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 40
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For many years after the town became settled several large trees standing near the falls bore numerous bullet marks, a fact that gave rise to a report that a battle had been fought here. A more reasonable ex- planation, however, is afforded in the fact that during the winter of 1813-14 a regiment of Pennsylvania troops was quartered on Judge Carroll's farm, and detatchments were in the habit of visiting the falls for game and for rifle-practice.
On the 5th of April, 1791, a town meeting was held at Canawaugus for the " district of Geneseo, in the county of Ontario." John Ganson was chosen super-
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visor, and David Bullen town clerk. William Wads- worth was elected an assessor ; Jasper Marvin a constable ; Darling Havens a pound keeper ; and Lemuel B. Jennings a pathmaster. It was voted that swine might run at large if sufficiently yoked. At the succeeding annual town meeting Colonel Thomas Lee was made supervisor, and it was voted to allow four dollars for every wolf killed in the district. The meeting adjourned to the first Tuesday in April follow- ing to the house of Abner Mighells, in Miles' Gore, now the town of Lima. At the latter meeting the bounty on wolves was raised to five dollars. In 1793 four tavern licenses and thirteen retailers' licenses were granted by the commissioners of excise, at the rate of two pounds each. Thirty-five pounds were realized from this source, and paid over to the poor- masters.
The town meeting of 1797 was held at the house of William Wadsworth. It was here voted that a town house be built on the town square, "on a lot south of the new house of David Benton."* The building committee were William Wadsworth, Horatio Jones, Alexander Ewing, John Barsley, t and John M. Miner, and the sum of two hundred dollars was ordered col- lected the current year for building the house. In 1805 a special town meeting voted "that it is expedi- ent to remove the town house to Meeting-House Hill, nigh the burying ground, and to repair the same for
* It was ordered that the house be built 32 feet long, 22 wide, and with 18 feet posts.
+ John Barsley owned a lot through which Centre street now runs. When the street was laid out he was disinclined to allow his lot to be used for the improvement. Finally, however, he consented to sell on condition that the authorities would accept from him a receipt which should read in payment for the property " from the first to the second coming of Christ."
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a meeting-house, the expense of moving and repair. ing the same to be done by voluntary subscriptions."
At the town meeting of 1798 held at the house of William and James Wadsworth, it was voted that "we are well satisfied with " the manner in which the money had been expended and the town house built.
The town assessment roll of real and personal estate for the year 1805 showed an aggregate of $142,503.
After the town house was removed to the top of the hill near the burying ground, the Presbyterian con- gregation held services in it for a number of years. They had no pastor, but a suitable person was selected to read a sermon, and some one of the good deacons conducted the devotional exercises.
In these early days the town meetings and elections were conducted with much warmth, but externals in all respects were carefully regarded. Private resi- dences, the town house, meeting house, or the court house, were the places selected for the public busi- ness. The town officers were chosen from the ablest and most reputable citizens. Major General William Wadsworth held the office of Supervisor for twenty- one years. Colonel Lawrence, who led the regiment which volunteered in this locality in the war of 1812, Judge Finley, Major Spencer, John Young, Charles Colt and Allen Ayrault, severally held the same office. The lesser places were equally well filled. Phlo C. Fuller was town clerk in 1823. Sheriff Carnahan held the same office, and Ogden M. Willey, an accom- plished register and scribe, held it for fifteen success- ive years. In 1816 James Wadsworth was elected a commissioner of common schools, and two years later was made town inspector of schools.
All the business of the town was brought before these annual spring meetings, and transacted in the
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spirit of a pure democracy. The common interest was fully recognized. Moneys for general objects were voted ; wolf and panther bounties were author- ized ; dogs, "over one in each family" were taxed ; steelyards and measures purchased ; and overseers of highways were instructed to destroy "Canada burs," burdocks, and noxious weeds. Indeed, these stated gatherings were incipient agricultural societies, at which the success and failure of various modes of farming, and the general experience of the previous year was discussed with practical reference to the im- mediate future.
