USA > New York > Livingston County > A history of Livingston County, New York: > Part 28
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The first was the Avon or "long county " project, designed to embrace in one substantially both Monroe and Livingston, with the county seat at Avon. Its
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
friends are represented in the petition deposited in the State Library, by eight hundred and fifty names, mainly from Avon, Caledonia and York.
A second plan, strongly urged from the south, pro- posed two counties, omiting from the southerly one the towns of Sparta, Ossian, Nunda and Portage, giving the whole of Caledonia to Monroe, and embrac- ing Castile, Perry and Covington on the south. This would have brought the then thriving village Moscow at the centre, with the avowed object of making that the county seat. A prominent citizen of Moscow was sent to Albany for the purpose of urging this view upon the Legislature.
The third and successful plan was to form the two . counties, Monroe and Livingston, from territory depending chiefly upon the river for a market, and to make Rochester, then a small village, one of the county seats ; and a majority of those endorsing this plan favored Geneseo as the other. The friends of this mode of division were represented at Albany by Colonel Nathaniel Rochester and Judge Carroll, who, as well as their constituents, acted in harmony throughout.
The subject was now transferred to Albany. The numerous petitions and the remonstrances were refer- red, on Friday, the 26th of January, 1821, to a select committee of the Senate, of which Senator Charles E. Dudley, a name now and for all time to be associated with the progress of astronomic science, was chair- man. In due time the committee reported "that the convenience and interest of the inhabitants of those portions of the counties of Ontario and Genesee included in the application, will be much advanced by the erection of a new county." Leave being given, Mr. Dudley brought in a bill entitled " An act to erect a new county by the name of Livingston, out of parts
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
of the counties of Ontario and Genesee, and for other purposes," and it was read twice by unanimous con- sent. On the third of February the bill was examined in committee of the whole, Senator Bouck, at a later day Governor, in the chair. It passed the Senate two days afterward, and on the 21st the Assembly concur- red without opposition. The bill then went to the Council of Revision, a body wisely designed as a protection against hasty and unadvised legislation, and unwisely abolished before the following session by a change in the constitution. On the 23d of Feb- ruary, 1821, the Council, composed of the Governor, the Chancellor and two judges of the Supreme Court, "resolved that it does not appear improper to the Council that this bill should become a law of the. State." To this, in the volume of original laws deposited in the State Department, is afixed the sig- nature of Governor De Witt Clinton. It stands as chapter fifty-eight of the laws of that year, and imme- diately preceeding it is the act erecting the county of Monroe.
The county was appropriately named in honor of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, the most useful as he was the most conspicuous of the early friends of agriculture in this country. Eminent as a jurist and a statesman, a signer of the Declaration of Independ- ence, the devoted friend and patron of Robert Fulton, a man who faithfully loved and served his country in its period of supreme peril, he was, in a word, a type of that best product of the human race, a patriot statesman of the Revolutionary period.
For more than two hundred years the Livingstons filled the highest offices in Scotland. As is well known, James Livingston was appointed to the Regency of the Kingdom during the minority of King James I. The proud title of Earl was borne by many of the fam-
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
ily. The fair and unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots was born in Linlithgrow Castle, of which Lord Livingston was hereditary governor, and during the invasion of that country by Somerset, Mary was again placed under his protection.
Five days after the erection of the county, the Council of appointment issued general commissions to Gideon T. Jenkins as Sheriff, James Ganson as Clerk, James Rosebrugh as Surrogate, and George Hosmer as District Attorney. A month later Moses Hayden was commissioned as first Judge.
The act designated three commissioners, Dr. Gama- liel H. Barstow, afterwards State Treasurer, Archibald S. Clark, and Nathaniel Garrow, to designate the place and fix the site for the court house and jail. They were directed to meet at the public house of James Ganson, in Avon, thence to proceed to perform the imposed duty.
