The First Town Meeting

The first town-meeting of Brownville was held at the house of Samuel and Jacob Brown, and adjourned to the Brownville Hotel March 1, 1803, at which the following town officers were elected: Jacob Brown, supervisor; Isaac Collins, clerk; John W. Collins, Richard Smith, and Peter Pratt, assessors; J. W. Collins, Izias Preston, Samuel Starr, commissioners of highways; O, Preston, Richardson Avery, Henry A. Delemeter, Samuel Brown, Benjamin Brown, William Rogers, Abijah Putnam, fence-viewers; S. Brown, S. Starr, overseers of the poor; S. Brown, Sanford Langworthy, Caleb J. Bates, Sylvanus Fish, H. A. Delemater, Frederick Sprague, George Waffle, Ethni Evans, path-masters; J. W. Collins, H. A. Delemater, and S. Brown, pound-masters.

Supervisors:

1803 Jacob Brown

1804-05 John W. Collins

1809-10 John Brown

1811-12 Josiah Farrar

1813 John Brown

1814 Joseph Clark

1815 John Brown

1816-17 Walter Cole

1818 George Brown, Jr.

1819-20 Hoel Lawrence

1821-28 Walter Cole

1829-33 George Brown (Perch river)

1834-35 Aaron Shew

1836-37 Walter Cole

1838 Mahlon P. Jackson

1839-40 Alanson Skinner

1841 William Lord

1842-43 A. Skinner

1844-45 Charles B. Avery

1846 A. skinner

1847 Charles B. Avery

1848 Arba Strong

1849 Cyrus Allen

1850 Thomas L. Kemp, C. Allen(Sp. Mtg)

1851 Cyrus Allen

1852 Samuel Middleton

1853 C. K. Loomis

1854-55 Beriah Allen

1856-57 James A. Bell

1858 Jesse Ayres

1859-61 Henry Spicer

1862-64 Henry Dorchester

1865-68 Ezra S. Tallman

1869 Henry Spicer

1870 Alvin A. Gibbs

1875 Walter Zimmerman

1876 O. M. Wood

1877 Henry Binninger

In 1807 there were in Brownville one hundred and eighty-one legal voters, with property qualifications. In 1807 and 1818 bounties of five dollars were offered on wolves; in 1821, eight dollars; 1806, ’08, ’09,’11, ’12, ’20, ten dollars; 1804, ’13, ’19, fifteen dollars; 1815, ’16, twenty dollars; 1814, ’17, twenty-five dollars. Fox bounties of one dollar in 1815, ’20, ’21; and of two dollars and fifty cents in 1817, ’19, and of fifty cnts in 1833, were offered. In 1806 a bounty of ten dollars, and in 1807 of five dollars, was offered for panthers.

February 10, 1807, “The Brownville Library” was formed under the general act, with John Brown, John Baxter, Henry Cowley, Isaac Pease, John Simonds, Stephen Stanley, and Thos. Y. Howe, trustees. This, and a subsequent association, have long since been dissolved.

In 1810, the legislature passed an act to improve the navigation of the mouth of the river up to Brownville by canals and locks. It was thought by making the river navigable to Brownville that it would be made a port of entry for the commerce of the lakes, and a shipping port for the produce of the country; but with so good a harbor and port as was afforded by the bay st Sacket’s Harbor, the project failed. Communication for supplies at this time was mainly with Kingston’ potash, a large product from clearing the land of its timber, being exchanged for flour, pork, and other goods. There were two warehouses built for the accommodation of this trade just below Brownville, small sail-boats being used or this transportation. Just previous to he war of 1842 Congress laid an embargo on trade between England and the United States. Potash, which in the new settlements was one of the chief products, advanced to three hundred and three hundred and twenty dollars a ton in Montreal, from whence it was shipped to England. This excite the cupidity of traders, and an “embargo road” was opened from the Black river, near Brownville, to near French creek, which, for a time, became a great thoroughfare for smugglers.

In 1818 the town raised two thousand dollars towards building a bridge at Pamelia village, and another at Brownville village.

At the annual town-meeting, which was held at Perch River, in 1820, after electing a portion of the officers, the meeting adjourned to the house of Edward Arnold, on Penet Square, till the next day. This measure created much excitement, and those living in the southern and eastern portions of the town rallied with all their forces, attended promptly at the earliest moment of the adjourned meeting, organized, and immediately voted another adjournment, to the house of Elias Bennett, Brownville village, on the afternoon of the same day, where the vote for town-clerk was reconsidered, and the remaining officers elected.

Being thus robbed of their town-meeting, the settlers on Penet Square and in distant localities demanded a separate organization, which was readily granted; and all parties having met at an informal meeting; or convention, at the village, agreed upon a petition to the legislature, which was acted upon before another town-meeting. Accordingly, the town of Orleans, which embraces Penet Square, was set off from this town April 3, 1821.

At the town-meeting in 1821, the clerk read three notices for the division of the town, which were not voted. The first was to annex a part of Brownville to Pamelia; the second, a part of Brownville to Le Ray; and a third, to erect four new towns from Brownville and Le Ray. In 1822 a motion to annex Pamelia to Brownville was defeated.

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Transcribed by Holice B. Young from Jefferson Co. History by L. H. Everts.