The town expenses, in early times, were very mode- rate. In 1798 the sum of twenty dollars was deemed
COURT-HOUSE, JAIL AND CLERK'S OFFICE, GENESEO- TAKEN SOME YEARS AGO.
sufficient to defray the expenses of the town for the current year. Four years before, when wolf bounties stood at five dollars the head, fifty pounds was con- sidered a suitable appropriation for all town purposes. The town's accounts were then yet kept in pounds,
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
shillings and pence. Indeed Mr. Wadsworth so kept his own accounts down to the year 1838.
Idle persons, and those who had no visible means of support, met with little favor from the enterprising population of the town in early days. In the winter of 1806 a native of Connecticut, "living a pauper on the town of Geneseo," was called before two justices of the peace to give an account of himself. Their court was held at Mrs. Catherine Faulkner's tavern, which stood a few rods south of the Presbyterian church on Main street .* These magistrates learned from the pauper that "he had no property to support him except perhaps fifteen bushels of rye," and he was forthwith notified by the justices to remove with his family from the town to the place of his last legal settlement, which was New Haven, within nine days' time. He chose, however, to disobey their mandate, for it appears from the record that he "absconded and left his said wife in a state of sickness upon the town unable to be removed, and also his son, scarce three years old." One of the justices, a month later, finding that the wife's health was "now in such a sit- uation that her neighbors say she may be removed without danger," notified her accordingly, and she too, left the town.
Connecticut furnished a majority of the early set- tlers of the town. Lemuel B. Jennings was the pio- neer. As early as 1788 he made a beginning in the woods on his location, now the farm of R. A. Knee- land, Esq., two miles south of the village. Mr. Jen- nings came from Connecticut. He was a man of more than usual force of character, though somewhat eccen- tric in his habits. Not unfrequently he came to town
* Mrs. Catherine Faulkner was the mother of Judge James Faulkner of Dansville.
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without his hat ; and though ordinarily quite grave he now and then indulged in a jest. While the Liv- ingston County Bank building was being erected' he was one day standing against the wall, already breast high. Looking from one workman to another he said, " I'm glad we are to have a bank. For many years poor men have not been able to get money enough to pay their debts, but now we shall have just what we want of it. Hurry it up, boys." Many now living will recollect Mr. Jennings' stalwart form, and his family of eight giant-like sons. Nor will they have forgotten his great, lonely, weather-beaten frame house-one of the first of the change from the era of log huts-perched upon its rough stone foundation. This building, broadside to the road, flanked by tall Lombardy poplars, with the ashery and distillery in the background, together formed a marked feature in the neighboring landscape.
Captain Elisha Noble was one of the earliest settlers, coming here from Connecticut. He was an active and enterprizing citizen. His brother, Russell Noble, also came at an early day, and was widely known in the settlements as the left-handed fiddler. A natural im- pulse seemed to direct him to the frolics and gather- ings of the early days, where he, with his fiddle snugly stowed away in its green bag under his arm, was always a welcome addition.
"Russell Noble ! at the bare mention of his name there are surviving pioneers who will be reminded of their younger days, and their enjoyments ; and if there is 'music in their souls'-as there was wont to be with most of them, -they will almost fancy they hear the notes of his old violin ! A fiddler was no obscure person in those early days ; and Noble had no competition-for he was the pioneer fiddler ;- he
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
and his old violin mark the advent of music on the Holland Purchase. Compared with his,
" __ Italian trills were tame."
In these primitive times, in sleigh or ox sled ride, at recreations that followed log-house raisings, logging bees, road cuttings, at Christmas and New Year's frol- ics ; far and wide, in the early sparse settlements, Noble and his fiddle formed an accustomed and nec- essary part. It was to be hoped that his reputation as a fiddler would have remained unquestioned, but recently a facetious gatherer-up of reminiscences has ventured to slur it, by intimating that he used to have no more 'regard for time than he had for eternity.' "
Two miles northwest of Geneseo was the settlement still called the Seven Nations. When the County was erected it consisted of ten or fifteen families, who came hither from Lewiston and Buffalo, when those places were burnt, during the last war with Great Britain. The name appears to have been derived from the miscellaneous character of the inhabitants.
Here William W. Wadsworth established an indus- trial school, which was continued, however, only a few years. He projected a large building, but com- pleted only a portion of it.
