USA > New York > Ontario County > A history of Ontario County, New York and its people, Volume I > Part 5
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On the 23d of December in the same year, 1806, the Repository, under the heading "Another New County," reported that it was proposed to organize a county of "Williamson" out of the towns of Sodus and Phelps, Ontario county, and that part of Seneca lying north of the outlet of Seneca lake.
In response to a published call, "a meeting of respectable
44
HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
THE COUNTY OF ONTARIO, 1821-1823. (Indicated by Light Section of Map.)
45
"THE MOTHER OF COUNTIES."
inhabitants of Canandaigua and several other towns of the county of Ontario convened at Bates Hotel, Canandaigua, for the purpose of concerting measures to oppose the several applications which were about to be made to the Legislature for divisions of said county. Thaddeus Chapin being voted chairman and Myron Holley clerk, it was resolved unanimously that any division of said county would be highly inexpedient and therefore every plan to effect such division ought to be opposed." Nathaniel W. Howell, Peter B. Porter, and Myron Holley were appointed a committee to draft a remonstrance to be presented to the Legislature.
For nearly two decades following the erection of Genesee county in 1802, these attempts to further deprive Ontario county of terri- tory were unsuccessful. In 1821, very likely through some bargain or combination of interests among the Rochester and Geneseo politicians, Monroe and Livingston were set off, each taking also some of the Cenesee county territory. It is noteworthy, as indi- cating the probability of a combination, that the two enactments effecting this further shrinkage of Ontario's area were adopted on the same day, February 23, with the approval of the so-called Council of Revision (the Governor and the Chancellor and Judges of the Supreme Court). The Academy in Geneseo was designated as the court house of Livingston county, but the question of locat- ing the shire town in Monroe county was left to commissioners.
At this time, 1821, it appears from the legislative journals, there was yet another attempt to deprive the county of territory, for we find that Assemblyman Charles E. Dudley, of Albany, chair- man of a select committee to which was referred a bill designed to erect a new county, to be known as "Hancock," reported favorably to the proposition. This report argued that after the cession of the towns on the west side embraced in Monroe and Livingston, Ontario still had a population of 60,000 and that "the time must come at some period not distant if not here" when "for the convenience and interest of the inhabitants" other new counties should be created from its territory. This report went on to declare that "whenever a compact population, approximating 20,000 inhab- itants and with convenient territory, are unanimously in favor of organizing a new county, a proper regard to the principles of Republican government and to the maxim that all citizens of such government are entitled to equal political privileges, requires that the Legislature should grant aid;" and, therefore, "the committee
46
HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
PONTIV?
7 ..
PRESENT COUNTY OF ONTARIO, 1823-1911.
47
"THE MOTHER OF COUNTIES."
being convinced in spite of the remonstrances received that a majority of the people directly interested want the erection of a new county," recommended that "the relief sought for several years" should then be granted.
Gideon Granger, the senior, then one of the members of the State Senate from the western district, voted, and presumably talked, "No," and the bill was defeated in the upper house by a vote of 15 to 14 (February 24, 1821).
In 1823, however, two more sections of Ontario's shrunken area were cut off, a part on the southeast being erected into the county of Yates, and the towns of Lyons, Sodus, Williamson, Ontario, Palmyra and Macedon, and a part of Phelps were united to the Seneca towns of Wolcott and Galen to form the new county of Wayne (April 11, 1823).
To make our record of the successive changes in the conforma- tion of Ontario county complete, we must not neglect to state that it had two small accessions of territory in the earlier years of existence as an independent civil division. On February 21, 1791, while it still had the magnificent proportions of the original Mass- achusetts cession, a strip of Montgomery county west of Seneca lake was annexed. This was the "Gore," which through a fault in the original survey was omitted from the first plotting of the county. The "Gore" now constitutes parts of Ontario, Yates and Schuyler counties. A small tract in the fork of Crooked, or Keuka lake, was taken back from Steuben county, February 25, 1814. This also is now a part of Yates county.
The process of dismemberment, or division, so far as it related to the territory that had succeeded through these many vicissitudes in retaining the name of Ontario county, was suspended with the birth of Wayne in 1823. The process, for the time at least, had gone far enough. Ontario was mother to enough daughters. In the period of thirty-four years in which it had been going on, not less than six counties had been erected directly, in whole or in part. from Ontario territory, and by 1854, when the youngest grand- daughter, Schuyler, was organized, the family group that calls her mother and grandmother had grown to the proportions it has since maintained-fourteen counties.
