USA > New York > Livingston County > A history of Livingston County, New York: > Part 24
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
obscured. As the sky was perfectly clear, and their untutored minds knew nothing of science, they refused to credit his statement, and went so far as to wager ten dollars with him that the event he assumed to foretell would not come to pass. Having thus staked! his money on the certainty of the eclipse's occurring, he put out his horse and waited the event. As the hour approached and the sky became overcast, the countenances of the poor Indians were also over- cast, and there was depicted thereon the greatest anx- iety and consternation, and they ran to and fro in the most abject terror. The eclipse, however, was soon over with, and as the sun again poured down its flood of light, the spirits of the Indians rose, and they resumed their wonted composure. They paid their lost bet like men, and Mckay started home ten dol- lars the richer for having possessed a little more education than his dusky customers.
In 1806 three Clintonian members of assembly were elected by the counties of Ontario and Genesee, which then voted together.
The spring of 1806 was one of famine. James Wads- worth, under date of May 23d, says: "There is literally a famine in this land of milk and honey. A severe drought last summer cut off about half the crop of corn. The farmers, they hardly knew how themselves, consumed their hay by the month of March, and have been compelled to feed out their grain to keep their cattle alive during a long, back- ward spring. They now find themselves destitute of bread to support their families. Six or eight families of the town of Southampton have applied to the over- seer of the poor for assistance. I am supporting three or four families, and expect to be called on by more soon. My brother has been compelled to turn forty fat oxen from our stables, to preserve the grain they
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were consuming for poor families who have not the mean's of subsistence."
A writer to a friend at the East, in May, 1806, says : "On my arrival I found upwards of thirty (30) fami- lies at Mount Morris ready to go to work. Some of them have handsome properties." The settlements were still sparse, however. Richard Osborn, who set- tled in Leicester in 1806, says there was then but one house between Tuscarora, afterward the residence of Major Spencer, and Caledonia springs. Where is now Vermont street in Conesus, there was then no road and no settler, nor was there for several years thereafter. Reverend Andrew Gray, a pioneer clergy- man of the Presbyterian church, was preaching in Sparta in 1806, though he subsequently accepted a missionary appointment among the Indians near Lew- iston, and did not return to Sparta until after Buffalo was burnt. In 1806 the road from Bath through Dansville and Williamsburgh to Avon, was by law declared a post road. In the fall of 1806 the Post- master General, Gideon Granger, established a postoffice at Geneseo, and provided a mail to Avon once a fortnight, the whole service to cost $26 a year, and, says a letter of that day, "it accommodates us perfectly." A gentleman writing from Geneseo this same fall, says, "you are mistaken in supposing that in coming to this country you come to a desert, you will find better roads here than in Haddam, * and you will find most of the people who have been here two or three years, enjoying the comforts of civilized life."
In June, 1806, Jawes Scott left Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, with his family consisting of his wife and ten children, t in a large covered wagon
* Connecticut.
t One of whom is the Hon. Wm. Scott of Scottsburgh. The names of the
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
