Memories of Ketepec - 1976
By Hattie May (Jones) Sutton
April 7, 1976
About two hundred years ago, the land from the outskirts of Fairville to Kings County line, was called South Bay and Grand Bay.
The first mention of Lots #26 and #27, known as the Shipyard Property is as follows:
Sarah Dowe to John Stevens, deed dated Jan.8,1810.
John Stevens and Catherine, his wife, to Walter Brown and Alexander Anderson, deed dated May 9, 1864.
The land to Brown and Anderson is taken before Edward Lawrence, Mayor of Liverpool, and has the Seal of the City of Liverpool affixed.
John Stevens was a descendant of Shubal Stevens, who landed on the southwest
side of these shores by sailing ship in the early seventeen hundreds. Some deeds and
papers were lost by fire. At one time, I had a deed in his name dated 1743. His wife's name is unknown. He had nine sons, no daughters.
John Stevens and his wife, Catherine, built a home on land that is now called Bonnell's Orchard. He also built a cottage for his employee, Frank Currie and his wife, Mary. He had a grand-daughter, Elizabeth Patton, who lived with him and his wife.
There was no railroad at the time that John Stevens sold some of the land to Alfred
Bonnell, seven hundred acres, more or less.
Stevens and Bonnell farmed.
Sutton and Jewett owned Mills at South Bay and Grand Bay. There was an explosion at the South Bay Mill and seven men were killed. Edward Sutton married Elizabeth Patton in 1844.
Edward Sutton sold the right-of-way for the first railroad in this part of the country. It was called the Continental. The train stop at Ketepec was called Sutton's Crossing. I can remember when the name was changed to Ketepec Station.
I can also remember when the last ship was built in the shipyard, which is now Belmont. That was about eighty years ago. My father hauled me over the ice on a red sleigh that I got for Christmas. The ship was being built about where E. Handren's house is now. The ship had two masts and the workmen were putting up another one.
The first Mill at Ketepec was run by Water Wheel. There was a dam which held the water from the lakes. When Harry London was making a pool in the stream, about 1945, he found part of the old water-wheel. John Stevens and James Clarke, whose land adjoined, each gave a half acre of land for the first school house. The first school building is now a home in Martinon.
Cliff Sutton got the first mail delivered in Ketepec. It was thrown off the daily train. During the First World War, Mrs. Mabel Bonnell, a very lovely lady, kept the Post Office.
When J. A. Gregory owned the last Mill at Ketepec, he had the telephone wires brought across the railroad tracks, through the woods from the Red Bridge on the old highway.
The present road was not put through until after the First World War. We were a small mill village, one of the prettiest places on earth.
Any man who worked in the Mills in the early days could have the lumber to build his own cottage and live rent free, as long as he worked in the Mill. That was before my time. That was how my old home was built, by a man named Williams. Wooden pegs and hand-made nails were used.
After the Mill got a phone Mrs. A. C. Jones decided that she wanted one also. The telephone company told her that she would have to build her own line along the road to the village. Well, she got the poles and Walter and Roy McLaughlin and Bill Jones dug the holes and set the poles. The telephone company was surprised when Mrs. Jones called them to come and bring their wires. That was a big night in the village. The dance was at Anderson's house and we had a grand time. My father was away building a portable mill for J.A.Gregory and missed the fun.
There were sad times, too. A boy named Hughes drowned off Stevens Point and another off the pier and a young woman in the lake. There were fires and sickness as there is now. Enough of sad tales.
When the late Allie Bonnell was a young man, he built an open-air dance platform. The musicians were Carl Bonnell and William Jones. They both played the accordion. They were the best in the area. People came from miles around. The fee was fifteen cents. During the second year that we had the dance platform, we got the idea for a Club House. Charles Strong was the one who started the idea. He had summered in Ketepec for eighteen years. Nothing much was done about it for some time.
Harry Codner built a dance hall that is now called the Marina. Hattie Sutton and George McPherson put on an Exhibition Dance. We had some great times in that building that stands where the old Mill stood.
Before the dance hall was built, we had dances and card parties in someone's house every week. All the neighbours took a turn. We had quilting parties and mat hooking parties.
When the skating was poor, we would walk across the ice to Fairville to dances, carrying a cake or big washington pie to help with the late supper. The river was frozen over in those days and people used it as a shorter route to Fairville.
Many a moonlight night there would be a crowd skating on Sutton's pond, the other side of the railroad tracks. We had a lot of picnics in the summer. We had a lot of canoes and motor boats. More time was spent on the river than on the roads in those days.
Now it is wonderful to walk on a paved road to such a beautiful Church. The people of Ketepec waited a long time for a Church. When I was young, the school house was our Church. We had student ministers in the summer time. Penelope L. Sutton and Donald B. Harris had the first wedding in the Church, Oct.20, 1945. The Rev. J.J. Hurley, now Canon Hurley, assisted by Rev. LeRoy of the Church of the Good Shepherd (officiated). I am very proud that my grandchildren were christened there.
As far as I know, the oldest living members of the Ketepec area pioneer families are Andrew Campbell, William Jones and Hattie May Jones Sutton.
Hattie M. Jones Sutton