USA > New York > Livingston County > A history of Livingston County, New York : from its earliest traditions, to its part in the war for our Union : with an account of the Seneca nation of Indians, and biographical sketches of earliest settlers and prominent public men > Part 22
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In 1802, the Hampshire Missionary Society of Mas- sachusetts sent out missionaries to the new settlements. These also visited the Indian villages along the Gene-
$ Then called Charlestown.
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see river. The Society represent that they had been favored with liberal subscriptions by the public for the expenses of ministers and for the purchase of bibles and other religious writings to be distributed among the settlers. The letter of introduction from the trustees of the Society to the missionaries is writ- ten in liberality of spirit. They were enjoined to avoid mere doctrinal disputations, and not to complain of the unavoidable hardships, incident to a new country, which they were voluntarily undertaking.
The broad forests and fine natural scenery of West- ern New York, and a desire, perhaps, to see the Indian in his native haunts, appear to have possessed a fasci- nation for European travellers. The visit of Talley- rand has already been mentioned. Louis Phillipe, afterward Citizen King of France, tarried many days along the streams and among the habitations of the early settlers, and in June, 1795, the Duke de Lian- conrt, "one of the most eminent noblemen of France," says General King, passed through the Genesee valley, visiting every settlement and spending several weeks with Captain Williamson, Mr. Wadsworth and others. He was accompanied by a young Englishman, three or four servants, and a favorite dog named Cartouche, who made a good meal of one of black Jenny's fine chickens at Geneseo, greatly to her disgust. The Duke was a close observer, and has left an interesting record of what he saw. He liked Captain Williamson, who explained to him that after spending six months in visiting and surveying the estate of his principals, he concluded to establish several settlements rather than one capital colony. The most eligible spots were therefore fixed upon, and Bath, Williamsburgh, *
* A full account of this now extinct village will be found in the sketeh of the town of Groveland.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
Geneva and Great Sodus were begun. By the sum- mer of 1796 three wheat and seven saw-mills had been erected, and the eight hundred thousand acres that had been disposed of at an average value of three dollars per acre, had refunded the whole purchase money and other expenses incurred, and left a net profit of fifty thousand pounds sterling. The Duke says that Williamson personally directed everything, and was attentive to all who had business with him. Contracts were promptly concluded, and new settlers were treated with marked consideration. The titles secured from him were perfect; and the terms, which were reasonable and easy, were that all who purchased land of him were expected to clear a certain number of acres and place a family upon the farm within eighteen months ; half the purchase money to be paid at the end of three years, and the remainder at the end of six years. No settler was allowed to want. Occasionally a poor family was supplied with a cow, and where a willing farmer was found struggling, with a yoke of oxen, and even a house to shelter him where adversity rendered such an act a matter of humanity. Williamson was everywhere. No detail was too insignificant for his personal attention, and no com- plaint was too trivial. His manner was mild and just, and his policy is commended in fitting terms by the titled Frenchman.
De Liancourt brought a letter of introduction from General Chapin to William Wadsworth, whom they found at Geneseo preparing to leave the next morning for Canandaigua, where he was to meet his militia command for a general muster. Of the ride to Gene- seo the Duke says, that "along the whole route from Canandaigua to Geneseo, the woods, beautiful to the eye, are not so crowded with trees as on the other side (of Canandaigua). Several parts of the forest have
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been burnt over by the Indians." The Duke was invited to spend the night at Mr. Wadsworth's house, and as there was no tavern then in Geneseo, he accepted. It was then eight o'clock in the evening and Mr. Wadsworth was just mounting his horse to visit a friend. The Duke describes Wadsworth's dom- icile as a "small log house as dirty as any I have ever seen." Stores of all kinds, meats, vegetables and live poultry were crowded in and about the house, and the Frenchman's olfactories were offended by the odors, and he was not overpleased with the beds. But so hearty a welcome was extended to him that he could overlook what his fastidious taste did not approve, and he was well pleased with the rough courtesy and bluff manner of his host. The Duke rose early in the morning to see Mr. Wadsworth, then a captain, before he set out for the muster. He found him undergoing the operation of hair-dressing at the hands of his negro woman Jenny. An Indian came in and bought a barrel of whiskey of him, and two persons from Williamsburgh were negotiating the purchase of some lands of him while his hair was receiving the final touches. Orders were given to the domestics and to his man of business, and a pressing request was made of the Duke to pass several days under his roof, all in the space of a few minutes. When the Captain's fine horse was brought to the door he grasped the Duke's hand, mounted his black charger, and galloped away. "After the Captain left," says the Duke, "his nephew, a youth of about fifteen years of age, conducted us to the flats which border the river."
