Hopkinton: the Second Hundred Years

By Dale J. Burnett

Hopkinton, NY is a quiet little town in the northeast part of the state, settled by New Englanders and built in the New England style with a village green, white wood frame churches, and large Victorian houses. Life here has generally moved at a leisurely pace; yet Hopkinton’s people have had their dramas – both comedy and tragic - and their stories have been remembered.
In 1903, Carlton Sanford had a book published documenting the settling of the town from a wilderness in 1802 through its first hundred years of development and tracing the descendants of the first settlers.
Now Dale Burnett has written a folk history of the second hundred years, chronicling the events in the lives of Hopkinton’s people and the town itself through the 20th century.
Mr. Burnett has researched each separate district of the township and spoken with at least one person from each area to get its history from someone who lived there. In addition to the facts one would expect – businesses, history of the fire department, town officers - he has taken almost every house along each road in the town and listed the residents through the years, along with any tales that may have been told about them.
Based mainly on interviews with older Hopkinton folk, some of whom were alive when Sanford’s book came out, the stories handed down have been preserved as the old people told them. Facts are supported by newspaper articles, deeds and other documents. Included are tales of Hopkinton’s characters, its three or four murders, and its one kidnapping case with still unanswered questions.
And, following Mr. Sanford’s example, at the end of The Second Hundred Years are genealogies submitted by Hopkinton families, many of whom can still trace their ancestry to those early settlers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 14, 2008
• ISBN: 9781468568639

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© 2008 Dale J. Burnett. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/27/2021

ISBN: 978-1-4343-5185-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-6863-9 (e)

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Acknowledgements

To the people of Hopkinton who shared their stories with me, I will be forever grateful. They endured many hours of questioning, brought out their old family photos and documents, and permitted me to record their stories on tape. Sadly, many of them who hoped to see this book in print have now passed away without that opportunity, and I regret having taken so long in preparation for publication. Yet, it seemed to be the best I could do. There were too many contributors to list here, but I have credited most of them in the text. If there were others to whom I have failed to give credit, I apologize. Please know that I also appreciated your help.

I am thankful for the expressions of encouragement and appreciation for the job I was doing by a multitude of Hopkinton people. You helped to keep me going. Thanks for continuing to believe in me as the projected date of publication came and went again and again with no book!

Secondly, I would like to express my appreciation for my long-suffering wife, who took up the slack in household chores and maintenance while I spent years working on the book. In addition, I have Irene to thank for most of the photos of buildings.

I am indebted to town historian, Mary Converse, for her special interest in and encouragement for this project, for sharing photos and files with me, and for offering personal financial backing.

And finally, I thank my sister-in-law, Diane Crump, who was a partner in this project from the beginning. It simply would not have happened without Diane’s enthusiasm and conviction that we could do this. Diane took the responsibility of designing and helping to distribute questionnaires to townspeople, she participated in most of the interviews and took notes, and she researched and wrote some of the sections of the book. We had originally intended to be co-authors, but in the end, she suggested that we just put my name on the cover as author, since I had done most of the actual writing. Nonetheless, present and future generations must know that she was a driving force and an integral part of this project.

Preface

In 1903, Mr. Carlton E. Sanford of Hopkinton had a book published called Early History of the Town of Hopkinton. As he explains in his preface, his goal in writing the book was to capture to the extent possible the stories of the town’s founders and its settlement, which had occurred about 100 years previously. I am told that he paid for the publishing himself, and when he brought the books home from the publisher, went through town with a horse and a wagon loaded with the heavy (approximately 600-page) volumes and handed out signed copies to many of the town’s prominent families. Extra copies sat around in boxes for some years looking for a home. Like photos taken last week compared to those of fifty years ago, it took some time for the book’s value to be recognized and appreciated.

Varick Chittenden tells me that in his childhood home the copy of Sanford’s history sat on the bookshelf alongside the Holy Bible and Webster’s Dictionary, ready to settle any disagreement about the date of a local event or how someone in town was related to someone else. And the book occupied a position of similar importance in many Hopkinton homes. People penciled notes into the margins correcting mistakes and adding death dates and subsequent births, so that each family’s book became specifically their own.

It became increasingly difficult to obtain a copy.

In the early 1970s Sara Chittenden lent me hers, and my wife Irene, sister-in-law Diane, and I spent many delightful hours one summer reading, exclaiming, and sharing finds in the old book. Here were the homes of our relatives and childhood playmates! Here was Thomas Meacham, Irene’s and Diane’s ancestor! Here were elderly people we knew, listed as the youngest children at the ends of genealogies!

We were so happy to find all of this preserved that we felt someone should write a sequel, preferably while these elderly people were still alive and could provide some continuity.

With the enthusiasm of youth, we decided that Diane and I would write the book and Irene would be our photographer. However, for many years, the thought of writing took a back seat to life’s many responsibilities, and was only mentioned occasionally - generally when some elderly person had passed away, and we said, We should have interviewed him (or her) before it was too late!

Suddenly we found ourselves in our forties, and Irene said, If you are going to write that book, you’d better get going on it. If you wait until you have time, you’ll never do it. Set some days aside this summer and start.

One sultry July day in the early 1980s we met with Varick Chittenden on the porch of his parents’ home and discussed our plans, receiving suggestions and encouragement from him. No longer was it an idle dream; now that we had spoken of it to someone else, we were committed.

For probably 15 years we interviewed various people: Clark & Sara Chittenden, George Woodward, Esther Rankin, Nellie Macomber, Pearl McDonald, Ira and Gene Miller and others. We gathered information and put it away, but still hadn’t begun to write.

As the end of the 20th Century approached, the title The Second Hundred Years seemed an obvious choice.

When plans for the Bicentennial celebration were begun, my goal became to have the book ready for that occasion, and I took the intimidating first step of actually beginning to write. With retirement from my job as a schoolteacher came a little more time to write, but less than one might imagine.

