The NYS Gazetteer by J.H. French printed in 1860 says Franklin was formed from Clinton County March 11, 1808, and named in honor of Benjamin Franklin. A small portion was annexed to Essex County March 22, 1822. Cindy Amrhein Town of Alabama Historian Genesee Co., NY ********************** Historian's Page - Alabama, NY http://www2.pcom.net/cinjod/historian/ Experience the town of Alabama in Genesee County, New York. History, tombstone inscriptions, census records, history of the Tonawanda Seneca Indians and the Iroquois. Enjoy a good murder mystery? Read about the murders of Polly Frisch. APHNYS (The Association of Public Historians of New York State) http://www.tier.net/aphnys/ Genesee County, NY website. Includes History Department, (under "Historian") http://www.co.genesee.ny.us/ The Genesee Area Genealogy Society lists the names and addresses for all the Genesee & Wyoming County Historians http://www.rootsweb.com/~nygags/hist.htm

Reference was made in a recent message to this list of the fact that Franklin County may have at one time been a part of Clinton County. If that is true, when did the separation take place?

I would like to know the story of French Mills too. Ruth, from nearby St. Lawrence County, NY.

Where is this site located that talks about French Mills? I must have missed the email where all this is described? Thanks, marilyn ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joseph H. Gardner" <jgardner@iglou.com> To: <NYFRANKL-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 9:43 PM Subject: Thanks > Many thanks to all who responded to my query concerning French Mills with such useful information and fruitful leads. Most confirmed my suspicions that Gen. Wilkinson was a military incompetant as well as a slimeball opportunist. Here in Kentucky we know him as the guy who tried to sell our state to Spain. > > John Mahon's history of the War of 1812, says the encampment at "French Mills" was the scene of great suffering. Provisions were short, temperatures dipped as low as 30 below, and corrupt officers, many political appointees, "appropriated the pay of the dead, swindled dying soldiers, and sold government stores for personal enrichment." > > As one respondant suggests, it looks like my ancestor not only died a miserable and--as far as I can tell--pointless death, he was probably dumped in an unmarked mass grave along with other victims of Wilkinson's ambition, incompentacy, & his subalterns' greed. > > So I'm glad to learn there're efforts to gain federal recognition of the site. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help. That's if the recognition is not given to scumbags like Wilkinson and his officer corps, but to grunts like my ancestor, who left a nineteen year old widow & a son he never saw. > > Yours, > Joseph Gardner > > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >

Many thanks to all who responded to my query concerning French Mills with such useful information and fruitful leads. Most confirmed my suspicions that Gen. Wilkinson was a military incompetant as well as a slimeball opportunist. Here in Kentucky we know him as the guy who tried to sell our state to Spain. John Mahon's history of the War of 1812, says the encampment at "French Mills" was the scene of great suffering. Provisions were short, temperatures dipped as low as 30 below, and corrupt officers, many political appointees, "appropriated the pay of the dead, swindled dying soldiers, and sold government stores for personal enrichment." As one respondant suggests, it looks like my ancestor not only died a miserable and--as far as I can tell--pointless death, he was probably dumped in an unmarked mass grave along with other victims of Wilkinson's ambition, incompentacy, & his subalterns' greed. So I'm glad to learn there're efforts to gain federal recognition of the site. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help. That's if the recognition is not given to scumbags like Wilkinson and his officer corps, but to grunts like my ancestor, who left a nineteen year old widow & a son he never saw. Yours, Joseph Gardner

In a message dated 6/2/2002 1:40:06 AM Pacific Daylight Time, brauck@bigfoot.com writes: > I'm seeking information concerning a place called "French Mills," where > Gen. James Wilkinson wintered his command during the War of 1812. As far as > this Kentuckian can tell, it was in Franklin Co., on the Salmon River, just > south of the Canadian border. > The following website has an interesting bio on General James Wilkinson: http://www.usinternet.com/users/dfnels/wilkinson.htm Mac

French Mills is now called Fort Covington Mac

I believe French Mills in Clinton County, then, is now called Fort Covington, in Franklin County now. And the Salmon River DOES run through it!! As does the Little Salmon!!!! (French Mills in Lewis County was later called Deer River). Good luck, Brauck. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joseph H. Gardner" <jgardner@iglou.com> To: <NYFRANKL-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 5:59 PM Subject: French Mills, War of 1812 > I'm seeking information concerning a place called "French Mills," where Gen. James Wilkinson wintered his command during the War of 1812. As far as this Kentuckian can tell, it was in Franklin Co., on the Salmon River, just south of the Canadian border. > > My ancestor, Freeman Wheaton, a private in the 22nd Regiment, U.S. Infantry (Regulars), died of dysentery there, 20 December 1813. > > Are there any remains of Gen Wilkinson's camp? Any marked graves? Any information anyone can give me about the site would be appreciated. > > Joseph Gardner > jgardner@iglou.com > 236 Barberry Lane > Lexington KY, 40503 > (859) 278-3016 > > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 >

