Jedediah Barber 1787-1876. a Footnote to the History of the Military Tract of Central New York 9780231884877

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JEDEDIAH

BARBER

1787-1876 NUMBER VIII OF THE NEW Y O R K HISTORICAL

ASSOCIATION

Dixon Ryan Fox,

STATE

SERIES

EDITOR

JEDEDIAH BARBER 1787-1876 A FOOTNOTE OF THE

TO THE

MILITARY

CENTRAL

NEW

HISTORY

TRACT

OF

YORK

By HERBERT BARBER HOWE

NEW

YORK:

MORNINGSIDE

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 193

9

HEIGHTS

PRESS

COPYRIGHT

1939

C O L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS, NEW Y O R K Foreign agents: O X F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S , Humphrey Milford, Amen House, London, E.C. 4, England, AND 6. I. Building, Nicol Road, Bombay, India; K W A N G H S U E H PUBLISHING H O U S E , 140 Peking Road, Shanghai, China; M A R U Z E N C O M P A N Y , L T D . , 6 Nihonbashi, Tori-Nichome, Tokyo, Japan MANUFACTURED IN T H E UNITED STATES O F AMERICA

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER AND FATHER IN APPRECIATION LOUISA BARBER HOWE, 1 8 5 4 - 1 9 3 4 W H O S E E N C O U R A G E M E N T MADE POSSIBLE THIS S T U D Y OF HER GRANDFATHER

GEORGE ROWLAND HOWE, 1 8 4 7 - 1 9 1 7 A M A N U F A C T U R E R WHOSE I N T E R E S T IN H I S T O R Y L E D HIM TO P U B L I S H IN 1 8 9 3 " T H E B A R B E R - E N O F A M I L Y OF H O M E R , N. Y . , " T H E F I R S T A T T E M P T TO P R E S E R V E T H E R E C O R D S OF T H A T F A M I L Y

FOREWORD

J

E D E D I A H B A R B E R , presumably, was no more important

than thousands of other men who built America in the first part of the nineteenth century. Far from calling for defense, this gives an added value to his biography. Distinguished men in the nation's history are on the record; their biographies are sure to come. When we finish reading one of these we know of a personal influence brought to bear upon public affairs or public thought, but we do not grasp the general mind and purpose as well as if we had a typical example. But the literary deposit of such a life is usually meagre, and there is usually no one at hand later on with the patience and insight, and the undiscourageable resolution, to reconstruct it. Fortunately Mr. Howe had these qualities, and imagination enough to realize the significance of a village worthy. Village worthies, for the most part, developed American standards between 1804, when Jedediah Barber set out to make his fortune in Central New York, and 1876, when as a patriarch full of local honors he left this life. He lived in and with and for a typical American community. In his inheritance we may see the New England that was taken into New York, there to develop certain liberty and spaciousness that it had lacked at home. In his experience we may trace the conquest of the wilderness, the establishment of local enterprises, the institutionalizing of culture, the uses of wealth, the fading of village economy before the influence'of city manufacturing and finance—and all through the salty flavor of characteristic American personality. American civilization in its present forms and ideals owes so much to the Jedediah Barbers of the nineteenth century that the dearth of a full length biography here and there covering the

viii

FOREWORD

type, but faithful to personal delineation, has been painfully apparent. Mr. Howe's book has a special significance in filling in this lack with a rounded story of so admirable and so representative a village leader. He has caught the drama of such men's lives, a drama of adventure, conquest and achievement, though the subject took little or no part in government, never drew a sword and exercised his immediate influence only in his own community. What would we not give if we had the complete account of such a leader's life in a Greek city or mediaeval town! Some of us realize that we have left behind the American village economy of the nineteenth century almost as completely as the tone and circumstances of life many centuries ago. Through Mr. Howe's book, Jedediah Barber will live on as a witness of the life of his time and in a region which was itself setting a pattern for much of the United States. There are many richly human episodes in this moving picture —using that term in its fullest sense. No one will forget the young Yankee on his ride-and-tie journey into the New York forest, his entrance into chain-store merchandising, his tragic calm as he watched the holocaust that consumed his Great Western Store. His horse deal with Commodore Vanderbilt illustrates commercial ethics which would have been readily defended, we fear, by his imaginary neighbor "David Harum." But in general there was a fine nobility about that kind of life. There is a satisfaction—perhaps a sort of aesthetic pleasure— in contemplating a thorough piece of work. It may be a description of a city, or it may be an analysis of the amoeba, but its thoroughness in itself exerts a fascination upon the minds of most of us, who see all too little thoroughness in this impatient world. Mr. Howe's biography of Jedediah Barber is worth studying as an example of thoroughness. The author set out to write the life of a man who himself wrote virtually nothing and therefore left little or no record or

ix

FOREWORD

interpretation of his purposes or his achievements. By ingenuity and tireless zeal enough was found from other sources to build out an interesting picture of an interesting man; but there will be some, I hope, who will like to reconstruct in their imagination the process by which the picture was made. The ample and laborious bibliographical annotation—honest, essential and anything but pedantic in effect—makes it possible for us to follow the author through this whole process. Many will respond that they are not in the slightest degree interested in technique or the monuments of industry. M. Jules Jusserand, once deploring the decay of interest in written history, attributed it to the public's boredom with the "German" practice of conspicuous annotation. He suggested that in eating a delicious dinner we would be disgusted at the sight of all the cook's soiled dishes brought in to prove how it had been concocted. Doubtless M. Jusserand spoke for many readers, but Mr. Howe's book should command the gratitude of many other readers, nevertheless. It is believed that those who are attracted to it will be so in part because it is an exceptionally complete record of how such books are made. It will seem curious to burden a foreword to a book with a disquisition on its scholarly apparatus, thus entering the matter, as it were, by the kitchen door. But if this book, like all other books, has to be justified, we may start its justification with an assurance of the sincerity, ingenuity and sound industry that lies behind it. Union College y> J939

Ma

DIXON RYAN F O X

PREFACE

T

H I S is a case history of one of the many New Englanders who went westward at the turn of the eighteenth century, of the son of a small farmer in eastern Connecticut who became a successful merchant in central New York. In the years preceding the Civil War, Jedediah Barber's Great Western Store in Homer was preeminent as the trading center of a large area. For more than half a century the proprietor was one of the leading citizens of the village; he was generous in his support of the local academy and he built an attractive and hospitable home. Then, as the techniques of business changed and village influence upon America gave way to urban dominance, the old man witnessed the almost complete destruction of his strong position. The reconstruction of this life with its high lights and deep shadows has been fascinating to the writer. The source material was largely in private hands, and the many interviews yielded not only valuable information but friendships. All of this help, for which the author is very grateful, is acknowledged in the notes throughout the biography. Special mention must be made of outstanding contributions to various aspects of the study: Family.—The "Letters from the Hedges" (several hundred family documents beginning in 1830) were generously loaned by Mrs. Katharine Oliver Stanley-Brown of Washington, D . C . , who has also permitted the reproduction of her portraits and the use of material from her interesting study of domestic architecture, The Young Architects. Mr. Norris Schermerhorn Oliver of East Orange, New Jersey, has made available his research on the Connecticut background of the Barber family and allied families. Letters and portraits and traditional material have been furnished by the late Miss Louisa Barber Henry and her sister, Mrs.

xii

PREFACE

M a r y Schcrmerhorn H e n r y Oliver, of East Orange, New Jersey, Mrs. Anna Henry Gordon of Belmont, Massachusetts, Miss M a y Buell Barber of Waterville, New York, a n d Miss Rachel T e n Eyck of East Aurora, New York. M r . H a r r y Barber of Syracuse and M r . Arthur Stevens Barber of Schenectady, in addition to information about the family, have given encouragement for the writing of the biography. Representing allied branches of the family, Miss J u l e Adele Ball of H a m b u r g , Michigan, and Mrs. Ella Jagger Little of Willimantic, Connecticut, have supplied important letters. Information also came from the late Miss Esther M . Hall of Tully, New York, a n d the late Miss Helen E. V a n Buskirk of Preble, New York; the latter's valuable collection of Crofut papers aided materially in understanding the Great Western's transactions. Hebron.—Thanks are due to Mrs. Delia P. Hills, the efficient T o w n Clerk, to Mrs. Anne C. Gilbert, and to Miss Caroline E. Kellogg. Mr. Charles M a m p o t e n g of Glen Cove, New York, whose forthcoming biography of the Reverend Samuel Peters is awaited with interest, has been most kind in sharing Hebron material. Hartford.—The Connecticut State Library, with its invaluable archives, has rendered service over a period of years in building u p the backgrounds of the families involved and in supplementing the Hebron town records. Syracuse.—Miss M . Frances Ferris and Mrs. Grace Beauc h a m p Lodder of the American history department of the Public Library and M r . Franklin S. Chase of the O n o n d a g a Historical Association have assisted with the records in innumerable ways. T h e Honorable E. P. Boyle was kind enough to spend some time with the author in driving about O n o n d a g a Hill and pointing out the landmarks. Cortland.—Mrs. Katherine Worden Crutts and Mrs. J e a n nette Benton Sherwood of the Cortland County Historical Society have not only furnished material from their carefully in-

PREFACE

xiii

dexed files but have encouraged this study in every way. Mrs. Byrl Jorgensen Kellogg at the Free Library has made possible the assembling of the advertisements of the Great Western Store from the files of county newspaper material. Mrs. Bertha Eveleth Blodgett's extensive and sympathetic knowledge of Cortland County has assisted, both through her interesting writings and through interviews and correspondence, in the preparation of this volume. M r . and Mrs. Robert E. Stilwell and Dr. Edith Flower Wheeler have been most generous in permitting the copying of their valuable papers. Mr. T . T. Bates, formerly of Homer, has contributed a series of Barber anecdotes that interpret the records in a very h u m a n way. Homer.—Mrs. Ina H u r l b u t Bird, whose descriptions of Homer's past are both accurate and interesting, has collected a large sheaf of stories about the Great Western and has been more than kind in her research for the reconstruction of Barber's life and times. T h e author's debt for Mrs. Bird's aid cannot be overstated. T h e Phillips Library, with its valuable local history, together with Miss Cora J . Bard's kindness, has always made study in Homer a pleasure. Dr. Frederick R. Thompson and M r . James E. Ogden of the Homer National Bank have generously permitted the inspection of the various local records kept in their vaults. Mrs. Milton Fairbanks, Miss Clara Hastings, Mrs. Wilbur Jackson, Mrs. Jennie H. Marcy, Mrs. Blanche Van Hoesen Nye, Mrs. M a r y Hurley Phelps, Mrs. Celia Barker Ranney, Miss Bertha Stone, Miss Emma Wilbur, and Mr. George H. Dorman have kindly contributed material. Conversations with the late M r . Charles H . Stevens, whose series of articles in the Homer Post are of great value, and with the late M r . J o h n Arnold have added much information. Grateful acknowledgments are also made to Miss Jennie Muller of Truxton, New York, the Reverend Hattie E. Alvord of Ontario, New York, Mrs. C. E. Parmalce Butler of Rochester, New York, Mrs. Sophie Adams Brown of Whitney Point, New

PREFACE

xiv

Y o r k , M a j o r H . C . Durston of Manlius, N e w Y o r k , M r . Louis N . Samson of H o w e , Indiana, and Mrs. M a r i o n Hitchcock Curtis of C o l u m b i a , Missouri. T h e material from D e a c o n N o a h Hitchcock's notebooks has been of great help. T h e O b e r l i n College L i b r a r y loaned important source m a terial relating to " F a t h e r " K e e p . T h e N e w York

Historical

Society has generously permitted the use of its records. T h e staffs of the genealogy and A m e r i c a n history departments of the N e w Y o r k Public L i b r a r y have been a constant help, as has the staff of the C o l u m b i a University Library, especially M r . Walter Hausdorfer, librarian of the School of Business. President Dixon R y a n Fox of the N e w Y o r k State Historical Association invited the author to read a paper on Barber at the Association's Lake M o h o n k meeting in September, 1935, and to include an outline of J e d e d i a h Barber's biography in New York History for J u l y , 1936. T h e author gladly acknowledges his indebtedness to his daughter, Mrs. J a n e Eno H o w e M c G e a r v , for her constructive criticism of the text. Miss Bartlett C o w d r e v , for her efficient research especially on the Connecticut

background, and

Mr.

M i l t o n Halsey T h o m a s , a colleague on the C o l u m b i a University staff, for much friendly help in the construction of the biography, deserve very sincere thanks. M r . T h o m a s has also supervised the proofreading. T h e spelling of family names is variable. " B a r b u r , " " B a r b o u r , " and " B a r b e r " are found through the records and the same individual sometimes uses one spelling and sometimes another. In Glenwood Cemetery, Homer, the adjoining gravestones of husband and wife read " W i l l i a m

Hibbard"

and

" R a c h e l , wife of William H e b a r d . " T h e author has standardized the spelling wherever possible. HERBERT BARBER C O L U M B I A UNIVERSITY,

23 A u g u s t 1938

HOWE

CONTENTS F O R E W O R D BY DIXON R Y A N FOX

VII

PREFACE

XI

CHRONOLOGY OF JEDEDIAH BARBER I.

HEBRON BACKGROUND

II.

2 3

BOYHOOD

22

III.

THE JOURNEY WESTWARD

29

IV.

ONONDAGA FRONTIER

37

HOMER BEGINNINGS

49

THE VILLAGE AND THE GREAT WESTERN STORE

66

CORTLAND ACADEMY

97

V. VI. VII. VIII.

THE SYRACUSE AND BINGHAMTON RAILROAD

111

THE BANKING HOUSE

121

HOMES

135

CHILDREN

142

RETROSPECT

170

IX. X. XI. XII.

APPENDICES

177

1.

DOCUMENTS

179

2.

FAMILY DATA

189

3.

PORTRAITS AND MISCELLANEOUS PUBLISHED DATA

193

BIBLIOGRAPHY

209

INDEX

225

ILLUSTRATIONS JEDEDIAH BARBER

Frontispiece

(From a Portrait Painted by Francis Bicknell Carpenter about 1850)

JEDEDIAH BARBER AND MATILDA BARBER

38

(From Portraits Painted by an Unknown Artist about 1830 and Owned by Mrs. {Catherine Oliver Stanley-Brown)

HOMER IN 1838 (From a Woodcut in the Family Magazine,

50 1838)

THE PUBLIC GREEN IN HOMER IN 1850

58

THE GREAT WESTERN STORE

66

MAP OF HOMER IN 1855

68

THE CORTLAND ACADEMY BUILDING, 1826-1869

78

CATALOGUE OF CORTLAND ACADEMY, 1828-1829

84

LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS OF FUNDS FOR CORTLAND ACADEMY

90

CORTLAND ACADEMY DIPLOMAS, 1859

98

CEMETERY DEED, 1857

100

REVEREND JOHN KEEP AND PRINCIPAL SAMUEL BUELL WOOLWORTH

102

(From Portraits Painted by Francis Bicknell Carpenter about 1850)

TEACHERS' INSTITUTE ANNOUNCEMENT

106

CORTLAND ACADEMY PROGRAMS

110

MAP OF HOMER IN 1863

114

THE BANK BLOCK AND BARBER HALL BLOCK; BARBER'S BUILDING

122

xviii

ILLUSTRATIONS

JEDEDIAH BARBER'S HOUSE, HOMER

136

JACOB SCHERMERHORN AND LOUISA BARBER SCHERMERHORN

142

(From Miniatures Painted by Henry Colton Shumway in 1832 and Owned by Mrs. Katherine Oliver Stanley-Brown)

THE HEDGES

142

GEORGE, PARIS, AND WATTS BARBER, AND ELVENAH BARBER HENRY

152

THE VILLAGE GREEN IN 1876; THE BARBER MAUSOLEUM

172

MAP OF NEW YORK, 1804; MAP OF CONNECTICUT, 1804 End Papers (From Arrowsmith and Lewis, New and Elegant Atlas, 1804)

JEDEDIAH BARBER

C H R O N O L O G Y OF J E D E D I A H BARBER 1787 1804 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 18.7 1819 1819 1827 1838

April 10 Feb. 18 June 2 June 30 Oct. 7 Aug. 15 June 5

1854 1856 '857 1872 1876

Nov. 14 April 19

Birth at Hebron, Connecticut " R i d e and tie" journey to Onondaga Hill, New York Marriage to Matilda Tuttle at Tully Birth of daughter, Louisa Anna Removal to Homer Birth of son, George Jedediah Jones Opening of the Great Western Store Birth of son, Paris Birth of daughter, Elvenah Matilda Founding of Cortland Academy Birth of son, Watts Completion of the home on North Main Street Organization of the Cortland County Agricultural Society Opening of the Syracuse and Binghamton Railroad Destruction of the Store by fire Founding of the Banking House of Jedediah Barber Death of Matilda Tuttle Barber Death at Homer, New York

CHAPTER

ONE

HEBRON BACKGROUND NE of the present-day highways leading from New Haven on Long Island Sound to Providence on Narragansett Bay crosses the Connecticut River at Middletown and runs northeast through Willimantic and Danielson. East of the river for some twenty-five or more miles it traverses " a country full of rocks, swamps, hills and water . . . which must be subdued and gained out of the fire, as it were, by hard blows and for small recompense."1 Within this section—twenty miles from Middletown, half that distance from Willimantic, and twenty-five miles south by southeast from Hartford—is Hebron, one of Connecticut's "second generation" towns, settled about 1704* and incorporated four years later. Originally this town was part of Hartford County, but since 1786* it has been within the southern boundary of Tolland County. Unfortunately, as one enters the place today its appearance from the highway does not suggest its colonial origin. The Common is of good proportion and well shaded by fine trees but it is badly cut up by the state road. The public buildings on the 1 Hebron, Connecticut, Bicentennial: an Account of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town (igio), p. 42. »"Hebron History" (MSS in Vault No. 1, Connecticut State Library, Hartford). Typewritten (1917) from the following manuscripts: (1) Rev. S. A. Peters, "History of Hebron" (1822), 27 pp., and (2) "Early History of St. Peter's Church," 6 PP-; (3) Gov. John S. Peters, "Historical Notes" (1855), 11 pp.; (4) David Barber, J r . , "Antiquities of Hebron" (circa 1796), 5 pp.; and (5) Sylvester Gilbert, " L a w Students," 2 pp., (6) "Hebron Statistics" (1828), 25 pp., and (7) "Autobiography" ('839), 9 pp. The reference is to the paper by David Barber, Jr., No. 4. * Petition presented to General Assembly by Joel Jones and Elijah Kellogg, representatives of the town of Hebron, May 12, 1786. J . R. Cole, History oj Tolland County (1888), p. 27.

4

HEBRON

BACKGROUND

Green are modern, built after the disastrous fire of 1882, 4 and the absence of a church building with colonial lines takes away a distinction possessed by many New England communities of far less extensive background. Scattered through the length and breadth of the town stand some fine old houses,5 but they must be sought out. The treasures of Hebron's past are not along one street as are the historic buildings of Ridgefield, Newtown, and Killingly, towns of exactly the same age. 6 At the right, a& orte enters on the Middletown road, is a large white house occupying the site of the inn kept by David Barber, J r . , 7 in 1763, and near by is the dignified Squire Dutton house where the State Missionary Society was organized in 1798. 8 The site of Barber's store, which was the trading center of the town from about 1765 to 1785, is now vacant land between these buildings. On the opposite side of the Dutton house stood the Jones residence, a fine specimen of building in the early 1790's, recently removed to another part of the state; this was "the spite house," for the Joneses and Duttons were bellicose neighbors. Colonel Jones had built on the corner from which the Colchester road leads in a southeasterly direction, passing, within a few rods, the John Peters house and St. Peter's Church with its " n e w " churchyard. Returning to the Green, two more original roads lead westward. On that to Andover is the oldest village burying ground, in which there are a large number of interesting monuments; on the 4

Bicentennial (see note i , above), p. 62. T h e Colonial Dames of Connecticut have recorded the history, with drawings, of four Hebron houses: the Jedediah Post House, 1770-80; the Nicholas Place House, 1744; the Hutchinson House, early 1700's; and the John Peters House, 1780. Bulletin of the Connecticut State Library, No. 16. • Founded in 1708. Report of the Examiner oj Public Records, 1936, (State of Connecticut Public Document 41). 7 Barber Genealogy, published by John Barber White (Lillian May Wilson White, ed.), 1909. Section I, "'Descendants of Thomas Barber of Windsor, Conn., 1614— 1909"; Nos. 1, 5, 37, 1 1 9 , 390, and 924. * George Stewart, J r . , A History of Religious Education in Connecticut (1924), p. 307; Caroline E. Kellogg, " T h e Strange Story of a Spite House," Hartford Daily Com ant, J a n . 18, 1 9 3 1 ; Bicentennial, pp. 5 2 - 5 3 . 1

HEBRON BACKGROUND

5

road to Gilead is the original St. Peter's cemetery, dating from 1735 and eloquent with the memories of the early religious quarrels. One has the feeling that Hebron has been overhesitant in voicing its perfectly valid claim to eighteenth-century distinction. It is and always has been a farming community with an uneven and stony surface; the soil is of but average quality, • and all through the years the town has lost by migration to the more easily tilled lands in newer sections of the country. The town lies within the large quadrangle of hamlets and open country bounded by the river cities of Middletown and Hartford on the west and by Norwich and Willimantic on the east; eastward a few miles is Lebanon with its extensive and well-kept Common lined with old homes, its church and " W a r Office," and its markers of the French army encampment and of the beginnings of Moor's Charity School, now Dartmouth College; and Hebron's neighbor on the north is Coventry, with the Nathan Hale birthplace, so that Hebron is at least in excellent company. As we turn from present appearance to town records, Hebron has greater distinction. The published report of the Bicentennial (1708-1908) is rich in pictures and legends. We find families from the older towns of Hartford, Windsor, Saybrook, and Guilford taking up the lands "freely and voluntarily bestowed . . . by Joshua, sachim, son of Uncas, sachim" and petitioning the General Assembly, May 8, 1707, to establish a township by the name of Hebron, "to promote the design in carrying on things civil and sacred, for the honor of God, and for the good and incouragement" of the legatees and the settlers, represented by John Pratt, Robert Chapman, John Clarke, and Stephen Post.10 Possibly the last part of this statement of purpose should have all the emphasis. Land hunger and speculation were not confined to a later day. In order to determine just what »John S. Peters, "Hebron History," No. 3, p. 6. Public Records oj the Colony oj Connecticut, 1636-1776

10

(15 vols., 1850-90), V , 25.

6

HEBRON

BACKGROUND

land the famous Indian giver had actually conveyed to the settlers, tedious litigation had to be carried on, and years passed before the boundaries of Hebron were definitely established. It would doubtless have been better to have purchased outright; at least it would have been more economical in time and in money. T h e story of these early difficulties has been recounted carefully and fully by two of Connecticut's historians, Peters 11 and T r u m b u l l , " born in Hebron in 1735. And two of her early citizens, David Barber, Jr. ( 1 7 1 6 - 1 8 0 1 ) , " and his son-in-law, Sylvester Gilbert (1755-1846), u have left their reminiscences. Fortunate is the town to have descriptions of her life from men who were born within her bounds, eyewitnesses, almost, of her growth for the first hundred years of her existence! And interest in the past is not lacking in her citizens today, as the notes in this study will abundantly prove. T h e most colorful picture of Connecticut, published in London in 1781 by " A Gentleman of the Province," has been well characterized as more of a curiosity for its fabulous descriptions than a reliable authority." In a milder, franker, and therefore less harmful form the Knickerbocker History oj New York of thirty years later was a work of the same kind. In both cases, the protecting mask of anonymity soon fell off. In the Connecticut " R e v . Samuel Andrew Peter» (1735-1826); F. B. Dexter, Biographical Sketchet of Graduates oj Tale College (New York, 1885-1913), First Series, pp. 483-87; Dictionary of American Biography, X I X , 7-8. "Benjamin Trumbull, D.D. (1735-1820); Dexter, op. cit., First Series, pp. 621-37; D.A.B., X I V , 511-12. 1 1 "Hebron History," No. 4. These designations have been adopted because of the repetitions of the name " D a v i d " within the Barber family: David Barber m. Hannah Post 1686-1729 | 1693-1759 m. 1st Patience Case David Barber Jr. m. 2d Abigail Newcomb 1722-1748 | 1716-1801 | 1727-1805 David Barber II unm. David Barber III m. Lois Dutton 1740-1760 1760-1839 1760-1821 14 L. B. Wilder, Lucius Beebe of Wakefield (1930), pp. 181-94; "Hebron History," Nos. 5, 6, 7; Biographical Directory of the American Congress, iyy^-igsy (1938), p. 1011. " E. E. Beardsley, Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D. (1881), pp. 75.

HEBRON story

an autobiographical

BACKGROUND sentence aided

7

in identification:

"Here [in Hebron] reside some of the descendants of William Peters, Esq.—among them is the Reverend Samuel Peters, an Episcopal clergyman, who by his generosity and zeal for the Church of England and for the House of Hanover has rendered himself famous both in Old and New England." 1 ' For the author was no other than the eccentric Tory priest, the rector of St. Peter's Church in Hebron, whose activities worried Governor Trumbull 17 and whose hurried departure for England in 1774 was an incident in the dramatic prelude to the American Revolution. Peters devotes more attention to his native town than to any other place in Connecticut: Hebron is the center of the province; and it is remarkable that there are thirty-six towns larger and thirty-six less. It is situated between two ponds, about two miles in length and one in breadth; and is intersected by two small rivers, one of which falls into the Connecticut, the other into the Thames. A large meeting house stands on the square where four roads meet. . . . T h e township is eight miles square and has five parishes, one is episcopal. T h e number of homes is 400; of the inhabitants 2,200. It pays one part out of 73 of all governmental taxes; and is a bed of farmers on their own estates. Frequent suits about Indian tides have rendered them famous for their knowledge in law and self preservation. In 1740, Mr. George Whitefield gave them this laconic character, " H e b r o n , " says he, "is the stronghold of Satan; for its people mightily oppose the works of the Lord, being more fond of earth than of heaven." This town is honored by the residence of the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Pomeroy; an excellent scholar and exemplary gentleman, and a most thundering preacher of the New Light Order. . . . He is a very persevering sovereign disposition but just, polite, generous, charitable, and without dissimulation. Avis Alba.11 Samuel Peters, A General History of Connecticut (1781) 1877 ed., p. 140. W. Stuart, Life of Jonathan Trumbull (1849), PP- ' 5 8 ff > quote* Trumbull'» explanation of the mobbing of Peters. See also Peters's attack on Trumbull, The Political Magazine (London), Jan., 1781, pp. 6-10. u A General History oj Connecticut, pp. 4-6, 139-41. 1 7 1.

8

HEBRON

BACKGROUND

After the pension granted him during his sojourn abroad ceased in 1805, Peters returned to America and resided in New York City. The fires of ambition were somewhat quenched, and in reminiscent mood he supplemented his statement of Hebron's past: A number of Puritans purchased the township to enjoy natural liberty and freedom of conscience in a wild and savage country. These men were good farmers, very zealous, intelligent, and pious therefore being in fellowship . . . they took the name Hebron where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lie entombed in Asia, the three patriarchs of the Jews, Christians, and Mohametans, that they might be like God's peculiar and chosen people and join in building an House of Prayer for all people. The first three setders were Stephen Post, Samuel Shipman and Jacob Root, jusdy called the three patriarchs of Hebron. Names of other first setders in Hebron were David Barber, Moses Case, Nathaniel Mann, John Phelps, Benoni Trumbull, Samuel Gilbert, John Peters, Daniel Horsford, Dr. Obadiah Horsford, Obadiah Newcomb. . . . They Jived in log houses till 1712 when they got saw mills and [later] built a House of Prayer and a school house and setded a minister named John Bliss, A.M. of the College of Saybrook, whose Piety, Science and excellent example continued a blessing to the Inhabitants till 1735 when he asked dismission and the Association gave it. About this time Harmony much declined which had lived in the town from 1705 concerning the new House of Prayer and formed two parties called the North and South Parties . . . in 1740 Mr. Whitefield appeared with much zeal, and by his elocution and pointed doctrine divided the two parties more than they were before . . . the Assembly assumed Royal Power and established Orthodoxy, they seized the Hetrodox ministers and fisted some, silenced some and banished some to Long Island, but tried in vain to cure the divisions of Hebron by dividing it into four parishes. . . . Most of the North Party with Mr. Bliss declared for the Episcopal Church of England and erected a Church and named it St. Peter's, under the care of Mr. Seabury of New London. . . . l 9 S o much for this historian's reports of his native town. Hebron's struggle to have a minister and a meetinghouse is " "Hebron History," No. I.