Unfortunately, the Bicentennial of 2002 came and went without the book being finished, but that became my arbitrary ending point. Lives haven’t stood still since then. Children have been born; people have died; people who were together in 2002 have separated. We are sorry if our book causes anyone embarrassment or pain for this reason, but we would be writing forever if we tried to keep up with all of the changes. Except for a few events that sneaked in, any that occurred after 2002 will have to be included in next century’s sequel.

The last part of Mr. Sanford’s preface is a plea for the reader’s indulgence regarding the shortcomings of his book, and I am inclined to echo his sentiments. One could go on forever checking and rechecking facts, seeking more information, and revising one’s writing. However, as he suggests, one has to simply stop at some point this side of perfection. And in the case of a history, there is no such thing as completion.

How well I now understand Mr. Sanford when he writes of his book being a labor of love, a sacrifice of his time and finances offered willingly for the people of his town.

We beg the reader’s forbearance regarding the shortcomings of this work. Neither of us is a professional historian. We both have other obligations that take much of our time. We can’t spend as many hours poring over old records as we should, although we have done some of that. We are bound to omit people and events that someone else will think we should have included. For this we apologize, but we have had to rely on the cooperation of the people of Hopkinton for most of the information we’ve included. We tried to publicize our endeavor and open the door for submissions from all. If we didn’t know about it, we couldn’t include it. The mistakes this work is bound to contain may be the result of faulty information we were given or the result of errors in transcribing. In either case we apologize. If a fact is of real importance to you, please use this book to provide clues, but go to the primary sources for confirmation.

Finally, we offer no apology for what may seem a shortcoming to some. This book may include more anecdotes and personal experiences than some deem appropriate for a book purporting to be history. We feel that these are exactly what flesh out the dry facts of history and make it readable and interesting. Through the reminiscences of those who lived in a bygone time, we get a clearer idea of what life was like than by reading only the facts and figures. So, if this seems more like a collection of memoirs than a history, so be it. The tales told by Hopkinton’s men and women are too precious to be omitted. As the way of life and the men and women that we knew growing up began to vanish from the earth, it occurred to us that our own memories were legitimate sources for a book such as this. We almost qualify as old people, so without apology, we include our own reminiscences as well.

Dale Burnett

Diane Crump

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Hopkinton, New York

Part I: A Central Family

Chapter 1: The Chittendens

Part II: Houses and Those Who Called Them Home

Chapter 2: 11b East from Chittendens’ Corner

Chapter 3: Nicholville Village

Chapter 4: Route 458, The St. Regis Falls Road

Chapter 5: Days Mills Area

Chapter 6: County Route 49 & Ft. Jackson Area

Chapter 7: 11b West from Chittendens’ Corner

Chapter 8: French Hill & Lake Ozonia Area

Chapter 9: The Parishville Road

Chapter 10: Peck/ Beede/ Baldwin/ Beebe Road

Chapter 11: The Middle Road

Chapter 12: The Santamont Road

Chapter 13: Catherinesville

Chapter 14: White Hill

Part III: Activities and People

Chapter 15: Sesquicentennial Celebration

Chapter 16: Hopkinton’s Businesses (1900 - 2002)

Chapter 17: Schools

Chapter 18: Churches

Chapter 19: Entertainment through the Years

Chapter 20: Community Organizations

Chapter 21: Hopkinton - Ft. Jackson Volunteer Fire Department

Chapter 22: Town Officers

Chapter 23: Wars

Chapter 24: Weather

Chapter 25: Headlines

Chapter 26: Hopkinton Characters

Chapter 27: Bicentennial Celebration

Chapter 28: Genealogies

Hopkinton, New York

Hopkinton, as I remember it in the 1950’s, was a quiet hamlet with large, neat homes, huge maples and elms lining its paved streets, and two pretty, white churches thrusting steeples skyward above the trees.

Hopkinton was a farming community. It was not unusual to come out of the Catholic Church on a hot summer Sunday to find Si Eakins’ herd of holsteins lying in the shade of the huge poplar, just across the fence from the Church’s dirt driveway. This proximity of cattle to public places was not a concern in those days; the abundance of flies was taken for granted, and no one minded the smell, which was very mild compared to today’s farms where cattle are confined to barns or feed yards, and liquid manure systems are state of the art. Besides Si’s farm, there was the Jones farm across from Chittendens’ Store, and heading down toward Ft. Jackson, there was Sid Conklin’s on the right and Johnny Burgess’ straight ahead on the curve before the bridge. Of course, it was all farms once you got out where homes were farther apart, but these were tucked in between businesses and homes in downtown Hopkinton!

The businesses in Hopkinton were Yentzers’ gas station, a tiny building in the Y of Routes 72 and 11B, Gene Miller’s garage beside the brook in the hollow, Chittenden’s store, Wrights’ Wholesale, and Wellers’ gas station across from the new school.

On the way to Nicholville was Boulds’ Farm Supply, which also sold new cars, snowmobiles, and chain saws at various times, and Boulds’ propane gas business. On the corner of 11B and the St. Regis Falls road was Jimmy Tharrett’s gas station and corner grocery - on the edge of Nicholville, but still in the town of Hopkinton.

In Fort Jackson, there was a locker plant on the corner by the bridge, where people rented freezer space in the days before most homes had freezers. At one time there was also a GLF feed store in the same building. Just down a door or two from there was Lila Clifford’s IGA, a pretty large grocery store for a small town.

Out on 11B toward Potsdam, close to the Hopkinton town line, was another good-sized grocery store, run first by the Fiske family and then by Nelson and Dorothy Grant.

Most of Hopkinton’s residents bought their groceries at Chittendens, Leila Clifford’s or Fiskes/Grants. However, the terminology in those days was traded at those stores or did their trading. These terms must have been a carry-over from an earlier time when people traded home-grown produce for store-bought necessities, but in my day, the only thing traded was money for goods.

