USA > New York > Steuben County > A history of Steuben County, New York, and its people, Vol. I > Part 31
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The Addison Record was founded in December, 1881, by Mr. O. B. Ircland; then came Messrs. F. B. Orser, George Jones and M. Kinne. In June, 1886, Mr. C. B. Mowers purchased and con- ducted the paper as editor and publisher, and made it the organ of the Democratic party. It was afterwards published in the interest of the Republican party until it was suspended.
The Avoca Advance was established in 1878. It is an eight- page paper, independent in politics, and has a prosperous rural cir- culation. George C. Silsbee is the editor and publisher.
CANISTEO JOURNALS.
Canisteo, five miles east of Hornell, has two newspapers. The Times was established in 1876 by S. H. Jennings and in April, 1886, was sold to F. B. Smith, who conducted it with ability and success. In April, 1892, Mr. Frank A. Fay become the editor and publisher
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and made it the Prohibition organ of Steuben county. It attained a wide circulation and exerted a powerful influence in promulgating temperance and good order.
Mr. Fay was born in Bath, New York, October 20, 1843, the son of ex-Sheriff Lewis D. Fay. He was educated in the public schools of Bath and in August, 1862, enlisted in the Eighty-sixth Regiment, New York Volunteers, and served in the War between the States. After he returned, he was in the employment of various newspapers in Bath. On account of poor health, in January, 1900, he disposed of his interest in the Times to J. C. Latham, who is now its editor and proprietor. It is now published in the interest of the Republican party ; has twelve pages, and is issued weekly.
The Canisteo Tidings, at its inception in 1890, was published at Troupsburg, Steuben county, as The Farmers' Weekly, by Elmer E. Reynolds. The plant and paper were removed to Canisteo in 1894. It was last published by James N. Osincup and Clarence C. Potter, but it did not retain its patronage in the locality where it was estab- lished, and is not now in circulation.
The Canisteo Chronicle was born in 1900, to Leon Hough, a grandson of Edwin Hough, the famous old printer, founder and long-time editor and publisher of the Hornellsville Tribune, the pio- neer newspaper of the upper Painted Post country. The newspaper gerin appears to be alive, active and at work in this family. Part of the material, presses and equipment of the formerly vigorous and extensively circulated Herald, of Hornell, is used in the Chronicle office. Edwin H. Hough, the father of the Chronicle editor, and for- merly of the firm of Edwin Hough and Son (the above-named Tribune publisher), now about eighty years old, is yet found about the Chronicle establishment, as busy and active as when younger, though not as efficient ; occasionally "sticking" type, inking roller, or "hoofing" about the surrounding country, "drumming up" sub- scriptions and business for the paper and swapping "chicken stories." The Chronicle has a large and well-sustained circulation and busi- ness.
The newspapers at Canisteo profit by the unique and non- competitive newspaper condition and situation in Hornell, and are alert to take advantage of it.
THE COHOCTON PRESS.
The Cohocton Journal was first published in the village and town of Cohocton, in 1859, by William W. Warner. It was a weekly paper; it lived about two years, and then stopped by reason of Mr. Warner's emigration west.
The next paper was the Cohocton IIerald, established in 1872 by H. B. Newell. It was a weekly paper, and soon after it was purchased by James C. Hewitt. He changed its name to the Co- hocton Tribune. William A. Carpenter became the owner and again it was rechristened-this time the Conhocton Valley Times. In 1818 Edgar A. Higgins succeeded Mr. Carpenter and continued to conduct the paper until November, 1889. After that Mr. S. D. Shattuck became the editor and so continued until his death several years later. Mr. Shattuck was a bright, lovable man, clean and up- right as an editor and citizen, and commanding the respect of all. Under his careful, intelligent and energetic management his paper
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became known as one of the best and most widely circulated weekly journals in the northern part of Steuben county, and was in all respects a valued and interesting family newspaper. Mr. Shattuck's death was a great loss, not only to his family, but to the community in which he lived, to the patrons and readers of his paper, and to the newspaper fraternity of Steuben and adjoining counties. Nothing mean, low or grovelling was ever entertained by him, or found a place in the Times while under his management.