HEBRON

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9

typical of the age in which the town was settled. In 1714 a committee consisting of Obadiah Horsford, Timothy Phelps, and David Barber was directed to fence three or four acres and sow them with wheat for the encouragement of a minister.20 Religious services were then held in the houses of Nathaniel Phelps (the innkeeper) and David Barber. When John Bliss of Norwich settled there as minister in 1715 he received a hundred-acre tract, and an annual salary of fifty pounds, together with his firewood. A t that time Dr. Horsford's barn was used for worship and it was there that David Barber, Jr. was baptized in May, 1717, by the Rev. John Buckley of Colchester, "who was lawyer, physician and minister all in one."21 In November of the same year Bliss was ordained; he was the sole clergyman of Hebron for the next seventeen years. He continued to deliver his discourses in the village physician's barn, for the location of the meetinghouse was still the cause of much trouble. After interminable discussions in town meetings, it was located, by majority vote, on the north side of the Common, on land given by Dr. Horsford, but it was not completed for years. This long series of church squabbles illustrated anew what has been called by a literary historian "the unlovely side of New England ecclesiastical life." The Public Records of the Colony bear many references to the seriousness of Hebron's problem. At the request of certain citizens, the General Assembly in 1716 appointed a special committee to repair to the town to choose a site for a meetinghouse and to mark it with stakes.2* But even this official action failed to satisfy, and the Assembly despaired of promoting peace and prosperity. Another tumultuous decade ensued before Joseph Phelps, agent of the town, petitioned the Assembly to divide Hebron into two societies by drawing a line of partition Bicentennial, pp. 45-46; Cole, op. cit., p. 349. " J . L. Sibley, Harvard Graduates, I V , 450-54. 3 Pub. Rtc. Colony Conn., V I I I , 185. 50

IO

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and designating a place for the meetinghouse of each society.11 Finally four places of worship were established within the town— Andover, Marlborough, and Gilead as well as the original First Church. Then came the climax, October 8, 1747, when the old meetinghouse was set on fire and destroyed by a fanatic, Moses Hutchinson, Junior. 24 A new meetinghouse was raised by the town's carpenters the next year. Thereafter the Public Records do not contain reference to any major ecclesiastical difficulty at Hebron, supporting the conclusion of a recent historian of New England that the decade of 1740-50 was the "Great Divide" with a subsequent marked secularization of life. John Bliss's pastorate had been a stormy one, and charges of imbibing too freely and of preaching in other towns without authorization had been preferred against him. In 1732 his wife had died, and just prior to his dismissal from the church he had married Hannah Post Barber, the widow of David Barber, Sr., (a charter member of the church) and the daughter of Stephen Post (one of "the patriarchs" of Hebron). With his ten children and his wife's five there must have been a crowded manse and, when his salary ceased, something of a problem in family maintenance. It would be well to regard with caution the charges against him, for the inherent cause of all the trouble was antecedent to his settlement in Hebron and remained as a menace many years after he left. Even the best of men would have been misjudged in such an atmosphere. The historian Trumbull has but a line or two in regard to Mr. Bliss, but for his successor, Benjamin Pomeroy, there are some thirteen substantial references. The second pastor of the Church-on-theGreen served for almost fifty years. But, although dismissed, Mr. Bliss was not eliminated from Hebron's affairs, for he declared for episcopacy in 1735 and about twenty families joined with him.26 The former pastor was »Ibid., V I I I , 40; I X , 138-39. " "Hebron History," No. 4. 21 Charles Mampoteng, "The Rev. Samuel Peters, M . A . , " Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, June, 1936, V , 73-91; Bicentennial, pp. 47-49.

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never ordained a priest of the Anglican Church, but he read the services for a number of years and commenced the building of St. Peter's Church on land which he himself donated. While the fundamental reason for the establishment of this "separatist" church was the friction generated by the rugged personalities of the setders, yet it must also be recalled that the Church of England for a decade or more had offered the value of her symbolism and decorum to the people of the Colony and had been increasingly accepted. Yale College had dismissed her president, the Reverend Timothy Cutler, in 1722, because he had announced his conviction that the Episcopal order was the true way.** About the same time Samuel Johnson, pastor of the Congregational Church at West Haven and a former tutor of the college, crossed the Atlantic and received Holy Orders.47 Samuel Seabury of New London (whose son became the first bishop of Connecticut and the first in America)28 was the agent of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the priest in charge of the new church at Hebron. Certain people in the old Church-on-the-Green may have smiled knowingly when Bliss died before he could sail for England to secure ordination and when the next four candidates sent out by the Hebron church for Holy Orders died one after another en route.4* Perhaps, after all, the stars in their courses were fighting for the established order against "prelacy." Even so, the difficulties of the Congregational Church had been compounded. The original church had been divided into four parishes, the edifice itself was destroyed by fire to satisfy prejudice, and the first pastor had changed creeds and set up a rival 14

Benjamin Trumbull, A Complete History oj Connecticut to 1764 (1818), 1898 ed.,

II, 1517

H. W. Schneider, The Puritan Mind (1930), p. 165; Herbert and Carol Schneider, Samuel Johnson, President oj King's College, 4 vols, (igag), I, 3-49. " Harvard Quinquennial Catalogue (1925), p. 1 5 1 ; Appleton's Cyclopaedia oj American Biography, V , 445. For an account of the life of Bishop Seabury (1729-96) see D.A.B., X V I , 528-30. » Trumbull, op. cit., II, 456; A General History oj Connecticut, pp. 260-62.

12

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institution in her midst. The exposing of all the younger Blisses and Barbers, duly orthodox, to Episcopal Church influence was in itself weakening to fundamental New England loyalties. The situation and the resulting bitterness give rise to the question: Did Anglicanism or arson rank lower in the rating scale of guilt as judged by the orthodox Puritan mind? Twenty-five years passed before the Anglicans of Hebron had a rector of their own in the person of Samuel Peters (Yale 1757), who was doubtless strengthened in his opinions by consciousness of the law of the survival of the fittest.30 He served from 1759 to 1774, not only as spiritual adviser but also as local banker, and was the owner of many acres and many slaves. 31 The rector proceeded, on the basis of his thirty-pound pension from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, to care for his parish, to complete the building of St. Peter's Church, and to defend the royal government. This last task was not difficult when Hebron was contributing men for the armies that attacked the French in Canada. Among others we find Samuel Jones, Obadiah Horsford, and David Barber I I , as well as Dr. Pomeroy as chaplain, serving at Lake George and at Louisburg. When the fortress on Cape Breton fell in 1 758, Hebron staged a unique celebration by converting a tremendous oaken log into a cannon for the salute to George I I I and his generals. 32 After Wolfe's victory at Quebec a more intelligent form of rejoicing took place, the results of which lasted for almost a century and a half. In the presence of the townspeople an elm tree was set out on land bordering the Common by David Barber, J r . , then a tavern 50 For additional Peters material see Vernon L . Parrington, The Colonial Mind (1927), pp. 259-63; E. A. and G . L . Duyckinck, Cyclopedia of American Literature (1856), I, 190-95. "Deposition of Peters, April 19, 1805, as to Indian grant to Capt. Jonathan Carver ( 1 7 1 0 - 8 0 ) . M S in New York Public Library. F. C. Bissell, The Rev. Samuel Peters: His Slaves and Their Near Abduction (1899). T y p e d copy in Conn. State Library. " " H e b r o n History," No. 3, pp. 7 - 8 ; J . W. Barber, Historical Collections oj Connecticut (1837), p. 550.

HEBRON

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13

keeper, assisted by his six-year-old daughter, Patience, who afterwards became the wife of Judge Sylvester Gilbert. 4 1 T h e tree stood from 1763 to 1904 when it became necessary to take it down, but another was planted on the site and is now one of the best trees on Hebron Green. However, in the years immediately preceding 1774, the rector's task of supporting the British crown proved more arduous. M a n y of the substantial citizens of the Colony became bitterly critical of the mother country, and the Sons of Liberty translated these sentiments into action by sinister methods. There were several visits of these ardent young patriots to the Hebron rectory. O n one occasion "the Windham m o b " sought to have Dr. Pomeroy pray for the softening of Peters's heart in order that he might be induced to sign a recantation of his proBritish views, but the pastor, suspicious of the purpose of the call, is reported to have sent back word, " I will not attend or give any countenance for murdering the best man in Hebron." T h e methods of coercion became rougher, and Peters was driven from his half-ruined home and had his clothes stripped from him by the crowd. He found his way to the home of the merchant Barber where aid and comfort were given him. 84 In a note in his History he mentioned both Pomeroy and Barber for their support, but under the conditions prevailing neither could afford him adequate safety. Finally the rector preached a farewell sermon, with the text, " O h that my head was water, and my eyes fountains of tears . . . I would weep day and night for the transgressions of my people." Then under cover of night he rode the hundred miles into Boston; and, after conferring with General Gage and Admiral Graves, he sailed from Portsmouth on November 24, 1774, for his long exile. During the latter half of the century the four prominent men " Bicentennial, pp. 50-51. " A General History of Connecticut, pp. 264-74.

i4

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of the town were the pastor Pomeroy, 35 the miller J o n e s , " the storekeeper Barber,' 7 and the lawyer Gilbert. The parson of the Church-on-the-Green, Benjamin Pomeroy (1704-1784), was a man of intelligence and public spirit. Before his ordination at Hebron, December 16, 1735, he had married Abigail Wheelock, whose brother was pastor at Lebanon 38 and founder of the school that became Dartmouth College. Benjamin Trumbull says: " D r . Pomeroy was a man of real genius, grave, solemn and weighty in his discourses. . . . He could set the terrors of the Lord in awful array before sinners, and show them in an alarming manner the slippery places on which they stood. . . At the very outset of his fifty-year pastorate Hebron experienced a "happy revival of God's work" which was part of the Great Awakening inspired by Jonathan Edwards at Northampton. Pomeroy's trip to the Mohawk Valley in 1770 and his consultation with Sir William Johnson concerning the transfer of the Indian school from Lebanon to Hanover, New Hampshire, is itself evidence of extraordinary enterprise. While the Colony may have had a "village mind that never breathed a larger atmosphere," whatever mind there was owed much to the preaching of pastors like Pomeroy. As the struggle with the mother country gained momentum, largely because of the extremes of the Sons of Liberty who dominated eastern Connecticut, the clergy dignified the movement by taking a clear-cut 35 "Connecticut Archives," M S S in Conn. State Library, Ecclesiastical Affairs. V I I , 252-60, 262b, 264b, 290, 293-95, 338b, 349, 363-64; V I I I , 482, 484, 566; I X , 1 1 , 28-30. " Ibid., Militia Papers, pp. 595, 1528, 2284, 2286, 3 1 3 8 - 3 9 ; ibid., Revolutionary War, X , 94b; X I V , 2 1 0 ; X V I I I , 46-47; X X I , 1 7 - 2 1 ; X X I I I , 1; X X V I I , 259, 266; X X V I I I , 72a; X X X I V , 376; X X X V I , 344c. »Ibid., Militia Papers, pp. 455b, 944ab; Pub. Rec. Colony Conn., X I , 338, 5 1 3 ; X I I , 292, 303; X I I I , 168, 174, 234, 259, 283, 288, 418, 5 1 1 , 570, 576; X I V , 2, 7 1 , 76, 257; X V , 8, 276; Pub. Rec. State Conn., I, 224. " Dexter, op. cit., pp. 485-88. " T r u m b u l l , op. cit., I I , 123; also I I , 108, 1 3 2 - 3 3 , 138-40, 2 0 1 - 2 , a n , 284,

290-91. C. E. Kellogg, " G o d Sent Them Benjamin Pomeroy," The Advance, March 7 . '935-

HEBRON BACKGROUND

15

national stand. When the news of Lexington came into Hebron on that fateful Sunday morning in April, 1775, Pomeroy abruptly adjourned public worship, mirabile dictu, and urged the volunteers to answer the call. And his word had added influence because he himself had served in 1758 and 1761 against the French. In the Revolution, he was again to take upon himself the duties of chaplain, although he was over seventy years of age. Equal to Pomeroy in public spirit and patriotism were the gristmill owner and the storekeeper in the town. "Yankees" is the word to describe them, for both were shrewd traders. Not only were David Barber, J r . (1716-1801), and Joel Jones (17331792) natives of Hebron but their fathers were among the first settlers. Both had married into prominent families: Jones married Margaret Day, a descendant of the Reverend Samuel Stone of the First Church of Hartford; and Barber married Patience Case and, after her death, Abigail Newcomb, names constantly found in the town records. Both men held commissions in the militia—the twelfth regiment was the local unit made up of companies from Lebanon, Middle Haddam, and Hebron. About 1758 Barber had been commissioned captain. Jones rose to be major and in 1776 was commissioned lieutenant colonel. As such, he served in the emergencies at New London in the spring and at Saratoga in the fall of 1777. One of Barber's sons was in the French war and other sons served in the Revolution, as did his brother, Stephen. Jones's son also served in the conflict with England. And both men represented Hebron in the General Assembly, Jones in 1778 and 1779 and from 1781 to 1785. Barber was deputy from 1769 to 1772 and also justice of the peace for Hartford County from 1769 to 1777. At the time of the planting of the peace tree, Barber was an innkeeper, but he soon took over the store on the Common near the Joel Jones house, and he was known in 1775 as "David Barber, Esq., Merchant." His farm was located about a mile north of the Green; the house is still standing. He bought his dry

i6

HEBRON BACKGROUND

goods in Boston and shipped potash, beef, and horses from New London, Connecticut, to the West Indies in exchange for rum, molasses, and sugar for his trade. Samuel Peters, in his role as local banker, left this record: In M a y 1774 David Barber of Hebron owed above £6,000 currency to William White and others, to pay which, Barber's lands without buildings were appraised by the Hon. Colonel John Peters, Captain Edmund Wells and Captain Benjamin Buell, three farmers upon oath; Mr. Barber's farm was large and its remote parts poorly fenced and badly cultivated; twelve acres adjoining his Shop and Barn were appraised at £50 currency pr Acre; twelve acres more at £20 pr Acre, twelve more at £ 1 2 pr Acre and sixteen more at £8 pr Acre. Your memorialist had agreed with Mr. White to take the fifty-two Acres for the sum they were appraised at, viz £ 1 , 1 1 2 currency, but in sterling only £834 (which upon an average was nearly £ 1 6 sterling pr Acre) but the Rebellion prevented the fulfillment of the bargain. 4 0

A t the close of the war came the inevitable climax. T h e forced payment of the bill for the goods purchased in '74—the creditors had been in England during the Revolution, as they were Tories—ruined David Barber. 41 He was then sixty-eight years old and had good assets in land and a successful business, but the Continental money, of which his son says he had armfuls, was of very trifling value. He might have survived even with overloaded inventories, but he could not contend against the two sinster forces of war and paper money. What was in those days a fortune was swept away. While he continued to live in Hebron for fifteen years, there is only one other mention of him. In 1795 the minister of the Church-on-the-Green, Amos Bassett, requested him to write the "Antiquities of Hebron." This manuscript, kept with the church records, was destroyed in the Hebron fire of 1882, and all we know of it is a long quotation in the 40 Rev. Samuel Peters, "Memorial to the Loyalist Commission." Original in London (Public Record Office, Audit Office, Loyalists, V , 13-42); photostat in Library of Congress). 41 Elihu Barber's recollections in Reunion and History oj Pompey, N.T. (1875), p. 283.

HEBRON BACKGROUND

17

Tolland County history and the brief abstract made from memory which is now in the State Library at Hartford. 4 * Although two generations of his family lie buried in the village cemetery, Barber has no memorial there and was apparently forgotten in the rapidly changing scenes of the 1790's. Jones's business career was different in that it went steadily forward. A t the time of his decease he had an estate of more than £1,505. 43 His grist mill did not require a large ouday of money and apparendy he had a village monopoly which insured him a safe income year in and year out. His services in the Assembly— twenty-five miles a w a y — a n d , at the most, a few months' service in the war did not require his absence for extended periods, and he watched his affairs carefully. A n interesting note in the public records for 1778 states that he was recommended for commission as lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army, but the Assembly of which Jones was a member substituted another officer for him. T h e conclusion, almost clearly, is that Jones sought to be excused from protracted service, which in that year would have meant the Philadelphia campaign and the possibility of many years in the field, and that he preferred to stay in Hebron and accept various local offices (head constable, poundkeeper, and tax collector) that carried fees for the incumbent. Three times the records refer to his financial responsibilities: O n the battlefield of Saratoga he had paid £70 to a Captain Clark of Plainfield who was killed in battle the following day and whose body was stripped of all papers and money. In the New London tour he sent Captain Amidon's pay roll to him, but it was short. (For years affidavits were made out to prove his honesty in these two transactions and he was finally cleared in both.) And as tax collector, his funds were found short because he had inadCole, op. at., p. 313; "Hebron History," No. 4. The executors Joel Jones, Jr., Jedediah Jones, and Roger Fuller were under $4,000 bond to Sylvester Gilbert, judge of probate for the District of Hebron. Records of the Estate of Joel Jones, Andover Probate Court, July 9. 1792, No. 1307. 41

43

i8

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BACKGROUND

vcrtently received counterfeit money. He petitioned the Assembly for relief and was granted a credit of the £ 102 involved in the transaction. Jones's tombstone remains as one of the finest in the Andover Road Cemetery. T h e fourth and youngest man in this group of town worthies was Sylvester Gilbert ( 1 7 5 5 - 1 8 4 8 ) , whose grandfather was one of Hebron's earliest settlers. In his student days, when he was home on vacation, occurred the mobbing of Peters; this youth found the gown that had been torn from the rector and sent it on to him in London. Gilbert graduated from Dartmouth College in August, 1775, and in the following October married Patience Barber, the ninth of David Barber's thirteen children. His autobiography says, I found the L a t i n a d a g e to be true Inter arma silent leges. M y l a w practice was small until 1 7 7 9 w h e n it b e g a n to increase and at the close of the w a r was extensive. In 1786 the C o u n t y of T o l l a n d w a s established and I was appointed State's A t t o r n e y . . . .

In the year 1787 N e z i a h Bliss

Esq [ D a v i d Barber's half brother], 4 4 the then town clerk and a w o r t h y m a n , died and I was chosen in his room by a m a j o r i t y of more than one hundred votes, and continued to be a n n u a l l y elected to that office . . . for the term of 23 years, w h e n d e m o c r a c y finally prevailed a n d ousted me.44

Thirty times Gilbert was elected to the General Assembly and once to Congress. For years he served as chief judge of the County Court as well as judge of probate. As a deacon in the Church-onthe-Green he was staunch in his support of the traditional doctrines and polity. 46 A very sincere expression of his religious faith we shall read in his letter to his wife's sister who had settled " i n the west." 4 4 J . Homer Bliss, Bliss Genealogy (1881), p. 67. R e v . John Bliss and H a n n a h Post (Barber) Bliss had two sons, Ellis Bliss ( 1 7 3 3 - 1 8 1 4 ) and Dr. N e z i a h Bliss

43

It is interesting to imagine how this journey was financed. Obviously, with the lads' lean purse, the inns were not patronized—and judging from reports this may not have been a hardship. The horse was fed at the roadside and at camp sites, for cold weather had not yet set in. Saddlebags contained food enough to last between stops at friends' houses for replenishment. Their small cash reserve was drawn on only for ferry charges and fees at the toll gates; at each of the latter, every six miles or so, the pedestrian went free, but whoever rode at the moment had to pay four cents. The travelers may have envied 13 William Darby, The Emigrant's Guide to Western and Southwestern States and Territories (1818), Table 64; Hedrick, op. cit., p. 176.

JOURNEY

WESTWARD

33

the gatekeepers their lucrative appointments, for they divided with the employing companies a constantly growing revenue. 14 Barber was not only traversing a country filling up with New Englanders but he was passing through the places made memorable by the labors of the graduates of Dr. Wheelock's school in Lebanon. The importance of the attempt of the Connecticut school to Christianize the Iroquois cannot be overemphasized. From the start the project was high in the favor of the colonial administrators, both at home and in England. The Secretary of State for the Colonies (the second Earl of Dartmouth) lent his name to the reorganized school when it moved to New Hampshire. Samson Occum, 15 one of Lebanon's graduates, became a missionary in 1761 to the Oneida Indians and traveled up and down the Mohawk Valley for years. Dr. Samuel Kirkland, 18 from Norwich, Connecticut, studied at Lebanon and at Yale and then took up his residence among these Indians. He strove valiantly, but in vain, to hold the Oneidas and their confederates loyal to the Americans in the Revolution. The Hamilton Oneida Academy at Clinton, the result of his work, became Hamilton College. Still another Lebanon graduate was known in the Valley, but his name was not mentioned in 1804 without a shudder: Joseph Brant, the Indian chief, Thayendanegea, whose ravages during the Revolution laid waste many a pioneer home. But he always claimed that the Connecticut school had meant much to him, and he sent his sons to Dartmouth College. This relationship between the Valley and Connecticut, in its various aspects, was a factor in bringing on eastern settlers. The missionaries had been telling for years of the fine land to be had west of Albany. And another factor, doubtless influencing the two boys, was the reports of the men who had served with Clinton and Sullivan in 1779 when the Americans broke the 14

A. B. Hulbert, Historic Highways of America (1904), Vol. X I I , CHAP. V. " D.A.B., X I I I , 6 1 4 - 1 5 ; Harold Blodgctt, Samson Occum (Dartmouth College Publications, 1937). D.A.B., X , 432-34.

34

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WESTWARD

power of the Six Nations by ruthlessly destroying their crops and villages. 17 The glories of the Finger Lake country had been told and retold by these veterans in New England villages, with results to be seen on the crowded Mohawk-Seneca highway. Near Utica was Whitestown, named by Judge Hugh White, who had purchased some land in 1784 and removed there from Middletown, Connecticut. He was always sending back to Connecticut "the largest stalks of corn, oats and wheat with samples of his best potatoes and onions." 18 Gradually there was built on and around his land another Connecticut community one hundred miles west of Albany. And with all these forces at work the omnipresent speculator 1 ' was not hesitant to press his claims. These two youths could not have been actors in a more stirring drama. They were part of the great folk migration, with its lights and shades, which continued west beyond the old frontier of 1768—a line from Fort Stanwix (Rome) south to Deposit on the Delaware, now carefully marked on the Hamilton College campus,20 which it crossed. This line (the last work of Sir William Johnson) had been superseded through purchases and agreements with the Indians culminating in the treaty at Canandaigua in 1794. 21 This treaty was followed in two years by the transfer of Oswego and Niagara from British to American control. From this date the central and western parts of the Empire state as we know it were open to the settlement of the Yankees and free from all Indian uprisings. 17

Halsey, op. cit., 255-83; The Sullivan-Clinton Campaign in 7779 (University of the State o f N . Y . , 1929); History of the Slate of New Tort, IV, 185-217; J . V. H. Clark, Onondaga (1849), I, 327-32. 18 Halsey, op. cit., pp. 337-46; W. G. Mayer, "The History of Transportation in the Mohawk Valley," N. Y. State Hist. Assoc. Proceedings, 1915, p. 223; Elkanah Watson, Men and Times of the Revolution (1857), p. 3 1 1 . 19 J . M. Palmer, General Von Steuben (1937), C H A P S , X L V , X L I X , L , L I ; History of the State of New York, IV, 337-42; V, 148-62. Connecticut Courant, March 14, 1796, announced an auction sale at the Tontine Coffee House in New York City of thousands of acres in Homer, Pompey, Tully, and other towns of the Military Tract. 20 Halsey, op. cit., pp. 99-105. 11 History of the State of New York, V, 128-32; Clark, op. cit., I, 348-56.

JOURNEY

WESTWARD

35

Among the New England pioneers was Adin Webb who removed in 1804 with his parents from Canterbury, Connecticut (near Hebron) to Cazenovia, New York. He went out with an ox team by way of Hartford, Albany, Utica, Whitestown, Westmoreland, and Lenox. Approaching Manlius, he turned to the left and bore to the head of Cazenovia Lake where his father had purchased one hundred and fifty acres of land.22 He spent a year and a half with his father, and then, through the urgent solicitation of a friend, was induced to go on to Homer and teach school for a term of four months—he stayed sixteen years. From him Barber was to purchase in 1 8 1 1 the land for his store and his home. Another New Englander, of exactly Barber's age, had a double share of experiences in finally reaching Onondaga. John Smith, from Buckland, Massachusetts, was sent at the age of sixteen by his father to Pompey, New York, on horseback that he might know the advantages the new country offered. Having sold his horse, the boy returned home on foot and reported as to the good climate and the fertile soil of Onondaga County. His father, with the help of his neighbors, then made a sled on which the household goods were packed for the journey. This was drawn by a yoke of oxen. The family walked. They went over the Hoosac Mountains to Williamstown, where they had to purchase a cart and abandon the sled because the ground was bare. Continuing westward, with many and various accidents, they came to Litchfield (between Herkimer and Litde Falls) and found snow so that they were obliged to change back to runners, repacking their goods. They reached Pompey in January, 1804, having been on the road fifteen days, and moved into a log house a mile northwest of Butler Hill. 23 The fall of 1804 witnessed also the expedition of Lewis and Clark into the far reaches of the newly acquired Louisiana n 13

H. C. Goodwin, Cortland County (1859), p. 369. Pompey Reunion, pp. 348-49.

36

JOURNEY

WESTWARD

Territory, even to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. They were opening an empire which would take a century to settle, but the Connecticut boys were seeking homes and opportunities for trade. They were not explorers but bona fide settlers with great ambitions. They thought of themselves as on the western frontier when they "landed at Onondaga Court house hill," but they were really in a western extension of their native New England.

CHAPTER

FOUR

ONONDAGA FRONTIER HEN Jedediah and his cousin, after the long journey, reached Onondaga Hill there was a partial family reunion—the largest group the pioneer parents had had with them for almost three years. The oldest son, Aaron, J r . , twenty-six years old, Joel, twenty-four, Rachel, twenty-two, her husband, William Hibbard, whom she had married in 1799, and Abigail, fourteen, had come, and Jedediah was the fifth of their children to join Aaron and Rachel in the new home. But there was a certain sadness about the occasion, for Sally and Polly were not with them. Sally, thirty, had married her cousin Hiram Barber and had preferred to stay home in Hebron. Polly, the youngest, had died at the age of seven just before her mother left Hebron. Joel Phelps, Rachel's nephew, and his sister, Salenda, were also with the family. 1 The relatives nearest to Onondaga were Elihu and Hannah Gott Barber and their children at Pompey. The two towns were at least fifteen miles apart, with only the rough, primitive road through Manlius connecting them, and both families were intent on bringing their land—little better than a wilderness, and heavily wooded—under cultivation, so there was probably no interchange of visits. With postage rates of twenty cents for one folded sheet (for two pieces of paper the cost was doubled) from Onondaga to Hebron there was not much correspondence with the home town. It is to be noted that the Hebron letter of 1816 from Judge 1 Salenda later married Aaron Root and lived in Charlton, New York. Joel became a merchant, never married, and died as a comparatively young man. Phelps and Servin, op. cit., pp. 391-92.

38

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Gilbert to Lydia Barber Powers in Sullivan was sent with a man going into the "western country." This probably meant a great saving in time. A four-horse mail coach began running twice a week from Utica to Canandaigua the year that Jedediah came to Onondaga, but the carrying of the mail between the two Barber communities must have taken about six weeks.2 For a large family which for generations had lived in the same Connecticut town, this situation meant a marked social change and required much adjustment of mind, particularly for the father and mother. T h e Connecticut family had come into a very important area of the newly opened country: the Military Tract of central New York. T h e government in 1781 had introduced the plan of a bonus in land, in order to overcome the difficulties of recruiting men for the Revolutionary Army. 3 A tract of 1,800,000 acres (the present counties of Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Cortland, together with parts of Oswego, Tompkins, and Wayne) was designated for this purpose. When the soldiers were given their discharges, they were so disillusioned by " c h e a p " paper money and empty promises that they frequently sold their land certificates for rum or blankets or anything tangible. 4 As a result, frauds and speculation ran riot. A n early settler of Homer, Thomas G Alvord, who came from Farmington, Connecticut, in 1795, had drawn Lot 56 in return for military service. A t Manlius a couple of land sharks met him and told him that they had been to Homer and were well acquainted with the position of his land, which was almost entirely covered with water. So the old hero was induced to part with six hundred acres of the most valuable land for a few dollars. 5 T h e Indian claims had been extinguished and the townships carefully laid out ' H e d r i c k , op. cil., pp. 81-83; Clark, op. cil., I, 387-88. 3 Clark, op. cit., I, 356-63; R . S. Rose, " T h e Military T r a c t of Central N e w Y o r k " (Syracuse University master's thesis, 1935), M S in Syracuse U n i v . Library. 4 Clark, op. cit., II, 248. ' Goodwin, op. cil., p. 153.

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39

by Surveyor General Simeon DeWitt for many years before the legislature finally in 1798-99 appointed a commission with power to determine land titles. Thereafter population in the Finger Lakes country increased rapidly, with New Englanders in the majority. Across the Military Tract from east to west ran the Seneca Turnpike, the chief route to the Falls of Niagara. Travelers on this road in the early years of the nineteenth century often mentioned the steep grades in and out of the Onondaga Creek Valley and the three important places adjoining: the Hollow, the Salt Springs, and the Hill.' These were growing communities; the population of the Town of Onondaga rose from 873 in 1800 to 3,775 ten years later. 7 Much attention was given to the celebrated springs in the Salina marsh (which produced 100,000 bushels of salt annually) 8 even though the marsh was extremely unhealthy with its fevers and their annual toll of deaths. The two embryo villages known as the Hollow and the Hill were back a few miles from Onondaga lake and occupied higher and better land than the Salt Springs. It is needless to add that they were rivals in every way, being parts of the same township and only a short distance apart. The Hollow had Tyler's Inn, a church, and later the Onondaga Academy, while a short distance up the steepest hill to be found between Albany and the Falls were the courthouse and Bronson's tavern. Faithfulness to fact requires the statement that the courthouse was solitary and gloomy; its construction dragged along for six years, the structure not being completed until 1807. The legislature had wisely enacted that the court could adjourn to any near-by house if the weather proved too inclement.9 Also on the Hill a traveler of e Timothy Bigelow's tour to Niagara Falb, quoted by Hulbert, op. cit., X I I , 1 2 8 - 3 1 ; Dwight, op. eil., IV, 42; John Maude, Visit to the Falls oj Niagara in 1800 (1826), pp. 42-43. ' Dwight, op. cit., IV, 32. 8 William Cooper, Guide to the Wilderness (1810), p. 13. * Clark, op. cit., I, 393. Onondaga County was set off from Herkimer County in 1784, the Town of Onondaga was incorporated in 1798.