When I was a teenager working on Lyle Greene’s farm in 1963, I often heard him expound on the short-sightedness of people who traded in Potsdam or Massena, just so they could save a few dollars, instead of patronizing local merchants. He explained that buying from local merchants provided jobs for Hopkinton people and put money back into the community, but most people weren’t smart enough to see beyond the few bucks they were saving on their groceries. He must have been right, for in a few short years everyone was buying their weekly groceries in Potsdam or Massena and several of the local stores had gone out of business, unable to make a profit.

Hopkinton of the 1950s had a brand-new elementary school. Most of the men who weren’t farmers worked at Alcoa and earned higher wages than they had ever known before. It was an optimistic, forward-looking time.

Life was quiet; TV was just coming in, providing entertainment at home and opening a window on the world. In summer the young people swam in the brook or hung out in the park. In winter they gathered on whatever hill provided the best sliding.

This is the Hopkinton that I first knew when I reached the age of awareness, and it is from this reference point that we will take a look in both directions - at that Hopkinton of the first half of the century, that dim and shady period before my time, and at the changes that have taken place from mid-century on.

PART I: A CENTRAL FAMILY

CHAPTER 1:

THE CHITTENDENS

It seems appropriate to begin our historical tour with the Chittenden family, since their store was right in the center of town, and they have played such a central role in Hopkinton’s development.

According to Clark Chittenden, his great grandfather, who was also Clark S. Chittenden, came to Hopkinton from Vermont in 1821 and started a mercantile business and an ashery. (Long-time Hopkinton residents will remember the sign on Chittenden’s store proclaiming, Chittendens, Since 1821.) In those early days, there was so little money in town that most business was done by barter. Mr. Chittenden bought potash from the farmers, which was sent in barrels on wagons pulled by teams of horses to Plattsburgh, where it was exchanged for merchandise. Those trips would take a week or ten days. From the potash business, he went on to buy butter and other dairy products from the farmers and to sell more and more goods. A look at Clark Chittenden’s ledger was almost as good as a town census, for nearly every family in town did business with him.

Chit%20store%2010.jpg

Original Chittenden Store; Clark S. Chittenden house to right

In 1868 and 1869 his sons, Varick A. and King S. built a fine store with a beautiful apartment upstairs, where Wilber’s Hardware now stands. That building burned in 1927, and was replaced by the present building, but according to Varick’s grandson, Clark, the first building was far superior to this one. It was made of stone, and in the upstairs apartment there were three bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, front room, and a beautiful parlor, as well as considerable storage space in the back and above it.

I have recopied a newspaper article dated March 1927 regarding the fire. (Throughout this book, I have cited sources whenever possible, but in this case, as with many of the newspaper clippings I have used, it came from someone’s scrapbook with no indication of which newspaper it was from.)

HOPKINTON

There was a very serious fire in town on Thursday morning when the Chittenden block burned to the ground. The alarm was spread about five-thirty a.m. but the fire had such a start there was no chance to save the building or its contents. The people got busy and cleaned the barns of Mr. L.A. Chittenden because there did not seem to be any chance of saving them, as they stand very near to the store and the wind was blowing the flames over them all the time.

The Nicholville fire department came with hose and laid two lines from the brook and by means of this and hard work of the men the barns were saved. Although they caught afire many, many times and considerable damage was done to the roof. The fire burned all day and all night as there was a great quantity of kerosene and oil and such things to burn. Men guarded it night and day so there would be no danger to the nearby buildings. In this building were the town clerk’s office, post office, and a large stock of dry goods, groceries and grain. There were rooms overhead for a family, but no family was living there. This store was an old landmark, standing for nearly a hundred years. And it will be greatly missed by everybody. The Winthrop fire department came and did a great deal of work, after the walls of the store had fallen in, for at this time the flames seem hottest on the barns. They would have been here sooner but they had to break their own roads from Brasher to North Lawrence through the hard snow roads. They certainly did their utmost to get here to help. And everybody appreciates what the neighboring townspeople did to help us during the fire as if it had not been for their help it would surely have been more serious.

For generations the Chittendens have been among the most respected citizens of Hopkinton. They married into other respected families, such as the Hopkins, Sanfords, and Risdons. For four generations, (Clark S.; Varick and his brother, King; Jay; and Clark) they ran the store in the center of town, while also serving in various town offices and faithfully supporting the Congregational Church.

I suspect that earlier generations of Chittendens were more removed socially from the uneducated working class citizens than Clark and Sara have been. In earlier days, those who were educated and had money were held in awe and lived in a different world from the woodcutters and the farmers.

Although Clark and Sara have been just as respected, they showed no trace of snobbery toward their less-educated, coarser neighbors.

Chit%20store%208.jpg

After the Fire of 1927

Chit%20store%203.jpg

The new store built in 1927, never considered by the family to be quite as

good as the original. Note the mill or granary to the right which survived the

fire (later used as a fire station) and note the little gas station in front of it

I asked Clark about this, wondering if he and Sara had deliberately tried to make themselves more approachable, or if it just happened as society changed.

Clark responded with his typical self-deprecating humor, Well, my great-grandfather and my grandfather made a good deal of money, and the rest of us ever since have been doing our best to lose it.

That may be a telling comment regarding the economic situation of the family (although many of the financial problems were a result of changing times as much as anything), but, money-matters aside, I’m sure there’s a changing trend. In today’s world, when the average citizen is better educated than he was a generation or two ago, there is less prestige granted those with greater education. Likewise, in this day when even presidents have their shortcomings made known to the general public, the sense of awe toward leaders on any level has been lost.

To pick up the Chittenden story from where it was left in the Early History of Hopkinton, our modern day Clark was born 8 April 1902 in the back bedroom of the apartment over the old store, and lived all of his life within a few hundred feet from where he was born, close by his grandfather and his uncles and cousins. In 1909, his family moved to the house next to the store, which had been built by his great-grandfather Clark S. There on 13 December 1909 his sister, Charlotte, was born.

