Forty years ago, Tony Christopher described Picketville in the Baldwinsville Messenger. “Its location stood between Ellison Road and Little Utica. The name Picketville was given to this little community consisting of a sawmill and a few rustic houses. A lane, by now obsolete, came from East Mud Lake Road and crossed the creek by passing over the dam.” According to one source, this stream was once known as Buttonhole Creek. It winds its way under East Mud Lake Road and Ellison Road, before passing through Picketville on its way to Ox Creek and the Oswego River. The lane once passed northeast from East Mud Lake Road, opposite where Bellows Road runs into it, just past the north end of Ellison Road.
You won’t find it on any modern maps, but if you stand at the east-end of Bellows Road, you can just make out where the little lane once ran right between the house and barn across the road. One book refers to it as a wagon track, but the wheels that once dug ruts into the rich soil have long since retired. It’s now overgrown with underbrush. To distinguish this old track from the field it traverses, one must possess the willingness and ability to see things as they were 100 ago. It also helps to have an old map or two.
Fagin’s map of 1854 features two sawmills at Picketville, but shows no lane, track or other means of entry or exit. Dawson’s map of 1860 shows the little lane as a dotted line running from East Mud Lake Road on the west to Buttonhole Creek on the east, and the people of Picketville beyond. These people included the George Snyder, a sawmiller, Simon Stewart, a farmer, and Joseph Tait, a cooper (barrel-maker).
Christopher’s column from 1969 continues to explain that “In the early days of settlement, a sawmill was certain to be built on any stream which carried enough water to run a water wheel. An earthen dam, thrown up at a feasible spot, backed up the flowing creek into a reserve pond….A sawmill would be erected here, and as long as the trees lasted, the mill remained in business. The stream in Lysander running north out of Beaver Lake had such a sawmill…one of several similar industries on the creek.”
Another source, Kate Shapiro, concurs in her 1977 work, “Time Past; People, Life, and Landscape in Northern Lysander, New York, during the Nineteenth Century.” She states that “Of…enduring importance were the area’s many sawmills. Prior to the use of steam power, most rural industries were put up beside the only other readily available water source of energy - - water. Sawmillers had to consider the unwieldiness of their raw material as well, and mills were often located some distance from potential customers.”
Clearly, the sawmill at Picketville was only one of several mills to harness the power of the water flowing from Mud Lake, now known as Beaver Lake. Fagin’s map of 1854 shows no fewer than seven such mills on the creek between its start at the lake and its end at Ox Creek. Most were sawmills. From 1850 to 1900, local lumber was plentiful and the population was growing in little hamlets like Jacksonville, Lamson, Little Utica, and Lysander. Mills provided the wood for homes, barns, barrels, and picket fences.
Historians all agree on the etymology of Picketville. Christopher states that “Fence pickets were sawed at this mill, hence the name. A white picket fence around the lawn or yard in previous times gave a stylish appearance to the premises, and to supply this demand the sawmill at Picketville enjoyed a flourishing trade. Old pictures of Baldwinsville show just about every house lot enclosed with a slat or picket fence.” Shapiro adds that “picket fences were all the rage.”
She goes on to say “Simple to operate and requiring small mechanical investment, sawmills were commonplace, often run by farmers. On the other hand, because of their necessary size, greater efficiency and year-round operation, gristmills had to be erected on sites that fulfilled a more narrowly defined set of criteria.” Apparently, the site at Picketville met these criteria. In December of 1891, the Baldwinsville Gazette and Farmers’ Journal stated that “Wm. Brown, of Picketville, has his mill in order again for the grinding of all kinds of feed, and solicits patronage.” In April of 1891, it reported that “The dam of William Brown’s mill pond gave way last Saturday morning, flooding the low lands (of Little Utica).” Picketville dams would come and go, but the Brown and Brush families would stay.
By 1892, 67-year-old Bill Brown had married Nancy Brush, a widow 20 years his junior with eight children of her own. Her husband, Sidney Brush, a canal boatman, had died in Tonawanda working on Erie Canal. The children included Charlotte “Lottie,” Rosa “Rosie,” Lucy, Albert, George, Emma, Daisy and John. Born on Oct. 1, 1883, John was the youngest of the Brush brood. William Brown was gone by the early 1900’s, and when Nancy Brush Brown died circa 1923, the Brush brothers inherited the Picketville place.
