Monday, January 4, 1796
At a town-meeting held in Champlain this date, Nat. Douglass, Pliny Moore and Zerah Curtis were chosen the first school trustees. The same day in Wallingford, Vt., was born Sally Clark, whose father, in 1803 removed with his family to Peru, where she became the wife of John Loderick Hackstaff.
Tuesday, February 2, 1796
Near the northern base of Coon mountain in what
was then Elizabethtown but is now a part of Westport, while returning upon the
ice from a visit to his friend Platt Rogers at Basin Harbor, William Gilliland,
the pioneer of Champlain Valley, perished.
His remains were interred in the Essex village cemetery but in 1900 were
removed to Lakeview cemetery in the town of Willsboro under the supervision of
his descendant, John Bleeker Cuyler of Willsboro.
“The former lord of a vast domain, the generous patron and tender
father, the dispenser of munificent hospitalities, the associate and counselor
of viceroyalty, died far way from human care of cold and famine, with no voice
of love to soothe his sufferings, and no kind hand to close his dying eyes.”
-Winslow C. Watson.
In “Pioneer
History of Champlain Valley”
Tuesday, April 5, 1796
It was voted "that ten dollars be paid by the inhabitants of Peru
for every wolf killed within the town of Peru in the present year, said wolf to
be a full grone wolf and fresh killed"
At the regular town meeting in the Court House (Plattsburgh)
it was "voted to raise twenty-five ponds by tax on the Freeholders and
inhabitants of the Town of Plattsburgh this year to finish the Court
House."
Monday, May 23, 1796
Zadock Thomson, the second son of Capt. Barnabas Thomson of Bridgewater, Vt., was born. A long convalescence from a severe wound which nearly cost his life, gave him opportunity for study and he graduated from the U.V.M with honor in 1823. From his labors, we have a vast amount of information regarding Vermont, obtainable from no other source. His chief work is "Natural, Civil and Statistical History of Vermont" published in 1843 and written while the author was engaged in teaching in the Vermont Ephiscopal Institute. His death in 1856 was occasioned by ossification of the heart.
Is learning your ambition?
There is no royal road;
Alike the peer and peasant
Must climb to her abode:
-Saxe.
Saturday, June 4, 1796
Capt. Nath'l Douglass of Chazy, and Lucy Converse were
married. They moved to Isle la Motte, Vt., but, in 1811, emigrated to the
township of Sherrington, Canada, where the Douglass had taken up a tract the
year before, felled trees, built a hut, and now, was to become a first settler.
His father, Nathaniel, Sr., and his brothers, James & Jonathan, soon
joining him from Chazy, the settlement was called Douglassville. In 1812,
Capt. Douglass was appointed by the British government, captain of militia and
held the office until his death.
Tuesday, October 4, 1796
Wm. Henry Morgan, son of Jonas and
Sarah (Mott) Morgan, was born at Lansingburgh. As a lad he used to run along the river
bank besides Fulton's Clermont as she made her trips up and down the Hudson, flowing past
his home town. At sixteen, accompanied by his father, whose business interests took him as
far as Westport, the lad set out for Plattsburgh with but four dollars and a letter of
introduction to Mr. John Freligh. The letter, however, he had no occasion to use, but
found employment at once and so prospered that in 1814, in company with his oldest
brother, Jonas, he was keeping a general store at the corner of Bridge and Charlotte
streets. During the engagement the brothers sought safety in the bushes growing on the
island at the rivers mouth, on their way rescuing six children who had become separated
from their parents and were huddled in terror on the river bank. The parents were found
after the battle at Fort Moreau, nearly distracted at the disappearance of their little
ones.