JHC%20family%202.jpg

Jay, Clark, Charlotte (Miller), Gertrude Hoyt Chittenden; taken about 1915

Young Clark spent a great deal of time in his early years listening to tales of bygone days, whether hanging out in the store or at family gatherings. One such story provides an interesting contrast between then and now:

When Clark’s dad, Jay, was a boy, his father, Varick, called him in one morning and said, I’m going to send you on a little trip today. Your grandfather is coming in on the train, and all the men are busy, so I want you to go down to North Lawrence and meet the train.

He had never been sent on a trip like that before, and he was pretty proud to be trusted and eager to show that he could do it.

In Clark’s words:

Now it was in the spring of the year. They’d had a lot of rain, and the mud was butt deep, and there’d be places where your wheels would drop in a hole and then you’d be right down on the axle in mud and water. My grandfather said, I think you’d be more comfortable taking the two-wheeled cart than you would with the carriage. The cart had a comfortable seat and there were just two wheels to get bogged down in the mud rather than four. So he sent him down there. Now see how different that is. He was a boy probably 9 - 10 years old . You wouldn’t dare send a child that age on such an errand today.

Back to the story though. He got to North Lawrence and he picked up his grandfather and they started toward home. Of course, there was just mud everywhere, and the horse was going in the mud and the wheels sinking , and at times you’d come out of it some where it was drier. Not dry, mind you, but out of the thickest of it. Well, he hadn’t got very far out of North Lawrence when my grandfather said, Is there something wrong with this horse, boy?

My father said, No, I don’t think so.

Well, he said, Don’t you think we’d better go along home? You want to remember that the quicker we get there, the longer the horse will have to rest afterward.

I guess he was a bad man on horses. I heard another story that he said there would be a lot of horses after he was dead, so let’s use them while we’re here.

Of course, as soon as you tell a boy, I suppose, to let that horse go, that’s all he needed. From there on in, he brought him home. And the mud flew, and, oh, they were a muddy mess when they got home.

In addition to the contrast between what was expected of children then and now, I was struck by the fact that I was speaking with a man whose father had known one of Hopkinton’s early settlers. A man just one generation away from knowing the Clark S. Chittenden of the early history.

Like his father, Clark was entrusted with a horse at an early age. On his ninth birthday, his father decided that he should have a horse, so he bought a mare fromFrank Perry, who lived up on the Meacham Road. Frank had a team of gray mares that were getting up in age, and something happened to one of them and she had to be put down, so he decided to sell the other. Clark’s father bought it. He says:

He gave me this mare in April, and by the time haying rolled around, Uncle Lawrence and I had got together and he hired me and my horse to do the raking that summer. A dollar and a half a day, horse and driver. And I raked every spear of hay on that pretty-good-sized farm. Except one afternoon I got a little behind, and he put a team on the two-horse rake for about an hour and a half to catch up on the scatterings. The rest I raked myself. That was back in the time when that farm went from the Catholic Church to Frank Squires’. A pretty good chunk of land. He used to cut some hay! Never had any dairy cattle on that farm until the last 25 or 30 years. Before that there was nothing but beef cattle. He used to put 50 steers in the barn in the fall and feed them good all winter. You could stand and look down the line of steers, 40 or 50 head of them, and their backs were all just as level. In the spring, it came time to sell them, and when they let those steers loose, somebody was busy taking them to Potsdam, I’ll tell you. They walked them to Potsdam. They had some hired men and they had saddle horses, but those cattle would go into every driveway and every place they could turn off between here and Potsdam.

For a number of years Chittendens’ Store housed the Hopkinton post office, so it was even more the hub of Hopkinton, but even when it was only a store, people always seemed to gather there. Here politics were discussed and here the oft-repeated tales were told which highlighted the quirks and follies of Hopkinton’s characters, as well as the noble and courageous deeds that were worth retelling. Young Clark grew up in this environment, absorbing stories of Hopkinton’s residents, both living and dead. Many a time a disagreement would break out over something like what year the flood took the bridge out or what year Mark Harran’s barn burned, and Clark’s dad would always settle it by calling Kittie Meacham Irish on the old crank phone and asking her to check in her diary. She had kept her diary so faithfully that she always had such events written down. What a help those diaries could have been in preparing this history!

Eli Roberts was noted for having a bad memory, and - this was back in the days when they used to take in milk down here at this little factory. It was near where Gene Miller’s garage is now. You turned in and went down a little slope, and the factory was there by the brook. Back then, of course, milk wasn’t trucked to Ogdensburg or any place; it was processed right here. Well, Eli and his wife had a little farm on the Lake Ozonia road, the first farm right up there before the brook. Eli had a very poor memory and - most of these stories were so funny because he would tell them on himself. So... one morning he brought his milk down and he said to somebody, I got a little more milk this morning.

The fellow says, Why’s that?

Well, Eli said, Something happened last night, and - you know, I forgot to milk them. ...But I gave them an extra good milking this morning!

Truman Post was a peculiar man. He used to come into the old store, and they had the post office there, and he’d walk right around the back of the post office and get his own mail. If my dad had some new fellow come to work for him, they always waited to see how the new fellow was going to be treated by Mr. Post.

I remember Sandy Grant from Brasher came to work for my dad, and the other fellows that worked around there said, Let’s put Sandy to the Post test.

Well, Sandy had had a little schooling in history, and I guess he had found out that he and Mr. Post were slightly related somehow. I don’t know - maybe his great grandfather had gone to a picnic with Post’s great grandmother, but anyhow they were supposedly distantly related. Mr. Post had been pointed out to him, but they had never really met.

So this morning, Mr. Post came down, hitched his horse to one of the posts outside, came in, stood around a few minutes, and then proceeded to walk around the back of the post office to get his mail. Sandy saw him and came rushing up from inside to the back of the counter and asked, Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Post?

