History

Granville History...

The History of Granville, New York
Including Middle Granville & North Granville, New York

1737-1878

Reproduced from 1878 History of Washington County Published by
The Bicentennial Committee of Granville, New York 1975

Situation and Natural Features...

This town is located upon the eastern border of the county,
centrally distant seventeen miles from Salem, one of the
half-shire towns. It is bounded on the north by Whitehall and
Hampton, east by Vermont, south by Hebron, west by Hartford
and Fort Ann. It contains thirty-three thousand one hundred and
forty three acres, or nearly fifty-two square miles.

The surface of the town is undulating and hilly. The ridges are
elevated from three hundred to five hundred feet above the
valleys. A large portion of the township lies on what is
sometimes called the Granville river, though it is better known
historically as the Pawlet, the name Granville not applying to the
stream until after is receives the tributaries near North Granville.
It has somewhat romantically been called the Mettawee. In
most of the town the slopes of the hills are gradual, and with few
or no precipitous heights; the valleys are delightful. There is a
quiet pastoral beauty, very attractive and charming, in the
natural scenery of the town. The surface is drained almost
wholly by the stream already named and its tributaries.

The main river enters the town from Vermont at Granville village.
The largest southern branch, formed of two streams flowing from
Hebron, unites a little northwest of the village. Another southern
branch forms a junction with the Pawlet a little east of North
Granville. Almost exactly opposite is the entrance of the principal
branch from the north. These streams are beautifully clear and
limpid, and are fringed with the alluvial meadows through most of
their course. They furnish a large amount of water-power, which
is, however, but partially utilized.

A range of slate deposits passes through the center of the town,
mostly on the southwestern bank of the Pawlet, which furnishes
an inexhaustible supply of roofing material and stock for other
purposes. Clay for the manufacture of brick crops out in various
places, and is used to some extent at Middle Granville.

Early Settlement...

Of early settlement, and of the union with Vermont, Hon. Hiel Hollister
writes: "Settlements were effected prior to the Revolution. The first
emigrants were mostly from New England. The attempt in 1781 to place
themselves under the jurisdiction of Vermont was due to the fear of
invasion, as the Revolutionary was not then closed, and it was thought
to be easier to secure the necessary protection from Vermont than from
New York. Besides, they favored the New England institutions of
universal suffrage and individual ownership of land, rather than the
property qualification required by New York and the feudal land system,
granting the soil in large manors to be cultivated by tenants."

The progress of early settlement was slow. A state of war was
unfavorable to emigration and to the development of the arts of peace.
Conflicting land-titles also discouraged settlers. Soon after the war
closed these valleys filled up as if by magic. The settlement of the
boundary lines cleared away the difficulties to some extent, and the final
adjustment between New York and Vermont, in 1790, left titles mostly
clear and unquestioned. Emigrants purchased with confidence, cleared
their lands, and erected their dwellings without fear of ejectment.

The first settlement undoubtedly dates back to about 1770, and probably
even earlier than that; at least twenty years before the first recorded
town-meeting of 1787. Several lists of names that appear under the
head of church history, etc., show quite a population in the midst of the
Revolutionary war. The Congregational church of Middle Granville had, in
1782, a membership on seventy-two. The petitioners for pardon and
amity in 1782 thirty-seven.

These lists, together with the names found upon the town books for
1787-88, constitute the sources from which we determine the early
settlers and, approximately, the time when they came to this town.

Daniel Curtice came from New Lebanon about 1780. He was the first
supervisor of the town, and a prominent citizen.

Granville...

It is supposed that the first house built in this place was by John C. Bishop,
when he came into this beautiful valley in 1780. Mr. Bishop opened the
first store, and that stood near the site of the present Friend's
meeting-house. The village first grew up on the west side of the river, but
was afterwards changed to the corners. Mr. Bishop secured the opening of
the so-called Shun pike, drawing the travel and the business from Hebron
and from the south generally. The grist-mill is very old, erected before
1800. There was also a saw-mill and fulling-mill, long since gone.

About 1840 a woolen-mill was established in the place of an earlier
hemp-mill, and it is now a knitting-mill. The water-power is regarded as
very valuable.

This village is connected by a stage-line daily to West Granville, and
through to Comstock's, uniting conveniently the two railroads.

There has been a partial incorporation of this village for the purpose of
protection from fire. Latterly, the friends of incorporation have been
defeated by a popular vote.

John Bishop opened the first store. Isaac Bishop succeeded to his father's
business.

The Bishops and their partners were thus the prominent merchants for the
first fifty years or more of Granville history. Jonathan Todd and Colonel Lee
T. Rowley were also a noted mercantile firm from 1828 to 1840.

The site of Granville was originally covered with a growth of splendid
pines.

Schools...

The earliest mention of school-houses in the records of the town occurs in
connection with a road survey. The minute of a road laid out Sept. 4, 1784,
refers to a school-house standing between Joseph Herrington?s and
Ebenezer Gould?s. Another road survey, the same year, refers to a
school-house that "David Skinner had set up for a blacksmith-shop." This
must indicate that an old school-building had stood there years before. A
school was taught at South Granville as early as 1783, by James Richards.

