History: Fort Covington (part 2); Franklin co., New York

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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF FRANKLIN COUNTY WITH MANY SHORT BIOGRAPHIES
BY
FREDERICK J. SEAVER
MALONE, NEW YORK

ALBANY: J. B. LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS 1918

CHAPTER XV FORT COVINGTON (part 2 of 2)

  Matthew Fleming and Donald Chisholm had a wheelwright shop just below the 
starch mill, and later Seth Blanchard had one yet farther down the stream.
Both were burned. Lewis Bullis also had one on Center street, east of Water
street, and on Salmon street, below Center, James Somers had another, a good
many years ago. The building is still standing, but is not in use.

  The sole industrial establishments in this immediate locality at present are 
the Courtney shop on the east side, and on the west bank the electric light
and power plant, the saw mill, planing mill and feed mill of Patrick and W. H.
S. Keefe, who came from Canada in 1902, and first installed the electric
works, which have a potential development of three hundred horse power. The
rates for service are two dollars per month per light for residences and half
a dollar more per light for commercial consumers. The arrangement induces free
burning of lamps, with the result that Fort Covington always has the
appearance of being one of the best lighted villages in Northern New York.
Plans and terms were virtually agreed upon in 1917 by which Shields Brothers
were to build a transmission line from the works to Bombay, and there use the
current for lighting their factory and offices as well as other business
places and residences. The Keefe dam was carried off by a freshet in 1913, and
has been replaced by one of concrete.

  South of this center, close by the upper bridge, on the west side, Calvin 
Henry had a stone blacksmith shop in the long ago, which was displaced thirty 
years since by a furniture factory built by Spencer & Premo. The latter was 
converted a few years ago into a co-operative creamery, now owned and operated 
by Solon Storm. Almost directly across the stream was Daniel Noble's tannery
and shoe shop. The building is now a barn, just in the rear of William G.
Kelsey's dwelling house. Mr. Noble owned a considerable tract of land south of
the tannery, and an indentation of the river there has borne the name Noble
Bay for many years.

  At the so-called upper falls, south and east of the upper bridge, near the
old Danforth saw mill, which age and high water put out of existence thirty or
forty years ago, there was a carding and fulling mill and woolen factory at
least as early as 1834. Luther Danforth owned it in 1836, and presumably built
it. He leased it in that year to Luther Starks and Sidney Briggs. According to
the census this mill and the one on the Little Salmon in 1834 manufactured
22,407 yards of cloth valued at $6.885   which was only about half as much as
the like product of the county that was made in the same year in families,
where in the same time there were also made 20,623 yards of cotton and linen.
In that period nearly every family had its flock of sheep, and wives and
daughters were accustomed to make the cloth required for practically all
garments for men, women and children, as well as blankets and spreads for the
beds and tables. Spinning and weaving were then included in the customary
household accomplishments, and, indeed, as Gaillard Hunt puts it, "in the
country each family was an independency. * * * The household stood alone, and
might be cut off from communication with the rest of the world for months at a
time without inconvenience." Some specimens of these early manufactures are
still to be found in Franklin county, and show an intricacy of design and a
beauty of finish that are amazing for hand work. Even the President himself in
1809 wore a suit of homespun at his inauguration. Mr. Starks assigned his
interest in the lease of the mill in 1839 to Daniel Russell and D. Stiles
McMillan; and in 1843 the business was advertised under the name of Sidney
Briggs & Co., who announced the price of twenty-five cents per yard for making
gray cloth, or thirty cents for colored. In 1850 Mr. Briggs assigned his lease
of the property to Benjamin Raymond, who in turn assigned it soon afterward to
Alonzo Doane and Reuben Martin   Doane assigning his interest the same year to
Preserved Ware. In 1856 Mr. Martin came into actual ownership of the property.
The operators of the mill from the time of Briggs to 1866 are not surely
ascertainable. Luther Danforth is claimed by some of the older people to have
run it himself for a part of this period, while others insist that he never
ran it himself at all. Tillness Briggs and Norman McPhee were both there for a
time, and during a part of the period of Martin's ownership it was operated by
his son-in-law, Elory Howard. Moses Santinee and Louis Currier,
brothers-in-law, also ran it, but whether separately or in partnership no one
seems to remember. In 1866 it was sold to Joseph Shannon, who, with his son,
David, operated it except for a short time until it was sold to Thomas
Davidson in 1893. Mr. Davidson still made cloth there occasionally in a small
way until his death in 1917, but the establishment was better known as a
carding mill, the only one of the many doing custom work that at one time
flourished in the county. The old dam was carried off, and the plant 
depended upon a gasoline engine for power.

  Near this woolen mill Daniel Taro (brother of "poor Peter" of Malone, a 
skillful moulder sixty years ago, but afterward a vagrant drunkard, who was 
killed on the railroad near Montreal) had a foundry before the civil war. A 
mortar and pestle made there may still be seen at the MacArtney drug store.

  Across the river from the woolen factory, but farther up the stream, Thomas 
Mears once had a saw mill, which was run as late as 1875 by S. J. Stewart, and 
still later by Allen Fay for his brothers, Joseph, and James. Joseph now owns 
the site and power, the mill having gone out of existence.

  Toward the close of the civil war, when the price of cotton reached a
fabulous figure, Gilbert A. Wright built a flax mill near this saw mill, and
in 1866 sold a half interest in it to Hamlet B. Mears; but the enterprise did
not prosper, and was abandoned   the building being made over into a sash and
blind factory, and eventually burned.

  Daniel Whitney and Luther Bartlett had a tub factory in the same vicinity, 
which was owned and run later by Sands Austin. It was burned when Mrs. Lareach 
and two daughters were occupying the second story as a residence. The mother
was old, and the night of the fire had been locked in while the daughters went
to the village. Unable to make her escape, she was burned to death.

  Another tragedy near by was the drowning perhaps seventy years ago of Thomas 
Carter and two girls. They had been to church and returning had to cross the 
river in order to reach their home. The boat was small and unsteady, and, 
overturning, all were drowned.

  Over on the Little Salmon earlier than 1830 John Starks built the first
woolen mill that the county ever had. Misfortune pursued him persistently,
however, the mill having been carried off by a freshet while it was yet almost
new, and, having been quickly rebuilt, was destroyed by fire in 1839 or 1840.
Mr. Starks removed to Malone, and in 1843, in company with Cyrenus Gorton and
George A. Cheney, bought the woolen mill now owned by the Lawrence-Webster
Company, but failed soon afterward. His Fort Covington mill was rebuilt by
Myron Hitchcock, who ran it for a time, and I am informed that Sidney Briggs
also had it later. It was finally torn down or carried off by high water.

