Before there was Inlet I: Farrand Benedict, the Shedds and the Munns

PART TWO

Marshall S. Shedd Jr.’s father, Rev. Marshall S. Shedd, was born in Cambridge, MA in 1786, married Eliza Thayer, whose father Obadiah was also a minister, in April 1818.

The Shedds had six children, three of whom were sons Marshall, Jr. (1822), Henry (1824) and William (Greenough Thayer) G. T. Shedd (1820).

Two children died young and an invalid daughter Elizabeth would die in Willsborough in 1872, the same year Rev. Shedd died.

Rev. Shedd had graduated from Dartmouth in 1817, was a member of Rev. William Green-ough’s Congregational Church in Newton, MA and became pastor of the First Congregational Church in Acton, MA in 1820 where his children were born.

Though successfully starting a temperance movement in Acton, parochial differences between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism resulted in a decision to resign and he moved to Willsborough (Willsboro), NY in 1831.

Eliza’s father also moved with the family.

Rev. Shedd was a founder of Willsborough’s First Congrega-tional Church and preached for two years.

Eliza died in February 1833.

In 1835 Rev. Shedd married Mary Elizabeth R. R. Pemberton, a daughter of Boston teacher Ebenezer Pemberton, who moved with her husband to Wills-borough, bringing her unmarried sister Johanna Pemberton and a brother, William Whitwell. Ebenezer had been principal of the Phillips Academy that Rev. Shedd attended as a youth in Andover, MA.At this time, Rev. Shedd temporarily moved to Burlington, VT to educate his sons. Being teachers in their father’s school, it is probable that Mary and Johanna tutored young Henry and Marshall.

The older William attended the University of Vermont and graduated in 1839.

He majored in theology and philosophy, joined the faculty as a professor of English literature (1845-1852) and published several acclaimed books on Calvinist theology still referenced today.

When William graduated, Rev. Shedd returned with his extended family to Willsborough and remained a minister for the rest of his days.

Ministerial duties must not have interested his sons Henry and Marshall.

Either while living with their family in the “Italian Villa” still on the University campus or shortly afterwards, they met a well known professor of math and engineering named Farrand Northrop Benedict, probably the most intrepid scientific explorer of the Adirondacks until Verplank Colvin.

“Professor Benedict,” as he would be known for most of the 19th century, was born on March 11, 1803 in Parsippany, NJ where he would meet and later marry his wife, Susan Ogden, in 1832.

Benedict graduated from Hamilton College in 1823, practiced civil engineering in western New York, was principal in schools at Rochester and Virginia, and accepted a professorship of mathematics at the University of Vermont in 1833.

Soon after, the department of civil engineering was placed in his charge.

His father dead, Benedict also managed the education of his brothers Abner and Joel.

Urged by a prominent businessman’s (William Waddell) claim that no one had ever traveled the region from end to end, Benedict in 1835 began a period of twenty years where he would annually summer in the rivers, valleys and mountains of the Adirondacks learning of not only the scenery, but noting the mineral, water power and lumber assets of the region.

He also realized this potential would not be realized without commercial investment in transportation to harvest the natural wealth.

In 1837, Ebenezer Emmons climbed Mt. Marcy (newly named for the governor) and published its height as 5487 feet using barometric means and was quickly questioned by Edwin Johnson, a noted engineer, who claimed a figure under 5,000 feet using triangulation methods.

Emmons called upon Benedict, labeled by some the “mathematician of his age” for an independent measurement.

Benedict traveled to Mt. Marcy twice in 1838 and calculated 5344 feet, a figure confirmed by Verplank Colvin in 1874.

Benedict’s travels through the Adirondacks convinced him it was possible to build railroads and canal links southwesterly east to west in the river valleys through the region.

Until they were built, he determined that he could obtain the cheapest price for the thousands of available acres of state lands along this route.

According to McMartin, in 1842 Benedict and David Read had already traveled through the Fulton Chain and the Moose River (then Indian) Plains.

In 1844, Benedict interested young Marshall Shedd, Jr. of Willsborough, and brother Henry in the opportunities the land provided.

In a transaction dated August 6, 1844, Benedict and Marshall obtained a patent from the state for thousands of acres of forest land and lakes, including the 6,000 acres of what later would become Inlet.

That year, Benedict also purchased the triangular portion of Township 8, John Brown’s Tract, in today’s Town of Inlet which includes Cascade Lake.

McMartin claimed that Benedict would have at least partial title to at least 152,000 acres.

In 1846, Benedict submitted a report and maps to the legislature (Senate Document 73, 1846) demonstrating that a combination 190-mile plank road, railroad, steamer and canal project could connect Port Kent on Lake Champlain to Boonville on the Black River Canal.

This report, which would be referenced for over thirty years, would be the basis for early railroad planning in the region.

Six prominent upstate legislators had commissioned the report and some of these were directors in the approved “Northern Slack-water and Railway Company (Ch. 311, 1946).

One of the directors was Gerritt Smith who would offer land in North Elba to former slaves.

Continued next week…