2004 Champlain Historic
Calendar
The Locust Hill
Mansion
a.k.a.
The Savoy Hotel
On the cold morning of Tuesday, February
18, 2003, the Village
of Champlain lost
forever
another of its historic homes. The former
Savoy Hotel burned to the ground, and with it, a part of Champlain’s
early
history.
Opened in 1930 as a hotel,
Champlain’s residents will likely remember the Savoy as a place where people could
have a
drink after work, attend parties, banquets and weddings, or board in
one of the
upstairs rooms. Most people, however,
are unaware of who built the Savoy
or the family that lived there for almost 80 years before the
establishment of
the hotel.
The Savoy
was built by Champlain businessman
Bartlett Nye starting in May of 1851. One
of the first things he did was to plant Locust trees in the front yard
on the hill. The trees were the reason the
estate was
always called “Locust Hill”.
Bartlett
Nye was born in Plympton, Massachusetts, on January 8, 1799, and was
a Mayflower
descendent. His family moved to Burlington in
1806 and when
he was 16, he moved to Champlain to be with his older brother Freeman
who had
moved there in 1807 at the same age.
In
1839, Bartlett
married Lucy Matilda Moore who was the daughter of Noadiah Moore and
grand-daughter of Pliny Moore, the founder of Champlain.
They had one child named Elizabeth Matilda
Nye who was born in 1840. Six months
after giving birth to Elizabeth, Lucy and her baby contracted the
measles. At first the family was not
alarmed by
this. Her sister Laura wrote her a
letter from school in Middlebury,
Vermont, and
mentioned the measles: “Ma
writes you have just commenced a seige [sic] with King Measles. I hope you will soon drive him from the
territory.” Unfortunately, Lucy died
two days after this letter was written. Surprisingly,
her baby daughter survived the sickness.
Baby Elizabeth
was raised by her grandmother Caroline
for the next year. During that time,
Lucy’s sister Laura was courted by Bartlett. Laura
was unsure if she should marry Bartlett
but finally decided
to and was married in October of 1842. This made Elizabeth’s
aunt her new mother. Bartlett and
Laura had seven children of which five survived to adulthood. The children were Carolina Maria Nye, Margaret Barnes
Nye, Ellen Rose Nye, Charles
Freeman Nye, Grace Cornelia Nye, Mary Laura Nye and Bartlett Nye.
In
1817, at the age of 18, Bartlett
went into partnership with his brother Freeman and established the firm
of “F.
& B. Nye”. The two brothers acquired
numerous farms and houses and owned shops, stores, mills and a dam. In 1825, Freeman built a large estate called
the “The Lines” just over the border where the current I-87 border
crossing is
and used his Canadian residency to help build their business in LaColle
as well
as Champlain. Although Freeman lived in Canada
the
remainder of his life, he always kept his American citizenship.
The
firm of F. & B. Nye owned a considerable amount of land and
buildings in
the Village
of Champlain. The Beers’ 1869 map of Champlain shows at
least 10 references to the firm of “F. & B. Nye”. Some
of the buildings they owned included the
brick buildings on Main
Street
formerly called the Champlain Hall and Champlain House. The
partnership even owned the Racine
stone farm house
on Prospect Street.
Bartlett
was probably the wealthiest businessman in Champlain during the 1840s
and
1850s.
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[and this continues for
several more pages and describes the building of the house and its 150
year history. Another 20 or so pictures are displayed in this
essay].
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