That’s all it took. He said, If there was anything you could do for me, I’d be calling for you. I can do anything I want to do right here myself.

So much for Mr. Grant buddying up with Mr. Post.

Hazel Perry’s husband, Bill, was quite a character. I remember one time he was in the store, and Ike Hopkins had a woodlot that Bill wanted to buy. A man used to buy a woodlot just to own something. I don’t think they ever went to it. I know in Ike’s case he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t have done any heavy work. But...he had this woodlot. Well, Bill wanted to buy it because he wanted the wood, so this day he was in the store chewing tobacco. He was a sharp one. Ike came in, and Bill said, Ike, would you want to sell me some of that woodlot?

No, Ike said, I guess not. Someday I might want a cord of wood.

Why, Bill says, What in hell you talking about? Mike Hammill’s got all the lumber you’ll ever want. (Mike Hammill was the undertaker in Winthrop.)

Clark’s father, Jay, owned a small house on the west side of what is now County Road 49, between the places now owned by Reg Baldwin and Ronnie Baldwin - where Joyce Olson’s home is now. An old man named Duff Clark lived there at one time. Jay Chittenden had a horse named Old Dandy that had the run of Hopkinton. For some reason, Old Dandy didn’t like Duff Clark and used to chase him. Years ago Jay kept this place for the man who drove teams for him to live in with his family. Charlie Peck was one such teamster who had a remarkable talent with horses:

Charles Peck worked for my father for thirty some-odd years, driving the team every day except Sunday to North Lawrence or Potsdam or wherever the stuff would come in, bringing freight and merchandise and feed to the store. He was a professional horseman! By that I mean a groom, if you will. He could take a team of horses, and after he’d had them awhile, do anything with them and never get off the seat or never touch the lines. He’d talk to them. And they’d do what he asked them. My father used to go to Boston once a year to buy merchandise, he and Mr. Knowlton from Nicholville. One year they went down. Mr. Knowlton wanted a team of horses for his business, and my dad - I guess he always wanted a horse when he saw one that he liked, so they had two teams shipped home. Dad’s was a pair of bays - bright bays - beautiful pair of horses! They were just a year apart - Tom and Jerry. Oh, they were a beautiful team! Charlie could hitch them onto the delivery wagon and go to Potsdam in just four hours. But when he’d get back at 4 or 5 o’clock in the afternoon - I’ve seen him do this countless times - he’d unload at the store, drive away from the loading platform at the side of the store, go down in back of this building that used to be the mill by the barn here. He’d swing them in there, back the wagon in and unload the rest, then go out and drive over home and back the wagon into the shed where it was stored for the night, and never touch a line! He’d just talk to them: Gee and Haw and Tom or Jerry. That’s the way he handled them.

Clark attended elementary school at the old Hopkinton Village school just down and across the street from his home, but when he graduated from there, he went to Potsdam for high school.

In 1927, he married the former Sara Willes Clark, daughter of Horace and Fanny Towne Clark of Potsdam. He says that his father went to Parishville to find a wife and brought her back to Hopkinton. He went to Potsdam and did the same.

Sara had been born October 22, 1904. She grew up in Potsdam and graduated from Potsdam High School, then went to Sargent Physical Training School in Cambridge, Mass. for two years, returning to Potsdam to graduate from Crane School of Music in 1926. That fall she got her first job teaching music in Saranac Lake School District. She taught at three different schools, supervised thirteen teachers, and earned $1400 a year. That worked out to about $35 a week, from which she paid $10 for room and $10 for board and felt she was making good money. With such affluence, she bought seven new hats, and took a trip to Philadelphia to visit her sister. The next year she came home and married Clark Chittenden. She says that she had loved him since she was twelve years old and met him among her older sister’s friends who had come to their home as part of a progressive dinner. She had waited on tables. Sara says that he was too good-looking to pass up.

In 1927, after their marriage in Potsdam, the newlyweds moved to Hopkinton. They had originally intended to live in the apartment over the store, but it had burned February 24th of that year, so they rented the house next to the store from Clark’s uncle, Lawrence Chittenden for a year. The next year they moved into the next house east, known as the King S. Chittenden place in the old history, which they shared with Clark’s parents, Jay and Gertrude Hoyt Chittenden for many years. Here Clark and Sara raised their three children: Ann, Varick, and Jay. In the early 1960s they bought the house where they had lived the first year of their marriage and lived together here until Clark passed away in 1988 at the age of 86. This is where Sara still lives.

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Sara Chittenden in 1996

Sara taught music in rural schools, which she says was her favorite of all of her teaching jobs because the students in those schools so looked forward to her coming and the change from their normal routine. Later, she taught music in the Parishville-Hopkinton district, including Hopkinton elementary school. Over several decades, she also taught elementary vocal music and was choir director at St. Regis Falls Central School and Brushton-Moira Central schools. She served as organist and leader of the choir in the Congregational church from 1946 until her retirement in 1996. In addition she was often called upon to play the organ at weddings and funerals, regardless of the denomination, and was simply looked upon as the music person of Hopkinton. Since her official retirement, it has become a tradition for her to play the last hymn each Sunday that she is in church. At the time of this writing, she is 96 years old and continues this tradition.

Meanwhile, Clark served as town clerk from 1927 to 1935, welfare officer from 1935 to 1942, and town supervisor from 1960 to 1973. In 1968, he was elected chairman of the St. Lawrence County Board of Supervisors. He helped organize the Hopkinton-Ft. Jackson Fire Department and chaired the Hopkinton Sesquicentennial Committee in 1952. For many years, he was a trustee of the Congregational Church. From 1946 to 1966, he operated Chittenden’s Store. After the store closed, he worked as an assistant administrator at the Highland Nursing Home in Massena.