The Cohocton Index, previous to 1893, had been published as the Atlanta News by Hyatt C. Hatch, its founder, owner and editor. In 1892 V. L. and R. M. Tripp, who were competent newspaper men, succeeded Mr. Hatch, and removed its office and place of publication to the village of Cohocton. After the untimely death of Mr. Shattuck the Index was consolidated with the Times, under the name of the Times-Index. The latter is owned and conducted by V. L. Tripp as editor and proprietor, and ably in all things does it sustain and hold the circulation and good reputation of both of the constituent journals.
OTHER NEWSPAPERS OF THE COUNTY.
The Hammondsport Herald is published at the village of Ham- mondsport, town of Urbana, and is a weekly paper founded by Mrs. Benjamin Bennett and Mrs. E. B. Fairchild in the spring of 1874. This partnership continued about one year, when Mrs. Bennett re- tired and Mrs. Fairchild continued the publication until December, 1896; then Llewellyn H. Brown purchased a half interest in the business. They were associated until the Autumn of 1897, when the partnership was dissolved, Mrs. Fairchild retiring. Since then Mr. Brown has been the sole editor and proprietor. In politics the Herald was independent until two years ago, when it became a Repub- lican organ. It is now one of the leading weeklies of western New York. Because of its location at the head of Lake Keuka, the gem of the lacustrine region of the state of New York, and a delightful, popular and romantic health resort; the center of one of the most celebrated grape-producing regions of the United States, where are located large wineries and wine cellars, whose fruit and product have been pronounced the equal of any country of the world; and further, because this location has become celebrated as the birthplace of air navigation and the home of most skilled and successful aviators- for these reasons, the Herald occupies and will hold an enviable jour- nalistic reputation and situation.
The Prattsburg Advertiser was founded by Caleb B. Hoke ahout 186%. It met with rather indifferent success, partly because it was a first venture, and was succeeded December 12, 1872, by the Pratts- burg News, published by Paul C. Howe and Sons. The senior mem- ber of the firm was the principal editor and gave tone and color to the paper, so that it met with immediate and cordial success. It has always been a bright, spirited and interesting weekly journal and an excellent family newspaper, devoted especially to the interests of Prattsburg and the immediate surrounding country. Even a long time before the advent of the paper the village of Prattsburg was the intellectual and literary center of Steuben county. A high-class academy was early founded, and long maintained a leading position among the educational institutions of the state. Agricultural and Vol. 1-15
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dairy interests had special attention. A grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, one of the first in this part of the state, was chartered and commenced its good work here. Its members were intelligent laborers, superior to many others, so that a newspaper here, in order to succeed, must always kecp abreast of its surroundings ; otherwise, it would fail of support. The Prattsburg News early gave especial attention to market reports of farm and dairy products, and had a directory feature that added to its usefulness. After the death of the senior member of the publishers, the paper was continued in the name of P. C. Howe's Sons. Howe and Chisholm are the editors and proprietors.
At the village of Savona, in the town of Bath, a newspaper called the Review, was established in 1888. It is issued weekly ; has eight pages, and a fair circulation in the adjacent territory, and T. C. Wall is the editor and proprietor.
The Greenwood Times is published at the town and village of Greenwood by Silas Kellogg, editor and proprietor. It is largely devoted to the exploiting and publicity of the oil and gas interests now becoming prominent and attractive to investigators, prospectors and investors in the towns of Canisteo, Greenwood, Troupsburg and West Union, Steuben county, and in the towns of Andover and In- dependence, Allegany county, New York, and in the adjoining towns of Potter county, Pennsylvania. The Times is printed on the press of the Andover News, at Andover, New York.
The Wayland Register is now the sole survivor of the progeny of newspapers that have incubated at Wayland. It was established by Bert Goodno in 1889; is an eight-page issue; independent in politics, with B. C. Swartout as editor and proprietor. Wayland is a favorable location for such an enterprise, being a thriving village on the border of three counties-Steuben, Ontario and Livingston- and on the line of the Erie and Lackawanna Railroads, affording good location and facilities for marketing the produce of the sur- rounding fertile country, as well as of several flourishing factories. The justly celebrated Wayland cement is made here from the clay, sand and fossil remains found in the locality.
