McCombs settlement was so named because it was first settled by members of the McCombs family who came to Jefferson county from the Mohawk valley some time prior to 1817.

John McCombs, III, of McCombs settlement, whose wife was Magdalena Frank, a daughter of the first judge of Herkimer county, was the father of 15 children, ten of whom grew to manhood and womanhood, married and had children. They were Elizabeth (my grandmother), Andrew, Catherine, Mary, Sarah, William, George, Hannah, Abigail and John. Elizabeth married Lewis Phillips and Sarah married his brother, John Phillips. John McCombs was the grandson of Alexander McCombs and old deeds show that the farms were a part of the McCombs purchase.

McCombs is often spoken of as “Macomb” but on the old deeds, some of which are in my possession, it is the McCombs purchase. Hannah married a Mr. Webb. Mrs. B. A. Littlefield, Watertown, is their granddaughter. Mary married Irving Calkins. The late Rev. John Calkins was their son and the late Dr. C. C. K. Phelps of Sackets Harbor, and Dr. F. R. Calkins of Watertown, were their grandsons.

John and Sarah McCombs Phillips located near Theresa. County Judge Crandall F. Phillips is their great-grandson.

The first settlers found primeval forests all the way from Three Mile Bay to Clayton. They built a log schoolhouse and Nancy Haas was the first teacher. There were 60 pupils in the school at that time.

The first marriage was that of Mary Ann Phillips, the oldest child of Lewis and Elizabeth McCombs Phillips to a Mr. Daney,.

The settlers were clearing their land of the vast forests, burning them to make ashes which they sold for five cents a bushel at an ashery across the road from the schoolhouse. Here, potash was made.

There was a family by the name of Croisant that lived at the little hill west of the schoolhouse where the lilacs are. In my father’s boyhood there was a spring there, the waters of which were piped down to run the ashery. On the corner diagonally across the road from the ashery was a store.

The first houses were log cabins, sometimes with only a bed quilt hung up for a door. At that time there were wolves. There are a number of springs along Soper creek and usually a spring meant the location of a home. There is a spring on the farm of John McCombs I, later owned by his son, Andrew, who built a large white house with a picket fence around the front yard. The farm is now known as the Dillenbeck place. George McCombs built the house on what is now known as the Barron place. That, too, had a picket fence. There are, or were, two springs on the farm, one in the cellar, which has been piled up, and one near the creek.

The children of George McCombs by his first wife were Madison, and Lucy,. By his second wife they were Harriet, George Mason, William, and Mary. George Mason became a physician. Harriet married Thomas Riley, son of their next door neighbor. Mrs. L. William Charlebois (Bertha) of Watertown, is their daughter. There was a fireplace in the sitting room of the George McCombs house and an old-time brick bake oven and cauldron kettle set in an arch in the kitchen connected with the fireplace chimney. When I was a small girl, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Jones and their son, Clyde, and Mr. Jones’ parents, Mr. and Mrs. Asa Jones, arrived and occupied the place. Mrs. Charles Jones was my cousin so I often went there. To me, it was a house of romance. There was richly carved woodwork in the parlor, including a carved wooden circle set in the ceiling for hanging lamps. There was a bedroom off the parlor.

There was a big hall and a bedroom at the end of the hall. From the hall there was a stairway leading to the front chamber and, from the sitting room there was another stairway leading to the back chamber. There was also a large kitchen, bedroom, pantry and woodshed. Lewis Phillips, husband of Elizabeth McCombs, built the house on what is now the Mitchell place. That, too, had the front yard enclosed by a white picket fence. On the next road west, John McCombs built a small house on what is now known as the Chauncey Phillips place. Benjamin Phillips, Lewis’ brother, built the house on what is now known as the Rees place. He was the great-grandfather of Mrs. Otto Johnson of St. Lawrence. Where we lived, the house was built by John Kline. That, also, had its spring. There was a limburger cheese factory on the farm and in the meadow back of the house were the remains of an old lime-kiln.

In later history, about 1884 to 1894, Orville Allen conducted a butchering business on the place near the schoolhouse.

Simeon Wood and his son, Alonzo Wood, moved into the neighborhood from the town of Wilna and built a two-family house on the farm now occupied by Mrs. Leigh Mitchell. Simeon Wood was known as “Uncle Simeon” and his wife as “Aunt Polly”. Both were much loved by all who knew them.

About 1890-91, my father, Thomas Phillips, son of Lewis and Elizabeth McCombs Phillips, built a new house on the farm now owned and occupied by the Adams family.

There used to be preaching in the schoolhouse weekday evenings or Sunday afternoons. The women and girls sat primly on one side of the room and the men and boys on the other side. Elder Widrig,, LaFargeville and Elder Hall and Elder Merriman,, Three Mile Bay, are among those I remember.

All ministers used to be called “Elder” instead of “Reverend.”

Teachers in the school were Verna Hill, Julia Babcock,, Mary Downes, Kate Fitzgerald, Allie Kanaley. Some of the pupils were Jennie, William, Ray and Roy Northrup, the Storms children, Bernice, Charles, Mabel, Ernest and Beatrice, William Wood, Clay Donahue, Clyde Jones, Clifton and Frank Hurst, Luke and Louise Grandjean, Brighton and Grace Richett, Perl Lingenfelter, Zula McNett, Edith Phillips (myself). Not all of them attended at the same time.

The schoolhouse is still standing but it has been sold and the McCombs settlement school district is no more, having been consolidated with Lyme Central school.

“Take a look at the last sentence of the second paragraph in Edith Phillips Adams’ history as posted on your web site. She states that John McCombs was the grandson of the famous Alexander McComb(s) and that old deeds show that the farms were part of the McCombs Purchase.