It is easy to believe that an advantage so tempting to a new town as the county seat, was not to be gained without rivalry, and such was the case. Several can- didates for the honor now appeared. Williamsburgh, the pioneer settlement, urged its claim. Avon, too, again entered the lists, although far too one side. But the latter objection was sought to be counteracted by the prejudice, amounting almost to gross injustice, then existing against the southern part of the county, whose resources, from being later settled than the northern portion, were as yet imperfectly developed, and less understood. The people on the line of the great State Road leading from Albany, by way of Canandaigua, to Buffalo, then the principal thorough- fare for emigrants, effected to regard the south towns as still a wild, even a sterile region, more suitable for hunting than for tillage. At a meeting in Lima, a leading member of the county bar, in advocating the
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claims of Avon, urged that although the latter village was not the centre of the territory it was the centre of the new county's wealth. Said he: "The county seat should be here, as we shall now be required to pay all the taxes, for the southern towns are so poor that they produce nothing but buckwheat and pine shingles." This sneer was not forgotten ; the name "Buckwheat" clung to the speaker to the end of his days. A Lima gentleman, at the same meeting, said they " might set it down as a settled question that the people of Lima would never agree to go one step south and be compelled to associate with the buck- wheat growers and shingle makers of Sparta and Springwater."
Next to Geneseo in point of general favor for the location of the shire town, stood, perhaps, the little hamlet of Lower Lakeville. At a public meeting held there about this time, a majority of the leading men present, representing Lima, Groveland, Conesus and other towns, favored its selection for this purpose. But other influences finally prevailed. The Commis- sioners in due time decided in favor of Geneseo, and not without good reason. The village was situated near the geographical centre of the county, and was the place of the largest commercial resort. The sur- plus produce of an extensive district here found an outlet by way of the river. Indeed, this village soon became a point at which more wheat was sold than at any other inland market in the state, and at prices ranging as high and sometimes even higher than at Rochester. In population it then numbered fully five hundred, and far and near, by way of eminence, it was usually called "the village," and otherwise familliarly spoken of as "Big-tree."
At the time of which we write, the teeming mart of Dansville, although an enterprising town, had not
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
attained its present leading relative position ; nor had the fair village of Mount Morris then developed, to any considerable extent, its importance as a commer- cial centre ; neither did Lima, then boasting of but half a dozen houses, give promise of reaching the eminence it has since occupied as a seat of learning. Had any one of these facts been otherwise, the man- ner of territorial division might have been essentially different. Indeed, the weight of influence, since, at different times, brought to bear from some of these quarters, and especially from the southerly portion of the county, for effecting a removal of the county seat or to establish a half-shire, has been very great, and on several occasions one of these objects has been nearly effected.
The law required that before the site became fixed, a suitable lot for the court-house and jail should be duly conveyed to the supervisors. Prisoners were to be confined at Canandaigua until, in the opinion of the Sheriff, the proposed jail was so far completed as to be safe to receive them ; and, in the cautious lan- guage of the day, the act declared that when the prisoners should then be brought to Geneseo, " such removal shall not be considered an escape." The supervisors were required to determine, at their first annual meeting, what sum it was proper to raise for providing a court-house.
The act also appointed General William Wadsworth, Daniel H. Fitzhugh and William Markham, commis- ·sioners to superintend the construction of the public buildings, with ample authority to that end. These gentlemen duly qualified and entered upon their duties with characteristic energy.
Until the court-house should be ready, it was pro- vided that the courts should be held in the brick academy building in Geneseo, a two-story edifice then
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
standing on the present site of the district school- house on Center street.
The county was entitled to elect one member of Assembly. The privilege of electing two was con- ferred in 1822. George Smith was the first member of Assembly.
By a supplemental act, passed also at the session of 1821, the supervisors and county treasurers of the counties of Ontario and Genesee, and the supervisors and county clerks of Monroe and Livingston, were required to equitably apportion all debts and effects as well as moneys belonging to the former counties, among the several counties.
After Geneseo was decided upon as the shire town, two sites were proposed for the county buildings. One of these was the public square or park at the south end of the village ; the other, where the build- ings now stand. The land, about four acres and a quarter, was given by William and James Wadsworth and duly conveyed to the supervisors to be used as a public square or promenade and for a site for the court house and jail .* In this they but carried out a pur- pose previously formed by them, which was to give a lot for the public buildings, whether they should be located in Geneseo or Avon.