4°

ONONDAGA

FRONTIER

1805 observed the frame of a hotel to be kept by "one Branson" and added that it was an accommodation much needed by those traversing the turnpike. Thus we see Onondaga at this early day not only a growing county seat but a commercial center of promise, with its agriculture and its salt. These prospects were fully realized, but by neither of the rival communities in the Hollow and on the Hill. For the Grand Canal in twenty years was to establish in the marsh a new village which was finally called Syracuse, 10 and the original settlements—the sites of Tyler's and Bronson's taverns—have remained hamlets to this day. T h e original Barber land, 11 bought jointly in 1802 by Aaron Barber, Sr., and William Hibbard, was on this main highway through Onondaga Hill near where the World War marker now stands.12 It comprised one acre and eight rods of ground and cost $260. Here they built a house and a blacksmith shop. Hibbard was a blacksmith who later, in Homer, became a maker of axes. Tradition (reported by Barber's grandson in Livingston County) says that Barber was of the same trade. There is in the Hebron records no evidence to support this statement, but it is quite possibly true, since the typical farmer of those days was remarkably self-sufficient and this vital calling was intimately related to pioneer life. T h e blacksmith shod the horse without which the settlers could not move themselves or their crops, and he also made the implements for cultivating the soil and the tools for the construction of the houses and the furniture. The Barber-Hibbard shop was the means of family support while the supplemental purchases of the heavily wooded 10 Syracuse was formerly called Bogardus Corners, M i l a n , South Salina, Crossitt's Corners, and Corinth. T h e county offices were removed from the Hill to Syracuse in 1829. C . E. Smith, Pioneer Times in the Onondaga Country (1904); Publications oj Onondaga Hist. Assn., (1910). 11 O n o n d a g a County Deeds, B 365, D 135. W i l l i a m Laird or Lard c a m e to the Hill in 1795 and purchased land on L o t 114, where he kept the first log tavern. Clark, op. cit., II, 133. u E. P. Boyle of O n o n d a g a Hill pointed out the local landmarks to the author, J u n e 7, 1935.

ONONDAGA

FRONTIER

41

Onondaga land were being cleared and made ready for crops by the two older sons with such help as their father and Hibbard could render. As to the circumstances faced by the Barbers in setting up their farm, the analysis of Professor Hedrick is instructive: a man with the help of his neighbors could erect a log house twenty feet square, living room below and sleeping room above, almost without cost. A larger house with two rooms below and two above could be built with hired labor for $100. A yoke of oxen cost $60, a cow from $16 to $25, and the necessary farming tools, including the oxcart, could be purchased for $50. A wellto-do settler was one who had $150 in capital after his land was purchased. In a year's time a good woodsman could chop, log, burn, plow, and sow ten acres of forest land and in the process make a ton of potash which would sell for $200. His first crop of wheat on this land would give him 150 bushels, marketable in Albany for $300. T h e settler would have a handsome return from potash and crops, especially when one considers that as a day laborer he would have to toil twelve to fifteen hours a day for eight to ten dollars a month. 1 * Apparently the Barbers had chosen well in going to the Onondaga frontier. Jedediah, the youngest son and the last to arrive in the western country, at once struck out for himself, leaving the others to clear land and do the blacksmithing. He recorded his experience with characteristic brevity, " I hired out to Mr. Bronson for $8 month summer winter kept school $10 monthly followed thus two years." 1 4 His employer was another Connecticut emigrant, Josiah Bronson from Waterbury, an enterprising Yankee who had built a tavern on Onondaga Hill in 1805 near the unfinished courthouse. T h e hostelry was strategically located. Business justified the proprietor in employing young Barber as his handy man. T h e boy's duties consisted of sweeping out the public 13 14

Hedrick, op. cit., pp. 109-10; Halsey, op. cit., pp. 392-400. Barber to B. P. Johnson, J u l y 20, 1863.

42

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rooms, taking care of the horses of the travelers and litigants who patronized the place, and making the strong and spirituous liquors—homemade but not bootleg. 15 Only in the summer months did the hotel require the services of a handy man, for Barber, as he says, taught school during the winter session. Judge Strong had opened the first school on the Hill in a log building in November, 1802, and taught three winter terms of four or five months each. Barber succeeded the Judge in the same log house, for it was not until 1807 that the community built a frame schoolhouse. Only the younger children usually went to school in the summer months, and they were taught by a woman for one dollar a week. But in the winter there were older boys who needed a sterner hand and the district had to pay the larger salary of ten dollars a month for a man teacher. 16 Young Barber was doubtless excellent at discipline but those who have read his manuscripts are sure that he was less efficient at chirography and orthography. It may well be that the community leaders were satisfied and wanted him chiefly "to teach manners." The first teacher of the neighboring school at Pompey1T is reported not to have taught anything beyond the rudiments of an English education, in contrast to later teachers who gave instruction in "the classics and higher English," and the rudiments were all that could have been expected of Barber as a pedagogue. In later years he is reported to have said: " T h e y called me a good teacher in those days but I should hardly be willing to have such a teacher in any school now-a-days." 18 A tribute to him as an octogenarian tells how he lacked "the advantage of an early education and had none of those adventitious aids which property gives." 19 However, his work for Bronson and in the log school gave him employment for his first two years in u

Cortland Democrat, April 10, 1936. 18 Clark, op. cit., II, 134. 17 Ibid., p. 245. Cortland Academy, "Record of the 100th Anniversary" (1919), pp. 56-57 (address of Harry Barber). " Syracuse Daily Journal, 1866; courtesy of Mrs. Marion Hitchcock Curtis. 18

ONONDAGA FRONTIER

43

Onondaga and also new experiences, for both these tasks were very different from doing chores on Hebron farms. About the time Aaron Barber moved to Onondaga, Joseph Baker from Chesterfield, Massachusetts, with Lewis Billings cleared land on "Pompey west hill" for ten dollars an acre. They would go out in the morning and each strive to be the first to fell a tree; no sooner would the tree be down than the sturdy pioneers would be cutting it into logs; the first tree finished, they would run to the next, and all day long the rivalry would continue. The logs were drawn into heaps by neighbors, every man owning a team participating in the bee and on these occasions, song and mirth, strife and victory is reported to have made all joyous and happy.20 But in 1806, while clearing land near General Ellis's place,21 the elder Barber was struck by a falling tree which he had been cutting and killed. This type of accident was not uncommon in clearing forest land; in the same year the county history records that Jabez Webb, one of Onondaga's earliest settlers, was fatally injured in the same way.22 The plans of the Barbers for a permanent home in that town crashed with the loss of their father. The resulting grief and disappointment doubtless caused Jedediah's severe illness, in which he was attended by Dr. William Needham23 from the Hollow, the town's pioneer physician. Almost two years to a day after Aaron's death, Rachel died, largely because of the shock of her husband's accident. The parents were buried in the village cemetery, located on the hillside just below their home, but in 1869 their youngest son removed their bodies to his newly constructed mausoleum in Homer. The whole story of Aaron and Rachel is quickly told and it 10

Pompey Rtunion, p. 269. Syracuse Post Standard, Nov. 25, 1929, describes the J o h n Ellis House. « Clark, op. cit., I I , 1 3 3 . " Clark, op. cit., I I , 130. Also as to " t h e sickly season" see ibid., I I , 1 4 1 ; Hedrick, op. cit., p. 103; and Dwight, op. cit., p. 3 1 . 11

44

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is tragic. The pioneer couple, in their early fifties, died as almost strangers in a strange land, many miles away from their native Connecticut. In Onondaga Hill today there is no memorial of this New England couple; we are dependent chiefly on the land records for evidence of their brief sojourn. Soon after the mother's death the children began moving away: Jedediah to Tully; Rachel and her husband to the Hollow; Aaron, Jr., and his wife (also named Rachel) 54 to Ontario County; Abigail, the bride of Amos Stiles, back to Hebron; and finally, in 1836, Joel, who had married Pamela Adams, to Illinois.26 An old Hebron document of 1814 describes the distribution of the balance of Rachel Jones Barber's patrimony and indicates the scattering of the children and the Phelps cousins." In the spring of 1806 there had come to Onondaga Hill a new storekeeper named John Meeker.27 He had large ideas of business, having operated establishments in Homer, Manlius, and Pompey, and was now planning to enter Onondaga, Marcellus, and Tully. He too was a part of the New England migration, having come from Hinsdale, Massachusetts, by way of Johnstown and Cherry Valley to Tully, where he had a large farm situated on what is now "Meeker's Hill," about a mile and a half due north of the present Apulia depot. The views from his farm site include the Tully Lakes and Mount Topping and Preble to the south, as well as the wide valley and hills to the east—a lonely but superb spot. When he decided to cater to the M Rachel Jones Barber, Aaron's mother, and Rachel, his wife, are easily confused, even in the land deeds in Onondaga. M "Records of the Presbyterian Church at Onondaga Hill" (Lyman Averill Cheney, M.D., ed.), pp. 8, i o - i i, 17, 19, 42-43, 55. " Hebron Land Records, X I I , 353. 17 John Meeker ¡767-1840. Under this title the author has recently placed a volume of Meeker data, including his land records, in both the Syracuse Public Library and the Cortland County Historical Society. H. C. Durston, "Twentieth Paper of History of Manlius," Manlius Thrift-News, June 23, 1938, quotes Thurlow Weed's description of Meeker.

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FRONTIER

45

wants of Onondaga there were already stores in that community. Reuben and Simeon West*8 from Lebanon, Connecticut, were among the local merchants. Meeker thought his prospects in the county seat were good despite the competition. He engaged Jedediah Barber to help him and gave him three shillings (37M cents) a day. This was more than Bronson had paid him at the hotel. But we know that it was not all in cash, for Meeker took three days' work from the youth in exchange for cloth for a new shirt. In the course of building and opening the store, the proprietor was impressed with his young helper, and in the summer of 1808 (immediately after Rachel Barber's death) he invited Jedediah to assist in his Red Store in "All woods" (Tully). The offer was accepted, both in the interest of prosperity and for the spiritual relief of leaving the place where his parents lay buried. The career of Barber as a merchant began with this removal. Tully lay about eighteen miles south of Onondaga Hill. Even though its settlement by New Englanders had begun in the 1790's, it was noi until 1803 that it was set off from Pompey as an independent town, and not until 1815 did it enjoy the privilege of having its own post office. It filled an important place in the neighborhood because of its gristmill, and "people from the southern towns of the county, Homer, Solon, Cincinnatus and Marathon used to come with their wheat and corn, drawn by oxen, to get their grinding done." About 1805 a church had been organized by Connecticut missionaries. The Skaneateles Turnpike was laid out from Hamilton, giving Tully direct connections east and west and making it unnecessary for the M E. E. Cornwall, Francis West of Duxbury, Massachusetts, and Some of His Descendants (1906), pp. 5-9. Thurlow Weed in his Autobiography tells of buying his first beaver hat from the Wests—a distinction for the store on the Hill, as the printer's devil of the Onondaga Lynx became the power of the Whigs and later of the R e publicans in the state and beyond. T h e Wests became vestrymen of St. John's Church—later Zion Church—in Onondaga Hill. They are buried in the village cemetery.

46

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traveler to go up to Onondaga for the Seneca or, later, down to Homer for the turnpike running from Oxford to Ithaca. Trading was done at Pompey Hill until Moses Nash opened his store in Tully in 1803. In 1805 John Meeker succeeded Nash as storekeeper and "took the lead of business and trade in that part of the country." 2 * T h e Red Store was also military headquarters, where on training days the settlers, in tow frocks and shirt sleeves, with their muskets and rifles and some even with mere sticks, assembled for the annual maneuvers of the Sixty-second Regiment. 50 Barber, in a cryptic sentence, written half a century later, told how Meeker's enterprise and its clerk prospered from 1808 to 1810: " H a d a call from Mr. John Meeker as a clerk in his store at Tully Allwoods in two years I made clean of Expense [and] Saved Thousand Dolls after being a clerk for M r . M . " The youth had made good and was now well on the way to learn the business; in fact, before the two years were completed he had become a junior partner at the Red Store. For this series of Onondaga County stores, Meeker found the capital, made the purchases, and disposed of the produce taken in exchange for goods. This meant transportation to Albany in canvas-covered wagons drawn by four or six horses, the round trip consuming two weeks. In each store was a partner with whom he divided the local profits. T h e merchant placed Azariah Smith from Middlefield, Massachusetts, in the Manlius store, the latter's cousin Calvin Smith was the resident partner in Onondaga, Phares Gould was in the Skaneateles store, and Jedediah Barber was at the Red Store in Tully. 3 1 Meeker was known not only as the proprietor of "the chain of stores" but also as the trainer of these young men who afterwards took rank in business throughout the entire section. In » C l a r k , op. cit., I I , 336. 30

" R e m i n i s c e n c e s of S. C h a s e , " D e t r o i t Standard, Sept. 10, 1869.

" C l a r k , op. cit., I I , 194-201.

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FRONTIER

47

fact, his subsequent failure shows clearly that he did better for his partners than for himself. Barber obtained his professional training from Meeker and left Tully to establish and maintain for almost fifty years a great trading center, reaching far greater success than did his mentor. One of Barber's grandsons used to tell how the Tully partnership was dissolved because the two Yankee traders could not get along together, and how the younger sold out to advantage. However, the truth is more probably that Barber was not satisfied with a thousand dollars as his only savings from two years' work. His ambition had grown steadily during the seven years since he first hired out to Bronson as a handy man. Tully had provided another and perhaps greater influence on his life than the opportunity to learn business, for it was in Tully that Barber met the eighteen-year-old daughter of a Revolutionary veteran, a farmer named Moses Tuttle 32 who had been born in Woodbury, Connecticut. Evidently it meant something in that town to be associated with John Meeker, the merchant. A t any rate, Matilda Tuttle looked with favor on the junior partner at the Red Store, and they were married by an itinerant M G . F. Tuttle, The Descendants of William and Elizabeth Tuttle (1883), p. 563. Moses and A n n a Tuttle, his wife, were first cousins, both being grandchildren of Ephraim Tuttle (1684-1753) and D i n a h Sherwood Wheeler Tuttle (b. 1681) of W o o d b u r y , Connecticut, w h o were married Feb. 13, 1706 or 1707. A . G . Wheeler, Jr., The Wheeler Family in America (1914). Ephraim and Dinah Tuttle had seven children; the third was D a v i d and the youngest was A b r a h a m . T h e children of

D a v i d and (Hecock) T u t t l e were: Elizabeth m. James C r o f u t Aaron Moses (1759-1837) m. A n n a (1763-1828), daughter of his uncle, A b r a h a m Tuttle. Both Aaron and Moses served in the army. T h e latter took part in the battles of L o n g Island and White Plains, although most of the time he was assigned to duty as a blacksmith. A f t e r his discharge he is said to have lived in Pound Ridge, Westchester C o u n t y ; later he was a resident of Florida, O r a n g e County, where his youngest daughter was born. T h e children of Moses and A n n a Tuttle were: Sebra m. Easton T a l l m a n Sarah m. Stephen Winegar Matilda m. Jedediah Barber

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Connecticut missionary on February 18, 1809. The farmer's daughter was a girl of marked ambition and possessed the dominant will to achieve it. If her husband needed power to realize the vision of success that Meeker had given him, he found it in Matilda's companionship. The third Federal census, taken in 1810 just prior to their leaving Tully for Homer, records a family of three—the man of twenty-three, the wife in her twentieth year, and the daughter, Louisa Anna, a few weeks old. In the Tully cemetery these two stones stand near the highway:

MOSES TUTTLE died Feb 21st

•837

aged 78 A Soldier of the Revolution

In Memory of Anna wife of Moses Tuttle who departed this life Sept 5 1828 in the 66th year of her age

W. M . Beauchamp, Revolutionary Soldiers Resident or Dying in Onondaga County ( 1 9 1 3 ) , p. 257; "Letters from the Hedges," I, 27 (March 26, 1833).

CHAPTER

FIVE

HOMER BEGINNINGS

T

H E W I L D E R N E S S of central and western New York, which the pioneers had penetrated along Indian trails, rapidly gave way to permanent settlements. By 1 8 1 1 , 137 turnpike corporations had been chartered for the construction of 4,500 miles of "good roads." 1 Not only were there main highways along the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, but the new inland towns were being connected by more efficient means of communication and of trade. In fact, the legislature in 1808 had directed a survey to determine the practicability of digging a canal between the Hudson and Lake Erie, and a resolution for such a canal was sponsored by Joshua Forman of Onondaga. 2 Towns and villages were to be found all the way from Utica to Buffalo. The sixteen counties of 1790 had increased to forty-five by 1 8 1 2 ; there were 452 towns and more than 300 villages of at least thirty families each. So intent were these New Yorkers on opening the country and organizing communities that they seemed to hear little of the war talk in Washington and the new western frontier's demand for a change of policy on the part of the Madison administration. The Military Tract had no " w a r hawks" like Henry Clay of Kentucky. They had too much work right at home. Even their leading member of Congress, Peter B. Porter,' an emigrant from Salisbury, Connecticut, did not have the united support of his constituents in his pro-war activities. Later they were to see troops going west on the Seneca-Mohawk 1 McMaster, op. cit., I l l , 463. ' Clark, op. cit., I I , 7 1 ; Dorothie Bobbi, De Witt Clinton (1933), pp. 159-60. ' History of the State of New York, V , 222.

HOMER

5°

BEGINNINGS

turnpike, an "indifferent" road on which sixteen miles a day was "very creditable marching." 4 Sackets Harbor, Oswego, and the Niagara frontier were the points in the central and western areas to which the New York militia was sent in attempts to ward off British invasions. Arsenals were established at Onondaga, Canandaigua, and Batavia, and Governor Tompkins did his best, against strong political influences, to carry "Madison's W a r " to a successful conclusion. But indifference and incompetence marred the record of the state's efforts 5 —there was a marked lack of the enthusiasm which in the South supported Andrew Jackson in his campaigns. The War of 1812 is not mentioned in Homer records except for a few titles like "General" Daniel Miller, who had commanded a brigade on the Niagara frontier, and Barber was apparently oblivious to the war. None of the Barbers in Onondaga, Pompey, or Homer enlisted. The Society for the Promotion of Useful Arts 6 was at work improving agriculture, and Elkanah Watson7 from Massachusetts, with vision and persistence, was urging and demonstrating new and better techniques. The establishment of the State Board of Agriculture in 1819 was not far away. Already central and western New York had an agricultural surplus for export. These shipments went by flatboat down the small rivers feeding the Susquehanna and on to Baltimore, or by large wagons, each carrying forty to fifty hundredweight and charging three dollars per hundred, on the turnpike from Geneva to Albany. 8 The former domains of the Iroquois were fast becoming the Empire State, and the frontier had moved on westward to Ohio. 4

C . W. Elliott, Winfield Scott (1937), 43-44. History of the State of New York, V , 2 1 9 - 5 1 ; F- S. Eastman, History of New York (1828), pp. 187-208. * Hedrick, op. cit., pp. 1 1 7 - 1 8 ; Transactions of the Society for the Promotion of Useful Arts (1807), printed by John Barber. 7 Hedrick, op. cit., pp. 1 2 2 - 3 2 ; D.A.B., X I X , 541-42. Watson's name was given to the hamlet of "Port Watson," now part of the city of Cortland. 'Hedrick, op. cit., p. 175. 5

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51

It was in the midst of these developments that John Meeker's junior partner left Tully for the chief town of the newly organized Cortland County, fifteen miles to the south. There were three Barbers and twice as many Hibbards, for Rachel Hibbard, with her husband and children from Onondaga, joined her brother in this venture. The direct route was along the river, but it was a mere trail widened by use; as they had wagons with household goods, the Barbers and the Hibbards went east on the turnpike past Fabius, then turned south on the Cazenovia road through Truxton, and entered Homer over the "east hill." It was not a long journey, compared with the trip from Connecticut, but it was an important one. Homer was to be the third home in seven years for Barber and the Hibbards. Meeker had had his first store in Homer and had told Barber about the place. Moreover, settlers were moving through Tully to the new and growing community on the west branch of the Tioughnioga. Why should Homer people have to go to Tully in order to find a large store? Barber had determined to answer the question in favor of Homer. There, he believed, was a chance for a storekeeper, not just a clerk or an assistant to someone else. As they plodded along to their new home it would be interesting to know what Jedediah and Rachel talked about. Were they bitter about the loss of their parents? Were they envious of their uncle at Pompey with his well-earned title of "Butter Barber"? Were they planning new and better homes in the community on the Tioughnioga? It was natural that the women should discuss all these experiences while Hibbard dreamed a bit, as was his wont; but Jedediah looked at the land and asked questions of everyone he met. He watched the streams for possible mill sites and the crossroads for trading centers. That journey, we can be sure, was essentially his day. A map of Homer made about 1806, recently discovered,* gives us a picture of the place just prior to the time these new »B. E. Blodgett, Homer Port, July 5, 1935.

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BEGINNINGS

settlers entered it. It had fifty-six buildings including thirty-five houses, three blacksmith shops, and five stores. In 1800 it had had only six dwelling houses but in 1810 there were forty-five— some indication of its rapid growth. Most of these buildings were located on two streets, one, called Main Street, running parallel to the river, and the other, Albany Street, leading eastward. There was a pathway (now Water Street) to Asa White's gristmill and another (now River Street) that ran along the east bank of the stream. The highway to Ithaca (Cayuga Street) was being opened. Adin Webb's school and the newly dedicated church 10 stood close together on the plot of land that later became the village green. Where " T h e Hedges" later faced Albany Street stood Enos Stimson's tavern. When Barber and Hibbard arrived, the town was seventeen years old, having been organized on March 5, 1794. it was a New England community, through and through. 11 Of seventy-eight locally prominent men, resident in 1811, forty-seven are known to have been natives of Massachusetts and Connecticut and seventeen more came from New York and New Jersey and were also probably born east of the Hudson. Natives of Brimfield, Massachusetts, predominated, bearing names such as Bishop, Bowen, Hitchcock, Kinney, Lilly, Sherman, and Stone; and from nearby towns of the same state came the Ballard, Hobart, Keep, Stebbins, Stimson, and White families. These people brought to the Tioughnioga valley the rigid customs of the older eastern communities. They were conservatives, far removed from the "children of America" then settling Kentucky. 1 2 T h e new arrivals in Homer found it another Hebron in many respects, but big with business opportunities. The combination of Puritan 10

C h u r c h o r g a n i z e d 1801, first e d i f i c e d e d i c a t e d 1807; w o r s h i p h a d been h e l d

in t h e grist m i l l a n d in the school. 11

B a r b e r a n d H o w e , op. cit., p. 123; G o o d w i n , op. cit.,

K i n g s b u r y , " R e m i n i s c e n c e s of H o m e r , " H o m e r Republican,

pp. 166-68; Charles 1878. a n d

Cortland

Democrat, 1 9 3 5 - 3 6 ; the C o r t l a n d C o u n t y H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e t y has the c o m p l e t e series. 12

B e r n a r d M a y o , Henry Clay ( 1 9 3 7 ) , pp. 143, 197.

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BEGINNINGS

53

and Yankee in Barber found in the new town a congenial home. T h e first land purchase was made February 7, 1811, when Jedediah and William bought from Enos and Desire Stimson about one-third of an acre on the east side of the river just below the gristmill bridge " b y Seth Shaw's," for 855o. 13 T h e price sounds very exorbitant until it is remembered that water rights were included, which Hibbard was to use for his factory and which Barber found to be a profitable investment. It is safe to say that the nonmechanical brother-in-law made the purchase. Within fifteen months they made two other purchases from Stimson for $10 each, rounding out their land and giving them control of both sides of the street, with space for a dwelling house. 14 A hillside spring which is still used was on their land. They had their blacksmith shop near the gristmill, a good location for trade. T h e Hibbard house is still standing, with its graceful arches, reminiscent of the homes they had left in Connecticut. T h e Barbers lived southward on Albany Street at the foot of East Hill. Eighteen months after their arrival the halfinterest in shop and land was sold to Hibbard for $7oo. 16 If we allow $600 for all the land and $300 for the construction of the shop with its primitive equipment—the owners doubtless built it themselves—we find that Barber did not have a bad profit on a half-interest in his first Cortland County real estate. Hibbard kept enough low land by the river for his ax factory and sold the shop in 1816 to Jeremy Hitchcock for $600.16 Barber twice again owned the shop: in 1837 he purchased it for $500, and two years later he sold it for the same amount; 17 in 1854 he paid $1,000 for it and in 1868 he sold it for $1,400.18 Of course certain improvements on the property were made, but it is interesting to see that the original River Street location was not a bad investment for the newcomers; it had been chosen with foresight. 13 14

Cortland County Deeds, B 258; H. P. Smith, History Jainea 8 . t K n t n U n . jSm.tlrtrf.'i. ;N'»tinaii Snmli. Il-jtwt. (irvign W. S t o n e , d " . i M n r a e n i Stoi»-, £1 :

7,„„•„., .•!„,,

HomerX)

•

.-.< / - y

mm CORTLAND ACADEMY DIPLOMAS, 1859

CORTLAND

ACADEMY

ENOS STIMSON

WILLIAM HEBARD

LEWIS S . O W E N

JOHN B A L L A R D *

99

JESSE SEARLE

The Homer petition was Cortland County's first application for an institution of higher learning. In due course the ambitious citizens were able to show the regents that in addition to a building "ready and fit for use" they also had over $250 available as an annual income. This sum was deemed adequate for the launching of the enterprise, and after changing the name to "Cortland Academy" the investigating committee at Albany approved the application on February 2, 1819. This committee were a prominent trio: Chancellor John Lansing, Jr. (17541829?), who had been the Anti-Federalist opponent of Alexander Hamilton; Samuel Woodworth (1784-1842), editor and poet, whose " O l d Oaken Bucket" survives even in an age of hygiene; and Simeon DeWitt (1756-1834), surveyor general of the state. Their interest in Homer's ambition carried the matter to completion, and within a month John Tayler (1742-1829), chancellor of the University of the State of New York, signed the charter. Cortland Academy thereupon became one of the first twenty incorporated academies in the state. The first trustees (eighteen in number) were Dr. Lewis S. Owen, Hon. John Miller, John Osborne, David Coye, Chauncey Keep, Hon. Townsend Ross, Rufus Boies, N. R. Smith, Elnathan Walker, Andrew Dickson, Matthias Cook, Reuben Washburne, Jesse Searle, Martin Keep, Rufus Beach, Benajah Tubbs, David Jones, and George Rice. The Board had scarcely been organized, with the Rev. Elnathan Walker as president and Andrew Dickson as secretary, before there were two resignations, and we find a resolution, dated March 12, 1819, that "Hezekiah Roberts and Jedediah Barber be trustees in the room of Rufus Beach and Chauncey Keep." The next year the merchant was placed on ' Record Book of the trustees of the Academy, 1817-67, in the Homer National Bank.

CORTLAND

IOO

ACADEMY

the Prudential Committee. A t the meeting of M a r c h 22, 1823, choice was made of " D a v i d Coye and Jedediah Barber as a committee with Andrew Dickson who had been previously appointed to loan all moneys arising from the sale of Lot 85 to such persons as they see fit and take the necessary security." Just the year before, the legislature, by special enactment, had permitted the trustees to sell this land and invest the proceeds in mortgages; this gave the institution an endowment of $3,733. T h e First Religious Society had given the trustees land for the new academy on June 28, 1825, and on this plot, to the north of the Congregational Church, there was at once erected a building thirty-two by fifty-four feet in size, of distinctly N e w England fashion: "across the middle of the Green there gradually rose a line of wooden structures as stately as they knew how to make them." 4 T h e trustees now had a great opportunity, and they were equal to it. O n e of the first projects was an attempt at adult education; the Prudential Committee were instructed to purchase a chemical apparatus in order that Principal Taylor could offer an evening course of lectures, with a tuition charge of one dollar from each person attending. Everything possible was done to make the academy the center of culture for the community. A t the student exhibition held on January 12, 1827, Barber's oldest daughter (who was studying French, "Stewart's Philosop h y , " and geography) delivered a declamation on " T a s t e and Genius," and the oration (item No. 25 in the long program) was by T . Williston, " O u r R e p u b l i c — W i l l Perpetuity Be Its Lot?" An academical forum met regularly in 1828; the question for debate on December 26th was, " D o e s Wealth give the possessor greater influence than Knowledge?" In the simple onesheet catalogue of 1827-28 the Ladies' Department, which had been established in 1821, is mentioned in some detail and the 4

A. D. White, op. cit., II, 513; B. W. Bacon, Theodore Thornton Munger

p. 14.

