Town of Fremont - History pg4

the mud to Rockland. They walked preferably even when there was a horse and wagon. Walking was more comfortable. This early road was not located where the country road is today. I know quite well where it ran from the Martin Smith farm to Rockland. At the Martin Smith farm it followed a valley to go along a ridge west of the Fremont Center village street past the Kittle farm now owned by Nelson.
Near William Friedenstine’s it passed near Trout Pond to Tennanah past Round Pond to Rockland. From Martin Smith’s south to Hankins the road may have passed along the hill east of the valley past where Arthur Newman now lives. Possibly some one who reads this knows more about this than I do. The Cannon road had been cut out along the ridge. Early roads never followed a valley. These were always swampy due to log jams in the stream.

Tannery Started in Fremont

In 1849 the tannery business started in Fremont when Charles W. Miles, Benjamin C. Miles and Carlos P. Holcomb built a tannery on the Hankins creek where Mileses now stands. The place was known as Milesville for some years but finally became Mileses. I tried to learn if this Holcomb was any relation to Albert Holcomb, but it must have been a different family. The date 1849 was two years before the Erie railroad began. If the Miles tannery produced any leather before 1851, the hides must have come across country from Liberty and the D.&H. Canal at Ellenville. This was true of the Horton tannery at Hortonville before the coming of the Erie. It is quite possible that the ensuing two years were used in getting ready.
The tannery in Fremont Center, built by D. P. Buckley and Son of Liberty where they were tanning was a bigger establishment than the one at Mileses. Benjamin P. Buckley of this firm was supervisor of Liberty when the settlers in Fremont wanted to become a new town and opposed its creation. Later the Buckley family became one of the most prominent families in Fremont and the family provided four supervisors for the town.

Prominent Names Now Extinct

Quinlan lists the following names as persons prominent in the affairs of the town in 1849 and who eventually brought about the establishment of the town. Judge Samuel McKoon, Levi Harding, Roderick LaValley, Thomas S. Ward, William C. Ward, Joseph F. Yendes, Burrow Phillips, G.L.M. Hardenbergh, James Brown, John Beck, Aaron VanBenschoten and a family of Cannons. Not many of these families are represented in the residents of Fremont today.
To comment on a few of the names: Levi Harding was an older brother of the late William J. Harding of Callicoon Center, where the father was a blacksmith. Another brother settled in Rockland who, like Levi, was also a blacksmith. Roderick LaValley was a lone Frenchman whose