A mile north of the village of Geneseo, a half cen- tury ago, was a road running west to the river from the Avon road, near Mr. Morrison's residence. Along this road, on either side, were a dozen or more log houses. This settlement was known as Slieborough. The roads through this district in spring and fall were often almost impassable, the soil being a heavy clay, which, after the rainy season had begun, became deep, stiff and wax-like mud.
On the 10th of June, 1790, came James and William Wadsworth, from Durham, Connecticut. Their loca- tion here was an event of consequence, and their influ-
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
ence was at once and widely felt. Possessing sagacity as well as enterprise, they foresaw the future import- ance of the Genesee country. Lands were purchased by them at merely nominal prices, and they soon set about inviting emigration and began to develop the latent excellence of this great agricultural region.
Temple Hill was early selected by James Wads- worth for an academy site, and in 1827 the present academy buildings were completed. A fine natu- ral grove of oak and maple is in front of these edifices, while twenty rods to the east is the village cemetery, now neatly laid out in lots and walks, and carefully kept in order. This cemetery is rendered interesting as being the last resting-place of Major General Wil- liam Wadsworth, of the war of 1812, General James S. Wadsworth, Governor John Young, Major Wil- liam H. Spencer, Calvin H. Bryan, and other public men. These grounds were set apart as a burial place very soon after the town was first settled.
Across the road, to the north, and distant but a few rods, is a fine natural fountain called Mammoth spring from the fact that several bones and teeth of a masto- don were exhumed here in 1825. James S. Wads- worth carried the water in log pipes to Main street, * where a reservoir was constructed. Iron pipes were afterward substituted, and the village has now a per- fect system of water works, supplied by this spring. Near the spring is said to have been fought one of the noted Indian battles between the Senecas and Eries for the mastery of the country along the Genesee river.
In the War of 1812, while the battle of Lundy's
* This important work was performed by Mr. Wadsworth at his own ex. pense, the cost being paid from moneys he had won in the election of Mr. Polk to the Presidency over Henry Clay in 1844.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
Lane was in progress, much anxiety was felt by the citizens, who, though no telegraphs or railroads ex- isted, had been apprised that a battle was about to be fought. A number of men from the town were en- gaged, it was thought. The firing was distinctly heard, it is said, by placing the ear to the ground.
The town house, a wooden structure, as we have seen, of two stories, stood just south of the present academy buildings. The common school house stood on the southwest corner of the burying ground.
In 1813 there were not more than thirty houses in the village. Main street, North and South streets were located about where they now are. Two consid- erable gullies crossed Main street ; the one nearly op- posite Concert Hall, the other just south of the machine shop. The road leading down the hill near the Court House, instead of running at right angles with Main street, bore to the north-west in the direc- tion of Shackleton's ferry, which crossed the river where the bridge now stands.
The bridges on Main street across the gullies were merely of a temporary character, and neither conve- nient nor safe. Mr. Jacob Hall recollects an anecdote illustrative of the frail character of the south bridge. He had bought an ill-broken cow of a Groveland cus- tomer, and while milking her one evening she man- aged to get her head through a length of picket fence ten feet long, and lifting it from its fastenings she made her way into the street and down toward the bridge. Her bellowing called out the villagers, who were greatly amused by the odd spectacle. The fence was pretty well balanced on her neck, but so heavy that every few steps the cow would tip forward, tail in air, bellow, come down upon her knees, and then righting herself, get up and go on again. Reaching the bridge she was unable to clear the railing, and the
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
fence struck the railing and corner post. The post broke off, and down into the gully went railing, post, cow, fence and all. Soon emerging, however, the cow came up without the fence, and took to the hill up South street, where she was soon overtaken. Mr. Hall drove her down what is now Temple Hill street, then simply a bridle path, and on his way down North street sold her to Ben. Fox, a colored man, from whom the street took its sobriquet of "Nigger street."
When Colonel, afterward General, Winfield Scott marched his regiment through the village in 1813, they came down South street and through Main street to a lane running east, up which they marched to the lot now occupied by Mrs. C. H. Bryan's residence, where they encamped. There was then no Center or Second streets.