(1913),

io co Q W W Q

> oí

w H w S

O

CORTLAND

ACADEMY

101

value of coeducation stressed. This was due in large measure to the keen mind and vision of "Father" Keep, 8 a graduate of Yale in 1802, who was pastor of the Congregational Church and a trustee of Cortland Academy. Homer proved to be too apathetic on the slavery issue and he removed to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1833, a year when Homer and Cleveland were towns of exactly the same size. The establishment of Oberlin College with its broad foundations was due in no small degree to this same man. The need of an addition to the building had resulted in a public subscription in 1831. Barber gave $ 1 2 5 in cash out of a total of $742, much of which was in work and supplies. There was delay in the actual construction; in fact, it was not until May 6, 1839, well after the panic of 1837 began to clear, that a special building committee of five—Barber, Smith, Short, Sherman, and Reed—were allowed an additional $150 and told to proceed with the work. The legacy of Zebadiah Coburn for scholarship aid to students was referred to Barber and Reed to "adopt such measures as they deem prudent and proper in the premises." In 1833 the Prudential Committee were directed to purchase a pianoforte and a bell. The latter must have had hard use, for another, weighing 250 pounds, from Meneely of Troy, had to be substituted in December, 1848. The merchant was a committee of one to see to "the Security of the Treasurer and the Collector." Also in 1845 he arranged for fire protection from the Madison County Insurance Company. Apparently the local Mutual Company was not deemed strong enough to handle this important matter. Five years later, with Coye and Reed, he increased the insurance to $1,500, of which $1,066 was on the building itself. A second member of the family was added to the Board with George Barber's election in 1846. Another of the merchant's ' T h e author has prepared a volume of source material on John Keep ( 1 7 8 1 1870) who was pastor at Homer 1822-33, copies are in the library of the Cortland County Historical Society at Cortland and the Phillips Free Library at Homer.

102

CORTLAND ACADEMY

sons, Paris, with Charles H. Wheaton and Sylvester Nash, was appointed by the Trustees in 1847 " t o see to providing seats in the respective meeting houses in the village for the accommodation of the students." At the annual meeting, January 1 1 , 1848, Barber was thanked by the Board for his donation of a cabinet of minerals. Twenty years later he enlarged this collection so that it included " a complete set of rocks and minerals of this state and many foreign specimens of great beauty and value." Two entries in the fifties are worthy of special note. On January 9, 1854, the portraits of the surviving trustees of 1819, painted by the local artist Frank B. Carpenter, were accepted and the thanks of the Board were extended to the donors. It was also provided that the portraits be framed at a cost "not to exceed five dollars each," and Thomas Holbrook was paid $61.51 "for framing and varnishing." H. C. Goodwin received $31.25 for twenty-five copies of his invaluable source book of Cortland County, which was evidently used as a text for the history classes.6 The principals of the Cortland Academy were Oren Catlin (Hamilton 1818); Noble Davis Strong (Middlebury 1813) and a Mr. Ranney, (possibly Waitstill Randolph Ranney, M.D., who was a classmate of Strong), 1819-20; Charles Avery (Hamilton 1820), 1822; Charles Avery and Caroline R . Hale, 1823; Franklin Sherrill (Williams 1815), 1824-25; Oliver Swaine Taylor, M.D. (Dartmouth 1809), 1826-29; Samuel Buell Woolworth, A.M. (Hamilton 1822), 1 8 3 0 - 5 1 ; Stephen Watkins Clark (Amherst 1837), 1852-65; Edward Payson Nichols, A . M . (Williams 1861), 1866-68; Heman Howes Sanford (Colgate 1851), 1869-71 and Gilbert Burriage Manley, A.M. (Williams 1857), 1872-73. 7 These educational leaders were charged with • Carpenter's portraits in the Academy include Barber, Bennett, Boies, Coye, Miller, Osborne, Ross, and Smith of the 1819 trustees as well as "Father" Keep, Principal Woolworth, and Dr. Caleb Green. R. E. Stilwell, "Herman Camp Goodwin," Cortland Democrat, Sept. 27, 1935. 7 F. B. Hough, Historical and Statistical Record of the University 0/ the State of New York, 1784-1884 (1885), p. 643.

CORTLAND

ACADEMY

the training of young people not only from Homer but also from a large area in central New York. T h e Academy developed more rapidly than the community. Registration increased from 197 in 1829 to 575 in 1851—292 percent in twenty-two years; graduates were entering the leading colleges of the country. This development was due in large part to the efforts of a Hamilton College graduate, Samuel B. Woolworth, who was principal for twentyone years. H e is described in W . O . Stoddard's® Quartet under the title of Dr. Brandegee, principal of Grantland Academy. T h e 1846 anniversary poem by De Lloyd Glover was most laudatory: Where, where is Woolworth? Heaven's own bounteous hand H a t h still upheld him in his works of good; Crowned w i t h rich honors, long m a y yet he stand A m i d the places where he long hath stood. He sowed the seed of wisdom in the mind, A n d richly doth the harvest yield, and well, For every tare he scattered to the wind, A n d marked the ground whereon the seedlings fell. And d o w n w a r d through the maze of future thought, W i d e and still wider as it flows along, lis genial influence with his genius fraught, Will live in wisdom, eloquence and song!' This was the man who developed the all-day exhibitions of the students to the highest point of order and dignity. Preceded by a 8 Tie Character and Public Services of Samuel Buell Woolworth, LL.D. (1882). Born at Brid?ehampton, Long Island, N e w York, Dec. 15, 1800; graduated Hamilton College 1822; teacher in Monson A c a d e m y , Monson, Massachusetts, 1822-24; principil of O n o n d a g a Academy, Syracuse, 1824-30; principal of C o r t l a n d Academy 1830-51; trustee of Hamilton College 1836-80; principal of the State Normal School, A l b a n y , 1852-56; secretary of the Board of Regents, state of N e w Y o r k , 1856-80. Died in Brooklyn, N e w Y o r k , June 30, 1880; buried in H o m e r . Cortland Standard, A u g . 31, 1925; New Y o r k Times, A u g . 30, 1925 (with editorial). William Osborn Stoddard was born at Homer, Sept. 24, 1835; attended C o r t land Academy; graduated University of Rochester 1858; was assistant secretary to President Lincoln 1861-64; author of tributes and descriptions of Lincoln and also of many boys' books, some of which describe his boyhood experiences in H o m e r . Died ir. Madison, N e w Jersey, A u g . 29, 1925. Cook, op. cit., p. 13. 9 Goodwin, op. cit., p. 426; Cook, op. cit., pp. 24-25.

CORTLAND

ACADEMY

band, the trustees, in long coats and carrying canes and followed by the faculty and student body, came out of the Academy building and turned north past the Episcopal Church and then east along the end of the green to Main Street, which was followed down to the main crossing of the green, the walk leading to the Congregational Church. This church was chosen because it was the only one in the village with an auditorium large enough to seat over nine hundred persons. T h e space in front of the edifice was crowded with parents and friends and citizens proud of their school. T h e efficient marshals opened a wide lane and the procession completed the last lap of its journey—and the most spectacular one. Here were the trustees and the learned faculty—all persons of distinction in the community—and then the boys in their best clothes and on their best behavior and the girls, in white gowns, carefully placed so that their pink and blue sashes alternated. It was a colorful pageant. When all were within the church and the trustees and faculty seated on a large stage built in front of the pulpit, the principal arose and introduced with his classic "Proximus ascendi" the students fortunate enough to have their names on the program. Everyone who appeared on these programs was sure of many bouquets. The most beautiful ones made from flowers from the Barber gardens and prepared by Robert Howard, the gardener. Flowers of all kinds were tightly wound with innumerable cords or strings into balls that were about as dangerous as cannon balls, but were beautiful and how they were treasured! They could be hung up in the attics and would last for years.10 An invitation to one of these exhibitions was sent to J o h n B. Hall of Tully by his cousin Paris Barber. In enthusiasm for the Academy it leaves nothing to be desired: COUSINS J O H N AND B I L L

Our school anniversary is this week. We have a party for the students on Tuesday evening. Come down and see how we do up things. 10 Miss Sara Kingsbury, "Days of the Forties," in the record of the Academy Centennial, 1919.

CORTLAND ACADEMY

105

Extend this invitation to any others you see fit. Be sure and come, you will get your pay—no mistake in haste The latch string is out. PARIS There is little today that we can compare with such an institution as the village academy of that day—the center of the community's intense devotion. T h e shell of the self-contained village with its loyalties has been broken by forces of which these men of the forties and fifties knew very little. It was in Wool worth's principalship that Barber became president of the board of trustees, a position he held from 1836 to 1869. T h e first president had been Elnathan Walker, pastor of the Congregational Church; 1 1 he was followed in 1820 by Andrew Dickson, the original secretary of the board, who presided over the trustees for fifteen years; 12 and Dr. Lewis S. Owen 1 3 took the position for a short time preceding Barber's election. Edward C. Reed (Dartmouth 1812) 14 served as secretary from 1822 to 1870. Considering the close relationship of Academy and Congregational Church, especially during " F a t h e r " Keep's pastorate, it is surprising that Dickson, Owen, and Barber were not communicants. Their wives were, and Reed and Woolworth had both united with the Church under Keep's u Elnathan Walker was Congregational pastor at Homer 1809-20. Congregational Church Manual (1885). u Andrew Dickson, born in Middlefield, Massachusetts, died in Homer, 1835. Cook's description of the Dicksons and their home is worth quoting: "South of the Mansion House was the home of Judge Dickson. Mr. and Mrs. Dickson were fine specimens of the gentleman and gentlewoman of that day. Their son Andrew was postmaster in Cortland in 1840 and a member of the firm of Dickson and Hibbard. A daughter became the wife of Horace White. When a lad I went to the home of the Judge. Mrs. Dickson met me with a smiling welcome, and she showed me a room vacant except the floor was nearly covered with children's books, and with a look and tone that I remember with pleasure to this day, said 'pick out the one you like best, take it home and you may have it for your own.' That was the day when books were few and highly prized." See also A. D. White, op. cil., I, 4,5; Goodwin, of. cit., pp. 289, 319; Smith, op. cit., p. 77. 1 1 Goodwin, op. cit., pp. 444, 446. 14 A. Wold, Biog. Directory Amer. Congress, p. 1449.

io6

CORTLAND

ACADEMY

strenuous preaching. T h a t pastor had brought over five hundred people into the fellowship in his thirteen years at Homer, but possibly his failure to bring in more of the leading men of the community was one of the reasons for John Keep's removal to Ohio. T h e question is of interest as showing the changing religious conditions during the thirties and forties. Keep's conservative successor, Dennis Piatt, 15 was not made a member of the board of trustees, and tradition adds that he carefully avoided the raising of the antislavery question. T h e anniversary in 1846 brought the formal celebration of the first quarter-century of the Academy. T h e Committee of Arrangements consisted of George J. J. Barber, Caleb Green, Edward Bright, Jr., S. B. Woolworth, George Cook, Simeon S. Bradford, and A . Judson Kneeland for the Academical Association; the trustees were represented by Jedediah Barber, Noah R . Smith, William Andrews, Hammon Short, and Amos Rice; while a large Citizens Committee of thirty-seven contained, among others, Rev. T . K . Fessenden and Paris and Watts Barber. T h e academic procession led by Adams' Brass Band of Rochester was marshaled by Erasmus Bowen, assisted by Charles H. Wheaton, William L. Sherman, Ulysses Hibbard, and Watts Barber. T h e report of the school's condition showed property worth $10,625.27, a library of 1,150 volumes costing as many dollars, "philosophical apparatus," and a cabinet of minerals worth $800. Six competent instructors received salaries aggregating $2,350 a year (a notable increase over the income of $250 pledged the regents in 1818). In the twenty-five years over 4,000 students had been enrolled at the Academy. 1 6 And the next year (1847) the catalogue showed an enrollment of 346, including the names of Theodore T . Munger (1830-1912) and Francis B. Carpenter (1830-1900) as well as four of Barber's " H o m e r Congregational Church Centennial Anniversary (1901) p. 14; Cook> op. cit., p. 23. w Cortland Academy Jubilee, July 7-8, 1846.

C Q H T L A>TD

TEACHERS'

C O U N T Y

INSTITUTE,

Tlio lit Kt »I'wimi of lliir .IiMliluic will be lit-hl

In Homer Village, C o a n o n o i n g October 20th. and closing November 1st,' 1S62. Tbe Institute will bo under tlie direction of the Comma*«« n •re, assisted by the following named gontlemen and other distinguished Educators, at Instructors and Lecturers.

Hon. V- M. Hice, Supt Public Instruction, Hon, H. S, Randall, E. A. Sheldon. " schools, Oswego. Rev. 0. H, Seymour, Rey. A Bigelow, Rev. H Lyman, ley. Geo. fifigham, Prof, S. W. Clark, oi Cortland Academy, Caleb Oreen, M. D. Prof. H. Carver, k Cortiandville Academy H. H Sanford, A. N. A J. Daniels, A. M./ J. H. Hoose, B. S. P r o f . S. W . Clark A: M , will deliver the opening address on the evening oftlio i r r t d a y .

The Commissioner« «ill s p a n

DO pains in making tbe 'Institute one of great interest and benefit: and every Teacher in the County" is earnestly solicited to be present the entire t e r m .

The cterciscs will bo s-> conducted as to enable tho Commissioners at the olose of the telm to

d e c i d e who are to-have the management of the Common Schools for the future.

Trustees of School Districts will find it to

their interest to select their teachers at this Session of tbe Institute, for tbe coming year, as those Teachers who will bo Boat worthy of good positions will doubtlesi embrace this opportunity of preparing themselves for their profession. By a-special order from the State Superintendent, all Teachers who attend the full oourse of the Institute, are entitled t o «ertificatea of such attendance over tbe signatures of County Commissioners.

Committee of Arrangements. W. T . HICOK, -

I R A BO WEN.

T. P , CHOLLAR,

2.>iATTH?WS,

O.M. CLARK,

JOS7B. DIXON. L

V

M

K

j

School Cotnmiasumart.

TEACHERS' INSTITUTE ANNOUNCEMENT

CORTLAND

ACADEMY

grandchildren, Jedediah Barber II, M a r y L . Barber, and M a tilda and Catherine Schermerhorn. From the decade preceding the Civil W a r there have been preserved many programs of the student exhibitions most popular in the community. T h e boys' topics for 1855 and the girls' of two years later appear rather formidable. Student humor of i860 may not be rated very high today, but the pseudonym for the church, " G o d ' s Old Barn," is first-hand proof that the attitude of the times of " F a t h e r " Keep 1 7 had not survived. In his day there would have been public censure for such levity, and the rebuke would have been taken to heart by both young and old. O n the eve of the war this broadside—less than one-fourth of the original is quoted below—is clearly a derogatory comment on the old-fashioned all-day exhibitions that Principal Woolworth had developed to such a high state of perfection. The old order was changing even in the Cortland Academy student body. GRAND ANNUAL EXHIBITION OF

PROF, CLARK'S WEANED INFANTS, AT

GOD'S OLD BARN, F R I D A Y , J U N E 2 9 , i860 The show will open with the BABES, just washed and fed, being toted in by their Nurses. The sleepy look of the infants, which the audicnce will not fail to notice, is attributable to being overfed with peanuts last night at Wheadon Hall. MORNING

MUSIC—Morning Lullaby by Charley's Blowers. "Lord, we come, a chosen sample T o show thy grace is great and ample." 17 A signed letter from this clergyman in the Cortland Observer of Jan. 27, 1837, reveals his idea of his mission in the community: " . . . ten or twelve cords of wood were snugly piled in my wood house on Saturday last by a number of youths connected with the Bible Class . . . this is the influence of the Bible Class instructions, making me the particular object of favor, because God had previously made me His instrument to do them good."

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CORTLAND ACADEMY

Schedule of Births handed round by the Incorruptible Scheme Committee. MUSIC—"Come let me take thee to my bosom." 1 Caterwauling in an unknown tongue, Gasbag—Tailbug. 2 T h e above rendered in Poor English, Lip Fuzz Limb, Coal Hole, Pa. 3 Distraction—Dress determines Mrs. Dodge's Apprentice— Gender, (generally,) Houghtail Hollow 4 Harangue—John Brown and his Fate, D. Blockhouse—Squatt. 5 H a r a n g u e — O l d T r i m and 'Riah, Phebe('s) Bird—Sodom. MUSIC—"Excavate, swine, or perish." 6 Distraction—Conflict of the Student's and Rural Association, Cheap Bergamot—Mud Lick. 7 Harangue—Irish Grit, Miles' Whiskey Clerk—Cork. " M e u s pater et mater sunt Irish, A n d ego sum Irish too." 8 Harangue—Heenan, Lubber-Lipped Glover, Wolverine State. " W h o frowed dat last brick-bat fust!" 9 Distraction—Barbers Sluice, His father's hopeful and his mother's pet—Sodom. MUSIC—"I'm glad I'm in this a r m y . " T h e enthusiasm for the A c a d e m y o n the p a r t of the older g e n e r a t i o n e v e n in w a r d a y s called f o r t h superlatives. " Q u a r v i d i " w r o t e in the S y r a c u s e Journal on J u n e 26, 1862: T h e central week of all the year in this fair village of Homer is now drawing to its close. It has been a week of the highest literary and social enjoyment to the many friends of Cortland Academy, whose history has been closely linked for more than half a century with the growth and prosperity of our churches, our families and our daily avocations. We have had whatever is needed for the refined festivities of the week. We have had cloudless skies and moonlight nights; gardens gay with flowers; streets alive with holiday faces; college boys come back to renew school-day frendships; serenades, vocal and instrumental; hospitality, hearty, refined and enjoyable; essays in racy prose and liquid verse; orators from the school, the college and the church; pleasant talks over mammoth strawberries, and no end of fun for the young, and comfort for "children of larger growth." Visitors in Homer see unmistakable signs of progress. The lighting of the streets and dwellings with gas is one of these signs of progress. Another is the completion of the new Presbyterian church, (perhaps I

CORTLAND

ACADEMY

ought to say Congregational), that is to be dedicated on the 8th of July T h e Academy was used for the Teachers' Institute in 1862, with a committee of six trustees in charge. Teacher training had been a very important function of the Academy—and very appealing to Barber—but the establishment of state normal schools was on the way in the sixties. Homer aspired to be the site of one of these new schools, but in 1866 Cortland was chosen. Another defeat for the village in the rivalry that had begun with the contest for the courthouse in 1816! T h e Civil W a r period dealt harshly with the Academy. A family letter of 186718 reflected the situation: " T h e institution is on its last legs unless a new building is provided and that soon. Cortland is getting ahead of Homer decidedly." T h e commencement report the next year declared a new building to be a necessity: " T o this end we want subscriptions, not speeches, action not argument!" 1 9 T h e money was raised, George Barber contributing $400, but the old merchant was unable to help. He must have felt keenly his inability, especially because it was in sharp contrast with his gift for the addition of 1831! T h e new building was opened in 1870,*® but the year before Barber, at the age of eighty-two, having completed fifty consecutive years of service as a trustee, resigned from the Board. A t the anniversary he was honored as a vice president and heard himself described as one of the two surviving trustees of the 1819 beginning (Townsend Ross was then a resident of Michigan): "Letters from the H e d g e s , " V o l . V I . 19 Syracuse Daily Journal, M a r c h 1 1 , 1 8 6 8 » " T h e first school building was two stories high, the upper floor being used as a Masonic Hall, and the lower containing two school rooms. T h e second building was erected in i8a6, and served its purpose for more than forty-three years, and is the one with which the memories of the greater number of graduates are principally connected. T h e present structure has been erected during the present year, and is a very elegant building of brick, with stone dressings, costing in round numbers $36,000. It is an ornament to the town, and is a genuine product of the institution itself, its architect and builder, George W . A l m y , having been a pupil of the same in 1 8 3 9 . " — C o r t l a n d Democrat, June 24, 1870. u

no

CORTLAND

ACADEMY

Jcdediah Barber, who was president from 1836 to 1869, has always been a staunch friend of the Academy his benefactions having been numerous and valuable in their character. He is now an octogenarian and has lived to see his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren21 educated at the institution which has received so much of his fostering care. Never was the institution the property of any political or religious group; it was always "the A c a d e m y , " and the merchant was a devoted servant of that great trust. His support was always sincere, intelligent, and generous. In season and out he sought to bring to Homer the best instructors-—from Hamilton, Dartmouth, Amherst, and Williams—and then to support them with loyalty. However carefully he may have avoided certain controversial movements, he was in dead earnest as to the need of providing educational advantages for the young people about him. Conscious of his own lack of opportunities, he was doubly ambitious for others, and therein he rendered a distinctive public service. " T h e 1 ooth anniversary of Homer Academy was observed J u n e 2 5 - 2 7 , 1 9 1 9 ; see "Program of Events and Description of the Historic Pageant," Cortland Standard, J u n e 27, 1 9 1 9 . Harry Barber, great-grandson of Jedediah Barber, spoke concerning the former trustees of the Academy.

figo O R G ! ] O I H Q . M U S I C . K G R E W ORATION,

" •• • J . J . Houoif. Groton, 5. ORATION—True Estimate o f Character, •. E . I f . LOLNSBCRT, Clay. 5. ORATION—Live for a Purpose, G . K. 1'IERCK, Homer.

M U S I C . P

R

A

Y

E

R..;

M U S I C

SÌ'tniBBtiOM OF SOHISES»

r. ORATION—Europe,

F , F . RICE, Corllaodvllle.• W. W. BAKER. Mlddleport C. T . PRKSTON, Binghawton.

.

.

• .

..

J. ORATION—Music,

.

.

•

E. D. Bkxkmct, Lisle.

M U S I C . ORATIOX—Book«. A . . F . A. CIIASE, Kings F e r r y . ORATION—Goti in SMuiv. - . • .* • - . E . C . Cowles, Olisco. O i w T i K - T o w c r of Kimliif-s. - ; S. L.RoniK\l.. nou.t. AVERV, Slicrliurne.

fi./OuXiniN—Scir-nmdc Men. •

I. fÀ 9.

• ..

i OUATUIN—What Constitutes a Triumph,

M U S I C . 1. On.vno S.vtrTATtìRi*. 2, Onation—Old !n *

Miss PERMELIA GRKKIK.

-

% M i * L'AMATA, A FAMMI».!

CujiAjAiriuN—EARIH'iCoafl.cts, -

M i a LAVINIA S . C J I T K X I W * .

CoMPOBitiON—Hallowed Grwuud, COMP> « r n o K — P r o g r e s e — t e i f à the

•

•

Misi ÌIELFX N. PNILMNV

Vale-

diclofy.

Miss C r . v r u u M. FABMKM.

MUSIC. IfU S I 0 . Cn*!»r»rnos—N. P . Willis,

.

C o n n i i i r i o * — T ù e Wao-lerer,

CojtroiimN ~Tb>j Juutr L i e .

A PORO*—School Life and Life'S School,

.

M!» E74

RETROSPECT

by Elm Avenue, but carrying its years with dignity. Below, on the opposite side of Main Street, George's home and the two brick blocks (the larger on the site of the Great Western Store), relics of Homer's business life of eighty years ago and still in use. Then comes the village green, eloquent of New England. Three buildings would be strange but very acceptable to Barber: the library, given by another Homer merchant, 8 in which are George's portrait and the memorial to Paris and Jane, together with pictures of Barber and his store and his home; and the large modern school, in which hang Carpenter's portraits of the early Cortland Academy trustees; and the Old Ladies' Home, the gift of another public-spirited citizen, 9 in which several grandchildren of Barber have been interested. T h e brick church of 1863 is just as he used to see it and the old chart showing the Barber pews is still to be found in the closet adjoining the entrance. Cayuga Street leads to Glenwood Cemetery. The front of the mausoleum now has a tablet to commemorate Barber's pioneer father and mother, 10 and near by are George, Paris, * The late George Phillips. * The late Deacon Ranney. 10 This memorial, given by Louisa Barber Howe, a great-granddaughter of the pioneers, was placed on the mausoleum in 1933. ABOUT

1802

AARON BARBER

1753-1806 A N D HIS WIFE R A C H E L JONES B A R B E R

1755-1808 MADE THE LONO J O U R N E Y FROM T H E I R B I R T H P L A C E HEBRON TOLLAND COUNTY CONNECTICUT T O ONONDAGA HILL NEW YORK IN

1869

JEDEDIAH B A R B E R THEIR SON R E I N T E R R E D THE BODIES OF HIS P A R E N T S IN THIS V A U L T

RETROSPECT

175

and Elvenah, with their families. The Hebards are also there, a little to the south, and so are a host of Barber's friends. The hillside is beautifully kept, a living memorial to its architect. As one returns to Main Street and goes a litde way farther south, on the right hand is "The Hedges," with its garden almost as attractive as it was in Louisa's day. In the old Schermerhora barn stands the Barber coach in which Matilda drove along the village streets for many years. Across on Albany Street is "Wisdom's Gate," called by another name but reminiscent of the innkeeper Samson. Opposite is the birthplace of President Andrew Dickson White, from which his father went to his tasks at Barber's store for many years. One drives thence toward the river and crosses the old stone bridge over which Barber so often passed. On the left is the site of his first home and up River Street a few hundred rods is the site of the blacksmith shop; Hibbard's home, built before 1815, is still in use. Now the road follows over the lower spur of East Hill to the high ground commanding an extended view. Southward in the broad plain is the modern city of Cortland, while to the east in the valley lies the village of Homer, with its spires, a community fashioned by hard-working New England pioneers among whom was Jedediah Barber, their first permanent merchant.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX

i

DOCUMENTS D E E D OF A A R O N B A R B E R ' S H O M E , B I R T H P L A C E OF J E D E D I A H B A R B E R

that I john Phelps of Hebron in the County of Hartford & Coloney of Connecticut for the consideration of one hundred pounds lawful money received to my full satisfaction of Joel Jones and Aaron Barber both of Hebron in the County and Colony aforesd. to give grant bargain sell and confirm unto them the sd. Joel Jones & Aaron Barbour & to their heirs & assigns forever one certain piece of Land Lying & being in the Town of Hebron Containing about a quarter of an Acre butted & Bounded as follows viz: beginning at a Stake & Stones near the Horse Stable by the Highway then to run northerly one Chain & 20 Links then to run Westerly one Chain & 47 links then to run Southerly one Chain & 20 Links to the Highway then to run Easterly two Chains wanting 25 Links to the first mentioned Bounds Butting South on the Highway East north & West on Land of Capt Samuel Gilbert with a Dwelling House thereon Standing. K N O W YE

In witness whereof I hereunto set my hand and seal this 16th day of February A D 1773 J O H N PHELPS (seal) Signed in the presence of O B A D I A H HORSFORD N E Z I A H BLISS

Personally appeared John Phelps esqr . . . before me D A V I D B A R B U R Justice of the Peace S M A L L P O X PETITION SIGNED B Y A A R O N B A R B E R ,

17771

T o the Honorable General Assembly to be Convened at New haven In and for the State of Connecticut on the Second Thursday of Octo r Instant the Humble Petition of David Sutton and Phebe his wife 1

Com. Archives, Rev. War, Scries I, Vol. VII, doc. 3343b.

i8o

DOCUMENTS

Ezekiel Haughton and Lydia his Wife William Cox and Miriam his Wife Aaron Phelps and Abigail his Wife Nathan Baxter Bethuel Phelps Aaron Barbur Isaac Phelps Oliver Barbur Martin Phelps Roger Fuller Ruben Phelps John Birge Homer Phelps Elihu Wells Samuel Haughton Eleazer Phelps Ezekiel Brown Stephen Haughton Jun r Zadock Man Ruben Wells and Prudence Wells Ju r all of Hebron in Hartford County and Joseph Phelps of Lebanon in Wendham County Humbly Sheweth that Whereas the Infectious and Mortal Disease of the Small Pox being Prevalent in the Country and that your Honors Petitioners Ware Grately Exposed to take sd Contagious Disease the natural way at home or abroad and Especially if Called forth for the Defence of our Country against our most unnatural Enimies who are now and for a longe time have been Invading our Country and Indevering to Subjugate us by all the Stratagems in their Power as well by Spreading said Contagious Disease as by fire and sword and that all the Male Persons of your Honors Petitioners are Daily Liable free and willing to Go forth against our Enimies for the Defence of our Country if Required as all of us are Either of the alarum List or militia and that your Honors Petitioners for the Preservation of our Lives and the Better to Enable us to Defend our Country against our Enimies Did at Hebron aforesaid in the month of february Last all of us take the Small Pox by way of Inoculation and have Gone through the opperation and were Carefull not to Spread sd Disease nor is there any Person or Persons that has taken it from any of us and your Honors Petitioners being by the Grandjurors for sd County Presented for taken the Small Pox as aforesaid and are by the Civil authority in and for sd County ordered Sevrally to become bound with Good and Sufficient Sureties in Recognizances of one Hundred Pounds Money Each to the Treasurer of sd County that we make our Personal appearance at the County Court to be held at Hartford in and for sd County on the first Tuesday of Novem r next there to answer to our sd Presentments and your Honors Petitioners well know that our taken sd Small Pox as aforesaid is Contrary and Directly against one Statute Law of sd State Intituled an act Provideing in Case of Sickness and in the 302 Page of the Law Book of Said State and thereby Subjected ourselves to the forfiture and Penalty of Said Statute and your Honors Petitioners not haveing any mind to Set up in opposition to the Laws of Said State but are willing to Subject our Selves to them and Did take the Small Pox as afore said for the Reasons aforementioned and no other

DOCUMENTS

I8I

and ha[d] not Done any Damage to any Person or Persons and therefore your Honors Petititioners Pray your Honors to take their Case into your wise Consideration and order the Proseses which are against your Honors Petitioners to be Stoped or in Some other way Grant Relief to your Honors Petitioners as your Honors in your Wisdom Shall Judge Right and Equitable as your Honors Petitioners as in Duty Bound Shall Ever Pray Dated at Hebron Octo r the 6th Day A : D 1777 [Signed] ISAAC PHELPS EZEKIEL HAUGHTON JOSEPH P H E L P S

PRUDENCE W E L L E S J u r

AARON PHELPS

REUBEN WELLS

HOMER PHELPS

SAMUEL HAUGHTON

MARTAIN PHELPS

ELIHU WELLES

NATHAN BAXTER

ELEAZER PHELPS

REUBEN PHELPS

EZEKIEL BROWN

AARON BARBUR

ZADOCK MANN

OLIVER BARBUR

ROGE;R F U L L E R

JOHN BURGE

BETHE1 PHELPS

D A V I D SUTTON

STEPHEN HAUGHTON J N WILLIAM

Cox

D E E D S FOR L A N D P U R C H A S E D B Y A A R O N AND R A C H E L B A R B E R ,

William Lard and Rebecah Laird, his wife, of the Town of Onondaga, N.Y., Aron Barber and William Hiberd, of . the same place.

