Titus House

The Titus House

Where did people stay when they traveled in the early United States? People were traveling by land in stagecoaches and wagons as well as on foot and horseback. Some people were migrating and others were moving about on business. Many could not reach their destination in a day. Some would camp out along the route, but this was very uncomfortable, especially in wet or cold weather. Thus, inns sprung up along the trails and routes that crisscrossed through the wilderness to settlements, towns and cities. Many were spaced the distance apart of a days travel. Others were placed near where travelers would stop such as the edges of cities, near ferries or even just before a toll bridge.

One such inn was known as the Titus House. It was on the Genesee Trail going across New York State. Originally situated fairly near the ferry on that road, it was an ideal place to wait. The ferry took travelers across Cayuga Lake at the north-end, just short of the swampy area that leads into the Montezuma Marshes. Later the long bridge was built near this ferry as a replacement. It was at one time the longest bridge in New York State. How near to the bridge was the Inn? A traveler looking out the front windows of the could gaze out over Cayuga Lake and slightly to the north, the bridge. It would take less than one minute to reach the east-end of the bridge from the front door of the Inn.

It had various owners over the years, however the most well known was David Sands Titus. Born in Dutchess County of the Quaker family of Gilbert and Jane (Hoag) Titus, he migrated westward in 1829. His somewhat unusual name comes from a son of a Presbyterian minister. The original David Sands joined the Quakers at Nine Partners meeting in Dutchess County and was instrumental in the founding of Cornwall monthly meeting in Westchester County. Many Quaker boys were given the compound name of “David Sands” in his honor. It was not unusual for a Quaker to settle in Cayuga County. A meeting, their name for a church, was just south of Cayuga in the village of Union Springs. In fact, they later moved the Oakwood Seminary (a Quaker boarding school) from Dutchess County to Union Springs.

David Sands was a farmer originally, but had also been a butcher while living in Beekman in Dutchess County. Here he opened the inn, but was often absent from there.He also had another job collecting tolls on the Erie Canal at nearby Montezuma. While gone from the tavern, his wife, the former, Julia Coapman, and son, Hiram would run it. He also held office in a training regiment for the district for about three years.

A story that has been told about the determination of Julia is the following: David Sands was going to Albany on business and wife, Julia, wanted to go with him. Now, David Sands Titus was a strong-willed man and didn’t hesitate to tell her “no.” He left without her, went to Weedsport and caught a Canal boat to Albany. Checking into the hotel at Albany, he opened his hotel room door to find sitting there, waiting for him, none other than Julia who had arrived earlier by train!

Hiram who helped in his father’s tavern, became a farmer as an adult. He owned a great deal of acreage in the town of Aurelius. He raised prize-winning cattle and horses, His home, a house on the Genesee Road with massive columns across the front, still stands today,

An older brother, Daniel Titus, was postmaster in Aurelius, from 1835-1841. Primarily a farmer, he owned land in Aurelius. He was killed in a rather grizzly railroad accident when tried to race his horse and buggy across the tracks late at night as a train approached. The train was much closer than he apparently realized. The Cayuga Chief newspaper printed the story of his demise in detail and blamed alcohol for it. They later retracted some of the blame which leads me to believe that a weary Daniel was trying to reach home and urged his horse on thinking he had more time than he did. Daniel was 53 when he died, leaving his wife Maria (Lockwood) Titus to care for their 9 children ranging in age from Samuel, 24, down to Marion, three. Samuel was my great-great grandfather.

Hiram Titus' Home

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Stephentown Historical Society

Address: PO Box 11, Stephentown, NY (Staples Road @ the Corner of Garfield-Nassau Road)

Phone: Call: (518) 733 6070

Website: https://www.stephentown-historical.org/

Email: SHS@Fairpoint.com

Hours: The Heritage Center is open from 1 to 4 p.m. on Fridays and by appointment. The volunteers will gladly make an appointment for you if they can.

Photocopies are readily made by the volunteers for a nominal fee. There is no charge to research at their facility, but donations are gratefully accepted.

