Morse and Pratt Family Histrory

History of Pratt House - A Piece of Missing History

 

 The James Pratt house, which for almost 70 years has sported a historic marker, burned.  The house located today on Route 26 once sat on the hill next to the Great Skaneateles Turnpike on lands once owned by Joseph Morse, who was considered by many to be the father of Eaton because of his expansive business empire.  Its builder, Dr. James Pratt, came from Massachusetts in the early 1800’s and became the first physician in the Town of Eaton and the town’s first teacher, moving to teach in the early days in rotation to three different sites within the town.

 

The house which had fallen into disrepair over the years was currently a two story home, but in the early 1800’s when built it was described by noted artist Carlton Rice as a white one-story building.  Rice would come to Eaton with Pratt’s cousins to visit his Rice relatives who also lived in Eaton.

 

     The Dr. once owned interest in the Eaton Woolen Mill with Joseph Morse and others and had married Laurency Eaton, the daughter of James Eaton one of Eaton’s first settlers.  (*Please note Eaton was not named for James but for Gen. William Eaton of Tripoli fame.)

 After his first wife’s death Dr. Pratt took Joseph Morse’s daughter Eunice as his wife in one of the most notable wedding ceremonies ever held in the village.  The wedding took place on the first of June, of 1814, at the Morse’s new Stone house in the Village of Eaton. (Also marked by and historic marker) and among its guests were some of the notables of Madison County’s history including Col. Lincklean, Col. Angel DeFerrier and his wife Polly, Peter Smith and his sons Gerrit (the abolionist) and Peter Skenandoah Smith, Joshua Leland’s widow Waitstill and an entourage of Native Americans, the Stowes, the Cramphins and many others, basically anyone who was anybody.  The couple were married by the Rev. Jonas Thompson.

 

     Eunice Morse had come to the then wilderness of what would become Madison County with her father, the son of Capt. Joseph Morse and mother Eunice, who was of the famous Bigelow family of Natick immortalized in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Old Town Folks.  Young Eunice attended school under Dr. James Pratt, and was exceedingly friendly with the Indian children of the area, often inviting them in to warm by the fire. (The Morse family always left the “latch spring” open for their native friends.)  After her father’s death, Ellis, a brother who also came with them, would take the businesses of Eaton over from his father and his brother Joseph Morse Jr.   Joseph Sr. upon his death had bequeathed Eunice $600 to be paid by Joseph Jr. in 3 years from his death, and a lot.  Eunice continued her education going on to graduate from Clinton Academy in 1810 – the last graduating class before it became Hamilton College.

 

The family was on a move to Palmyra, MO. Where a son James by his first wife found prosperity and died, his grave has never been found.  Eunice moved west, some believe perhaps in hopes of finding him.  She never did.  Dr. Pratt and Eunice’s children and Dr. Pratt’s grown children from his first wife settled near Knox where Eunice lived until her death.  She was considered by all a remarkable woman for her time, she had served the earliest period of our county’s history.

 

An interesting side note is that Dr. Pratt’s will created quite a storm when he left money to fight an ongoing lawsuit with the Congregational Church he was such a part of.  During this period Charles Grandison Finney, the Evangelist of Oberlin fame, had favored the congregation standing to sing and sitting to pray.  Dr. Pratt believed this wrong and spent much of his fortune fighting this practice.  He suing the church, the church he (Ironically, Charles G. Finney as a boy lived in early Eaton Village then Log City with his aunt and uncle the Cyrus Finney

Pioneer Times...Eunice Morse Pratt

For young people today it would be interesting I think to learn about how things were done and how people traveled in the early days... even learning about money and currency.  There was no plastic money or Western Union.  

Currency was issued by different institutions, not only the US Treasury.  In reading some of the old Morse letters of Eunice Morse Pratt and her families removal from Eaton to the west,I ran across this interesting letter that explains much about this and life in the early 1840's as well as information on her family for genealogists in the area.

"Palmyra April 13^th 1842

 

Dear Brother - I received your letter the fourth of April dated March 15 and with it the Draft for eighty-six dollars dated March 15. The Draft here was worth ten percent more than currency.  I sold it to Mr. Locthan the largest merchant in Palmyra for cash and left the money with him and get a little at a time as I want to use it.  The western Banks are a breaking so fast there is no safety in keeping one dollar.  I shall get what things I need and let the rest be until have use for it.  

You would like to know where I live.  I lived with Edwin three years then I went to the farm and stayed two years.  I liked to live there I felt as if it was my home in January I came to see Edwin I found him sick with a cold, nobody but his little boy and Gridley for company and blacks to do his work he wanted I should stay it is a good home for me.  

 Gridley goes to school here and I expect Mary here this week to go with him.  There is no school near the farm.  I expect to stay here with them some time.  Virgil, Warner, Fanny and James live on the farm.  They are a sawing and grinding and making the improvements better.  

Warner is one of the Candidates for sheriff he thinks he should get it but it will be a doubtful case.  The present sheriff and another popular man are on the ticket.  

Edwin is doing a good in land and is farming and selling wood.  He has two children Betsy and John.  The little girl lives with Lawyer Wright her uncle.  There is a great scarcity of money here all business men are crying hard times many go to work and spend less.  

Eunice had quite the life and her obituary tells us much of her story and so I include a bit of it here."

