710 [Assembly 



Jay was incorporated as a town in JanuirVj and Elizabethtown 

 in February, 1801. Chesterfield was organized in 1802, and Es- 

 sex and Lewis, April 4th5 1805. 



In 1790, Piatt Rogers established a ferry from Basin Harbor, 

 and constructed a road from the landing *oa point near Spliirock, 

 where it connected with thj road made in an early period of 

 the settlement. He erected, ia the same season, a bridge o^^er 

 the Boquet, at Willsboro falls, and constructed a road from that 

 place to Peru, in Clinton county. These services fere remune- 

 rated by the State, through an appropriation to Kogers and hig 

 associates of a large tract from the public 'ands. The venerablt) 

 Judge Hatch, who still survives, was one of the earliest settlers 

 in the interior of the county. He moved, in 1792, into that part 

 of tlie town of Essex now known as Brookfield, which was sur- 

 veyed and sold in 1788. This district, he says, " was at that time 

 chiefly in a state of nature." In 1 04, he " removed to the vil- 

 lage of Westport, then called * North West Bay.' The dis- 

 tance was eight miles, and the removal of his family occupied two 

 days and the labor of four men to open a passage for a wagon. 

 At Westport a small improvement had previously been com- 

 menced, and one frame house, three log houses, a saw mill, and 

 one barn, had been erected. No road extended south, beyond thie 

 limits of that town. A track had been opened to Pleasant Val- 

 ley, where an infant settlement had just been furmed. A road 

 which was almost impassable extended to the new colonies in Lewi*, 

 Jay and Keene."* The a-arm and excitement which agitated the 

 wh 'le country at the defeat of St. Clair, in this year, and the ap- 

 prehension of a general combination of the Indian tribes of the 

 west with the Six Nations, extended to these humble hamlets. 



A block liouse was erected for the protection of the inhabitants, 

 near the village of Essex. In the sub>equent organization of Es- 

 sex county, that edifice was converted into a court house and jail. 

 The enterprise of the pioneer of New-England had penetrated 

 the gorges of the mountains, and his keen eye had fastened upon 

 rich and alluring districts far in the foiest paths I have men- 

 tioned. The table lands of Jay, the fertile valleys of SchrcK)n, 



• Letter Hon. Charles H»t<5h. 



