Category: Early History

Early History, People, Places

Early Settlement

Donna Foote

Excerpt from Morris, New York 1773-1923 by Joyce Foote, 1970

Part 2: In this section, I will use the second part of the first chapter from my mother’s book spanning the 1800s.

The decade from 1810 to 1820 brought many new settlers to the area – some just stopping by for a short time on their way to the western part of New York State or Ohio, others to remain permanently. Among the latter were the families of Noble, Washbon, Starr, Skidmore, Somers, Foote, Beers, Tillson, Cruttenden, Hawley, Winton, Braley, Blackman, Botsford, and many other names familiar to present-day residents.

Early in the nineteenth century, small industries flourished in and around Louisville. There were asheries, grist mills, cotton and woolen mills, distilleries, stores, and later, tanneries, a hat factory, a sled factory, a wooden-ware factory, furniture, and boot and shoe factories. These operations were, of course, small by today’s standards, but they provided the necessities and a few comforts of life to the citizens of the area.

The early 1800s also saw the construction of many permanent buildings, both residential and business, in the community. It was during this period that the Manor House was constructed on the Morris family holdings a few miles below the village.

In 1808-1809, the Bowne House was built overlooking the Butternut Creek just above Elm Grove. It was a large, unusual house, consisting of forty rooms, with the central section and wings octagonal in shape. The house burned but the land is now occupied by the Dugan family.

Construction was begun in 1810 on the Franchot House, one of the first frame houses in the village. Judge Paschal Franchot resided in this house until his death in 1855 and during his tenure cleared his own farm which encompassed all the lower section of what is now the village. There have been some changes made to the house over the ensuing years but the original lines of the house are still evident. This house is now owned and occupied by the Medardo Gutierrez family.

The Van Rensselaer House (Godley’s) is typical of Colonial country house architecture. It was constructed in 1814, a large, square, stone section containing living, dining, and bed rooms and a kitchen wing at the back of the house.

Across the road from the Lull Family monument and burial ground, about three miles above the present village of Morris, is the site of the Lull house which was built by Caleb Lull about 1817. He resided there until his death in 1839. According to the Lull Family history, it was on this homestead farm that the first Baptist Church of Butternuts was built in 1818; regular church meetings were held there until a meeting house was constructed in the village of Morris some 23 years later.

This era of the early 1800s brought the establishment of the early churches of Louisville. Between 1808 and 1811, the Friends Meetinghouse was built a short distance east of the corporation line of the village of Morris. It stood for over one hundred years and its congregation was comprised of Friends from a wide area including Delaware and Schoharie Counties as well as Otsego.

The present Zion Episcopal Church was constructed during this period on a plot of ground given by Gen. Jacob Morris. The building, substantially as it is today, was finished in 1818 at a cost of $5,000. It replaced the old Harmony Church, which was situated where the Episcopal burying ground now is on the East River Road. At the time of its construction, Zion Church was an ambitious building, for the village six years later had only twenty-nine houses and a population of between one hundred sixty and one hundred seventy persons.

The above is a picture of part of Main Street of Louisville looking east. The white building in the picture was built early in the 1800s by Jeremiah Cruttenden. The actual construction date seems to be a matter of conjecture with some sources giving the date as 1803 and others as 1822. In any event, the building was for many years kept as a tavern. The trees seen in the picture were about fifteen feet from the fence, enabling teams to drive to the gate. Beyond the building and out of the right-hand side of the picture were the hotel sheds which extended along the road toward the brook, and another road followed the brook to a distillery a short distance downstream.

The second building had been a grocery store occupied by Edward Williams and shortly after the time of this picture was moved down South Broad Street to later become part of E. M. Slone‘s hardware store.

The third building was a store owned by Luther Skidmore. About 1830 to 1833, this building was moved to Grove Street and made into a house.

Davis‘ horse barn is the next building. There was a good-sized goose pond in front of the barn and extending across the road.

On the hill is Zion Episcopal Church. A Virginia rail fence led up the hill from Mr. Skidmore’s store, along the street, and around the church grounds.

The previous text was taken directly from the book Morris, New York 1773-1923 by Joyce Foote, 1970. I made a few minor edits, but the content remains unchanged.

Editor’s note: The Franchot House (pictured above) was badly damaged by fire in the early hours of Friday, February 5, 2010. It was restored shortly thereafter.

Early History

Early Settlement

Donna Foote

Excerpt from Morris, New York 1773-1923 by Joyce Foote, 1970

Part 1: In this section, I will use the first part of this chapter from my mother’s book spanning from the acquisition of the land now known as Morris, New York through the end of the 1700s.

In 1768 Sir William Johnson secured from the Indians a treaty, part of which is known as the “Fort Stanwix Deed.” This conveyed the whole section of land now New York State and Pennsylvania to the King of England. This area was subsequently divided and land grants issued to individuals. One of these grants went to John Butler, one of Johnson’s deputies and later a Tory leader. Butler’s Patent included all lands in the present township of Morris from the northern reaches to a line about two miles below the present village of Morris. Butler later sold a portion of his holdings to Henry Hill and others who named their section “Hillington Tract of Butler’s Patent.” It is within this Tract that the present village of Morris lies.

