came to pass that a man wouldn't take a bill unless issued by a local bank, or by a bank of whose soundness he was sure.  I remember an incident of the panic of '57 when state or "wild-oat" banks were going to pieces almost every hour.  I was down in Newark, N.J. on business and was about to start for New York.  When I went to pay my fare I hesitated whether I should take it out of a dollar bill which I had, or a silver quarter. After some consideration I handed out the dollar and received my ticker and change. It was well that I did, for, on reaching New York, I learned that the bank whose name the bill bore, had just "busted up" and would have been no good had I kept it, and I don't suppose the Newark ticket agent ever got anything.  But all that is changed.  Nowadays when you get a dollar you know it is worth its face anywhere in the United States.

 

 Three-quarters of the business of those days was done by barter and sale.  There was very little money, and so the farmers brought in eggs, butter, cheese, wool, tallow, hides, wood, grain, whatever they had that could be exchanged for goods, and exchanged them for tea, coffee, sugar, cloth, farming tools, etc., while the merchant in turn sent them to New York in exchange for a fresh stock of goods.  Where the Ferry place is I had a shop at one time, and one of my customers came in one day and said "do you want some beef?"  That was in 1842, and I was just married and didn't know much about such things.  After consulting my wife, I bought a whole quarter of beef, about 100 lbs, for 2c a pound.  Think of that now.

 

To Be Continued