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Go 974.701 St4h 1142211
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01125 9766
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/landmarksofsteub00hake 0
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LANDMARKS
OF
STEUBEN COUNTY
NEW YORK
EDITED BY HON. HARLO HAKES
ASSISTED BY L. C. ALDRICH AND OTHERS
SYRACUSE, N. Y. D. MASON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 1896
14
PREFACE.
1142211
In the preparation of this historical and biographical record earlier works bearing on the history of this section of the State have been consulted, and also many original sources of information. A careful review of the work, from beginning to end, discloses the fact that more than two thousand persons have been interviewed in the quest of authentic data, hence it cannot be assumed that the present volume is a mere compilation from previous publications. The work is now placed before the people of the county, and the editor, writers and pub- lishers have no apology to make, believing none is needed. At the same time they have not the temerity to claim this to be a faultless volume, but assert for it reasonable and substantial accuracy. The arrangement of the subject of the county's history will be found novel, yet convenient and interesting.
The editor and the writers take this opportunity to express thanks for generous assistance on the part of the best informed men of the region, and the publishers also acknowledge a debt of gratitude to the public spirited citizens of the county at large for the hearty support that has made the work possible.
-12.50
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
County Organizations- Albany-Tryon - Montgomery - Ontario-Steuben- Claims to Pre-historic Occupation-Early Discoveries and Explorations - The French-The Dutch-The English 1
CHAPTER II.
French and English Rivalry-The Indian Occupation-Iroquois Confederacy- The Senecas-The Jesuit Fathers among the Indians- Events Preceding and During the French and English Wars-Overthrow of French Power in Amer- ica-The Delaware Village near Canisteo 6
CHAPTER III.
Events Preceding the Revolution-Pontiac's League-Action of the Senecas- The Revolutionary War-Sullivan's Campaign-Brief Reference to the Indian History and Antiquities of Steuben County.
14
CHAPTER IV.
After the Revolution-An Era of Peace-Controversy between Massachusetts and New York-The Hartford Convention-The Phelps and Gorham Pur- chase-The Lessee Companies-Settlement of Difficulties-The Surveys- Sale to Robert Morris-The Pulteney Association-Charles Williamson- Foundation of Land Titles in Steuben County-The Anti-Rent Conflict. 20
CHAPTER V.
Division of Montgomery County-Creation of Ontario and Steuben Counties- - Brief Allusion to Baron Steuben-His Life and Services-The Original Terri- tory of Steuben County Divided into Towns-First County Officers-County Buildings-Second Jury District-Steuben County Civil List
30
vi
CHAPTER VI.
The Civil Divisions of the County
CHAPTER VII.
82
The Civil Divisions of the County.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Civil Divisions of the County
104
CHAPTER IX.
The Civil Divisions of the County
130
CHAPTER X.
The Civil Divisions of the County
150
CHAPTER XI.
The Civil Divisions of the County
164 1
CHAPTER XII.
Events Preceding and During the War of 1812-15-Companies Organized in Steuben County-Results of the War-The Conflict with Mexico-The Steu- ben Company-Population of the County by Decades 185
CHAPTER XIII.
Steuben County in the War of 1861-65
190
CHAPTER XIV.
The Bench and Bar
205
CHAPTER XV.
The Press 226
CHAPTER XVI.
The Medical Profession 237
39
CONTENTS.
CONTENTS. vii
CHAPTER XVII.
Cities, Villages and Hamlets
243
CHAPTER XVIII.
Cities, Villages and Hamlets
303
CHAPTER XIX.
Cities, Villages and Hamlets 323
CHAPTER XX.
Cities, Villages and Hamlets 337
CHAPTER XXI.
Churches 354
PART II.
BIOGRAPHICAL 1-79
PART III.
FAMILY SKETCHES 1-506
INDEXES.
Historical 507
Biographies
514
Family Sketches 515 1
Portraits
529
1
LANDMARKS
OF
STEUBEN COUNTY.
CHAPTER I.
County Organizations -- Albany -- Tyron-Montgomery-Ontario-Steuben-Claims to Pre-historic Occupation-Early Discoveries and Explorations-The French-The Dutch-The English.