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Jay H. Chittenden, left & Cyrus Gotham, right

In the 1950’s, when the store was going strong, people out in the country without cars would call Clark Chittenden and read him a grocery list over the phone. At the end of the day, he would pick their order off the shelves, pile the groceries in the back of his car, and deliver them. Unless, of course, he had help in the store. Then he wouldn’t have to wait until closing time to deliver.

A few people worked in Chittendens’ Store besides the family. Charlie Snickles from Ft. Jackson worked there for a short time as a teenager. Marjorie Tebo from the Lake Ozonia Road, and Cyrus Gotham each worked there for years.

Three children were born to Clark and Sara. Ann, born in 1933, married James Murphy. They have four children: Carol, Lynn, Michael, and David. Varick, born in 1941, married Judy Campbell. Varick became a professor at Canton College, where he taught for many years. His special area of expertise was local history and folklore, and he was instrumental in starting the organization known as TAUNY (Traditional Arts in Upstate New York). Jay, born in 1946, married Jamie Wilson, a Hopkinton girl, and had one daughter, Jessica.

In 1969 Varick and Jay in partnership reopened the family store, but this time featuring local crafts and antiques, rather than the groceries and general merchandise which their ancestors had sold. It was in operation until 1975, when the economic conditions of the day necessitated selling the store.

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Varick Chittenden in the store about 1970

Note the ancestor photos on the wall: great-great grandfather,

Clark, great-grandfather, Varick, and grandfather, Jay

In the 1980s we had the delightful pleasure of interviewing Clark and Sara several times in preparation for this book. They were a rich source of information as well as entertaining speakers, and we are grateful to have several of these interviews on tape.

In 1987, Clark and Sara celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, and in 1988 Clark passed away at the age of 86.

Charlotte Chittenden married Lyndon Miller, son of George H. and Nellie Wolfe Miller, who lived in the neat little house across from the village green between the Laughlin house and the Kent house. Charlotte and Lyndon lived in various houses in and around Hopkinton, including the one next to the Charlie Witherell place at the time of his murder. (That is the one mentioned above as the Charles Peck residence.) They had one daughter, Janet, who attended Hopkinton and Parishville schools. Janet married William Carey and has four children: Tim, Lynn, Jay, and Dan. Lyndon raised race horses and trailered them to races at Vernon Downs and other tracks and state and county fairs. In later years they built a small, ranch style home with a small neat stable on the Middle Road, where Kenneth Davis now lives. Charlotte died in 1980 and Lyndon in 1983.

Lawrence Chittenden, born in 1876, was the half brother of Jay, being the son of Varick A. and Laura Lawrence. He lived in one of the largest and most elegant homes in Hopkinton, just north of the store. His house is shown in the old history, labeled the Varick A. Chittenden residence. Lawrence married Martha McEwen, the sister of Senator Robert McEwen’s father. They were from a farm on McEwen Road in the Town of Lawrence. Lawrence and Martha had three children, Laura, Edna, and Carlton.

Laura married Ed Wagoner. They lived on the Isaac R. Hopkins farm in the Y between Routes 72 and llB. Ed farmed the place from 1941 until about 1953, but he was an educated man and, seeking wider horizons, turned to engineering soils investigation.

In 1960, the Wagoners moved away to Niagara County, NY. Laura died in 1984 and Ed in 1990, both in Niagara Falls.

Their son Larry married Kathleen Ellsworth of Youngstown, NY. They are now divorced, and Larry lives in western Oregon. He has a daughter Jennifer in Oklahoma and a son Justin. Larry came from Oregon to Hopkinton for the bicentennial celebration in 2002 and added to my information about his family. I had not seen him in about 40 years.

Dianne Wagoner made a career of the Air Force. She married Robert Oberlander and lives in Youngstown, where she has a horse boarding stable. (This will come as no surprise to those who remember her as part of the horse-loving crowd at school.) She has no children.

Claire married Jeffrey Shultz, a grape farmer in Ransomville, NY. She has no children.

Steven served in the army, and then married Denise Barbalate. They live in Wilson, NY and have two sons and a daughter.

Edna was killed in an automobile accident on River Hill at the age of 23. She was a school teacher at the time, and was riding home with a friend, a McKellam girl, who was driving. River Hill was the name given to the big ravine where Route 11B crosses the west branch of the St. Regis River on the Potsdam Road. Before the new bridge was put in to span the ravine high above the water, River Hill was always a challenge to traffic, particularly in the winter time. They were coming down the Potsdam side, got into the curve going too fast, and couldn’t make it. Edna was killed, but the driver survived.

Carlton married Helen Beecher, daughter of Milo Beecher and Virginia Kent. They lived in the big house, and Carl ran a grain business. They had one son, Kent.

The Carl Chittenden house, as later generations referred to the Varick Chittenden residence, burned May 10, 1978. It was where Vincent and Barbara Parker built their log home.

PART II:

HOUSES AND THOSE WHO

CALLED THEM HOME

When I travel through the towns in Vermont that my ancestors were from, I would give anything to know exactly where they lived so I could better visualize their lives. Thinking that descendants of Hopkinton folk might have the same interest, I have endeavored to write a little about the history of Hopkinton’s homes. In this section, we will go up and down the roads to share what I have learned about each house and the families that lived there. I must caution the reader that this information, for the most part, is not the result of scholarly research, but simply what people have told me from memory, although occasionally I have found supporting documents. In those cases, I have cited the sources. In the course of my work, I have discovered and corrected too many mistakes to assume that the remainder of my data is free of them. Please do not assume that because something is written, it is fact. Use this data as clues, and do your own research if you really want to know. A person’s memory cannot always be trusted. And I have been known to misunderstand.

It is possible to go to Canton and trace the ownership of an individual house definitively, but, not only would that be too time-consuming to do for each house; it would not serve our purpose in this work. Many times someone owned a house, but never lived in it. Many times people lived in a house for years, but never owned it. We are more concerned with who lived in a place than who owned it.

