Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/219

DELAWARE COUNTY. 195 by a lock. He was left in the stocks for a day, furnishing a good mark for the boys, who showered him with rotten eggs. The next day he was taken out and fastened to the whipping- post, when the remainder of his sentence, fifty lashes, were inflicted, when he was allowed to leave the county, which he was not long in doing. At the raising of the church, a great portion of the men and women in the town assisted. Some of the women came a dis- tance of six or eight miles, barefooted and bareheaded, and it was considered extravagant for boys not more than 15 or 16 to have hats on their heads, or shoes on their feet. This church was burned in 1831, up to which time it was not only used as a place of public worship, but for the holding of town- meetings and elections. The first settled minister in the town of Harpersfield, was the Rev. Stephen Fenn, who died in 1833. He graduated at Yale College, in 1790, and came into the county in 1793. He was ordained in 1799, and took pastoral charge of the church. He remained in this situation until 1829, a period of 36 years. He probably attended and officiated at more weddings than any other person in the county, either before or since. In 1823, after he had preached 30 years, he came into possession of a piece of real estate, and received a title in due form from the trustees of the church, in conformity with the desire of Colonel John Harper, then deceased. The chief employment of the settlers, during a portion of the first year, was making maple-sugar, and indeed, I believe at the present time, that in no town of its size in the county is there so large a quantity, or fine a quality of maple-sugar manu- factured. Richard B. Gribbs, Esq., of Harpersfield, the pre- sent president of the County Agricultural Society, informed me that he had made 3,000 pounds in one season. I beMeve in Europe the sugar-maple does not abound, at least in Scotland ; and it seems strange what ideas some of the