1802-6

Warranty Deed Dated Mar. 24, 1802. 1 A c k d Sept. 8, 1802. 1 Cons. $260.

Conveys, All that certain tract or parcel of land situate in the Town and County of Onondaga and State aforesaid and it is part of a lot known and distinguished by Lot No. 22 as laid down on a map made by James Geddes, Esqr. and now on file in the Clerks Office in the County of Onondaga and bounded as follows, to-wit: Beginning on the west line of said lot on the north side of the Turnpike Road, thence northerly on the west line of said lot 12 rods, thence easterly in a line parallel with the north line of the Turnpike Road 14 rods, thence southerly in a line parallel with the west line of said lot to the north line of the Turnpike Road, thence westerly on the north

DOCUMENTS line of said road to the first mentioned bounds containing about one acre and 8 rods of ground be the same more or less. Recorded Sept. u , 1802 @ 7 P.M.* William Lard and Anne Lard, his wife, of the T o w n of Onondaga, N. Y . to Aron Barber and William Hibberd, of the same place.

Warranty Deed. Dated Feb. 23, 1805. Ack'd Feb. 25, 1805. Cons. $300.

Conveys, All that certain piece or parcel of land situate in Onondaga aforesaid and bounded as follows to wit, West, North and south on the line of said Lairds land that is to say south on the turnpike road, West on land belonging to Benjamin Morehouse, north on land belonging to Jonas C. Baldwin, Joshua Forman and William H. Sabin and East on the center of said Lairds land containing 5 acres with a house standing thereon, it being the one half of the Land said Laird bought of Phinehas T . Kimble. Said land subject to a mortgage to the people of the State of New York which the said party of the second part is to pay and discharge at their own expense taking the said 5 acres subject to the proportion of the mortgage that the said 5 acres is to the whole lot. Said Land being 17 chains & 26 links north and south and 2 chains 89 links 3 quarters & half a quarter east and West. Recorded Feb. 26, 1805 @ 11 A . M . s Aaron Barber and Rachel, his wife, of the T o w n of Onondaga, N. Y., to William Hebard, of the same place.

J ( ( )

Warranty Deed Dated Dec. 18, 1805. Ack'd Dec. 19, 1805. Cons. Jiooo.

Conveys, T h e same premises described in the Laird deed of M a r c h 24, 1802. Recorded Dec. 19, 1805 @ 4 P.M. 4 » Cortland County Deeds, B, p. 365 ff. 4 Cortland County Deeds, E, pp. 148 ff.

' Cortland County Deeds, D, pp. 135 ff.

DOCUMENTS Asa Beverly and Sally Beverly, his wife, of the town of Onondaga, N. Y . to Rachael Barber, of the same place.

I I ( I

183

Warranty Deed, Dated May 11, 1806. A c k ' d j u n e 11, 1806 Cons. $400.

Conveys, All that certain piece or parcel of land situate lying and being in the Town and County of Onondaga aforesaid and bounded as follows to wit: West, north and south on the lines of William Lard's lands that is to say, south on the Turnpike Road, west on land belonging to Benjamin Morehouse, north on land belonging to Jonas C. Baldwin, Joshua Forman and William H. Sabin and east on the center of said William Lard's land containing 5 acres with a house standing thereon, said land being 17 chains and 26 links north and south and 2 chains 8g links, three quarters and half a quarter east and west and is subject to a mortgage to the People of the State of New York which the said party of the second part is to pay at her own expence taking the 5 acres, subject to the same proportion of the mortgage, as the said 5 acres, bears to the whole lot. The said land subject to a lease to John Meeker. Recorded Aug. 30, 1806 @ 9 A.M.* SETTLEMENT OF THE ESTATE OF RACHEL JONES BARBER, 1814*

T o ALL people to whom these presents shall come Greeting: Know Ye that we, Aaron Barber, Joel Barber, Amos Stiles, Abigail Stiles, of Onondago County of Onondago & State of New York—Jedediah Barber, William Hebard & Rachel Hebard of Homer County of Courtland in the State of New York—Aaron Root & Salinda Root of Charlton in the State of New York, for the consideration of two hundred Dollars received to our full satisfaction of Joel Jones of Hebron in the County of Tolland & State of Connecticut have remised, released & forever quit-claimed all right, title & interest we have unto the real estate lying partly in the town of Hebron County of Tolland & pardy in the town of Marlborough in the State of Connecticut. Said lands descended to us from Rachel Barber Dec'd, late of Onondago & to said Rachel Barber from her father Col. Joel Jones « Cortland County Deeds, F, pp. 182 ff. • Hebron Land Records, X I I , 253, in the Town Clerk's office.

DOCUMENTS late of Hebron Dec'd & part of said land descended to us from Reuben Jones of Hebron in Conn't Dec'd. Sd real estate consists of five pieces of land for the boundaries & description of sd land reference may be had to the Probate Records of the District of Hebron in the State of Connecticut The aforesaid pieces of land & buildings thereon are meant to contain all the real estate which descended to us as aforesaid. T o have and to hold the premises unto him the sd Joel Jones his heirs & assigns to the only use & behoof of the sd Joel Jones his heirs & assigns forever so that neither we the sd Aaron Barber, Joel Barber, Amos Stiles, Abigail Stiles, Jedediah Barber, William Hebard, Rachel Hebard, Aaron Root & Salenda Root or any person in our name or behalf shall or will hereafter claim or demand any right or title to the premises or any part thereof but they & every of them shall by these presents be excluded & forever barred. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands & seals this 6th day of May A.D. 1814 in the presence of

DANIEL MOSELEY

WILLIAM HEBARD

L.S.

RACHEL HEBARD

L.S.

State of New York ss. on this 6th JEDEDIAH BARBER L.S. day of M a y A . D . 1814 Personally JOEL BARBER L.S. appeared before me the within AMOS STILES L.S. named Wm. Hebard & Jedediah Barber A B I G A I L S T I L E S L.S. who being to me personally known & acknowledged the within deed Also at the same time personally appeared before me the within named Rachel Hebard wife of the sd William who being to me personally known & by me examined separate & apart from her husband acknowledged the within deed of her own free will & accord without any force or compulsion from her sd husband; this being satisfactory proof & there being no material alteration so allow the within deed to be recorded T O W N S E N D Ross Master in Chancery & authorized to acknowledge Deeds in sd State. State of New York ss: on this 30th day of May A.D. 1814 before me came Joel Barber, Amos Stiles & Abigail Stiles his wife each of whom are to me well known & acknowledged that they executed the foregoing instrument fully & voluntarily for the uses therein intended; the sd Abigail being examined by me separate & apart from her sd husband

D O C U M E N T S

also acknowledged that she executed the same without any fear or compulsion of her said husband, Let the same be recorded. SAMUEL MOSELEY Master in Chancery 1814, Nov. 29th Rec'd & Recorded By J O H N S . P E T E R S Register LIST OF STOCKHOLDERS OF T H E SYRACUSE, BINGHAMTON AND N E W Y O R K RAILROAD, DEC.

5, i860

Name Amount of Stock Name Amount of St 20g, 100 Russell Hibbard 900 P. Chonteau, Jr. W. R. Randall 110,057 2,300 U. A. Murdock A. S. Higgins Geo. Peabody & Co. 190,600 900 D. R. Hubbard 114,800 2,800 Wm. Crawshay J . P. Morgan 500 G. F. Comstock 1,300 W. H. Williams 164,600 900 C. M. Lampson John Hardey Isaac Hill 400 34.500 Crawshay Bailey 80,000 Sylvester Alvord 400 P. Chonteau, Jr. & Co. 400 Ross Brand 900 Thos. F. Davis J . M. Schermerhorn 2,800 19.83° 21,510 Leander Hine Haml. Murray 400 B. N. Parsons 22,900 900 G. Merle W. T. Bogus F. B. Fitch 12,510 1,800 Joseph Reynolds 2,900 C. F. Paige 9.3°° D. Lamont 10,310 Chas. Pope 1,900 N. Hitchcock Irving Van Wart 110 3,800 Joseph Battell Lawrence & 5,100 David Hoadley 900 Schermerhorn 3> 6i 7 John B. Rogers Hazard Lewis 900 4>5'4 Stephen Bastable 5,000 Dickinson & Wright 2,212 A. Carley E. B. Wicks 700 900 3,000 Chas. McKinney A. H. Hovey 400 Jonathan Price Fitzhugh & Littlejohn 1,900 200 E. Hailes Israel S. Spencer 2,300 4,200 Henry Raynor 2,700 Warren Murdock 500 J. H. Knox F. H. Hibbard 1,800 800 11,500 Schuchardt & Gebhard 1,700 Jas. R. Lawrence Mary E. Fitch John W. Thompson 3,200 500 Eliza S. Fitch J . Barber 10,200 500 900 Wm. E. Fitch Henry Stephens 500

D O C U M E N T S

Name

Amount of Stock

Jenny B. Fitch Chas. E. Fitch Mary E. Elliot D. C. Littlejohn Sarah Wicks Bennett F. S. Wicks E. B. Wicks, Jr. W . Barber Manly Hobert R . H. Thompson John B. Hall Chas. Tallman Jas. Tinker Horace White

500 500 500 2,310 1,000 1,000 800 465.52 93105 20,000 900 1,800 500 1,700

Name

Amount of Stock

Geo. J. J. Barber Sarah Ann Durbrow A. Hovey Ballard W m . T . Hooker T . H. Barnes S. S. Burt Juliet Thayer E. J. Elliot Robt. Dunlop John F. A. Sanford Geo. C. Sterns F. C. Gebhard Danl. S. Dickinson TOTAL

900 3,200 400 800 700 700 1,400 100 400 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 $1,138,516.57

HOMER BUSINESS D I R E C T O R Y , I 8 6 3 ' HOTELS

John Patten, Propriet'r Patten Hotel. Thomas White, Proprietor Mansion House. PHYSICIANS

C. Green (and Surgeon). W . R . Brown (and Surgeon). H. C. Gaylay (Eclectic and Surgeon). E. Loomis, Main Street. S. Wright, Dental Office, Wheadon's Block, second Story. LIVERY STABLE

N. C. Dady, Office near Patten's Hotel. MERCHANTS

Clark & Bro., Wholesale and Re-

tail Dealers in all kinds of Dry Goods, Groceries, Hardware, Crockery, Carpetings, Salt, &c. Geo. J. J. Barber, Staple and Fancy Dry Goods, Groceries, Glassware, Soap, Hardware, Paints, Oils, Varnishes, &c., Barber Block. E. N. Johnson, Dealer in all kinds of Fancy and Staple Dry Goods, Silks, Millinery, &c. Kingsbury & Walrad, Dealers in all kinds of Fancy and Staple Dry Goods, Silk, Millinery, &c. Geo. W. Phillips, Dealer in Fancy and Staple Dry Goods, Groceries, Crockery, Hardware, &c. E. F. Phillips, Dealer in Dry Goods, Carpets, Groceries,

' From a map and business directory of Homer, published in 1863.

DOCUMENTS Crockery, Hardware, Yankee Notions, &c. Jedediah Barber, Dealer in Lumber, Lime, Grain, Seeds, &c. H. S. Babcock & Son, Merchant Tailors and Dealers in ready made Clothing, Cloth, Cassimeres, Vestings, &c. C. A. Collins, ,Merchant Tailor. L. C. & O. S. Storrs, Dealers in Groceries, Provisions, Flour, Salt, &c. B. F. Howell (Surveyor), Dealer in Groceries, Provisions, Flour, Salt, &c. Burnham, Dealer in Books and Stationery, Wall Paper, Gilt Moldings, Yankee Notions, &c. MANUFACTURERS

George Murray, Manufacturer of Stoves, Tin, Iron, and Copper Ware, and Dealer in all kinds of Foreign and Domestic Hardware. Darby & Jones, Grist Grinding, and Manufacturers of Meal, Flour, and all kinds of Mill Feed, at Wholesale and Retail. Stone & Bros., Founders and Machinists. Wm. Brockway, Undertaker, and Manufacturer of all kinds of Cabinetware, Chairs, &c. Clark & Loomis, Manufacturers of all kinds of Carriages and Sleighs. R. Smith, Manufacturer of Carriages and Sleighs.

187

Chas. E. Bigsby, Manufacturer of Carriages and Sleighs. A. Bates, Carriage and Sleigh making, and Blacksmithing, and all kinds of Repairing done to order. LAWYERS

E. C. Reed. EDITOR AND PUBLISHER

Joseph R. Dixon, Cortland Co. Republican, Book and Job Printing. BANKER

Jedediah Barber. WATCHES AND J E W E L R Y

D. Saunders. HAIR DRESSER

Phillip Zimmer (and Barber). DINING SALOON

Luke V . Babcock, and Dealer in Groceries and Provisions. BOOTS AND SHOES

Bennett & Cory, Manufacturers and dealers in Boots and Shoes, Rubbers, Leather, &c. T . D. Chollar, Dealer in Boots, Shoes, and Leather. HARNESS MAKER

J. E. Bloomingburg, Manufacturer and Dealer in Harness, Saddles, Trunks, Blankets, &c. BLACKSMITHS

C. Tower, Blacksmithing of all kinds done to order—charges reasonable. Peter Sidman, Blacksmithing, Horseshoeing, and repairing.

DOCUMENTS SALE OF BARBER HOME,

1879*

ELEGANT COUNTRY RESIDENCE FOR SALE

THE undersigned offer for sale, the residence of the late Jedediah Barber, on the corner of Main and Clinton streets in the village of Homer. The premises have long been known as one of the most elegant and desirable country seats in central New York. The house is of brick, large and well arranged and has always been kept in perfect repair; extensive hot-houses, graperies, barn and tenant houses on the place. The grounds comprise about ten acres of land, in orchard, pasture, garden and lawn, large forest trees surround the house. The location is the best in town having extensive frontage on both Main and Clinton streets. The many advantages of the village of Homer, as a place of residence, need not be mentioned as it is well known as one of the most healthful and beautiful villages in the State. The attention of all persons wishing to purchase a desirable property is called to this estate, which will be sold at public auction on SATURDAY MAY IOTH at ten o'clock A.M. on the premises THOMAS D . CHOLLAR S . M c C . BARBER

Executors • From the Homer Republican, May i, 1879. T h e homestead went under the hammer to George Murray for (5,600 and was subsequently resold to Coleman Hitchcock, who opened Elm Avenue just south of the house (across the formal gardens) in 1881.

APPENDIX

2

FAMILY DATA JEDEDIAH BARBER'S FATHER'S GENERATION

The children of David Barber, Jr., 1716-1801, and Patience Caie, 1723-48: David Barber II 1740-60 Oliver Barber 1743-1805 m. Mercy Mann Mary Barber 1 1743-? m. Levi Post, 1765 Lydia Barber 1745-48 [daughter] born and died 1748 The children of David Barber, J r . , and Abigail Newcomb, 1737-1805: Abigail Barber Aaron Barber Obadiah Barber 1 Patience Barber David Barber I I I Lydia Barber Bildad Barber 1 Elihu Barber

1749-91 m. Aaron Phelps, 1767 1753-1806 m. Rachel Jones, 1773 s. Onondaga Hill, N. T. 1754-? m. Anna 1757-1838 m. Sylvester Gilbert, 1775 s. Hebron, Conn. 1760-1839 m. Lois Dutton, 1781 s. Northfield, Mass. 1763-1831 m. Lawrence Powers, 1781 s. Sullivan, N. Y. 1765-? s. Lyme, N. H. 1768-1848 m. Hannah Gott, 1791 s. Pompey, N. Y.

JEDEDIAH BARBER'S M O T H E R ' S GENERATION

The children ofJoel Jones, 1733-93, who married (1754) Margaret Day, 1737-1811: Rachel Jones Joel Jones, J r . Mary Jones Jedediah Jones Margaret Jones Amasa Jones Amasa Jones (2d) Reuben Jones Erastus Jones Erastus Jones (2d) 1

1755-1808 m. Aaron Barber 1757-1822 m. Lucinda Barber 1 759-96 m. Frederick Phelps 1763-1851 m. Betty Chappell 1764-1834 (?) m. Bela Barber 1768-69 1770-1842 1773-1812 «775"'777 1778-1869

The author was unable to find the date of death.

s. Onondaga Hill, X. Y. s. Hebron, Conn, s. Hebron, Conn, s. Hebron, Conn, s. Troy, N. Y. s. Coventry, Conn.

s. Hebron, Conn.

FAMILY DATA JEDEDIAH BARBER'S BROTHERS AND SISTERS T h e children of Aaron and Rachel Jones Barber: Sally Barber*'* 1774-1856 m. Hiram Barber s. Hebron, Conn. A a r o n Barber, Jr. 4 1780-1830 (?) m. Rachel ». Avon, N. Y . Rachel Barber 1782-1871 m. William Hibbard, 1799 s. Homer, N. Y . Joel Barber 1 -' 1785-? m. Pamela Adams s. Jerseyville, 111. Jedediah Barber 1787-1^6 m. Matilda Tuttle, ¡dog s. Homer, N. Y. Abigail Barber 1 1790-? m. Amos Stiles s. Hebron, Conn. Polly Barber* 1796-1893 Abbreviations: m . = married; s. — settled in.

MEMORIAL OF R A C H E L BARBER HEBERD 8 IN MEMORIAM Mrs.

Rachel

Barber

Heberd.

B o r n in H e b r o n , C o n n . , M a y 24th, 1782. M a r r i e d t o W i l l i a m H e b e r d i n H e b r o n , C o n n . , S e p t . 10, 1 7 9 9 . D i e d in H o m e r , N . Y . , M a r c h 19, 1 8 7 1 . T h e funeral w a s a t t e n d e d W e d n e s d a y afternoon, M a r c h 22d, 1871. R e v . C . W . HAWLEY, the c l e r g y m a n officiating, after a short discourse f r o m Ps. 1 7 : 1 5 , " I s h a l l b e s a t i s f i e d , w h e n I a w a k e , w i t h t h y l i k e n e s s , " closed w i t h the following sketch a n d remarks: I n 1802 h e r h u s b a n d left t h e N e w E n g l a n d h o m e for the W e s t a n d settled on O n o n d a g a Hill, she j o i n i n g h i m in the y e a r following.

In

1 8 1 1 t h e y , i n c o m p a n y w i t h h e r b r o t h e r JEDEDIAH, r e m o v e d t o H o m e r , a n d b e c a m e c l o s e l y i d e n t i f i e d w i t h its i n t e r e s t s . H e r husband d y i n g in

1839 a n d closing a c o m p a n i o n s h i p of 40

years, she h a s l i v e d in w i d o w h o o d for m o r e t h a n 30 of the 60 years of h e r r e s i d e n c e h e r e . T h e m o t h e r o f f o u r t e e n c h i l d r e n , s h e h a s seen a l l * Mrs. Ella Jagger Little of Mansfield, Conn., has a complete chart of the descendants of Sally Barber, wife of Hiram Barber, and furnished a copy to the author. James Henry Jagger, 1832-1913, grandson of Sally Barber, was employed in the Great Western Store, Homer, 1854-57, by his second cousin, Jedediah Barber. 1 Buried in Andover R o a d Cemetery, Hebron. 4 See Lockwood R . Doty, History oj Livingston County, New Tork (1905), p. 67. ' M e n t i o n e d in History of Greene and Jersey Counties, Illinois (Springfield, 1885), pp. 479-80. • From a printed broadside in "Letters from the Hedges."

FAMILY DATA

19»

but four of them passing on into the spirit world in advance of her; and now, at last, having nearly accomplished her 89th year she has gone to her rest. That death can have brought only rest and joy to her, we speak with confident hopefulness; for, in her household and beyond it, her influence has been felt as a genuine christian woman. Converted soon after her marriage at Onondaga Hill, under the preaching of the Rev. D. C. (afterwards the distinguished Dr.) L A N S I N G , she united with the Congregational Church here by letter, and even up to the very last day of her life manifested a lively interest in its prosperity. For five years and more she has rarely left the house and never been to the sanctuary; but her eagerness to have reported to her the sermons preached from Sabbath to Sabbath, and her enjoyment of sermons read to her at home, and her stated daily reading of the word of GOD, showed clearly where her heart was fixed and her hopes anchored.

J E D E D I A H B A R B E R ' S C H I L D R E N AND G R A N D C H I L D R E N

Louisa Anna Barber, 1810-99; m. 1831 Jacob Maus Schermerhorn, 1804-90; children: Matilda Barber Schermerhorn, 1832-74 Catherine Elvenah Schermerhorn, 1834-1913; m. 1856 Lewis Baker Henry, 1828-92 Anna Matilda Schermerhorn, 1840-1927; m. John W. Fisher, 1845-1912 George Jacob Schermerhorn, 1844-1904; m. Isabel Schuyler Jacob Maus Schermerhorn, Jr., 1847-1927; m. Mary E. Browne George Jedediah Jones Barber, 1812-88; m. 1834 Catherine Reid, 1812-96; children: Mary Louise Barber, 1835-1927 Jedediah Barber II, 1838-1923; m. 1864 Sarah Elizabeth Stevens, 1838-1922 Paris Barber, 1814-76; m. 1840 Mary Elizabeth McClellan, 1818-43; children: Mary Elvenah Barber, 1841-62; m. 1861 Samuel Wright Lovejoy, 1831-74 Samuel McClellan Barber, 1843-1915; m. 1869 Catherine Purdv, 1845-1930

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Paris Barber m. 2d 1850 Lydia Jane Eno Lewis, 1819-90; children: Emma Jane Barber, 1 8 5 1 - 1 9 2 7 ; m. Thomas Harry Hinton, 18331900 Louisa Anna Barber, 1854-1934; m. 1879 George Rowland Howe, 1847-1917 Charles Eno Barber, 1857-1907 Elvenah Barber, 1817-1898; m. 1838 John Torless Henry 1810-81; children: Mary Matilda Henry, 1839-86 Louisa Henry, 1840-1903 Philip Barber Henry, 1843-98; m. Anna MacKensie John Watts Henry, 1845-86 Anna Tuttle Henry, 1847-1934 Frances Elizabeth Henry, 1847-65 Jedediah Barber Henry, 1849-1934 Watts Barber, 1819-70; m. 1847 Sarah Buell, 1828-1904; children: Elvenah Henry Barber, 1855-1936; m. 1874 Egbert Ten Eyck, d. 1879; m. 1886 William W. Johnson, d. 1927 May Buell Barber7 7

The only one of Barber's twenty-one grandchildren surviving in 1938.

APPENDIX

3

PORTRAITS AND MISCELLANEOUS PUBLISHED DATA five portraits of Jedediah Barber and two of Matilda Tutde Barber: The portraits of the couple by an unknown artist about 1830 (reproduced in this biography) are owned by Mrs. Katharine Oliver Stanley-Brown of Washington, D. C. The author believes these portraits were made for Louisa Anna Barber at the time of her marriage to Jacob M. Schermerhorn in 1831. They were in the Schermerhorn home in Rochester until 1842, hung in "The Hedges" at Homer until the family sold the home in 1927, and then passed into the possession of the great-great-granddaughter of Barber. Later portraits of the couple are the work of Francis B. Carpenter (born in Homer in 1830 and died in New York City in 1900). These were made in 1850, were in the Barber home in Homer for a quarter of a century, and then were taken by S. McClellan Barber to his home in Troy. They were there for about forty years before they came into the possession of the author in 1918. Reproductions of the portraits appear as illustrations in this book. Three additional portraits by Carpenter were done about 1850. The Homer Academy has one of these, one of a group of eight representing the surviving trustees of 1819 and painted just before Carpenter closed his Homer studio and took up his residence in New York City. Another is in the possession of Mrs. Katherine Henry Stephenson of Westport, Connecticut. This had been for many years in "The Hedges" at Homer. The third of the 1850 portraits belongs to Arthur Stevens Barber of Schenectady. This had belonged to Barber's oldest son, George J . J . Barber, and was among the possessions saved from his home at the time the Great Western Store burned in 1856. Carpenter also painted seven other members of the Barber family (George and his wife, Paris and his first wife, Elvenah Barber Henry, T H E R E ARE

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and Watts a n d his wife). In his 1852 diary the records of his income include these charges for portraits: George J . J. Barber M r . J . Barber for Mrs. Henry M r . B.

