USA > New York > Ontario County > A history of Ontario County, New York and its people, Volume I > Part 23
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In 1872 the church was enlarged and altered to the present form of the main part, and rededicated December 18th. Dr. Muhler, of Buffalo, assisted by Presiding Elder K. P. Jervis, conducted the services and the debt of $1,200 was fully provided for by pledges. In 1900, the social rooms on the east were added at an expense of about $900. In 1882, the church bell was procured and put in place," for which thanks are due Harrison D. Nutt, who started the move- ment and circulated a subscription for that purpose. Since the first board of trustees above named, the following have been elected and served in that capacity, many of them for several terms, viz: Freman Warrick, Thomas Doolittle, Henry Hoagland, Erastus
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Eggleston, E. A. Shaw, James H. Gay, John Brown, George I. Brown, John Burch, Amasa T. Winch, David Snook, Peter Walling, Joseph Tague, John Myres, George Anderson, Joseph Struble, Henry S. Ogden, Lorenzo Winch, Isaac Struble, J. R. Partridge, Asher B. Norton, G. W. Sharpsteen, W. S. Doolittle, Noah Struble, B. H. Burch, C. B. Hyde, O. F. Ray, D. W. Beam, E. C. Huff, H. C. Branch, L. M. Doolittle, Frank Doolittle, A. H. Tibbals, M. J. Becker, G. W. Affolter, E. B. Henry, Scott W. Bush, and W. E. Winch.
Pastors who have ministered to the members and friends of this church in consecutive order, beginning in 1830, are the Revs. G. Lanning, W. Hoag, Richard Wright, Jonathan Benson, Jacob Scott, Israel Chamberlain, Dr. Bartlett, B. Williams, A. Hard, W. Jones, S. C. Church, P. Buell, Thomas Castleton, Mr. Bingham, C. Chapman, Samuel Parker, Abner Reid, A. Atcheson, John Wiley, S. R. Cook, J. Hall, William A. Barber, Joseph Chapman, J. J. Brown, A. Maker, J. Robinson, J. K. Tinkham, J. L. S. Grandin, J. M. Park, J. Benson, J. Blivin, J. Armitage, W. Cochran, William Sharp, J. Benson, R. T. Hancock, G. W. Chandler, J. Easter, W. R. Benham, D. Hutchins, O. Trowbridge, J. Watts, S. M. Merritt, J. E. Tiffany, R. T. Hancock, J. E. Tiffany, S. M. Dayton, G. S. Watson, A. H. Maryott, Thompson Jolly. F. D. Mather, H. O. Abbott, J. A. Smith. J. T. Humphrey. J. F. Brown, E. J. Cook, Walter Dynes, I. B. Bristol, Arthur Osborne, O. A. Retan, A. W. Decker, P. P. Sowers, J. W. Barnett, F. H. Dickerson, G. W. Richmire, and Joseph Clarke.
A list of soldiers of the Revolution who later found a home in Canadice, comprises the names of Harry Armstrong, William Gould, Reuben Hamilton, Nathan Morse, Isaiah Smith, William Sullivan, and Derby Wilds.
Of the soldiers of the war of 1812, who went from this town or later made their homes here, were Albert Finch, Luther Gould, Captain Granby, Justus Grout, Laban Howland, Cornelius Johnson, James Kelly, John Kelly. Ira Kimball, Joseph King, Morris North, Daniel Norton, Jonas Quick, Silas Reynolds, Amasa Richardson, Jonathan Richardson, Robert Smith, Samuel Smith, William Smith, Horace Spencer, Orra Spencer, Ira Spencer. George Struble, David Tibbals, Benjamin G. Waite, Green Waite, Andrew Ward. Frederick Westbrook, David Badgero, and Jesse Brown.
