History that Eaton and Madison County Never Knew

While working on a new book named the past few days, I came across much information that has actually never come to light in regular history books.  Many of the young folk in Eaton actually tried to become missionaries to exotic lands many were successful.  It seems the lure of Burma and Siam was a firm and large part of the missionary movement here in the early 1800’s.

Everyone remembers stories of Eaton’s Emily Chubbuck, the writer who wrote under the pen name “Fanny Forrester,” who married Adoniram Judson and went off to Burma, but what about Andrew Bigelow Morse???

The Reverend Andrew Bigelow Morse was the son of Ellis Morse and grandson of Joseph Morse. In 1849, at the early age of nineteen, Mr. Morse was graduated from Hamilton College in Clinton, where his ranking as student admitted him into the scholarship roll of Phi Beta Kappa.  

After two years’ experience as principal of a Young Men’s Classical Institute in Albany, N.Y., he entered the Princeton Theological seminary, where he was graduated in 1864.  After another two years, part of which was spent in post-graduate work in New York and a part in the service of the church, he and his young wife, commissioned by the Presbyterian board of foreign missions, started for Siam.  This was the goal of their ardent ambitions and consecrations.  

Once in the field, he threw himself whole-heartedly into the work, but within two years Andrew’s health was shattered and he was ordered home. He continued working for several years on a literary work of permanent value.

 Because of his poor health during the Civil War, he was exempt from military service and debarred from the Christian commission.  So instead, he spent three years at Washington in the Treasury Department, ministering often in hospital and barracks.  In Washington he served in the somewhat famous “Treasury Guard” of which he frequently spoke with a smile.  

It is here he also became acquainted with many men who afterward became famous.  Among these was the one whom he always mentioned with a great admiration and reverence – the distinguished martyr President Lincoln.

Andrew takes his place of honor with the other young men of Eaton who also went to Siam (Burma) and China, Jonathan Wade and William Dean. **Newspaper stories filled with letters sent back to Eaton from Siam still exist in the Old Town of Eaton Museum today.

A Great Place to Visit inFall

Fall, History, Travel to Palatine Church......

This week has been busy with  getting ready for winter & our upcoming Fall Festival Event in September. in my heart however, I wanted to be on the road again visiting my favorite places for fall travel...The one I love the most is the old Palatine Church on the historic Mohawk trail to Albany near Nelliston.  I take people to it whenever we are driving by.... it is probably the most notable German Palatine structure in upstate New York.

Rising off the highway it stands on a hill near a spot that was once the settlement of Fox’s Mills. The limestone church dates to 1770 when it was erected by the subscription and the labor of a number of families in the area. The Garoga Creek, which flowed near by, provided waterpower for a number of mills and businesses in the small community, now gone which is today called Palatine Church.

Most notable among the families of the area was that of Hendrick Nellis who not only donated the land it stands on, but helped build the church with other community members.

Nellis and his grandson however remained loyal to the Crown at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War and had to flee to Canada. Other members of the family remained so typical of the division of loyalties at that time.

History has it recorded that in October of 1780, when the Tory forces under Sir John Johnson dropped down from Canada with the allied Native Americans to burn the farms and harvest of the valley, the church was saved by a British Officer who stopped it saying he had promised Nellis.

The site is also a historic marker site as it was the camp of the American Army under General Van Rensselaer after winning the Battle of Clock’s Field retreated to this site to make camp. Van Rensselaer refused to pursue the Tory forces, an act for which he was later tried for treason.

Today the church has been restored including its famous raised pulpit with sounding board and has had its organ rebuilt by noted organ builder Robert S. Rowland. Rowland built it in the style of old colonial organs. The inside has many historic artifacts on display as well as a rare 13 star American Flag that was found during the renovation.

Visitors from all over the world come to what is today call “The Shrine of Lutheranism in the Mohawk Valley”, and all passing it on Route 5 still admire its Colonial beauty! I love it! 

Memorial Day Monday - Museums 25th Anniversary

Opening Day 25 years ago

Memorial Day Monday marks opening of the Old Town of Eaton Museum for this year. The day will highlight a special display in the yellow Museum Building next to the museum.  

The display will be compliments of Doug Chilson and his wife Diane who collect interesting items from Eaton’s past. The Chilsons are founding members of the Friends of the Old Town of Eaton Museum and did a display for an event 3 years ago that was a success.