  Near the John Starks woolen factory was the dwelling house of Robert McPhee, 
an expert weaver who came from Paisley, Scotland, and set up looms in his
house. He employed two or three hands, and turned out a considerable product
of fine goods.

  In this same locality George B. R. Gove built and ran a grist mill, a mill
for grinding plaster and a saw mill. It is said that the plaster ground here
was drawn to Pittsburgh, where it was sold as a fertilizer. The grist mill
became the property of Judge Henry A. Paddock, son-in-law of Mr. Gove, and was
sold by him in 1865 to Sherman B. Rickerson. Subsequent owners have been
Thomas and William Hamilton, Robert Mitchell and now Archibald McNair. Though
the mill still stands, it is useless, partly from depreciation and also for
lack of power, the dam having been undermined. The Gove saw mill was run at
one time by William Hogle, and fifty vears ago or more he and Allen M. Lincoln
had a starch mill there, which was owned afterward by Thomas W. Creed. It was
carried off by a freshet in 1887.

  In view of the general practice in early times, it would be strange if there 
were not a saw mill on every stream in the town where a power could be 
developed; but I hare been able to obtain trace only of a few additional to 
those already named; all but two of these were in the vicinity of Deer River 
Corners, now called Fort Covington Center. The first of them was on the east 
branch of Deer river, and was doubtless built by Jonathan Ordway; another,
with a tub factory combined, was built by Nathan, James and Addison Inman, and
was burned in 1861; one a hundred rods up the stream, built by Edwin S. Bean
in 1857, sold to Richard Delarm, who resold to Mr. Bean, and the latter to
Lewis Billings; another, still farther up the stream, built by Winchester
Briggs, and gone long ago; still another was built and run by Allen Ellsworth;
and on the west branch of Deer river Alonzo and William Ordway had a mill.
Another industry in this locality was a brickyard on the Charles Frye farm,
operated by Robert Cushman and Seth Blanchard. The field book of a State
survey in 1832 shows a saw mill on Pike creek that had almost rotted down, and
which at the date stated was owned by David McMillan. Information from another
source fixes 1813 as the date of its erection; at a later date it was removed
and rebuilt by Mr. McMillan farther up the creek.

  The earliest hotels in Fort Covington were one at the west end of the lower 
bridge on Center street in a building a part of which is now the residence of 
Frank J. Bucklin, and one in the building now occupied by the Allen S.
Matthews estate as a tin and hardware store. Both of these were running in
1813, and perhaps earlier: the former with Alexander Campbell as landlord, but
by whom the latter was first kept I am unable to ascertain. Lemuel K. Warren
(who was a landlord at Hogansburgh in 1831) was its proprietor in 1820, and
William Cleveland had it in 1830. Mr. Cleveland had previously owned a
distillery in Malone, and kept a hotel on Webster street, near the Brewster
residence. Joseph Briggs erected a hotel almost on the international boundary
in 1816, which was known as the Briggs house for more than forty years.
Landlords there after Mr. Briggs were William Shedd, Albert Stebbins and John
McGregor. It is now a private residence, occupied by Edward Chorette. An act
of the Legislature passed in 1825 authorized the leasing of a quarter of an
acre of land owned by the State which was bounded on the north by Chateaugay
street, on the west by Salmon street, and on the east and south by Salmon
river (which is the lot where the creamery now is, or near it) to Benjamin
Sanborn, provided he erect thereon a tavern house and outbuildings, but with
the restriction that no part of the premises be used as a deposit for saw logs
or lumber. Whether Mr. Sanborn ever built the hotel I do not know. In 1825
Joseph Spencer, the elder, had a hotel the location of which I cannot fix.
Merchants by the name of Johnson advertised their store "in the rear of Joseph
Spencer's tavern." Harvey Clark had a hotel on the lot immediately west of the
school house grounds (now known as the Sawyer lot) as early as 1819 or 1820,
which he rebuilt in 1824. The new house burned in 1827, and while it is known
that Mr. Clark was still an innkeeper a year or two later, it is impossible to
determine whether it was at this same point or elsewhere. He was a
brother-in-law of Rev. Nathaniel Colver, who boarded with him in 1821, and who
wrote to Mrs. Colver that he could see from his chamber window "every morning
and evening from one to three deer within about a hundred and fifty rods,
playing in the meadows." James Parker had a hotel in 1830, which was probably
the present Northern Hotel on Water street,* which he is said to have built.
The latter has had many landlords since that time, among whom the following
are recalled: Osborn Allen (the grandfather of J. 0. Allen of Brushton),
Alexis Dutcher, Oliver Paddock, P. W. Stoughton, and David and Robert 
Stafford for a few years following the civil war, Tom Lee, Samuel McElwain,
Dan. Taillon and King Kellogg. During the Stafford regime Fort Covington was
engaged in a big fight to give the town a temperance character, but the
Staffords persisted defiantly in the sale of liquor, and were frequently
indicted and fined therefor. David became violently insane in 1873. Mr.
McElwain committed suicide by cutting his throat in 1883. Another old hotel
was the so-called "old red house" on Mill street, which was kept by Judge
James Campbell. The date of the building of the American or Spencer House is
unknown, but it was certainly in existence as early as 1837, and even may have
been the hotel kept by Joseph Spencer, the elder, in 1825, in the rear of
which was the Johnson store. Samuel Browning, afterward at Hogansburgh and
then proprietor of the Ottawa House in Montreal, kept the American House at
one time, and other hosts there include James Caul, Joseph Spencer, the
younger, N. Hollenback, Fitch O'Brian, Duncan M. Cameron, Alexander Gardner,
Charles Kellogg, and now Daniel Grant. This hotel was a military barracks in
1837 or 1838. when troops were stationed in the town to enforce our neutrality
laws during the Papineau rebellion in Canada. The American House and the
Northern Hotel are the only present inns in the town, and, unlike most other
towns in early days, Fort Covington does not appear to have ever had taverns
outside of the village.

  * The Northern Hotel was closed in the spring of 1918, and its furnishings 
sold at auction. It seems doubtful if there will ever be occasion to reopen
it.

  Fort Covington's first newspaper was the Franklin Republican, founded by J.
K. Averill in 1827, and then published by Samuel Hoard, with Francis D.
Flanders as associate editor, until 1833; the Franklin Gazette, established by
Mr. Flanders in 1837, and removed to Malone in 1845, when Mr. Flanders was
Assemblyman; the Salmon River Messenger (sometimes derisively called the
Mullet} which J. Dennison Fiske founded in 1851, and which J. Seeley Sargent
(who removed to New Orleans) published later until it was discontinued after a
year or so: the St. Lawrence Valley Record, founded by William Manson and
published for a few years until 1876, when it was discontinued; the Sun,
started by Ransom Rowe in 1885, and since his death, ten years afterward,
published by Isaac N. Lyons; and the Advertiser, established by Frank J.
Bucklin in 1910, but discontinued in 1917.

