Chapter 3 - Organization of the Town of Davenport

Post-Revolution population growth.[1] With the ending of hostilities in 1783, displaced settlers in the New York border area began to return to their homes, and new settlers began to arrive.  Population grew in Harpersfield, some parts of Kortright, Cherry Valley, and in settlements along the Susquehanna River.  The middle and lower Charlotte Valley, however, remained relatively deserted by permanent residents.

For New York State as a whole, the next 30-40 years after the Revolution constituted one of the most dynamic growth periods in its history.  Population exploded, mostly in the upstate areas.[4] Between 1790 and 1820, New York’s population increased by four times, from 340,000 to 1,373,000.  New York, from having been the new nation’s fifth most populous state, overtook Virginia as the most populous.

The rapid growth of population led to frequent changes in political boundaries and divisions as counties and even towns were divided, recombined and subdivided.  What eventually became Delaware County started before the Revolution as parts of Albany and Ulster counties.   Later, Tryon County was formed from part of Albany, and after the Revolution Tryon was renamed Montgomery.  When Delaware was created in 1797, it acquired pieces of Ulster and a former part of Montgomery County that in the meantime had been assigned to Otsego.[5]

Within Delaware County (and elsewhere) townships were evolving and changing at a similar pace.  In 1778 as noted earlier, Harpersfield, then in Montgomery and later in Otsego County, extended all the way to the Susquehanna, and then down that river to the Pennsylvania line.  Kortright was formed from Harpersfield in 1793, still extending to the Susquehanna but now bounded on the south by Franklin and after 1800 by the new town of Meredith.  Finally, as population began moving into the Charlotte Valley, political demands, especially for schools and improved roads, led to the “erection” of Davenport from the western portion of Kortright and a southernmost section of the town of Maryland.  This later section, a part of Fitches Patent, had until then been in the county of Otsego but was now transferred to Delaware.  As Kortright had been before 1817, Davenport at its formation was bounded on the northwest by the Susquehanna River.

Organizing a new town.  In 1810 a young man moved to lot 24 of the Charlotte River Patent.  John Davenport, then about age 33, had dissolved his partnership with his second cousin, Noah Davenport, in a Harpersfield store, ashery, and distillery located on the Catskill Turnpike.[6]  He opened a new store to the south side of the Charlotte River, probably somewhere near his new home on lot 24, a little to the west of where the present Brickhouse Hill Road intersects State Route 23. 

 

The 1810 population of what seven years later became the town of Davenport, named for the new storeowner (and possibly also in partial honor of John Davenport’s illustrious forebears—see sidebar), was probably about 870 persons, occupying perhaps 150 homes.[9][10]  (In 1800 the population may have been only half as large, perhaps 420 persons in 75 or so households.)  None of the three household heads identified by Davidson from 1790 were still around for the 1810 census.  The only Green in town was Samuel, possibly a son of Jabez or Silvenus, but unlikely since no Greens had appeared in 1800. There had been a Josiah Wilcox in the 1800 census but no Wilcox listed in 1810. The Morenus, Houghtaling and Goodrich families, however, were present when Davenport was formed in 1817 and lived in town for many years, though the Morenuses were later lost to Oneonta along with their neighbors in what is now Southside Oneonta.  (More below on that mysterious annexation.)

The area in 1810, according to Munsell, was already home to a number of what were to become the future Davenport’s “leading families.”[11]  These included William Riddle on Kortright Patent lot 1, William McMorris on lot 2, and Benjamin Parker on lot 32.  “They and their wives were of Gaelic or Scotch and Irish Descent.  Andrew G. Ten Eick [also Eyck] bought lot No. 16 of the Charlotte River patent, south side, along the Middle Brook.  [This may have been after 1810.]  He and his wife and his three brothers were Dutch from Albany County.  Peter Shellman and his wife, of German blood, spent their domestic life on lot No. 18, Charlotte River patent, south side.”