$30.00 30.00 100.00

EXCERPT FROM THE Cortland County Republican, M A Y 19, 1859 WE FIND on page 266 of Goodwin's History oj Cortland County the following deserved notice of our townsman M r . J . Barber. It is a just and truthful tribute to his worth, and as such, we take pleasure in transferring it to our columns: T h e first permanent merchant was Jedediah Barber. He came into H o m e r in 1 8 1 1 , but did not engage in the mercantile trade until 1813. T h e original part of the Great Western store, twenty-two by thirty feet, was erected at about that period. He entered into business with exceedingly limited means, but by industry, perseverance and economy, he was eminently successful, and finally became the heaviest dealer in the T i o u g h n i o g a valley, carved his w a y to fortune, and established a financial reputation unrivaled in the county. H e has done more to improve and beautify the village of H o m e r than any other man. T h e monuments of his memory are scattered all around the village in the numerous buildings of various classes he has caused to be erected, or contributed to rear, and they will long remain more honorable and enduring memorials than any marble column which might be erected over his final resting-place. His name is identified with the history of the Tioughnioga valley, and will only cease to be remembered when the spirit of enterprise no longer exists. E X C E R P T FROM THE C O R T L A N D Democrat,

FEB. 26,

1868

THE PRIMITIVE advent of J . B. into Homer, was in the year 1811. In 1813 he entered into the mercantile trade. T h e original part of the Great Western was erected about this time. It would illy compare with either of his magnificent blocks, now ornaments to Homer, being compressed into the space of 22 by 30 feet. His means were limited, but he was ambitious, industrious and persevering and met with almost unparalleled success. H e survives to see H o m e r and the sister towns become one broad theater of agricultural wealth, comfort and prosperity. Early to cast his lot in a primitive village while the forest was but partially cleared away, where the wolf, the bear, and the panther,

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roamed over hill and valley—he lives to see Homer one of the most tasteful, beautiful and wealthy villages, of its size in the Empire State —endowed with religious and literary institutions and the most substantial evidences of progress, intelligence and refinement. T h e crowning glory of more than 80 winters have mingled the frosts of time with his whitened hair, and the wife and mother, who accompanied him in his primitive advent nearly of the same age, still remains to cheer and bless his passing life. EXCERPT FROM THE ADDRESS OF THE HON. HENRY S . RANDALL,LL. D., BEFORE THE CORTLAND COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 1

JEDEDIAH BARBER, of Homer, was elected president in 1844. The receipts of the year were $187; the disbursements $140. Mr. Barber is a debt payer! The society, in some way or other, I have not had time to look up the facts, owed $21. So, on motion of Rufus Boies, a special meeting was called in April, and the amount of the debt defrayed by a subscription among the members! And then, I suppose, the patriarchs of the society went home gready relieved in their feelings. Ah, my friends, those were the good old-fashioned debt-paying days! I have spoken without hesitation of the dead. Shall I deny myself and yourselves the pleasure of mentioning one of the living? Mr. Barber is yet hale and vigorous among us, in that mellow autumn of life which is "frosty but kindly." Like his predecessor, he is a farmer, merchant and banker, and successful in all. Sagacious in business, energetic in execution, liberal and public spirited, long may he be spared to the fertile town and beautiful village for which he has done so much. When his grey head is laid in the dust, the schools, the churches and the public institutions of Homer will sorely miss him. ARTICLE IN THE SYRACUSE Daily Journal, 1866 JEDEDIAH BARBER

IT IS both interesting and instructive to read the biographies of those who have by their own energies and exertions achieved success in the world. The young and inexperienced are cheered on to new and more vigorous efforts by the example set before them in such lives. It is a proud distinction of our republican institutions, that to every class of 1 On the dedication of the new buildings, Sept. 23, 1862, published in the 1862 Annual Report of the State Agricultural Society, Vol. X X , pp. 344-45:

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citizens, they furnish incitements for the exercise of all their talents and faculties. He who is indolent and unambitious generally fails, while the truly laborious and enterprising win the prize. T h e truth of these suggestions is exemplified in the life and character of a highly respectable g e n d e m a n formerly residing in O n o n d a g a , but now and for many years a citizen of Homer, in the county of C o r d a n d . A l l w h o have had the pleasure of his acquaintance will readily perceive that reference is here made to the gendeman whose name heads this article, now almost an octogenarian, and yet still retaining the business habits and energies of his earlier years, to a great extent. He lacked the advantages of an early education, and had none of those adventitious aids which property gives. M o r e than sixty years ago he came with his father to reside at O n o n d a g a Hill, then almost a wilderness. V e r y soon after this, his father was killed by the falling of a limb from a tree he was cutting down near General Ellis' farm, leaving a large family entirely dependent upon their own efforts for subsistence. In 1804, y o u n g Barber worked for the late Josiah Bronson through the summer, at eight dollars a month. In 1806, he was unwell, and for a time under the care of the late Dr. Needham. In that year, however, he worked for John Meeker in building a store at O n o n d a g a , at three shillings per day, and had to give three days work for cloth for one shirt. In 1807, he went to T u l l y to tend store for M r . Meeker, there, at eight dollars per month. In 1808, he became a partner with Meeker, in that establishment, on the same terms that the late A z a r i a h Smith, of Manlius, C a l v i n Smith, of O n o n d a g a , and Phares Gould, of Skaneateles, had become partners with Meeker in his stores at those three places. A l l these gendemen, including M r . Barber, were quite successful in the mercantile business for many years. After this, M r . Barber removed to H o m e r and commenced the business of a merchant on his own account, and by his integrity, industry, sagacity, economy and energy, soon became a man of large property for those times. H e still resides at that place; and adopting the maxim, that " i t is better to work out, than rust o u t , " he still continues in business—is a large farmer, and lives in plain but elegant style, with all the surroundings that can contribute to his happiness; has a Bank of his own, which he also manages, and his paper is current in all parts of the country; plain, honest and truthful, and possessing a genial temperament, exceedingly affable, though sometimes blunt in his expressions, he has succeeded in securing the good will and esteem of all, having few if any enemies. His name is favorably

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known in the State Agricultural and the State Temperance Societies, and for more than twenty-five years he has been the President of the celebrated Cortland Academy. His "golden wedding" was celebrated some years since. The late Horace White, of this city, Lewis Brooks, of Rochester, and many others, served their clerkship with Mr. Barber at Homer, and were indebted to the example and instructions of Mr. B. in no small measure for the formation of those industrious and business habits which made them so prosperous and successful.—Many other young men have become ministers, lawyers and doctors through the assistance of Mr. Barber. The above is a just tribute to the worth of Mr. Barber, as a man of business and in all his other relations in life. Now, does any one ask what is the secret of such prosperity, usefulness and happiness? The answer is easy and has already been alluded to—it was his indomitable energy, coupled with perseverance, before which, obstacles to advancement flee away—together with his integrity, industry, frugality, temperance and good common sense. May his last days be his best days, and the choicest of Heaven's blessings rest on him and his forever. E X C E R P T FROM THE Cortland County Republican,

HOMER, N . Y . , T H U R S D A Y ,

N o v . 21, 1872 OBITUARY.—Died, in this village, on the 14th inst., Matilda Tuttle, wife of Jedediah Barber, aged eighty years. Few women have been so widely known in this vicinity as Mrs. Barber. Although domestic in her habits, she had an energy of purpose, a firmness of determination, and a positiveness of character which made her influence extensively felt. A devoted wife and a fond mother, she still took a deep interest in all that pertained to the material, intellectual and moral improvement of our town and village. The Temperance cause received her hearty support. Our Academy never had a truer friend. She was among the 188 who united with the Congregational church in 1813, during the pastorate of Rev. E. Walker, and walked in its fellowship until her death. She was married to Mr. Barber in 1809, thus affording the rare circumstance of a wedded life of nearly sixty-four years. She leaves two daughters and two sons; quite a number of grandchildren, and several of the next generation. Her funeral was very largely attended from her late residence last Sunday afternoon. Ser-

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mon by her pastor, Rev. W . A . Robinson, upon the words, Gal. I V , 26: " B u t Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." E X C E R P T FROM THE

Standard and Journal, APRIL 2 5 ,

CORTLAND, N . Y . ,

TUESDAY,

1876

DEATH OF JEDEDIAH BARBER

for half a century a resident and leading business man of Homer, died on Wednesday evening last. He may almost be said to have been the maker of Homer. Coming to that place at a very early day, he soon after engaged in mercantile business, and, during his long and active life, always had the interests of the village at heart and did everything in his power to forward them. His acquaintance throughout the county was very extensive, and for many years he was probably better known than any other man in it. T h e funeral took place on Saturday afternoon last, and was largely attended by his immediate neighbors as well as by friends and acquaintances from a distance. Among those present was President A . D. White, of Cornell University, whose father was at one time a clerk in M r . Barber's employ. T h e stores in the village were closed, and some of the blocks heavily draped in black. T h e village itself was as quiet as on a Sunday, and every tribute which love and respect could render to the memory of any man was paid to the deceased. T h e floral decorations upon and about the coffin were very profuse and exquisite. O n e of the touching sights of the occasion was the large number of very aged men who had come to take their last look at one who had been their warm friend in vigorous youth and middle life, and whom they are soon to follow to another world. T h e following biographical sketch presents the chief incidents of M r . Barber's life: Jedediah Barber was born in Hebron, Connecticut, April 10, 1787. In 1804, being possessed of a determination to leave the land of steady habits and seek a home in the West, he emigrated to Onondaga County, then considered almost to the setting sun. He engaged in school teaching for a period of two years, when he moved to Tully and established himself in the mercantile business. In the year 1809 he united in marriage with Matilda Tuttle, and in the following year changed his residence to Homer, and went to blacksmithing. T'wo years afterwards he engaged in the mercantile business at Homer, and continued until 1856, more than forty years.

JEDEDIAH BARBER,

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His industry, integrity, and honesty, combined with strict business habits, soon elevated him to an enviable position among his fellowcitizens, enjoying their entire confidence as a business man, and held in the highest esteem as a friend and neighbor. He managed an immense mercantile business, employing from eight to ten clerks, and was in every way well qualified to buffet the hardships incident to pioneer life. Mr. Barber and his estimable companion were blest with five children, viz., George, Paris, Louisa, Elvenah, and Watts, all of whom are living except Watts. Louisa united in marriage with J . M. Schermerhorn, and resides in Homer; Elvenah married John T. Henry, an influential citizen, residing and doing business in the city of New York. Mr. Barber aided materially in the organization of the Cordand Academy, and was President of the same for many years. To him, as much as any man living, is due the honor of organizing the Academy— the pride of the County, and one of the most important educational institutions in the "Empire State." In 1856, Mr. Barber lost nearly fifty thousand dollars, in consequence of a terrible conflagration. He, however, immediately recommenced trading, and also opened a banking office, which he continued until 1869, when he was succeeded by Hicok, Barber & Co. In all matters of public good he was ever conspicuous, and it is greatly due to his influence and money that the citizens of Homer to-day enjoy the blessed privileges accorded to them in the church and school. Mr. Barber was a member of the Congregational Church, and a consistent Christian. E X C E R P T FROM J O S E P H R .

D I X O N ' S A R T I C L E IN T H E

Cortland County Re-

publican, April 27, 1876 IN MEMORIAM G R A T A M

we think, will not charge us with an impropriety if we add an expression of our personal feelings toward the late Mr. Barber to that of the public meeting elsewhere given in our columns. We remember with gratitude the earnest and cordial welcome with which he received us when we came to Homer as a teacher in the Academy. That hearty reception encouraged our zeal and stimulated our efforts, not only at the commencement but during the progress of our connection with the institution. We have a similar recollection of his manifested interest in our career O U R READERS,

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as the publisher of this paper; of his readiness to assist us in various ways in this regard. T o that interest and that aid we were much indebted. He was an unselfish, and a liberal patron of the Republican office. W e are glad that we may thus contribute our mite in honor of the memory of the lamented and honored Jedediah Barber. And we doubt not that many an other of the teachers in the Academy and many an other of the citizens of Homer would joyfully improve a similar opportunity to express a like feeling of gratitude and respect. HOMER CITIZENS' TRIBUTE AT THE meeting of the citizens of Homer held on Friday evening, April 21 st, 1876, Deacon L. Kinney was chosen chairman and C. O. Newton secretary, and a committee was appointed to draft a suitable expression of the feeling of the community: George W . Bradford, M . D.; William Andrews, Esq.; Deacon T . D . Chollar; Joseph R . Dixon; and Rev. W m . F. Bcncdict. By their report the following minute was heartily and unanimously approved and ordered to be engrossed and furnished to the afflicted family and to the press: O u r venerable fellow-citizen, Jedediah Barber having passed away from earth after a long and remarkable business career, and a serene old age; we, his fellow-citizens,—some of us associated with him for a long period of years and all of us esteeming and honoring him, and acquainted with the record of his business and public life, feel impelled to say; 1. T h a t we realize afresh the important and almost creative nature of Mr. Barber's relation to the early business interests of this village and town; and that any true history of the development of the industries and business of this whole region must accord his name a foremost and most honorable place in its annals. 2. T h a t we bear hearty record to the enterprise and sagacity and integrity which so notably characterized him as a business man; to the genial courtesy, the quaint and apt wit and the sterling worth which so endeared him to his innumerable friends; and to the public spirit and interest in the prosperity of our educational and religious institutions which he so conspicuously and constantly manifested. Especially does our academy and the large number of youth it has trained and shall yet train for noble lives and larger usefulness, owe a debt of gratitude to him as one of its founders and most generous

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patrons, President of its Board of Trust for nearly thirty years and always warmly and intelligently interested in its welfare. 3. That we feel a deep and sincere sympathy with the wide circle of his family friends, and know that in this expression we but utter the feeling of a very large number in Central New York and elsewhere who count themselves bereaved by his death and will long cherish and revere his name and memory. 4. That we recommend as a tribute of respect to his memory, that the business places of this village be closed during the hours of the funeral services to-morrow and that the Boards of Trust in village and academy attend the funeral as organizations. E X C E R P T FROM THE HOMER

Republican,

FEB.

7, 1878

T o THE Cordand Co., Agricultural Society: Your committee appointed at the last annual meeting to prepare a notice of the decease of the late Jedediah Barber and Paris Barber, would respectfully report that the records of the Cordand county Agricultural Society show that in the year 1838, when the Society was formed, Mr. Jedediah Barber and his son, Mr. Paris Barber, enrolled their names as members; that during the succeeding quarter of a century they maintained their membership and honored it by a constant attendance at the meetings of the Society, a hearty participation in its councils, a generous contribution of their influence and means to its reputation and prosperity, an efficient discharge of the duties devolving upon its various offices, and a cheerful concurrence in all measures which they believed adapted to promote its prosperity and usefulness. During the period above mentioned, hardly a name appears upon the Society's records oftener or in more honorable positions than theirs. Upon one or more occasions each was chosen President. The quick perception, the good common sense, the varied experience and the large-hearted wisdom of the father, the ready promptness of the son, his well-known energy in keeping himself abreast of the agricultural literature of the day, and especially his rare aesthetic taste in all that pertained to the beauties of the farm and the garden, were fidy recognized by those oft-recurring calls to places of responsibility and trust. Well will it be for the future interests of this Society if members of equal zeal and devotion to its prosperity shall hereafter come forward to fill the places of these men. Mr. Jedediah Barber died April ig, 1876, at the ripe age of 89 years and g days.

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Mr. Paris Barber died May 7, 1876, aged 61 years and 7 months. In view of the foregoing facts your committee recommend the adoption of the following: W H E R E A S , The names of Messrs. Jedediah Barber and Paris Barber have been taken by death from the roll of our living members: therefore, RESOLVED, That in this event we recognize the fiat of Him who has said of our race, "Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." RESOLVED, That in appreciation of our loss, and in respect to their memory, we direct our Secretary to enter this tribute upon his records. Respectfully submitted. Jos. R. D I X O N , L Y M A N H . H E B A R D , W A L T E R JONES, Committee. S . M C C L E L L A N BARBER'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS G R A N D F A T H E R 2

was about 5 feet 8 inches in height; erect, active, muscular, somewhat stout of build, amiable, bright and witty, with a great talent for saying quaint and trcnchant things, couplcd with the tact and good-natured way of saying them, which made them go without offence. He was possessed of great energy and business ability. He left Hebron, Conn., and emigrated to Onondaga Valley, in 1804. When a small boy he was given a sheep, and the natural increase of that sheep enabled him to purchase a one-half interest in a horse and the necessary outfit; the other half of the horse was owned by a cousin. Together they started for what was then the far West; he was then about 17 years of age. The journey was made by these two boys riding and walking alternately. On arriving in Onondaga Valley (Syracuse was then but a small hamlet called Salt Point) he did what his hands found to do, teaching school winters, and was so industrious and progressive that the attention of a Mr. Meeker who conducted a system of country stores located in the different settlements in that region, was called to him and he engaged him to go into his store at Tully, Onondaga County, which he did in 1807. He remained in Tully about three years; married his wife there, but not being able to agree with Mr. Meeker or wishing to make a start for himself, he moved to Homer in 1810. Then began a business career which was remarkable for that time and region, which, in fact, has not been approached by anyone in that part of the state since. He made everything he touched go, and

JEDEDIAH BARBER

* The Barber-Eno Family of Homer, N. T. (1893), pp. 22-24.

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built up an immense trade with the surrounding country. He shipped the products of the country to New York. By team to Albany, N.Y., a distance of 150 miles; thence by sloop down the Hudson river, receiving his goods by the same route, taking usually about two weeks, I believe, for the trip from New York to Homer. In connection with his mercantile business, he did the banking for that section and eventually gave up the mercantile and continued the banking business until about 1869, when, having met with large losses and being well advanced in years, he retired after a most active and stirring life. He retained his powers of mind and body almost to the last, and grew old most beautifully. It was like a benediction to see him and to be with h i m — a continued source of pleasure. His heavy head of pure white hair was, indeed, a crown of glory. SPEECH OF H A R R Y BARBER

AT THE ACADEMY

CENTENNIAL 1

Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen: A t the beginning of the 19th century, the pioneers of the southern part of Onondaga County had their chief point of contact with the outside world here in the Village of Homer, located near the lower end of the Tioughnioga Valley. Here the stages from Albany to Ithaca were soon to take fresh horses and other stages were to make regular trips to and from Syracuse, the regional metropolis to the north. Churches, elementary schools, saw mills, stores and traders' exchanges and the enterprises indigenous to a pioneer community were already well established when, in 1811, Jedediah Barber and his youthful wife removed to Homer from Tully, New York, to begin a long life honorable to themselves and beneficial to the community in which they lived. Because of circumstances which give particular emphasis to his lifelong activity, Mr. Barber's work in the home place of his selection and among the people with whom he was so intimately associated invited attention because he typified in such a forceful manner the best qualities of the men and women with whom he lived and labored. The manner of his coming is significant. Over a way which antedated the corduroy roads of the then rapidly approaching stage coach days, with all his worldly goods securely loaded upon one wagon whereon his young wife sat, he rode and walked betimes as the cir' Harry Barber, great-grandson of Jedediah Barber, thus responded to the toast "Our Former Trustees," at the Homer Academy Centennial, 1919.

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cumstances of the journey permitted. Like many others before and afterward they came, remained and were laid to rest among the plainliving, hard-working, high-thinking people, the early settlers of this upland region. Here already were, Townsend Ross and Andrew Dickson who practiced law, Lewis Owen who practiced medicine and the Reverend EInathan Walker and the Reverend Alfred Bennett, who preached as well as practiced Christianity, and many others, among whom were men like Joshua Ballard, Samuel B. Hitchcock, William Heberd, David Coye, Martin Keep, Chauncey Keep and Rufus Boies, and others who may not here be named for lack of time but who worthily pursued their several vocations as merchants and farmers. Among such men, Jedediah Barber found appropriate and congenial surroundings for the cultivation of his peculiar talents and the development of his unique character. By a happy circumstance of birth, I have been requested to recall his name to you today with the names of others of like spirit, vision and ability, who laid the foundations and who for many years encouraged and promoted the pursuit of liberal scholastic education in this community. He was one of the petitioners for the Charter of the Cordand Academy in 1819 and was chosen a trustee at the first meeting of its board of trustees. Rev. Alfred Bennett, Rufus Boies, David Coye, Dr. John Miller, John Osborne, Townsend Ross and Noah R. Smith, whose portraits hang in the school library were among the men with whom he labored diligently in the organization and conduct of the institution whose centennial we now celebrate. The noticeable duration of his incumbence of the office of president may suggest to some, the familiar quip regarding the office holders who sometimes die but never resign. The almost equally long service of Mr. E. C. Reed repels the suggestion, however, inclining one to affirm that the people whom these men served were quick to recognize the ability and eager to retain the services of men of their stamp. The first president of the board of trustees was Rev. EInathan Walker, the second president was Andrew Dickson, following whom, Mr. Barber served in the same capacity continuously for thirty years. Mr. Barber had been a school teacher at Onondaga Hill before coming to Homer, and although his personal education had not been pursued to the academic courses, he was awake alike to the value of that which he had received and of that which to him had been denied. His later comment upon his qualifications as a school teacher was

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"They called me a good teacher in those days but I should hardly be willing to have such a teacher in any school now-a-days." For his neighbors' children as well as his own, he desired the best education that the resources of a new community could command. He was not alone in this, nor did he surpass his associates in the quality of his desire. His fidelity to this purpose is indicated by his record as the head of the original prudential or finance committee of the trustees. Beginning with an income of a few hundred dollars, the infant school developed annual receipts of $3,000.00 and within ten years from its organization, Mr. Barber was the chairman of a committee to loan out the school moneys. The wealth which he acquired entirely by his personal effort, is interesting in so far as it shows that in public affairs, he devoted the same habits of industry and attention to detail that characterized his management of his personal business. He probably represents as well as any other member of the board, what manner of men those early trustees were. There must have been in their make-up as in his, much of the stuff of which men are made to cause their names still to linger in the minds of those who never knew them. As a public spirited citizen of the Village and County, he participated loyally in public affairs, though never so far as we know, as an office-holder. His time and thought seem always to have been available for any enterprise which offered benefit to the community in which he lived. He was instrumental in organizing the first railroad company that constructed its lines through this valley, he established the first bank in this County and for many years his general store, "The Great Western," was the largest single establishment for the exchange of merchandise in this section of the country. His personal attributes were always interesting to those with whom he came in contact, whatever the result of the intercourse. He was shrewd and direct in business, considerate of others in his social relations and gentle with all children, whom he held in deep affection. His love of nature found satisfaction in his extensive farms and highly cultivated gardens and orchards. His faith in God was fervently expressed through years of fellowship in the First Religious Society of Homer. His friendship for young men was enduring and though by the standards of today he might have been judged a hard taskmaster, his pride in the young men who served their business apprenticeship under

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DATA

him, is best expressed in his own words written to Hon. E. W. Leavenworth of Syracuse, New York, two years before he died, "I have brought up many young men; of those now recollected, the late Horace White of Syracuse, whose son, Hon. A. D. White, might speak of me; Levi Brooks of Rochester, now living, Philander Peck, late of Chicago, 111.; Lewis B. Parsons, my son George ever since he was old enough to be a clerk; Horace Hitchcock; William T. Hicok; Nathaniel Andrews and a score of others whom I might name but my memory is somewhat impaired." For such as he was, we "their children's children unto the third and fourth generations rise up today to call them blessed." EXCERPT FROM LETTER OF M R S . BERTHA E . BLODGETT 4

No ONE can read the history of Homer without finding the name of Jedediah Barber constantly mentioned. He was merchant, banker, builder, president of the Academy trustees, president of the Glenwood Cemetery Association, promoter of the railroad from Syracuse to Binghamton and active in every project that pertained to his day and generation. His "Great Western" store was a huge, plain, white building in the center of Homer Village. There was a string of hitching posts in front of it which never lacked patronage by the well-to-do farmers who came from all over the county to trade at Jed Barber's well stocked counters. Lumber wagons, Democrat wagons, buggies, surreys—nothing too good or too poor to stand waiting along the curb, while Cortland County horse flesh eased their hoofs in the soft mud of the road and flecked the summer flies with their swishing tails. Dave Hannum, walking along to his favorite haunt, the Eagle Hotel, appraised them all with his practiced eye. He knew every man by the horse he owned. Jedediah Barber's house stands to-day like a ghost of its former self. It was once surrounded with beautiful gardens and conservatories and deported itself elegantly on the Main Street of Homer. In fact it was the show place of that town noted for its sumptuous structures. The mansion was built in 1825 and was quite the rival of the Randall mansions in Cortland. 4 Mrs. Blodgett, author of Stories of Cortland County, 1933 (with references to Jedediah Barber on pp. 1 2 1 , 124-25, 148, and 166 and to his various interests, on pp. 1 2 9 - 3 1 , 180-82, 190-91, and 2 0 1 - 2 ) , wrote the above note on Barber in February, 1938.

PORTRAITS AND DATA

207

Jedediah's bank? A h that was the sad part of the story. It made such a brave showing and established itself so proudly in the valley of the Tioughnioga but when the panic of 1873 followed the trail of the Civil War, Jedediah Barber knew that his fortune was lost. The fire of 1856 had taken his store. Death took his wife and his son, Watts, and when death took the old man himself (1876) an auction finished his home. This was the end of his career but not of his honor for that was something neither death nor fire nor panic could touch. MISCELLANEOUS M A T E R I A L

ADDITIONAL material concerning Jedediah Barber appears in; Combination Atlas Map of Cortland County, 1876, p. 30, with portrait; " M c Clellan and Barber Letters" collected by H. B. Howe in 1932, pp. 1 5 20; Homer Post, September 29, 1933, article by C. H. Stevens; Syracuse Post Standard, February 25, 1931, April 28, 1935 (illustrated), and September 13, 1936; Cortland Democrat, April 19, 1935, May 10, 1935, and October 9, 14, and 18, 1935; and New York History, July, 1936, article by H. B. Howe, with portrait, pp. 290-305.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY GENERAL IN ADDITION T O the works of Henry Adams, James Truslow Adams, Charles and Mary Beard, John Fiske, Albert Bushnell Hart, John Bach McMaster, Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, Vernon Louis Parrington, James Ford Rhodes, the cyclopedias of Appleton and the Duyckincks, the American Statesmen series, and the Dictionary oj American Biography, the following authorities were consulted: Andrews, Charles McLean, Colonial Folkways (1921).

The Colonial Period of American History: the Settlements (1936).

Arrowsmith, Aaron, and Samuel Lewis, New and Elegant General Atlas (1804). Bacon, Benjamin Wisner, Theodore Thornton Munger (1913). Good biography of a religious liberal with emphasis on his early days at the Cortland Academy and Yale College. Blodgett, Harold, Samson Occum (1937). Interesting biography of a graduate of Wheelock's Lebanon school who sought to convert the Iroquois. Branch, E d w a r d Douglas, Westward the Romance oj the American Frontier

(i93o)The Sentimental Years (1934).

Brooks, Van Wyck, The Flowering of New England (1937). Carman, Harry James, and Samuel McKee, Jr., A History of the United States 1492-1865

(1931).

""Carpenter, Francis Bicknell, Six Months at the White House (1867). C a r v e r , J o n a t h a n , Three Tears Travels throughout the Interior Parts of North America (1794).

"Indian Grant to Capt. Jonathan Carver" (Samuel Peters affidavit, 1805; MS in New York Public Library). Cole, Arthur Charles, The Irrepressible Conflict, 1850-1865 (1934). Darby, William, The Emigrant's Guide . . . (1818). Directions as to routes, with mileage and descriptions of economic aspects of the country. Dexter, Franklin Bowditch, Biographical Sketches oj Graduates oj Yale

College 1701-1815 (6 vols; 1885-1912).

212

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dunbar, Seymour, History of Travel in America (4 vols, in 1; 1937). Dwight, Timothy, Travels in New England and New York (4 vols.; 1822). East, Robert Abraham, Business Enterprise in the American Revolutionary Era (1938). Elliott, Charles Winslow, Winfield Scott (1937). Fish, Carl Russell, The Rise of the Common Man, 1830-1850 (1929). Harvard University, Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates 1636-1925 (1925). Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army. April 1775-December 1783 (1914). Hulbert, Archer Butler, Historic Highways of America (12 vols.; 1904). James, Marquis, Andrew Jackson, the Border Captain (1933). Andrew Jackson: Portrait of a President (1937). Kirkland, Edward Chase, A History of American Economic Life (1933). Kittredge, George Lyman, The Old Farmer and His Almanack (1920). Krout, John Allen, Origins of Prohibition (1925). Mayo, Bernard, Henry Clay, Spokesman of the New West (1937). Melish, John, A Description of the Roads in the United States (1814). Contemporary guide for travel prior to canals. Merchants and Bankers Almanac (annual since 1862). Standard listings of all banks. Morse, Jedidiah, The American Universal Geography (1796). Invaluable description of places at end of 18th century. Nevins, Allan, Abram S. Hewitt: with Some Account of Peter Cooper (1935). ed., The Diary of Philip Hone (1936). Parsons, Herbert Collins, A Puritan Outpost: History of Northfield, Massachusetts (1937). Pasco, C. F., Two Hundred Years of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (1901). Pound, Arthur, Native Stock: the Rise of the American Spirit Seen in Six Lives (1931). Prime, Samuel Irenaeus, Memoirs of the Rev. Nicholas Murray, D.D. (1863). •Randall, Henry Stephens, Thomas Jefferson (3 vols.; 1858). Rosenberry, Lois Kimball (Mathews), Expansion of New England (1909). Report of the migrations to New York and the Middle West. Schneider, Herbert Wallace, The Puritan Mind (1930). Excellent appraisal of New England thought with description of Anglican inroads in Connecticut.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

213

and Carol Smith Schneider, eds., Samuel Johnson, President oj King's College (4 vols.; 1929). Invaluable source material with scholarly estimate of the man and his time. Schurz, Carl, Henry Clay (2 vols.; 1899). Sibley, John Langdon, Biographical Sketches of Graduates oj Harvard University (5 vols.; 1873 ff.) Stanley-Brown, Katharine Oliver, The Toung Architects (1929). Interesting study of domestic architecture. "Stoddard, William Osborn, " A Journalist Sees Lincoln," Atlantic Monthly, Feb., 1925. " F a c e to Face with Lincoln," ibid., March, 1925. Stowe, L y m a n Beecher, Saints, Sinners and Beechers (1934). Temple, Josiah Howard, and George Sheldon, A History of the Town of Northfield, Mass. (1875). Thomas, Robert Bailey, and successors, The Old Farmer's Almanack (1791 ff.). V a n Deusen, Glyndon George, The Life of Henry Clay (1937). Walker, Williston, A History of the Congregational Church in the United States (1894). Watson, Elkanah, Men and Times of the Revolution; or Memoirs of Elkanah Watson, including Journals of Travels in Europe and America from 1777 to 1842 (1857). Autobiography of a great promoter who worked indefatigably for the New York canals. ""White, Andrew Dickson, Autobiography (2 vols.; 1905). Excellent self-description of the educator who was born in Homer. Wold, Ansel, ed., Biographical Directory of the American Congress 17741927 (1928). GENEALOGY

Bassette, Buell Burdett, One Bassett Family in America (1926). Bliss, John Homer, Genealogy of the Bliss Family in America (1881). Chapman, Frederick William, The Buckingham Family (1872). " T h e Post F a m i l y " (1893; M S in Connecticut Historical Society library). Cornwall, Edward Everett, Francis West of Duxbury, Massachusetts, and Some of His Descendants (1906). * Names of authors identified with Cortland County are preceded by an asterisk.