I'm seeking information concerning a place called "French Mills," where Gen. James Wilkinson wintered his command during the War of 1812. As far as this Kentuckian can tell, it was in Franklin Co., on the Salmon River, just south of the Canadian border. My ancestor, Freeman Wheaton, a private in the 22nd Regiment, U.S. Infantry (Regulars), died of dysentery there, 20 December 1813. Are there any remains of Gen Wilkinson's camp? Any marked graves? Any information anyone can give me about the site would be appreciated. Joseph Gardner jgardner@iglou.com 236 Barberry Lane Lexington KY, 40503 (859) 278-3016

Finally!! I have updated my Johnson/Cath/Smith/Peck and more family webpages to incorporate all the many changes people have sent me over the past year. (Okay, maybe it's been even longer than that.) I have also redesigned the site, and will continue to make some additions to it over the coming weeks. For you Essex County history buffs, I have added the 1885 history of Crown Point, which I've been promising to do for ages now! Take a look. As always, if you have questions on the data presented, or have more current information, please pass it along and now that I've mastered GoLive, my updates will be MUCH more frequent. The fun starts at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cjohnson [You are receiving this e-mail because I believe you have at one time contacted me regarding genealogy/family history. If this is in error, please send a return note and I will remove you from my address book.] Carl Johnson researching Johnson, Peck, Cath, Smith, Crisalle and other families in New York's Essex, Franklin and Schenectady counties cjohnson@nycap.rr.com http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cjohnson

Greenfield Park, Quebec Dear Listers : If anyone has access to the 1850 census for Chateauguay, I would appreciate your looking up the following Smiths: Luther H. Smith, born 1800/1810 Samuel Smith, born 1800/1810, had two children: William and Lucetta/Louetta Regards, Tom Brown

Dear Listers : Does anyone have access to the 1850 census for Burke Township ? I am looking for Abel Smith (b. 1803) and his wife Mary (b. 1808) ? Any information on this couple would be appreciated. Regards , Tom Brown

WOW! That was fast! Immediately after our last posting, William Russell e-mailed us a copy of a photo of the poorhouse which he took a couple of years ago. We have now posted that on our website at http://www.poorhousestory.com/FRANKLIN.htm The photo makes the page take a little longer to load, but it is well worth it. Oh, those wonderful old "keyhole" windows! If you have visited the page recently, you may need to click REFRESH or RELOAD on your browser to see the newly posted photo. Thanks, Bill! Linda Crannell (aka=The Poorhouse Lady)

We would like to invite you to re-visit our website, The POORHOUSE STORY (a clearinghouse for information about 19th century American poorhouses) at http://www.poorhousestory.com We just posted a link to a newspaper article from the Press Republican Online 4/20/02-- Old County Home partially collapses By DENISE A. RAYMO Staff Writer MALONE — The front portion of the historic building known as the Old County Home just outside the Village of Malone collapsed earlier this week. Our thanks to Sandy KaczMom@Juno.com for alerting us to this. Now we really wish someone could provide a picture of this building! Anyone out there have one which they could scan and e-mail to us for posting on our website? DIRECTIONS: At the homepage (link above) click on POORHOUSES BY STATE, then on NEW YORK on the table of states, and finally on FRANKLIN on the table of counties. If you have been to the website recently you may have to click REFRESH or RELOAD on the browser to see the new information. There are other pages on the site which may give you some interesting perspective on poorhouses. They are off the homepage and include: the HISTORY page and the LETTER TO GENEALOGISTS as well as FEATURED ARTICLES. There are great tips for researching poorhouse records for yourself on the RECORDS page; and you might want to subscribe to our (almost) monthly newletter (which you can do in the lower right corner of the homepage). The information on our site will only grow through the submissions of generous readers. If you would like to e-mail me ... please do so off-list because I cannot maintain subscriptions to as many lists as we post messages on. (You can use an e-mail link off one of our web pages.) We hope you enjoy the site! Thanks, Linda Crannell (aka=The Poorhouse Lady)

I am trying to find the marriage of my husbands grandparents, EDOUARD LAVIOLETTE and ADELE RANGER. The were married November 26, 1906 in the Tupper Lake, N.Y. area. They were Catholic. (could it have been at St-Alphonsus ?) Any information at all would be greatly appreciated Thank you, Joyce

If anyone is looking for information about the Washburn family from the Brainardsville area I have quite a bit of information that I would be willing to share. My grandparents were William and Clara Washburn McKinney. Darlene McKinney Gutierrez Moreno Valley, Calif

