USA > New York > Steuben County > A history of Steuben County, New York, and its people, Vol. I > Part 19
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Wayne's victory brought the Indian war, the disaffections and complications in this entire western country to an end. Ter- Vol. I-9
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ritorial claims were silenced; occupied sections were abandoned; prisoners were exchanged, and husbands and wives, children and parents, who had been long separated were assembled and restored.
Such was the closing triumph of a brave, intelligent and dis- creet Revolutionary general selected to end those disastrous at- tempts to drive, buy or coax these blood-thirsty savages aided and inspired by British officers maddened by the results of the Revolution. Impecunious and incompetent favorites of the presi- dent had been sent to pacify the Indians and prey upon their lands, and they had produced no results but such tiresome jour- nals and reports as those of Proctor and Pickering, the shame and regret not only of their contemporaries but of the future. These incompetent military officers, without reputation for success in the field, were provided with armies to drive the foe into submission, only themselves to become the prey of the ambush. It required the skill, ability and courage of General Anthony Wayne to clear the country of the unendurable scourge, by his own heroic treatment.
In the early days of the Republic, the successful and only In- dian missionaries and diplomats were John Sullivan and Anthony Wayne; Andrew Jackson and William H. Harrison of the next generation ; Philip Sheridan and Nelson A. Miles of still later.
EFFECTS OF WAYNE'S VICTORY.
Those most familiar with the history of the counties formed by the territory west of the Pre-emption line are aware how-im- portant was the well planned and successful expedition of General Wayne. It was of vast importance in its immediate consequences- the ending of the protracted, elusive and vexatious Indian treaties and insolence, and the establishment of settled conditions which have led to the unparalleled progress, wealth and prosperity of the Painted Post and Genesee country. At this day of comfort and blessing, few can realize its local consequence and results. It gave security where there was little of it before; inspired hope and confidence in those who were more than half determined to retrace the weary steps that had brought them into the wilder- ness; for if war and Indian depredations and cruelties were to be added to all the misery and privations before them, it would be better to abandon their new homes founded on such high ex- pectation, if not forever, then to such a time as safety might be assured.
The news of Wayne's victory was brought to Colonel Will- iamson at Bath, to Jedediah Stephen at Canisteo, and to the Er- wins at Painted Post. The glorious news circulated briskly and with rapidity, among the backwoods and settlement. There were small and happy gatherings of pioneer settlers wherever they could be got together. Canisteo celebrated in true local style; no Indian was safe if in sight. At Bath James Moore. with a squad of volunteers, dragged out and fired one of Sullivan's "Grasshop- pers," the only piece of artillery in the settlement. Horns were blown and all kinds of racket was indulged in to show the sen- timent of the people on this occasion. The demonstrations of seventy years later were not more genuine and heart-felt. All was confirmed when, in a few days subsequently, the Senecas, who had gone to the help of their "sunset" brothers on the Miami,
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were seen coming back from the war path, quaking with fear and completely humbled at the recollection of the terrible defeat and slaughter that General Wayne had inflicted upon them and their British allies who had gathered to drive the white emigrants from their new-found homes. The name of "Mad. Anthony," or the "Black-Snake," as the Indians called him, made them quake with fear when but mentioned to them. They uttered the most savage imprecations against those who had lured them away from their homes to take part in a contest in which they were not con- cerned, and then remained far away from danger, or, secure in strong fortresses, because merely spectators in a conflict in which they and their confederates were falling like autumn leaves in a gale.
Colonel Hosmer, in his "Romance of the :Genesee," says : "The tidings of Wayne's victory came like a reprieve after sen- tence of death; a sky-lark's call, after a raven's croak." The Indians were thoroughly subdued and chagrined by their terrible punishment and reverses, and the bad faith of their Canadian allies. Now they were determined to settle down quietly in their villages, and on their reservations, and renew their friendly re- lations with their white neighbors; regard their treaties, recog- nize their contracts and respect the laws of the state. The British, also, bound by the terms of the Jay treaty, ceased from their in- termeddling and troubling; surrendered and abandoned the forts at Detroit, Niagara, Oswego, and Osurgatchie;, and Lord Dor- chester, the governor of Canada, and Colonel' Simcoe, the com- mander of the British military forces there, made the most abject apologies for their conduct. The settlements on the Pulteney estate, as well as the rest of the Painted Post and Genesee coun- try, were finally permitted to progress, thrive and grow in peace.
