The Birth of St. Lawrence County New York. It is next to Franklin County.  The Jesmer’s were in these counties  from 1810 to 1880. Then came the Great Western Expansion

Link to the source   Link to Hogansburg/Bombay history page

THE PARISH PURCHASE

The year after Jefferson and Lewis counties came into existence, David Parish, one of the wealthiest men of his day came to this country from Europe and settled in Philadelphia. He was then head of the banking and commission house of David Parish & Company of Antwerp, a company closely related to that of Parish & Company of Hamburgh. Almost at once he became acquainted with Gouverneur Morris, Robert Morris, the Ogdens and James D. LeRay. These men were all interested in “wild lands” in Northern New York and here was a potential customer who could hardly be ignored. Soon after Joseph Rosseel, a native of Ghent, arrived in this country and almost at once found employment with Mr. Parish. Rosseel was then but twenty-five years of age but of remarkably shrewd judgment, nevertheless. He went all through Northern New York in 1807 in the interests of his employer, inspecting the lands and writing entertaining reports back to Parish. While in the heart of the woods of St. Lawrence county he was seized with a severe toothache. There wasn’t a dentist of course in all Northern New York at that time and outside of Dr. Richard Townsend, who, with a few pioneers, was established on the site of Gouverneur, Rosseel didn’t know of a physician nearer than The Garrison (Ogdensburg), on the one hand, and Sackets Harbor, on the other. Fortunately he found Dr. Townsend without great difficulty. Townsend agreed to extract the tooth but made such a bungling job of it that he broke it and Rosseel, unable to stand the agony, fainted. The doctor, however, proceeded “to kill the marrow” with oil of vitroil and Rosseel survived, but the incident made a vivid impression on his mind as well may be believed.

Parish bought large tracts of land in both Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties. For one tract of 72,000 he paid $1.50 an acre, which represented quite an advance over the amount paid by Macomb twenty years before. But Parish became primarily interested in Ogdensburg. Early in 1809 he bought the whole village for $8,000, but it should be remembered that but thirty-eight lots were sold there at that time and there were probably not more than thirty buildings in the settlement, including the old stone garrison buildings. Even in 1811 there were but fifty houses in the village.

No more fortunate thing could have happened to Ogdensburg than the change in ownership. Ford had done what he could but the capital at his command was limited. But Parish with plenty of money was accustomed to do things on an elaborate scale. He made Rosseel his land agent and delegated him at once to build a mansion, a large store and warehouse and two schooners. It was a large order. Northern New York had no skilled artisans or mechanics. It was 150 miles from Ogdensburg to Utica over the worst possible kind of roads. It was 120 miles to Montreal and excepting in the winter the going was hard. But Rosseel was equal to the task. New York, Philadelphia, Albany, Utica and Montreal were scoured for mechanics. Rosseel, himself, made the trip down the frozen St. Lawrence to Montreal by sleigh in three days. Good, red cedar for planking the new schooners was found in the Thousand Island region and rafted down the St. Lawrence to Ogdensburg. The sails and riggings had to be purchased in New York for $3,600 and were brought to Ogdensburg at great expense.

The Experiment, the first of the schooners, was launched July 4, 1809. It was a gala day for Ogdensburg. A great dinner was held at which Rosseel writes ninety-six were present and although Parish was not there he was toasted frequently and with fervor. The new vessels at once engaged in the carrying trade on the lake. Freight then was one dollar per barrel on flour from any Lake Ontario port to Montreal. The two Ogdensburg schooners were only fifty tons each but this was the average tonnage of vessels plying on Lake Ontario at that time. There were but sixteen vessels owned at American lake ports at that time, Oswego having eleven, Genesee River one, and Niagara two, besides the two at Ogdensburg. The Canadian ports, Kingston and York, had a total of ten schooners, ranging all the way from twenty-eight tons to ninety.

Ogdensburg now began to experience a boom. In 1809 there were five stores there and by the following July eight new houses were building, including the three-story brick Parish mansion, probably the finest residence in Northern New York at that time, and by 1811 there were fifty houses in the village. The big stone warehouse, built by Rosseel for Parish, was the pride of the North Country and there Parish put such a supply of merchandise as had never been known in Northern New York before. As a matter of fact, Ogdensburg, within the space of a couple of years, had become one of the most important ports in the Northern and Western part of the state. Buffalo was at this time a village of but thirty or forty houses and Oswego a huddle of some twenty houses, six of them log.

Nor was Parish the only landowner to attempt to improve his possessions in Northern New York. The Ogdens transferred their attention to Hamilton (Waddington) and built up a thriving village there. Some years earlier Dr. Richard Townsend, as agent for Gouverneur Morris, had established himself near the site of the present Gouverneur. Then it was Cambray and not until about 1810 was the name, Gouverneur, applied. In 1809 Morris decided to visit his St. Lawrence county possessions in person. So a “mansion” was built for him, a stone house, one side built into a hillside and the north end utterly devoid of windows, at a place then called Morris’ Mills but now known as Natural Dam. The one-legged statesman seems to have stayed at Morris’ Mills most of that summer and fall, limping about his estate, supervising the building of saw and grist mills and laying out a village. But the tide of settlement came rather to Gouverneur and Morris’ ambitious project failed to materialize.

It is difficult for the present day reader to appreciate the remoteness of the Northern New York of that day. There was a much closer contact with Montreal and the Canadian settlements along the northern bank of the St. Lawrence than there was with Utica and Albany. It is not surprising to find Americans in St. Lawrence county therefore referring to those living along the seaboard as being “in the states.” In 1809 government mails were four weeks in going from Philadelphia to Ogdensburg and one letter from Scotland to John Ross at Ogdensburg was nine months on the way.