INCLUDED IN THIS SITE:
The Village, Employment, Local Institutions, Community Life, Farm and Household Life
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EARLY HISTORY OF ERIEVILLE:
Daisy Francis, Abandoned Cemeteries, Early Settlers (Rootsweb)
Early Settlers in the Town of Nelson
From the Madison County Historical Society, Oneida, NY. (Source?, 1965)
The Town of Nelson was no. 1 of the Chenango Twenty Townships, put up for sale by the state to redeem bonds issued in the form of bills or credit, and was sold to speculators in 1791. The Town of Nelson was purchased as part of the Town of Cazenovia by Alexander Webster, Edward Savage and John Williams, about 25,000 acres at 3 shillings, 3 pence per acre. The patent for this was dated June 14, 1793.
In 1793, Jedediah Jackson and Joseph Yaw visited and purchased land in the north part of the town in the interest of an association of men in Vermont, and in the next two years twenty-six families, most of whom came from the vicinity of Pownal, and who were largely related. Some of the families did not remain in the town, but a large number did remain to raise families who became a large part of the town.
Joseph <James> Annas was a millwright, coming from Vermont before the turn of the century. He either brought with him or made from local stone a pair of millstones. He built a mill about a mile and a half north of Erieville on Erieville Creek. It passed on to his son who sold it about 1818 to Oliver Pool who operated it and a larger mill which he built across the road until 1848 when the water rights were purchased by the state for the construction of the reservoir. This was built in 1857 as a feeder for the Erie Canal at a cost of $36,837, its supply being 2,526 cubic feet per minute. Its area is 340 acres.
The Richardson brothers (Elad, Lemuel, Asa, Benjamin and Eri), all young and single men came from Keene, N.H. in 1796 and settled on land adjacent to the site of Erieville. Erieville was named after Eri. It was originally called Eritown to distinguish it from Earlville, but was called Erieville by the railroad.
At the same time three brothers named Wells (Gardner, Joshua and Robert) settled about a mile east of the site of Erieville. Gardner was a blacksmith, probably the first one in the town, and made many of the rude plows and primitive machinery used in this section.
David Wellington settled in the town in 1796-7 about two miles east of Erieville, near the site of the (Eatonbrook) reservoir, his farm becoming part of the farm of Isaac Blair. He came alone the first year and cleared one acre which he planted to wheat. Then he went back to his former home in Chesire, N.H., and brought his wife. Their first home was a log shanty, roofed with elm bark and floored with puncheons split from soft wood logs.
Dyer Matteson, Robert Hazard and Jesse Carpenter were settlers in 1806; the former <came from> Rhode Island <and> located about a mile north of Erieville later moving to a farm about a mile east, where he died in 1844. Jesse Carpenter came from Worcester, Mass. and settled half a mile north of Erieville. He was a basket maker. His son, Elijah, was a shoemaker who settled two miles southwest of Erieville. He had eleven children,
Other early settlers were: Barna Simpson, a cooper, James Hinman, Israel Patterson, and Horatio Simms. Israel Patterson and his brother lived a little east of Erieville where they built two log cabins. Silas Melvin and William Fellows were associated in the building of a sawmill in 1812, at the head of the reservoir, which was in operation until the dam washed out about 1845.
Nathaniel Hotchkiss and Alphenus Morse carried on a foundry and ashery business in 1812 and for about three years after. They made the first cast iron plows used in this locality, after the plans of one Jethro Wood the inventor. After about three years, Mr. Morse moved to Eaton where he established a large business.
The Hamilton and Skaneateles Turnpike was laid out in 1826 but was not completed until a few years later. It passed from Richfield, through Brookfield, Hamilton, Eaton, Erieville, and New Woodstock and on to Skaneateles. This road led to further settlement and also made possible easier trade with the more settled parts of the state.
Erieville had at one time two taverns. George Salisbury built the "lower" Eldorado House in 1814, just east of the creek feeding the reservoir. This was later used as a tin shop. The upper tavern was built by Ephriam Mallory but was torn down in 1820 and replaced by the Erieville House built by Thomas Medbury.
Abner Camp cleared land on the east line of the town, south of the center, which he sold soon after the war of 1812. His father was Dr. Abner Camp, who settled near Hatch's Lake. The lake was called Camp's Pond for a time.
Oliver Stone was another of the early settlers, coming from Conn., the year he settled being one for scarcity, he was forced to travel to Utica, where the only provisions he was able to obtain was a bag of bran, which he carried back on his back.
I n 1811, several families came from New Jersey and settled in what was called Jersey Bush. Among them were Thomas and William Harris, Joseph English, Phineas Hamblet, Elijah Carpenter, John S. Brown and a Mr. Abraham. After a few generations the families moved to more promising localities, this being hilltop land where the soil was thin and easily depleted. The land that they toiled so hard to clear was eventually taken over by the state and reforested, so that now there is no trace of what was once a thriving settlement. So nature reclaims her own.
Nelson has the distinction of having passed one of the most unusual acts, part of which was a forerunner of later legislation. The first dog tax in this section if not in the state was passed here in 1809, when a tax of 25 cents was imposed on everyone who owed a dog. The proceeds were to go for the purchase of a Merino ram to be used by anyone who raised sheep. This was during the Merino sheep craze, which was prevalent over much of the northeast. At the same time the town voted a bounty of $20 in addition to the one given by the state, for every wolf killed. Thus they provided for the propagation and protection of their flocks. However, at one early meeting it was voted that "sheep rams shall not run on the common after the first day of September until the first day of January, on the penalty of being forfeit."
In its early history, Erieville had three churches: Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal and Universalist. The Baptists held meetings in homes as early as 1809 and in 1811 they built their first church. They occupied the building for about a year when, the trustees, having neglected to obtain a title, they were dispossessed because of a change in ownership. They then built what was known as the "temple". This was about a mile north of Erieville. This building was used as a school after 1821 when they built a larger church in what is now the cemetery. In 1877 they moved the building about forty rods south so that the lot on which it stood could be used to enlarge the cemetery. The original cost of the church was $2,000. At its removal, $4,000 was spent in remodeling it. Finally (perhaps discouraged?) they deeded their church to the Methodists in 1912. This, at present, is the only church in the town. The Methodists held their first meeting in 1826. Meetings were held by Circuit Preachers in private homes and schoolhouses, every two weeks, and for several years in the schoolhouse on the Nelson-Georgetown line (Fire Tower Rd.) and later in the Erieville School House. In 1850, they built their church at a cost of $800. It was later sold for a town hall and the church sheds used for storing the road machinery. This building burned in 1931. The Universalist Church once had a large society. In 1842 their church was built by Benjamin Wadsworth, George Richardson, Ruel Richardson, George Wells and Nathaniel Davis. This building is now used as the Grange Hall.
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