GREATEST CIVILIZING AGENT.
The press of Steuben county has been the leading factor pro- ducing the prosperity, intelligence, improvement, good order and reputation of its citizens.
At the beginning of the last century the territory now embraced within its boundaries was avoided by the hordes of emigrants seek- ing homes in the new west. The Genesee country, the Western Re- serve, the valley of the Ohio and its tributaries, the Northwest Ter- ritory-each and all, abounded with apparently superior advantages to those of the Painted Post country, then thickly covered with dense forests of evergreen trees, among which were found smaller growths of deciduous trees. The surface of the conntry was made up of deep, narrow valleys, with steep and precipitons sides termi- nating in altitudes that form part of the backbone of the union east of the Mississippi river, the streams flowing to all the cardinal points. But the back-draft of the flow of the tide of emigration found the true worth of this mighty wilderness; the sturdy pioneer, the hardy woodsman and the chivalric adventurer, all attracted by
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the dangers, novelty and rewards awaiting manly effort so near at hand, invaded the rugged wild, cleared the land, rafted the timber and lumber, and made homes.
Other aids and help were needed, and Colonel Williamson, rec- ognizing that after the hunter and pioneer woodsman should come the great lever of civilization, the printing press, more than one hundred and ten years ago imported from Northumberland, Penn- sylvania, a printing press and material for the publication of a newspaper. He also imported the brawn and brains, in the persons of William Kersey and James Edie, to produce results. In the early autumn of 1796 the first number of the Bath Gazette and Genesee Advertiser was issued. That event was of more importance in es- tablishing the primacy of Bath than all others combined up to that: date. The next year its circulation amounted to over five hundred papers each weck. Its publication was continued five years. Some ten years later Captain Benjamin Smead imported from Albany, New York, a printing press and material for another newspaper at Bath, and in November, 1816, issued the first number of the Steuben and Allegany Patriot at that place. For forty years the enterprising captain continuously beat the drum of progress and held aloft the torch of civilization. Other journals of merit and commanding influence throughout the state firmly established the supremacy of the ancient shire town.
The reputation of every hamlet, village or city is determined by the reputation of its newspapers more than by any other means or influence. The local press measures and records .the, life, activities. and prosperity of its domicile, and its suspension is felt by the entire. community and neighborhood. Its discontinuance affects more peo -. ple, attracts more attention and causes more unfavorable comment, from the outside world than the suspension of a bank or the closing of a manufactory. Prosperity always abides with the live newspaper .- Sustain, support and encourage the press.
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CHAPTER XIII.
TRANSPORTATION AND COMMERCE.
EXPLANATION OF PHELPS AND GORHAM PURCHASE-FIRST PUBLIC HIGHWAY -- INCIDENTS OF THE ROAD BUILDING-PRODUCTS OF THE PAINTED POST COUNTRY-RIVER NAVIGATION ASSURED- LUMBER RAFTS OF OLD-EARLY LUMBER POINTS-RAFTS ABAN- DONED FOR ARKS-ARKS STIMULATE COMMERCE-BOOM IN PAINTED POST COUNTRY-THE CANAL ERA-THE ERA OF RAILROADS.
After the negotiations by Phelps and Gorham with the state of Massachusetts had been tentatively made, but never finally and absolutely closed and concluded as to the whole of the preemption domain, but was cut down and limited to the territory lying be- tween the Preemption line on the east and the Genesee river on the meridian of the junction of the Canaseraga creek with that river on the west, and a transfer thereof had been successively made by the state to Phelps and Gorham and Robert Morris, then Sir William Pulteney and others associated themselves for the pur- pose of purchasing lands in America. For the purpose of better acquainting themselves with the object of their association they desired the acquaintance, aid and advice of some person who had some positive knowledge of affairs in the new world. In Charles Williamson they found their first aid and agent. The reader has already been made acquainted with the career of this able Scotch- man and Revolutionary captain, who had such a broad and inti- mate knowledge of men and events in both the old and the new worlds. The fact has also been stated that on the organization of the association, headed by Sir William Pulteney and others, he was appointed its agent with almost unlimited powers for operations in the United States, and entered zealously into the scheme for the colonization and civilization of the Painted Post country and Gene- see forests.
