His first home in the village was in the western end beyond the Wilmot house. He afterwards bought a farm in Sidney, opposite the old fulling mill, but some years afterward returned to the village and lived in the Masonic Hall, while it occupied the old Brick Store lot. In 1820 he acquired the house afterwards removed to its present site by Horace Eells. It was then an unfinished building which had been begun by Thomas Noble. Mr. Finch, assisted by William J. Thompson, completed it and made it his home.
His first considerable work as a builder was the Roswell Wright house, afterwards the residence of Senator David P. Loomis, which was erected in 1823 or 1824. The panel lumber used for it cost only five dollars per thousand. Mr. Finch built the Edson house below the Presbyterian church about the same time, and in company with Lord and Bottom did work on St. Matthew’s church. Of him William J. Thompson learned his trade. Mr. Finch was born in 1782 and died in 1841. His son, William T. Finch, who died a few years ago in Chicago was long a citizen of Unadilla. A daughter was the wife of Rufus G. Mead.
Mr. Thompson was born in Saratoga in 1805 and came with his father to Otego in 1808, and to Unadilla as an apprentice to Mr. Finch in 1824. He and Mr. Finch were afterwards partners and together reared many structures still standing in Unadilla village, as well as in other places, including Meredith Square and Coventry. Mr. Thompson was a member of St. Matthew’s Church for sixty years or more. He died in Savannah, Georgia, in January, 1895, and his body was brought to the old churchyard for burial. In the Masonic Hall, while an apprentice, Mr. Thompson found his first Unadilla home, scarcely dreaming that he would live to move the edifice to its present place as his own residence for nearly fifty years—the house now the summer home of his son-in-law Lester T. Hubbell.
A friend of Curtis Noble and Isaac Hayes who soon followed them to Unadilla, was Melancthon B. Jarvis who was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, in June, 1775, where he had known Josiah Thatcher. He settled on the Timothy Beach farm near the mouth of the Ouleout, but later moved to the village and occupied part of the house Sheldon Griswold long lived in. He died in 1856.
Captain Josiah Thatcher about the same time settled on a neighboring farm, part of which has since been known as the Sternberg place. He had served in the Revolution three years. In the house which still stands on the place he lived until he died in 1856 at the age of eighty-six. His wife was Anna Reed, and his children were Polly, George, Esther, Harriet, Nancy, Amelia and Frances. His ancestor was an Englishman from Kent, who on arrival in America was shipwrecked off Cape Cod, where a lighthouse was afterwards set up and named after him.
VI.
A GRIST AND SAWMILL CENTRE.
1790-1812.
Until the new century had well started on its course, the only business in the country yielding much cash was lumbering, which involved journeys down the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers to Harrisburgh, Baltimore and Philadelphia. So extensive became this industry that others were neglected and prophets of evil predicted the ruin of the country. Every settlement in the valley had many sawmills, not only on the river but along tributary streams. Spafford in 1813 reported that Unadilla alone had sixteen, five of which were accompanied by grist mills.
Among the mills which exerted influence in fixing the sites of villages considerable eminence belongs to those situated in Unadilla village near the mouth of the Binnekill. Originally they were known as the Bissell mills. This site was chosen in order to make use of the waters of Martin Brook and other streams which there found a way into the Susquehanna. Martin Brook at that time was a much larger stream than now. Indeed, on village land, it consisted, as already stated, of two streams which formed an island, a branch starting some distance below the old Peter Weidman place, proceeding westward and southward until it crossed Main Street near a willow tree at the old Post Office corner, and thence went across the Woodruff lands to join the main channel in the churchyard. Besides the waters of this brook, there flowed through the village two smaller creeks then having a larger volume than now, one near the residence of Samuel D. Bacon, the other crossing Main Street several rods further east. Before the timber was cut these three streams combined to pour into the river a large volume of water.
The first mill on the site of the present mills was the sawmill built by Daniel Bissell some years before 1800 and supplied by the waters of these three creeks. At the point near where the combined streams emerged into the river, the banks on both the island and the mainland shore were high, thus affording a natural site for a dam. Daniel Bissell probably erected his sawmill here as early as 1790. We, therefore, have in this mill the pioneer industry for Unadilla village, the first distinct industry in which men engaged aside from farming.