The State of New York, for the purpose of more conveniently admin- istrating the affairs of local government, is divided by law into counties, and the latter are further subdivided into towns. Municipal govern - ments, likewise, are provided for cities and villages, securing to them separate officers and tribunals for the management of their peculiar affairs, and other privileges, varying with their respective charters. Under the Dutch dominion the only divisions were the city and towns. Counties were erected, for the first time, by the act of 1683, and were twelve in number, Albany being farthest west in the colony of New York and in its jurisdiction extending over the region now of Steuben county, although no civilized occupancy was then known in this part of the province.
Tryon county was erected in 1772, from Albany, and comprised the country west of a north and south line extending from St. Regis to the west bounds of the town of Schenectady; thence running irregularly southwest to the head of the Mohawk branch of the Delaware, and along the same to the southwest bounds of the present county of Broome; thence in a northwesterly direction to Fort Bull, on Wood Creek, near the present village of Rome. All the region west of the
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LANDMARKS OF STEUBEN COUNTY.
line last mentioned was Indian territory, unoccupied by the whites, except incidentally, and not subject to county jurisdiction.
On the 27th day of January, 1789 (after the close of the Revolution, and after the settlement of the controversy between the States of Massa- chusetts and New York, growing out of conflicting grants and charters by the crown), the county of Tyron, then known, however, as Mont- gomery, was divided, and that part of the State which had been ceded to Massachusetts, so far as the pre-emption right was concerned, was erected into a separate county by the name of Ontario; and from the latter, on March 8, 1796, the county of Steuben was formed and there- after duly organized.
The history of Steuben county properly begins with the time of its creation, and a narrative of the events of the territory within its bound- aries, previous to such erection, must be associated with the history of the older counties of which it once formed a part. In fact the aboriginal occupation of this region is inseparably connected with that of the whole Phelps and Gorham purchase, and is auxiliary to though not co-ex- tensive with it.
The claim has been made on the part of many well-informed persons that there have been found in various localities in Steuben county evidences of a pre- historic occupation ; that there have been discovered certain relics and implements of peculiar construction the like of which are now unknown, and that they must have been left by a race of peo- ple different from the red sons of the forest, the period of whose occu- pancy long antedated the coming of the ancestors of the famed Iroquois. This claim, in the writer's view, is a mistaken one. True, there have been unearthed tools and utensils which were never in common use among the Indians, but we must remember that the Jesuits and their followers traversed this region more than a century and a half before any civilized white settlement was made; and we must also remember that the crude and to us unaccountable implements were then in the hands of comparative ancients, and were the product of a period in which was known but little of the mechanical arts as we see and under- stand and use them at the present time. None of the Indian tribes had a tradition that run to the time of the Mound- builders, and while there may be ill-defined outline possibilities of such a presence from which the student of archaeology may theorize on this subject, we see nothing
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EARLY DISCOVERIES.
in the claim referred to which is inconsistent with the modern theory of continuous Indian occupation.
Four hundred years ago the first Spanish adventurers landed on the shores of the American continent. Sailing under the patronage of Spain, Christopher Columbus, the Genoese, in 1492 made his wonderful discoveries, an event generally designated as the discovery of America, although the first Europeans to visit the western hemisphere were Scandinavians, who colonized Iceland in A. D. 875, Greenland in 983, and about the year 1000 had cruised southward as far as the Massachu- setts coast.
During the ages that preceded these events, no grander country in every point of view ever waited the approach of civilization. With climate and soil diversified between the most remote extremes ; with thousands of miles of ocean shores indented by magnificent harbors to welcome the world's commerce ; with many of the largest rivers of the globe draining its territory and forming natural highways for commerce ; with a system of lakes so immense in area as to entitle them to the name of inland seas; with mountains, hills and valleys laden with the richest minerals and almost exhaustless fuel ; and with scenery unsurpassed for grandeur, it needed only the Caucasian to transform a wilderness in- habited only by savages into the free, enlightened republic, which is to day the wonder and glory of the civilized world.
Following close upon the discoveries of Columbus and other early explorers, various foreign powers fitted out fleets and commissioned navigators to establish colonies in the vast but unknown continent. These events, however, will be briefly treated in this work, and only those will be mentioned which had at least an indirect bearing upon our subject.
