A few lines about the East street has been assigned to me on this occasion. While making inquiries of some of the older people I was again strongly impressed with the fact that most of us know but very little of our ancestry. Not every one now in this audience can at once, off hand, without stopping to think give the whole names of their four grandparents and not one in twenty or even fifty can tell the names. places of residence or means of livelihood of their great grandparents. The Ransoms and Dunnings cannot get back at the farthest beyond 1710 to 1720. Most farmers really have knowledge of more generations of their horses and cattle then they have of themselves. Many of the cattle that I have owned can I give from one to two dozen names of ancestors, among them one cow of which a tabulated pedigree was sent me containing about sixty names of her progenitors.
Not long since I was in conversation with a college bred man born in this town and he could not give me the given names of one of his grandparent, In China to-day there are five or six thousand of the descendants of Confucius who lived 2,500 years ago. Their record is. unquestioned, they having special privileges on that account. The Japanese emperors can trace back nearly or quite is far, while a surprising number of noted Oriental families., can trace back five to ten hundred years, and yet we flatter ourselves I)v calling them heathen.
Among the list of names of the original incorporators of this church there is not a single Stetson, Dickinson or Dunning, the nearest to it being the name of John Smedley, a brother of the mother of Benjamin and Thomas Stetson, who lived a while in the town of Champlain and from there removed to Mooers
.The Stetsons away back were Baptists; the Dickinsons Presbyterians or Methodists, and the theology of the Dunnings was neither exclusive or restricted, they being Universalists. I have now in my possession an old hymn book of one of them.The Dickinsons came here from Washington county, New York, about 1800. My grandfather, Eli Dunning, was born in Waterbury, Conn., in 1772. From there father moved to Castelton, Vt.. where my farher was born in 1800. Grandfather came here in 1800, but did not bring his family until two years later.
The arrival of the Stetsons was soon after the Dunnings and Dickinsons. When these families came there were only bridle paths through the woods with trees spotted to guide them. A little later the roads were wide enough to admit of the passage of an ox sled which could often carry the whole of their household goods.
Before building his first house my grandfather when going about the woods, and happening to find a stone would put it on a stump so saving every one towards the building of his chimney. Now we do not have to be so saving and economical with our stones, indeed having to look sharp to find a small spot of ground without them.Mr. Thomas Cooper came into the neighborhood at an early day, as did also the Cummings family, the latter for years owning and occupying a pew in the old church.Mr. Carlton Bullis came much later after having sold to the U. S. government the land upon which Fort Montgomery is built. Mr. Ahi Hyde, the first of the name, came later still.
Some of the younger ones here may not know that a Mr. Treadway for years owned and operated a woolen mill at Suckertown. There was also there a stone mill where stones were sawed, the stones for the purpose being brought from Isle LaMott. Around my premises there is yet several pieces of its work which are in frequent or constant use.
The family of Mr. Robert Stetson were for years members of this church and congregation. While an officer in the U. S. Customs he was stationed at Champlain and removed his church connection thence. This school district, No. 12, got a return compliment when Mr. Silas Cross came from that town here. The father of the latter with his family were Presbyterians. Among the incorporators of the church were Thos. Cooper, Luke W. Boardwell and Mathew Saxe, the latter being trustee of the church as late as 1818. So there is first class Presbyterian blood in the Saxes. No wonder they now make most excellent Methodist's and are useful citizens whom we all respect and esteem.
I well remember when the families of Wm. H. Saxe and Hiram Ladd were regular attendants of this church occupying pews in the northeast corner of the church.In the stone schoolhouse much farther back than my memory goes, were held at irregular times religious services, preaching, Sabbath school and protracted meetings. 1'reaching by Presbyterians, Methodists, Universalists, Baptists, Advents and probably others.
By far the most noteworthy religious meetings on the street have been the prayer meetings which have been more or less continuous for about forty years, for many years of the time held with great regularity for about nine months in the year-During that time there has been great changes by death and removal among the people of the street.
Until the coming of Mr. Dill, within my memory, there has been no regular prayer meeting of this church here in the village.I can well remember that several double wagons used to come well loaded to the Sabbath services. One of them, uncle John Dunning's was always well filled.
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