  Fort Covington Academy was chartered April 21, 1831, and notes were given to 
the amount of nearly three thousand dollars by a number of men of the
vicinity, with promise to pay annually the interest on their obligations
toward the support of the institution. The upper room in the town hall, which
at that time was on the Creed lot at the corner of Chateaugay and High
streets, was used at first for a school room, as it had previously been used
for a private academy that was taught in 1825 by a Rev. Mr. Crosby. A stone
building two stories in height was erected for it the next year on the public
square on the west side of the river, on the same lot that is occupied by the
present high school. The original structure was burned in 1874, and was
rebuilt in 1876. The academic charter was surrendered in 1904, and the high
school with an academic department authorized at the same time. The number of
academic students ranged for a long time in early days between twenty-five (in
1840) and seventy-five (in 1842), in which latter year the fees received for
tuition aggregated eight hundred dollars. The high school now employs three
teachers and has fifty-five pupils.

  Transportation conditions comprise an interesting story. In early years the 
Salmon river was navigable even for large boats to a point south of the 
international boundary, and much freight was sent out and brought in by water, 
and a considerable passenger traffic was fostered. Local parties were both 
steamboat builders and owners, though most who so operated lost amounts which
in those days were accounted a fortune. The principal market was of course 
Montreal, but in some cases shipments were made directly to New York city. In 
1866 two lines of steamers were running between Dundee, Que., and Montreal,
with competition so keen that the fare was only a sixpence; and in 1881 there
were four lines of boats plying between Dundee and Cornwall, Dundee and
Lancaster and St. Anicet, Dundee and Ogdensburg, and Dundee and Massena, each
having a good patronage. In those days Fort Covington got its coal by water,
and the price there was so much less than in Malone that in some cases it was
hauled by team from the former point to the latter, whereas now the Malone
price averages the lower. The channel of the Salmon is at present so shallow
that even motor pleasure craft scrape the bottom at some points   due in part
of course to the fact of filling in, but perhaps also to the fact that the
level of the St. Lawrence itself is claimed to be lower than formerly.
Something like thirty years ago the federal government made an appropriation
for dredging the Salmon, and in 1889 the State appropriated ten thousand
dollars for the same purpose. But there could be no value to these operations
so long as nothing was done from the boundary north, and Canada would do
nothing in the matter, as its engineers estimated that it would require a
hundred and fifty thousand dollars to dredge the river properly through the
Dominion to the St. Lawrence.

  But advantageous and beneficial as water navigation was in former years, the 
need for railway facilities was felt, and agitation to obtain them developed
in 1866, or perhaps a trifle earlier, and continued intermittently and 
spasmodically for fifteen or eighteen years before success was realized. The 
first movement of the sort of which I have knowledge began about 1866, when it 
was proposed to build from Potsdam Junction (now Norwood) to St. Lambert. Que. 
Public meetings were held in every hamlet in the northern part of the county, 
and as the constitutional prohibition against granting aid to private 
enterprises was not then in force Fort Covington voted to bond for
seventy-five thousand dollars and Bombay for fifty thousand dollars as a
bonus, while individuals pledged sums upon a like basis up to five hundred
dollars each. The undertaking never went further, and about 1868 a new project
was presented and urged   which looked to the building of a road via Malone to
Ausable Forks, where connection was to be made with the Delaware and Hudson
system. This also failed of practical result, and in 1872 the proposition was
advanced to construct a line from Montreal to Massena. Again Fort Covington
voted to give a bonus of seventy-five thousand dollars, Bombay of forty
thousand, and individuals generous amounts. Matters then dragged for ten
years, when construction was actually begun under Grand Trunk auspices, and
the line opened for business in 1883. No local aid was given except for rights
of way and some small personal subscriptions. In 1887 the contract was let for
an extension from Fort Covington to Massena, the work of building was rushed,
and thus Fort Covington gained a rail outlet eastward through Canada to New
England points and westward to the New York Central system, though the service
is not particularly good as respects passenger accommodations.

  The St. Lawrence Valley Agricultural Society was formed in 1871, and held 
annual exhibitions on well chosen and excellently fitted grounds to and 
including 1875   five in all. Enterprising farmers and business men stood by
the project enthusiastically and loyally, but every year expenses exceeded
receipts, so that when the affairs of the society were finally wound up in
1883 the life members, numbering seventy-five, had to pay about fifty-five
dollars each to discharge the debts.

  The first murder committed in Franklin county was perpetrated in Fort 
Covington February 2, 1825. The victim was Fanny Mosely, who had formerly
lived at Hawkesbury, Ont., where she had been married three or four years
previously to a worthless schoolmaster, and had come to Fort Covington for a
wedding trip. There her husband stole all of the money, two hundred dollars,
that her father had given her as a marriage portion, and also a sleigh and a
pair of horses derived from the same source, deserted her, and was never
afterward heard from. Thus abandoned and left destitute, Mrs. Mosely became a
tailoress, won general respect, and accumulated some property. In 1824 she
went to the Videtoes, two or three miles south from the village, to make her
home, and became engaged to Stephen Videtoe, with arrangements for the
marriage to occur a few days subsequent to the date of the murder. At the time
that the crime was committed Videtoe and Mrs. Mosely were alone in the house,
except for Videtoe's parents, who were sleeping in the kitchen. Videtoe had
pretended for some days previously that he had seen Indians about the
premises, and simulated fear that they meant to massacre the members of the
household. Accordingly he procured a gun and ammunition, and after darkening
the window with a blanket shot Mrs. Mosely, and, death not being
instantaneous, gave her wine which contained arsenic. She died after two or
three hours, ignorant that her affianced was her murderer. Videtoe gave out
the report that Indians had come to the house, broken the window near the
victim's bed, and shot through the aperture. At first his account of the 
affair was accepted generally as truthful, and, spreading with amazing
rapidity, soon brought men armed and grimly determined to hunt down the
assassins and give them summary justice. But no tracks were to be found in the
snow leading to or from the house, and, it becoming manifest that the window
had been broken from within instead of from without, and it appearing also
that the bullet could not possibly have taken the course it did if fired as
Videtoe had represented, the theory of Indian perpetration was quickly
abandoned, and Videtoe was arrested. The trial in the following July continued
for five days, and though the evidence was almost wholly circumstantial it was
deemed so convincing that the jury required only a few minutes to find a
verdict of guilty. Some features of the trial seem curious to-day. The
sessions of the court began at seven o'clock mornings, and were continued
until late every evening   the final session not having been concluded until
five o'clock in the morning. Just preceding or just following the judge's
charge, a prayer was offered by Rev. Mr. Colver. The execution was August 26,
1825, and was public. It occurred on the lot on Elm street in Malone, just
east of Mrs. Gilbert's, now owned by Harry H. Hawley, which was long known as
"gallows hollow." Crowds of people coming from all parts of the county were
present to witness the gruesome affair. Videtoe protested his innocence to the
last, and went to the gallows with a written denial of his guilt in his hand,
and even after the trap was sprung changed the paper from one hand to the
other and waved it at the crowd. The motive for the crime was of course never
positively known, but was conjectured to have been jealousy, or possibly a
desire to avoid the marriage. Videtoe was about twenty-five years of age.