drawn by four horses and a yoke of oxen, reaching Sparta on the 1st of July. From Dansville they were obliged to cut a road most of the way to their new home. They settled in the woods on the farm now owned by Peter Swick. There was no wagon road in any direction, except the one they had just opened. An Indian path ran from Conesus to Hemlock valley, and nothing more. To the eastward stretched an unbroken wilderness to Naples, a distance of eighteen miles. In the territory now constituting the town of Springwater there was not a stick cut nor line drawn. A good many Indians roamed through the woods, and bears, wolves and deer, by the score, made their pres- ence known, while panthers were far more common than welcome. Two years before bringing his family, Mr. Scott, who was an Irishman by birth, and a soldier in our Revolutionary army from love for his adopted country, had visited Sparta on horseback, in company with his wife, for the purpose of prospect- ing. The country suited the couple and in the fall two sons and one daughter came out, erected a log cabin, cleared off a piece of ground and sowed it with wheat. The next summer another son came out and drove a cow. All went back to Pennsylvania in the fall and returned with the family. "The Sabbath following our arrival in Sparta," says Esquire Scott, "my father, one of the girls and four of us boys attended meeting at the house of George Mitchell, a log domicile two and one-half miles south of Scotts- burgh, where Samuel Emmett, a Methodist minister, preached a sermon to a congregation of twenty-five or thirty persons, who had gathered from a circuit of two or three miles. His text was Ecclesiastes X, 1. I had heard the good man preach in Pennsylvania five years
children were Matthew, Anna, James, John, William, Charles, Jane, Thomas, Isabella and Samuel
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
before, and seeing him here renewed agreeable associ- ations. His voice was loud enough to lift the bark roof from the low-browed house, and he had all the earnestness of early Methodism. There was much shouting, and some of his hearers fell with "the pow- ers," as it was called. The Doxology was sung but no benediction was said except 'meetin's over.' The season was one of great scarcity, especially of wheat. We had learned this before quitting Pennsylvania, and had brought sufficient to last until our ripening crop, and a bountiful one it proved to be, could be harvested. Four of us brothers, of whom I was youngest, went over to Groveland hill to help in har- vest. We worked for the brothers Hugh, Abraham and John Harrison, William and Daniel Kelly, and Thomas Baily ; William Magee on the Canaseraga flats, Jacob Snyder, who had a crop at Hermitage, but had moved to Henderson's flats before it ripened, and Thomas Begole,* agent for the Maryland Com- pany. In the fall we all went to Mount Morris flats and husked corn for Captain William A. Mills. Each hand of us got two bushels of corn in the ear for a day's work, and a brother, with the two horses and wagon, got six bushels a day. By this means we secured a supply of corn for the winter. There were then but few inhabitants in the village of Mount Mor- ris or Allen's Hill. Captain Mills was keeping tavern in a log cabin, and there were perhaps a dozen other log houses, occupied by the widow Baldwin, Deacon Stanley, Adam Holtslander, and Grice Holland. A Mr. Hampton lived in a log house on what is now called the Colonel Fitzhugh place, and Joseph Rich-
* Charles Carroll, Wm. Fitzhugh and Col. Rochester's purchase was then so called. A part of Thomas Begole's house is still standing near the late residence of Edward P. Fuller.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
ardson kept a store and tavern at Williamsburgh. I recollect seeing two sons of Mary Jemison at Mount . Morris. There were but few inhabitants at Geneseo, then generally called Big Tree. I remember the two Wadsworth brothers, ( who had a store there in charge of William H. Spencer, either as partner or clerk ), Colonel Lawrence, a Mr. Coates, Charles Colt and John Peirce. I know of none now who lived there at that time.
At Dansville I recollect David Shull, owner of the Williamson Mill, Samuel Culbertson ( with whom I learned my trade as cloth-dresser, a good man ) Peter La Flesh, Neal McCoy, Jared Irwin, the first post- master, Matthew Patterson, David, James and Mat- thew Porter, Peter and Jacob Welch, Jonathan Stout, John Metcalf, Amariah and Lazarus Hammond, Owen Wilkinson, William Perine and Isaac Vandeventer. The first town meeting we attended in Sparta was in 1807, and was held in the present town of Groveland, then forming a part of Sparta, at the tavern of Chris- tian Roup, a log house standing nearly a mile south of the Presbyterian church. I recollect seeing at the polls Captain John Smith, Joseph Richardson, Rob- ert Burns, John Hunt, Andrew Culbertson, William and Daniel Kelly, Samuel Stillwell, James Rosebrugh, William McCartney, Alexander Fullerton, James Scott, the McNair brothers, Thomas Begole and Wil- liam Doty. It was an orderly gathering, but little of political excitement."
