THE HOUSES THEY LIVED IN

Jason Clark of Plessis, one of the early settlers of Jefferson County died on Aug. 6, 1872. A surveyor for James D. Le Ray de Chaumont and son, Vincent Le Ray, great north country land barons, Jason Clark had been a resident of Leraysville in the 1820s and first owned land in the town of Leray. About 1830 he removed to Plessis, the hamlet which the Le Rays had named for a place in France and on April 20, 1839 became the land agent for the firm of Woodruff & Stocking.

Standing high in the people's confidence he was the first postmaster of Plessis. For several years he was justice of the peace of the town of Alexandria. In 1837, 1841, 1842, 1855, 1856, 1857 and 1859 he was the supervisor of the same town. Also he was onetime county judge and in 1853 he became master of Alexandria Lodge, No. 297, F.& A.M.

Plessis, familiarly known as Flat Rock in its early days, developed largely into a tidy little industrial community as a result of the grist mill which James D. Le Ray constructed there on Plessis Creek in 1817. In 1830 Jason Clark and William Shurtleff purchased and rebuilt this mill, Clark later becoming the sole owner. A short time afterward he is understood to have built the stone building now owned and utilized by the Plessis Farmers' Cooperative Association, Inc., as a store, and also to have built for his residence the little stone building adjacent to it which is owned and operated by Lawrence P. Storrs as the hotel shown above.

The Co-operatives' building, which stands on Main Street at the corner of Wall Street, was used by Jason Clark both as a land-office and store. His house faced wholly on Main Street.

The firm of Woodruff & Stocking, for whom Jason Clark became the general agent, was comprised of Norris M. Woodruff, who later built the Woodruff Hotel in this city [Watertown], and Samuel Stocking, Utica capitalist who at one time had vast St. Lawrence County landholdings about Morristown.

On Feb. 20, 1836, this firm took over from the trustees of the old Antwerp Company of Antwerp, Belgium, much of the remaining lands of the company in the towns of Alexandria, Antwerp and Clayton, and Jason Clark set about disposing of them.

The record of the house is difficult to trace in a limited space of time. The county atlas of 1864 designates it and the land-office as the property of Jason Clark, but the county atlas of 1888 shows the ownership in Silas G. Norton.

A deed dated April 17, 1870, shows that Almeda Clark, who was the wife of Jason Clark, conveyed the property to Nancy P. Norton, who was the wife of Silas Norton, merchant and business man of Plessis for a number of years. Mr. Norton died late in 1890.

Mrs. Norton died about 40 years ago leaving her estate to her son, Milton H. Norton and to her daughter, Mrs. Nellie H. Parker, who were joint executors. After the Norton ownership of the house, it passed through many hands and was always used as a residence until about 1937 when Louis and Mildred Ritter purchased it from Harry R. and Hazel Foerster on Oct. 28 of that year. Later it was acquired by Harold and Anna Mitchell, who sold it on Oct. 20, 1947 to Lawrence P. Storrs, present owner and proprietor. The stone store has been owned by the Co-operative more than 20 years, and a half century and more ago was conducted as a mercantile establishment by Augsbury & Wilcox.

© Nan Dixon, 2001