The main Eaton Museum Building will be open with its extensive Eaton history and there will be books on Eaton’s history for sale by Backstreet Mary.  

The group is kicking off the little museums 25th year.  The museum started in the Wood House on Brooklyn Street for the Bicentennial in 1995, moving to the ancient stone building on River Road in 1998.

The stone museum building is one of the few early rubble buildings built just after the 1790’s.  The building was an early tannery building which became the shoemakers house.  The Sprague family kept it in the family for much of its life of service to the community.  The museum has a special display that honors Mr. Sprague who was a shoemaker, no doubt his father was as well since we have records dating to 1802 for William Sprague who was also a shoemaker..

So come out to Historic Eaton and visit for the day, enjoy the parade and history display on Rt. 26 and enjoy the rural quiet of Eaton. The hours are from 9 am until 1 pm.

The Chenango Canal its Reservoirs & Lakes & Bit of History

The idea of having a canal is a simple visualization, boats  floating down stream or being towed through canal channels and across aqueducts, but the reality is that a commodity was needed for its success – WATER.

The original surveyors believed that the vast majority of the water supply for the canal could be easily garnered from a town at the canal’s summit.

A study of building the feeders and reservoirs was commenced with an eye toward its eventual cost, since a cap of $1,000,000 had been basically set by the New York State Legislature.  The study returned a finding that 9 reservoirs or lakes could be established or drawn from for the purpose of filling the canal and keeping it full; of the nine, seven of the water bodies would be located in the Town of Eaton.

 The total cost was estimated at $l32,349.26.  The annual supply was gauged to be 510,298 M c. feet (M represents 1000 X) (later Kingsley (Lebanon) Reservoir would be added for more water.)

The contracts for these reservoirs and feeders were issued in June of 1834 and needed to be completed by the fall of 1835 which would give the summer of 1836 for testing the quality of work and their ability to fill the distance of over 90 miles.

 Here the author notes that of the 510,298 M cu. feet estimated, about 400,000 M cu. feet of water would be supplied by Eaton’s reservoirs or lakes.

To quote Michelle McFee, who had published a book entitled Limestone Locks and Overgrowth, “The amount of time and effort required to build the feeder and reservoir system was enormous, and the changes the engineers proposed were extraordinary. The three year long construction plan involved building dams with rudimentary equipment, digging miles of feeders and directing their flow, flooding farms and mills, and draining swamps.”

The canal was unable to open in 1836 and Kingsley Brook feeder would not be completed until 1837, so that canal opening would wait.  At this time the canal consisted of 114 composite (wood, quicklime and stone) locks, 2 stone lift locks (at either end of the canal), one guard lock, 19 aqueducts, 52 culverts, 21 waste-water-weirs, 56 road bridges, 106 farm bridges, 53 feeder bridges, 12 dams, and 11 lock houses, this in the year 1836.

Here our long hidden story of Eaton and the canal is recorded for the first time in 150 years.  Eaton in 1835 set to work to gain support for the deepening and widening of the West Branch Feeder in order to make it able to be navigated.

The great need for this was the foundries and distilleries of Eaton, the Hamlet, and their need for iron ore from Clinton and grain from the state.  Ellis Morse was a prime voice in trying to bring the measure to fruition.  The Morse distillery, woolen mills, grain mills, and lumber mills were a major industry in the area.  The foundries (though they did not include Wood, Taber & Morse at that time) still produced the Winchester Axe and was home to the early cast plow factory of Alpeous Morse and the famous Payson and Burch Foundry.

This proposed branch would also connect it with the settlement and commerce of Eaton, the Town, via its turnpikes.

Ghost Stories & the Thanksgiving Pie Sale!

The Old Town of Eaton Museum is closed for the winter season...with a special "thank you" to those who turned out..I enjoyed seeing you.  Some fun visitors included relatives of the Morse-Motts.  Thank you Dan it was fun to talk and listen to the stories, Sad the way the old stone house is in such limbo!

Our members are gearing up for our Annual Pie & Bake Sale set for Saturday, the 18th of November from 10 am until 2 pm.  We hope you will come done and join us,,,pick up a pie or bake good to have on hand for the Thanksgiving Holiday.  The sale will be held at the Old Auction Barn next to the US Post Office on Rt. 26 in Eaton.  Thank You... Jim Monahan for the use of the neat little historic building. Lots of parking!