  A second murder, suggesting in some of its phases the Videtoe affair, was 
perpetrated November 18, 1885, by Edward Gower. The victim was his wife. They 
lived in a rude hut west of Fort Covington Center, and had been to Brushton to 
market their turkeys. On the way home, both having got out of the wagon, their 
horse ran away, and Grower pursued it, leaving the woman to follow at her 
pleasure. Gower's story ran that after reaching home and waiting a time for
Mrs. Gower, he assumed that she had stopped for the night with a neighbor, and
went to bed. He claimed to have been awakened by a crash of breaking glass,
and to have fired through the window in the belief that mischievous boys were
about, and with intent to frighten them away, after which he insisted that he
returned to bed, and knew nothing of the fatal result of his shot until the
next morning, when he found his wife dead under the window. Blood prints on
the window casing indicated that Mrs. Gower had tried to get into the house
after she had been shot, and the belief was that she had returned home soon
after Gower himself arrived, had been thrust out by him, and then shot
deliberately through the window. The prosecution contended that it would have
been impossible to inflict the wound had Gower fired as he claimed to have
done. Mrs. Gower was seventy years of age. A plea of guilty of manslaughter in
the second degree was accepted by the court, and the prisoner was sentenced to
imprisonment at Dannemora for one year.

  A calamity of a different sort occurred in the town May 12, 1875, when a 
tornado swept over a section of the village. The schoolhouse near Malachi 
Barry's was unroofed, a daughter of Mrs. Fanny Brown instantly killed, and a 
child of Harry Lowe seriously injured. Others of the school children were also 
slightly hurt. The path of the wind was narrow, but ten or fifteen other 
buildings were partly wrecked, and in one case where a fence was destroyed
every post was pulled out of the ground.

  The record of public offices held by Fort Covington residents is formidable, 
and demonstrates that the town has not been slow in gaining recognition of the 
political claims of its people. Excluding minor positions, like coroner, 
associate judge of the court of common pleas, loan commissioner, attorney for 
the St. Regis Indians, subordinates in the customs office and clerkships at 
Albany and Washington, the list is as follows:

  School Commissioners.  William Gillis, George W. Lewis and William G.
Cushman.

  Deputy Collectors of Customs.  Seth Blanchard, John Hunsden, James Campbell, 
John McCrea, James B. Spencer, James Campbell, Samuel H. Payne, Ezra Stiles, 
George B. R. Gove, Ezra Stiles, Philo A. Matthews, S. E. Blood, A. S.
Creighton, George S. Henry, Sidney Ellsworth, Rodney Russell.

  Sheriffs.  James Campbell, James C. Sawyer.

  District Attorneys.  Henry A. Paddock, Walter Payne.

  Surrogates.  James B. Spencer, Henry A. Paddock.

  County Judges.  William Hogan, Roswell Bates, Joseph R. Flanders, Henry A. 
Paddock.

  County Clerks.  George B. R. Gove, Uriah D. Meeker, Francis D. Flanders, 
Edward A. Whitney, Almerin W. Merrick.

  Representatives in Congress.  William Hogan, James B. Spencer.

  Members of Assembly.  William Hogan, George B. R. Gove, James Campbell,
James B. Spencer, Jabez Parkhurst, Francis D. Flanders, Joseph R. Flanders,
George B. R. Gove, James W. Kimball, Allen S. Matthews.

  Presidential Electors.  James Campbell, James B. Spencer.

  It is interesting to note that besides presiding on the bench Dr. Roswell 
Bates was upon one occasion himself arraigned in circumstances that must seem 
amazing to the present generation, which apparently holds the Sabbath in so 
indifferent estimation. The doctor started one Sunday afternoon or evening
from Fort Covington to drive to Malone, where he was to spend the night with
his sister, Mrs. Leonard Conant, and then get an early start on Monday for a
visit in Vermont. At Westville he was overtaken by an officer, who,
apprehending him, escorted him back to Fort Covington, where he was arraigned
the next day and fined for having traveled otherwise than professionally on
Sunday. His church also took him to task for the offense, and disciplined him
by denying him the privilege of partaking the communion until he should
express penitence, which he did after half a year. At the time in question a
State statute prohibited traveling on the Sabbath except in cases of charity
or necessity, or in going to or returning from worship, visiting the sick and
certain other specified cases.

SOME FORMER RESIDENTS

  A number of former residents deserve special mention, some because of
notable achievements, and others because their life history is of exceptional
interest.

  William Purcell was born in Fort Covington August 15, 1830, and at the age
of three years removed with his parents to Rochester, where he became a
newsboy, then a printer, and at length an editor. He founded the Rochester
Union in 1852, and remained its editor except for a few months in 1884 until
his death in 1905. His retirement in 1884 was voluntary, and was dictated by
the fact that he could not conscientiously support Mr. Cleveland for the
Presidency. The Union was the strongest and best Democratic paper in Western
New York. Mr. Purcell was for six years a member of the Democratic State
committee, and its chairman in 1879. He was for a long time one of the board
of managers of the State industrial school at Rochester, serving as its
president, and was also a member of the State board of mediation and
arbitration. In 1881 he was defeated for Secretary of State.

  James McMahon, born in Fort Covington in 1831, removed while yet a child to 
Rochester, where, upon reaching manhood, he engaged in the book trade, and 
afterward in the transportation business in a large way. This work led to his 
removal to New York city, where he became connected with the Emigrant
Industrial Savings Bank in 1878, and continued with it until 1906, becoming
its president. The institution is the largest savings bank in the world, and
has over a hundred million dollars of deposits. Mr. McMahon was also a
director or trustee in several commercial banks, trust companies and fire
insurance companies, and was actively and usefully associated with a number of
important charitable and philanthropic associations. During the latter part of
his life he made his home in Brooklyn, where he was a member of the board of
education, but never held or sought any distinctively political office. He
died in 1913.

