The Musings of A Simple Country Man
By Hobie Morris
We live in a myopic age. Our view seldom, if ever, extends beyond today! Our knowledge and perception of the past has no importance or relevance. We live in an age of amnesia of what came from yesterday to define and mold today. Our lives are one dimensional in our intellectual superficiality. –Anonymous
August, 2013
This simple country man and his beautiful wife Lois saw that some kind person has carefully cut a narrow opening through the thick roadside brush and weeds to a small stone marker some 20 feet from the edge of the Town road. The stone and a brass tablet attached to it looks somewhat weather beaten and slightly out of place in this remote and peaceful hilltop spot. Only a gentle breeze, a few singing birds and Holstein dairy cows contentedly grazing in a nearby pasture break the perfectly delightful tranquility.
Down the blacktop road is the intersection of five country roads. Only the buildings of a working dairy farm remind us of a far different age when this area was called “Five Corners.” From this lofty location, some three miles southeast of the village of Brookfield, one can look eastward into the historic Unadilla Valley. Beautiful, verdant colored forested hills are seen in every direction. Steep Town roads descend toward distant valleys.
The 1790’s
Until shortly after the American Revolution this was Oneida Indian land. Uninhabited and only occasionally used by passing hunting parties. It was a forested wilderness with diverse and abundant animal life.
Treaties purchasing this land from the peaceful Oneida Indians opened up this area to white settlers in the early 1790’s. Crossing the Unadilla River these early pioneers slowly made their way up through the almost impenetrable forest to this hilltop location. Here land was purchased and settlers from primarily Rhode Island and Connecticut began to trickle in with greater numbers soon to follow.
Life was very primitive, dangerous and a constant struggle. Huge trees had to be felled, shelters of some kind built and land cleared so crops could be planted. The rudiments of civilization slowly blossomed where none had existed before.
A descendant of a pioneering grandmother who came to Five Corners when she was five years old could still vividly remember how dense the wilderness forest was. The “roads” were made by marked trees. At twilight families blew horns and started outside fires so if anyone was lost he could be guided to safety. Before matches red hot coals were given to others to start their fires. Sometimes one had to walk a long distance to borrow these coals, which were conveyed safely in a special container for that purpose.
The “Five Corner” area became the first major population center of the Brookfield Township. These early pioneers were predominantly Baptist—both First Day (Sunday) and Seventh Day (Saturday).
This hilltop location had many advantages, including a healthier climate than the valleys; the nearby streams and falls provided water power for the early industries, including the important saw mills and mills for grinding grain, etc. In case of “trouble” (which fortunately never came) such a high location was traditionally easier to defend against an enemy.
These early pioneers soon made plans for a school (and later churches) to accommodate the large families and their powerful religious beliefs. (At one time the local school had 70 students, 30 from 3 families.)
But on this pristine, beautiful August day in 2013 it’s hard to imagine that where this simple country man and his lovely wife were standing, such a robust population once existed here over 200 years ago.
August. 1933
The Great Depression weekend of August 24, 1933 was stormy and dreary. The scheduled outside ceremony to be held up at Five Corners was rescheduled for the assembly room of the Brookfield Central School. A large crowd from as far away as New York City, Pennsylvania and many other distant places packed the room. They thoroughly enjoyed the morning and afternoon program. At the conclusion of the day long event some of the attendees drove up the steep Dugway Road and as they neared Five Corners saw on their left the newly placed stone marker and shiny new brass tablet.
Many old timers, spurred on by recent articles in the Brookfield Courier had begun the “wheels rolling” to somehow commemorate an important religious chapter in this community’s long history. A suitable memorial was agreed upon and generous donors had come forward to fund it.
August, 2013
The people who came to Brookfield to dedicate this memorial in 1933 are now long gone. Eighty years of changes have dulled the memorial as well as the passions of earlier generations. Yet the marker remains, as it has for all these years, a tangible reminder, indeed a symbol of the living past.
The Year 1809
Virginian Thomas Jefferson concluded eight years as President and 44 consecutive years of public service. The third President retired impoverished to private life at Monticello. On March 4, 1809 Jefferson’s Vice President James Madison was inaugurated America’s fourth President. In a Hodgenville, Kentucky log cabin Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12. A man who eventually became our 16th President and an assassinated martyr to the cause of freedom in 1865. This year also saw the first successful steamboat voyage and the first window glass production. America’s population was seven million, including 1.5 million (mostly slaves) Negroes.
Back in pioneering Five Corners, Brookfield, along with schooling, worshipping God was considered an essential part of daily life. The spiritual father and long time guiding light of the First Baptist Church was the Reverend Simeon Brown, Jr. Elder Brown, as he was called, was described by a contemporary as being of medium height, well proportioned and of strong build. “He had light brown hair worn moderately long in thin locks, eyes blue, shaded heavy eyebrows and a massive forehead, always clean shaven and a pleasing expression.”
This church was officially organized in 1798 and in 1800 Elder Brown became its first pastor. His long and successful tenure remains in number of years the longest in this church’s 215 year history. During these early years worship service was apparently held in Elder Brown’s log cabin.
By 1809, however, membership had increased to 106. Church leaders felt that the church was now strong enough to build a regular church building. Land was offered, construction plans drawn up and agreed upon and financing plans put into place. The funding of the building began with 30 individuals pledging a total of $516 and 30 days of work. Apparently this plan wasn’t successful and it was replaced by the selling of pews on the ground floor. (See attached church floor plan.) The pew purchaser could pay in building material and cash. When the church was finished legal deeds were given to the pew owners.
For the next 28 years the first First Day Baptist Church was the dynamic center of religious life in the Five Corners community. Weddings, funerals, baptisms, etc. were held in it, although baptisms were conducted in a small dammed up stream behind and to the east of the meeting house, as churches were commonly called in those days.
Early records indicate that in 1829 for example the Reverend Peter Latimer baptized 76 people, some in the depth of the frigid winter. In these years this church was the largest in the expansive Otsego Association. The church continued to thrive under the eight year ministry of the Reverend Holland Turner but times were changing.
In the intervening years the village of Brookfield, as it was eventually called, down in the Beaver Creek Valley had eventually become the population and commerce center of the Township. The now old church up at Five Corners was gradually losing its importance. By 1837 the present day second First Day Baptist church had joined with the Seventh Day organization to build together a new church down in the village. A farewell service was held in the Five Corners meeting house before the organization locked the doors and moved down into the valley where it continues to faithfully serve to the present day.
The now vacated meeting house was sold to E. N. Bardeen, who dismantled it and took the material down to Beaver Creek where it was used to build a new mill and cheese box factory. Later it was bought by the Crane brothers. Ironically, on a Sunday morning in 1908 it burned down under suspicious circumstances.
Final Thoughts
Today only an 80 year old weather beaten memorial tablet marks where this original church once stood. Just possibly, if you carefully cross the barb wire fence into the heifer pasture behind it, you might find a depression in the ground. Years ago the stones from a foundation there were carried off to be used elsewhere. If this simple country man was a betting man, he’d put odds that on this spot an important and historic church once stood. In a sense the past is still quietly living on in the hills and valleys of Brookfield.
But these are only the musings of a simple country man whose church has now spanned 44 Presidents, from George Washington to Barack Obama…from the 18th century to the 21st century.
As the writer Daphne du Maurier has written, “everything living is part of the whole. We are all bound one to another through time and eternity.”
Hobie Morris is a Broofield resident and simple country man.