In 1508, Aubert discovered the St. Lawrence River, and 1524, Francis I, king of France, sent Jean Verrazzani on a voyage of exploration to the new world. He entered a harbor, supposed to have been that of New York, where he remained fifteen days; and it is believed that his crew were the first Europeans to land on the soil of what is now the State of New York. The Gallic explorer cruised along the coast about 2, 100 miles, sailing as far north as Labrador, and giving to the whole region the name of "New France"-a name by which the French possessions in America were ever known during the dominion of that
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LANDMARKS OF STEUBEN COUNTY.
power. In 1534 the same king sent Jacques Cartier to the country, and he made two voyages, on the second being accompanied with a number of French nobility, all of whom were filled with high hopes and bearing the blessings of the church. This party was determined upon the col- onization of the country, but, after passing a severe winter at the Isle of Orleans, abandoned their scheme and returned to France. 'As a be- ginning of the long list of needless and shameful betrayals, treacheries and other abuses to which the too confiding natives were subjected, Cartier inveigled into his vessel an Indian chief who had been his gen- erous host, and bore him with several others into hopeless captivity and final death.
Cartier again visited New France in 1540, but no further attempts in the same direction were made until about 1589, when the re- gion, particularly its Canadian portion, was made a place of banish- ment for French convicts; but even this scheme failed, and it remained for private enterprise to make the first successful effort toward the permanent occupation of the country. The real discoverer and founder of a permanent colony in New France was Samuel de Champlain, a man born with that uncontrollable instinct of investigation and desire for knowledge of distant regions which has always so strongly charac- terized all great explorers. His earlier adventures in this country have no connection with this work, and it is therefore sufficient to merely mention that in 1608 he was sent to the country and founded Quebec.
To satisfy his love for exploration, Champlain united with the Cana- dian Indians and marched into the unknown country to the southward, and the result was the discovery of the lake that bears his name. The party also invaded the land of the Mohawks, in the country of the Iroquois, and a conflict followed between the Algonquins, aided by Champlain, and a portion of the Iroquois, in which the latter were defeated with the loss of two of their chiefs, who fell by the hands of Champlain him - self.
Thus was signalized the first hostile meeting between the white man and the Indian. Low as the latter was found in the scale of intelligence and humanity, and terrible as were many of the subsequent deeds of the Iroquois, it cannot be denied that their early treatment could foster in the savage breast any other feeling than that of bitterest hostility. It seems like a pathetic page of romance to read Champlain's statement
5
CONFLICTING GRANTS.
that "The Iroquois are greatly astonished, seeing two men killed so instantaneously," one of whom was their chief; while the ingenuous acknowledgment of the Frenchman, "I had put four balls into my arquebus," is a vivid testimony of how little mercy the Iroquois nation were to expect from their northern enemies and the pale-faced race which was eventually to drive them from their domain. It was an age, however, in which might was appealed to as right more frequently than in later years, and the planting of the lowly banner of the Cross was frequently preceded by bloody conquests. It is in the light of the prevailing custom of the old world in Champlain's time that we must view his ready hostility to the Indian.
Let us also turn briefly to other events which have had an indirect bearing on the settlement of this part of the country. A few weeks after the battle between Champlain and the Indians, Henry Hudson, a navigator in the service of the Dutch East India Company, anchored his ship (The Half-moon) at the mouth of the river which now bears his name. This took place September 5, 1609. He met the savages and was hospitably received by them; but before his departure he sub- jected them to an experimental knowledge of the effects of intoxicating liquor-an experiment perhaps more baneful in its results than that in- flicted by Champlain with his new and murderous weapon. Hudson as. cended the river to a point within less than a hundred miles of that reached by Champlain, then returned to Europe, and, through the information he had gained, soon afterward established a Dutch colony, for which a charter was granted in 1614, naming the region "New Netherlands."
