Tag: Gregory

Places

The Local Stone Age, 1830-40

Donna Foote

From The Morris Chronicle, January 17, 1917

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

Louisville (Morris village) passed through its stone age in the decade 1830-40, according to an article in the Morris Chronicle in 1917. The Washbon farmhouse, the Rotch house (now Gregory)1, the Gardner hotel (now Morris Inn)2, the building next east of the hotel, and the corner building now occupied by the First National Bank3 were all built of stone during the decade named. There is no accurate record of the exact year in which each was constructed, history is somewhat misty as to who built them, and tradition disagrees as to where the stone came from.

The material is all native stone and the corners are large dressed stone. One of the paper’s subscribers thought the stone came from the ledge up the brook at the foot of Patrick Hill; but other information from J.P. Kenyon, who saw them all built, is that the stone came mostly from a ledge on the Captain Dan Smith farm (now Peter Gregory), or up the McNitt brook, and that Capt. Dan Smith was the builder or at least a contractor who put up these buildings.

The Rotch house was put up in 1833-34, the stone hotel and store next to it in 1833, and the Bank building about the same time. The J.K. Lull shoe shop (now Naylor’s stone house on East Main Street)4 was built on the corner of Grove and Broad Streets but was long ago torn down. Zion Church, also of native stone, was built in 1818.

Of all these buildings mentioned, we doubt if any has housed as many different tenants and as many different businesses as the old store east of the hotel. As Jonathan Lull and Edwin Gilbert were in business together in that store in the 1840s, it is not unlikely that they built it and were its first occupants, for Mr. Gilbert built the white house (now Gould Benedict) on the knoll adjoining the store property and occupied it until he and his family moved to Honesdale late in the forties. Lull & Gilbert was long a prominent firm here, and besides doing a general merchandising business they ran an ashery which was located on Water Street. This ashery business was quite extensive here then. There were three such businesses – the one noted above, another on what was the D.F. Wightman farm (now Dugan), and another on part of the Ernst Thurston farm (now Friedman). This present generation knows nothing about that industry. Ashes were collected by teamsters and brought to the ashery and were leached in big vats, the lye boiled down in large iron kettles until potash or pearlash was a resultant. This potash was shipped away and probably some of it found its way back to the stores as saleratus or cooking soda.

After Mr. Gilbert left Morris, his partner, Jonathan Lull, continued in the same store for some years in partnership with his nephew, Warren Lull. This store was in 1869 a dry goods store run by Murdock & Matteson, both of whom had been clerks for Mr. Lull, and in a part of the store was the post office with Harley Sargent as postmaster. In 1870, Jonathan Lull was again in business there and was succeeded by his son, Aidan Lull, and H.C. Steele. Later on, James Falls ran a hardware store there and it deteriorated into a saloon; later a feed store and now (1917) it is used on one side for a pool room and with Smith’s barber shop on the other.

Upstairs was used at first as a hall for the Odd Fellows Lodge, and headquarters for the Know Nothing Club. At one time, Miss Dietz conducted a select school there. Later Dr. M. Matteson had his office there, after which it was cut up into living rooms and has since been used for such purposes. We have only noted a few of the businesses and a few of the tenants of this venerable old building, but to our knowledge, it has never stood empty.5

Several years ago an addition built of wood was erected on the east side of the building and has been occupied by the post office for a long time. Upstairs, Nathan Bridges had his law office, and it is now (1917) the office of the Safety Co-operative Fire Insurance Co., E.C. Miller, Secretary.

1Today owned by the Dugans, this house faces Spring Street. 2Now a private residence. 3Community Bank. 4The Village Library of Morris. 5Currently apartments.

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

Early History, People, Places

Reminiscences of Morris – Number Two

Donna Foote

by A. S. Avery, Morris Chronicle, September 16, 1874

The description given in the Chronicle last week embraces every house on the corporation in 1824 (twenty-nine in all). It may not be inappropriate to say that thirty years before there was not a framed house in town, and there is one person now living in town, Mrs. Benj. Draper, aged 94 years, well remembers that time. A census then (1824) would show about 160 inhabitants. There are but two houses on the corporation to-day that have not been built or altered over, viz.: R. H. Van Rensselaer‘s (Godley) and Dr. Wing‘s (Buhr). It may be a satisfaction, also, to know when certain houses were built, we will, therefore, add the following as a chronology.