That period of thirty-four years, ending with 1823, had been great with promise for the region under consideration. Its popu- lation had increased from a little more than a thousand in the year
48
HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
following its organization as the county of Ontario to the great aggregate of 217,000; the beginnings of two of the country's great cities, Buffalo and Rochester, had been made within its limits, each being a village of something over 2,000 inhabitants in 1820; thriving villages, with churches, academies, public schools, banks, newspapers, and taverns, had sprung up in every part of the domain ; the forest had made way for grass and grain fields of large extent ; mills for the grinding of their products were erected ; high- ways were laid out ; a thriving, enterprising and growing population was established in comfortable homes; and the Erie canal, which was to provide means of transportation to the seaboard for the people of those homes and for the products of their mills and fields, had been brought to within two years of completion.
In those thirty-four years the Great Western Wilderness had been subdued and was a wilderness no longer, but after all they were years of promise only, and the most prophetic eyes could hardly see in them the marvelous realization on which we look. In the ninety years that have since elapsed the population of what was the original Ontario county has grown to over a million and a quarter of people, a population exceeding that of the whole State of Maryland, and that of either one of eighteen other States of the Union; the two villages of Buffalo and Rochester, with 2,000 inhabitants each, have become (1910) cities of 423,715 and 218,149, respectively ; the Erie canal has been completed, and is now practically superseded by a railroad system that better serves the public need, but that in turn is threatened by the competition of the rapidly extending trolley lines; petroleum and electricity for lighting, the telegraph, the telephone, and a thousand other discov- eries and inventions, now so common that we forget our grand- fathers were without them, have all come within these few years.
The present Ontario county, insignificant as are its proportions as compared with those it had at organization, is not by any means unworthy of the name it bears. Though shorn of so much of its original territory, it is still the Chosen Spot of Western New York, and deserves the honorable fame it is accorded, its population being 52,286, according to the Federal census of 1910.
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"THE MOTHER OF COUNTIES."
The First Census.
Under the statute of January 27, 1789, by which Ontario was set off from Montgomery, the justices of the Court of Sessions were authorized to divide the county into districts as they should deem expedient. The primitive division, Turner states, constituted five districts, as follows: "District of Canandaigua," "District of Tol- land," "District of Sodus," "District of Seneca," and "District of Jerusalem." For one or two years this division was little more than nominal, except in the district of Canandaigua whose organi- zation in effect included the entire county. At the time of the census of 1790, however, according to the returns of the Assistant United States Marshal, General Amos Hall, Ontario county included the four "towns" of Canandaigua, Erwin, Genesee, and Jerusalem, and had a total population of 1075, with an enumeration of 204 heads of families, including 11 slaves. Of this number the town or district of Canandaigua, which must have comprised the greater part of what is now the county of Ontario, had 88 heads of families, two slaves, and a total population of 464. The heads of families as listed by General Hall were as follows :
Latty, James
Day,
Russel, John
Benton, David
Sweet,
Camstock, Nathan,
Wheeton, Samuel
Phelps, Ezza
Reed, Israel
Rice,
Smith, David
Pierce, Phineas
Fellows, John
Smith, Jereme
Smith, Harry Barden, Thomas
Chapin, Genl. Israel
Wilder, Ephraim
Reed, Seth, Esq.
Dudley, Martin
Spencer, Aaron
Whitney, Jonathan Warner, Solomon Okes,
Walker, Caleb
Goodwin, William
Fisher, Nathaniel
Kilbourn, Joseph
Colt, Judah, Esqr.
Fellows, Genl. John
Whitcomb, John Stevens, Phineas Tuttle, Benjamin Robinson, John D. Granger, Pierce Briggs, Francis Pierce, Michael Tibbet, Benjamin
Brainard, Daniel
Holcomb, Seth Brocklebank, James
Rice, Lot Hubble, Matthew
Barns, John
Chapin, Oliver
Norton, Nathaniel
Addams, John
Hall, William Potter, Arnold Gates, Daniel Sweets,
McCumber, John Harrington, Joshua
Boughton, Gerard
Norton, Zebulon
Taylor, Elijah
Chapin, Israel, Jr. Platt,
Smith, Elijah Pane, John Smith, Jacob
Rogers, Michael
Sage, Allen
Boughton, Seymour
Warren, Thomas
Gorham, Nathaniel, Jr., Esq. Sanbourne, Nathaniel
Allen, Reuben
Herard, Webb
Forsyth, Easther
Smith, Joseph
Wilder, Gamaliel
Smith, Thomas
Fish, James D.