  W. H. Hawkins, born in Fort Covington in 1816, died at Potsdam February 9, 
1889. Mr. Hawkins was educated at Franklin Academy, Malone, and at an early
age entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church. Among other
charges served by him were Chateaugay, Fort Covington and Malone. He was also
once presiding elder of the Potsdam district. Retiring from the ministry, he
located at Potsdam, engaged in the mercantile business, and acquired a
competence.

  Daniel R. Cameron, brother of James ("Black Jim"), was born at Summerstown, 
Canada. Locating in Fort Covington, he was at one time in business with 
Preserved Ware, but removed to Chicago a good many years ago. There larger 
opportunities and his own fine qualities of good fellowship and excellent 
natural abilities led to big business connections. He was at one time
associated with the famous publishing house of Culver, Page & Home, and later
entered into a partnership with Mr. Amberg, whose index files are known
throughout the world. Mr. Cameron was president of Chicago's board of
education for a long time. He became wealthy, retired from business, and
removed to Altadena, Calif., where he had one of the finest homes in the
State, and entertained in a princely way. He died in 1918.

  William C. Kingsley as he was called in Brooklyn, but Kinsella as the family 
was always called in Franklin county and on the border, was born in the edge
of Canada, and really was not identified with Fort Covington except as a
student at the academy in his boyhood. He left the locality while yet a youth,
taught school and engaged in the contracting business in Pennsylvania, built a
railroad in Illinois, and at the age of twenty-five years located in Brooklyn
in 1858. There he continued in the contracting business, building a large part
of the city's water-works and sewerage system, improving the so-called
Wallabout district, and constructing the big storage reservoir at Hempstead.
He was among the first to suggest bridging the East river, and became the
foremost advocate of the project   arguing and elaborating the idea so
convincingly that the Legislature was persuaded by his presentation of the
matter in 1867 to authorize the undertaking, which in the beginning was
designed to be wholly a private enterprise. Mr. Kingsley raised the first five
million dollars for beginning the work, he and his partner making the largest
individual subscriptions for stock in the company. Mr. Kingsley became
superintendent of construction, and then was successively trustee,
vice-president, and from 1882 until his death president of the corporation  
serving in the last stated capacity without compensation, as he donated his
salary of five thousand dollars a year to the bridge fund. He was a director
in many semi-public service organizations of the city and in many financial
institutions, was particularly active and helpful in developing Coney 
Island and Prospect Park, and was the largest stockholder in the Brooklyn
Eagle. 
Though a leader .of the Democratic party in Kings county for a long time, and 
though both local and national dignities of a political character were more
than once within his reach, he never held public office. He died in 1885, and
Hugh McLaughlin said of him that he was the ablest man that ever took part in 
Brooklyn affairs.

  James Farnsworth Pierce, born in Madrid in 1830, practiced law in Fort 
Covington for a year or two in the fifties. Returning to St. Lawrence county,
he was elected county clerk on the Democratic ticket in IS 61. He removed to
New York in 1865, his Democracy ingratiating him promptly with the machine in 
Brooklyn, so that he was sent to the State Senate in 1868, and between that
date and 1890 was given four more terms in that body. In 1894 he was appointed
State superintendent of insurance, and in 1897 resumed the practice of law in
New York, where William A. Wolff (formerly of Malone) became one of his
partners. Mr. Pierce was not a particularly strong man, nor was he regarded as
finely scrupulous, but he was exceedingly adaptable, very genial and made
friends easily.

  Samuel Hoard came to Fort Covington in 1827, and purchased the Franklin 
Telegraph, which had been founded a few months earlier. Discontinuing the 
publication in 1833, he removed to Ogdensburg, where he published the St. 
Lawrence Republican. Removing to Chicago, he became prominent there and rich.
He had a beautiful home, was postmaster, and died in 1881.

    Old Grimes is dead, that good old soul,
            We ne'er shall see him more.

  The John H. Hatton letter from which quotations have been made states that
old Grimes, the veritable character of song and story, was at one time a
boarder at the Spencer House, and a few years ago, while on vacation at Fort
Covington, his old home, William Ryan, a newspaper man, wrote for the New York
Times what purported to be an authentic narrative of the Grimes character and
conduct in the vicinity. Mr. Ryan says that Grimes, whose given name was
Ephraim, came from New England, first to St. Agnes, Que., in 1835, and six
months later to Fort Covington. He was ostensibly a shingle maker and
shingler, though according to Mr. Ryan he performed no labor in all of the
time that he was at Fort Covington until just before his departure, and yet
always had money to spend, which it is said that he obtained by making
counterfeit silver coins. These he is represented to have sent to Vermont by a
woman to be put into circulation, and in exchange for which she sent good bank
notes to Grimes. After quitting the Spencer House as a boarding place he is
said to have lived in a hut in the outskirts of the village, and when, towards
the last of his stay, his spurious coins began to circulate in the vicinity,
and suspicion came to be directed against him, he sneaked away one night, and
never returned. The story runs, further, that after his departure his hut was
searched, and the dies which he had used were found in it. Mr. Ryan gives to
Grimes the character of a fertile and ingenious fabricator, an entertaining
raconteur to hear whom the people came from miles around, an inveterate jester
of an assumed simplicity and ingenuousness that made him a general favorite,
and that gained confidence for him until his actual operations became
suspected and finally proven.