  Before the 1810 census, Joseph and Seth Goodrich, and Jesse and Selah Booth, came from New England.  The Goodriches settled on lot 25 next to John Davenport.  Each of the Goodrich brothers “had by one wife, four sons and six daughters.”  Jesse Booth had a long career as Town Justice.[13]  Later in the 1810-1820 decade a group of men, including Dr. Gardner Westcott, Jesse Booth, Steven Olmsted, Seth Goodrich and others, circulated a petition requesting permission to organize a new and separate town.  (The New York State Legislature, recognizing early the need to support the state’s growth, had in 1790 voted to give financial aid to organized cities and towns.)  On March 31, 1817, the Town of Davenport was formed by the state legislature.

Somewhere between 1822 and 1837, it was discovered that a portion of Davenport, without the knowledge of its residents, had been annexed to Otsego County. This portion in future years became Southside Oneonta.  Still later, in 1878, another portion of Davenport in the vicinity of Houghtaling Hollow was annexed to the town of Meredith.  (In this last boundary change, Davenport lost about 150 persons and perhaps 30 families.)[14]

The first meeting of the town was held, as prescribed in the organizing legislation, on Tuesday, April 8, 1817, in the home of Widow Sigsbee.  The location of the widow’s home is unclear.  (Sidebar.)

The first resolution passed at this April 8 town meeting was to the effect that buck sheep were not to run at large during the two-month period between September 10 and November 10.  If any were caught, “finders were keepers.”  It also resolved that hogs, properly ringed and yoked, were free commoners (that is, they were permitted to roam at will), but if they did damage to any property, the owner was liable for double damage.[18]

Both domestic and wild animal control—especially in the later case, of wolves—was a common problem in most newly organized towns and the subject of much discussion and many resolutions at town meetings.  Harvey Baker reported that at a 1798 Otego town meeting it was agreed that “five dollars should be paid for every full-grown wolf caught within the town…”  The bounty rose to ten dollars in 1802 but was thereafter reduced as wolves became less “troublesome.”[19] 

Officials and functionaries.  Hugh Orr was chairman of the first town meeting while Dr. Gardner Westcott acted as clerk.  John Davenport was elected supervisor; Seth Goodrich, Town Clerk; and Jesse Booth and Darius Olmstead, Justices of the Peace.  There may not have been many more attendees, or perhaps literate attendees, at that first meeting than the twenty men chosen for town offices.  In any case, a number of the officers wound up with double assignments. 

In addition to Justice of the Peace, Darius Olmstead became both an Assessor and a Commissioner of Public Schools.  David Brewer was both one of two Poor Masters, the other being Andrew TenEyck, and also the town’s sole Constable and Collector.  Two additional Constables were Justus [Justin?] Silliman and John TenEyck..   Jesse Booth was a second Justice of the Peace as well as being one of four Inspectors of Common Schools.

John Davenport became a Fence Viewer as well as Supervisor, and Gaius Northway was both a Fence Viewer and one of three Assessors.  Andrew TenEick (TenEyck) doubled as a Path Master, and Caleb Crandall was another Pathmaster as well as one of three Commissioners of Public Schools.  The other School Commissioner was Hugh Orr, the meeting’s Chairman.  The remaining Assessor was John Banner.

The most jobs assigned to one individual were held by Nathan Bennett, who was simultaneously an Inspector of Common Schools, a Pound Master and a Fence Viewer.

Chosen as Commissioners of Highways were Stephen Olmsted, Conrad Burgett, and Joseph Goodrich.  Inspectors of Common Schools in addition to Jesse Booth and Nathan Bennett were Dr. Gardner Westcott, Whitman Bryant, and Asa Emmons. The second Pound Master was Ira Metcalf.

An additional thirteen men became Pathmasters.  These would have been property owners or lessors along the “beat” of each path, or crude roadway, and might not necessarily have been in attendance at the first town meeting.  In total, the Town of Davenport in 1817 had 43 official positions held by 34 of its male citizens.  All but a handful of the 34 men were heads of households in 1820, as opposed to their sons.  Four of the 34, including hard working Nathan Bennett, had left town before the census of 1820, a testimony to the rapid turnover and onward migration rate among the early settlers.  By the 1830 census, another eight had left Davenport.  Thus about one in three of these early families appear to have moved elsewhere during only a thirteen-year period.[20]

 

 

 

First schools.  The new School Commissioners, Darius Olmstead, Caleb Crandall, and Hugh Orr, met on April 26, 1817, to divide the town into six school districts.  Within one month four schools were in operation: District #1 near the west end of the fourteen-mile long town; District #2 in West Davenport; District #3 in Davenport Center; and District #4 at High Point.  Soon after, District #5 hired a teacher in Fergusonville.  The sixth district was called the Houghtaling School (known, sometimes, as “Hufftail Hollow”).  Until 1818 there was no school in the hamlet of Davenport (at that time and for many years thereafter, “East” Davenport).  Forty years later, in 1858, there were 19 school districts and 959 students in town.