By 1934, there was only one other family left in Picketville. But in August of that year, the Baldwinsville Gazette reported that, “Picketville will indeed be a forgotten village as the house occupied by the Fred Powers family burned on Monday morning and there is left only the house owned by John Brush Brown.” Fred and Florence Powers subsequently moved to Spafford with their sons, Charlie and Freddie. The article goes on to say that, “For 50 years, there was a mill and several houses there. The mill has been gone for years.”
By 1965, John was over 80 years old and living utterly alone in Picketville. Without either electricity or running water, he occasionally relied on the kindness of neighbors. In March of that year, the Baldwinsville Gazette reported that, “John Brush, who has spent most the winter with the Bellows family on Dingle Hole road, has returned to his home in Picketville.” Folks began referring to him as a loner and a hermit, but a kind and friendly one.
John “Sonny” Supple was a teenager at the time, and he remembers John Brush well. “I lived in the first place west of the Jacksonville corners on Lamson Road. We had a co-op program in high school. You could go to school for a half-day and work the other half. I’d drive out Route 48 from school and John would be walking out of town. I’d drop him off at the corner of Ellison and East Mud Lake. No matter the weather, hot or cold, he always wore the same thing. He’d wear a long, dark wool coat that went down to his knees and long, lace-up boots.”
Sonny said, “We’d go spear-fishing at night for suckers on the creek near Picketville. The suckers were so thick that you would spear two at a time. We carried feed bags and they were heavy by the time we got to Lamson Road.” One of Sonny’s fishing buddies at the time was Gary Bennett. Gary claims that John Brush wore the knee-high boots for a specific reason. “Old Johnny Brush used to wear those boots and tuck in his pants because he was deathly afraid of snakes. He would walk down the lane with a scythe and cut a path six feet wide. He’d cut one in every direction, one out East Mud Lake Road, one out Dinglehole way, and so on.”
One Dinglehole Road resident, Eva Young Maxam, remembers seeing John Brush cutting cross-lots through her family’s farm on the way out the woods from the west. “He was a small man, but strong and wiry. He always carried his things in a burlap bag over his shoulder. I can still see him now, slowly coming across that field.” All three folks look back in amazement at John Brush, living alone in the woods without any modern conveniences. They wonder how he crossed the log that served as a bridge across the creek, especially in the dark of night.
July of 1966 marked the beginning of the end for John Brush, when a broken collarbone forced his removal to Van Duyn Home and Hospital, known then as the county home. By August, the Messenger reported that he was “at the County Home, Building H-1. He would appreciate being remembered with cards. He still has his collarbone in a cast.” As of November, he was still there, but had been visited by neighbors from Little Utica and Dinglehole with names like Bennett, Cook, Coville, States and Youngs. Unfortunately, like many folks his age, he checked in but never checked out. Although I’m sure that they tried to make him feel welcome and comfortable, the wilds of Picketville were his only home. John Brush died at the age of 83 on Feb. 15, 1967. He is buried near his mother in Jacksonville Cemetery.
Later that month, Mae Rathbun paid for a memoriam in the local paper. It stated simply, “Sincerest sympathy to the family of John Brush and dearest memories of his kindness to the family of the late Cora Blakeslee and the Frank E. Rathbun family.” So, while he may have been a loner and a hermit, he was good man and a kind neighbor. But, his story ends on a somewhat sad note. In November of 1967, the Messenger reported that the “Lysander Fire Department was called out Sunday to the last remaining house in Picketville.” It was John Brush’s house that burned. Now, this story is all that remains of John Brush, the last man to leave Picketville.
Looking Backward will appear in the Messenger every other week or so, as long as there are stories to tell and the spirit moves me to tell them. If you have questions about this story or suggestions for future ones, including any local historical images or information, please contact me via e-mail at bvillehistory@earthlink.net.
Looking north up Buttonhole Creek toward Picketville on the east-side.