Colonel Lawrence resided in the house recently oc- cupied by the Hon. Scott Lord. Standing just above it was a log house in which Colonel Lawrence's sister lived, and just below was his blacksmith shop. The residence of the Wadsworth brothers stood where the family mansion now stands. In the northeast corner of the house was their business office. The square or common was situated where the park now is, and con- tained about fifteen acres of land. On the south side of this stood Wadsworth and Spencer's old store house, a log building then used as a temporary ware- room. Near where the Presbyterian church now stands was then a great frame house, occupied as a dwelling and office by Samuel Miles Hopkins. This building, many years ago, was removed to the rear of Olmsted & Bishop's store on Main street, and used as a livery stable. Near the site of Concert Hall, and close by the gully, stood a frame school house.
On the American Hotel site stood Pierce's tavern, a
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
low, one story building with broad side to the street. It had been painted yellow, but sadly needed another coat. . The tavern consisted of a small bar-room, sit- ting-room and kitchen, with a small stoop on the north end. Captain Pierce sold the stand to Orlando Hastings, who built the attic for the use of Comet Lodge and Billings Chapter of Free and Accepted Masons, and it was occupied by them until the occur- rence of the Morgan affair. Major Nowlen soon be- came proprietor and Comfort Hamilton succeeded Captain Pierce as landlord, and kept the house for a number of years, to the general acceptance of the travelling public.
Near the site of the Genesee Valley National Bank stood Captain Asa Nowlan's blacksmith shop, and just north of it was his dwelling-house. These build- ings occupied a front of twelve rods, and the lot ex- tended back several rods. For this land Captain Nowlan paid thirty-seven dollars and a half. Captain John Pierce's store, a small yellow structure, occupied the site of Cone's Banking Office. Beyond this was a frame building kept as a tavern by Amos Adams .* On North street was a small frame house owned by Ben. Fox, the negro.
Two years before, (in 1811) the town of Geneseo contained one meeting-house, six school houses, and two infantry companies.
A local historian, writing of the religious history of Geneseo, says : "Those who came in at this time t were many of them from Pennsylvania, following the road which I have before referred to as opened up by Capt. Williamson, mostly Presbyterian families, and descendants of the Scotch-Irish ; bringing with them
* This building was afterward removed to North street, where it is still used as a dwelling house.
+ 1791.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
those strong Calvanistic sentiments in which they had been educated, and warmly attached to the Presbyte- rian form of government. Hence it was very natural that the first religious society formed within the town should be Presbyterian."
Such a church was organized in 1795, by the Rev. Samuel Thatcher, a missionary of the General Assem- bly. The first elders were Daniel Kelly, James Haynes, and John Ewart. For a number of years meetings were held at private houses, sometimes at Mr. Ewart's, sometimes at a house near Bosley's Mill, or at Smith's, on what is now known as the Field's farm, on the lower Dansville road. When the town house was built, services were held in that, and after the building was moved to Temple Hill, it was repaired and passed under control of the society. The writer previously quoted* says : "Near it, just on the edge of the burying ground, was a school- house, in which Rev. Mr. Butrick held the first Sun- day School in the town, holding it with a little incon- gruity on Saturday afternoon, the exercises being mostly the recitation of the catechism. This school- house was afterwards moved on to the Weeks' farm, and now forms part of the house occupied by Le- ander Armstrong."
Other settlers coming in who were Congregational- ists, the little church was divided and a Congregational society was organized May 5th, 1810. It remained a Congregational church until 1834, when it changed to a Presbyterian church, and is now known as the Second Presbyterian Church of Geneseo. The edifice on Main street was erected for this society in 1817.
The Presbyterian church-the first one-after the church division, held their meetings in the eastern part
* Rev. Geo. P. Folsom.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
of the town, at a school-house in winter and in a large barn in the summer, until the erection of their church building in 1826. Its title still remains, First Presby- terian Church of Geneseo, although its edifice is in the village of Lakeville.