Avery‘s cabinet shop (gone now) was built in 1828; S. W. Murdock‘s (G. McWilliams) store, 1827; the old red schoolhouse in 1825; Bergan‘s hat shop (Naylor Co., garage section) in 1830; Matteson‘s tannery, 1831, and burned in 1847; Avery‘s house (Harrington) in 1832; F. Rotch‘s (Gregory) house , 1833-4; Stone hotel and store (Morris Inn and adjacent building), 1833; Hargrave factory, 1833, and burned down in 1850; J. P. Kenyon‘s store (Library), 1832; H. R. Washbon‘s house (Washbon & Olds), 1839; Otsego House, Yates Hotel (Sheldon Auction Gallery), 1840; Perry Block (Kinney), 1844; Masonic Hall (old Baptist Church), Methodist Church, 1845; Universalist Church, 1842; Engine house (behind Brookside) opposite Weeden‘s, 1835, and moved to its present location (Town House) in 1853; J. P. Kenyon‘s shop (Library) 1842; H. R. Washbon‘s office, N. Stevenson‘s shop (H. Lull), 1852; Episcopal rectory, 1841; Wheedon‘s shop (Sinclair), 1847; Davis‘ house (Gage Block) enlarged for a hotel, 1857; J. K. Lull‘s house (Naylor‘s stone house), 1842, and shop 1845; David Beekman‘s house (Naylor Co.) and store, 1865; Lawrence‘s store (Naylor Co., shipping room), 1858 and house 1858; Wing‘s office (Buhr) removed in 1868; School-house built in 1860, (in the north-east corner of the foundation was placed a tin box of documents); C. L. Tucker‘s house, 1868; J. P. Kenyon‘s house (Sanderson), and Dr. Still‘s house, in 1833; Garratt‘s house, 1841; J. Little‘s (P. Decker) house, 1852; Sam. Barrett‘s house in 1849; (this was the first balloon frame in town); Jaycox‘s house, Mordecai Wing (Catholic rectory) in 1838; E. J. Cooke‘s house, Bates (Sloan), 1838.

The first newspaper was printed here in 1845, W. R. Winans, editor, and publisher.

On the corner opposite Bard‘s (Lee‘s) wagon shop, S. E. Barrett built a stone blacksmith shop in 1838 which was afterwards enlarged for an iron foundry and machine shop by J. H. Bump, and finally, it was all torn down or moved away, and is now a vacant corner just as it was fifty years ago.

The sled factory (gone now) up Davis Brook was originally a dwelling house nearly opposite Bowne‘s gate, Elm Grove, and was moved there and used by Allen Holcomb as a manufactory of tobacco boxes and inkstands, It was afterwards enlarged by taking the frame of the old woolen factory and adding to it, and used as a cabinet shop, etc., etc.

When the Hargrave factory was built, the mortar was made from sand taken from the bank back of R. Starr‘s (N. Foote) house, and on the bluff was found the bones of two unknown persons, buried there many years before.

The town of Morris was created by dividing the town of Butternuts in 1849. The village of Morris was incorporated in 1870. J. E. Cooke was the first president, John A. Ward the second, A. S. Avery the third and Peleg Weedon is the present incumbent. The Episcopal Church bell was recast in 1828 and weighs about 800 pounds. The town clock was purchased by subscription in 1847. Before we had a clock, a man used to be paid by subscription (about $25 a year) to ring the bell at sunrise, 12 n. and 9 p.m. The number of houses on the corporation is 175, and the population is about 750. About 185 persons between the ages of five and twenty-one years. The Cemetery was laid out in 1862. The first person buried there was Mrs. Leonard.

We will digress a moment and give a hint by which you can tell or approximate the age of houses. For the style of architecture changes as much as does dress. When you go about the country and see an old house with ten feet posts and fifteen feet rafters, no cornice, a big chimney in the middle or at one end, and a lean-to on the back, (or side, if it stands end to the road), forming a long continuous roof, you may set it down as over sixty years old, say built between 1800 and 1825. If it is a large two-story house with nine windows in front, hall through the center, cornice light, with or without portico, it was built between 1820 and 1840. If of the same shape as just described, with heavy cornice, since 1840. If one-and-a-half or two-story, end to the road, with kitchen on the side, since 1840. If a square looking house, hip-roof or with chambers smaller than the ground floor, piazza and balcony, between 1840 and 1855. If built with steep roof, angular caps over the windows, with drops or brackets under the cornice (what is called Elizabethian architecture), it was built since 1850. If flat or hip roof and brackets all around the cornice, bow window, etc., since 1860. If Mansard roof since 1865. There may be exceptions to these rules, but four times in five they will be right.

We will now speak of the manners and customs of the people. There were no railroads or canals, no telegraph or steam engines, no photographs, no matches, no horse-rakes, mowing or thrashing machines, no horsepowers, no sewing machines or melodians, no buggy wagons, no elliptic springs, no cooking stoves, no coal used, no wall paper, no rubber goods, no cut nails, no corn brooms, no kerosene lamps, no steel pens, no envelopes, no solid head pins, no dentists, very few clocks or watches. It was a common thing for a shoemaker (cobbler) to “whip the cat,” go into a farmer’s house, put his “kit” in one corner of the room, and with one last, made perhaps, from a stick off the wood pile, make the shoes for the whole family; making the largest first, then cutting down the last to the next smaller size, etc.; the farmer furnishing the leather. Rights and left shoes were unknown. The shoe pegs were all made by hand, and I will add, that pegged shoes were once looked upon with distrust. Every-day hats were made of wool, and a fur hat, if one was able to own it, was worn Sunday and to trainings. It was a great discovery when “waterproof” hats were made. Silk or cotton plush was unknown. All cloth, wool or linen, was “spun and wove” by hand, and spinning wheels and looms were as common then as sewing machines and pianos are now.

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

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.