NOTES ON THE HAMLET OF TROUT CREEK

by

Bruce T. Sherwood & Ralph C. Clark

Trout Creek as a community had its beginnings in 1788, and by 1804 had acquired the character of a crossroads Village, one of many villages along the route of the Catskill Turnpike which wound through the mountains from Kingston, or "Sopus", to Downsville, Walton, and over the hills to Little York, Teedville, Masonville, Bennettsville, and Bainbridge, where it joined the Susquehanna Turnpike -- the main road south and west.

Trout Creek, or Teedville as it was referred to in Beer’s Atlas of Delaware County (Philadelphia: 1869), was the geographical-commercial center of the Rapalje Patent of 40,000 acres granted in 1770 by the Legislature of the Province of New York to Johannes Rapalje, merchant of New York. The Rapalje patent belonged to the Rapalje’s for only 14 years; as Tories, the Rapalje’s holdings were confiscated by the New Republic in 1784, and title passed to William Banyar, Albany attorney, and power in the politically dominant Federalist oligarchy of post Revolutionary New York. Two hundred-acre lots were surveyed by James Cockburn in 1775, which were sold by Banyar to settlers after the Revolution. The firs’ purchaser of several lots was Samuel Teed (1743-1811), who bought land from the Masonville line on the north, south to the present village. Teed, his wife Maria Reneaux (1756-1828), and their four young sons, John, Amos, Jesse, and Samuel, came to the valley in the spring of 1788 to prepare for settlement. That winter, they returned to Mrs. Teed’s family home near Schenectady; and made permanent settlement in the spring of 1789. By the following year, they had been joined by several friends and relatives; Joseph Crawford, Peter and Cornelius Huyck, Isaac Jackson, Abraham Constable, John Bullock, Oliver Hale, Sr. at Rock Royal, and Caleb and Jesse Smith.

Life in the frontier settlement was not. The land records of the Rapalje Patent kept by Capt. John Teed (1777—1844) show that by 1804 there were only 63 of some 200 lots sold, a number which increased to slightly more than 100 by 1832, including village lots in Teedville and Cannonsville. Very little land had been cleared -- the means of livelihood was subsistence farming, with lumber as a source of cash. Saw and grist mills were built by Samuel Teed just north of the village prior to 1800, where logs were purchased or sawn on commission and the lumber rafted to Philadelphia via the Delaware River. By 1818, Capt. John Teed was able to fill the orders of Philadelphia merchants for dimension sawn hardwood, and guarantee delivery within six months. In 1855, the Town of Tompkins had 45 sawmills in. operation – one of the highest concentrations of any town in the state.

In 1804, there were several homes near the site of the present village of Trout Creek -- Henry Bedell’s tavern stood on the site of the soldiers’ monument, Samuel Teed’s was on the flat land behind the creamery, John Teed’s home was on the old road behind the present Teed barn, a store was adjacent to it, and several small homes were located near the mills north of the village. Most of these were of squared log construction, though the Bedell house and the Jeremiah Teed house on the site of the Decker store were of sawn lumber. By 1811, the widowed Maria Teed lived in a frame house incorporated into the present Kirlin residence by her grandson, Lebbeus Lathrop Teed; and the large frame houses of Capt. John and Fanny Jennings Teed, of-the Isaac Jackson’s (both the Vanderwalker house and the Reed La Tourette (farmhouse), the Crawford’s (Richard La Tourette), the Lebbeus Lathrop Teed house (Kirlin), and the Amos Teed house above the mills had been built by 1830.

The valley’s greatest increase in population and economic growth occurred during the 1830’s when settlers came to the area from the rent lands of eastern New York State, and upon the coming of age of the first generation of native born persons. Families were large, and land in other parts of the state was scarce. During this time of depression and political upheaval, many families moved to Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. Agricultural pursuits multiplied as farms on Pine Swamp, Tacoma, Loomis Brook, and Carrol Hill, Bullock Hill, and Jones Hill were cleared and put to the plow; providing produce for sale and barter. As the quality of roads improved and timber sources decreased, the growing of small grains, cattle, and the production of butter and cheese became dominant economic factors by the 1850’s, though lumber was still the principal source of income.