In the war of 1861-65, the town of Canadice did its full share in
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
furnishing men to put down the rebellion who served in these regiments : Thirteenth N. Y. V. Infantry-Orrin S. Brown, Thomas J. Burch, Ichabod McConnell, Steven H. Draper, James Evans, John M. Hyland, William McLeod, Donald McLeod, George O. Richardson. Eighty-fifth N. Y. V. Infantry-James Brogan, Francis M. Francisco, Palmer W. Lewis, Ellicott R. Stillman, Lendall H. Rowley, Elam Wetmore, Horace Z. Shepard. Ninety- fourth N. Y. V. Infantry-Willard G. Shepard. One Hundred Fourth N. Y. V. Infantry -- Jotham Coykendall, Harvey R. Coykendall. One Hundred Twenty-sixth N. Y. V. Infantry- Daniel Rop, William L. Shepard, Martin L. Nutt. One Hundred Forty-seventh N. Y. V. Infantry -- John Burch, Jr., Lafayette White, Lewis C. Crossen, Albert H. Tibbals. One Hundred Sixtieth N. Y. V. Infantry-John O'Lahey. One Hundred Eighty-eighth N. Y. V. Infantry-Henry J. Wemett, George A. Wemett, John King, George King, George W. Case, Harrison E. Francisco, Peter C. Rop, Wesley Slout. Twenty-eighth N. Y. V. Infantry-Henry S. Struble, Charles M. Struble. Fourth N. Y. V. Heavy Artillery- Henry S. Struble, Charles M. Struble. Fourteenth U. S. Infantry- Joseph H. Hyde. First N. Y. V. Mounted Rifles-William C. Tucker, George Culver, Heman Cole, Arnold G. Coykendall, William N. Simons, Harrison J. Babcock, Ira D. Durgy, James E. Cole, William H. Hutchinson, William E. Thorpe, Henry S. Thorpe, William I. Bishop, Willard D. Caskey, Thomas Mellody. First N. Y. V. Dragoons-James H. Loveland. Eighth N. Y. V. Cavalry- Joseph A. Wemett, Milford C. Wemett. Twenty-first N. Y. V. Cavalry -- Orra S. Pursell, Jonas Beardsley, Emery A. Anderson, Thomas S. Doolittle, George F. Ray, Clinton A. Owen, Michael Oliver, Donald McLeod, Stephen H. Draper, Robert R. Ran- ney. Seventh Ill. V. Cavalry-Hiram J. Coykendall. U. S. Navy-Buel G. Burde. Fifty-eighth National Guards-Orlando E. Thorpe.
We have been unable to learn the regimental organizations to which the following list of soldiers belonged: George W. Heaz- lett, Sedrey M. Heazlett, Maurel W. Smith, Homer Smith, Dwight Coykendall, Jerry Coykendall, Thomas Claven, James A. Gowers, Joseph King, Luther C. Myers, George Casner, Elmer Bailey, and Alonzo G. Wemett.
There are now living in the town seven veterans who served in the war of the 60s, viz: Willard D. Caskey, who served the last
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THE TOWN OF CANADICE.
year of the war in the 1st N. Y. Mounted Rifles; Clark Rix, who served a year and a half in the 21st N. Y. Cavalry; Henry Clark, who served a year and a half in the 141st N. Y. Infantry : Albert H. Tibbals, who served the last two years of the war in the 147th N. Y. Infantry ; Thomas Murray, who served nearly three years in the 148th N. Y. Infantry; Peter C. Rop, who served the last year of the war in the 188th N. Y. Infantry ; and Bowman F. Cisco, who served in the 35th N. J. Infantry, and another regiment from the same State.
The temperance question in Canadice was decided for no- license, over forty years ago, and so remains. In the early days, country taverns, with their whiskey bars, were plenty. The last licensed hotel was kept by Joel Coykendall at the Corners, and was widely known as the hostelry of Uncle Joel and Aunt Sally. An effort was made in 1882 by Davenport Alger of Springwater, who built a summer hotel, called the Port House, at the head of Hemlock lake, to run a drinking place. After learning that the people of Canadice would not tolerate the traffic, he built a pier out in the lake with a cabin at the end and took out a license from the adjoin- ing town of Conesus, in Livingston county, and began selling there. As the statutory boundary of the west side of the town along the lake shore was somewhat ambiguous, he construed it to suit his purpose and contended that the boundary line was at the water line. An action was begun by Overseer of the Poor A. W. Doo- little, before Justice of the Peace A. H. Tibbals, for penalty under the Excise law, and was stubbornly contested for two days, with Attorneys O. C. Armstrong and Bradley Wynkoop, of Canan- daigua, counsel for plaintiff, and Judge Vanderlip, of Dansville, and R. H. Wiley, Esq., of Springwater, for the defendant. Judg- ment was rendered against the defendant for one penalty, $50, and costs, $18.40. An appeal was taken to the County court with like results. In the meantime application was made to Hon. Silas Sey- mour, State Engineer and Surveyor, to determine the said boundary line, which was investigated by him and found to be across a por- tion of the lake, instead of along the shore. Soon after this the "Port House" went up in smoke and thus ended the issue.
Note .- Credit is due the late D. Byron Waite, former Canadice historian, for material used by the present writer, and to the late Hon. Amasa T. Winch, for church records left by him.
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
XXIV
THE TOWN OF CANANDAIGUA.