The first settlements in this section, as in all new countries, in early days, were located near navigable streams ; and the little produce that found its way to market was either floated down the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers to Philadelphia and Baltimore, (the latter then affording the best market,) in arks, during the short season of three or four weeks of high water
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
in the Spring, or to Montreal by the Genesee and Lake Ontario. The latter was the shorter route, but was attended with delays and expense of portage around the falls at Rochester and below. The cost of sending a barrel of potash from the mouth of the Genesee across the lake to Montreal, in 1807, was one dollar, a sum which, measured by the price of grains at the place of production, was several times in excess of the present rate. Though in 1807, James Wadsworth says that the road from Geneseo to Canandaigua was excellent, yet the wagonways were impassable for loads in the spring and fall, and so imperfectly were they yet bridged and graded that, except in midwinter, transportation overland was quite out of the question. It must be recollected that the streams, seventy years ago, averaged twice their present size. The clearing of the lands has greatly diminished their power of absorption, and aged Indians point to tracts of farm- ing lands which were known to them in their child- hood as marshes and swamps. The commissioners appointed by the State to consider the feasibility of a canal from Lake Ontario to tide-water, reported as late as 1816 that the cost of transporting a ton of mer- chandise from Buffalo to Albany was one hundred dollars, and the time required twenty days. As experience has shown that wheat will not bear profit- able carriage over ordinary highways beyond two hundred and fifty miles, it was not until the comple- tion of the Erie canal, which at once reduced the cost of freightage to one-tenth, and subsequently to one- thirtieth of overland charges, that our agricultural interests were fully developed. To the ark, however, the pioneer farmers were greatly indebted, in trans- porting their marketable products, and they often referred to it with satisfaction. . It was invented by a Mr. Kayder, residing on the Juneata river. The high
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
prices of both flour and lumber at Baltimore, and the plentifulness of both articles in the new settlements, induced him to try the experiment of preparing a long, flat float of timber, such as he supposed would suit the purpose of city builders, to be broken up and sold for lumber, after discharging cargo. A temporary house or covering was placed over the cargo, which often consisted of five hundred barrels of flour. Four or five men could navigate it at the rate of eighty miles a day .*
In 1807 Portage contained only two houses, both of dogs. No one lived at Nunda at that time, but there was a store at Hunt's Hollow, kept by Mr. Hunt ; the settlement also contained three dwelling houses.
In April, 1807, Ontario and Genesee elected one Federal and two Clintonian members of the Assembly, and the vote on governor in Ontario county stood, Lewis, 1462 ; Tompkins, 1240. The votes of the town of Avon were rejected in consequence of the inspec- tors having held the election for four days. The can- vass showed 156 votes for Lewis and 42 for Tompkins. Taking the whole of what is now Livingston county together, the votes were divided almost equally between Tompkins and Lewis.
The months of January and February, 1807, "were remarkably hard ones. The snow was very deep, and steady cold weather prevailed. The smaller streams were frozen and the inhabitants of Sparta were com- pelled to go long distances to mill." The mill at Her-
* In speaking of markets at Bath in 1798, Captain Williamson gives the following prices :
Wheat per bushel, $1.00
Ozen, per yoke, $70.
Rye per
.75
Cows, each
15.
Oats and Corn " .50
An ox cart 30.
Barley per " .70
A Log house 20x20 - 50.
2 rooms 100.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
mitage had been neglected and the water had frozen up. Samuel Magee was started to Bosley's mill with an ox sled, with a grist for his father, one for Robert Barns, and one or two others. Starting long before daylight on a Monday morning, he found the weather bitter cold. Riding and walking by turns, he reached the mill, and was informed by Mr. Bosley that the water was frozen up hard and had been for several days, and the latter added, "I have more grain in the mill waiting its turn than I could grind in a month if I could begin to-morrow." "The building, as I saw for myself," says Mr. Magee, "was full upstairs and down, and with no prospect of a thaw, so I started for home." Reaching Moses Gibson's tavern, at the foot of Conesus lake, Gibson advised him to go to Hender- son's mill, on the outlet of Honeoye lake, seventeen miles distant. He remained over night, and starting early the next morning, reached the mill without meeting a single team, and passing but two houses in the whole distance. He found a large number of grists ahead of him, but had the promise of getting his grinding done in the night time. But his grist was not reached until Saturday night, and he started for home early Sunday morning, by way of the foot of Hemlock lake. On reaching Scottsburgh the snow had left him, and he took his grist home on the hind wheels of Jacob Collar's wagon, reaching his home at 10 o'clock Sunday night, having spent eight days in securing a single grist.