POPULATION IN 1790. -
The immediate effect of this event was at once apparent, not only in Ontario county as then constituted, but throughout all of the Genesee country, and the then newly unfolding west. For the purpose of showing with as much certainty as is now available, the number and location of the inhabitants of what was then On- tario county, we rely upon the returns of the census of 1790. This was the first national census, and provided that the enumeration should commence on the first Monday of August, of that year, and close within nine calendar months thereafter. The enumeration was made under six divisions, as follows: (1) Names of heads of families or masters of domicile; (2) free white males, sixteen years of age and upwards; (3) free white males' under sixteen years old; (4) free white females; (5) all other frce persons; (6) slaves.
At that time Ontario county had not been subdivided into townships. Most of the settlements in that territory had no fixed geographical name, and the designation of the locality was de- rived from some settler, event or natural situation .or object. The term "town" was at that time applied to an indefinite, undivided and little known locality.
Amos Hall took that first census in the then county of Ontario, and for that purpose the county was by him divided into four
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sections, which he called "towns," viz .: Canandaigua, Erwin, Genesee and Jerusalem. Canandaigua embraced the northeastern section of the Genesee country, had 47 families and a population of 464; Erwin comprised practically the present county of Steu- ben, with 28 families and 168 population. To the west of Canan- daigua town, was Genesee, which included bottom lands on the east side of the Genesee river, with 50 families and a population of 339. The town of Jerusalem was on the west side of Seneca and Crooked lakes, the home of Jemima Wilkinson, "the universal Friend," and had a population of 99 persons, mainly Quakers, and 14 families. Why Amos Hall, the census enumerator, should have designated the territory then known far and wide as the "Painted Post," and which comprised all of the present county of Steuben, as being the town of Erwin, is not easily explained, except it was to gratify the inordinate egotism and vanity of Colonel Arthur Erwin. The territory comprising the town of Erwin was then as now a tract six miles square.
The census of 1790 shows that there were then within the bounds of the county of Steuben, as thereafter first organized, 168 persons and 28 had families. Three homes did not have a female in the family; 56 were males of sixteen years of age; 56 were males above that age; 36 were males under that age; 69 were white females, and 7 were negro slaves. It also further showed, that, within the present bounds of the city and town of Corning, were the following: Frederick Caulkin, head of a family of three per- sons; Ezra Rowley, with a family of seven persons; Ephraim Pat- terson, with a family of ten persons; Ichabod Patterson, the head of a family of four persons; Benjamin Eaton, ten persons; Peleg Gorton, family of two persons; Henry McCormick, head of a family of ten persons; Abel Lanphere, six in the family. Total fifty-two. In the vicinity of where Painted Post is and at the junetion of the four rivers-namely, Tioga, Canisteo, Conhoeton, forming the Chemung, there was George Goodhue, with a family of six persons; Arthur Erwin, a non-resident, with him were two sons over sixteen years old, and one boy not then sixteen years old; Henry Curphy, with a family of nine; William Ayers, two in his family ; Martin Young, a family of eight; William Hanshaw, a family of nine. Total, thirty-seven.
In what is now the town of Lindley, there were Eleazar Lindsley, the head of a family of eight and six African slaves; Samuel Lindsley, a family of four; Ezekiel Mulford, a family of six and one colored slave; Captain John Seelye, four in his fam- ily; Eleazar Lindsley, Jr., a family of three; Leleus Daniels, a family of two. Total, thirty-four.