Ga-nun-da-gwa, the Chosen Spot of Both the Seneca Indians and the White Pioneers-Rapid Growth and Propitious Develop- ment of the Town-The Highways-First Town Officers- The Succeeding Supervisors-Number Nine and The Acad- emy Tract.
BY CHARLES F. MILLIKEN.
Where the original Canandaigua of the Senecas was located is largely a matter of speculation. It was founded in all probability following the abandonment, on account of an epidemic of small- pox, of the large village of Onnaghee, which was located about two miles east of Canandaigua lake, on what is now the farm of Mr. Darwin McClure in the town of Hopewell. At the time of the visit of the Moravian missionaries to this region, in 1750, they reported that the site of Onnaghee was uninhabited, although it had been occupied as late as 1726. According to the Cammerhoff journal, the missionaries proceeded thence westward, crossing the outlet of Canandaigua lake on a rude bridge of sticks and poles, constructed by the Indians, and on invitation of an Indian whom they met at the crossing they proceeded to the Seneca town of "Ganataqueh," which they found "situated on a hill." The huts were ornamented with red paintings of deer, turtle, bears, etc., designating to which clan the inmates belonged.
The name in the Seneca dialect, according to the late Hon. Levi H. Morgan, a recognized authority on Indian nomenclature, was Ga-nun-da-gwa, with accent on the third syllable. Hon. C. H. Marshall spelled it Ga-non-daa-gwah. The meaning of the name was "A Place Selected for Settlement," or, according to a more poetical interpretation, "The Chosen Spot."
The officers of the Sullivan expedition, which swept through this region of the State in 1779 and destroyed the principal Indian settlements, set down in their interesting journals the fact that
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THE TOWN OF CANANDAIGUA.
the Indian village of Canandaigua, the name of which hardly two spelled alike, was located about a mile north or northwest of the lake, and that a half mile further to the north was a plot of culti- vated ground some fifty acres in extent.
Even with this help it has been found impossible to exactly locate the site, though the writer believes that the records establish the fact that it was on one of the elevations west of Sucker brook, perhaps on Arsenal hill, where were found at one time many interesting relics indicating the site of an Indian settlement of considerable size. A few years ago there were people living who remembered that there was a small prehistoric work just east of the village on the Chapinville road. It was a fort, an oval, ninety by one hundred and twenty feet. Schoolcraft (1846) describes and illustrates this ancient work, the remains of which indicated that it was located on an elevation, just east of the present village line, through which the road above mentioned extends. He reports that in excavating the ground for this road human bones were found in considerable quantities, together with some of the usual vestiges of ancient Indian art, as evinced in the manufacture of stone and clay pipes and implements. North of Howell and just west of East street, Indian graves, presupposing the neighborhood of a settlement, were once found. A few Indian graves were also found north of West avenue, in what is now the cemetery ground. A few years ago remains of several skeletons, with pipe bowls and other Indian relics, were found in excavating in what was formerly the door yard of the Morris house, on the west side of Main street, opposite the entrance to Gibson street. Yet more recently, remains of Indians were found in the neighbor- hood of the Garratt house on Lake street.
Fortunately we may draw from the Sullivan journals referred to a very good picture of the Canandaigua of 1779. The army approached the lake, September 10. from the direction of Kanade- saga (now Geneva), through cleared land on which the grass grew higher than the soldiers' heads, and marched half a mile along the lake, the trees near which were festooned with luxuriant wild grape vines, then loaded with countless clusters of the spicy fruit. The army forded the shallow mouth of the outlet, and, turning north. presumably following the Indian trail indicated on the Walker plot- ting reproduced on page 269 of this book, proceeded directly to the village, which they immediately "sot fire to."
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
To quote Lieutenant Colonel Adam Hubley, they "moved up a fine country from the lake, and in a half mile came to Kanadala- gua, a beautifully situated town, containing between twenty and thirty houses, well finished, chiefly of hewn plank (or logs), which we immediately burned, and proceeded about half a mile on our right, where we found a large field of corn, squashes, beans, etc. At this place (supposed to be what was afterward the site of the Greig mansion), we encamped, but were very badly off for water, having none but what we sent a mile for, and that very bad." "In this town," continues Colonel Hubley, "a dog was hung up, with a string of wampum round his neck, on a tree, curiously decorated and trimmed. On inquiry, I was informed that it was a custom among the savages before they went to war to offer this as a sac- rifice to Mars, the God of War, and praying that he might strengthen them. In return for these favors, they promised to pre- sent him with the skin for a tobacco pouch."