In 1808 the Tuscarora lands, as they were then called, but since known as Major Spencer's farm, were occupied by squatters, who gave great annoyance to land-owners. The locality soon acquired a name more expressive than classical, " Buggarsburgh," and was held in dread by neighboring farmers. The deni- zens of this unthrifty neighborhood so frequently vis-
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY. 299
ited the sheep-folds on Wadsworth's flats, that the path thitherward became well-trodden, and was used for years afterward, while their visits were always sure to subtract a unit from the sum of the fine flocks kept there. The squatters were dreaded by the whole surrounding country, but finally a Philadelphian, named Jacobs, bought the land and succeeded in clearing it of its lawless occupants. Among the num- ber was a former stage-driver, who had a worn-out horse whose legs were ill-mated, and when it dropped its foot, seemed to step clear over back on its fetlocks. Being at Geneseo on some public day, his horse became the butt of the crowd. After a good deal of fun at his expense, he offered to bet a hundred dollars that Dobbin could travel one hundred miles in twenty-four successive hours. The wager was taken, and it was agreed that he should go five miles north on the road to Avon, and return, making ten miles each round trip, and make ten trips. The owner toed the mark when time was called, and actually made nine trips, or ninety miles, with two hours and a half to spare, when the parties who had taken the bet were glad to buy off.
The election of 1808 brought out a larger vote than usual, and resulted in 383 votes being cast for the Federal candidate for Senator, and 470 for the Demo- cratic candidate .* The vote of Lima, however, was rejected, owing to the fact that the returns, while declaring that " the poll was closed according to law,"
* The vote stood as follows:
Federal.
Democratic.
Sparta,
18
126
Avon,
118
38
Livonia,
32
28
Lima,
82
69
Geneseo,
88
76
Caledonia,
19
Leicester,
.
26
97
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
and gave the number of votes for each candidate, did not designate the office !
A division of the great territory of Ontario county was early agitated by the settlers along the river, who found it irksome to attend the courts and examine the . records at Canandaigua. In February, 1808, a pro- ject was started to erect a new county, with the county seat at Avon, and a subscription paper was circulated to raise money to build a court house at that place. It had the countenance of Geneseo and the surrounding country, but was successfully opposed by Canandaigua.
The credit system, in business transactions, pre- vailed to a very large extent in the new settlements, and was productive, as it always is, of great evils. In August, 1808, Mr. Wadsworth wrote to Major Spen- cer that he was trusting a great deal, and urged him to restrict his credits more.
At the election of 1809 the town of Sparta cast 198 votes for Assemblyman, of which the Democratic can- didates each received 168, and the Federal candidates 30. Avon gave the Federal candidates 139, and the Democratic, 60; Livonia gave the Federalists 76, and the Democrats 50 ; Lima cast 103 votes for the Feder- alists, and 19 for the Democrats ; Geneseo gave the Federalists'89, and the Democrats 73; Caledonia gave 45 votes for the Federalists, and 106 for the Demo- crats ; and Leicester cast 27 votes for the Federalists, and 21 for the Democrats. In 1809 Ontario county gave a Federal majority of 107. The previous year it gave 470 Democratic majority.
A writer for an Eastern paper, in May, 1809, says, "we have had a very severe winter. The oldest Indian does not recollect a winter equally severe."
In the summer of 1809, Asa Nowlen was advised to come to the Genesee country and open a blacksmith's
301
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
shop. He was assured that a shop could be built for him in ten days. Iron, he was told, was easily pro- curable from Pennsylvania, eighty miles distant. Nowlen had heard that the new country was unhealthy, and James Wadsworth assured him that "there was just as much foundation, and no more, for hanging witches in Boston a hundred years before as there is now for the report that our water is bad, and that the inhabitants are all subject to the fever and ague."
In the fall of 1809, General William Wadsworth visited Chancellor Livingston at his residence at Clare- mont on the Hudson, with a view to making himself acquainted with the qualities of the Merino breed of sheep, and the best manner of rearing them. He also ordered fruit trees from Prince's Garden, on Long Island, for his orchard.
In 1810 Colonel Nathaniel Rochester, of Hagars- town, Maryland, came to Dansville with a view of locating. He had visited the place ten years before in company with Charles Carroll and Colonel William Fitzhugh. He purchased a mill seat and a residence of Jacob Opp, and in 1811 brought his family, consist- ing of his wife and several children. He erected a paper mill, which he sold in 1814 to the Rev. Dr. Endress. Robert Marr, of Franklin county, Penn- sylvania, was employed as foreman. Under his con- tract, Marr was to commence on the 1st of October, 1810 .* After remaining in Dansville two or three years, Colonel Rochester purchased a farm in Bloom- field and removed thither, where he remained until 1817, when he removed to Rochester.