  Charles E. Perrin was the son of Solon of Fort Covington, and a nephew of 
Henry J. Perrin, a respected farmer in Malone. Charles was a printer, and
worked in the Franklin Gazette office. He left Malone during the civil war,
and entered upon evil ways. Soon after the close of the war he paid Malone a
visit, and created quite a sensation by reason of his ultra fashionable dress
and fine presence and manners. A woman who posed as his wife accompanied him,
but it was afterward ascertained that there had been no marriage, and that the
relations of the two were illicit. Shortly afterward Perrin was convicted for
having burglarized a wholesale house in New York city by which he realized a
large amount of plunder, and was sentenced to imprisonment for four years,
which term expired in 1873. There is a story, though not authenticated so far
as I know, that he was also guilty of arson in New Jersey. In 1874 he
participated in a forgery scheme, the largest of its kind ever successfully
carried through, which marketed eight hundred thousand dollars of bonds of the
Buffalo, Erie and 'New York Railroad, the New York Central, and the Chicago
and Northwestern. The forging was done by others, and Perrin's part was to
sell the bonds, which were so cleverly executed that they deceived not only
the officers of banks, trust companies and bond dealers, but even the
officials of one of the railroad companies, who redeemed forty thousand
dollars of them without suspicion that they were spurious. Three bond houses
bought so heavily of them that their losses forced them into bankruptcy.
Perrin's individual share of the clean up is said to have been a hundred
thousand dollars, and when discovery of the forgeries was made he had
sufficient warning to enable him to escape to Europe. But in 1875 he was once
more in New York and again in a similar deal. He was recognized, arrested, and
sent to Sing Sing for a term of fifteen years, but within, eight months
plotted and organized with others a scheme for escape by firing the
bake-house. The attempt was successful as regards Perrin, and he again took
refuge in Europe, where he operated along his customary lines, first in Paris
and then in London. While he was not himself a forger of engraved securities
he appears to have been an expert in similar work where the pen would serve
his purposes, and in London he succeeded in swindling a bank heavily, for 
which he was sent to prison in 1877 for ten years. But he turned State's 
evidence, and was released in 1883, when he returned to this country by way of 
Canada, and proceeded to St. Louis, Mo. There he opened large accounts in a 
number of banks preparatory to plundering them later by means of forged
drafts. Again he was caught, convicted, and sentenced to ten years'
imprisonment, which, with allowances for good behavior, expired in 1892. Upon
his release he was delivered to the New York authorities to serve out at Sing
Sing the term to which he had been sentenced in 1875. He was transferred from
Sing Sing to Dannemora about 1898, and was discharged from the latter
institution in 1902. In the winter of 1903, while pretending to be in the real
estate business in New York city, he made a fake purchase of a country place
in Dutchess county for $10,000, and insured the buildings on it for $19,000.
Fire soon followed, and Perrin (then operating under the alias of Hall) was
arrested upon a charge of arson. According to Perrin, the seller of the
property was really the chief conspirator, and because he turned State's
evidence he was released upon his own recognizance in 1904, since when I have
not been able to trace him. Inspector Byrnes in his book telling of
extraordinary crimes and professional criminals says of Perrin that some of
his aliases were Stevens, Franklin, Cherwood, Williamson, and Vincent, and
that he generally wore a full black beard, dressed well, and conversed in an
easy tone. Byrnes characterizes him as "one of the most extraordinary
criminals that this country ever produced, and a man of great ability,
imposing appearance, and iron nerve," having been credited among his pals and
the police as one of the two "smartest people in his line in the world."
Except at the times when he was in prison Byrnes says that few extensive
forgeries were undertaken in which Perrin was not depended upon for the
dealings by which capital was to be duped into buying the output.

  Amos S. Kimball entered the United States volunteer army as quartermaster of 
the 98th regiment at Malone in 1862, served throughout the war, and then was 
continued in the regular army   eventually becoming quartermaster general. The 
final years of his service were spent in New York city. He died in Washington, 
D. C., in 1909. He is said to have been worth a million dollars.

  David, William and Allen Streeter are sons of Grindal and grandsons of 
Benjamin. They removed to Chicago several years ago, engaged in business there 
and prospered. At least one of them is now rated as a millionaire. David is at 
present a resident of California, and the old home in Fort Covington is packed 
with interesting art objects and curios that he collected in his travels over 
all the world.

  James C. Spencer was the son of Captain James B., and was a lawyer of bright 
mind and good attainments. He moved to Ogdensburg in 1854, where he practiced 
law and held the office of United States attorney for the district of Northern 
New York. Removing to New York city in 1866, he quickly formed friendly 
relations with the Democratic leaders, and enjoyed preferences and benefits 
through their influence. He became judge of the superior court, and was 
appointed receiver of the Erie Railroad. His first wife was a daughter of 
Benjamin Raymond and a sister of Mrs. Joseph R. Flanders. Miss Sarah Spencer,
a 
student at Franklin Academy more years ago than she would now confess, and in 
recent summers an occasional visitor to Malone as Mrs. Spencer-Browne, is his 
niece. Judge Spencer died in New York city in 1902.

Rev. Nathaniel Colver, who, next perhaps to Rev. Ashbel Parmelee, was the 
strongest man intellectually who ever served in Franklin county as a
clergyman, visited a relative in Fort Covington in 1820, and the next year was
solicited by a number of residents, irrespective of their several
denominational affiliations, to settle there as pastor of a church to be
formed. He accepted and remained for eight years   a tireless worker,
delighting in controversy and reveling in agitation of one kind or another.
His biography was written and published forty-odd years ago by a fellow
clergyman, and I condense from a copy of the work: Mr. Colver was a tanner and
currier by trade, and never had any schooling except during winters. His first
service in a pulpit was near Albany, where he had gone from his Massachusetts
home merely to hold, a prayer meeting. Though without the slightest
ministerial training, the circumstances at this meeting seemed to compel him
to preach, and he delivered three sermons without any previous preparation,
and under protest that he had not even a text and that he had utterly refused
in advance even to consider the suggestion that he preach. Mr. Colver
officiated not only as pastor of the Baptist church which he organized at Fort
Covington, but also held mission services at many points in Franklin and St.
Lawrence counties. He became a Mason at Fort Covington, but formally renounced
connection with the order in 1829, having practically withdrawn from it some
years previously. That was during the fierce anti-Masonic times, and his
course was productive of angry resentment on the part of those who continued
to adhere to Masonry, and of eager approval by the anti-Masons. Mr. Colver's
first public utterance in denunciation of the order was in the court house in
Malone before an audience that packed the room, and thereafter he continued
the crusade vigorously by speaking on the subject at many points in 
Northern New York and throughout Vermont. In 1829 he accepted a call from a 
church in Washington county, where he remained for ten years, though often 
during the period engaging in revival work at Poughkeepsie, Philadelphia, 
Richmond and other cities. In 1839 he went to Boston to take the pastorate of 
Tremont Temple, which was purchased at a cost of fifty-five thousand dollars
to be made over into a church expressly for him. There he remained until 1852,
and then removed to Detroit, Mich.  visiting Malone and Fort Covington on the
way, and preaching at both places. In 1856 he located at Cincinnati for five
years, and next was in Chicago until 1867, when he went to Richmond to found a
school for the training of negroes for the Baptist ministry. This school had
its beginning in a slave pen, known as Lumpkin's jail, and has grown into the 
Virginia University, a good sized college. Mr. Colver died in Chicago in 1870. 
He is said to have had a striking presence, with a power of address that 
entranced his hearers and often moved an entire congregation to tears. Once in
a church convention debate on slavery he replied to a Governor from a Southern 
State, speaking for an hour practically extemporaneously, with so impassioned 
force and eloquence that the Governor declared that though he had heard Henry 
Clay and Daniel Webster at their best, he had never before listened to such 
oratory. Almost unlettered when he began his work at Fort Covington, and never 
attaining to fine scholarship, and at times dropping even into crudity of 
expression and trampling upon grammatical construction, yet men in the
ministry who were distinguished for their educational acquirements pronounced
him one of the most engaging and strongest speakers that they had ever heard.
He was by nature impulsive, radical and intense. Besides his anti-Masonic
agitation, he became a zealous temperance apostle and a hot abolitionist and
open crusader against slavery. Men who were leaders in the latter cause took
him to full fellowship, warmly commending his work, while as a speaker on
temperance it was said that not even John B. Gough was more dramatic or
effective.