Newspaper accounts provide some information about the early settlers of this area. The month of June 1773, brought Ebenezer Knapp and his family, Increase Thurston and his family and Benjamin Lull, sr., his wife, five sons, and a daughter to the valley of Tienuderrah (now Butternuts Creek). They marked a trail through the forest from Newtown Martin, a frontier settlement between Cooperstown and Cherry Valley, to a place a few miles north of the present village of Morris. Here, with a few hand tools – axes, cultivating tools, and the like – the Lulls cleared the land and began constructing their home. Their cabin was made of trees about a foot in diameter cut into lengths of twenty-four feet for the sides and sixteen feet for the ends. These logs were then flattened on two sides and placed one upon another with clay between them to seal the cracks. It is believed that the house was about 8 feet high. The roof was made of a log twenty-four feet long for a ridge with poles laid together to run from eaves to ridge, and this was covered with a thatch made from rushes. The house was heated, lighted and the cooking done by means of a large stone fireplace. Their home completed, the men then began the work of clearing and cultivating the land so they could plant corn, buckwheat, and other crops. They undoubtedly supplemented their food supply with fish from the stream and game from the surrounding forests. Two years later, in the spring of 1775, the Lull family secured title by purchasing this tract which they had cleared.

At this same time, the Knapps built their house across the Tienuderrah about half a mile downstream and the Thurstons built about two miles up the valley. These families formed the nucleus of the first settlement in the vicinity of what is now the village of Morris. They numbered 20 in all.

The first marriage in the settlement took place on March 6, 1776, when Joseph Lull took for his bride Martha Knapp.

Evidently life in the settlement went on rather peacefully until the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. In 1776, a party of men entered the settlement and demanded an oath of neutrality and the surrender of all weapons to the State. Not satisfied by this, the following year, 1777, a group of British patriots came into the settlement and demanded a promise that the inhabitants would not take up arms against the King of England.

The next year, 1778, two companies were sent from the garrison at Cherry Valley to confirm a suspicion that the settlers had violated their oath of allegiance to the King and were, in fact, supplying the Revolutionists with provisions. The community leaders were taken prisoner and tried in Cherry Valley, then interned in Albany. Before long, in September 1778, a band of Oneida Indians came to the settlement to burn, plunder and kidnap the remaining men. Little resistance was offered as several of the men were absent from their homes either by serving with the Continental Army or arrested by the British. Among the captives were the six Lull men (Benjamin and his five sons, Benjamin, jr., Joseph, Nathan, Caleb, and William). The youngest Lull son, William, was not more than 16 years old when captured. He was adopted into the family of Oneida chief, Grass Hopper, and was taken to Sacketts Harbor, thence down the Mohawk River to Schenectady. He ran away from his captors and escaped to Saratoga to join General Sullivan’s army where he became a member of the Third Regiment of the New York Continentals. A certificate from the Archivist at Albany gives his date of enlistment as October 1, 1778. William got a letter home to his father, Benjamin, who hired Elbert Eckert to take William’s place in the army. The two men were exchanged on March 5, 1779, and William returned home.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Lull and another woman, with two small children, left the settlement and made their way to Cherry Valley. The way was hard – filled with dangers of the enemy, inclement weather, and ruggedness of terrain – but the journey of about thirty-two miles was completed in two days. Shortly after, the men were released from their confinement in Albany.

When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, Benjamin Lull with his wife and one son returned to their former home and remained alone through the winter. In 1784, those others who had been taken from their homes or had fled began to trickle back into the valley.

In June 1785, a treaty was secured between Governor Clinton and the Iroquois tribes in which the State of New York gained title to all the lands between the Unadilla and Chenango Rivers. With this treaty and the ones that followed it, the Iroquois territory was relinquished except for only a few areas set aside as reservations. These events opened this new territory to settlement.

In this same period, General Jacob Morris came to develop lands a few miles down the valley which his father, Lewis Morris, and his uncle, Richard Morris, had been awarded as reparation for the was damages to their estates in the Hudson Valley.

The census of 1790 shows few families here, but from 1790 to 1800 there was an influx of settlers from Connecticut, some from Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. These New Englanders were joined by aristocratic French exiles forced out of France by a mass revolt. They came by blazed trail; some on foot carrying an ace and all their personal belongings; some on horseback, the wife often riding behind on a pillion; and still others by ox team. The French, whose Royalist sympathies prompted them to name the place Louisville in honor of their former King Loius XVI who lost both his throne and his head, were probably the first to inhabit what is now the village of Morris. James and Vincent LeRay de Chaumont had purchased a large tract of land consisting of about 18,000 acres and it was to these lands that the French Immigrants were directed. Records indicate that among them were the Widow Rosseau and her three sons, and Francois Cockrell from Paris. Charles Franchot and two sons, Louis and Paschal, came from Chamonelly, France. Most of these early French settlers did not remain to become permanent settlers but moved on to other places.

At this time, all these lands were part of Montgomery County; Otsego County was established as a separate entity in 1791 with Jacob Morris as the first County Clerk. He served in this capacity until 1801. On February 5, 1796, Butternuts was set up as a township with Louis Franchot, Supervisor, and Hezekiah Dayton, Town Clerk.

The previous text was taken directly from the book. I made a few minor edits, but the content remains unchanged.