On the flats, three miles from Mr. Wadsworth's res- idence, the Duke found a recluse named De Boni, whose character and history greatly interested him. Hermit-like, De Boni occupied a log hut, twelve feet
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square, built by himself and a faithful mulatto servant named Joseph. Twenty acres of land supplied them with grains and garden vegetables, and an occasional day's labor of Joseph secured them milk and eggs of their neighbors. De Boni was a Frenchman, a native of Alsace, born of parents of wealth and position. A quarrel with a neighboring land proprietor led to a duel in which his antagonist, a gentleman of greater age than himself and a man of consequence, was wounded. The dread of a lettre de cachet induced him to quit his native country and find his way to San Domingo, where he enlisted as a private soldier. Opportunity soon afforded a discharge and his ability and attainments as a civil engineer secured him a sit- uation in the government of the island. He also became a planter and was enjoying a good income when civil dissensions suddenly broke out, and he was forced to quit the island. He came to America with little money and few effects. At Hartford he met Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth, who, commisser- ating his condition, offered him the land he was found occupying, and aided him in securing a small sum of money. The Duke's party, now increased by the addition of two countrymen, sent word to De Boni that the party would dine with him the next day. The hermit expressed much satisfaction on their arrival, and though habitually peevish, exerted him- self to make their visit agreeable. They found him a man of forty years of age, and of easy and agreeable manners. His reading had been extensive, his under- standing was sound and his conversation entertaining. His nature was over sensitive, and his misfortunes had quite soured his temper and made him a misanthrope ; and even the sprightly conversation of his country- inen did not dispel, except at intervals, the settled gloom that overhung his spirits, nor prevent occasional
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bitter references to mankind, whom, in the gross, he appeared deeply to hate. He spoke kindly of Joseph, a busy and cheerful fellow, who stood in the relation of a friend rather than of a servant, and dwelt upon his capacity as a husbandman, gardener and cook, and of the shrewdness with which he managed to secure the assistance of farmers and their teams to cultivate his land. Of the Indians occupying a small village located near his domicile, he spoke kindly. Their freedom from the restraints of society, and their dislike of the encroachments of the whites, seemed to agree with his own singular mood, and he reasoned acutely in favor of that form of society which gives back to the whole all property and dispenses with all law. Two of the party passed the night with him, and at parting he expressed his thanks for the atten- tion that had been shown him.
On their return the party were made acquainted with many facts relating to the progress of the settle- ments. Day laborers were then scarce and readily commanded one dollar a day. Merchandise was brought by Mr. Wadsworth from Connecticut, to sup- ply his store, in wagons drawn by oxen, and the cost of transportation was met by fattening and selling the oxen at Niagara for beef at enhanced prices. Land was worth from $2 to $2.50 per acre, and under the contracts the purchase money all fell due in four years, the interest running from the date of the con- tract.
The Duke and his party quit Geneseo on the morn- ing of the 16th of June, 1795, for Niagara. He says the road from Geneseo to Canandaigua "is a good one for this country. As usual it leads through the midst of woods. Within the space of twelve miles we saw only one habitation." Of Canawaugus he says, "The inhabitants here are yet but few, but among
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them is one of the best inns we have seen for some time past. Mr. Berry keeps it, a good civil man," but of whose sobriety he does not speak so flatter- ingly.
The Duke makes particular reference to the oak openings along the road. These singular tracts, entirely free of timber and showing signs of former cultivation, as well as the open flats of the Genesee, " Where ten thousand acres might be found in one body, encumbered with not even a bush, but covered with grass so high that the largest bullock, at thirty feet from the path, would be completely hid from view,"* excited much speculation in early days. The first settlers supposed that the openings were poor lands, and it was only when compelled to test their quality that they discovered, to their agreeable sur- prise, that the soil was of great excellence, and lands which could have been bought for a quarter of a dollar an acre suddenly advanced to ten dollars.