The first annual meeting of the Supervisors was held in October, 1821. The Board was composed of members who would do honor to any legislative body. They were : From Avon, Thomas Wiard ; Caledonia, Robert Mckay ; Freeport, Davenport Alger ; Geneseo, William H. Spencer ; Groveland, William Fitzhugh;
* Deed in trust from William and James Wadsworth to supervisors of Livingston county, dated July 14, 1821, recorded July 15, in book I of Deeds, at page 61. Consideration, one dollar. Conveys 2 47-100 acres to be used as a public square and promenade; also 1 79-100 acres for a site for court- house and jail.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY. 353
Leicester, Jellis Clute ; Lima, Manassah Leach ; Livo- nia, Ichabod A. Holden ; Mount Morris, William A. Mills ; Sparta, William McCartney ; Springwater, Alvah Southworth ; York, Titus Goodman.
William Fitzhugh of Groveland was chosen chair- man, and Ogden M. Willey of Geneseo, was made clerk .* Orlando Hastings was elected County Treas- arer.
Among the first resolutions adopted was one author- izing a bounty of five dollars a head for the destruc- tion of wolves, and two dollars a head for each wolf's whelp killed during the ensuing year. Leicester, it was voted, should be permitted to pay a bounty of one dollar for the destruction of each wild-cat. What would be thought now of the necessity for such reso- lutions ?
The bill for the personal expenses and services of the commissioners to locate the site of the county buildings, was presented and ordered paid. t
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On the subject of the public buildings the Board determined that nine thousand dollars should "be raised and levied on the freeholders and inhabitants of the county for the purpose of erecting and finishing a court-house and jail." Of this sum three thousand dollars were ordered raised the ensuing year.
In December the Board formally expressed the opinion that the public buildings "should be of a size calculated for a county whose population was fast increasing, that they should be of the best material, and be constructed in the most faithful manner," and as the first sum named was found to be insufficient, they resolved to ask the legislature for authority to
* This model officer and good citizen held the position of clerk to the Su- pervisors for thirty years, to the general acceptance of the public.
+ Amounting to $174.00.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
raise two thousand dollars more the ensuing year. This was accordingly done, the power was granted, the farther sum raised, and the buildings completed .*
In February, 1822, Major Spencer and Orlando Hastings were appointed to examine the accounts opened under the act, by the treasurers of Ontario and Genesee, with Livingston, and to do whatever was necessary to effect a settlement. The matter was afterward placed wholly in the hands of Mr. Hastings. The journals of the Board appear to furnish no record of the final adjustment of these accounts.t
The court-house was ready for the courts in May, 1823.1 In October the bonds executed by the Com- missioners for superintending the building of the court-house and jail were ordered to be delivered up, and "the thanks of the Board were presented to the Commissioners for their faithful services ren-
* The valuation of the real and personal estate of the county in 1821 was $2,177,901.25, as appears by a table compiled from assessors' returns that year.
+ From the book of Supervisors' records of Genesee county, the following transcript has been furnished by Mr. Woodward, the County Treasurer : " 1822, January 13.
Resolved, That the moneys now in the hands of the treasurer of the county of Ontario be apportioned as follows :
Aggregate valuation.
Aggregate of money divided.
To the county of Monroe,
$1,098,127
$348.78
do
Livingston,
1,375,469
436.86
do
Ontario,
6,304.185
2,002.31
8,777,781
2,787.95."
Mr. Woodward says: " I find that subsequently, in the record of proceed- ings, that the accounts of the treasurer were settled and adjusted. Hence I conclude the moneys were duly paid over, although no specific mention is made of the payment."
# Homer Sherwood, of Geneseo, had the contract for building the court- house.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
dered the county in erecting the public build- ings."*
It was now formally resolved "that the keys of the court-house be delivered to Chauncey Morse, and that he have liberty to open it for public worship and to show the interior to any gentleman who may wish to view it ; and that he deliver the keys to the Sheriff to open the house for county purposes." A committee was appointed to deliver the keys and a copy of the foregoing resolution.
With equal formality was it resolved that the Sheriff be requested to "take charge of the irons belonging to the county and keep the same subject to the order of the Board."