The Dutch dominion, however, was of brief duration. Indian hos- tilities were provoked through the ill-advised action of Governor Kieft, whose official career continued for about ten years, being super- seded by Peter Stuyvesant in May, 1647. The latter was the last of the Dutch governors, and his firm and equitable policy had the effect of harmonizing the discontent existing among the Indians. On the 12th of March, 1664. however, Charles II of England granted by letters patent to his brother James, the Duke of York, all the country from the River St. Croix to the Kennebec in Maine, together with all the land from the west bank of the Connecticut River to the east side of Delaware Bay. The duke sent an English squadron to secure the
6
LANDMARKS OF STEUBEN COUNTY.
gift, and on the 8th of September following, Governor Stuyvesant capit- ulated, being constrained to that course by the Dutch colonists, who preferred peace, with the same privileges and liberties accorded to the English colonists, rather than a prolonged and perhaps uncertain con- test. The English changed the name of New Amsterdam to New York, and thus ended the Dutch dominion in America.
Meanwhile, in 1607, the English had made their first permanent settlement at Jamestown, Va., and in 1620 planted their historic colony at Plymouth Rock. These two colonies became the successful rivals of all others in that strife which finally left them masters of the country.
On the discoveries and colonizations thus briefly noted, three great European powers based claims to a part of the territory embraced in the State of New York; first, England, by the reason of the discovery of John Cabot, who sailed under commission from Henry VII, and on the 24th of June, 1497, reached the coast of Labrador, also that made in the following year by his son Sebastian, who explored the same coast from New Foundland to Florida, claiming a territory eleven degrees in width and indefinitely extending westward; second, France, from the discoveries of Verrazzani, claiming a portion of the Atlantic coast, and also (under the title of New France) an almost boundless region westward ; third, Holland, which based on Hudson's discoveries a claim to the entire country from Cape Cod to the southern shore of Delaware Bay.
. CHAPTER II.
French and English Rivalry-The Indian Occupation-Iroquois Confederacy-The Senecas- The Jesuit Fathers Among the Indians-Events Preceding and During the French and English Wars-Overthrow of French Power in America-The Dela- ware Village near Canisteo.
After the final overthrow of the Dutch in the New Netherlands, the region now included within the State of New York was still held and claimed by three powers-one native and two foreign. The main colonies of the French (one of the powers referred to) were in the Canadas, but through the zeal of the Jesuit missionaries their line of
INDIAN OCCUPATION.
possessions had been extended south and west of the St. Lawrence, and some attempts at colonization had been made, but as yet with only partial success. Indeed, as early as 1620, the Jesuit fathers labored among the Senecas in this region, and evidences are not wanting to show that missionaries carried the banner of the Cross into what is now Steuben county. In the southern and eastern portion of the province granted to the Duke of York were the English, who with steady yet sure advances were pressing settlement and civilization westward, gradually nearing the French possessions.
The French and English were at this time, and also for many years afterwards, conflicting powers, each studying for the mastery on both sides of the Atlantic ; and with each succeeding outbreak of war in the mother countries, so there were renewed hostilities between their American colonies. Directly between the possessions of the French and the territory of the English lay the lands of the famous Iroquois Confederacy. then more commonly known as the Five Nations. By the French they were called "Iroquois," but by the Dutch they were known as "Maquas," while the English called them "Mingoes;" but however variously they may have been designated, they were a race of savages whose peculiar organization, prowess on the field of battle, loyalty to friends, as well as barbarous revenge upon enemies, together with eloquent speech and stoical endurance of torture, have surprised all who are conversant with their history.
When, during the latter part of the fifteenth and early part of the sixteenth century, the foreign navigators visited the American con- tinent, they found it in possession of two formidable races of savages, between whom there was no unity ; and yet while open hostility was suppressed, they were nevertheless in a constant state of disquiet, each being jealous of the other and at the same time doubtful of its own strength and fearful of the results of a general war. One of the nations occupied the region of the larger rivers of Pennsylvania, and also that on the south and west To the Europeans they were known as the " Delawares," but styled themselves "Lenni Lenapes," meaning "Original People." The other nation occupied, principally, the terri- tory which afterwards formed the State of New York, and is known in history as the "Iroquois Confederacy," or the Five (and subsequently) the Six Nations.
8
LANDMARKS OF STEUBEN COUNTY.