Clark, John
Rice, Aaron
Bates, Phineas
Goodwin, James
Barlow, Abner
Rice, Ephraim
Castle, Lemuel Wells, Benjamin Freeman, John Lapum, Abraham Hathaway, Isaak Harrington, Nathan
White, Comstock, Daniel
50
HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
Formation of the Towns.
The county of Ontario as now constituted contains sixteen towns and a city, as follows: Bristol, Canadice, Canandaigua, East Bloomfield, Farmington, Geneva, Gorham, Hopewell, Manchester, Naples, Phelps, Richmond, Seneca, South Bristol, Victor, and West Bloomfield, and the city of Geneva.
The territory embraced in the present limits of the county was originally laid out in towns as follows: Bristol, Canandaigua, Bloomfield, Farmington, Easton. Burt, Middletown, Phelps, Pitts- town, and Seneca, all of which were formed under an act of the Legislature of 1789.
Subsequent changes in the names and boundaries of the towns were as follows: The town of Easton became Lincoln in April. 1806, and Gorham one year later.' Middletown was changed to Naples, April 6, 1808. Pittstown became Honeoye, April 6, 1808, and Richmond, April 11, 1815. Victor was formed from Bloomfield, May 26, 1812. Hopewell was formed from Gorham, March 29, 1822. Burt was renamed Manchester, April 6, 1822. Canadice was formed from Richmond, April 15, 1829; a part of it was returned to that town in 1836. South Bristol was taken from Bristol, March 8, 1838, and a part was annexed to Richmond in 1848, but restored in 1852. West Bloomfield was formed from Bloomfield, February 11, 1833. The town of Geneva was erected by the Board of Super- visors from Seneca, November 15, 1872. The city of Geneva was formed from the town of Geneva under act of the Legislature of 1897.
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THE COUNTY BUILDINGS.
V.
THE COUNTY BUILDINGS.
They Reflect the People's Respect for Law and Regard for the Unfortunate-In the Court House Centers the County Con- sciousness-Successive Jails-The County Alms House-The County Laboratory and the County Tuberculosis Hospital, the First Institutions of the Kind in the State.
As the record of church building and school building in towns affords an index to the moral and intellectual progress of the people, so the story of the buildings in which a county houses its courts, preserves its archives, confines its criminals, or cares for its poor, evidences its consciousness of a community of interests and its apprehension of its responsibility to the unfortunate.
About the court house especially centers the county conscious- ness. In the history of its development may be found marks of the growing respect for law and order, respect for authority, respect for all that constitutes organized government. As the court house has fallen into decay or been enlarged or replaced, so is the attitude of the people toward the administration of justice.
In Ontario county, development along these lines has been marked in striking measure by the successive steps taken to provide an appropriate house for the courts.
The county had need of a court before it had time or money with which to erect a proper building for its use. The records show that the first court in the county was held in an unfinished room in Judge Atwater's house, in June, 1792, with Judge Oliver Phelps presiding. Subsequently and until a court house was erected provision was made by lease for the use by the courts, at a yearly rental of 10 pounds, of the chambers in said house, which was located on the west side of Main street, on what is now the the postoffice corner. Previous to 1850, when the Atwater Hall building was erected on that corner, the old Atwater house was
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
moved some rods to the west, and at the demolition of that building in 1910, to the north, where faced around toward the east it now stands.
FIRST ONTARIO COUNTY COURT HOUSE.
Erected in 1794, in the public square in Canandaigua, immediately south of present court house. Was moved in 1825 to N. W. corner of Main and Cross streets, where it stood when this picture was made, and was used as a postoffice; was moved to Coach street in 1859, used as a store house and was demolished in 1899. Scene of the trial of many famous cases, including that of "Stiff Armed George," whom Red Jacket, the Indian orator, defended against the charge of murder.
But the young county, moved by a spirit of enterprise and liberality which has happily ever characterized its provision for public needs, lost no time in erecting a building to be devoted to the use of the courts, and within five years after the first white men had settled in Canandaigua such a building, commodious, well proportioned and well furnished for that day, was completed and put into use.
