Early Cortland County History

     "Lapeer was organized from the east side of Virgil, May 2, 1845. The first settler in this town was Primus Grant, a colored man. He purchased on lot 594 and settled on it in 1799. He was a native of Guinea. He lived a number of years on his lot, and when he died was buried in one of the high bluffs that overlook the stream known as the Big Brook."
Cortland County and the Border Wars of New York by H.C. Goodwin

     While preparing this history, Mr. Goodwin wrote to the Hon. Thurlow Weed and requested his personal reminiscences of life in Marathon. Mr. Weed was born in Greene County in 1797 and lived on a farm in Marathon from 1809-1811. Later he served in the State Senate with William Seward and the two were close friends.
     In a letter dated May 16, 1858, Mr. Weed replied to Mr. Goodwin with an interesting and detailed letter from Albany. Here are some snippets:

     "After the loggings, and after the spring opened, came the burning of the log and brush heaps, and the gathering of ashes....
     "My first employment was in attendance upon an ashery. The process of extracting lye from ashes, and of boiling the lye into black salts, was commonplace enough; but when the melting down to potash came, all was bustle and excitement.
     "This labor was succeeded, when the spring had advanced far enough, by the duties of the [maple] 'sap-bush.' This is a season to which farmers' sons and daughters look forward with agreeable anticipations. In that employment, toil is more literally sweetened. The occupation and its associations are healthful and beneficial.   
     "When your troughs are dug out (of basswood, for there were no buckets in those days), your trees tapped, your sap gathered, your wood cut and your fires fed--there is leisure either for reading and 'sparking.' And what youthful denizens of the sap-brush will ever forget, while 'sugaring off,' their share in the transparent and delicious streaks of candy congealed and cooled in snow!"
     "The settlers employed in clearing and 'bettering' their land, raised just enough to live on 'from hand to mouth.' Their principle, and indeed only reliance for the purchase of necessaries from the store, was upon their 'black salts.' For these merchants always paid the highest price in cash and goods."




Thurlow Weed

References:
 1) Cortland County and the Border Wars of New York
 2) Wikipedia--Thurlow Weed
 3) Primus--New Guinea--African Nantucketers (possible former home of Lapeer's Primus Grant. See footnote on Samuel Barker's 1740 estate inventory. Comments or suggestions sought.)