The first teacher hired was the Widow Hannah Dodge.  Little is known about her.  She may have been a resident of nearby Otsego County or have only lived in Davenport for a short time.  There was no Dodge in 1820 Davenport nor in 1810 Kortright or Maryland.  She may of course simply have remarried between 1817 and 1820. 

 

 

Evolution of the town government.  At its formation, almost one in four of Davenport’s household heads was a town official.  This to some extent reflected the town’s relative isolation and, in keeping with the situation in other nearby towns, the early limitations on travel and communication. 

The story on the changing nature of town governance is a work in progress.  This is because the careful examination of early town records has only begun, the records themselves are incomplete and often cryptic, and even the task of compiling a full list of town officers, at the time of writing, is awaiting completion.  (A partially updated list is included in the accompanying CD-ROM.)  Nevertheless, a few observations and conjectures are possible.

First, in many ways Davenport’s town governance has remained remarkably unchanged since 1817.  The posts and presumably the duties of Supervisor and Town Clerk have been in continuous existence. A town board has met regularly. (Annual meetings seem to have been held through the 1800s and early 1900s, with special Town Meetings called as needed.  Meeting minutes are not available for all years, especially prior to 1858.  In more recent times the Board has met monthly.)  Board members have generally consisted of the supervisor and justices (Justice, Justice of the Peace, and more recently, Town Justice), though for the first and only time in the year 1890 a formal, four-man Town Board was sworn in.  It was not until 1956 that the records show the existence of one or more Councilmen.  Bowing to the changing times and personnel the title became Councilperson in 1987.  A four person Town Council then replaced these in 1991 until the present.  Davenport also had a Deputy Supervisor, Louis Trask, in 1989.[21] 

Other posts that have remained in existence from the beginning are assessor, collector (later, tax collector), constable and election inspector or observer.  Constables, usually 3 or 4 or more each year, were listed fairly continuously in the town records until 1981.  There was then a break until 1987, and the last seems to have been appointed in 1990. (The dates here and elsewhere in this section are based on a partially complete listing of town officers, in turn largely derived from preserved Oaths of Office in the town records.  As the listing is expanded on the basis of Town Meeting and other records, dates may change.)  For many years previously, and exclusively since 1990, Davenport has relied on the Sidney Barracks of the New York State Police for police protection.

The combination “Constable and Collector” was separated about 1835.  The first Collector was Francis Arnold, but no further names are reported from 1836 through 1848.  The Collector list seems intermittently complete through 1917, but then there is a gap in the records until the renamed position of Tax Collector appears in 1933, continuing as such to the present.

The town has also had a continuous string of officials charged with roads and schools. The early Pathmasters were replaced over time by Overseers of Highways although the two designations seemed interchangeable between 1817 and 1826.  Pathmasters were again reported in the town board minutes in1873, probably referring to Overseers of Highways.  The total numbers of the two positions increased as the town and as roadways grew.  There were 28 as early as 1824, 33 in 1841, a peak of 61 in 1877, and a tally of 46 in 1896.  Later, with the coming of the automobile and a flurry of road improvements, highways work presumably shifted to townwide management under paid workers.  The Commissioners of Highways meanwhile, in charge of both Pathmasters and Overseers of Highways, are listed through 1914.  A Superintendent of Highways is mentioned in the Town Minutes of 1908, the Superintendent to be paid $2 a day with 0.50 per day for expenses.[22]

  The early public school positions, namely Commissioners and Inspectors, existed only through 1843.  The next recorded designation is that of Superintendent of Schools, held in succession by Sanford Ferguson, James Metcalf, and Moses Miller from 1847 through at least 1854.  (The 1855 names of town officials are missing.)  School governance thereafter is uncertain (more work for the future researcher of town records) until 1910 when M. J. More was named School Director.  There were then one or more directors through 1957 when school administration ceased to be a town function.   School Attendance Officers were appointed from 1932 through 1953.

