The Local Stone Age, 1830-40

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.