In May, 1796, Charles Williamson was placed in nomination for the Assembly, the district embracing the counties of Ontario and Steuben, which then in- cluded all this region, and out of 638 votes cast he received all but eleven cast for his opponent. Lemnel Chipman was elected to the Assembly on the same ticket. The returns from the town of Sparta, which had cast its suffrages for him, were sent to Albany signed only by the clerk of the poll, and not by the inspectors. The vote of the town was therefore rejected and lost. Captain Williamson secured useful legislation for this region, and lost no opportunity for making the advantages of the Genesee country known to his colleagues and others. Other efficient influences were also at work to bring the region to the
* Williamson's Letters to a Friend.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
attention of capitalists. James Wadsworth was in London in the spring of 1796, negotiating for the sale of Genesee lands. He writes in May, "My letters and friends have introduced me to an extensive acquaint- ance and a number of capitalists. I think I may be justified in saying that I have been able to inspire greater confidence in American new lands among gen- tlemen of property and respectability here than any who have preceeded me on similar business." He found an earnest coadjutor in Sir William Pultney, with whom he was on terms of social intimacy. An observer, writing from Ontario county a few years later, says, "No land agent in the Genesee country is so successful as James Wadsworth. He sells three times as much as any one else." With the increasing sales of land and growing immigration, the roads began to improve. In September, 1796, Thomas Mor- ris, writing to his father, says, "from Bath to the Gen- esee river the road is very practicable for wagons to travel, although at this season it is not always good." Williamson had procured legislation on the subject of public highways, and the Indians, who had previously opposed the cutting of a road through their lands from Canandaigua to Niagara, agreed in a conference held in October, 1796, at which Cornplanter was a principal speaker, to grant the privilege .*
.In the Spring of 1796 William Mageet came to Sparta with his family, and settled in the Canaseraga valley, on what is now known as the Ward farm. He had selected the land the previous year, and engaged ' his brother Henry, who was then residing on Captain
* See Albany Gazette of Oct. 17, 1796.
+ William Magee was a native of Ireland, which country he left in 1784, and landed at Philadelphia the same year. From there he went to Green- wich, New Jersey, where in 1788 he married Hannah Quick, who was of Low Dutch descent. From thence he came to the Genesee country.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
John Smith's farm,* to put up a log cabin against the- arrival of himself and family. He left New Jersey in September, 1795, but floods in the Susquehanna detained him several months and it was not until May that he was enabled to place his little family on a flat boat and make the slow journey up the river. From Hornellsville to Sparta they came by wagons laden with household effects, a pair of copper stills and seed, passing over the site of Dansville, where not a build . ing of any description had as yet been erected. t The house then building, about seventy rods east of the Canaseraga, was not yet done, on their arrival and the family took temporary shelter in an Indian hut near by. The country was indeed new. The nearest neighbor north was Henry Magee, distant, by way of the road which then ran on the flats near the swamp, three miles, and as the gullies were yet unspanned by bridges and the steep places unleveled, locomotion was not very speedy. To the south the nearest neigh- bor was Darling Havens, who was keeping tavern in a log cabin three miles away. Groveland hill did not count a single settler. The road, a path by way of Havens' tavern, led to the Williamson grist-mill and. saw-mill, the latter standing a few rods below the former, near Dansville; and the only settler on the road between the tavern and the mill was Captain John Clark, who then lived near the old Driesbach tavern stand. The site of Dansville was a dense. thicket of pine underbrush with here and there a
* Now owned and occupied by Ozro Clark.
+ It was an entire wilderness. I mean where the village now stands .. South of the village nearly a mile there was one log cabin owned and occu- pied by Neal McCay, and one other cabin occupied by Amariah Hammond, north of the present village, near the Indian trail that passed through the place. He came into the place the same year that my father came into- Sparta, 1796 .- Sam'l Magee's MSS. Recollections.
