19th Century Elizabethtown — Freight service

Freight transportation to Elizabethtown had mixed reviews.

“The new seats for the Court House have arrived and will be put in place immediately. The new seats for the schoolhouse, which were sent three weeks before those for the Court House, have not arrived and their whereabouts cannot be ascertained,” the Elizabethtown Post & Gazette reported on Dec. 23, 1880.

The delayed shipment finally arrived, in poor condition.

“The new seats for the schoolhouse are very badly damaged, about twenty of them nearly worthless. The Court House seats, a few of them, were also damaged. The car the schoolhouse seats were in must have been wrecked,” the Post & Gazette reported on Dec. 30.

In other 19th century Elizabethtown news collected from historic newspapers of the region:

1852

• The Essex County Board of Supervisors, at its annual meeting on Nov. 10, approved and paid five claims for wolf bounties at $15 each, the equivalent of $618 in 2025 dollars, The Elizabethtown Post reported on Nov. 12.

The board set the clerk’s annual salary at $125 plus per diems — the equivalent of $5,157 in 2025 dollars.

1853

• “The indications of the general revival of business conditions in the country continues unabated. Messrs. Whallon & Judd, of this town, are enlarging their forge and are about to erect a rolling mill. The Split-Rock forge may be considered a fixed fact. The Imus Forge in Borth Hudson is to be started soon. Mr. Jackson is rapidly perfecting arrangements to run his furnace as soon as navigation opens. And it is currently reported that the Port Henry iron works will also be put in operation in the spring,” The Elizabethtown Post reported on March 4. “All this indicates a season of prosperity such as Essex County has long waited for. May the harvest be as rich as the depression has been severe and long continued.”

1880

• Elizabethtown had record turnout for the 1880 presidential election between Republican James Garfield and Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock.

“353 votes were cast in this town on Tuesday, an excess of at least 30 polled at any previous election,” the Elizabethtown Post & Gazette reported on Nov. 4.

Garfield carried the town.

1881

• “A Catholic Church is to be erected in this place come spring on the lot north of the old cemetery,” the Elizabethtown Post & Gazette reported on Feb. 10.
• “The few mild days this week have had a wonderful effect upon the hens. Nineteen fresh eggs can be bought at Parish for 25 cents (the equivalent of $7.74 in 2025 dollars), and he has some delicious hams which he is selling at 14 cents per pound (the equivalent of $4.36 in 2025 dollars),” the Post & Gazette reported on March 3.
• “It is expected that several new steam pleasure yachts will be put afloat on Lake Champlain this coming summer,” the Post & Gazette reported on March 3.

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