Major John Burrows notes the fact that the Indians had erected two posts in Kanandaigua, "to appearance for the exercise of their cruelty, as there was a war mallet at each of them." Dr. Jabez Campfield writes the name Shannondaque and says it was "the best built Indian town" he had yet seen, "the houses mostly new and mostly log houses." Lieutenant Charles Nukerck suggests that some white people must have lived in the town, which he calls Kanandarque, because the houses had chimneys, "which the Ind- ians have not." Thomas Grant, a surveyor, having noted that the town, Anandaque, was soon laid in ashes, records the fact that the army "encamped this eavening 11/2 miles north of Sd Town, neer several Large cleer Cornfields which served for forrage for our Horses and Cattle; the corn was likewise of Grate Sarvis To the Soldiers who are on half allowance."
This was the Canandaigua of 1779. Of the Canandaiguans of that day, we know little. Only three of them were at home when the soldiers arrived, and it is recorded that they incontinently fled. Tradition says that the squaws and children had been placed in hiding on the island in the lake, whence the cognomen, "Squaw Island," which the traditional place of refuge continues to bear. The battle of Newtown, a few days before, had taught the haughty Senecas that they were no match for the white army.
The beginnings of the white man's Canandaigua were made
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THE TOWN OF CANANDAIGUA.
in 1788, a year before the county of Ontario was erected. Phelps and Gorham, as the first step toward opening up the great domain for which they had bargained with the State of Massachusetts, directed their agent, William Walker, to enter the wilderness and lay out a town plot. It was designed that this first settlement should be located on the site of the Indian town of Kanadesaga. at the foot of Seneca lake, where now the city of Geneva is located. "Here we propose building the city," Mr. Phelps had written on the fourth of June. But, after his return to Massachusetts, he was informed that the Preemption line ran west of the selected location and hence that the latter was not within the Purchase. This, Mr. Phelps thought, must be a mistake, but in October of the same year he wrote to Agent Walker that if it were true, as he heard, that the Yorkers claimed the command at Kanadesaga, "you had better make ye outlet of Kennadarqua lake your headquarters, as we mean to have you rule independent of any one."
The following year, 1789, Nathaniel Gorham, Jr., the son of the Nathaniel Gorham of the Phelps and Gorham Company, with General Israel Chapin, Frederick Saxton, Benjamin Gardner, Daniel Gates, and a number of others, came on to establish the new settlement, and these gentlemen became its founders and first per- manent settlers. If we except Joseph Smith, a tavern keeper, who had moved from Kanadesaga before the snow was off the ground the same spring, they were the first white men to take up residence in the town, although General Chapin and Agent Walker had been here the fall before and contracted for the erection of a log house.
The leader of these pioneers. General Israel Chapin, who was of stalwart frame and in the prime of mature manhood, was natu- rally the most prominent figure in the infant settlement. Oliver Phelps did not settle here until after General Chapin's death. Nathaniel Gorham, his partner in the purchase, never resided in Canandaigua, nor did he ever visit the land in whose development he had so important a part. His son, Nathaniel Gorham, Jr., came here, as stated, with General Chapin, but he was then only twenty- six years old and he did not move his family here until the year 1800. Thomas Morris, the son of Robert Morris, of Philadelphia, became a resident of Canandaigua in 1792, and at once took a prominent place in the community, by reason of his name and wealth, as well as on account of his own merit, but he was then only twenty-two
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
years of age, and to the man of mature judgment and wider expe- rience naturally fell the task of organization.
The settlement of the town of Canandaigua was effected under auspices that assured rapid growth in population, and under cir- cumstances that assured the development of a community where education and culture should hold sway and civic obligations be fully recognized.
The company through which the lands in Western New York were opened to settlement did not meet the expectations of its promoters in the way of financial success, but it served the valu- able purpose of bringing into the country travelers of distinction, and of widely advertising its natural attractions and advantages. As a result, the lands found ready sale and there poured into them from Massachusetts and Connecticut, and in smaller measure from Pennsylvania, the first through the natural thoroughfare afforded by the Mohawk valley, and the last through the portal which the Chemung and Susquehanna rivers opened from the south, such an influx of agriculturalists and artisans as to secure the rapid occu- pation and clearing of the soil and the founding of many prosper- ous settlements. Canandaigua was the first natural focus of this immigration and as a result grew rapidly in population.