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stately pine tree. A mere wagon-track led to the mill, and to right and left "the pine bush was so thick that a person could not possibly see one rod into it on either side."* Both flat and hillside were a dense wilderness.
About a mile north of Henry Magee's house, on the main road, was a small collection of settlers called Hermitage. Residing there were Captain John Smith, a surveyor of some note, and a brother, George Smith, Alexander McDonald, a distiller, James Butler, an Irish boot and shoe maker, Scotch John Smith, Joseph Roberts and several sons all young men grown, Hec- tor Mckay, Robert Wilson, James Templeton, a tailor, Nicholas Beach and Levi Dunn.
In 1798 Thomas Howey opened a blacksmith's shop at Hermitage. At that time there was no other black- smith in the town of Sparta, and yet he had not busi- ness enough to employ him more than half the time. The other part of his time he employed in farming. He was a thick, pussey person, not well suited to horseback riding, and consequently one day, when his family stood in need of some flour, he consulted with a fellow countryman James Butler, residing near the site of Driesbach's tavern, who advised him to make an Irish slide-car, as being better suited to travelling the Indian path,-for there was no road. Butler gave him a description and he went to work and made himself one which was pronounced all right. Taking an early start, he got along all right until he reached James Rodman's distillery. The latter treated him to a little of his good whiskey, after which he went on to the mill, got his grist, loaded up his slide-car and came back as far as Rodman's. Here several liberal potations of whiskey on an empty
* Samuel Magee s MSS. Recollections.
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stomach rendered it necessary for him to take passage on the slide-car himself. After going about two miles he broke down. Being in no condition to place his grist on his horse, he concluded to place it on the side of the path and make his way back to Rodman's, which he did and remained there all night. Repair- ing his car the following morning, he returned to his grist, only to find that meantime a drove of wild hogs had discovered it, torn the bags into shreds and eaten up the flour. How could he explain the loss to his wife ? A broken cog on the mill wheel was charged with the delay, and for a time the excuse passed cur- rent, but finally his wife and the neighbors got hold of the secret, and Howey never heard the last of it.
Williamsburgh contained three frame buildings at this time, and several log houses, perhaps twelve in all, mostly built by Captain Williamson. The inhab- itants were Captain Starr, the tavern-keeper, Samuel Ewin, John Ewart, William Harris, Green Smith, Thomas and William Lemen, distillers, and Matthias Lemen, a tanner and currier. "The first sermon we listened to after our arrival," says Samuel Magee, " was in what was known as Williamson's big barn at Hermitage, some two hundred feet long, say some of the early settlers, built to accommodate horses that came to the races, since owned and used by Judge Carroll. Rev. Samuel Mills preached to an attentive congregation." Here and there was an Indian who had come stealthily in and taken a seat as far as pos- sible out of view, where he watched the exercises with curious attention. Samuel Mills resided one mile south of Williamsburgh on the east bank of the Canaseraga. His sons, all men grown and residing with him, were Samuel, Jr., Alexander, Lewis, Philo and William A. In the summer he held service in the Williamson barn, and in the winter at private houses.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
In 1797 the State took the road from Fort Schuyler to Geneva under its patronage. A lottery had been granted by the legislature for opening and improving certain great highways of the State, and among the number was this road. The inhabitants on the line of the road voluntarily subscribed four thousand days' work to put it into condition, and the commissioners " were enabled to complete the road of near one hun- dred miles, opening it 64 feet wide and paving with logs and gravel the moist parts," "and what in the month of June, 1797, was little better than an Indian path, was so far improved that a stage started from Fort Schuyler on the 30th of September and arrived at the hotel in Geneva in the afternoon of the third day with four passengers,"* and stages then ran weekly from Canandaigua to Albany. The new road so quickened travel that within the space of five weeks in the following winter, five hundred sleighs with fam- ilies passed through Geneva.