This was in 1794, when the entire population of the county did
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THE COUNTY BUILDINGS.
not much exceed a thousand souls and when the tax entailed, 600 pounds, constituted a burden much larger in proportion than that involved in the recent $100,000 improvement. It marked the first step in the determination of the pioneers to keep abreast-nay, ahead-of the times in matters of public improvement.
The first court house was a wooden structure and was located on the public square, immediately south of the present building. In it were held the courts of Common Pleas, presided over by the first judges of the county, Oliver Phelps, Timothy Hosmer, John Nicholas, and Nathaniel W. Howell, and at its bar practiced such lawyers as John C. Spencer, Peter B. Porter, Mark H. Sibley, Jared Wilson, Francis Granger and John Greig. In it were con- ducted many of the famous trials of the early days, including that of Jemima Wilkinson, the "Universal Friend," who was brought here in the year 1800, from her "New Jerusalem" on Keuka Lake, to answer the charge of blasphemy. The grand jury failed to find an indictment against her, and upon invitation she delivered a sermon before the presiding judge, Ambrose Spencer, and the jurors and others in attendance on the court.
In this building also took place the trial of the Indian, "Stiff Armed George," on a charge of murder, when the famous Seneca orator, Red Jacket, made an eloquent plea for the defense.
This first court house served the purpose thirty years, and then to meet the demands of the county, rapidly developing in wealth and population, though already shrunken territorially to its present size, a new and more substantial building was erected. This was in 1824, the year following the county's last loss of terri- tory, that now embraced in Wayne and Yates counties. The corner stone was laid on July 4 of that year.
This building marked the second step of progress and cost $6,000, four times as much as its predecessor. It was erected on the southwest corner of the public square, and there for the eighty- seven years which have since elapsed it has stood unmoved, though barely avoiding collision with the intruding railroad.
In it also were conducted many trials famous in the State's history, the most notable of which perhaps was that of the men implicated in the abduction of William Morgan, the renegade Mason. Today, as the town house of Canandaigua and maintained for the joint use of the town and village, it remains a useful and handsome public building.
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
Upon the completion of this more substantial and dignified building, as stated, in 1825, the "old" or first court house was moved across the street and located at the northwest corner of Main street and Cross street, now West avenue. While in this location it was long used as the postoffice and as lawyers' offices and its second floor as a lecture and concert hall. In July, 1859, after the completion of the third court house, and following the sale of the second court house to the town and village for a consid- eration of $4,000, it was concluded that the old "Star Building," as it had come to be called, had outlived its usefulness in the public service, and it was sold to Thomas Beals, the banker, for $100, and moved by him to a vacant lot on Coach street, where it continued in use as a storehouse as late as May, 1899, when it was torn down to make room for Mr. Anderson's big store building.
After another thirty years, was taken the third step in the history of the county as marked by court house building. It was in November, 1856, after much discussion in the newspapers and otherwise, and after sharp criticism of the second court house as antiquated and inadequate, that the supervisors finally resolved upon the erection of a new building, appropriated $15,000 therefor, and appointed as a building committee, Evander Sly of Canan- daigua, James Soverhill of Seneca and William Clark of Victor. Mr. Searles of Rochester was employed as the architect. At this juncture the cooperation of the United States Government was secured and an appropriation of considerable amount obtained from Congress on condition that the new building should include quarters for the United States court and the village postoffice.
On February 12, 1857, plans and designs were adopted, the cost of the proposed building being estimated at $40,000, and a few days later a section of the Gorham lot, north of the original square, was purchased at a cost of $6,000.
There followed a serious contest over the question of just where the new building should be located and in which direction it should front. At first it was planned that it should face to the south ; then the supervisors, moved by the agitation of the citizens of the village, ordered the front put to the west. Then followed threat of an injunction, public meetings and newspaper discussion, but in May, 1857, the matter was finally, and as it seems to us happily, settled by the adoption of a resolution at a special meeting of the board of supervisors, by a vote of 9 to 6, deciding that the
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THE COUNTY BUILDINGS.
building should front toward Main street and be located partly on the square and partly on the newly acquired Gorham lot.