The first Court of General Sessions, indeed the first court of record held in the county, convened at the Brick Academy on the last Tuesday of May, 1821. There were present Moses Hayden, first judge, Mat- thew Warner, Jeremiah Riggs and Leman Gibbs, judges. After prayer by the Rev. Mr. Bull, the court was opened by the usual proclamation. The follow- ing grand jurors were then sworn : William Janes, foreman, Robert Mckay, James Smith, Asa Nowlen, Josiah Watrous, Francis Stevens, William Warner, Ichabod A. Holden, Ruel Blake, William A. Mills, Ebenezer Damon, P. P. Peck, Joseph A. Lawrence, William Crossett, William Carnahan, James McNair, John Culver, Erastus Wilcox, John Hunt, Daniel H.
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* The official record says: "The Board of Supervisors at a meeting held Feb. 19, 1824, adopted the following resolution : Whereas, The Board of Supervisors of Livingston County believe that General Wm. Wadsworth for his gratuitous exertions in superintending the erection and finishing of the public buildings of the County, merits their individual approbation, There. fore,
Resolved, Unanimously, that the thanks of this Board, in behalf of the county, be rendered him for those exertions, "
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
Fitzhugh, Thomas Sherwood, Ebenezer Rogers and Gad Chamberlin.
The first indictment and trial was the case of The People vs. Mary DeGraw, for assault and battery with intent to murder. On the trial of the case the jury returned a verdict of guilty of an.assault and battery, and not guilty of the rest of the charges in the indict- ment.
The first commitment appears to have been that of May Brown, convicted at this term and sentenced to the Ontario county jail for thirty days.
The first term of the Court of Common Pleas was also held on the last Tuesday of May, 1821. Among the attorneys who presented licenses and were admit- ted to practice in this court at this time, were Samuel Miles Hopkins, George Hosmer, Felix Tracy, John Dickson, Orlando Hastings, Charles H. Carroll, Wil- lard H. Smith, Augustus A. Bennett, Ogden M. Wil- ley, Hezekiah D. Mason, and Melancthon W. Brown. On motion, Mark H. Sibley, was also admitted to practice as above. The first trial held in this court was the case of Alfred Birge, Appellee, vs. Joel Bard- well, Appellant. O. Hastings appeared as attorney for the appellee, and A. A. Bennett attorney for appel- lant. The jury was composed of the following mem- bers: James Richmond, LeRoy Buckley, Federal Blakesley, Roger Wattles, T. H. Gilbert, Joseph White, Jehiel Kelsey, John Salmon, Geo. Whitmore, David A. Miller, Riley Scoville, Andrew Stilwell.
During the judge's maiden address to the grand jury, the door opposite the bench opened, and a dis- tinguished member of the bar, "standing six feet eight and well proportioned," entered the room. 'Though his bearing would have done credit to a Bay- ard, yet he could not resist a mischievous wink to the Judge. The latter could not help seeing it, as it was
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
intended for him alone, and it was too much for him under the novel circumstances. He hesitated a mo- ment, broke, and was forced to abruptly descend from the heights of his eloquence. But right keenly did he scold the wicked joker for the prank he had played him, after the ermine was put off for the day.
In 1823 the May term of the Common Pleas, Charles H. Carroll, first judge presiding, having opened in due form, adjourned to the new court-house .* Here, after being duly convened, the first term was opened by a court as dignified, surrounded by a bar as able and accomplished, and by jurors as honest and intel- ligent as any new county, scarcely twenty years emerged from the wilderness, ever boasted.
The county was now fully provided with the neces- sary buildings and machinery, and it has since fully maintained its standing among the other divisions of the State.
Incidents connected with its organization have been preserved. Among these was one in reference to the design for the county seal. The dominant party at that time was called the " Bucktail." The first County Clerk was of that party, and in ordering the seal he chose for the design a buck with large horns and a long, bushy tail, longer than the law of nature justi- fied. This caudal grace was long ago curtailed, how- ever ; indeed, the design itself was soon superseded, the seal now bearing simply the name of the county between a larger and a smaller circle.t
* On convening in the new court-house George Hoamer was appointed Dis- trict Attorney, and Samuel Stevens, Crier. The first trial held in the new court-house was the suit of Driesbach and Scholl, Executors, Appelles, va. Samuel Culbertson, Appellant.
t The kindness of the County Clerk, Mr. Baker, has placed the three seals of the county in my hands. The design on the first is a deer, it is true, but alas for the truth of the anecdote, with the smallest fraction of a tail-some anti-Bucktall, no doubt, having deprived the noble buck of his political sym- bol. The second differs only in the style of lettering from the present one.