In 1798 there was quite an addition to the population of Old Sparta from Pennsylvania, James Rosebrugh, William McNair and his three sons James, Andrew and Robert, three other sons by a former wife, John, Hugh and William R., the latter unmarried, with James and Samuel Culbertson and John Niblack. The next year came Jesse Collar and two sons, young men, who settled at Collartown, now called Scotts- burgh. Philip Gilman and a large family of boys also arrived soon after and located near James Hen- derson's, within one mile of Collartown and near the head of Conesus lake. The same year Charles Carroll of Bellevue, and his brother Daniel, visited the Gene- see country, crossing the mountains on horseback, a servant accompanying them with a led pack mule with
* Williamson's Letters to a Friend.
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provisions. They spent several weeks in "reconnoit- ering the country but my uncle thought the prospect too discouraging," says Judge Carroll, "and they returned without purchasing."
A weekly line of stages was established the same year between old Fort Schuyler and Geneva by John House and Thomas Powell .*
At the election of Governor in May, 1798, Pittstown, Geneseo and other towns constituting the present county gave 562 votes for Jay and 79 for Livingston.
At this time the town of Sparta embraced the terri tory of the present towns of Sparta, West Sparta, Groveland, Conesus and Springwater, and though the population was sparse, there were no less than eight grain distilleries in the town. + The means of transpor- tation would not admit of sending grain to market in its natural condition, but as a barrel of whisky occupied far less space, this mode was resorted to. Rye was principally used for stilling, which was generally done in the winter season when the still slops were fed to stock. It is not to be presumed that with such facili- ties for imbibing, there would be much check upon appetites, and many are the incidents relating to the results of insobriety among the early settlers. A pioneer who lived near the river would now and then take a drop too much, to the great annoyance of his high-spirited wife. She had tried several expedi- ents to break him of the habit but without effect. So one night as he was returning late and much the worse
* The geography of the new country was as yet imperfectly understood. The Albany Gazette, the best informed of the Eastern papers, in referring to an advertisement in its columns, says that "4000 acres of land offered for sale in township 7, range 6 ( in Steuben county ) adjoining the settlement o Daniel Faulkner at Dansville, near Williamsburgh."
+ Distilleries : Wm. Lemen, Wm. Magee, Alexander McDonald, Hector Mckay, Nicholas Beach, John Hyland, James Rodman, James Scott.
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for new whisky, she stepped suddenly before him in the road wrapped in a white sheet. This brought him to a full halt. "Who are ye, anyway ?" said he. The spectre gave no answer. "Who are ye ?" Still there was no answer. "If you're a good spirit you'll do me no harm, so no fear on that score. If you're the devil, as I suspect, I've married into your family and as you're too much of a gentleman to injure a relative, I fear no danger from that quarter, so I pass." The ghost retired discomfited, and the bibulous wayfarer trudged home.
The first school house built in Old Sparta was a log hut of small size erected at Hermitage in the fall of 1798, and opened the following May with a man named Blanchard as teacher, and a dozen or fifteen scholars, gathered from a long distance, Samuel Magee, then a lad, coming two and one-half miles through a dense wilderness. "As there were others who had quite as far to come," said he, "I did not complain. Ditworth's spelling book was then in use. In the winter the school was well attended. I have known many a young man and woman in the winter schools twenty-five years old and upwards, and very poor scholars at that."
The residents of Hermitage did their trading at Geneseo, where the current price of a barrel of salt, all of which was brought by teams from the Onon- daga salt works, was five dollars. Tea was so great a rarity that the wife of Judge Rosebrugh, on receiving a small quantity as a present a few months after com- ing to Sparta, invited several of the settlers to her house to enjoy it with her family. The men left their plows and in their shirt-sleeves, their coats on their arms, started on foot, while their wives mounted horses and threaded their way over Indian trails to the hos- pitable roof. The story runs that the guests came near
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having the opportunity of testing the quality of the novel plant as an article of food rather than of drink. Its preparation having been left to a domestic better skilled in "greens" than in bohea, as "store-tea" was then called, Mrs. Rosebrugh by accident over- heard one of the children of the household asking the girl "why she put so much bohea into the kettle," and, on looking, found a good part of her present ready for stewing.
In the latter part of the summer of 1798 the Senecas got the impression that the government was not going to pay them the interest on the hundred thousand dollars paid them by Robert Morris. Their chiefs earnestly besought the Indian agent and other leading whites to see to it that their people were not disap- pointed in receiving their money. "We expect,"
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