Some of the more exotic of the early offices were Fence Viewer, Commissioner of Excise, Poundmaster, and Overseer of the Poor.  The job of the Fence Viewers was to resolve boundary disputes between landholders, and the function seems to have continued, at least in name, until 1883.  Commissioners of Excise were primarily collectors of excise taxes, most or all of which seems to have come from the town’s taverns. The office existed until 1896.  The fact that there were usually three or four commissioners may have been a tribute to the large number of the town’s taverns and/or to the difficulties of extracting excise taxes from the town’s tavern keepers.

The task of the Poundmaster was to collect and care for stray dogs and other animals.  The position seems to have ended in 1830.  The post of Dog Warden, presumably with a similar mandate, did not arise until after World War I and perhaps not until 1930 when Albert Quackenbush is reported to have held the position.  In 1982 the title was changed to Dog Control Officer.

Overseers of the Poor, almost always a two-person job, were the town’s early welfare authorities.  Their job was to keep track of the town’s less fortunate inhabitants and to provide limited assistance where necessary.  In the early days, at least, care of orphans, the aged, and other indigent or needy populations were very much a town or neighborhood responsibility.  The last such overseers, one of whom was J. D. Hall, were recorded in 1929.  The Great Depression led to the more modern position of Welfare Officer, to which E.B. Dayton was appointed the following year.  Dayton was to be paid a salary of 50 cents per hour and expenses at the rate of eight cents per mile.[23]  Dayton served until 1935.  No name is listed for 1936, and George M. Hillis, Supervisor at the time, took up the post in 1937.  The following year, his wife, Mary J. Hillis, became the town’s Welfare Officer until the position was terminated after 1971.  Her 34-year tenure was the longest in a single job in Davenport’s history.  The last welfare officer seems to have been elected or appointed in 1871.

Over the years, Davenport has briefly entertained a number of other offices.  There was an official Census Taker in 1821 and a Town Sealer in 1830 followed in 1849, 1850, and 1866 by a Sealer, Weights and Measures.  A combination “Ballot Clerk, School Director” (G. A. Ham) appeared in 1931.  The town’s only known Game Warden, Warren Smith, was listed in 1871.  That post was renamed Game Constable until it ended in 1874.  More recently, a sole Labor Negotiator, Richard Cosco, held that unique post in 1987 and 1988.  A Dog Enumerator was appointed in 1929 and 1930 to prepare a list of dogs for taxation purposes.[26]

 In anticipation of the arrival of the Albany and Susquehanna (A&S) and the Ulster and Delaware (U&D) railroads, Davenport appointed Commissioners of “Rail Roads” between 1860 and 1881.  One role of these Commissioners may have been to vote for the railroad’s board of directors.  The U&D reached Stamford in 1872, and the roadbed was extended past Harpersfield.  By the time it arrived at Davenport Center in 1900 after much controversy and a detour to Bloomville (see Chapter 4), the town apparently no longer required railroad commissioners.  The A&S Railroad (later the Delaware and Hudson) never did pass through Davenport, and the role of the last A&S Commissioner, Elkanah Holmes, seems to have expired by 1870.

A new town post of Historian, without which this volume would not have come into being, was created in 1956.  Dr. George C. Douglass was the first historian, followed by Irwin Dent (1958-1978), Mary S. Briggs (1974-2001), and finally, Sally Beams (2002-  ).

The choosing of town officers.  In some periods, town elections were held annually, but voting every two years seems to have been more common.  In the latter case, elected officials served mainly for two but some for three or four years.  The Town Board appointed other officers.  These included Inspectors of Elections (usually eight for each election), Commissioners of Rail Roads, Fence Viewers, Pathmasters and Overseers of Highways, and other minor officials.  Occasionally after 1874 an elected official, most frequently a constable, would subsequently “fail to qualify as required by law,” and the Town Board would then appoint a replacement.[27]  

Where information on voting is available in the town minutes (as, for example, for 1869-1876), most elected positions were clearly contested, and some votes were close (though none were as close as the 1899 Supervisor’s election reported in the sidebar.) 

