From Being Homeless to an Ashery

The Woodleys had been in the Chazy, N.Y. area for three generations. Chazy is west of Lake Champlain in the Adirondack Mountains, just south of the Canadian border. Samuel Woodley had been born in Devonshire, England around 1770. After he immigrated about 1790, he married Phebe Lent, who belonged to an old New Amsterdam family.  They learned of land in New York State that the government was offering to settlers, so they attempted to establish a homestead in the wilderness about two miles east of a place called Flat Rock, a remote spot where the nearest neighbor was five miles away. But a plethora of bears, wolves, and an especially ornery colony of rattlesnakes, drove the family out.

Flat Rock State Forest

Samuel Woodley took refuge in Grand Isle, Vermont, but evidently did not prosper. On 26 February 1806 his family was issued an order “to depart town and find a place to settle” because “they had become destitute and without worldly goods.” They had to decamp within 20 days of being served notice, and were to be escorted to the next settlement or out of the state. In other words, the Woodleys were homeless “riffraff” and run out of town.

Because he had no choice, Samuel trudged back to the little cabin in the wilderness he had built five years before. It was far from any road, but at least it offered shelter. He finally realized it also offered a means of supporting his family.

Wikipedia explains it succinctly: “In the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, potash production provided settlers in North America a way to obtain badly needed cash and credit as they cleared wooded land for crops. To make full use of their land, settlers needed to dispose of excess wood. The easiest way to accomplish this was to burn any wood not needed for fuel and construction. Ashes from hardwood trees could then be used to make lye, which could either be used to make soap or boiled down to make valuable potash…The American potash industry followed the woodsman’s axe across the country. After about 1820, New York replaced New England as the most important source…” The Champlain canal connected the area with Montreal, the major potash exporting port. 

Samuel had established an ashery in nearby Sciota by 1828, and in 1843 had sufficient means to will his sons 10 acres each, while his daughters received two acres each.