EARLY
SETTLEMENT OF EAST LINE
It is stated in
gazetteers that the first settlements within the
present limits of the town of Malta were made by two
men named Drummond and McKelpin. They were here before
the Revolution, were loyalists, and obliged to leave
during the war. Little is known of them, and it is
believed they never returned. The name of Drummond
creek is no doubt derived from the settler of that
name, and suggests also the part of the town where
they located.
It is by no means certain, however, that they were here in
advance of John Hunter and Ashbel Andrews. John Hunter came
with the Connecticut colony to Stillwater as early as 1764,
and settled near Round lake, on what is now the Scotland
place.
Robert Hunter was, no doubt, a connection, and settled in
the same neighborhood about the same time. From the
frequency of the name of Andrews in the early annals of
that Connecticut church, and from other circumstances, it
is inferred that Ashbel Andrews, Sr., was also with the
Hunters a pioneer at that early date. Unless, therefore,
the loyalists were really here before, or in the year 1763,
the members of the Connecticut colony pushing back from the
Hudson were, no doubt, the earliest, especially as the
colony very likely came in 1762.
Samuel Clark, the first supervisor, lived at
East
Line,
south of the present Corners, on the farm now owned by
Henry Van Hyning. He was a man of great prominence, a
presidential elector in 1792, voting for George Washington
at the second election under the new constitution. His
homestead is a venerable relic of the past, opposite the
old Smith place, and is noted, as elsewhere shown, for
having been the place of the first court for Saratoga
County.
We add the following, obtained of James H. Clark,
East
Line:
His grandfather, Samuel Clark, came from Newburg, on the
Hudson, about 1776 or 1777. He had been the owner of
property now covered largely by Newburg itself, and if
retained, would have been an immense fortune for his
descendants. Selling that, he came to East
Line,
and settled first on the Ballston side of the road. Soon
afterwards, however, he bought a tract of six hundred
acres, and built the well-known dwelling-house which is now
standing on the Malta side of the line.
Samuel Smith kept a tavern on the Ballston side of the
line, opposite the Clark place.
Wm. Marvin was an early settler in Malta. His deed, dated
in 1761, would indicate him to be the first settler,
provided he came at the time of the purchase.
While the courts were held at Samuel Clark's, there was a
building near the road and just opposite the Smith Hotel,
that was used and was called the court-house, - though it
is the opinion of James H. Clark that the legal business
was mostly done in the dwelling-house. One room in the
house was used to keep the prisoners brought from Albany
county jail for trial.
In the town of Malta, then a part of Stillwater, the first
court of common pleas for the new county of Saratoga was
held, May 10, 1791. The house of Samuel Clark, on the
present farm of Henry Van Hyning, was the court-house. The
presiding judge was John Thompson, and with him were the
associate judges Jacobus Van Schoonhoven, Sidney Berry,
James Gordon, and Beriah Palmer. These, with three
justices, John Varnam, Eliphalet Kellogg, and Epenetus
White, certainly made up a formidable bench. At this
session, in the old pioneer farm-house, sixteen attorneys
were admitted to practice - Cornelius Vandenburgh, Guert
Van Schoonhoven, Peter Ed. Elmendorf, Myndert Everen, Jr.,
John V. Henry, John D. Dickinson, Gamaliel and Harmonis H.
Wendell, John W. Yates, Nicholas Fonda, Abraham Hun, Peter
D. Van Dyck, John Woodworth, Moss Kent, John Lovett, and
Joseph C. Yates.
Here, too, Major Ezra Buell commenced his long public
career as crier; the official "Hear ye, hear ye," first
echoing through that old house and the surrounding fields.
The long and brilliant career of Saratoga courts and
Saratoga judges and attorneys, traced back through a period
of eighty-six years, finds its beginning May 10, 1791, at
the house of Samuel Clark, in the town of Malta. Surely
this is a place of historic interest.
At this same time and place the criminal jurisprudence of
the county was also inaugurated by a court of "general
sessions," held, as the law required, by one judge of
common pleas and, at least, three justices of the peace.
Here the law was certainly complied with, as James Gordon,
the judge, had associated with him nine justices of the
peace, - John Varnam, Epenetus White, Eliphalet Kellogg,
Richard Davis, Jr., Dowd J. Fonda, Elias Palmer, Nathan
Douglas, John Ball, and John Bradstreet. A grand jury was
also sworn, consisting of Richard Davis, Jr., Joshua
Taylor, John Donald, Henry Davis, Hez. Ketchum, Seth C.
Baldwin, Ezra Hallibort, John Wood, Samuel Wood, Eddy
Baker, Elisha Andrews, Gideon Moore, Abraham Livingston,
and John Bleecker.
Just how all these parties, with the throng of court
attendants, were entertained, history does not inform us;
but as there were forty taverns in Half-Moon in 1788,
perhaps we may infer they were equally plenty in the rest
of the county, and in the vicinity of East
Line.
The one tavern near by, on the opposite side of the road,
was kept by Samuel Smith, ancestor of the present owner,
and that, no doubt, as far as possible supplied the wants
of the throng of dignitaries gathered there.
Courtenay Neilson, of Stillwater, suggests the following
rather unpoetical origin of the name: In early times a
malt-brewery was erected within what is now the territory
of this town. The cluster of buildings around it gradually
became known as Malt-ville, and hence Malta. With this
final effort to account for the name, we pass the question
on to the next historian.
In 1833 there are recorded innkeepers' licenses to the
following: William Marvin, whose tavern was at
East
Line;
Richard Chase, at Malta Ridge; Abner Carpenter, at Dunning
Street, in the old building now bearing the name of
Northern Hotel; George Badgley, then at the south end of
Saratoga lake; and Joseph Soules, at the present Rogers
house, Dunning Street.
EAST
LINE,
as already mentioned, takes its name from its situation. It
is an old point in Saratoga County, well known on the route
from the south and east to the county-seat, when the public
buildings were at Court-House Hill as well as afterwards.