" The Geneseo Gospel Society, the society of the Second Presbyterian church, was organized and legal- ly incorporated Sept. 11th, 1815, by the election of Joseph W. Lawrence, Samuel Finley, Isaac Smith, Wm. H. Spencer, Samuel Loomis and Timothy P. Kneeland, as trustees." One of their first acts was the raising of forty dollars to repair the town house. In 1816 Mr. Wadsworth deeded to the Geneseo Gos- pel Society the 100 acres of land they now own, two miles south-east of the village. This was in accord- ance with a promise made by several of the large land-owners, of cessions of land to the first regularly incorporated religious societies which should be or- ganized in the several towns. Its present name is " The First Presbyterian Church of the village of Gen- eseo."
The first pastor of the Second Presbyterian church was the Rev. Abraham Foreman, who was installed July 12, 1817, and dismissed. Nov. 17, 1819. The next pastor was the Rev. Norris Bull, D. D., who was installed June 19, 1822, and dismissed July 3, 1832.
"Very early Geneseo was a preaching station of the Genesee Conference, formed in 1810. In 1807, Father Hudson came here to reside, and thus speaks of the place and his labors : 'The village consisted of a few scattered dwellings. Our little society then assembled in a small school-house.'"
St. Michael's Episcopal church was organized at the house of Mr. Ebenezer Belden, May 17th, 1823. The wardens first chosen were Colonel William Fitzhugh and David Warner. The vestrymen were
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
Samuel W. Spencer, C. H. Bryan, Eli Hill, David A. Miller, Chauncey Morse and Marius Willet.
PHILO C. FULLER.
A young New England lawyer, destined to exert a wide influence in politics as well as upon the business interests of Livingston county, fixed his home in Geneseo soon after the war of 1812. It was Mr. Philo C. Fuller, who had been invited hither by James Wadsworth.
An incident which took place on his arrival at his new residence exemplified Mr. Fuller's excellent dis- position. The Avon mail-wagon, on the evening of April 19, 1815, (says an early settler,) set down a large, gentlemanly person of some nine and twenty years at Peirce's stage house. There were no hotel registers in those days, or the little log and frame hostelry at "Big Tree" kept none. Colonel Peirce met his guest at the door, received his name, made ready his supper and gave him a room. The prompt, half-military way in which the guest answered his landlord's customary questions, encouraged an onlooker-some weather- beaten soldier, who had come several miles on foot through the mud, to ask aid in making up his claim for military services-and he ventured to consult the new comer upon his business. The veteran was needy, and Mr. Fuller was chilled, hungry and wearied out ; but the lawyer at once took the proffered bundle of papers, and, with the aid of the soldier's verbal state- ments, soon set his claims in order. The poor fellow would have gladly emptied his pocket in payment for such unexpected assistance, but Mr. Fuller would ac- cept nothing beyond the very audible thanks of his grateful client. The stranger's manner, as well as the service itself, attracted the attention of a host of towns. people collected near. " And I made up my mind,"
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
says the relator, "that the Squire (Mr. Wadsworth) had made no mistake this time in his choice of a con- fidential clerk." Years afterwards in referring to his first impressions, Mr. Fuller said, "I well remember my surprise at the inferior appearance of the village and also at the excellency of the supper given me by Mr. Peirce. It was neat, palatable, and very speedy and tastefully gotten up."
Mr. Fuller was a native of New Marlboro, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, where he was born on the 13th of August, 1787. He traced his family to Dr. Samuel Fuller, who came over in the May Flower, and who practiced as a physician in the colony of Plymouth. Mr. Fuller often referred to the exemplary lives of his immediate relatives, especially those in Connecticut, whose daily walk and conversation conformed to the rigid Puritan model. His father, Samuel Fuller, died in May, 1792, after which the youth lived with his grand-parents and his treatment by them was of the. kindest and tenderest character. He was fond of books and loved penmanship, an art in which he greatly excelled through life. He was even at that early age a good speller. In the winter of 1803-4 he commenced a course of private instruction under "Parson Catlin, the Presbyterian clergyman, who was critical in English and superb in latin." Spending afterwards a couple of years in teaching a district school, he concluded to go to Virginia. Accordingly, early in the fall of 1806, he left New York on a schooner bound for Richmond. He reached the latter city an entire stranger, and without a line of introduction to anybody. Accidentally meeting a merchant who had recently given up business, he engaged to close the affairs of the concern, a task he so successfully accom- plished that the merchant urged him to become his partner in the lumber trade. But this was not to his
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