Heading either east from Albany along winding roads or north or south along NYS Route 22, it doesn’t matter. Any route you take to Stephentown will find you on country roads winding up and down mountains and through forested areas until you feel you are somewhere in the wilderness. It is in this area close to the Massachusetts border that many of our ancestors settled for either a brief time or a generation or more. Here, nestled in a small community that was once a bustling place, is an old Methodist Episcopal church in the small country style that is now home to the Stephentown Historical Society. Tracks once carried passenger and freight trains through here including milk to New York City, but they have been abandoned since 1951.

In the 1790 census, Stephentown was listed as the ninth largest town in the United States. Looking at the town today, this is hard to believe, as it is a sleepy little rural area that is sparsely populated. However, I have found in researching, as I’m sure others have as well, that many more people have connections to Stephentown than you might believe. More than once, I have heard somebody comment that a family in the late 1700s or early 1800s was in Rensselaer County briefly. I have replied: “Let me guess, Stephentown.” and I was correct. Part of some of the major routes for westward migration out of New England crossed the Massachusetts border near here and headed on westward through small communities including especially Stephentown.

While at the historical society, I found more information about some of my family lines. The volunteer, Bill Zimmerman, who opened for us, was the son-in-law of one of the founders, Elizabeth McClave, who had been a font of information about the early families. Luckily, she wrote much of this information down on index cards that are used to locate obscure information on the early families.  Although not sourced, these cards have been found to be extremely accurate.

While at the historical society, Bill gave us not only information on the people I was interested in and the cemeteries they are buried in, but also directions to a hidden cemetery.  I don’t have any direct ancestors buried at the Tifft Cemetery, but the name derives from the family, as my 4^th great-grandfather’s brother and family are many of those buried there. The cemetery is about 500 feet off the road along a logging trail. The trail, barely discernable from the forest now, is all uphill to this little cemetery tucked into the woods so much that it has become a part of the woods itself. However, we found it and were able to see for ourselves these family graves. 

Wordless Wednesday-Fulton Lock

Saturday Challenge: Technology

From Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Fun Challenge:

1)  Julie Goucher, on her Anglers Rest blog, has a long-running weekly blog theme called The Book Of Me.  One of her weekly prompts is about Technology.  We'll use that this week!

2)  For this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - please address these issues:

·       What technology changes did your ancestors see?

·       What technology changes have you seen?

·       Did your family own one of those early changes? - such as television

·       Do you like or dislike technology?

·       What do you think has been the best technological change in your lifetime and historically?

Technology. This is a broad subject of so many different things over the years. There’s the cliché “from the horse and buggy age to the automobile age.” Actually it could be expanded with transportation alone. My first ancestors set foot on what would become U.S. soil off of boats so small that it seems incredible that they made it across the ocean.

Here they traveled everywhere on foot. There was no other form of transportation. Horses and oxen had not arrived yet and when they did, were few and very precious. They were more likely to be used to do heavy work in clearing the land than to transport people. This would be especially true of the oxen that could handle heavier jobs even than horses. Besides, where would they go? There weren’t highways then! At best there would be a narrow path through the woods to a neighbor’s house. Near the coast, there would be a beach to walk along. But that too would have brambles blocking paths along with large rocks, streams, and cuts where water had washed into the ocean during a heavy storm. Walking was the only way to go.

On the other end, we have many more ways to get around than the automobile. Cars and trucks today take many more forms alone than what could be imagined when that phrase was first coined. Think about the word "automobile" itself; loosely translated, the word means self-propelled. This was a new concept at the time, that a vehicle could move under it’s own power. The only other type that was available then that could do that would be a train.

Today we still have trains, cars and trucks along with buses to get us from one place to another. Airplanes take us to places in hours that would have taken days, weeks or even months to get to in the 1600s. Space ships of various kinds take us to outer space, the moon and possibly soon to far off planets.

All these changes, and yet, we still use the basic form of walking much of the time. Bicycles, an invention before many of those mentioned, are still in use. Horses are used for riding and pulling various vehicles by some out of necessity and others for the enjoyment factor. There is good and bad in all advances. While moving forward with them, we also need to remember and hang onto the good parts of the older technologies as well.