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”
1797
Charles Platt, the first settler of Plattsburgh, appointed judge in the Court of
Common Pleas.
1874
Mrs. Mary L. Fletcher and her daughter Miss Mary M. Fletcher gave to a Board of
Trustees of the Fletcher Free Library of Burlington, the sum of $10,000 for the
purchase of books and a further sum of $10,000, the income of which was to be
used in increasing the Library.
1880 The Rev. Joseph Gamble unanimously called to the pastorate of the First Presbyterian church.