Settlers on the Rapalje Patent came of diverse ethnic and geographical origins. The earliest -- Teeds, Jacksons, Crawfords, Ogdens, Constables, and Sandses descended from the Huntington-Brookhaven, Long Island, pioneers of the 1650’s.; they were Anglo-Dutch, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, were the Owners of most of the slaves in the township; more than a few Royalists were among them. The 2nd group -- Huycks, Bradts, Ostroms -- came from the Albany area, much the same as the first group, but were of the High Dutch Reformed persuasion. The 3rd group -- Hales, Leonards, Bullocks, Smiths, Bennetts, Chamberlains, Howeses -- were New Englanders, Congregationalists and Baptists. A 4th group, those who settled in the 1830’s, were of Scots-Irish and Welsh extraction, by marriage if not by name -- among them the Finches and the Jenkinses.

On the eve of the Civil War, Trout Creek was a village of 2, dozen homes, at least 3 general stores, 2 taverns, and a Baptist Church built in the 1840’s. By 1815, common schools had replaced Maria Teed’s day school of the 1790’s; nearly all the land had been cleared; the ratio of frame to log dwellings was 6 to 1; cheese factories and finishing mills complimented the saw and grist mills of earlier date. The valley was a moderately prosperous agricultural community -- somewhat isolated which more than adequately provided sustenance for an industrious and self-suffcient population. It was a microcosm of much of eastern New York State, and a typical Delaware County Village.

The large population of the 19th century was supported by an extensive agricultural economy established at mid-century; every farm in the Patent had been cleared and was the home of a family. In 1870, there were 4,046 people in the township; in 1970, only 905. The town of Deposit, formed in 1880, absorbed 44 square miles of the old Town of Tompkins and a large portion of the population. Many of the farms of the late 19th century were poor and unfertile and were slowly abandoned. The abandonment’s were purchased by the State in the 1930’s and reforested. A major decrease in the area’s population occurred in the 1960’s: the intrusion of the Cannonsville Reservoir, which has prohibited habitation in a large part of the town.

To the Village of Trout Creek of the 1860’s, much has been added, a great many structures were destroyed by fire, but also much of an early date has survived. About a mile south of the village is located 1 of the 2 oldest, continually inhabited, one family farmsteads: that of the Jesse Smith family. Until recently, the road to Walton went past the present George Higley farm, beside the old grist mill, which is the oldest building in the community. At the southern end of the village, on the Horton store site, was located a blacksmith shop with a house behind it; toward the center Of the village were vacant lots and then the Denton general store at the 4 corners. Opposite the Denton store was the large Jackson house and the tavern. Adjacent to the old Teed Hotel (Hiram Howes property), a large, 3-story building, was another blacksmith-wagon shop. Most of the houses on the left side of the street north of the intersection are quite the same as in the 1860’s: next north of the present post office was the Emerson Warren house; the Tomao house was a feed and lumber store; the Kite house went with the blacksmith shop across the road; the last house on the street, a story lower than at present, was a shoe shop. There were only 3 dwellings on East Street after the Austin-Kirlin house; 1 on either side of Herrick Hollow Road and I above the mills -- an early home. The present school house site was not occupied until 1880. The first building there was deemed unsatisfactory and moved away for other uses about 1898. The current structure was built in1899, while school was held in the Edgar Pond house (Fanny Higley) in the interim.

The earliest school building (1819) was on the present creamery property, the 2nd (remodeled) still stands on Route 206, to the rear of the post office building. Comprising the architectural forms of a century and a half, the village functions today as then; the commercial establishments of the past are either put to another use or have been removed. Like so many of its counterparts,. Trout Creek looks to the commercial and educational facilities centralized -in larger communities a few miles away. The area has witnessed changes of economy -- lumber, trade, farming -- and the birth and death of at least 7 generations of residents. It can be assumed that spans of life and of change will, continue the evolution which began on the Rapalje Patent nearly 200 years ago.