EXPLANATION OF PHELPS AND GORHAM PURCHASE.
Says the admired Guy H. McMaster, in his "History of Steu- ben County," regarded as holy-writ in this county: "Captain Willianison was a man of talent, hope, energy and versatility, gen- erous and brave of spirit, swift and impetuons in action, of ques- tionable discretion in business, a lover of sport and excitement, and well calculated by his temperament and genius to lead the pro-
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posed enterprise. His spirit was so tempered with imagination that he went up to the wilderness, not with the dry and dogged resolu- tion, like one expecting a labor of a lifetime in subduing the savage soil, but in a kind of chivalrous, dashing style, to head an on- slaught against the pines, and to live a baron of the backwoods in his Cohocton castle, riding over forests and rivers, after the man- ner of the old Norman nobles in England." Having landed in Baltimore in 1791 he at once qualified himself under our naturali- zation laws to take and hold land in his own name.
Phelps and Gorham sought out and succeeded in inducing Robert Morris to purchase of them the tract which they had bought of Massachusetts. To relieve them of this property Mr. Morris, well knowing the desire of Englishmen of wealth to invest in American lands, and foreseeing an opportunity for profitable in- vestment, was induced to purchase the Phelps and Gorham lands then remaining unsold. Negotiations were opened with hin by the Pulteney association, or syndicate, for the purchase of the late- ly acquired lands, now known as the Pulteney Estate.
Shortly after Captain Williamson arrived in Baltimore, at the request of his principals he visited the territory in question, going by way of New York, the Hudson, Albany and the Mohawk river.
The thrifty Dutch emigrants were prospering on their well- cultivated farms in the lower Mohawk valley and in the upper valley of that river. He passed the last of their oldest settle- ments. Thence the road was but a lane opened in the woods, pass- able only on horseback, or on a sledge drawn by a single animal. A few cabins surrounded by rude, scanty elearings were the only indications of civilization which he met till he arrived at a group of huts at the foot of Seneca lake. The long looked-for land of the Senecas was now before the intrepid captain. Few explorers and city builders of remote or modern times have looked upon ter- ritory which offered smaller encouragement to them than did these wild Indian forests to this hopeful and persistent Scotchman. True, a little settlement had been commenced at Canandaigua; the Wadsworth people were at the Big Tree, and the disciples of Je- mima Wilkinson had located their homes at the mouth of the outlet of Lake Keuka and founded this New Jerusalem on its west shores. White traders, trappers and fur dealers were also at the Painted Post, further up the Painted Post country, and about the Kenistio Castle stragglers were located on the great meadow-driving their axes into the great tall trees, and waging war with the panthers, wolves and Indians. In the southern district of this territory, the small and far-between settlements were accessible only from below by the rivers, that were tributary to the Susquehanna. The only settlement of any note was at Tioga Point-"The Indian Arrow"- formed by the junetion of the Susquehanna river with its nortli- west branch, now the Chemung river. Captain Williamson fully explored the whole of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, and on his return to Baltimore made a report of his expedition to the Pulteney syndicate. He described it as a land of surprising rich- ness and fertility, and said that men of Celtic blood and Saxon sinews could possess themselves of a land surpassing all others in return of prosperity, wealth and future greatness; prophesied that it was to be a region of exceeding beauty and unbounded wealth ;
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that the means of communication with the marts of commerce, and through which the vast products of the vast purchase might pass to the seaboard, would be by the navigable and swift streams, be- ginning almost in the center of the Genesee country, which would bear ponderous barges laden with the products of the country, in five days to the head of Chesapeake Bay; and that these streams were destined to be the great highways of the west to the seaboard. The maps and routes submitted with the report further induced the unanimous resolve of Williamson's employers to secure this ter- ritory, and he was directed to purchase and receive, in his own name, from Robert Morris a conveyance of the Pulteney Estate. He immediately thereupon made preparations for the colonization of the estate, being clothed with plenary powers and unlimited au- thority over the baronets, bankers, and all of his associates.