Years ago it was fairly common for a gentleman to buy a farm and have others live on it and run it for him. People were not so quick to take on a huge debt as they are today, so a man might run a farm for someone else on shares, saving up money, gaining experience, and maybe even buying a few cows of his own until the day when he could make the move to purchase a farm of his own. Another arrangement, common to the larger farms, involved two houses - a big one where the owner’s family lived and a tenant house where the poorer family working for him lived. Neither of these situations would show up on deeds or abstracts.

Thus, much of our record depends on people’s memories. In a few cases, I think I have been able to trace the residents of a place down through the years without gaps, but in most, I have made no attempt to compile a comprehensive history, but just to record what people have told me. In most of the houses, there were probably other families who have gone unrecorded.

CHAPTER 2:

11B EAST FROM CHITTENDENS’ CORNER

Let us begin our tour of Hopkinton at Chittendens’ Store (now Wilber’s Hardware) and proceed east on Route 11B.

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EAKINS

The house directly across from the store is where Vance and Josephine Perry Eakins (Chuck and Jodie) live. It used to have a brick exterior.

It appears that this lot was once part of the property next door (to the west), for Vance’s deed begins with mention of land conveyed by W. H. Higginbotham to George Miller in Liber 221, page 132. We know that Higginbothams and Millers were owners of the place next door. Then in November 1925, George H. and Nellie Miller deeded the property to Ezra Perry. (A news item in the Potsdam Herald - Recorder of May 23, 1924, says, George H. Miller, who recently purchased the William Higginbotham farm will sell the brick house and barn and occupy the Laughlin house, it is reported.

In May 1932, Ezra and Mabel Perry conveyed it to John D. and Eva Fuller. John D. Fuller passed it on to Stanley S. Fuller in June 1954 and Stanley to John S. Fuller in July 1963. Meanwhile John D. Fuller had given a life lease to his unmarried sister, Emmabelle Fuller in 1952, and she gave it up to John S. Fuller in 1963.

John S. Fuller deeded the place to Howard C. and Frances J. Ellis in May 1966, and they sold to Vance C. and Josephine R. Eakins in September 1968.

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WRIGHTS

The next house east on the south side of the road has belonged to the Wrights for longer than I can remember. Evangeline Prittie Wright Rorke, the current resident, was married to Milan Wright, and they had three children: Judy, Daniel, and Tim. Milan Wright died in 1966, and Vangie, as she is known to her friends, married Rev. Edward C. Rorke in 1968. He passed away in January 1990. I am unable to find information in Mr. Sanford’s book about this lovely old house which once was a hotel, except for a picture opposite page 87, with the caption, Hotel, Hopkinton Village. However, Vangie has kindly written the following account for me to include.

THE WRIGHT HOME

by Evangeline Wright Rorke

Mar. 7, 1996

Up until 1848, the building on the site where I live was used as a wheelwright, cabinet, and shoe shop.

It was made over into a hotel in 1848. I don’t know the owner of the first hotel. By the early 1900s, the hotel was known as Murphy’s Inn or Murphy’s Tavern. At another point in its history it was operated under the name Central House. A Mr. Defoe or Defoy seems to have been one of the former owners.

In 1920 my father-in-law, Daniel D. Wright, bought the hotel from Mary Murphy. He proceeded to make many changes. He cut off the portion of the building used as the hotel kitchen with a Maccabee lodge room and dance hall on the second floor.

During this same period (1922), he built a store several yards away to the east on the same side of the street as the house. (Now Zahlers’ Market.) He moved the old hotel kitchen to a spot midway between the new store and the former hotel (which was to become his home). The old kitchen was made into a granary.

There were many farms in the area, and Mr. Wright’s store and granary were set up to supply farmers with feed, tools, groceries, etc. Mr. Wright himself was a very prosperous farmer.

Along with building his new store, Mr. Wright made many changes in Murphy’s Tavern. He replaced all the windows, removed the old porches, and built a new front porch and a side porch. He put new hardwood floors in several rooms, but did not change the size of the remaining rooms.

About 1926, Mr. Wright moved his family from their farm home to their new home in Hopkinton village. Mrs. Wright died in 1934, but Mr. Wright continued to live in the village until 1941, when he moved back to the farm.

My husband, Milan Wright, myself, and family moved into this house in 1944, and I have lived here every since.

In 1957, we did some major remodeling. We remade our kitchen and took enough space from our large dining room to make a hallway. A few years later, we did some major changes in our living room and redid the bathroom.

Although Murphy’s Tavern turned into a private home, it was a home which was always full of people. Both Milan and I had many siblings, and there was always company.

I have now lived here alone for six years, but I still love company, so I entertain family and friends quite often.

When we first moved into this home, we used a wood cookstove (kerosene stove in summer) to cook on and to heat the kitchen. Keeping the wood box filled was a big chore.

We had a cistern in the cellar to hold rain water, which we used for the bathroom, laundry, etc. How I missed that soft water when we pumped well water into the house and gave up the cistern!

Wood burning stoves in the living room and dining room gave way to oil burning space heaters. I can’t remember when we installed our furnace (many years ago), but that was a great improvement. The old wall telephone was fun when one had to work through an operator.

Having a store next door owned by the family was super. We went to the store each day for the day’s groceries. It was hard to get used to having to go to Potsdam for a week’s supply and then having to put it all away on our return. Our store meat was always so good, and I loved having bananas come off a big stalk.

Sometime in the seventies, the big barn owned by Herbert Jones behind my house burned. I was up late about 2:00 AM doing school work when I noticed the barn all aflame. I was aghast, but managed to get word to the fire department. There was no wind, and the firemen did a good job or my house and others would have been burned.

I’m so glad that this house has been my home for over 50 years. It likes people!

