TOWN OF TROUPSBURGH. 



393 



forest without means, and by perseverance and industry 

 worked himself up to competence and wealth. Two of his 

 sons also engaged in mercantile business successfully. Be- 

 tween old Mr. Marlatt and his son John were located Fenton, 

 the carpenter, and McMindes, the tailor. Judge Mallory 

 lived east on the State road, and I think just on the edge 

 of what is now Woodhull. The judge was one of the earliest 

 settlers ; at what date he settled I am not sure, but he was 

 there in 1808, how much before I do not know. The judge 

 was a man of fine, commanding appearance. Intelligent, 

 social, and generous, he was highly respected, and his influ- 

 ence was felt far beyond the locality of his own neighbor- 

 hood. His three sons — David, Nathan, and Amos — early 

 settled in that part of Troupsburgh known as the West Set- 

 tlement, or oftener, Mallory's Settlement. They were ener- 

 getic, enterprising men, and soon made themselves most 

 desirable and elegant houses in the best part of the entire 

 town. The descendants are many of them still there, in 

 some respects filling the places made vacant by their fathers. 

 A daughter of the judge was the wife of Alanson Perry, 

 whose sons are occupying places in society of responsibility 

 and usefulness, among whom Dr. Perry holds a conspicuous 

 place. Alanson Perry settled here in 1808. Near Judge 

 Mallory lived a family by the name of Tubbs. It was the 

 family to which Rev. Robert Hubbard so kindly ministered 

 in the time of the memorable epidemic of 1813. Caleb 

 Smith also then lived in that neighborhood, who had three 

 sons whom I recollect, — Amzi, Cornell, and Jeffrey. The 

 latter of these acquitted himself with honor in the State 

 Legislature from Steuben County, in 1844, and was a man 

 of influence, respectability, and moral worth in the commu- 

 nity where he lived. The elder brothers, if living, have 

 passed beyond my knowledge. There may have been other 

 children in this family, of whom honorable mention might 

 justly be made, but the writer's acquaintance was at so early 

 a period that he may have inadvertently forgotten them. 



" After passing our worthy friend. Uncle Nicholas, the 

 next house on the State road was built by Nathaniel 

 Thacher in 1808.* A description of this house will fur- 

 nish a picture of a large class of houses in that wild region 

 at that day. Bear in mind that this was sixty years ago.f 

 There were no saw-mills within five and twenty miles of 

 this settlement ; the roads were over mountains rough and 

 high, and through sloughs and creeks unbridged. It was 

 therefore no small ajffair to get a thousand feet of boards from 

 Tuscarora (now Addison) or Canisteo to Troupsburgh. 

 Besides the pioneers were generally, if not altogether, men 

 of small means, who were braving all the hardships of pio- 

 neer life to make themselves a home in the wilderness. 

 Well, then the house, the model house : 



" The road runs here nearly north and south, and the 

 house was built on the west side of the road, the ground 

 gently falling to the east and south. It was, I judge, about 

 20 by 24 or 26 feet; the walls were of round logs, cut 

 within a stone's throw of the site of the building, notched 

 (or ' saddled,' in settler parlance) together at the ends, and 

 thus raised to the height of ten or twelve feet. The beams 



* Father of Deacon Mowrj Thacher, now living in HornellsvillCj and 

 the author of these reminiscences. 



I Now seventy years, as the above was written in 1868. 







to separate the stories were of the same material, round 

 logs. Rude rafters, made of poles and flattened on one 

 side, were notched into the top logs and pinned together at 

 the top to support the coming roof. Across the rafters 

 were pinned ribs made of round poles, flattened on one side, 

 and sometimes strips split out for the purpose from bass- 

 wood logs or other timber. Upon these ribs were laid the 

 shingles for the covering. The shingles were out of the 

 nicest pine, and were some three feet in length. Upon each 

 course were laid large-sized poles to hold the shingles in 

 place. These poles were kept in place by short billets of 

 wood lying between the poles that held the roof down. 

 And now the house is covered and inclosed. The floors 

 were made of bass-wood planks split out from the trunks of 

 the trees, and made as smooth as they well could be on one 

 side by hewing ; doors and partitions of boards ; the chim- 

 ney of rough stone gathered from the adjoining grounds, 

 and made sufliciently wide and deep to admit a log six feet 

 long and two feet in diameter. The house had a very 

 pleasant outlook towards the south, and must needs have a 

 piazza. This was made by extending the beams a few feet 

 beyond the walls and carrying the roof to the outer ends of 

 the beams, and flooring the piazza with the inevitable bass- 

 wood. Such, dear reader, was the home of many a back- 

 woodsman at the day and in the place of which I am 

 speaking, but it was home nevertheless, with its peculiar 

 attractions, though destitute of refined polish or even com- 

 fort. 



"This farm afterwards became the property of Dr. 

 Charles Hunter, who lived but a few years to enjoy it. A 

 little beyond, and adjoining this farm, lived Jesse Lapham, 

 a good, kind-hearted, and, of course, honest Quaker, with 

 his gentle dame, his son Porter, and his daughter Ruth. I 

 think they remained but a single year, and the premises 

 were soon after occupied by Philip Cady. It became a 

 beautiful farm many years after, in the hands of John 

 Simpson, of whom I have before spoken. From this farm 

 you ascend what used to seem to the writer a very long 

 hill, upon the summit of which, and on the left of the road, 

 lived Pjlijah Hance. It was, I think, nearly opposite where 

 the cemetery now is (or was forty years since). Of this 

 family I have long since lost all knowledge. I only recol- 

 lect he had one son named Lyman and one John, and one 

 daughter named Cynthia. A little east of Hance, and on 

 a branch road, were Reuben Stiles and Dan Martin. Mrs. 

 Ann Stiles is still living (1879) in Troupsburgh, at the 

 great age of ninety-five years. 



" Nearly opposite the cemetery grounds was the first 

 school-house in Troupsburgh. In the winter of 1809, the 

 school in this house was taught by Abner Thomas ; in the 

 summer following, by Sarah Thacher. In a little valley not 

 far beyond the cemetery, lived an old patriarch, Elihu 

 Cady, a tall, noble figure, and apparently a man of great 

 physical power, but through whose locks, like Schanado's, 

 ' the snows of nearly fourscore winters had already passed.' 

 His companion, too, a healthy, light-hearted, social old lady, 

 had apparently left her threescore and ten considerably in the 

 distance behind her. This aged couple had entered the 

 wilderness in their old age, with a large family of grown-up 

 children, and endured all the hardships and privations of a 