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CHAPTER XIV.
EARLY BANKING PROJECTS-GENESEE VALLEY CANAL.
The growing communities, with their rapidly in- creasing business transactions felt very seriously the want of banking facilities, and as early as 1823 an attempt was made to establish a bank at Geneseo. A petition was presented in the Assembly March 4th of that year, for the privilege of opening a bank at that place, which was signed by the judges and supervis- ors of the county. It was referred to the committee on banking, and, apparently, was never reported by that committee, for in the Livingston Register of March 2d, 1825, the following notice appears :
"Notice is hereby given that an application will be made to the next legislature of the State of New York, for an act of incorporation for a bank, with the usual privileges of banking, by the name and style of the Livingston County Bank, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, to be located in the village of Geneseo."
The notice is signed by William H. Spencer and Homer Sherwood, and is dated Dec. 20th, 1824. This movement was probably also unsuccessful, for a simi- lar notice subsequently appeared in the Register dated Nov. 15, 1825, and signed by John H. Jones,
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
Moses Hayden, Edward Bissell and Philo C. Fuller. It asked for a charter for a bank with a capital of $250,000, "and with liberty to increase the stock to $400,000." All these efforts, however, proved alike futile, and it was not until 1830, as will subsequently appear, that the citizens of the county succeeded in securing the measure they so much desired.
In 1823 P. R. Bowman was running a line of stages from Canandaigua to Warsaw by way of Moscow. In the Livingston Gazette of July 3d of that year he gives notice that thereafter he "would continue his line once in each week. He will leave Moscow on Saturday afternoon immediately after his arrival from Canandaigua, and return from Warsaw on Monday evening, and on Tuesday morning start again for Can- andaigua." Between Moscow and Canandaigua the stages were run twice each week, passing through Geneseo, Livonia, Richmond and Bristol. In con- nection with this line stages were run from Canandai- gua to Palmyra, and (via Geneva) to Lyons, connect- ing with the Erie canal.
The same paper contains the notice of Jedediah Richardson, Hiram Jones and Nehemiah Westbrook, announcing that their new boat "Independence " would commence running on the river, between Bab- cock's Ferry and Rochester, and make regular trips once in two weeks, carrying freight down or up " on the most reasonable terms."
Notwithstanding such enterprises, the greatest draw- back to the growth and prosperity of the county, as of nearly all Western New York, was the lack of prompt, reliable and cheap transportation for the products of its rich fields. The nearest markets, or the most remunerative ones, were Baltimore and Montreal ; and from this county the only routes were navigable streams and the broad expanse of Lake Ontario, -the
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
former tortuous ways, full of impediments, subject to floods and drouth, and incapable of being navigated except by flat boats and raft's, floating with the cur- rent if passing down, laboriously poled along if pass- ing up the streams. Added to these difficulties were numerous portages or carrying places, to avoid water- falls and rapids, or in passing from one stream to another. The opening of the Erie canal somewhat improved this state of affairs, as it brought nearer the markets of Albany and New York, yet it only did so to a moderate degree, for the nearest point on that great artificial waterway was comparatively a long distance from the farming communities of Livingston. It can be readily imagined, therefore, that transporta- tion charges were excessively great, and that the pro- duce of the fertile lands of the settlers found a slow and unremunerative market. Some prices have already been given in this work, and instances show- ing the result of attempts to carry the surplus grain to market,-attempts which generally left the margin on the wrong side of the ledger. The attention of the people was thus early directed toward measures for improving communication with the Eastern markets, and the Erie canal having just been completed, and having already given promise of fulfilling the highest anticipations of its wise projectors, it was natural that a similar work should be proposed to meet the neces- sities of commerce in this and adjoining counties.
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