Story of Coming Into Wilderness of Northern New
York, Told to Group of Youngsters by Mrs. Relief
Burt Bodman, Who Died at 104 Yeas of Age 50
Years Ago, Is Recalled--Mrs. Bodman’s Husband
Came to Theresa Section in 1819.

by ERNEST G. COOK

So reads the brief paragraph in the “50 Years Ago Today,” column of the Watertown Times on Saturday afternoon, Nov. 21.

The solid stone house of the Bodman family stands in good condition today upon the Bodman farm, located on the state highway between Theresa and Philadelphia. The family still owns the place, but the owners reside in the village of Philadelphia. For several years this farm of about 300 acres has been operated by Mr. Dingman.

It was an interesting story that Mrs. Bodman told us youngsters when she was well past the century mark, of her coming into the wilderness lands of northern New York. Seated beside her chair, an old Boston rocker, I heard her relate what seemed to be thrilling experiences of the trip from New England to the “High Falls,” as she was wont to call Theresa, as that was its name when she moved in to make a pioneer home.

“You see,” she said, “my husband was Sylvester Bodman of Williamsburg, Mass., and he married me in 1809. His father, the Hon. William Bodman, was a man of considerable note, for he represented his district in the state legislature for 20 successive years. The old gentleman had a farm which gave employment to the boys, but it was not a very productive place and my husband had learned the business of cloth dressing and after our marriage he thought he would like to go to a new country and start a woolen mill.

“He had a friend, Moses Stark, a blacksmith, who wanted to ‘go west’ and the two decided to start out prospecting. They went to Saratoga Spring in York state, as we called it at that time, and there they saw a highly descriptive advertisement of lands about the High Falls on Indian river. The advertisement was signed by Mr. LeRay, owner of the lands.

“My husband and Mr. Stark pushed on to the Indian river, but the price Mr. LeRay wanted for water power and a mill site was far above what my husband thought he could pay. That was in 1819. Mr. Stark decided to take up some land, but my husband thought he would hardly make a success clearing lands for timber.

“He returned to Massachusetts and was busy in the shop until winter when he started ‘west’ again with a load of supplies for Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark’s brother-in-law, a Mr. Phillips, went with him and as the snow was deep my husband hitched his oxen one in front of the other and when Mr. Phillips joined him at Dalton, he hitched his horse on ahead of the oxen. When they got over the mountains and near Troy, they had bare ground and had to hire a man with team and wagon to take them to Johnstown. But when they reached the long hill just south of Martinsburg they struck bare ground and left their rig for the night. It snowed before morning and they came on fine after that.

“My husband bought some land and set about to do some work on it before returning for me. We started out with a wagon, a Mr. Chapman joining us at Deerfield, adding his horse to help us pull the load. It was a hard trip and we made slow time. Yet, as my husband knew the road, it helped us greatly. We had just got into an awful road this side of Quaker Settlement, (Philadelphia) when our front axle broke and I had to get on the horse, of which I was deathly afraid, and put one of my children back of me and one in front with one going afoot beside us. At last we reached this hill where my husband had taken land.

“Mr. Stark worked with him in the woods, as they exchanged works. But soon he was suddenly taken ill with acute colic and died and that made it lonesome for us as Mr. Chapman was all we had left from our native state to visit with. And one day I got lost in the woods. I had started with a pail to get water from a spring below the hill, when I noticed that our cows had wandered into the woods and I went to see where they had gone. I had left the children in the house and my husband was in the woods working. I got lost and it was towards night when I came to the house from an opposite direction. I found my husband frantic in his fright.

“My husband got work in the woolen mill when the Flower family started a woolen factory here. That helped a lot. He lost one of his oxen when it fell from off the high ledge at the mill. My husband died in the fall of 1859.”

Mrs. Bodman was blind some years before her death. She would often sit and repeat chapter after chapter of the Bible, knowing all the Psalms and much of the Proverbs and the New Testament.

Note: This clipping’s origin was the “Watertown Daily Times” of Watertown, N. Y. However, the date of publication was not noted on the clipping.

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