In 1810 the Democrats carried the election in Onta-
* Marr brought with him from Chambersburg, Pa., Horace Hill and another man named Dugan, who were the first paper makers employed in the mill. Thomas H. Rochester, aged 13, John Ward and Wm. Street were apprentices -{ Letter of Thomas H. Rochester to the Hon. Wm. Scott.)
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
rio county, which elected five Democrats to the Assembly ; and Genesee county, which then sent but one member, also elected a Democrat. These two counties embraced the territory of this county. Peter B. Porter, a Democrat, was elected to Congress from the district composed of Ontario and Genesee coun- ties. The same year the vote for governor in the towns comprising the present county, stood, 343 for Tompkins and 326 for Platt. In the previous year, at the election for State senator, the vote of the county was equally divided between Phelps and Swift, the opposing candidates.
Enterprise marked the progress of the settlements. The farmers had as yet formed no agricultural socie- ties, but they never met without comparing views and exchanging suggestions. " Agriculture might be ren- dered doubly productive," writes a farmer from this region in 1810. "We want some prominent character to give it a new direction, to lead into new channels. But who shall do it? Our great men have other fish to fry. Our papers are filled with comments on Euro- pean politics, on orders in council and royal decrees, which our farmers do not nor will they ever under- stand, and it would be no service to them if they did." This impatience was generally felt, and prompted farmers to improvement in their stock and to better modes of planting. In that year a dairyman was brought from Orange county and placed on Wads- worth's home farm, fruit trees were ordered from Long Island, and experiments were made with different grains and utensils.
The dirt roads, owing to the character of the soil and the imperfect manner in which they were laid out and worked, were always an impediment. When the ground was soft, the wagon-way was sure to be cut up and rendered next to impassable by the narrow-
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
tired wheels in common use. . To remedy this the great Western Turnpike Company, in the summer of 1810, determined "that all wagons passing over their road, the wheel tires of which are six inches broad or upwards, shall be exempted from paying toll at any of its gates for the period of two years."* Every teamster was thus prompted to provide himself with broad tired wagons. John White, of Groveland, has seen ten horses on a wide-tire wagon, which would exactly track with the narrow tire wheels, and would completely fill up and smooth over the ruts made by the ordinary vehicle.
The months of January and February, 1812, were exceedingly cold, "a tremendous winter," as a letter dated the latter part of March of that year, says. "The ground is now covered with snow, and we are obliged to give out grain. The wintering of our stock will cost us half as much as it is worth, and my brother has had the blues for six months." The win- ter had set in with unusual severity, and proved to be the coldest of any then yet experienced. A month later the same writer says: "Our section of the country is very flourishing. Wheat and all kinds of produce command money, and settlers are flocking to the Genesee river from all quarters. The embargo renders business dull, but almost any tradesman, with or without a family, would find constant employment in our little village ( Geneseo). A good shoe and boot maker and tailor would make property fast. Farm hands command from ten to twelve dollars per month."
Merchandise had uniformly been brought up the Susquehanna, and thence overland from Elmira to Dansville. But in the fall of 1812 George Smith
* Albany Gazette July 9, 1810.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
brought the last load of goods by that route in a cov- ered wagon, drawn by six horses.
The year 1812 added little to the population of this region, notwithstanding the promise of the early season. "The war is a complete damper to all sales of new land. I have not filled out a dozen land con- tracts this season," says the principal land owner of this section, "indeed, more settlers have gone out than have come into the Genesee country.".
CHAPTER XII.
WAR OF 1812.
The war of 1812, though favored by the great body of the people, embracing the Democratic party and many of the opposition, was nevertheless opposed by an influential though small minority of the Federals. The Eastern States, with the exception of Vermont and a large part of New York and New Jersey, were opposed to it. Pennsylvania and the South and South- west favored it.
The district composing the county of Livingston, was largely Democratic, and gave the war a cordial support. Major General William Wadsworth, com- manding the militia of the division which embraced the county, promptly offered his services and they were as promptly accepted. Colonel Lawrence, of Geneseo, also volunteered, and was followed by a large part of his command.
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