Comstock's History Page Eight

SOME OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF SCIPIO

CAYUGA COUNTY NEW YORK  by Austin B. Comstock

I will be posting each page of this history separately. The index, posted on June 24, 2014 in 4 parts, provides the page numbers; you can also search the blog for a particular name appearing anywhere within it. I hope you find something new!

 Page Eight

to sell and brought back goods with them for sale in their store. The ashes cost them nothing but the trouble of drawing them from where a log heap had been burned to clear the land of the forests. When they gave up business or why is not known, but it was probably about 1809. The store was moved away by S. B. Mastin in 1837 for a barn.

The first boot and shoe shop was conducted by two men, whose names have been lost, in the loft of Melvin Brown’s store. There were undoubtedly other shoemakers previous to the days of Henry Kimbark who came from Shawagunk, Ulster County, in 1815 or before. He built the small building, later used as a tailor shop and post office by S. W. Green, to whom we are indebted for much of our knowledge of local history. Kimbark carried on the shoemaker’s trade for several years, but finally sold the place to his brother John for a tailor shop. Since writing the above I find that the building built by Kimbark was not the same one occupied later by S. W. Green, but that it was moved a ½ mile south of Sherwood and later brought back and placed on land of S. B. Mastin. S. B. Mastin occupied a shop, later, that Kimbark also built, as a shoe shop, which he occupied until his death on 1875. This building was also used for some time as a broom shop until the 1880’s.

In 1810, John Lytle built the building which is now, 1938 and on the southwest corner, occupied by B. T. Brown, our merchant, as a residence, and as a carding mill, to be run by horsepower. This venture was not profitable, and he sold the following year to Dr. Tallman, who did not come here but rented it to two men from Auburn who brought goods and ran a store for about two years. These merchants Thomas Alsop then rented and ran the store until 1819 when he took his clerk Slocum Howland as partner and moved into another store, which is now the annex to the Sherwood Hospital.

Thomas Tallman sold the store that Alsop and Howland had occupied to Allen Thomas, who took a cousin George as partner, who continued for a year or so and was succeeded by Arthur Phelps, who stayed about the same length of time and sold his shares of the business back to Mr. Thomas, who continued the business until the spring of 1862 when he died.

Allen Thomas was a man of fair education, a gentleman, honest and kind-hearted and good company, indulging in dry humor and much appreciated wit, but not fond of hard work. He spent much of his time seated in an old armchair covered with a sheepskin, not caring to do much business or gain wealth. He with his wife and their two children now lie in the little graveyard at Sherwood. After the death of Thomas, this property was sold to John S. Smith from New Jersey, who leased 

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