At Kenistio Castle, those included within the present towns of Canisteo and Hornellsville, and the city of Hornell were: James Hadly, with four in his family; William Baker, four in his fam- ily ; Jedediah Stephens, eight in the family of which he was the head; Uriah Stephens, family of six ; Uriah Stephens, Jr., family of four; John Stephens, with his family of four persons; Richard Crosby, six in the family of which he was the head; Benjamin Crosby, a family of five; Nehemiah Crosby, with four in his fam- ily; Solomon Bennet, a family of eight; Andrew Bennet had a
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family of four; Oliver Harding, head of a family of five; Captain John Jemingson, family of five. Total sixty-seven.
The name "Painted Post" by no means denoted the locality bearing that name at this day. It formerly applied to the entire country in New York and Pennsylvania drained by the Tioga (now Chemung) and its tributaries. As has been stated, at the place of the "meeting of the waters," now known as Painted Post, was a place of rendezvous and dispersion and dismissal of the various tribes along these streams, when preparing to move upon their enemies, or for hunting and fishing expeditions; also a rendezvous for games of chance, sports, carousals, and exchange of everything they possessed-prisoners, scalps, dogs and instru- ments of war and the chase. Posts were here set up, as tablets of important events, and upon them were painted rude characters describing the results. Here intersected and diverged the great trails of the country, and the Susquehanna, Allegheny and Gen- esee rivers here divided-one going north up Post creek to Seneca and Crooked lakes; one up the Conhocton, subdividing at Mud creek, and thence to the lakes and ponds drained by it, noted for its wealth of fish and game; and another branch uniting with a trail from Canisteo river down Campbell creek, crossing the Con- hocton trail, and thence up the Five Mile or Kanona creek, through Prattsburg and Italy, to Penn Yan and Canandaigua, and joining the Niagara trail. The Conhocton trail again divided at Bloods, one branch leading to the head of Canandaigua lake and the Sacred Hill of the Senecas. The remainder of this trail continued through the Spring Water valley along Hemlock lake, nniting with the Genesee trail at or below Avon.
The principal trail was up the Canisteo river to its head- waters. Then dividing, one went over the divide, down the Cana- seraga creek, and passed the present locations of Dansville and Mount Morris to the lower forks of the Genesec river to the Niagara trail to Fort Niagara; while another branch of this trail followed the main stream of the Canisteo over a divide to the Genesee river. The route of this trail was through the lands of Judge Church in the town of Angelica, Allegany county, New York, near "Belvidere," the name of his country home. The vermicular path of this trail was marked by forest trecs left standing on either side, which were carefully cared for as long as the property re- mained in the Church family. Afterward vandalism, or the spirit of improvement obliterated all traces of it. Another trail left the Canisteo trail at Canisteo following Bennett's creek to the head- waters of the streams running into the upper Genesee river; thence up the Genesee through a depression, making an easy route to the Allegheny river. This was called the Allegheny and Gen- esee trail. Another important trail was from the Chemung river, up the Tioga river and its principal affluent, the Cowanesque creek, into northern Pennsylvania and to the tributaries of the Allegheny river.
FUTILE TREATY OF PAINTED POST.
This point of the "'meeting of the waters" and the converg- ing of the Indian trails made it the central and strategic key to the whole Painted Post country. For the purpose of preventing
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the Six Nations from joining the Indians of the Northwest ter- ritory (now Ohio and Indiana), and thwarting British influences and efforts for a general Indian war, President Washington, in 1791, directed: Colonel Timothy Pickering, an eminent American soldier and statesman, to hold a council and conclude a treaty with the Six Nations for the purpose of inducing them to abstain from participating in the threatened Indian war with the "Sunset" Indians. As he selected the junction of these rivers and trails as the place most easy of access to all of the Indians of the Gen- esee and Painted Post country, the compact there concluded is known in the government archives as "The treaty of Painted Post." It was held at Newtown Point, because by reason of low water in the Chemung, the boats bearing supplies, provisions and presents for the occasion could not get up to the junction of the rivers. The treaty was held at Newtown, now within the city of Elmira, New York, near the location occupied as a stockade for the confinement of Confederate prisoners, in the War Between the States, 1861-5.