OBITUARY OF EUNICE MORSE PRATT

"Mrs. Eunice Pratt, widow of the late Dr. James Pratt and mother of

Colonel Warner Pratt, died on December 30, 1869 at the residence of her daughter, Mary Shotton, who is the wife of Judge William N. Shotton.

 

The deceased was born in Sherburn, Mass December 10, 1790 and emigrated with her father, the late Joseph Morse, Esq. to the Burchard Farm in Madison County, New York, in 1796.  Here, her father built one of the first frame houses erected in that region.  It was near the Indian trial from the Susquehanna to Stockbridge and thus at a remarkably early period in life she made an acquaintance with the red skins and began an extraordinary life of pioneer service. 

In 1802, four years before the town of Eaton was set off from Hamilton, her father moved to Eaton, which is now the seat of the family homestead and erected one of the first gristmills south of Whitestown.  Here in company with the late Ellis Morse, Esq. and her other brothers and sisters, she spent her youth, became familiar with every phase of pioneer life, its perils, its hardships and its attractions, and here supplied with such books as Dilworth’s Spelling book, Dabolls Arithmetic, the Columbian Orater and the Bible, she began her education with she concluded at the old Academy at Clinton where she graduated two years prior to its institution as Hamilton College.

 

In 1814 Eunice married to Dr. James Pratt, a brother of the father of the Hon. Daniel D. Pratt, United States Senator from Indiana and raised a numerous family.  

After his death she again, in 1836, entered upon the pioneer life and removed, with her family, to Palmyra, Missouri, making the entire distance in a wagon.  Shortly afterword a family homestead was purchased within what is now part of Knox County and she located thereon.  

She was certainly a woman of indomitable resolution and energy or at the age of 46. when a widow, she would have hesitated long ere removing from a home among friends surrounded with the refinements of civilization into a comparatively unknown section to again endure the trials, privations and hardships incident to pioneer life.  She was, as it were, a connecting link between the centuries and had, in her youth, seen the wilderness of New York transformed into a center of civilization.  

She had seen towns and cities spring up on every hand and institutions of learning, now justly celebrated through out the country, established.  In middle life she had again contributed her energy to subdue the wilderness.  She had again seen the form of the savage recede from the rushing time of civilization and once more had seen towns and cities rise phoenix like from mother earth.  Her memory was richly stored with narratives of the War of Independence and she had lived through two important conflicts through which this country has passed.  What an unusual experience was hers."

I could not have summed it up better...a true glimpse of our past and a women's role!

Eunice Morse Pratt, Pioneer Woman

It is so interesting to find history in your mailbox.  I received a note from a lady in Missouri who was looking for information on her family members who arrived from Eaton in the early 1830’s.  Since I do history on the Morse family it proved to be an interesting relook at history for me.  Her relative was Eunice Morse, Joseph Morse’s daughter.

 

Eunice received a good education starting as a child in Eaton under the tutorship of Dr. James Pratt our town’s first teacher.  He taught school early on and the school rotated from Col. Leland’s to Joseph Morse’s and on to the “Center” as it was called near todays Morrisville.

 

Pratt was married to Laurancey Eaton, who died and left him to fall for one of his students, daughter of Joseph Morse.  Their wedding was the first at the Old Stone Morse Mansion and was attended by anyone who was important from Gerrit Smith and his father to Mrs. Leland who arrived in a carriage guarded by other guests, the Native American friends of area.  It is said they came in full native regalia on impressive horses.

 

She and her husband eventually moved on to find a new home and follow others from their family and area to Missouri.  Unfortunately, on a trip west he was killed.  Undaunted she decided to follow and look for the truth.

 

I have copies of some of the letters she sent back from there and they are so interesting I thought I would do a series of articles on her, her time, and Eaton.  Included here is an excerpt from - Palmyra Marion County Missouri in October of 1836.

 

“Dear brother - We arrived safe in Palmyra in five weeks and one day from the hour we left home had a very pleasant journey most of the way.  We had some difficulty to get through the mud, which we should not have had if we had started sooner.  

 

When we came to the first bad road we had to walk some and ride some.  We found a man with a four-horse wagon without a load.  We hired him to carry us and our load to Indianapolis 36 miles then we found roads very good until we came to the first prairies in Illinois here these roads were very good a few roads then a slough so deep it was almost impassable.  It was nearly dark and we were nine miles from a tavern.  David was sick with a headache.  We began to be afraid of being stalled in the sloughs.  We soon saw two horsemen a coming towards us one of them road forward to show us the way.  He offered to put in his horse and ride and let David ride our smallest horse, which was very tired.  

 

We got along very well until a little after dark.  The horses then mired in a slough and after making many unsuccessful attempts to extricate the wagons the horses fell and they had to hold their heads out of the muddy water till they could clear them from the wagon and as a last resort we left our wagon and rode two on a horse near three miles.  We then arrived at this young mans house that helped us.  

 

We had every attention that poverty joined with kindness could bestow.  They went with James in the morning and got the wagon.  We hired one of them to go with us with his horses ninety miles.  We then came to the stage road, which was very good.  We did not like Ohio nor Indiana as well as Illinois the land is good and very handsome but unhealthy.  They can raise grain with very little labor.  When we arrived Galen was absent.  Two Mr. Wrights his wives brethren were a boarding at his house.  They received us with as much pleasure as if they were brothers.”

 

It is so interesting, and such a long journey for a widow from Eaton who became a pioneer much like her mother who came to Eaton in 1796 by oxcart with husband and children, Eunice Bigelow Morse.