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Jefferson County history pages
TOWN HISTORIES
Adams
Alexandria
Antwerp
Brownville
Cape Vincent
Champion
Ellisburgh
Henderson
Houndsfield
Le Ray
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THE FIRST GRIST MILL.
A flour and grain mill was of prime consequence to the settlers and ene of the first things looked after. John
B. Esseistyn once carried a bushel of corn on his back to Chaumont, had ot ground, and brought the meal home in
the same manner. This was not an uncommon feat when the road would not permit trip with a horse. The first mill
in Cape Vincent was built on Kent’s Creek. Negotiations were begun for a site as early as 1803 by R. M. Esselstyn,
who came as far as Chaumont river in 1801. In a letter written to Mr. Esseistyn by Mr. Le Ray, he was offered a
“mill scat and twenty-five acres” of land at $4.00 per acre, unless during the year of erecting the mill, a town
should spring up around it, when, added Le Ray, I should feel “at liberty to break the present bargain.” A mill
was not built so early as this year or the next. The Esselstyn brothers and Henry Ainsworth were the only merchants
here for many of the first years. Goods brought from New York in a month, so late as 1820, made a quick passage.
Sometimes Mr. Esselstyn would go in a lumber wagon to Hudson, his wife accompanying him, and bring home such merchandise
as had been transported for him to that point on a sloop, from the metropolis. During one of these overland trips
be carried a heavy bag of specie under some straw on the bottom of his wagon. Whenever he stopped for the night
he would carelessly throw his harness over the straw and bag—either to disarm suspicion or else to teach our generation
that the former times were better than these. On another occasion he wrote home of his splendid ride on the Clermont
of Robert Fulton, (140 feet keel and 16½ feet beam) the first steam packet that ever made a successful trip,
in the universe.. This boat, wrote Mr. Esseistyn with enthusiasm, ran at the marvellous speed of four miles an
hour directly against the wind. And it was marvellous, in contrast with those trips by the Hudson river sloops
when passengers would spend a whole day, walking along the shore and picking berries to while away the time till
the wind was favorable.
FROM:
Cape Vincent and Its History
Compiled by Nelie Horton Casler
Hungerford - Wolbrook Co.
Watertown, NY 1906
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Jefferson County Biographies
TOWN HISTORIES
Lyme
Lorraine
Orleans
Philadelphia
Rodman
Rutland
Theresa
Watertown
Wilna
Worth
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