A large number of Indians, allured by the usual council and treaty attractions, gathered at Newtown, but after much talk, discussion and dissimulation on both sides, having intelligence of the disastrous results of St. Clair's expedition against the tribes on the Miami and the Wabash, the council broke up without ac- complishing the purposes for which it was held. The Treaty of Painted Post, for which elaborate and expensive preparations were made, and for which so much was hoped, yielded nothing but disappointment. On the other hand, the result of General Wayne's expedition did more for the rapid settlement and peace- ful occupation of the Genesee and Painted Post country than all the Indian treaties ever held. Negotiations and promises were easily broken and disregarded; Wayne's victory was heeded and remembered.
By the census of 1790, there was in what was then Ontario county (which then meant the whole country between Lake On- tario on the north, Pennsylvania on the south, Seneca lake on the east, and Genesee river on the west) 524 males and 345 females over sixteen years old; 192 were males under sixteen years of age, and there were 9 negro slaves. Total, 1,070. The total number of families-that is, homes where there were white women-was only 139; and these inhabitants were scattered over this wide ter- ritory in widely separated settlements. How helpless and un- protected would have been the fate of these white inhabitants! The total number of Indians within this territory must have been five times that of the whites.
There was not a fort or fortified place of refuge for these settlers in this whole country. Not a soldier was quartered here, or within protecting distance, should there have been an uprising "among the Six Nations to regain the land of their fathers. British garrisons still held Fort Niagara and Fort Ontario at Oswego, and these intermeddling British agents were ever busy inciting these savages to regain possession of these lands which had been taken from them wrongfully.
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FIRST LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE.
On the first Tuesday in April, 1791, the first "Town Meeting" in what is now Steuben county was held. It took place at Painted Post, and the organization effected embraced all the settlements in the county organized five years later. In March, 1791, the legislature of the state of New York had given to Ontario county the right to elect a member of assembly.
Turner, in his valuable "History of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase," says of this first election in Ontario county: "Al- though not entitled by population in 1791, by a special act of the legislature, Ontario county was given representation in the as- sembly. This was not known to the new settlements of Canan- daigua, Geneva and their neighborhood, but in the smaller set- tlements that had commenced on the Canisteo, in what is now Steuben county, they were in possession of the fact." How the wide-awake dwellers on the Canisteo, Tioga, Conhocton and Che- mung rivers, within the old territory of Painted Post, came to get this fact so early, and before the settlers of the upper or northern part of Ontario county, is told in a letter sent to Eleazar Lindsley by Judge Britton Paine, who appears to have been a very wide-awake man of affairs. It was written on March 23, 1791, and says: "I have just returned from New York, where I learned that the legislature has granted a member of the legis- lature for the county of Ontario. Therefore it becomes necessary to have a town meeting, in order to elect town officers on the first Tuesday in April, to the end that you may hold an election on the last Tuesday in April to elect such member of assembly."
At that time there was but one postoffice in the state of New York, and that was at the city of New York. There were then no mail routes, no mail carriers, and no means of disseminating intelligence or news, except by private enterprise and expense. It may be reasonably concluded, that no means was taken to in- form the north country. The election was held and the result was that Colonel Eleazar Lindsley was chosen as the member of assembly for Ontario county, and, as such, sat in the fifteenth session of the legislature of the state of New York that met in the metropolis in 1792. Colonel Lindsley had considerable experience in New Jersey politics, having been a member of the legislature of that state for several terms, which well fitted him for the busi- ness in hand. By reason of this early election and representation, Painted Post was, for a time at least, and to all intents, interests and purposes, the most important of all places in western New York; in fact, the capital town, much to the mortification of the silk-stocking, kid-gloved aristocratic denizens of the up-country.
While every habitation within rifle shot of the confluence of these three rivers lays claim to the location of the original and only "Painted Post," it is certain that the original village of "Painted Post" was located within the present limits of the city and town of Corning. The city should have been named accord- ingly, although it honors a worthy citizen of the state capital.
No name of any town on either of the three great trunk and continental lines of railway traversing this locality will so arouse the attention of the traveler (and the mental query of why the name ?) as "Painted Post."