214

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cutter, William Richard, Genealogical and Family History of Central New Tork (2 vols.; 1912). Foote, A b r a m William, Foote Family (1907). Goodwin, Nathaniel, Genealogical Notes or Contributions to the Family History of the First Settlers of Connecticut and Massachusetts (1856). Hosmer, James Bidwell, Genealogy of the Hosmer Family (1861). Howe, George Rowland, The Barber-Eno Family of Homer, N.T. (1893). Howe, M a r k Anthony De Wolfe, James Ford Rhodes (1928). Biography of the historian w h o was a descendant of the Barber and Gilbert families of Hebron. Jones, D . N., " T h o m a s Jones of Guilford: His Descendants 1639-1904" ( M S in Connecticut State Library, Hartford). McClellan, Samuel P., Harry Barber, and Herbert Barber Howe, "McClellan-Barber Letters" (1932; a bound volume of family correspondence in the possession of the author). Mann, George Sumner, Mann Memorial. A Record of the Mann Family in America (1884). Newcomb, B. M . , Andrew Newcomb 1618-1686,

and His Descendants

(i9 2 3)Phelps, Oliver Seymour, and Andrew Tinkey Servin, The Phelps Family in America (1899). Post, Marie Caroline De Trobriand, The Post Family (1905). Schermerhorn, Richard, Jr., Schermerhorn Genealogy (1914). T u t d e , George Frederick, The Descendants of William and Elizabeth Tuttle (1883). Wheeler, Albert Gallatin, Jr., . . . The Wheeler Family in America (i9'4)White, John Barber, Barber Genealogy (1909). Wilder, Louise Beebe, Lucius Beebe of Wakefield (1930). Includes Gilbert and Barber family data. CONNECTICUT

Andrews, Charles M c L e a n , The River Towns of Connecticut (1889). Connecticut's Place in Colonial History (1924). The Beginnings of Connecticut 1632-1662 (Connecticut Tercentenary Publications, No. 32, 1934). Barber, John Warner, Connecticut Historical Collections (1836). Beardsley, Eben Edwards, Life and Correspondence of the Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D. (1881). Noncritical biography.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

2'5

Bissell, Frederic Clarence, "The Rev. Samuel Peters—His Slaves and Their Near Abduction" (1899); typewritten MS in Connecticut State Library). An interesting footnote to the life of the wealthy Anglican clergyman. Boyd, Julian Parks, The Susquehannah Company: Connecticut's Experiment in Expansion (Connecticut Tercentenary Publications, No. 34, >935)Cole, J . R., History of Tolland County (1888). Typical county history; rather well documented. Connecticut (Colony), The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut [1636-1776] (15 vols.; 1850-90). Connecticut (State), The Public Records oj the State of Connecticut [17761781] (3 vols.; 1894-1922). Connecticut (State), Adjutant General, Record of Service of Connecticut Men in the War of the Revolution, War of 1812, and Mexican War (1886). Connecticut (State), Examiner of Public Records, Public Document 41 (i93 6 )A description of the records in each town and probate district. Connecticut Archives. Frequent use was made by the author of this large and well-indexed collection of manuscripts in the Connecticut State Library. Connecticut Historical Society, Collections (i860 ff.). The following volumes were used in this study: Vol. V I I I , Rolls of Men in the Revolution, 1775-83; Vol. I X , Rolls of Men in the French and Indian Wars 1755-57; Vol. X , Rolls of Men in the French and Indian Wars 1758-62; Vol. X I I , Returns of Men in the Revolution. List of Congregational Ecclesiastical Societies Established in Connecticut before 1818 (1913). Coons, Paul Wakeman, The Achievement of Religious Liberty in Connecticut (Connecticut Tercentenary Publications, No. 60, 1936). Gilman, Gates, Saybrook at the Mouth of the Connecticut River (1935). Groce, George Cuthbert, Jr., "Benjamin Gale," New England Quarterly, Dec., 1937. Excellent report of the Old Light leader who loved to protest. William Samuel Johnson, a Maker of the Constitution (1937)Good biography of the son of a Connecticut clergyman and educator who himself became a college president and Senator.

216

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hinman, Royal Ralph, comp., A Historical Collection from Official Records, Files, etc. oj the Part Sustained by Connecticut during the War of the Revolution (1842). Jacobus, Donald Lines, List of Officials, Civil, Military and Ecclesiastical, of Connecticut. . . and of New Haven Colony (1935). Kelly, John Frederick, Early Domestic Architecture of Connecticut (Connecticut Tercentenary Publications, No. 12, 1924). Mampoteng, Charles, "Samuel Peters, Sometime Bishop Elect of Vermont," American Church Monthly, Dec., 1935. " T h e Rev. Samuel A. Peters, M.A.," Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, V (June, 1936), 73-91. The Mampoteng papers are scholarly forerunners of a full-length biography. Manwaring, Charles William, A Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records (3 vols.; 1904). Mason, John, Brief History of the Pequot War (1736). Report by the commander, with mention of Thomas Barber. Mathews, Lois Kimball, see Rosenberry, Lois Kimball (Mathews). Mitchell, Isabel Stewart, Roads and Road Making in Colonial Connecticut (Connecticut Tercentenary Publications, No. 14, 1933). Morrow, Rising Lake, Connecticut Influences in Western Massachusetts and Vermont (Connecticut Tercentenary Publications, No. 58, 1936). Olson, Albert Laverne, Agricultural Economy and the Population in Eighteenth Century, Connecticut (Connecticut Tercentenary Publications, No. 40, 1935). Peters, Samuel Andrew, General History of Connecticut 1781 (with Additions by Samuel J . McCormick; 1877). A center of controversy for over a century; vide Trumbull, infra. Porter, Noah, The New England Meeting House (Connecticut Tercentenary Publications, No. 18, 1933). Purcell, J . R., Connecticut in Transition (1918). Unique study of the years of the migrations. Rosenberry, Lois Kimball (Mathews), Migrations from Connecticut Prior to 1800 (Connecticut Tercentenary Publications, No. 28, 1934). Migrationsfrom Connecticut After 1800 (Connecticut Tercentenary Publications, No. 54, 1936). Steiner, Bernard Christian, History of the Plantation of Menunkatuck and of the Original Town of Guilford . . . (1897). Stewart, George, Jr., History of Religious Education in Connecticut (1924).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

217

Scholarly and well-documented study of ecclesiastical influences in colony and state. Stiles, Henry Reed, History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor (2 vols.; 1891-92). Stuart, Isaac William, Life of Jonathan Trumbull (1859). Stilted biography of the w a r governor. [Terry, Mrs. A . H.], Connecticut Houses (Connecticut State Library Bulletin, N o . 16, 1931)T r u m b u l l , Benjamin, A Complete History of Connecticut . . . to 1764 (2 vols.; 1898 ed.). T r u m b u l l , James H a m m o n d , The True Blue Laws of Connecticut and New Haven and the False Blue Laws Invented by Rev. Samuel Peters (1876). The Rev. Samuel Peters, His Defenders and Apologists (1877). [Controversial material as to "Priest Peters"] in Memorial History of Hartford County 1633-1884 (1886). Walker, George L . , History of the First Church in Hartford, ¡633-1833 (1884). Wheelock, Eleazer, A Plain and Faithful Narrative of the Original Design, Rise Progress and Present State of the Indian Charity School at Lebanon 1763 (1909 ed.). Windsor, Connecticut, Some Early Records and Documents of and Relating to the Town of Windsor 1639-1703 (1930). HEBRON Hebron, Connecticut, Bicentennial August 23d to 25th, igo8 (1910). V a l u a b l e reports of 200th anniversary, with an excellent address on the period 1708-1808 by Frederic Clarence Bissell. T h e manuscripts in the T o w n Clerk's O f f i c e — l a n d records, vital statistics, and minutes of the town meetings—are well preserved and carefully indexed. T h e following manuscript material was consulted at the Connecticut State Library, Hartford: " H e b r o n History" (typewritten copies of seven documents written by S. A . and J . S. Peters, D a v i d Barber, Jr., and Sylvester Gilbert). " H e b r o n Revolutionary R e c o r d s . " " H e b r o n Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1708-1854" (a typewritten copy of the original records). "Profession of Faith & C o v e n a n t Adopted by the Congregational C h u r c h in Hebron & Used by Dr. Amos Bassett 1794-1824."

218

BIBLIOGRAPHY NEW YORK STATE

Alexander, De Alva Stanwood, A Political History of the State oj New York (4 vols.; 1906-23). Barber, John Warner, and Henry Howe, Historical Collections of the State of New York (1841). Bennet, J. G., "Diary of a Journey through New Y o r k " (1831; M S at New York Public Library). Quotes conversations with politicians, editors, and others in visits to Saratoga, Syracuse and A v o n Springs. Bigelow, Timothy, Journal of a Tour to Niagara Falls in the Year 1805 (1876). Valuable information on the Mohawk-Genesee route across the state. Bobb6, Dorothie, DeWitt Clinton (1933). Modern full-length biography stressing his service in building the Erie Canal. Cleaveland, Dorothy Kendall, " T h e Trade and T r a d e Routes of Northern New York from the Beginning of Settlement to the Coming of the Railroad," Quarterly Journal of the New York State Historical Association, I V (Oct., 1923), 205-29. State-wide survey of the transportation facilities up to the forties. Cooper, William, A Guide in the Wilderness; or, The History of the First Settlement in the Western Counties oj New York (1810). Letters to a man in Dublin describing the new state and predicting with accuracy many important developments. DeWitt, Benjamin, " A Sketch of the Turnpike Roads in the State of New-York," Transactions oj the Society jor the Promotion oj Usejul Arts in the State oj New-York, II (1807), 190-204. Disturnell, John, A Gazetteer oj the State oj New-York (1842). Doty, Lockwood Richard, History oj Livingston County (1905). Valuable record of the county set off from Ontario in 1821. Eastman, Francis Smith, History oj the State oj New York (1828). Elementary textbook with interesting report of the opening of the Erie Canal. Edmonds, Walter Dumaux, Drums along the Mohawk (1937). Erie Water (1933). Rome Haul (1929). T h e Edmonds books are a trilogy of historical fiction dealing with the Mohawk Valley and the Erie Canal, based on careful research. O f

BIBLIOGRAPHY

219

great value in understanding the region, especially the second novel, which describes the digging of the canal, 1817-25. Fitzpatrick, Edward Augustus, Educational Views and Influence of De Witt Clinton (1911). Containing data as to organization and curricula of the early academies fostered by Clinton. Flick, Alexander Clarence, ed., History of the State ojNew York (10 vols.; I933-37)Only complete history and therefore indispensable. Fox, Dixon Ryan, The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York (1919)French, John Heustis, Gazetteer of the State of New York (i860). Halsey, Francis Whiting, The Old New York Frontier (igoi). Excellent description of the boundary of 1768 and the coming of the New Englanders. Hammond, Jabez Delano, The History of Political Parties in the Stale of New York (2 vols.; 1842). Hedrick, Ulysses Prentiss, A History of Agriculture in the State of New York (i933)Scholarly description of the development of farming and farm life; invaluable reference book. Higgins, Ruth Loving, Expansion in New York (1931). Good record of New York's settlement; companion volume to Rosenberry, Expansion of New England. Excellent bibliography. Hough, Franklin Benjamin, Historical and Statistical Record of the University of the State of New York 1784-1884 (1885). Jenkins, John Stilwell, The Life of Silas Wright (1847). Mallory, E. B., "The Diary of a Pioneer 1827," St. Johnsville Enterprise and News, Sept. 2-16, 1936. [Maude, John], Visit to the Falls of Niagara in 1800 (1826). Valuable description of New York; compare with Bigelow, supra. Mayer, William G., "The History of Transportation in the Mohawk Valley," New York State Historical Association Proceedings, X I V

(1915). 214-3°Details of land and water routes used by early setders and developed into canal system. Mott, Edward Harold, Between the Ocean and the Lakes; the Story of Erie (1901). Report of the long-drawn-out crossing of the southern tier by the

220

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Erie railroad; especially the connection of Piermont with Bingham ton. Palmer, John M c A u l e y , General Von Steuben (1937). Careful estimate of one of Washington's foreign aides, with description of his Mohawk Valley land. Rose, R . S., " T h e Military Tract of Central Y o r k " (1935; M S thesis for the master's degree, Syracuse University; copy in Syracuse University Library). Shepard, Edward Morse, Martin Van Buren (1899). Scholarly biography refuting unfair criticism of the Sage of Kinderhook. Spafford, Horatio Gates, A Gazetter of the State of New-York (1813, 1824). Stone, William Leete, Life of Joseph Brant—Thayendanega (2 vols.; 1838). Street, Alfred Billings, The Council of Revision of the State of New York (1859)Important lists of officeholders and biographical data. Trowbridge, John Townsend, My Own Story (1903). T h e first two chapters describe life in central and western New York from 1827 to 1847. Turner, Frederick Jackson, The Rise of the New West (1906). Scholarly description showing the movement of New York people westward in the 1830's and 1840's. University of the State of New York, The Sullivan-Clinton Campaign in '779 (i9 2 9)Well-documented outline of the American attempt to break the power of the Iroquois. Weed, Thurlow, Autobiography (2 vols.; 1884). Williamson, Charles, Description of the Settlement of the Genesee Country (i799)Contemporary description of western New York before the MohawkGenesee turnpike was completed. Wilson, Alexander, Journal of a Tour through Western New York (1804). T h e observations of an ornithologist in the new country. ONONDAGA

COUNTY

BEAUCHAMP, Chase, and Clark are the outstanding authorities; Clark is the basis of subsequent county histories. Beauchamp, William Martin, " O n o n d a g a Hill," Syracuse PostStandard, Jan. 5, 1914.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

221

Past and Present of Syracuse and Onondaga County (2 vols.; 1908). Revolutionary Soldiers Resident or Dying in Onondaga County (1913); Supplement (1914). Scholarly work based on extensive research. Bruce, Dwight Hall, Onondaga's Centennial (2 vols; 1896). Chase, Franklin Henry, Where to Find It; Bibliography of Syracuse History (1920). A very careful listing of material. Cheney, Lyman Averill, ed., "Records of the Presbyterian Church at Onondaga Hill." Clark, Joshua Victor Hopkins, Onondaga (2 vols.; 1849). Excellent county history with detailed information as to each of the original towns; indispensable source. Clayton, W . Woodford, History of Onondaga County, New York (1878). De Witt, C. J., "Crusading for Peace in Syracuse during the W a r with Mexico," New York History, April, 1933. Leslie, E. N., Skaruateles (1902). Popular history of the village at the foot of Lake Skaneateles. Onondaga Centennial Almanac for 1868. Good outline history of the towns. Onondaga Historical Association, Publications (1910). Reunion and History of Pompey, N. Y. (1875). Reminiscences of the town's founding and development, arranged according to families. Smith, C. E., Pioneer Times in the Onondaga Country (1904). V a n Schaack, Henry Cruger, A History of Manlius Village (1873). CORTLAND COUNTY

Ballard, Horatio, "Reminiscences of Cortland" (1878; M S at Cortland County Historical Society). Excellent description of settlement and development, with biographical material. Blodgett, Bertha Eveleth, Stories of Cortland County (1932). Most interesting study of the county that has been made. Chronologically arranged; preserves the traditions and furnishes foundations for extended study. Story of the Old Randall House (1928). Sympathetic descriptions of the two old mansions in the center of Cortland.

222

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bouton, Nathaniel, Festal Gathering of the Early Settlers and Present Inhabitants of Virgil (1853). V a l u a b l e local history from the reminiscences of the town's founders. Cornish, Cornelia Baker, The Geography and History of Cortland County (1929)M o d e r n study of the county, with excellent outline, good m a p s and charts; deserves fuller development and better printing. C o r d a n d C o u n t y Agricultural Society, Records, 1838 ( M S at C o r t l a n d C o u n t y Historical Society). I n v a l u a b l e source material; descriptions of county fairs. Cortland County Directory (1869). V a l u a b l e post-war information regarding towns and people. Everts, Ensign and Everts (firm), Combination Atlas Map of Cortland County (1876). Excellent m a p s showing ownership of land, with illustrations. G o o d w i n , Henry C . , Pioneer History; or Cortland County and the Border Wars of New York (1859). A very useful source book, stilted in form, but based on conversations with early settlers. A n index has been recently supplied by the C o r t l a n d C o u n t y Historical Society. " H i s t o r i c Site M a r k e r s In C o u n t y , " Cortland Democrat, Sept. 8, 1933. K i n g s b u r y , Charles, " R e m i n i s c e n c e s , " H o m e r Republican, 1878. Excellent supplement to Ballard, giving the lives of H o m e r farmers. K u r t z , D . Morris, Past and Present. A Historical and Descriptive Sketch of Cortland . . . (1883). G o o d salesmanship with interesting facts as to business and the c o m i n g of the railroad in 1854. R a n d a l l , H e n r y S., [Report of Cortland C o u n t y Agricultural Society, w i t h its history], New York State Agricultural Society Transactions (1862), V o l . X X I I . S m i t h , H . P., Cortland County (1885). T y p i c a l pompous county history with unacknowledged dependence on G o o d w i n , supplemented by considerable additional data. Syracuse and B i n g h a m t o n R a i l r o a d C o m p a n y , Articles of Association (1851). Reports of the Chief Engineer (1852). Report of President and Directors (1853). G o o d p r o p a g a n d a as to the route north f r o m B i n g h a m t o n and the strategic location of O s w e g o .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

223

V a n Hoesen, D . W . , History of the Presbyterian Church oj Preble, N. Y. (1915). G o o d report of the 100th anniversary. HOMER Barber, Harry, " D a v i d H a r u m at H o m e , " Syracuse Classical School Record, Dec., 1900. Bennett, Porter, " E a r l y History of H o m e r , " Cortland Standard, June 4, 1936. Bird, I n a Hurlbut, " C h u r c h Parade of O t h e r D a y s , " Homer Post, D e c . 23, 1932. " G r e a t Western Stories," Cortland Standard, M a y 8, 1935. " T h e L i t d e R e d Schoolhouse," Cortland Democrat, April 22, I938" A 19th Century F a r m H o u s e , " Cortland Standard, April 25, 1935. " T h e O l d M i l l , " ibid., M a y 1, 1935. " S c o t t R o a d M a i l Service," ibid., N o v . 16, 1937. " T i o u g h n i o g a Pottery," ibid., Dec. 7, 1935. Accurate, well-written local history with great appreciation of the people and the places. T h e combining of these articles, and others in progress, will give a most valuable history of the town. Mrs. Bird has supplemented the work of Cook, Kingsbury, a n d Stevens. Blodgett, Bertha Eveleth, "Earliest M a p of H o m e r , " Homer Post, Juty 5. 1935[Centennial celebration of the village of Homer, 1935.], Homer Post, F e b . - M a y , 1935, passim. Accounts of the celebration with many references to the past. Congregational Church, Manual (1867). 75/A Anniversary (1876). Manual (1885). Centennial Anniversary (1901). Historical sermon by Dr. Theodore Thornton Munger. T h e manuscript records of the Congregational Church are kept in the vaults of the H o m e r National Bank. Cook, Seymour, " E a r l y D a y s in H o m e r , " Homer Republican, 1905-6, passim. A detailed description of Homer in the forties; the manuscripts are ir. the library of the C o r d a n d County Historical Society.

224

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cortland Academy, 25th Anniversary (1846). 50th Anniversary (1870). 1 ooth Anniversary (1919). Catalog (1827 ff.; files in Phillips Library). The records of the Academy trustees from 1819 to 1873, in manuscript, are kept in the vaults of the Homer National Bank. "Description of Homer Village," The Family Magazine, Vol. V (1837-38). [First Religious Society records]. (Manuscripts in Homer National Bank). Goodwin, Herman Camp, "Impressions of Homer," Cortland Democrat, Dec. 4, 1868-April 23, 1869, passim. Holbrook, J . C., "Sketch of the Congregational Church and Society [at Homer]," Congregational Quarterly, I X (1867), 246-54. Keep, John, Rise and Progress oj the Homer Church (1831). A volume of source material on John Keep, collected by the author, has been typewritten and placed in the Cortland County Historical Society and the Phillips Library; it includes Keep's Rise and Progress of the Homer Church. See Frank Eugene Best, John Keep of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, 1660-1676, and His Descendants (1899). "Letters from the Hedges." Over 1,500 letters of the Barber and Schermerhorn families in Homer, covering the years 1830-1900; bound in 8 vols., folio; owned by Katharine Oliver Stanley-Brown, Washington, D. C. McCarthy, D., Map of the Corporation of Homer (1855). Shows land ownership. "Old Homer Week Reminiscences" (1908; MS in Phillips Library). Contains historical papers by Lloyd Rice and C. O. Newton; the Cortland Free Library has a scrapbook of clippings on the 1908 reunion collected by Mrs. F. E. Whittemore. Stevens, Charles H., "Notes on Homer," Homer Post, 1932-33, passim. A series of articles collected at Phillips Library; excellent material from a former editor of the Homer Republican. Stevens, F. Halsey, " A Hundred Years of History," Homer Post, May 24, 1935. "Village Record Book, 1835-1867" (MS in the Homer National Bank). Webb, Adin, [List of his pupils in Homer, 1805-22] (MS at Cortland County Historical Society). Westcott, Edward Noyes, David Harum: a Story of American Life (1899). Fictional report of a local banker and horse trader, David Hannum.

INDEX

INDEX Adams, John Quincy, 80 Adams' Brass Band, 106 Agriculture in Military Tract, 50 Albany, New York, description, 31; trip from New York to, 31 Albany Journal, 143 "Allwoods" (Tully), New York, 45 Almy, G., 9a Almy, George W., 109» Alvcrrd, Hattie E., vii Alvord, Thomas G., 38 Amidon, Captain, 17 Andrews, Nathaniel, 91 Andrews, William, 62, 106 Anglican Church, Hebron, 8, 11, 12 Arnold, John, vii Art Union, Homer, 150 Avery, Charles, 102 Babcock, Jared, 81 Babcock, Leander, 114 Barker, Joseph, 43 Baker, Solomon, 82 Ball, Jule Adele, vi, 26/1 Ballard, Caleb, 144 Ballard, John, 99 Ballard, Joshua, 98, 135, 204 Banking House of Jedediah Barber, 121-34; building erected, 122; begins business, 122; good-will basis, 123; banking notices, 124, 125; Barber's retirement, 130; not run successfully, 130 ff.; personal loans to Barber, 132, 133; policy, 132; failure of, 133 f., 207 Banks, Private, 12211 Barber, Aaron, sketch, 19-21; children, 22, 37, 44, 190; migration to Onondaga Hill, 27; family reunion, 37; land purchased by, 40, 181-83; blacksmith shop, 40; death, 43; mausoleum for, 170, 174; signs smallpox petition, 179-81; deed of home, 179; father's family, 189

Barber, Aaron, Jr., 37, 44, 163; father's family, 190 Barber, Abigail Newcomb (Mrs. David,

Jr), 15 Barber, Arthur Stevens, vi, 12m, 148,

«93 Barber, Bildad, 26; father's family, 189 Barber, Catherine Reid (Mrs. George J. J.), 94, 148 Barber, Charles Eno, 158, 192 Barber, David, Sr., 8, 9, 10 Barber, David, Jr., 4, 6, 13, 14, 19, 2on, 179; baptism, 9; plants elm to commemorate Wolfe's victory, 12, 15; sketch, 15 f.; business failure, 16, 22; children, 18, 189 Barber, David, II, 12; father's family, 189 Barber, David, III, 20, 26; goes to western Massachusetts, 26; father's family, 189 Barber, Elihu, 37; migrates to Military Tract of central N. Y., 26 f., 28; called "Butter Barber," 27, 51; father's family, 189 Barber, Elvenah Henry, 192 Barber, George Jedediah Jones, 72, 82, 9 ' . 92, 97«. '74; birth, ix, 135; partnership in Great Western, 88,89, 148; property evaluated, 89; dwelling destroyed in Great Western fire, 93, 94, 149; connection with Cortland Academy, 101, 106, 109, 152; interest in railroad projects, 113, 150; postmaster of Homer, 125, 128, 151, 168; store, 126,150; advertisements, 127 f.; marriage, 148; outline of life, 148; successful politician, 149, 151; interest in temperance movement, 150; death, 152; family burial in Glenwood Cemetery, 174; children, 191; portrait of, and wife, 193 Barber, Hannah Gott (Mrs. Elihu), 27,

37

228

INDEX

Barber, H a n n a h Port (Mrs. David, Sr.), marries J o h n Bliss, 10 Barber, H a r r y , vi; speech at Homer Academy Centennial, 303-6 Barber, H i r a m , 25, 37 Barber, J . , Son & Company, see Great Western Store Barber, Jedediah, source material on life of, v-viii; Great Western anecdotes, vii, 74-78, 81; chronology of, ix; children, ix, 48, 129, 135, 142-69, 191 f.; Hebron background, 3-91; birth, 22; boyhood, 22-28; ambition to achieve eminence as merchant, a 8, 47, 55, 56; attitude toward Hebron days, 22, 23, 28; parents, 22, 189 f.; schooling, 22; aloofness from formal church membership, 22, 63; migration of neighbors and friends a dominant note during youth, 24; removal of parents to O n o n d a g a Hill, 27; journey westward, 29-36; financing of, 32; employment at Bronson's tavern, 4 1 , 4 5 ; as a school teacher, 42; death of parents, 43; business training under Meeker, 45, 47, 48; a junior partner at Red Store, 46; partnership dissolved, 47; marriage, 47, 61; Homer beginnings, 49-65; oblivious to W a r of 1812, 50; removed to Homer, 51; land purchases in Homer, 53; H o m e r homes, 53, 56, 70, 135-41, 175, 206; in blacksmith business, 54, 175; Great Western built, 56; H o m e r ' j first permanent merchant, 57; competition in Homer, 57, 58, 81, 137; appearance, 58, 170, (72, 202; first extant bill of sale, 59; bills always collected, 60, 81-83; formal village banker, 61, 70, 131; attitude toward local projects, 62 (., 69, 89, 305; first philanthropy, 62, 173; membership in First Religious Society, 63; interest in education, 64, 109, 110, 204; relations with Cortland Academy, 64, 70, 98-103, 106, 109 f.; Great Western prospers, 64; opening of Erie Canal increases trade of, 66; Clinton Street named by, 66, 168; interest in railroad development, 68, i n , 114, 115, 116, 120, 122; factor in incorporation of Homer

Village, 70; personal management of Great Western, 71; contemporary estimates of, 7 1 - 7 3 , 171; letters to family, 71, 84, 126, 162, 167; buys sign, 77; belief in advertising, 80; political beliefs, 85, 86; partnerships in Great Western, 88; income, 89, 130, 147, 172; trainer of young men, 90; work of church upheld by, 90; growing enterprises. 91 ; G r e a t Western fire, 93-96, 118, t a i , 122; president of Cortland Academy trustees, 105, n o , 204; conversation with Commodore Vanderbilt, 117; loss in bankruptcy of Syracuse and Binghamton Railroad, 118; banking house, 121-34; bank building erected by, 123; trustee of Cortland Savings Bank, 123; banking notices, 134, 125; attitude toward Civil War, 126, 161; second block of stores built o n Great Western site, 129; not a successful banker, 130 ff.; retirement from bank under heavy load of debt, 130; failure to associate Schermerhorn with business deals, 131, 147; bank fails, 133 f., 207; garden, 137, 140, 144; description of third H o m e r home, 138-40; family coach, 139, 175; portraits, '43> ! 93> relations with Cortland County Agricultural Society, 154, 195, 201; first death in family circle, 162; visit to the Henrys in New York, 163; journey to Illinois, 163-65; golden wedding, 165; i860 Thanksgiving Day celebration, 166; seventyfifth birthday, 168; mausoleum for parents, 170, 174; maintenance of, 173; fellowship of church sought after wife's death, 172; death, 173, 198; deed of birthplace, 179; sale of home, 188; grandparents, 189; brothers and sisters, 190; grandchildren, 191 f.; career appraised in miscellaneous published data, 194-307; personal attributes, 205 Barber, Jedediah, I I , 107, 160, 163, 167, 191 Barber, Joel, 37, 44, 70; Jedediah's visit to, 163, 164; father's family, 190 Barber, Lois Dutton (Mrs. David, I I I ) , 26

INDEX Barber, Louisa Anna, see Schermerhom, Louiia Anna Barber, Lydia, 189 Barber, Lydia Jane Eno Lewis (Mrs. Paris), 157, 166 Barber, Mary Elizabeth McCIellan (Mrs. Paris), 156 Barber, Mary L., 107, 191 Barber, Matilda Tuttle (Mrs. Jedediah), 89. '39. '4 2n > , 6 3 ; death. '72; marriage, 47, 6 1 ; influence upon husband, 48, 69; religion, 63, 146; Great Western fire, 94, 132; portraits, 143, 193; contemporary estimate of, 156; resents city influence upon Homer, 1 7 1 ; obituary, 197 Barber, May Buell, viii, 167, 19a Barber, Obadiah, ao; lather's family, 189 Barber, Oliver, 20; father's family, 189 Barber, Pamela Adams (Mrs. Joel), 44 Barber, Paris, 78ft, 90, 97«, 1 1 3 , iaa, 139, 168; birth, ix, 135; occupation, income, and property, 89, 156; connection with Cortland Academy, 10a, 104, 106; relations with Cortland County Agricultural Society, 125, ' 5 4 t> >57. aoi; home, 137, 173; temperance worker, 15a; religion, 153; description of, 154; interest in formation of Glenwood Cemetery, 156, 170; marriage and first wife's death, 156; second marriage, 157; death, 157; contemporary estimates of, 157; memorial to, 158; family burial in Glen wood Cemetery, 174; children, 191 f.; portrait of, and wife, '93 Barber, Patience, see Gilbert, Patience Barber Barber, Patience Case (Mrs. David, Jr.). ' 5 Barber, Polly, 37; father's family, 190 Barber, Rachel (Mrs. Aaron, Jr.), 44 Barber, Rachel Jones (Mrs. Aaron), marriage, 19; death, 43; settlement of estate of, 44, 183-85; mausoleum for, 170, 174; deeds for land purchased by, 1 8 1 - 8 3 ; father's family, 189 Barber, Sally (Mrs. Hiram), 25, 37; father's family, 190 Barber, Samuel McCIellan, 16c, 1 7 1 ,

229

191, 193; in Barber's bank, 125, 130, 134, 172; description of grandfather, 202 Barber, Sarah Buell (Mrs. Watts), 95, 1 6 1 ; death, 162 Barber, Stephen, 15, 20 Barber, Watts, 7a, 8a, 85,9711, 106, 169, 173; birth, ix, 135; partnership in Great Western, 88 f., 161; occupation and property, 89, 135; Great Western fire, 95; interest in railroad project, 1 1 3 , 114, 16a; cause of concern to family, 139, 16a, 168; life sketch, 161 f.; death, 16a; children, 19a; portrait of, and wife, 194 Barber and Sherman, 135 Barber family, source material on, v; spelling of name, viii; repetitions of name "David" in, 6n, aon; representation in Revolutionary War, 15, ao; intermarriage with Jones family, 19; documents, 179-88; data, 189-93 Barber's, J . , Son and Company, 150 Barber's Hall, 125 Bard, Cora J . , vii Bassett, Amos, 16 Bates, T . T., vii Beach, Rufus, 98, 99 Bedell, Gregory Thurston, 147 Beeman, David, 72 Beeman, Richard, 72 Bement, John, 98 Bennett, Alfred, 6a, 304 Benzole gas light, 9a Bigelow, Mr., 167 Billings, Lewis, 43 Bird, Ina Hurlbut, vii Bishop, H., 150 Blacksmithing, a vital calling in pioneer life, 40 Bliss, Hannah Post Barber (Mrs. John), 10 Bliss, John, pastorate, 8, 9, 10 f.; death, 1 1 ; family, i8n Bliss, Neziah, 18 Blodgett, Bertha Eveleth, vii; note on Barber, 206 Blodgett, Marvin, 84 Boies, Israel, 1 1 3 , 1 1 4 Boies, Rufus, 64, 99, 195, 204 Boston-Albany stage, 31 Bostwick and Brown, 58