Less information is available on party affiliation of those elected, but on at least two occasions in the post-Civil War era, the Democrats clearly dominated local voting.  In both 1876 and 1877 only a single Republican was elected in Davenport.  These were Henry H. Sanford as Auditor in 1876 and Seth TenEyck as one of two Commissioners of Highways in 1877.  In the latter year, the second and last of the town’s experiment with auditors (sidebar), all three auditors were Democrats.  Perhaps Davenport’s 1876 Democratic sweep (in a year in which the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won a disputed national election) reflected local resentment over the scandals of the recent Ulysses Grant (Republican) administration.

Perhaps also relevant was that Samuel J. Tilden, the defeated Democratic presidential candidate (though he won the popular vote), had been Governor of New York and had acquired a reform reputation for his moves against the corruption of the day.[28]  And could the 1876 Democratic sweep have had anything to do with Davenport’s sudden interest in independent auditors?  (See earlier sidebar.)

A chronicle of long-serving town officials.  Any account of town offices would be incomplete without paying brief homage to the many men and women who devoted so many years, often without or with minimal pay, as shown in the preliminary listing of office holders.  Several individuals and several families stand out in this regard although all observations must be tentative because of the fragmentary records.

John Davenport between 1817 and 1828 served six years as Supervisor.  He alternated from time to time with Jesse Booth (who held the office for nine years in all over 1821-1844).  J.G. Lockwood also served six years between 1877 and 1893.  These three seem to have been the longest serving town supervisors during the nineteenth century.  Most of those who held the post before the late 1920s did so for shorter periods.  In 1928 Harry T. Hebbard began a six-year term.  He was followed by George M. Hillis for twelve years (1934-1945).  Durward MacCracken, Jr., served the longest of all town supervisors, 16 years from 1956 through 1971.  Ben Beams had a relatively long term of eight years, 1974-1981, and Raymond M. Christensen, the second longest tenure of 15 years, from 1984 through 1998.

Town Clerks tended to remain in office longer than supervisors.  Seth Goodrich (1817-1822), George Paine (1838-41,1850-51) and John Shue (1844-49) all served for about six years.  The longest time on the job in the 19th century, over four different terms totaling twenty years, was that of John Coulter.  This was not matched until the twenty-one year occupancy of Carrie Barnes, 1930-1950.  Mollie Young, 1977-1991, was another long-serving Town Clerk, but the combination of William V. and Bernice Rathbun set an all-time family record for the post of twenty-seven years, from 1950 to 1977. 

The longest-serving person in a single job, as noted earlier, was probably Mary Hillis, Welfare Officer.  Others in the “thirty year and over” club were Ralph Garrison (30 years as Justice of the Peace and Town Justice, 1959-1988), Robert J. Lawson (32+ years as Assessor, 1972-2003 and counting), Ezra McDougal (a Constable for 30 years from 1951 to 1981), and David Taylor (a Commissioner of Highways for 32 years, 1847-1880).  Taylor interspersed his duty as Commissioner with at least four years as an Overseer of Highways.  Other long-time office holders were Mary S. Briggs as Historian, 1974-2001, and Superintendent of Highways Elmer Moore, 1940-1975.

A number of families were noteworthy, too, judging by the number of lines those of the same last name occupy in the existing master list of office-holders.  (The list, it will be remembered, is incomplete. “Number of lines” may not include all years and may include a line each for more than one job held by a person in a single year.)  Twenty-six members of the Smith family occupy 93 lines in the records, 1820-1979.  They are followed by 85 lines for 14Goodriches, 1817-1914.  Eight Banners, beginning with Wilhelmus (15 years in eight different jobs between 1818 and 1833) account for 60 lines in total, and thirteen Olmsteads, 62 lines in all, 1817-1897.  The two-person family of Frank and Mary Briggs, 1957-2001, add 51 lines and 51 years to this preliminary list of honorees.