Essex, New York: An Early Essex Snapshot

by Shirley La Forest, former Essex Town Historian

In 1765 William Gilliland purchased a large tract of land on Lake Champlain that included present day Essex.  The farmers that settled here at the time abandoned their farms during the Revolutionary War, and it wasn’t until after the war that a permanent agricultural economy took hold.  At first produce and meat were  grown for home consumption, but by the nineteenth century the Essex farmers were producing many products for market such as hay, grains, beans, apples and wool.  The highway for transporting these goods and also people was Lake Champlain using sailboats, horse ferries and eventually steam.  In winter they traveled on the ice.  On 2/28/1856 Orsamus Fisher of Whallonsburg even took his piano across the ice to Burlington and had it repaired.  In 1823 the Champlain Canal opened and proved a boon to farmers as well as industry.   Ship building flourished in Essex as there was a great need for Canal Boats.  Richard  Eggleston was the first shipbuilder in Essex, but others followed, with Essex producing more vessels than any other shipbuilding center on the lake.

Sawmills, gristmills, forges, shops and other small industries were built in Boquet and Whallonsburg early on to served the local farmers.   Daniel Ross, son-in-law of William Gilliland, built the first sawmill  c. 1791 in Boquet while the one in Whallonsburg was built c. 1817.  W.D. Ross opened the “Boquet Iron Works” in 1817.  In 1836 the “Essex Manufacturing Company” comprised of William D. Ross, John Gould, Ransom Noble, Henry H. Ross, James Southard and others started manufacturing iron and nails in Boquet.  As early as 1800 a successful tannery was built behind the present library in the hamlet of Essex by Ransom Noble.  The Essex Horse Nail Company Ltd. on Beggs Point did not come into existence until 1880, was completely destroyed by fire in 1918, and never rebuilt.

Our town was full of activity at its peak of prosperity and population during the mid nineteenth century with 11,659 sheep reported in 1845 and a population of 2351 reported in the 1850 census.