Around Carthage and West Carthage

By Lynn M. Thornton

Early settlers followed the Black River up to Long Falls, the present site of Carthage and West Carthage, where they found fertile land and dense forests along the rushing waters. The river ran between the two villages and gave life to the young communities. Many industries, dependent on the waterpower, were established along the lower eastern bank, with businessmen settling on the highlands of the west bank. Mills sprang up where blinds, lumber, and furniture were manufactured, and planning mills, tanneries, and pulp mills flourished. After a devastating fire, which destroyed mills on both sides of the river, the focus of industry moved almost entirely to pulp and paper. By the early 20th century, the industry ushered in a golden age for the Twin Villages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Jun 16, 2008
• ISBN: 9781439620373

Lynn M. Thornton

Lynn M. Thornton is the town of Champion historian and a retired West Carthage elementary schoolteacher. She has partnered with Laura Prievo, town of Wilna and village of Carthage historian, and Harold Sanderson, village of West Carthage historian, to chronicle the rich history of the Twin Villages.

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INTRODUCTION

In the beginning was the river. Flowing north then westward between verdant banks, the Black River has served many generations, providing power, transportation, recreation, and drinking water for thousands of people. Native Americans followed its course into their hunting lands, referring to it as the Dismal Wilderness, and generally chose to live elsewhere. Early pioneers followed the river north from Lyons Falls and usually left the river before reaching the series of rapids that gave the original settlement the name of Long Falls.

In 1798, Henri Boutin purchased 1,000 acres on the east side of the river from Rudolph Tillier, an agent of the French Company. With a team of men, he began to clear the land but unfortunately was drowned in some manner (accounts vary). Vincent LeRay purchased his land at auction.

At nearly the same time, Jean Baptiste Bossuot of Troyes, France, came to America with Baron Wilhelm von Steuben (who later served with George Washington at Valley Forge) and remained at Long Falls after Boutin’s death, maintaining a ferry and an inn for travelers, both on the bank of the Black River. The ferry ran until the first bridge was built in 1812–1813. In later years, his home was on the corner of Dock and Canal Streets, which probably was the site of the inn he ran with the help of his wife. Bossuot died in Champion in 1847 at the age of 93.

When a post office was established about 1814, the name of Long Falls was changed to Carthage. Up to that time post riders had carried the mail. About 1833, LeRay established his land office on West Street in Carthage, which made the community even more important. The original title to all the lands in Carthage has since been derived from LeRay’s holdings.

At Carthage, the river expands into a broad and rapid stream spanned by a 500-foot bridge. There is also a railroad bridge a short distance above that crosses the river at a diagonal. Just at the beginning of the falls, a state dam was built in 1855 reaching from shore to shore, a distance, at that point, of 900 feet. The river at Carthage was a perfect place for industries, utilizing the drop of 55 feet in less than a mile for almost unlimited waterpower. As a consequence, during the 19th century and well into the 20th, a number of industries lined the banks on both sides of the river as well as on the many islands that stud this section.

The river watched the rise and demise of sawmills, flour mills and gristmills, sash and blind factories, a veneer mill, foundries and machine shops, the electric light works, and a number of paper mills. Today there are several paper mills and a machine shop; most of the rest are but distant memories. The number of people who made their living in the paper and wood product fields has shrunk dramatically as mills burned, were abandoned, or moved in search of a cheaper workforce.

The State Dam was not the first dam the twin villages saw; in 1806, David Coffeen came to Long Falls and began the erection of a gristmill on the west bank of the river. He also constructed a dam, extending diagonally up the stream from his mill, but not across the channel. The owners of the forge on the east side subsequently completed this dam. LeRay built the forge in 1816, and about the same time, he was largely responsible for the construction of the highway leading from Long Falls to the St. Lawrence River, known as the Alexandria Road. Also under LeRay’s direction, Claudius S. Quilliard built a blast furnace in 1819. The old forge burned soon after it was built, but in the following years, a larger capacity furnace was built. These blast furnaces eventually led to the founding of machine shops, which arose to complement the paper industry and other businesses on the riverbanks.

At the same time, as settlers continued to arrive, Carthage continued to grow. In 1812, the legislature authorized the construction of a toll bridge across the river, and in 1812–1813, the structure was built under the direction of Ezra Church. In 1829, because the old bridge was in bad repair, a new free bridge was discussed, and through the work of LeRay, Joseph C. Budd, and others, a set of five free bridges was built, from island to island, across the river. This series of bridges lasted less than two years, floods taking their toll. By this time, the upper bridge had been repaired and made free (1829), and former tollgate keeper Seth Hooker no longer collected fares. In 1840, a new covered bridge was built on the site, and by an act passed on April 11, 1853, the