This year you can get update information from the Facebook page Friends of the Old Town of Eaton Museum.  Visit the page and friend us, leave a message, and look forward to a wonderful upcoming holiday!

I thought I would include a history story from my new book that with other gifts will be available on the Pie Sale Day!

As Halloween approaches stories of Ghosts, Ghouls, and Goblins make their way into the spotlight.  Eaton like any other old community has its share of ghoulish tales.  One such tale involves the Historic Eaton Cemetery.

Many years ago people were laid to rest with their jewelry and favorite personal belongings, this coupled with the common method of filling wealthy people’s teeth with gold made grave robbery a profitable thing.  A story of one such robbery is famous in the Eaton Hamlet.

Years ago a very famous Eaton minister was laid to rest in a well-attended service in the Eaton Cemetery.  This minister was renowned for his preaching and his assortment of gold teeth.  A few days after the service the Sutcliffe family of Landon Road went to call on the nearby Cary Road.  To the horror of the visitors and the chagrin of the host the Sutcliffe’s arrived and found hanging on the old woodshed a body that was being stripped of its flesh.  On a second look at the skull they saw a set of familiar shiny gold teeth.

The grave robbers explained that they were paid $100 dollars by a college in Syracuse for the skeleton, which they said was used by students to study anatomy.  The gold teeth were just a bonus!

The cagey thieves removed the bodies from the coffins by digging down, breaking the wooden lid, inserting a hook, and then pulling it out!

After that, to thwart their efforts, the equally cagey Eaton Cemetery sextant hauled huge slabs of stone off of a local farm and placed it over each coffin at burial, to prevent robbery using this method.

So truthfully, when writing stories about the Eaton Cemetery, I should say...“most likely buried in the Historic Eaton Cemetery.”  

Be sure to support our sale that the ladies work so hard at each year.

More on the Old Madison County Home, winter and Welfare Reform

Workers starting the rebuilding of "The Home!.

This week as usual has been cold for the most part.  Winter does not read calendars...so its still winter.  The snow is still on the ground...so I thought I would continue with the story of the old "Madison County Home.

The building of the news Almshouse almost coincided with the new wave of welfare reform that swept New York State after the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as the new Governor.  Roosevelt, elected in 1928, set to work immediately modernizing the poor laws and the rules governing public assistance in New York State.

The Superintendent of the Poor at this point in Madison County (since January 1, 1927) was Freeman MacIntyre.   The new governor signed the new Public Welfare Act into place.

The new Welfare Act came into law in April of 1929, modernizing the Madison County poor laws, which had been put into place in 1821.  This “Act” placed all the monies at the charge of the new Commissioner of Public Welfare.  Freeman McIntyre’s title had changed.

This new Welfare Act removed the terms “pauper, alms house and superintendent of the poor”.  The term Alms House that had been used for over one hundred years, was to officially become County Home.  (It is interesting to note that in Madison County documents it continued to be off and on referred to as the “Almshouse.”

Those interested in historic markers can go to the Town of Eaton Office Building and see the beautiful plaque that was removed from the Gerrit Smith Infirmary before it was sold; this bronze plaque clearly reads “Almshouse.”

From a 1931 clipping we find that the County Home and Freeman MacIntyre was placed in a number 1 classification for administration.  These times were the times of great poverty and depression in the United States, and the County Home contained over 95 occupants.  The highest number for the year was 112.  From July of the year before, there were 67 admissions and 61 discharges in addition to many “transients” that received food and shelter.

The Eatonbrook, the Warm Summer... and Eaton's MIssionaries!

The hot steamy weather continued in old Eaton this week and I and Barb spent a pleasant evening or two at Michele Kelly’s house.  Michele is lucky enough to have a lawn that butts up to the Eatonbrook or as it was called 200 years ago the “Alderbrook”’.  The title was given to it because of the many peg alders (as they are called locally) that grace its winding banks. 

The heat has cut the flow of it this year …but not the plush green that lines its banks,  and sitting next to it of course, brought thoughts to me of Emily Chubbuck and the many tales she recounted in her early book “The Alderbrook Tales.”  Though Emily did marry Andoniram Judson the famous Baptist Missionary to Burma (todays Siam-Thailand) many other young people ventured out from our area to help in the missions… so I thought you would enjoy a bit of that history for this weeks blog. Of interest is the fact that this brook also runs behind our museum that houses much of this early history.

