Landers Family, Afton Pioneers

 Landers Family, Afton Pioneers

Syracuse Herald, Syracuse, NY, July 13, 1952

With only the crusted snow to walk on during a 20-mile journey into almost unknown country, a brave young couple started out one late March morning in 1787, leaving the security of a pioneers' camp at Unadilla [Otsego Co. NY] and facing danger from both Indians and wild beasts.

Ebenezer Landers, with a feather bed on his back and a trusty flintlock musket in his hand, and his wife, Olive carrying their youngest child, Stephen [Landers], did not know that cold morning that they were making history that would live forever in the tradition of Afton [Chenango Co. NY].

Ebenezer Landers had served three years in the army during the Revolution and at the close of the war had suffered with others in the East from the result of the long conflict.  Shortly after the war had ended, he married Olive Osborn from his hometown of Lenox, mass.  Bu the time their first three children were born, things were getting unbearable in the East, so Ebenezer and his brother Joseph [Landers] set out to explore the far west, as everything west of the Hudson was then called.

The two young men came down the Unadilla and into the Susquehanna until they reached a point a few miles south of the present village of Afton, where two large islands lie in the river.  The beauty of the country captured the imagination of the men, and they stopped there, laying claim to about 100 acres of land on both sides of the river.  There they built a cabin and made a large clearing, working most of the summer, before making the long trek homeward to their families.

The following winter they persuaded two other brothers, Isaiah [Landers] and John [Landers], to join their party and together the whole group with their families and household goods set out in ox sleds over the rough terrain to the new country and peace.  There is no record of the hardships of that long and tiresome journey and the dangers which beset them on their way but at last, after months of fighting hunger, sickness, the dark and trackless forests with their dangers from wild animals and treacherous Indians, the brave group arrived at Unadilla, near the headquarters of Chief Joseph Brant, the Indian enemy of all Colonial soldiers.  The expedition arrived at Unadilla in early March 1787 so tired, hungry and cold that most of them decided to remain right there and not seek the Land of Promise discovered the year before.

Ebenezer, undaunted began to build canoes to carry his family down the Susquehanna to his claim. The others helped him, more to keep warm than to have canoes of their own. Discouragement ran high among the brothers, and one source of history implies that the other Landers boys had become wrathy at Ebenezer for bringing them so far from home, but that will never be known.

However that may be, Ebenezer and Olive, both 28 years old, set out over the crusted snow toward the cabin which had been built the year before.  Their two older children remained behind with the brothers while the stalwart young parents, weighed down with as many household goods as they could carry, set out.

Two days later they arrived at the cabin and set up their home.  A few crack shots from Ebenezer's musket provided them with food, but it was Spring before they trudged back to Unadilla for the other two children.  History does not tell how many of the brothers returned with them, but it is said that all four family found homes in the Afton area.

Just as Ebenezer Landers had become settled, a blow came in the discovery of a serious defect in the title to his land, so serious that it cost him his farm.  Undaunted, he took up 50 acres nearby, adding to it by subsequent purchases until he had a large farm.  There he remained for the remainder of his days, working as a carpenter, helping other pioneer farmers to erect their homes and barns.

Stephen, the little boy who was lugged those score of miles in his mother's arms, worked with his father and became a master millwright.  He built most of the later buildings in the town, including some of the mills and factories.

Ebenezer and Olvie Landers lived to ripe old ages, Ebenezer to be 87 and Olive, 93. Five children were born after their arrival in Afton, making eight in all. The descendants of the Landers family still live in Afton community [in 1952], respected as were their ancestors.

It was thus that another brave soldier of the Revolution found sanctuary in the wild beauty of the Chenango forests and became one of the heroes in the pages of local historical tradition.