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From the time of the first settlement of the hamlets of Painted Post, Erwin and Lindsley, each attempted to preserve the dignity and independence (and jealously) of a seperate community; yet in the larger field of general interest politics and public improve- ment each supported the other faithfully and, in the larger af- fairs, they were all neighbors on the Canisteo and Conhocton rivers.
RIVALRY BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH TOWNS.
After the disastrous defeat of the Indians by Wayne, the tide of emigration began to rapidly flow to the Genesee country. The settlement of the northern section was by people from the New England states, largely from Connecticut. The route by way of Hudson and Mohawk rivers and the Niagara trail was the easiest and most accessible. The southern section was largely peopled by emigrants from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Those from- the latter state were the more numerous and their route of travel was up the Susquehanna to Tioga Point, thence by way of the Chemung and its tributaries. These northern and southern sec- tions formed separate and opposing local groups and the animosi- ties, born of the hatreds and bad conduct of the Pennamite wars of years before, were, continually, manifest. The southern section did not like the ways of the northern, and inclined to opposition and offensive sentiment. Emigration was active and growing throughout the whole county, but different ideas and interests were not always harmonious, and it was but natural there should be a spirit of rivalry between these two classes of inhabitants. In 1792 the northern settlements, captured the representative of On- tario county in the legislature, electing Isaac I. Chapin to suc- ceed Colonel Lindsley. Thomas Morris, of Canandaigua, was elected in 1794, to succeed Chapin as the member of assembly for Ontario county. He was the son of Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, and because of this he had a large influence in directing and securing legislation for his county, and the in- habitants he was most in sympathy with. In 1795 Thomas Morris was again elected as the Ontario county representative. The ses- sion began January 6, 1796, and ended April 11th of that year, . at the city of New York.
STEUBEN COUNTY CREATED.
The rival interests and ambitions of the southern and north- ern sections had for several years been sharp, active, and at times acrimonious. Talk of a division of the county indicated that it was generally desired, and during the year 1796, it had so far culminated that a bill was introduced into the nineteenth session of the legislature looking to that end, and the formation of a new county, by Thomas Morris. The bill proposed that the new county should be called Schuyler, in honor of General Philip Schuyler, who was then a member of the state senate, representing the western district of New York, which included the county of Ontario. That gentleman most strenuously objected to the pro- posed name for the new county for the reason that he was a mem- ber of the legislature then in session, and he considered that it would be in extreme bad taste or him to permit the use of his
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name in that connection. He further claimed that living par- ticipants in the late struggle for Independence should not be so honored, to the exclusion of the dead, and asked that the name of General Steuben should be substituted in the bill, in place of his own. In this change General Schuyler was vigorously sup- ported by Colonel Benjamin Walker, then naval officer of customs of the port of New York, who had been the principal aide and military secretary to General Steuben, and four years later a representative in the national congress for the state of New York. The bill was, in consequence amended so as to read, "An Act to erect a part of the County of Ontario into a separate county by the name of Steuben." The act was passed by both branches of the legislature, was approved by John Jay, governor, March 18, 1796, and is chapter 29 of the laws of 1796. It enacts that "all that part of the County of Ontario, bounded by the Pennsylvania line on the south; by the north bounds of the sixth range of town- ships on the north; by the pre-emption line on the east, and by the Indian line* on the west, shall be one separate and distinct county by the name of Steuben."
It was, by said act, further enacted that "there shall be held, in and for the county of Steuben, a Court of Common Pleas. and a Court of General Sessions of the peace at the town of Bath, and that there be in the said county of Steuben, three terms in every year, to commence and end on the days following, to-wit: The first term to commence on the third Tuesday in June, and to end on the Saturday following; the second term to commence on the third Tuesday in October, and to end on the Saturday following, and the third term, to commence on the second Tuesday in Jan- uary, and to end on the Saturday following;
"Provided, that in any of the terms aforesaid, the court may adjourn previous to the day assigned for its termination, if the business of the court will admit, and that the first term of said court shall be held on the third Tuesday in June, 1796."
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