Eaton and its Missionaries

Everyone remembers stories of Eaton’s Emily Chubbuck, the writer who wrote under the pen name “Fanny Forrester,” who married Adoniram Judson and went off to Burma, but what about Andrew Bigelow Morse???

The Reverend Andrew Bigelow Morse was the son of Ellis Morse and grandson of Joseph Morse. In 1849, at the early age of nineteen, Mr. Morse was graduated from Hamilton College in Clinton, where his ranking as student admitted him into the scholarship roll of Phi Beta Kappa. 

After two years’ experience as principal of a Young Men’s Classical Institute in Albany, N.Y., he entered the Princeton Theological seminary, where he was graduated in 1864.  After another two years, part of which was spent in post-graduate work in New York and a part in the service of the church, he and his young wife, commissioned by the Presbyterian board of foreign missions, started for Siam.  This was the goal of their ardent ambitions and consecrations. 

Once in the field, he threw himself whole-heartedly into the work, but within two years Andrew’s health was shattered and he was ordered home. He continued working for several years on a literary work of permanent value.

 Because of his poor health during the Civil War, he was exempt from military service and debarred from the Christian commission.  So instead, he spent three years at Washington in the Treasury Department, ministering often in hospital and barracks.  In Washington he served in the somewhat famous “Treasury Guard” of which he frequently spoke with a smile. 

It is here he also became acquainted with many men who afterward became famous.  Among these was the one whom he always mentioned with a great admiration and reverence – the distinguished martyr President Lincoln.

Andrew takes his place of honor with the other young men of Eaton who also went to Siam (Burma) and China, Jonathan Wade and William Dean. **Newspaper stories sent back to Eaton still exist in the Old Town of Eaton Museum.

Judson's Story in video!

The Eatonbrook, the Warm Summer... and Eaton's MIssionaries!

The hot steamy weather continued in old Eaton this week and for a few nights Barbra and I spent a pleasant evening or two at Michele Kelly’s house.  Michele is lucky enough to have a lawn that butts up to the Eatonbrook or as it was called 200 years ago the “Alderbrook”’.  The title was given to it because of the many peg alders (as they are called locally) that grace its winding banks. 

The heat has cut the flow of it this year …but not the plush green that lines its banks,  and sitting next to it of course, brought thoughts to me of Emily Chubbuck and the many tales she recounted in her early book “The Alderbrook Tales.”  Though Emily did marry Andoniram Judson the famous Baptist Missionary to Burma (todays Siam-Thailand) many other young people ventured out from our area to help in the missions… so I thought you would enjoy a bit of that history for this weeks blog. Of interest is the fact that this brook also runs behind our museum that houses much of this early history.

Eaton and its Missionaries

Everyone remembers stories of Eaton’s Emily Chubbuck, the writer who wrote under the pen name “Fanny Forrester,” who married Adoniram Judson and went off to Burma, but what about Andrew Bigelow Morse???

The Reverend Andrew Bigelow Morse was the son of Ellis Morse and grandson of Joseph Morse. In 1849, at the early age of nineteen, Mr. Morse was graduated from Hamilton College in Clinton, where his ranking as student admitted him into the scholarship roll of Phi Beta Kappa. 

After two years’ experience as principal of a Young Men’s Classical Institute in Albany, N.Y., he entered the Princeton Theological seminary, where he was graduated in 1864.  After another two years, part of which was spent in post-graduate work in New York and a part in the service of the church, he and his young wife, commissioned by the Presbyterian board of foreign missions, started for Siam.  This was the goal of their ardent ambitions and consecrations. 

Once in the field, he threw himself whole-heartedly into the work, but within two years Andrew’s health was shattered and he was ordered home. He continued working for several years on a literary work of permanent value.

 Because of his poor health during the Civil War, he was exempt from military service and debarred from the Christian commission.  So instead, he spent three years at Washington in the Treasury Department, ministering often in hospital and barracks.  In Washington he served in the somewhat famous “Treasury Guard” of which he frequently spoke with a smile. 

It is here he also became acquainted with many men who afterward became famous.  Among these was the one whom he always mentioned with a great admiration and reverence – the distinguished martyr President Lincoln.

Andrew takes his place of honor with the other young men of Eaton who also went to Siam (Burma) and China, Jonathan Wade and William Dean. **Newspaper stories sent back to Eaton still exist in the Old Town of Eaton Museum.

Judson's Story in video!