-----Original Message----- From: Edith Bailes [mailto:edieb@hypernet.com] Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2002 2:33 PM To: NYCLINTO-L@rootsweb. com Subject: Burke Center Cemetery Hello everybody, thanks again for all your help and suggestions for my trip to Franklin & Clinton counties. The trip went very well and I had a wonderful time. I had been asked to look for the surnames ARMSTRONG, BRAYTON, WALLACE and WASHBURN in the Burke Center Cemetery and did so, but did not find any of them. Since the stones in this cemetery have apparently not been transcribed, I did jot down some of the surnames I saw, and I hope this will help someone. This list is not complete, and I'm sorry I didn't have time to do more. The Burke Center Cemetery is a lovely one, beautifully maintained, cool and mossy with huge old trees, and the river flowing by at the foot of the bluff. The oldest stone I found that I could read was that of Stephen COOK, one of the earliest settlers in Chateaugay/Burke, a Revolutionary War veteran. He is the son-in-law of my four-greats grandmother Jerusha MEIGS. He died in 1829, and his stone has a DAR marker and a flag. Stephen's wife Sylvia MEIGS died in Adams Basin NY in 1849 and is buried out there. Several stones that appear to be older than 1829 are covered with lichens and seem quite badly eroded. I made no real attempt to try to read them for fear of doing further damage. Only two or three of the stones in the whole cemetery are toppled and broken in half. I hope this information will be of use to somebody. Thanks again - Edie in Maine ALLEN BALDWIN BLAKE, Minerva, wife of L. D. DEMING, d 8 APR 1909 aged 64 yr BOMBARD COOK DAKE DEMING DUEL ELLSWORTH FRIEND GRANT GREEN GRAVES HAWKS HILL HILLIARD JACKSON KINKAID LOOKER MINER MITCHELL MORSE PAINE PILLING POND PORTERFIELD SMITH TARBELL THOMAS WALKER WITHERAL/WITHERELL WRIGHT

I would like to welcome those of you new to this site and tell you there are some really great folks who are willing to help just for the asking. I, myself do Volunteer research at Andersonville Civil War Prison in Andersonville Georgia. There are Any research I do is absolutely at NO cost and I am willing to do what I can. There are more that 6200 prisoners on record from the state of New York and more than 2300 who died here, I thought I would send my offer. Here are my sources of research. There are 2 online databases to do lookups.....One by name...one by Company and Regiment. I also have a copy of the Dorence Atwater Death list which has the names and grave numbers of some 13000 graves with only 460 marked as " UNKNOWN " This along with a CD I have which contains 34,000 names of the 45,000 who were imprisoned there which helps me find prisoner records because of misspellings of the names or alternate names. I visit the prison site every couple of weeks and have access to the onsite databases as well as the physical files. I would like to let you know of another service I offer which is to take photos of graves for a small fee. .I also wish to thank the patience of those regular subscribers for my frequent postings. If there is anything I can do in helping your research at Andersonville, please just ask. Kevin Frye Local Andersonville Historian / National Park Service Volunteer Hammer the Americans hard enough and you forge the best weapon in the world. --- Captain Simeon Ecuyer ...in a letter written to Colonel Bouquet during the siege of Fort Pitt Please visit my website dedicated to those Americans who were imprisoned and died in captivity while in the service to our country http://www.angelfire.com/ga2/Andersonvilleprison/index.html AOL USERS go to http://hometown.aol.com/andersonvillecw/

I've "rescued" an old photograph of Eliza WILSON ORCUTT taken at the Frank Spencer Studio in Malone, NY. I believe the photograph was probably taken in the early 1900's with Eliza appearing to be in her 50's or 60's at the time. In addition to her name the following message is written on the back of the photograph: "Mae's and Hope's Grandmother ORCUTT" "Mayfred and Manfred's also" Based on limited research, I believe this is a photograph of Eliza G. WILSON b. 1847 or 1850 in NY, the daughter of Elijah WILSON (born in Canada or VT) and ??? (Mother b. in VT) who married Benjamin L. ORCUTT b. 1842 in VT. It appears that Eliza & Benjamin ORCUTT had four children, including Manfred (aka Fred M.); Harry; Josie M.; and Susie S.; all born in NY between 1876 and 1882. Eliza died in 1904 and is buried at the Ives Cemetery in Dickinson Center, NY and Benjamin died in 1920 and is also buried in the Ives Cemetery along with Eliza. Three of the children were living in NY at the time of Eliza's death, the fourth Harry was living in Los Angeles, CA at that time. Harry ORCUTT does appear in the 1920 census in Dickinson, NY with wife Nellie, and two children Malcolm and Hope. His sister-in-law Faith HOOK was also living with the family at that time and is included. I'm assuming it is his daughter Hope that is referred to on the photograph and that the others may be Fred's children since Mayfred appears to have been his given name. My hope is that someone from this family can be located so that the photograph can be returned to its rightful place with family. If you are a member of this family or know someone who might be, please contact me. Thanks, Shelley

I would appreciate someone doing a lookup in the Census of 1840 for the family of Jedediah Smith and his wife Edith (and their children) and Andrew W. Smith and his wife Cordelia (and their children). This information is on page 246 . Sincerely, Tom Brown