  Charles A. Gardiner ought not to be omitted from these biographical sketches 
notwithstanding he originated just north of the border, in Dundee. After 
completing his academic studies at Malone he took the full course at Hamilton 
College, then taught for a time, and studied law. Locating in New York city,
he came to have entire charge of the law department of the elevated railway 
companies, with sixty or more clerks under him, and was also the personal 
counsel of the Goulds. He was regarded as one of the ablest lawyers in the 
State, especially in matters of interpretation and construction of the State
and Federal Constitutions, and for some years preceding his death was a member
of the board of regents of the university of New York. He died in 1909, aged
fifty-four years.

CHURCHES

  According to a historical sermon by one of its pastors the Baptist was the 
first church organized in Fort Covington, and dates from 1821 or 1822, though 
Dr. Hough gives the date as 1824. It was formed by Rev. Nathaniel Colver, the 
original membership comprising but eleven persons if the sermon account be 
accepted, or nine if Dr. Hough be correct. The society had a comfortable
growth for a few years, but was weakened not a little by Mr. Colver's activity
and rancor in the anti-Masonic agitation. Services were held at first in the 
townhouse, schoolhouses or private residences. In 1829 a church edifice was 
erected, which was enlarged and improved and a bell purchased in 1852. Schism 
arose in 1843, growing out of opposing views concerning the pastor, and 
seemingly paralyzed church activities. The pastor was dropped from 1844 to
1848, when he was reinstated, and concord prevailed until 1868, when
dissension again developed, but from what cause, to what extent or with what
duration does not appear. With few exceptions the church had regular pastors
continuously until 1882, when a vacancy occurred for four years, since when
there have been many times when there was no pastor: and now, for five or six
years past, the society has been moribund because of deaths and removals of
members. Revivification is not contemplated.

  The story of early Presbyterianism here is obscure and complicated. The 
Associated Reformed Scotch Church had some sort of an organization 
contemporaneously with Mr. Colver's earliest labors, or possibly antedating
them a little, under the leadership and ministration of Rev. "Father" Brunson
or Brunton. Rev. James Erwin's autobiography gives him the former name, but
the latter is correct. "Father" Brunton was the father of the first wife of
John Burch of Malone and of John Brunton, who made his home in the seventies
and eighties with Mr. Burch. He was a quaint little figure of a man, with
twinkling eyes, always moving at a trot, and very rarely missing a Sabbath
service or a prayer meeting at the Congregational church. Though unbalanced
mentally, he had been highly educated, read or spoke a number of languages,
and was encyclopedic in his fund of general information. Mr. Erwin pictures
what seem to-day to have been amazing conditions as prevalent in the elder
Brunton's time. Mr. Erwin's father was a "ruling elder" in the church, and
both spiritually and socially was intimate with "Father" Brunton, who used to
spend his Saturday afternoons and evenings at the Erwins' home, and upon such
occasions invariably using the brandy decanter so freely that he was unable to
walk home unattended   Mr. Erwin's sisters always accompanying him and
steadying from either side. Moreover, "Father" Brunton always called at the
Erwins' on his way to church Sabbath mornings, and drew upon the decanter to
brace him for pulpit service. The morning sermon was never less than an hour
and a half in length, and in the afternoon (which service followed after only
a half hour's intermission) was still longer. Mr. Erwin adds that Mr.
Brunton's and his father's use of stimulants occasioned no reflections upon
them, as drinking was then common even among religious people. Both were
accounted examples of righteousness, with the "moral rigidness of Puritanism,"
but as a matter of course at that time they were animated with "sectarian
bigotry." When the younger Erwin united with the Methodists his father drove
him from the house for no other reason, though a reconciliation was effected a
little later through the influence of the mother. According to Dr. Hough, the
Brunton regime closed about 1821, after which a Rev. Mr. Crosby, a teacher in
an unincorporated academy in the place, started a Congregational church
organization, which continued weakly for a short time, and in 1827 a United
Presbyterian church was formed by Rev. Alexander Proudfoot, from Salem,
Washington county, with Rev. John A. Savage (who became the first principal of
the incorporated academy) as pastor. The next year the form of organization
was changed to Presbyterian simply, and association effected with the
Champlain Presbytery. The church edifice was erected about 1828 or 1829, and 
was rebuilt and enlarged in 1866.

  Quoting in abbreviated form from Rev. John Talbot Smith's history of the 
diocese of Ogdensburg, Cornelius, Patrick and Michael Dineen came to Fort 
Covington in 1822 from Ireland, and were soon followed by other Irishmen and 
Catholics until the number seemed in 1826 to warrant attention by Rev. Father 
Moore of Huntingdon, Que., who visited the place and said mass at the hotel.
At rare intervals thereafter during the next few years Father Moore or some
other priest continued such visits, but mostly the Catholics of the place
enjoyed their own church privileges only by journeying, always on foot, to St.
Regis or Hogansburgh. Rev. Father McNulty of Hogansburgh organized St. Mary's
church at Fort Covington in 1837, and a church building was erected the entire
male Catholic population turning out for the work. For the next thirty-two
years the parish was attended from Hogansburgh. The church edifice was
completed through the efforts of Rev. James Keveney, and it was not until 1869
that the parish became an independent one, comprising one hundred and seventy
families, with a resident rector. A parochial residence was bought at a cost
of three thousand dollars, and a little later the church was given a new roof
at about an equal expenditure. During the rectorship of Rev. Father Charles J.
McMorrow, in 1883, a new cemetery was purchased, and under Rev. Father James
McGowan the church was improved   a new floor laid, new pews put in, a tower
added and the interior generally beautified. Father McGowan contributed two
thousand dollars from his own means to the work, and also gave a bell. During
the rectorship of Rev. Father J. L. Desjardins, which began in 1911 and still
continues, a vestry has been added to the church and $2,300 of debts paid. The
parish includes 290 families, numbering 1,213 persons.