Slate Works...

The importance of the slate business to the town of Granville justifies a
brief statement concerning the geological and mineralogical character of
slate as a preface to the notice of the companies developing it, taken from
the catalogue of the Penrhyn company. Slate is one of the most common
and universally-distributed rocks, forming in some cases very extensive
beds, and even tracts of country. The principal constituents of slate are
alumina, silex, talc, mica, oxide of iron, manganese, magnesia, potash,
carbon and water; hence the different varieties are distinguished by the
names of "Mica Slate," "Hornblende Slate," "Chlorite Slate," "Talcose
Slate," "Drawing Slate," "Red Slate," and last, but of the greatest value,
"Clay Slate."

The discovery of slate near Middle Granville was about the year 1850. A
gentleman having bargained for one of the farms upon which works now
exist, and walking over the farm with the owner, and carelessly kicking
over a stone or two, remarked, "There is slate here." The remark awoke a
train of thought in the proprietor, and the half-completed bargain was
delayed to give time to investigate. Procuring two experts from Vermont,
an examination showed valuable slate. The bargain was not completed,
but soon after, George N. Bates, in company with Stebbins and
Barabrandt, purchased the farm. Wm. R. Williams and brothers were the
first to open quarries, about 1853.

The Penrhyn Slate Company owns a tract of slate deposits very near to the
village of Middle Granville, and are employing about one hundred and fifty
men in the quarries and the mills. The company manufacture
roofing-slate, and have also undertaken and successfully prosecuted the
manufacture of a large variety of other slate work, plain, marbleized,
enameled and decorated. Their warehouse displays a choice variety and
the artistic display, rivaling in richness and beauty the costliest marbles of
the world.

The mills of the Penrhyn company are picturesquely located upon the
Mettawee, and the fine bridge they have built over the stream for
convenience of railroad connection adds to the beauty of the
arrangement. The heaped up masses from their quarries, and the high,
swinging derricks, afford a background for a picture worthy the pencil of an
artist.

The slate business at Granville village was commenced about 1871. The
quarries are over the line in Vermont, town of Pawlet, Hugh W. Hughes,
proprietor. The quarries are worked by contract, about sixty men being
employed. The office is in Granville. Mr. Hughes is also a dealer in slate,
buying largely of others. His shipments in 1876 were twenty-three
thousand squares of roofing-slate.

At the same village is located the Warren Slate company, J.S. Warren,
Edward Williams, and Wm. P. Francis. Their quarries are also in Vermont.
They manufacture sea-green roofing slate, employing from fifty to sixty
men, making ten or twelve thousand squares a year. They are also
purchasers to some extent from others for shipment.

St. Francis Indians...

Mr. Thompson relates the following: In 1850, when he was building his
dwelling in Granville village, a company of St. Francis Indians, carrying
bead-work southward for sale, came here and desired to encamp for a few
days upon his grounds. The leader was an intelligent man and quite
civilized. He claimed the right, by virtue of immemorial usage, to encamp
at various places in this vicinity, and among them, on the beautiful spot
Mr. Thompson was building upon. He said that it was the tradition among
his people that their ancestors had for ages fished and hunted in this town,
fining here their best beavers, and that in this section and at this place
they had formerly come to make their arrows and hatchets. The chief's
mother, traveling with him, an old woman of a hundred years, confirmed
his account. Mr. Thompson, in the progress of his excavations for building
had the pleasure of throwing up a quantity of defective arrow-heads and
hatchets, clearly showing the truth of the Indian's story, that at this spot,
for ages, they had made their weapons, and that here were the favorite
hunting-grounds of the tribe.

Agricultural...

The soil of this town is described as a slaty, gravelly loam. It is particularly
adapted to potatoes, and large quantities are exported at times. Sheep
husbandry, treated of in the general county history, has prevailed
extensively. In later years the dairy business has largely engrossed the
attention of farmers. The town of Granville not only contains within its own
limits several cheese-factories, but it is the country beyond its own
borders. The town is not, however, limited to any one form of rural industry.
There is no product of this latitude to which the soil of this town is not
adapted. Its hillsides as well as its plains and the meadows on its
water-courses are fertile and productive.

The town is peculiarly favored with commercial facilities, having the Rutland
and Washington railroad on the east, which runs the entire length of the
town, and has two stations; and the Champlain canal and the Rensselaer
and Saratoga railroad on the west, but three miles from its western
boundary, thus giving the people a choice of markets and a choice in the
mode of reaching them.

The population of this town is rapidly increasing, which is true of but few
rural towns in the State.

With references to the sheep husbandry of earlier years, it may he added
that there were then many fine flocks in Granville. The number of sheep in
Granville in 1845 was 10,902.

More information about Granville, New York history:
http://www.slatevalleymuseum.org/history.htm

Historical Picture from 1939 -
Men Working in Slate Quarry.