Page:History of Warren County.djvu/578

 The town was taken from the old town of Thurman on the 6th of April, 1805. The records for the first two years are not to be found. The officers for 1807, however, are given, as it gives a good partial list of the early settlers here: Supervisor, John Richards; assessors, Norris Hopkins, Archibald Noble, Henry Allen; highway commissioners, Joseph Wilcox, Edward Noble, Nathaniel Trumble; constable and collector, Joseph Hopper; constable, Lyman Lee; fence viewers, Andrus Weaver, William Leach; overseers of the poor, Robert Armstrong, James Parker; committee to build pound, Joseph Hopper, Lemuel Humphrey, John Thurman; pathmasters, Job Wood, Reynolds Weaver, Joseph Wells, Lemuel Harndon, Charles J. Wetmore, Edward Noble, Samuel Morehouse, David Kibby, Samuel Somerville, Samuel Ross, Samuel Baxter, John Pasco, Richard Stratton, Archibald Washburn, Archibald Noble, Abiram Galusha.

The old town of Thurman included the present Thurman, Bolton, Chester, Warrensburgh, Stony Creek, a part of Caldwell and all of Johnsburgh. It derived its name from John Thurman, the original patentee, who purchased it in about 1778. Its present name was derived from his given name. He made the first clearing in the twelfth township of Totten and Crossfield's Purchase on Elm Hill, one mile southeast of the site of Johnsburgh Corners, in about the year 1790. Mr. Noble says that Mr. Thurman named the place Elm Hill from a large and beautiful elm tree standing on a prominent knoll on this plateau, and that for many years the territory west of the Hudson River and north of Athol was known among the friends in England, Ireland and America as Elm Hill, and letters to the inhabitants here were so addressed. The nearest postoffice was Thurman, now Warrensburgh. About the same time, 1790, Thurman began to clear land on Beaver Brook, nearly a mile west from Elm Hill, and in 1790 or soon after he erected a saw-mill and grist-mill on the falls of of the brook. Settlers then began to move in from England, Scotland, Ireland and New England. They took up farms varying in size from fifty to one hundred acres. In 1794 Thurman built the first framed barn in town. It extended thirty by forty feet and was laid by Enos Grover, a cooper, by the scribe, or "cut and try" rule, the method of framing buildings in those days. This barn, which has been resilled once and reshingled twice, still stands on the Elm Hill farm, and is in good repair. About this time Thurman also opened a store and put up a distillery to create a market for the large quantities of rye which the newly-cleared lands produced. In those days the grain was malted for distillation, hence a store, malt-house and kiln was built for the purpose. It is said that most of the whisky made was used in the town. French's Gazetteer states that in 1795 Thurman erected a woolen factory, which was soon changed to a cotton factory, and that as early as 1797 he erected his calico printing works, the first, it is believed in America. Mr. Noble differs from it in that he does not mention the woolen works, and dates the