Chapter I: Front Matter

THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA

AND

REMINISCENCES.

THE SURVIVING AUTHOR HAS PRESENTED SIX HUNDRED COPIES OF THESE MEMORIALS TO THE VESTRY OF ST. MATTHEW’S CHURCH IN UNADILLA, N. Y., WITH A VIEW TO THEIR SALE. THE SUM THUS SECURED IS TO BE HELD IN RESERVE AS A FUND, THE INCOME FROM WHICH SHALL FINALLY BE EXPENDED, WHEN NEEDED, IN THE CARE OF THE BURIAL GROUNDS ADJOINING THAT CHURCH IN WHICH, WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS, THESE “PIONEERS OF UNADILLA,” LIE BURIED....

From the Dam at the Head of the Binnekill.

From “The Old New York Frontier.” Courtesy of Charles Scribner’s Sons.]

THE PIONEERS
OF UNADILLA VILLAGE
1784-1840

BY
FRANCIS WHITING HALSEY,
AUTHOR OF
“THE OLD NEW YORK FRONTIER.”

REMINISCENCES
Of Village Life and of Panama and California
from 1840 to 1850

BY
GAIUS LEONARD HALSEY, M. D.
A PHYSICIAN IN UNADILLA FOR FIFTY YEARS.

ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP

SOLD BY THE
VESTRY OF ST. MATTHEW’S CHURCH,
UNADILLA, N. Y.
1902

650 COPIES ONLY PRINTED AND THE
TYPE DISTRIBUTED.

Press of George D. Raitt,
The Unadilla Times.

TO

JULIET CARRINGTON HALSEY

THESE MEMORIALS OF MY NATIVE VILLAGE AND EARLY HOME.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA VILLAGE.

I.
BEFORE THE VILLAGE WAS FOUNDED.
1616-1784.

The Early Explorers—Settlers Before the Revolution—Sidney and
the Ouleout—Wattles’s Ferry—Other Susquehanna Villages—The
Catskill Turnpike—Village Founders—“My Native Land”—The
Isolation of Unadilla, 3

II.
THE VILLAGE SITE AND THOSE WHO CHOSE IT.
1784-1800.

The Coming of Daniel Bissell, Guido L. Bissell, Solomon Martin,
Gurdon Huntington, Aaron Axtell and Others—Sites they Settled
On, 12

III.
TWO FRONTIER MERCHANTS.
1800.

Curtis Noble and Isaac Hayes—The opening of the Turnpike—Arks
on the Susquehanna—Col. George H. Noble and Judge Charles C.
Noble—H. H. Howard and Dr. Willis Edson, 28

IV.
EARLY TOWN MEETINGS, ROADS AND HOUSES.
1787-1810.

Many towns made from the original Unadilla—“The County
of Unadilla”—Curiosities from town records—Roads before
1800—Houses standing in 1808—Dr. Dwight’s visit in 1804—Road
Districts in 1800, 42

V.
LATER MEN OF MARK.
1804-1815.

Stephen Benton and his store—Major C. D. Fellows, Judge Sherman
Page and Dr. Adanijah, Daniel, Gilbert and Gardner Cone—Capt.
Frederick A. Bolles, Salmon G. Cone, David Finch, William J.
Thompson, Niel Robertson, Col. Thomas Heath, A. P. Gray, M. B.
Jarvis, Josiah Thatcher, John Eells, and Lyman Sperry, 60

VI.
A GRIST AND SAWMILL CENTRE.
1790-1812.

The builders of the mills—Origin of the Binnekill—Creeks that
fed it—Sampson Crooker’s purchase—Joel Bragg—The burning of the
mills—Gen. Edward S. Bragg, 74

VII.
CHURCHES, BRIDGES AND A SCHOOL.
1809-1824.

Early missionaries—Father Nash and St. Matthew’s—Rev. Norman
H. Adams—Pioneers buried in the churchyard—The Presbyterian,
Baptist and Methodist churches—Freedom Lodge—Capt. Edward
Howell—A schoolhouse in 1821—The two bridges built, 82

VIII.
PIONEERS IN TRIBUTARY NEIGHBORHOODS.
1784-1823.

Crookerville settled—Unadilla Centre and Rogers Hollow—Families
along the old Butternuts road—Sand Hill and Hampshire
Hollow—Sidney Centre and the old Paper Mill region—“Spencer
Street”—Samuel Rogers, Martin B. Luther, Col. David Hough and
Perry P. Rogers, 94

IX.
MAIN AND MILL STREET MEN.
1815-1840.

Two business centres—Roswell Wright’s store and Stephen
Benton’s—Arnold B. Watson—The Unadilla Bank—The old
Academy—Clark I. Hayes—Col. A. D. Williams and Erastus
Kingsley—Dr. John Colwell, Henry Ogden, L. B. Woodruff, Henry
S. Woodruff and Seleck H. Fancher, 111

X.
TWO MEN OF NOTE.
1828-1835.

Frederick A. Sands[1] and his father, Judge Obadiah Sands—Frank
B. Arnold—Col. Samuel North and Thomas G. North, 124

XI.
HOUSES STANDING SEVENTY-THREE YEARS AGO.
1828.

Col. North’s description of the village at the time of his
arrival—Men who were living here, their families and their
occupations, 133

XII.
THE UNADILLA HUNTING CLUB AND THE JUBILEE OF INDEPENDENCE.
1820-1826.

A famous haunt of deer—Men who came to hunt them—Dinners at
Hunter’s Hall—Poachers and Pomp’s Eddy—A great Fourth at
Kortright—Political feeling disclosed in an oration—Survivors
of the Border Wars—Joseph Brant, 146

XIII.
VILLAGE LIFE SEVENTY YEARS AGO.
1830-1833.

Charming light on business and social life—Post Office
contests and “up-street and down-street”—A celebration of
the Fourth—Frederick T. Hayes—“The footsteps of bygone
generations,” 159

REMINISCENCES.