But, as intimated, the community that centered here not only grew apace, but it was also singularly favored in the character of the people who thus early made it their home. The circumstances which made Canandaigua rather than Kanadesaga the headquar- ters of Phelps and Gorham gave it an advantage from which it has ever since profited. While it has been outstripped in popula- tion by numerous towns in the Genesee tract and has continued an agricultural community, with the limitations as well as the advantages which belong to such a community, it has inherited traditions whose fruition are seen in its unexcelled educational facil- ities, in its exceptionally handsome public buildings and residences, in the thrift and public spirit of its people, in the refinement and hospitality of its homes, and in the prominent part which its citizen- ship has asserted and maintained in affairs of State and Nation. Phelps and Gorham, the Chapins, the Grangers, the Howells, the Hubbells, the Porters, and the Spencers, and other prominent and influential families, which these circumstances served to make the first settlers in Canandaigua, left an impress which remains, not so much in the family names, which, alas! are fading from sight,
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THE TOWN OF CANANDAIGUA.
but in the general outlook of the town and in the character of its development.
Without waiting the re-survey of the Preemption line, which was made at the instance of Robert Morris in 1792, by Andrew Elli- cott, United States Surveyor General, assisted by Judge Augustus Porter, the survey of the tract to the westward had proceeded, and in the course of 1789 Col. Maxwell had laid out about thirty town- ships and begun the survey and allotment of Canandaigua.
Canandaigua, the shire town of Ontario county, as originally laid out, comprised about seventy-two square miles, being the so- called town lots Nos. 9 and 10 in the Third range. No. 10 was one of the two lots which were particularly reserved by Phelps and Gorham in their sale to Mr. Morris in 1790, the other reserved lot being on the Genesee river. In 1824 all that part of lot No. 9 lying east of the lake was annexed to Gorham.
The first great task which faced the pioneers, coincident with the erection of the rude dwellings in which they of necessity shel- tered their families, was the opening of highways by means of which they could have feasible thoroughfare to and from the parent colonies at the east and the markets from which they must bring the implements of their work and to which they must take the products of their farms. The first settlers, as we have seen, made the larger part of the journey by boat and for a time this was the most practicable means of connection with the outside world. The canal, which a few years later was to furnish more reliable means of transportation, was a dream of the future, and the most daring romancer had not so much as conceived of such a thing as a rail- road. So the building of the "State road" from Utica to Canan- daigua was a work of first necessity, and its completion in 1790 was an event in which the constantly enlarging stream of immigrants rejoiced and to which they contributed not a little of time and labor.
This road, which followed the old Indian trail and was in fact hardly more than a widening of that primitive way through the forest, had bridges over the more difficult streams and was a most important adjunct to the settlement. But it was not until 1797 that the Legislature provided. by means of lotteries, funds for "opening and improving certain great roads in this State," and that under the leadership of Charles Williamson and with the assistance of
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
the settlers, the State officers charged with the enterprise were able to complete the great Genesee road, extending from Utica to the Genesee river. This was a highway of which the people were justly proud. It was sixty-four feet wide, with adequate bridges over rivers and creeks and corduroy crossings through swampy soil, and it opened the way for the establishment of a line of stages.
The spirit shown by the pioneers in forwarding these road building enterprises, continued to animate them until Canandaigua and the other towns of the county were brought into business con- nection with each other and with the main arteries of travel by a system of highways laid out upon a liberal and for the most part wisely arranged plan. It has continued to animate their descend- ants and successors with such effect that today the town of Canan- daigua is credited with possessing more miles of improved high- ways than any other rural county in the State. Canandaigua was in fact a pioneer in work of this character. Inaugurated in 1890, under the direction of Charles C. Sackett, supervisor, and Ira P. Cribb, highway commissioner, and carried forward without inter- ruption, a special act of the Legislature giving it the right to raise double the sum which a town is authorized generally to devote to this work, Canandaigua has now not less than thirty-five miles of permanent Macadam highways, built at its own expense, in addi- tion to a considerable quota of county and State built roads.
The town has only one considerable village, Canandaigua, which is the county seat, but the hamlet of Cheshire in the southern part of the town is a pleasant and prosperous place of residence for several hundred people, and Centerfield in the western part of the town is a little farming hamlet that at one time had a number of prosperous shops. It was at Cheshire in the year 1800 that the first Baptist church of the town was organized, which a few years later merged with the church of the same denomination in Canan- daigua village. A Free Will Baptist society was organized at Cheshire in 1840 and built a church edifice. In 1832, there was organized at Centerfield a Congregational society, which erected a small meeting house, but which only remained in existence for a few years. About the same time the Baptist people of the vicin- ity organized a church, but its support was inadequate and its property was sold to a company of Protestant Episcopal worship- pers. They, too, were numerically weak and after a struggle of
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THE TOWN OF CANANDAIGUA.
several years gave up the attempt to maintain separate ecclesiasti- cal existence.
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