An article in the Potsdam Herald-Recorder of Friday, April 5, 1929, headed Hopkinton, states:

Cornelius Murphy died at his home here Monday, March 25th. Mr. Murphy was in his 81st year and had been in feeble health for the past two years. He was a native of Ireland, but had lived nearly all his life in this town, coming here when a young man. He was the landlord for years of the village hotel and was known to every traveling man in the North Country as they always received the best of service there. He is survived by his wife and one daughter Katharine. The funeral was at the Catholic church, Rev. F. E. Gilbert officiating, with interment in Potsdam.

THE CLARK S. CHITTENDEN HOUSE

Beside Chittendens’/Wilber’s store is an old house where Sara Chittenden lives now. It was built in the mid-nineteenth century by Clark S. Chittenden, great grandfather of Sara’s late husband, Clark, and was the home of Emma Chittenden. It remained in the Chittenden family for over 130 years. In 1909 Jay and Gertrude Hoyt Chittenden were living here when Clark’s younger sister, Charlotte, was born. When Clark and Sara were married in 1927, the house belonged to Lawrence Chittenden, and the newlyweds rented it from him for about a year. Charlotte and Lyndon Miller lived here for a time and perhaps other members of the Chittenden family at different times. For a few years in the 1950s, the house went out of the Chittenden family. Leroy Campbell and family lived here for a time. Then Margaret Zahler’s parents, Arthur and Mae Vallance, bought this house and moved to Hopkinton about 1955 or 56. Mr. Vallance died about two years later and Mrs. Vallance the following year. Soon after, Clark and Sara bought the home, and Sara continues to live here.

THE KING S. CHITTENDEN HOUSE

Information on this house which was pictured across from p. 86 in the Early History of Hopkinton was kindly provided by the current owners Bob and Mary Converse.

It was built for King S. and Sarah E. Chittenden by the Brush brothers between 1865 and 1870. (Incidentally, the Brushes were the carpenters who built many of Hopkinton’s large, elegant homes.)

June 10, 1909 it was deeded to Jay H. Chittenden. (King and Sarah had no children; Jay was their nephew.)

Interesting note: The tax value in 1935 was $2500. (Actual tax $115.86) That is the same tax value as when we purchased it in 1992 in very distressed condition.

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The King S. Chittenden house

Also of interest: Between October 1931 and September 1944, Jay had 10 different liens on the house - all to suppliers of Chittenden’s store. Chittendens helped many farmers with small milk checks to make it through the winter - Bob’s father, for one.

Jay H. Chittenden died April 11, 1946, and the property went to his wife, Gertrude Hoyt Chittenden. She willed the house to her daughter, Charlotte Chittenden Miller, January 15, 1959.

September 16, 1968 it was sold to Howard C. and Frances Ellis. Howard died May 14, 1969.

Frances Ellis sold it to Nelson S. and Annabelle V. Martin Nov. 11, 1979. Nelson died September 7, 1982, and Annabelle Martin sold it to her son John N. Martin on June 5, 1986.

John Martin sold to C. Robert and Mary A. Converse September 24, 1992.

Bob and Mary have performed a labor of love on the old Chittenden home, slowly and painstakingly restoring this dilapidated old house to a place of beauty and elegance.

Across the road from the Chittenden place, just east of the Wright home is a building which in the 1950s housed a store known as Milan Wright’s wholesale. Next is the store built by Dan Wright and owned and/or operated by a number of different people through the years. The history of this store can be read in the chapter on businesses.

The house just across the driveway from the store was the Azro Beecher home and is still owned and occupied by his descendants. Following is a brief biographical sketch of Azro and his family and a history of the Beecher home compiled by Azro’s grandson, Richard Powers:

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Wright’s wholesale

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Beecher/ Powers house 1994

THE BEECHER HOUSE

Azro E. Beecher

Born February 5, 1872, Parishville, NY Son of Orman & Sarah (Sheldon)

Beecher Married July 4, 1894 Ella McIntyre, Hopkinton, NY Married September

11, 1917 Hazel Schellenger, Norfolk, NY Died July 4, 1957, Hopkinton, NY

Azro Beecher lived his entire life in Hopkinton, NY. His grandparents, Heman and Esther (Reed) Sheldon, were married in February 1802 and came directly to Hopkinton to settle. Azro’s mother, Sarah (January 13, 1829 - June 11, 1906) was the last of six children. His grandparents, Daniel and Mary Ann (Sanford) Beecher migrated to Stockholm, NY in the spring of 1833. Azro’s father, Orman (April 7, 1821 - May 26, 1904) was the first of eight children.

Azro was the last of five children born to Orman & Sarah Beecher. The Beecher family home at this time was on what is now known as the Green Road. The first born, Carrie, died as an infant. Elmer, born in 1861, moved to Illinois in 1881. Almeda, born in 1863, never married and lived in Hopkinton all her life. Ruth, born in 1866, married John Murphy and lived in Parishville and St. Regis Falls.

Azro graduated from Parishville School in June 1888. After finishing school he worked for his brother-in-law John Murphy until the spring of 1891. He then began doing carpentry work with his father. Azro married Ella McIntyre (March 2, 1876 - August 26, 1895) July 4, 1894 in Hopkinton. Ella died giving birth to their only child, Milo R. Beecher (August 26, 1895 - August 8, 1964). The family farm was sold to Ernest Greene in September 1902. The Fuller house was then purchased in Hopkinton, where Azro, his son, his sister, and his mother and father moved to in late 1902. This home was sold in 1912, and the present family home was purchased from the Leary sisters. Azro, Milo and Almeda moved there in December 1913. During 1914 two school teachers boarded at the family home. One of these teachers was Hazel Agnes Schellenger (December 18, 1889 - April 24, 1964), whom he married on September 11, 1917 in Hopkinton.

The history of the house is as follows: Date the home was built - unknown. Earliest known deed - 1871 - from Edgar Page. From Page it went to Jonah Sanford, to Mary Murphy, to Henry Chandler, to Erasmus Sanford, to Loren Smith/ A.S. Smith, to Ella O’Leary/ Nora O’Leary to Azro E.