The confederacy originally comprised five nations, which were located from east to west across the territory which now forms our State, be- ginning with the Mohawks on the extreme east, the Oneidas next, and the Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas following in the order named. Each of the nations was divided into five tribes, and all were united in common league. The Senecas occupied the territory west of the lake named from them, and were the guardians of the western door of the "Long House," from which we correctly infer that they were the most numerous and likewise most formidable in battle of any of the con- federates.
The government of this remarkable confederacy was exercised through councils, and in the peculiar blending of their individual, tribal and national interests lay the secret of the immense power which for more than a century resisted the hostile efforts of the French, which caused them for nearly a century to be alike courted and feared by the con- tending French and English colonies, and which enabled them to sub- due the neighboring Indian tribes, until they became really the dictators of the continent, gaining indeed the title of "The Romans of the New World." There is, however, a difference in the opinions of writers as to the true military status of the Iroquois. In the forest they were a terrible foe, while in the open country they could not successfully con- tend with disciplined soldiery ; but they made up for this deficiency, in a large degree, by their self-confidence, vindictiveness and insaitable desire for ascendency and triumph.
While the Iroquois were undoubtedly superior in mental capacity and more provident than their Canadian enemies, and other tribes, there is little indication that they were inclined to improve the condition in which they were found by the Europeans. "They, and especially the Senecas, were closely attached to their warrior and hunter life, and devoted their energies to the lower, if not the lowest forms of enjoyment and gratification. Their dwellings, even among the more stationary tribes, were rude, their food coarse and poor, and their domestic habits and surroundings unclean and barbarous. Their women were degraded into mere beasts of burden, and while they believed in a Supreme Being, they were powerfully swayed by superstition, by incantations, by medi- cine men, dreams and visions, and their feasts were exhibitions of debauchery and gluttony.
20 Found ' Farları.
Nouloldaker
9
THE JESUITS.
Such, according to the writer's sincere belief, were some of the more prominent characteristics of the race encountered by Champlain when he came into the Iroquois country nearly three centuries ago, and wel- comed them with the first volley of bullets, a policy that was pursued by all his civilized successors. It is not denied that the Indians possessed a few redeeming traits, but they were so strongly dominated by their barbarous manner of life, that years of faithful missionary labor by the Jesuits and others were productive of but very little real benefit. It may be added that whatever is true of any one of the Five Nations, or (as they became in 1712) the Six Nations, is equally true of all others. The Senecas occupied the region of Western New York, and it is with them that we have particularly to deal in this narrative. They were, perhaps, as peaceful and domestic as some others of the confederacy, yet all the early efforts for their civilization and conversion to Christian- ity were unsatisfactory and discouraging. No strong, controlling influ- ence for good was ever obtained among them previous to the time of Sir William Johnson, and even then it is doubtful whether they were not moved more by the power of purchase than by love of right.
When Champlain opened the way for French dominion in America the task of planting Christianity among the Indians was assigned to the Jesuits, a name derived from the Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius Loyola in 1539; but while their primary object was to spread the gospel, their secondary and scarcely less important purpose was to ex- tend the French dominion. In 1736 Canada was restored to France, and within three years from that date there were fifteen Jesuits in the province. They increased rapidly and extended their influence to a large number of Indian nations in the far west, but more particularly to the Mohawks and Senecas, they being the more powerful tribes of the Iroquois, and holding positions of influence in the confederacy. Still, energetic as they were, the French carefully avoided for a long time any close contact with the Senecas, and while the Jesuits came to the region about 1620, it was not until 1640 that Fathers Breboeuf and Chaumo- not succeeded in establishing a foothold among them. In 1667 Went- worth Greenhalgh, an Englishman, visited the Indians, counted their villages and inhabitants. He reported the Senecas as having one thousand warriors, and the confederacy about twenty-six hundred. 2
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10
LANDMARKS OF STEUBEN COUNTY.
However, in 1669, under the influence of La Salle, the Seneca country was thoroughly explored, and in 1678 the same adventurous Frenchman was commissioned by Louis XIV to discover and occupy the western part of New France, to build forts and defenses, though at his own expense, being granted in return the right to trade in furs and skins. Under La Salle's authority, Father Hennepin, the famous priest and historian, visited the Seneca country, and from his record has come the greater portion of all that has been written by later authorities on the subject of Seneca history and tradition.
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