Chapter 9 - The Yankee Invasion
Ties That Bind - Giving Thanks
- Mohawk Valley - 1789
It's amazing how parochial we are here in the
Mohawk Valley. One would think the valley was divided into sections---separated
by invisible barriers---each claiming to be the "real" Mohawk Valley. History
tells us many reasons for this parochialism, but often leaves out the ties
that bind the valley from one end to the other. The following illustrates
the "ties that bind" and the grand spirit of thanksgiving.
that saved the lives of 30 families living in the wilderness.
Following the Revolutionary War the wilderness west of (Herkimer) was opened for settlement. One of the earliest settlements in this area of the Mohawk Valley was established in 1788 near present day Clinton. Eight families began the arduous task of clearing the forest, building log homes, burning trees and planting crops around the stumps. Their produce that first year was barely enough to fill their needs, let alone provide for the influx of fellow New Englanders in the Spring of 1789. With crops recently planted and almost 30 families to feed, they tried to supplement their meager food supply by collecting nuts and leeks, catching fish and shooting or trapping wild game. Faced with starvation, they sought help.
A delegation traveled down the Mohawk Valley seeking to purchase food on credit. Their quest resulted in failure until they reached Fort Plain. Here they met a farmer / merchant / miller who understood hardship and heartache. He had survived the Revolutionary War, but lost his father and brother at the Battle of Oriskany. For a promise of payment---sometime in the future---he provided them with a boatload of "flour, meal and meat." The batteau was poled up the Mohawk some 50 miles to the mouth of Oriskany Creek. From there the precious cargo was transported 10 miles upstream in canoes and then taken by oxcart to the homes of the starving settlers.
`The following year their benefactor, Colonel Isaac Paris died at the young age of 29. Two years later when a new township was formed, in the southern portion of what was at that time Whitestown, it was named Paris in honor of the man from Fort Plain who helped when others would not. It was their way of giving thanks.
But honor and thanksgiving to Isaac Paris did not end in the naming of a town. On October 1, 1880 the remains of Colonel Paris, which had been removed from his almost forgotten grave in Fort Plain, were buried in St Paul's Cemetery in the Village of Paris on Paris Hill in the Town of Paris. Dignitaries from miles around came to address the crowd that gathered for the event. The Hon. Lorenzo Rouse, "one of the veteran residents of the town and president of the day" delivered the following address.
Isaac Paris's remains and family tombstone were moved from Fort Plain
to the St. Paul's Episcopal Cemetery on Paris Hill where they remain to
this day.
On October 1, 1880 the Town of Paris celebrated the life of
Isaac Paris
at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church atop Paris Hill.
"The first pioneers in the town, consisting, as
we have seen, of eight families, had enough to do, in the then unbroken
wilderness, to provide shelter for their families, and the necessary food
to sustain life, without accumulating any great surplus for the future.
They eked out their subsistence by occasional resorts to the forest and
the stream, but added little to any permanent store. The influx of emigration
in 1788, as we have seen, quadrupled the population and their united exertions
were insufficient to remove their heavily timbered forests, clear the land
and prepare it in season to cultivate crops sufficient to supply food for
all. True, an occasional meal of fish assisted, and now and then a bearsteak
was considered as a God-send. But they found the latter was fully over-balanced
by the extreme fondness of the bears for green corn and young pigs, thus
too often blasting their anticipations. Although they laid in a good supply
of nuts and leeks from the forest they found their scanty stores rapidly
diminishing, so when the planting time came in the spring of 1789, they
carefully cut out the eyes of the potatoes for planting, thus reserving
the bulk of the tubers for food. For breadstuff they were obliged to resort
to the primitive Indian method of using the hominy block, or if fine meal
was wanted to (p) back the grist seven miles through the forest to the
nearest mill, which had just been erected at Whitestown. But soon their
supply of corn failed them, and they could not wait for their growing crops
to mature. Their children began to cry for bread, and something must be
done to avert starvation. A deputation was accordingly appointed to go,
on foot, to the German Flats, now in Herkimer County, which although it
had been much longer settled, had suffered greatly during the revolutionary
war. The deputation had no money to offer and could only pledge their credit
for future payment. The cautious German settlers, although sympathizing
in their distress, did not deem the security sufficient from those whom
they looked upon with suspicion as only a parcel of "treacherous Yankees."
Despondent in feeling at their want of success, where they most hoped for
it, the deputation passed on to Fort Plain, on the opposite side of the
river, where it would seem that Providence directed them to a young man,
then only twenty eight years of age, variously termed a farmer, a miller,
and a merchant, but as he was a man of means, he probably combined all
three branches of business. To him they told their sorrowful tale, and
his kind heart at once melted. He answered them that they must have help.
But they, recollecting their recent repulse, frankly told him, "Silver
and gold we have none, but such as we have we will give thee---when we
have it." His prompt answer was, "No matter what the pay. Your women and
children must not be permitted to starve. Take what you need to
feed them, and if, at any time in the future, you are able to pay for it,
it will be well. If you are never able it will also be well, but your families
must
not be allowed to starve. "With the greatest dispatch he proceeded
to load a batteau, or flat boat, with flour, meal and meat, for the needy
settlers, and with light hearts and joyous feelings, the deputation eagerly
assisted, with the setting of poles, in, propelling the boat up the stream
to the mouth of the Oriskany creek., where one of their number had already
notified the settlers to meet them with canoes of their own construction,
and thus they conveyed the provisions up to the point near where the Clinton
factory now stands, from whence they were removed to the settlement with
an ox team and distributed among the hungry people. It should be mentioned
that it was subsequently agreed and insisted upon by the settlers that
the debt should be paid in the root of the wild ginseng which at that early
day grew abundantly in the forests, and which from its supposed rare medicinal
values, was in great demand for exportation to European ports not only,
but even to China where it was considered more valuable than gold. The
women and children of the settlement at once set themselves to work to
scour the forest and search with avidity for the precious root, and to
their credit be it said, that within a short time a sufficient quantity
of it was gathered to liquidate the entire debt.
"Within one short year thereafter, the settlers were pained
to hear that their kind benefactor had been removed from earth and
called to his last accounting of his stewardship. This was in the year
1790, at his early age of twenty-nine years. But though dead he was not
forgotten by those whom he had so kindly befriended. Two years later, in
1792, the settlement had been so much increased that a separate town organization
was applied for and granted, embracing within its limits all of the southern
portion of Whitestown.
"When the citizens came together to consult and agree on the
name for the now township, it was found that they were substantially unanimous
in their preference for the name of their deceased benefactor, and Paris
became the name of the new organization. Let it be ever perpetuated!"
written by Henry C. Rogers and published in 1881
As the Town of Paris was separated from Whitestown, so the
towns of Kirkland and Marshall were separated from Paris. Although the
original settlement so described is now in the Town of Kirkland, the grave
of Isaac Paris is located in the village, on the hill and in the town bearing
his name.
How To Get There
To get to to Paris Hill , follow Route 12 south out of Utica
/ New Hartford until you see this sign. Turn left at the road that leads
into Paris. The church and cemetery are in the middle of the village.
