The 9th day of April, 1840, was a clear beautiful spring day; the ground was dry, roads were dusty and farmers busy with their spring’s work. On my way from Franklin to Unadilla on horseback, when opposite the old Daniel Beach Hotel,[50] two miles west of Franklin, a hotel having a reputation far and wide, my horse stumbled throwing me over her head sprawling into the dust, but luckily doing me no damage other than covering me most thoroughly with dust.
Unadilla Village was then a hamlet estimated to contain 300 inhabitants; there were three physicians, one of whom had come in the year before and bought the old Bragg Hotel, the property known in later years as the Dr. Odell place. Had I known that this gentleman intended to practice his profession, in addition to keeping a hotel I probably should not have ventured to remain here, but once arrived and circumstanced financially as I was, I could see no alternative but to stay, and sink or swim as the fates might decree. The two other physicians, Drs. Cone and Colwell, had been here many years, and were firmly established practitioners. While their deportment toward me as a new comer and competitor, was cool and dignified, I had no reason to complain of their treatment. The outlook at best was anything but encouraging for a young stripling lacking a month of being of man’s age.
II.
UNADILLA SIXTY YEARS AGO.
1840.
The village as it would have appeared upon the map in 1840 I may describe as follows: Beginning at the upper or east end, the first building was a one story, weather-beaten house, standing near the shanty occupied by Mrs. Slavin; it was the home of our venerable disciple of St. Crispin, S. H. Fancher.
Then came the house now owned and occupied by Horace Eells. It then stood on the opposite or eastern corner of the old Butternuts road—the site is now occupied by another house—and was owned by David Finch, father of Wm. T. Finch, Esq.
A few rods back on the old Butternuts road stood a small, low shanty that had been used in connection with the Noble and Hayes distillery (since occupied as a tannery by Mr. Eells) as a hog pen; it was then occupied by a family of the name of Nichols—Ti Nichols, who was one of my first patrons. I shall ever retain a feeling remembrance of the premises, for the reason that on my first visit in a dark night, the crown of my head came in violent contact with a knot in a beam over head, the room being not over five feet in the clear.[51]
On the site now occupied by Mr. Eells’s house there stood one of the first houses built in this place, the house on the present Post Office corner being the other and of the same style. The one in question was then occupied by Amos Priest, who was the practical farmer for the Noble and Hayes firm.[52]
Next was the old store building of the above firm, soon afterward used as a tobacco and cigar factory by Noble and Howard.
The two next as now standing were the residences of the Noble and Hayes families with the farm house next adjoining. Mr. Noble had died a few years previously. Mr. Hayes was still living and dealing quite largely in fat stock.