Thereafter work on the third court house building was rapidly pushed, Kelsey & Wells of Canandaigua having the contract for the wood work and Thomas Crawford of Geneva that for the masonry. The corner stone was laid with appropriate ceremonies on July 4 of that year, and on June 24 of the next year, 1858, the structure was so far completed as to permit the placing on top its handsomely proportioned dome of the statue of "Justice," which has since remained a distinguishing landmark, and which has been re- placed on the enlarged and fire- proofed building.
On December 26, 1858, the board of supervisors met and ac- cepted the new court house, the resolutions adopted giving espec- ial credit to the chairman of the building committee, Evander Sly, who had had personal charge of the construction work and to whose ability and faithfulness was due its satisfactory and prompt completion.
Then followed, early in the year 1859, the removal of the JUDGE HENRY WELLES. postoffice from the "old" or first Hon. Henry Welles, who presided at first term in the "new" court house, Canandaigua, in January, 1859, was born at Kinderhook, N. Y., October 17, 1794, and died at his home in Penn Yan in 1868. Distinguished himself as a soldier in the War of 1812. Dis- trict Attorney of Steuben county from 1824 to 1829. Supreme Court Justice in the Seventh district from 1847 until his death at his home in Penn Yan, in 1868. court house building and the re- moval of the clerk's and surro- gate's offices from the buildings formerly occupied by them on the west side of the square, which, it is interesting to note in passing, were sold to Joshua Tracy for $225, to be taken down and the material removed.
On Monday, January 10, 1859, the court room in the new building was first put to its designed use, at a term of the circuit court, at which Hon. Henry Welles presided. It is reported that there was a large concourse of people present on this occasion and that Judge Welles made an appropriate address. The portraits
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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY.
which had been brought together in the old court house through the efforts of the indefatigable William Wood were rehung in the county court room in the new building and constituted the nucleus of the priceless collection which has in later years made that room a gallery mentioned widely in the public press and in historical publications, one that is viewed with interest by many visitors and with pride by all residents of the county. The collection contains the portraits not only of men fa- mous as pioneers or for the promi- nent part they had in the later history of the county, but of those also who, born in or otherwise identified with the county, attain- ed high place in the State and Nation.
WILLIAM WOOD.
William Wood was a brother of Mrs. Nathaniel Gorham, Jr., and was born in Charlestown, Mass., in 1777. Was for many years a resident of Canandaigua and it was through his efforts that the foundation was laid for the unique and valuable collection of portraits now hung on the walls of the County Court room. He devoted his life to philan- thropic work, being particularly distinguished for the part he took in securing the establish- ment of the Mercantile Library in New York and of similar libraries in London, Liverpool, and other cities. The Wood Library in Can- andaigua was named in his honor. He died in Canandaigua, in 1857.
A fourth great step in the de- velopment of Old Ontario was taken in the spring of 1908, when the board of supervisors, in re- sponse to a general public de- mand, decided to enlarge and reconstruct the court house to meet the need of additional room for the county officers and to pro- vide a thoroughly fire proof struc- ture for the safe keeping of the county's invaluable records. The resolution finally authorizing the improvement was adopted May 21, 1908. Messrs. Ralph M. Sim- mons, G. W. Powell, E. B. Rob- son, E. E. Calman and E. E. a special committee to have
Coykendall were named as charge of the work, and Architect J. Foster Warner of Rochester was employed to prepare plans and specifications. After advertisement for bids, the contract was awarded to A. W. Hope- man & Sons' Co. of Rochester. The corner stone of the recon- structed building was laid with due ceremony on September 25,
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THE COUNTY BUILDINGS.
1908, in the presence of a large concourse of county officials and citizens, addresses being delivered by Lieutenant-Governor Lewis S. Chanler, President Charles F. Milliken of the Ontario County Historical Society, County Judge Walter H. Knapp, Hon. John Colmey and others. The first court was held in the reconstructed building, June 7, 1909, by County Judge Robert F. Thompson, but the dedication exercises were not held until November 8, 1909, when in the presence of a large and representative audience this programme was carried out, with Supreme Court Justice James A. Robson presiding : Prayer, Rev. A. B. Temple ; historical address, Elisha W. Gardner; address, Hon. Peter B. McLennan, Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division, Fourth Department; dedicatory prayer, Rev. James T. Dougherty ; benediction, Rev. W. W. Weller. The total cost of the reconstruction work and a complete outfit of new furniture was $125,838.04.
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