230

INDEX

Bowen, Erasmus, 83, 106 Bowen, Levi, 67, 98 Boyle, E. P., vi, 40 Bradford, George W., 58 Bradford, Simeon S., 106 Brandegee, Dr., 103 Braut, Joseph (Thayendanegea), 33 Brewster coach, 139, 175 Bright, Edward, J r . , 106 Brimficld Chronicles, 73 Brintnall, Hiram, 1 1 4 Bronson, Jonah, tavern, 39, 40; Barber hired by, 4 1 , 45 Brooks, Levi, 91 Brown, Sophie Adams, vii Buckley, John, 9 Buell, Benjamin, 16 Burr, Andrew, 64 Butler, C . E. Parmalee, vii "Butter Barber," name of Elihu Barber, 97

Clinton and Hasbrouck, 58 Coates, J o h n , 57 Coburn, Zebadiah, 101 Coleman, George A . , I22n Colonial Dames of Connecticut, 4*1 Conference House, Homer, 90 Congregational Church, Hebron, difficulties, 8 ff. Congregational Church, Homer, scene of Cortland Academy anniversary exercises, 104; new building dedicated, 169« Connecticut, description of, 6; attitude toward England, 19 ff.; migration from, 24, 30, 33 ff. Connecticut Courant, 24 Connecticut Missionary Society, 4 Connecticut State Library, vi Cook, George, 106 Cook, Lewis, 72 Cook, Matthias, 62, 98, 99 Cook, Seymour, 70, 142«; "Early Days

Calvary Episcopal Church, Homer, 69 Canals, agitation for, 49, 63 Canandaigua, treaty at, 34 Carley, Alanson, 1 1 4 Carpenter, Asaph, 78 Carpenter, Francis Bicknell, 106, 154; early sign painting in Homer, 78; portraits of Cortland Academy trustees, 10a, 174, 193; Barber portraits, 148, 162, 193; estimate of Paris Barber, 157 Case, Moses, 8 Catlin, Oren, 109

in Homer," 55 Cortland, New York, rivalry with Homer, 69, 109, 1 1 6 , 122; interest in railroad, 1 1 2 ; boom occasioned by railroad opening, 1 1 6 ; banks, population in 1866, 123; Randall house, 140 Cortland Academy, 9 7 - 1 1 0 ; petition for incorporation, 64, 98; faculty and equipment, 70; relationship with Great Western, 83; trustees, 98, 99; income, 99, 106; charter granted, 99; buildings, 100, 1 0 1 , iogn; adult education, 100; Ladies' Department, 100; fire insurance, 1 0 1 ; principals, 102; registration, 103, 106; description of 1846 school anniversary, 104; 106; presidents of board of trustees, 105; property evaluated, 106; student exhibitions, 107 f.; enthusiasm for, 108; teacher training, 109; in Civil War period, 109; 100th anniversary, 1 ion, 203-6 Cortland County, source material, vi; established, 5 1 , 6 1 ; prominent men of, 62; effect of Erie Canal upon, 66, 67, 68; strong Whig atmosphere, 84; newspapers, 84; application for institution of higher learning, 99; railroad building in, 1 1 1 , 1 1 2

Central New York Pioneers Association, «73 Chapman, Robert, 5 Chase, Franklin S., vi Chase, Salmon Portland, 193 Chittenden, Giles, 70, 81 Church of England, 8, 1 1 , 12 Church trial follows Barber bank failure, 134 Cincinnatus, New York, Whig campaign of 1844, 86 Clark, Stephen Watkins, 109 Clarke, John, 5 Clay, Cassius M., 86 Clay, Henry, 49, 85, 86, 149; death, 91 Clearing land, 43 Clinton, DeWitt, 66, 136, 168

INDEX Cortland County Agricultural Society, 154, 157, 195; resolutions on deaths of Paris and Jedediah Barber, aoi f. Cortland County Bible Society, 63 Cortland County Mutual Insurance Company, 84 Cortland County Republican, 92, 147, 1 5 1 ; advertisements and excerpts, 124, 127 f., 155; articles on Barber, 194, 199; obituary of Matilda Barber, 197 Cortland County Whig, 87, 89 Cortland Democrat appraises Barber's career, 194 Cortland Observer, 63, 80, 143; advertisements in, 55, 79 Cortland Savings Bank organized, 123 Coventry, Connecticut, 5 Cowdrey, Bartlett, viii, 78« Coye, David, 62, 64, 114, 204; relations with Cortland Academy, 98, 99, 100, 101 Crofoot, David, 79, 82, 86, 87 Crofoot, Schuyler, 83 Crutts, {Catherine Worden, vi Curtis, Marion Hitchcock, viii Cutler, Timothy, 1 1 Dallas, George Mifflin, 85 Darrow, Nathan B., 97 Dartmouth College, 5, 33 Davenport, Damon, 60 David Harum, 73, 90 Dayton, Nathan, 62 Delaware, Lackawanna and Western R. R., 120 Dewey, Samuel, 19 DeWitt, Simeon, 39, 99 Dickinson, Daniel S., 1 1 4 Dickson, Andrew, 62, 63, 64, 204; interest in transportation development, 67, 68, h i , 1 1 6 ; relations with Cortland Academy, 98, 99, 100, 105; family, 10511 Dickson, Andrew, J r . , 84 Dillaye, Henry A., 1 1 4 Dixon, Joseph R . , estimate of Barber, >99 Donnelly, Augustus, 62, 1 1 2 Dorman, George H., vii Dow, Neal, 153 Durston, H. C., viii Dutton, Squire, house, 4

231

Dutton family, migration to western Massachusetts, 26 Dwight, Timothy, Travels, 28, 30 Edgecomb, Eleazur W., 1 1 2 Edwards, Jonathan, 14 Ellis, John, house, 43 England, Hebron's attitude toward, 12 ff. Episcopal Church, Hebron, 8, 1 1 , 12 Erie Canal, inspires expansion movement in New York State, 40, 66 ff.; effect on Barber's prosperity, 66, 136 Erie Railroad, 1 1 2 , 1 1 9 Fairbanks, Mrs. Milton, vii Farming costs and profits, 41 Fayetteville, New York, wiped out by fire, 80 Ferris, M. Frances, vi Fessenden, Thomas K . , 106, 153, 157, 161 Finger Lakes region, population, 39 Fish, Hamilton, 88 Fisher, Anna Matilda Schermerhorn (Mrs. John W.), 191 Fisher, Samuel Ware, president of Hamilton College, i6gn Fitch, Thomas B., 114 Forman, Joshua, 49 Fowler, John, 126 Fox, Dixon Ryan, viii Freemasonry, war against, 80 Freight transportation, 50, 67 Frelinghuysen, Theodore, 85 French and Indian War, 12 Frizell, H., 81 Fuller, Roger, 17/1 Gates, Zebuion W., 25, 26 Genealogical data, 189-192 General store supplies all wants, 55 Genney, Moore, 161 Gilbert, Anne C., vi Gilbert, Patience Barber (Mrs. Sylvester), 13; marriage, 18; father's family, 189 Gilbert, Samuel, 8 Gilbert, Sylvester, 6, 13, 14, 17», 19, 22; sketch, 18; letter to Lydia Barber Powers, 24 f., 38; children, 25; religious faith, 25

232

INDEX

Glenny, John, 76 Glenwood Cemetery, formation of, 156; Barbers buried in, 174 Glover, De Lloyd, quoted, 103 Glover, Oliver, 133 Gold rush, attitude in Homer toward, 70, 113 Goodwin, H. C . , 102 Gordon, Anna Henry, vi Gould, C . B., 91 Gould, Jay, 117 Gould, Phares, 46 Grand Canal, see Erie Canal Great Awakening, 14 Great Genesee Road, 33 Great Western Store, v, 66, 71-96; progress revealed by advertisements and records of sales, vii, 78, 79, 85, 86-88, 92; anecdotes about, vii, 7478, 81; site, 56, 58, 174; dimensions, 56; named, 57; competitors, 57, 58, 81, 137; first extant bill of sale, 59; collection of bills due, 60, 81-83; business prospers, 64; Erie Canal increases trade, 66; becomes a threestoried emporium, 68; descriptions of, 71, 72, 76; unique for time and place, 71; personnel, 7a; sign advertising introduced, 77; belief in advertising, 80; publicity during Whig campaign of 1844, 86; changes in tide accompany partnership, 88; dissolution of partnership, 89; forty-second anniversary, 9a; introduction of new gas light, 92; destroyed by fire, 9396, 118, l a i , 122; account with Mercantile Bank, laa; second block of stores built on site of, 129 Greek Revival type of home, 140 Greeley, Horace, quoted, 159 Green, Caleb, 106 "Greenwood" turnpike, 30 Griswold, Captain, 72 Hale, Caroline R., 102 Hall, Esther M . , vi Hall, John B., 104 Hamilton, Alexander, 99 Hamilton College, 33 Hamilton Oneida Academy, 33 Hannah, Barber's colored servant, 142, 161, 166, 167

H annum, David, 224; see also H arum, David Harrisburg Convention, petition from Cortland County, 62 Harrison, William Henry, 149 Harrop, T . , 92 Harum, David, 73, 90, 224 Hastings, Clara, vii Hathaway, Samuel G., 112 Hausdorfer, Walter, viii Hawley, C. W., 190 Hazard, Lewis, 114 Hebard, see Hibbard Hebron, Connecticut, source material, vi; background of Jedediah Barber, 3-21; description, 3-5, 7, 8; houses, 4; town records, 5; establishment of, 5, 8; population in 1781, 7; first settlers, 8; dispute over location of meetinghouse, 8-10, 11; Anglican Church in, 8, 11, 12; support of royal government, 12 f.; prominent men, 13 ff.; local militia, 15; journey to Onondaga from, 29-36 "Hedges, The," estate, 144, 175 Henry, Anna Tuttle, 192 Henry, Catherine Schermerhorn (Mrs. Lewis B.), 107, 145, 147, 191 Henry, Elvenah Barber (Mrs. John T.), 97". 129, 145. 1 7 a ; birth, ix, 135; married life, 158-61; death, 161; plans for parents' golden wedding, 165; family burial in Glenwood Cemetery, 175; portrait, 194 Henry, Frances Elizabeth, 192 Henry, Jedediah Barber, 192 Henry, John Forloss, 145, 162; 168; family at Barber homestead after business failure, 129, 160; religious views, 146, 159; marriage, 158; children, 159, 166, 192; death, 161 Henry, John Watts, 192 Henry, Joshua, 158; political views, 145. 159 Henry, Lewis B., 158, 162; political views, 145, 149; religious views, 146; family at Schermerhorn's after business failure, 160 Henry, Louisa, 192 Henry, Louisa Barber, v Henry, Mary Matilda, 167, 192 Henry, Philip, 158, 159

INDEX Henry, Philip Barber, 160, 199 Henrys, Smith and Townsend, 145, 158*1 '59! bankruptcy, 160 Hibbard, Joel Barber, 81, 84, 85, 9711; death, 136 Hibbard, Rachel Barber (Mrs. William), 37. 44» 5 ' , '68; death, 136, 171; father's family, 190; memorial of, 190 Hibbard, Ulysses, 97«, 106 Hibbard, William, 37, 44, 54, 55, 84, 99, 304; spelling of name, viii; migration to Onondaga Hill, 37; blacksmith shops, 40, 54; land purchases, 40, 53, 181 f.; removal to Homer, 51; house in Homer, 53, 175; business advertisements, 54, 55; death, 136; family burial in Glenwood Cemetery, '75 Hicok, John H., 135, 130, 134 Hicok, William T., 73, 8a, 85, 91, 169; becomes partner in Great Western, 88, 89; connection with Barber's bank, laa, 135, 130, 133, 133 f., 173 Hicok, Barber and Company, see Banking House of Jedediah Barber Hill, The, see Onondaga Hill Hills, Delia P., vi Hinton, F.mma J . Barber (Mrs. Thomas Harry), 19a Hitchcock, Coleman, i88n Hitchcock, Horace, 91 Hitchcock, Jeremy, 53 Hitchcock, Noah, viii Hitchcock, Noah, Jr., 113 Hitchcock, Patty, 161 Hitchcock, Samuel B., 98, 304 Hoar, Chester, 64 Holbrook, Thomas, 10a Hollow, The, see Onondaga Hollow Homer, New York, source material, vii; Barber's beginnings in, 49-65; description, 51 f., 65, 69, 70, 108, 139, 173-75; a New England community, 5a; merchants, 57, 64, 81, 84, 186; churches in, 63, 69; Homer and the Great Western Store, 66-96; route to New York, 66, 112; growth of population, 67; efforts to secure railroad, 67, 111; daily stages through, 68; rivalry with Cortland, 69, 109, 116, 122; merchant-bankers, 70; incor-

233

porated as village, 70; effect of gold discovery in 1848 upon, 70, u s ; rivalry with McGraw, 73; political leanings, 86, 88, 91; First Religious Society, 93; Academy, 97-110,303-6; little benefit from railroad, 116; financial crash follows bankruptcy of railroad, 119; bank, 133 {set also Banking House of Jedediah Barber); effect of Civil War upon, 135 f.; homes, 135-41; temperance movement, 150, 153; influence of city life upon, 171; business directory, 186 f.; citizens' tribute to Barber, soo Homer Academy, Centennial, lion, 303-6; see also Cortland Academy Homer Bank, incorporation, 69 Homer Business Directory, 186 f. Homer Exchange, Great Western competitor, 137 Homes, Barber's and others, 135-41; Greek Revival type, 140 Horse Stealing, Society to Suppress, 6s Horsford, Daniel, 8 Horsford, Obadiah, 8, 9, i s Hovey, Alfred H., 114 Howard, Robert, 104 Howe, Louisa Anna Barber (Mrs. George Rowland), 19a; memorial to Aaron and Rachel Jones Barber, 17411 Hutchinson, Moses, Jr., 10 Indians, attempts to Christianize, 33 Irving, Washington, Knickerbocker History of New York, 6 Jackson, Andrew, 50 Jackson, Mrs. Wilbur, vii J agger, James Henry, igon Jarvis, H. A., 151 Jenman, Lavinia, 77 Johnson, Samuel, 11 Johnson, Sir William, 14, 34 Jones, David, 99 Jones, Jedediah, 17*1, 22; father's family, 189 Jones, Joel, 14, 19, 39«; residence, 4, 15; life sketch, 15, 17; estate at death, 17, 19; family, 189 Jones, Joel, Jr., 17/1; fatherYfamily, 189 Jones, Margaret Day (Mrs. Joel), 15

234

INDEX

Jones, Samuel, i s Jones family, intermarriage with Barker family, 19; data, 189 Joshua, sachem, 5 Journey westward, 29-36 Keator, Thomas, 123 Keep, Chauncey, 98, 99, 204 Keep, John (Judge), 60, 62 Keep, John (Rev.), viii, 105, 107, 143, 149, 169«; attitude toward slavery, i o i , 106, 153 Keep, Martin, 62, 67, 98, 99, 204 Kellogg, Byrl Jorgensen, vii Kellogg, Caroline E., vi Kennedy, Thomas, 57 Killingly, Connecticut, location of historic buildings, 4 Kinney, M. A., 80 Kirkland, Samuel, 33 Klein, Emil, 12m Kneeland, A. Judson, 106 Laird, or Lard, William, 4on, 181, 182 Lancaster Pike, 30 Land, clearing of, 43 Lansing, Dirck Cornelius, 167, 191 Lansing, John, Jr., 99 Lawrence, James R., 114, 1 1 8 Leach, S., 1 1 3 Leavenworth, E. W., 91 Lebanon, Connecticut, 5 Lewis and Clark Expedition, 35 Little, Ella Jagger, vi, igon Lodder, Grace Beauchamp, vi Louisiana Territory, 35 Lovejoy, Mary Elvenah Barber (Mrs. Samuel Wright), 168, 191 Lucas, William, 64, 98 Lynde, Charles W., 62 Lynde, J . , 81 McGeary, Jane Eno Howe, vii McGraw, New York, rivalry with Homer, 73 McNeil, James, 98 McNeil and Rowley, 81 Madison, James, 49 Mail rates from Onondaga to Hebron, 37 Maine Law of 1851, 153 Mallery, William, 62

Mampoteng, Charles, vi Manley, Gilbert B., 102 Mann, Nathaniel, 8 Mann, Patience Barber, 25 Marcy, Jennie H., vii Meeker, John, 44, 51 ; Red Store at Tully provides Barber with business training, 45, 46, 47, 90, 173 Mercantile Bank, New York, 121 Merchant, occupation, prestige of, 55 Messenger, H. J . , bank, 123, 131 Methodist Society, Homer, 69 Migration from New England, 24, 27«, 28, 30, 33 ff., 39, 44, 52 Military Tract, New York, auction sale of land in, 34»; description, 38, 1 7 3 75; attitude toward War of 1812, 49; advance of agriculture in, 50 Miller, Daniel, 50, 66 Miller, John, 62, 98, 99, 1 1 3 , 204 Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, 1 1 1 Mohawk Turnpike, 31 Mohawk Valley, relationship with Connecticut, 33 Moor's Charity School, 5 Morgan, Christopher, 86 Morse, Jedidiah, 24 Muller, Jennie, vii Munger, Theodore Thornton, 106 Murray, George, i88n Nash, Moses, 46 Nash, Sylvester, 102 National Banking Act of 1863, 123 Needham, William, 43 Nelson, Samuel, 64 Newcomb, Obadiah, 8 New England migration, 24, 27n, 28, 30. 33 ff-> 39. 44. 52 Newton, C. O., 150 Newtown, Connecticut, location of historic buildings, 4 New York and Erie Railroad, 1 1 2 , 1 1 9 New York Central Railroad, 1 1 9 New York City, length of trip to Albany, 3 1 ; route from Homer to, 66; Mercantile Bank, 121 New York State, effect of New England migration to central, 28, 30, 33 ff.; Military Tract, 38, 49, 50, 173-75; increase in counties, 49; Board of Agriculture, 50: railroads, 1 1 1 ff.

INDEX Nichols, Edward P., 102 Nichols, Luther, 98 Nye, Blanche Van Hoesen, vii Oberlin College, 101 Occtim, Samson, 33 Ogden, Jamea E., vii Old Ladies' Home, Homer, 174 Oliver, Mary Schennerhorn Henry, vi Oliver, Norris Schennerhorn, v Oneida Indiam, 33 Onondaga, New York, Barbers remove to, 37; journey from Hebron to, 3 9 36; postage rates to Hebron, 37; rivalry between the Hill and the Hollow, 39, 40; population in 1810, 39; incorporated, 3911; stores in, 45 Onondaga Academy, 39 Onondaga County, frontier, 37-48; established, 3911; divided in two, 61 Onondaga Hill, Barbers remove to, 37; rivalry with the Hollow, 39, 40; schooling in the, 43 Onondaga Hollow, 39, 40 Osborne, John, 6s, 98, 99, 304 Oswego, New York, coastwise trade, 1 1 4 Owen, Lewis S., 98, 99, 105, 137, 304 Paige, Clinton F., 93, 1 1 8 Parsons, Lewis B., 91 Patterson, A., 1 1 3 Peck, Philander, 91 Percival, J . , 54 Peters, John, 8; house, 4 Peters, John, 16 Peters, Samuel Andrew, vi; description of Connecticut, 6-8; supporter of British crown, 13 f.; quoted, 16 Peters, William, 7 Phelps, Abigail Barber (Mrs. Aaron), father's family, 189 Phelps, Frederick, 2 gn Phelps, Joel, 37; accompanies Barber on journey westward, 39-36 Phelps, John, 8, 19 Phelps, Joseph, 9 Phelps, Mary Hurley, vii Phelps, Mary Jones (Mrs. Frederick), 39n Phelps, Nathaniel, 9 Phelps, Timothy, 9 Phillips Free Library, Homer, vii; Bar-

235

ber portraits and memorials, 148, '58. «74 Phyfe, Duncan, 141 Pierce, John, J r . , 149 Pioneers Association, Syracuse, 33 Piatt, Dennis, 106, 153 Polk, James Knox, 85 Pomeroy, Abigail Wheelock (Mrs. Benjamin), marriage, 14 Pomeroy, Benjamin, second pastor at Hebron, 7, 10, i s , 19; refuses to aid in attack on Peters, 13; sketch, 14 Porter, Peter B., 49 Post, Mary Barber (Mrs. Levi), father's family, 189 Post, Stephen, 5, 8, 10 Postage rates, 37 Powers, Lemuel, 34, 36a Powers, Lydia Barber (Mrs. Lemuel), 24, s6n, 38; father's family, 189 Pratt, John, 5 Preble, New York, Barber's gift to church of, 61, 173; does not benefit from railroad, 1 1 6 Pulían, J . , 81 "Railroad meetings," 1 1 3 Railroads, play dominant role in development of Cortland County, 1 1 1 20; dangers of early operation, 1 1 8 Randall, Henry S., estimate of Barber, «95 Randall, Roswell, 63, 64, 1 1 2 , 149 Randall, W. & R., advertisement, 58 Randall, William, 63, 84, 1 1 3 , 1 1 3 , 133; gardens, 137, 140; house, 140 Randall's Bank, Cortland, 116, 132 Ranney, Celia Barker, vii Ranney, Waitstill Randolph, 102 Red Store, Tully, 46, 173 Reed, Edward C., 63, 91, 101, 105, u s , 304 Reed, Rufus A., 84 Revolutionary War, attitude in Hebron toward, 14; land bonus for service in, 38 Rice, Miss, 58 Rice, Amos, 106 Rice, George, 98, 99 Richard, Stillman, 60 Ridgefield, Connecticut, historic buildings, location of 4

236

INDEX

"Riding and tying," term, 39 Riggs, Lewis, 1 1 3 Roads, condition of, 30, 49 Roberts, Benjamin, 59 Roberts, Ellis, 144 Roberts, Hezekiah, 57, 64, 98, 99 Robinson, Dr., 95, 172 Root, Aaron, yjn Root, Jacob, 8 Root, Salenda Phelps (Mrs. Aaron), 37 Ross, Townsend, 98, 99, 109, 138, 904 Rush, Richard, 80 St. Peter's Cemetery, Hebron, 5 St. Peter's Church, Hebron, 4, 8, 11 Salina and Port Watson Railroad, 68, hi Salina marsh, 39 Salt Springs, Onondaga, 39 Samson, George Washington, 72 f., 175 Samson, Louis N., viii Sanford, Heman Howes, 102 Schermerhom, Daniel, 91 Schermerhorn, George Jacob, 119, 191 Schermerhom, Jacob Maus, 85, 90, 118, 150; leader in reorganization of Syracuse and Binghamton Railroad, 1 1 9 f.; Barber's failure to associate him with business affairs, 1 3 1 , 147; life sketch, 143-48; piety, 143, 143, 146; marriage, 143; estate, "The Hedges," 144; political leanings, 145, 146; income, 147; death, 147; children, 191 Schermerhorn, Jacob Maus, J r . , 191 Schermerhorn, Louisa Anna Barber (Mrs. Jacob Maus), 97n, 142; birth, ix, 48; at Cortland Academy, 100; married life, 143-48; death, 147; children, 191; portraits of parents, 193 Schermerhorn, Matilda Barber, 107, «43» >66. ' 9 ' Seabury, Samuel, 8, 11 Searle, Jesse, 6s, 98, 99 Seneca—Mohawk Turnpike, 39, 49 Seward, William Henry, 1 5 1 , 153 Sherman, Caleb H., 125, 162 Sherman, W. and J . , 81 Sherman, William, 54, 84, 91, 101, 1 1 3 , 1 1 4 ; nail manufactory, 64; Barber's chief competitor, 1 2 1 , 137; home, 137

Sherman, William L., 106 Sherrill, Franklin, 103 Sherrill, J . and F., 81 Sherwood, Jeannette Benton, vi Shipman, Samuel, 8 Short, Hammon, 101, 106 Simmons, John M., description of Great Western, 76 Simonds, John, 81 Simons, E. F., 83 Skaneateles turnpike, 45 Slade, Mary B., ign Slavery, attitude toward, in Homer, 153 Slaves, treatment of, 164 Smallpox petition, 1777, 20, 179-81 Smith, Azariah, 46 Smith, Calvin, 46 Smith, John, 35 Smith, Noah R., 55, 99, 101, 106, 304 Smith, William, 136 Smith, William B., 161 Society for the Promotion of Useful Arts, 50 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 11 Society to Suppress Horse Stealing, 63 Sons of Liberty, 13, 14 "Spite house, the," 4 Stanley-Brown, Katharine Oliver, v, «93 Steele, John B., 72 Stephens, Henry, 62, 112, 1 1 3 , 114, 1 1 8 Stephenson, Katherine Henry, 193 Stevens, Charles H., vii Stiles, Abigail Barber (Mrs. Amos), 37, 44; father's family, 190 Stiles, Amos, 44 Stilwell, Robert E., vii Stilwell, Mrs. Robert E., vii Stimson, Desire, 53 Stimson, Enos, 53, 98, 138; tavern, 52 Stimson, Oren, 81, 113, 136 Stimson, Rachel Hibbard (Mrs. Oren), 81, 136 Stimson and Hibbard, 81 Stoddard, William Osborn, 103« Stone, Bertha, vii Stone, David, 59 Stone, Nathan, 64 Stone, Samuel, 15 Stone, Vernon T., 150 Storekeeping, prestige attached to, 55

INDEX Strawbridge, Henry, 8a Strong, Noble Davis, 42, 109 Syracuse, New York, source material, vi; established, 40; former names, 4011 Syracuse and Binghamton Railroad, 111-20; organized, 114; directors, 114; construction days, 115; day of opening, 116; bankruptcy, 118, 121; reorganization, i t g Syracuse and Southern Railroad, 1 i g Syracuse and Utica Railroad, 111 Syracuse, Binghamton and New York Railroad, i i g ; sold, 120; list of stockholders, 185 f. Syracuse, Cortland and Binghamton Company, 111 Syracuse Daily Journal, article on Bar-

ber, 195-97

Syracuse University, 152 Tallman, William E., 172 Tayler, John, 99 Taylor, Oliver Swaine, 100, 102 Taylor, Zachary, 88 Tea, beverage of Cortland ladies, 77 Temperance movement in Homer, 150, Ten Eyck, Rachel, vi Thayendanegea, 33 Thomas, Milton Halsey, viii Thompson, Frederick R., vii Thompson, Smith, 80 Toll gates, 32 Tolland County, established, 18 Tompkins, Daniel D., 50 Transportation, journey westward, 2936; condition of roads, 30, 49; of freight, 50, 67; journey from Homer to New York, 66, 112 Trumbull, Benjamin, 6, 10, 14 Trumbull, Benoni, 8 Trumbull, Jonathan, 7 Tubbs, Benajah, Jr., 98 Tubbs, Benajah, 64, 99 Tully, New York, 45 Turner, Dr., 153 Tuttle, Anna (Mrs. Moses), 47*1; gravestone, 48ft Tuttle, Moses, 47, 173; gravestone, 48« Tuttle family, 47/1 Tyler's Inn, 39, 40

237

V a n Buskirk, Helen E., vi, 79» Vanbuskirk, L., 86 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 117 V a n Valen, J., and Co., 91 Walker, Elnathan, 61, 62, 98, 99, 105, 204 Walker, C., and Co., 81 War of 1812, attitude in Military Tract toward, 4g Washburne, Reuben, 57, 98, 99 Watson, Elkanah, 50 Webb, Adin, 64; Barber purchases land and home from, 35, 56, 135; teaches school in Homer, 52, 97 Webb, Jabez, 43 Webb, Morgan L., 124 Webster, Daniel, 91 Weed, Thurlow, 45B, 143, 152 Wells, Edmund, 16 West, Reuben, 45 West, Simeon, 45 Wheaton, Charles H., 102, 106 Wheaton, Henry 90 Wheeler, Edith Flower, vii Wheelock, Eleazar, 33 Whigs, power in Cortland County, 84, 85,88 White, Andrew Dickson, 90, 175, 198 White, Asa, 52; home, 136 White, Horace, 90, 114, 147 White, Horace Keep, 90 White, Hugh, 34 White, William, 16 Whitefield, George, 7, 8 Whitestown, New York, a Connecticut community, 34 Wilbur, Emma, vii Williston, T . , 100 Winegar, Sarah Tuttle, i66n "Wisdom's Gate," inn, 72, 175 Wolfe, James, 12 Woods, Jonathan L., 62 Woodworth, Samuel, " O l d Oaken Bucket," 99 Wool worth, Samuel Buell, 70, 102, 103, '05-7» 113 Wright, Silas, 149 Wyman, Mrs., 153 Yale College, opposition to Episcopal Church, 11

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