  So far as the records of the "First Methodist Episcopal Society in Fort 
Covington" show, the church was organized under the labors of Rev. Arzu J. 
Phelps, pastor, at a meeting held December 17, 1838, at the town house, "the 
usual place of worship," and the certificate of incorporation as recorded in
the county clerk's office bears the same date. But this was by no means the 
beginning of Methodism in the town, for the conference records show the 
appointment in 1830 of two ministers to the charge, which was even then
reported to have one hundred and seventy members, or nearly three times the
present number. Yet further, we know from Rev. James Erwin that there were
Methodist activities there at least as early as 1828, but whether under the
care of circuit riders, local exhorters or class leaders can not now be told.
It was in 1828 that Mr. Erwin, a mere boy, was won to the faith and united
with the denomination at the cost of expulsion from his home because of the
intolerance and anger of his father, who had designed that he should become a
Presbyterian minister. While we have no evidence or record in the matter, it
may probably be safely assumed, considering the then comparative importance of
the place, that Methodist ministration began even quite a bit before Mr.
Erwin's conversion. The explanation of formal organization having been delayed
until 1838 is doubtless that there was at about that time a religious
awakening of considerable proportions, as Rev. C. L. Dunning, then stationed
at Malone, had been holding protracted revival meetings there, and had been
followed in like effort by Rev. Jesse Peck (afterward a distinguished bishop
of the church), and in 1836 the membership had jumped to nearly three hundred,
but decreased in 1838 to eighty-six. The church edifice was originally located
a short distance from its present site, to which it was moved in 1838, when
Warren L. Manning gave the lot to the society and also erected the parsonage
at his own expense. In 1844 and 1845, for a year or two following 1866, and
from 1877 to 1901 it was joined with Bombay as a conference appointment, and
in 1875 with Westville Center. Otherwise it has always been an independent
parish by itself, with no out-charge. The present membership is about sixty.

  Unless, as is conjectured to have been the case, army chaplains of the 
Episcopalian faith may have held services occasionally during the war of 1812, 
the first ministration with the Episcopal ritual was by Rev. Eleazer Williams
in the old town house; perhaps in the thirties, or possibly along toward 1850,
at both of which times Mr. Williams was located at St. Regis or Hogansburgh.
Then there was no further manifestation of Episcopalianism here until about
1870, when Rev. William Stone Hayward, from Hogansburgh, visited the Fort 
occasionally, and held services in private residences. With the coming of the 
railroad in 1883 there were accessions to the feeble few who were striving to 
build up an organization, rectors came to be engaged regularly, and services 
were held in the Masonic Hall and then in the Baptist church. The society's
own church building was erected in 1898, and though small is of fine interior 
finish. The parish is at times without a rector, and even when so supplied has 
usually to depend upon divinity students from Montreal. The church numbers 
twenty-two members.

  Aurora Lodge, No. 383, P. and A. M., was organized in 1855. It has seventy-
eight members, and, with the exception of the fire company, is the only 
fraternal association in the town.

  The Aetna Fire Engine Company was formed in 1850, and has nearly always been 
strong and enthusiastic both as a distinctively protective and as a social 
organization. It has a building of its own, erected in 1900, which contains, 
besides quarters for apparatus, a hall for meetings and entertainments, a room 
for one of the town's polling places, and a store. The town contributed two 
thousand dollars toward the erection of the edifice upon condition that it be 
privileged to occupy a part. The engine of the company is of the old man-
killing, hand-brakes pattern, and has been the only protection of property
from fire ravage that the village has ever had, though a year or two ago seven 
thousand six hundred dollars was appropriated to lay adequate water mains 
through the principal streets, to be connected with a powerful force pump at
the electric light works. Thus there will be little use hereafter for the old 
engine, as the pumping facilities will furnish several strong streams capable
of reaching well above the highest buildings in the place.

  The Franklin County Bank at Fort Covington was incorporated by Lewis county 
men in 1840, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, with power to 
increase it to half a million dollars. Though four thousand dollars of the 
capital was paid in in cash and two thousand dollars in bonds deposited with
the State banking department as security for the redemption of the circulating
notes which it was expected to issue, the institution never opened for
business. Ela Merriam, afterward a prominent banker at Ogdensburg, was one of
the corporators. In those days a bank's capital was not required to be fully
paid in, and such institutions were not infrequently of decidedly a
speculative character, were often started by men who were not residents of the
places where operations were to be conducted, and failures were in startling
numbers. In the course of an excellent paper prepared a few years ago by Matt
C. Ransom, reciting the history of banking in our county, it is very plausibly
suggested that the organizers, though non-residents, were attracted to Fort
Covington by reason of the fact that there was then no bank in the county and
that the prosperity and natural advantages of the place seemed to carry the
promise that it must continue to hold primacy in the county as regards
financial affairs and general importance.

  A movement was instituted about 1888 or 1889 to organize a State bank, but
did not proceed further.

  The Fort Covington Banking Company was formed as a partnership in 1906 by 
George W. Higgins, James N. MacArtney, William A. MacArtney, Elbert 0. Forbes, 
William G. Cushman, James A. Smart and Frederic J. Dimond. Messrs. Higgins, 
Cushman, Dimond and Forbes are no longer connected with it. Requests for 
information addressed to the management have been ignored, and I am able to 
state only the general outside understanding or impressions relative to the 
bank's affairs. The nominal or perhaps the actual capital is supposed to be
ten thousand dollars. The institution has unquestionably proved to be a
convenience and benefit to the people of the place, and its owners are men of
substance and general trustworthiness. It is believed also to be prudently and
safely managed. Nevertheless the plan of organization is not the best for a
bank, for under its operation it discloses nothing whatever relative to its
condition, though appealing to the public for confidence and support; nor is
it under any official supervision or subject to official examination, or
required to carry any reserve. Banking on such lines in cities is absolutely
prohibited by law except in instances where individual deposits are each in a
large amount, and therefore presumably made by men who are competent to
safeguard their own interests without State intervention. Yet again, the
incorporated bank has to pay taxes on every dollar of its capital and surplus,
while the private banker is apt to escape all assessment except upon his real
estate. That is the case with the Fort Covington Banking Company, which, for
some unexplained reason, is not assessed at all on its personalty.

  Though advantageously located in many respects, with fine highways leading
to many attractive points within reasonable distances, and with waterways that 
invite delightful trips by sail or motor boat to beautiful islands in the St. 
Lawrence and to interesting shore places in Canada, Fort Covington is 
unfortunate in that the configuration and conditions of the adjacent country 
permit no possibility of a gravity system of water-works based upon a supply 
from springs. Cisterns and wells have always had to be depended upon for water 
for domestic uses, and so, of course, few of the residences have bath-rooms or 
toilet facilities, nor is there any general sewerage system. Were there water-
works, even with no better water than flows in the river, and sewers, there 
should be no reason why the village might not have a finely appointed summer 
hotel well filled with guests through the season, and become also a center of 
fine vacation homes of wealthy people from Montreal and cities of our own 
country. It would be an admirable point as well, with its historic
associations and varied natural attractions, for summer schools. It is
regrettable that enterprise and capital are not enlisted to provide what the
village needs in the regards indicated. Lacking these, there seems to be no
promise of large growth or of especial prosperity for the place.