THE HOUSES THEY LIVED IN
THE SETTLERS AND THEIR LOG CABINS
Mark R. Wilcox's parents came to this town carrying their packs in the single path through the wilderness, according to the account in Haddock. See his biography in HADDOCK'S FAMILY SKETCHES ~~[From Jefferson County NY GenWeb]. Many early settlers arrived in the Town of Alexandria in this humble fashion. Alexandria, in the northern portion of the county, was settled much later than the southern townships, such as Champion, Adams, or Ellisburg. These earliest settlers brought with them only what they could carry, or perhaps what could be loaded on a sledge narrow enough to navigate the wilderness track that led them to Alexandria. They had to have shelter from the coming winter, and the log cabin they put up was typically about twenty feet square, big enough to hold them, their belongings, and a huge fireplace that gobbled the firewood that grew all around them. Their first cabin had no windows and possibly only a piece of leather for a door, since sawed lumber was scarce and expensive. It was intended as a temporary shelter only, to get them through the first winter or so, because their main concern was food. They had to clear land, plow, plant, harvest and store what they ate.
None of these log huts survived to the present day in the town of Alexandria, because the thrifty settlers built larger, warmer, more comfortable houses as soon as they could. A picture of one of these secondary log houses was taken about 1890. The first cabin had disappeared by then, though a few rocks of its foundation were still visible in the 1930s and 1940s. It had probably been a trapper's cabin, built on a ledge overlooking a marsh rich in muskrats and mink some distance away from this house.
This second cabin earned the right to be called a house. It had a bedroom, alcove and pantry downstairs, all opening off the main room which was kitchen, dining room and living room all in one. It was a dark house, having only two windows in the main room, and one in the bedroom, to light the whole downstairs. The upstairs was divided into two rooms, each lit with a tiny window, one facing east and one west. At the time this picture was taken, it housed Jacob A. and Maria Van Camp Wagoner, their only son, De Elton A. Wagoner, his wife Sarah Binns and at least two of their children, Evard, the eldest and his sister Lena.
By the time this picture was taken, a wood shed had been built on the back of the house, which doubled as a summer kitchen. In those days, when a woodfire had to be maintained all summer to attend to the cooking and baking, it was common practice to move the cookstove to a remote location, in this case the woodshed, to keep the house cooler. In the fall, when the stove went back to the kitchen, the woodshed would be filled with firewood to keep the fire all winter.
The trees growing around the house, many of them apple trees, indicate that it had been here for some time. The orchard, with its transparent apple trees, its snow apples, tallman sweets, mother apples, crab apples, as well as the mulberry and the two cherry trees, grew to the left or east of the house. Gardens stretched away to the front and rear of the house, and Grampa (Jacob Abeel Wagoner) grew his own tobacco on the north side of the rear garden.
There was no running water or electricity, of course, and the privy stood over by the lilacs, out of sight in this picture, to the west. This house never had a cellar, being built on the bed rock so abundant on this farm, nor did it have a well. All the water was carried from the river, which in those days ran pure and clean.
The Wagoners were far from the first people to live in this house, estimated to have been built in the 1830s. Jacob and Maria arrived in 1888 from their farm on the head of Wellesley Island, in the Town of Orleans. A family by the name of Underwood were living here when they bought the farm. Before them, a Tozer family occupied the place, as shown on the 1864 map. Jacob Abeel Wagoner built a cheese factory on this property, and a large barn appeared some time before the turn of the century.
The elder Wagoners were joined by their son and his family probably around 1889. De Elton, the son, was a fishing guide or "oarsman", with little love for farming. His wife, on the other hand, was an excellent farmer, preferring to work in the fields rather than in the house, a trait which her granddaughter shared. The next picture of the log house shows two modern improvements. Grampa had sided the house with boards, perpendicular to the logs, a great improvement in keeping out drafts. The woodshed now had its storm shed, to shelter the woodshed door from the prevailing west wind, and make a sheltered outside nook to stamp snow or mud off one's boots. In summer the storm shed held a wash stand with soap, wash basin, and towels hung handy, so that one could scoop water from the rainbarrel, wash one's hands, and toss the dirty water on the flowers behind the rain barrel.
By the 1930s, that eavestrough was moss green, from a century of channeling the rain water from the long sloping roof into the two rain barrels that stood there, replacing the tubs you see in the photograph.
The photo itself was an occasion, for which everyone appears in his best, and even two pots of prize flowers are shown off on the table. From left is the nameless hired boy. On the opposite side of the table is Lena, the eldest daughter. Next is De Elton Wagoner, the father, with son Evard in his beautiful bow tie. Little Mira stands in front of Evard. Sarah Binns Wagoner, the mother, is holding baby Irena, while the hired girl stands by. The hired girl would never be called a hired woman, nor, heaven forbid! a servant, but of whatever age, she was the hired girl. Gramma and Grampa, for some reason, are not in the picture, though they are still very much part of the family.
Hanging on the storm shed, just under the roof, is a row of cream and milk cans left out to dry and air in the sunlight. This family supplied the wealthy islanders with daily milk, cream, butter, and perhaps cheese, as well as vegetables, eggs, chicken (stewing hens, roasters, fricassee, fryers, and broilers) as well as lamb in the summer time. De Elton probably delivered the meat and produce, rowing from island to island in a skiff in the early morning, or in the evening, as needed. A scant few years later, this chore fell to young Evard, who coupled his daily excursion with that of supplying fish for the table, trolling with the trolling line wrapped around his big toe as both hands were busy with the oars.
The log house is gone, but the Wagoners remain on the land in their various houses, trailers and cottages. The place is now called Wagoner's Marina.
Nan Dixon
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