Pattridge

St Helena, ghost town of the Genesee, 1797-1954

St. Helena’s Church Life

Weekdays, the St. Helena schoolhouse was used for teaching three R’s—Readin’, ’Ritin’ and ’Rithmetic. On the Sabbath day, it became a church house, where a fourth R, Religion, was taught. St. Helena was a charge of the Methodist Protestant Church at Brooks Grove, a hamlet four miles up the eastern hill. The Grove was named for General Micah Brooks, of Gardeau Reservation fame, who settled there in 1832. The Methodist Protestant Church movement started in 1830 and a society by that name was organized at Brooks Grove in 1840. The church was built there in 1844-45 and Rev. Short was […]

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1888 Birds Eye View of Antwerp NY

The First Settlers of Antwerp, New York

It is doubtful whether the honor of having made the first settlement in the territory now forming the town of Antwerp belonged to Captain William Lee or to Peter Vrooman, for it appears evident that both settled during the same year, 1803, though both were then but squatters on land which they afterwards purchased. Lee located on the State road on lot No. 657, and Vrooman built his log house at the great bend of the Oswegatchie, at a point near the lower end of the present village of Ox Bow. Both these settlers opened their log dwellings as public-houses

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