The captain corresponded extensively with men whom he sought to engage in his enterprise. He opened communication with many planters in Virginia and Maryland, proposing a transfer of themselves and their households from the worn-out plantations of their states to' the fresh woods and rich soil of the Painted Post country. He traveled largely through the country and made active exertions, by personal application, publication and advertisements, to induce farmers and emigrants of the more desirable class from Great Britain and the continent to settle upon his American lands.
FIRST PUBLIC HIGHWAY.
The following spring (1792) Captain Williamson determined to open a highroad (King's Highway) from Northumberland, on the Susquehanna, at the mouth of the west branch, to the junction of the Canaseraga creek with the Genesee river, now Mount Mor- ris, but originally Williamsburg. The only road leading to the north from the mouth of the West branch followed the valley of the Susquehanna, which at the last named place begins a long detour to the east. A direct road from its southern to its nortli- ern terminal crosses a ridge of the Alleghenies, locally known as Laurel mountain, an Indian trail often traveled during the Revo- lution by parties from the domain of the Iroquois with many weary, helpless captives, who dragged themselves over this moun- tain. But to open a road through this rugged wilderness which would be passable for wagons, or carts, was looked upon as next to impossible. After a laborious exploration and investigation by the captain, a corp of surveyors and Pennsylvania hunters, a road was located from "Ross Farm" (now Williamsport) to the mouth of Canaseraga creek, on the Genesee river, a distance of one hun- dred and fifty miles. The road was opened the following fall by a party of German emigrants.
The incidents, history and trials involved in the commence- ment and completion of this first public improvement that is so in- timately connected with the early history of Steuben county is worthy of recital here. For that purpose copious extracts and re- lations from Turner and McMaster will be indulged in, even at the risk of plagiarism, although due credit is here given to them.
Mr. Colquhoun, who conducted the business affairs of the Pul- teney Association in Europe, became acquainted in London, with Dr. Berezy, a German of education and of good address, who en-
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gaged to collect a colony of his countrymen and conduct them to the Painted Post country, under the auspices of the associates. Captain Williamson did not favor the scheme, but while he was at Northumberland, in 1792, the colony arrived, and it fell to him to devise some plan for disposing of this raw material to the best advantage; the arrivals comprised two hundred men, women and children. Though stout and healthy enough, they were an ig- norant and inexperienced people, accustomed to dig with a spade in their little home gardens, and were as unfit for forest life and the rough work of the frontier as babies. Captain Williamson with his high and hopeful spirits did not despair, but encouraged the honest folk, and filled their honest heads with fine tales.
It was determined to send them over the mountain to the Tioga river, thence by the valleys of that stream, and of the Cohocton, to Williamsburg on the Genesee. It was necessary to give these emigrants in charge to some reliable and energetic guide, who would see that they did not fall into the river, or break their necks over the rocks, or be crushed by falling trees, or be devoured by bears, or scared to death by owls, buzzards and wolves. Benjamin Patterson, the hunter, who was well acquainted with the German language and in whose judgment and resolution Captain William- son had entire confidence, was employed in this capacity. He was abundantly provided with money and means and seven stout young Pennsylvanians, well skilled in the use of the axe and the rifle, were chosen by him as assistant woodsmen. These, with the Ger- man emigrants, were to open and build the road, while the guide, in addition to his duties as commander of the column, undertook to supply the camp with game.
It was in the month of September when the emigrants ap- peared at the mouth of Lycoming creek, ready for the march to the Northern paradise.
The figure of the guide, girt for the wilderness, with his hunt- ing shirt, belt, knife and tomahawk, appeared to the simple Ger- mans rather an odd one for a shepherd, who was to lead them over Delectable Mountains to. meadows and pleasant brooks. It seemed rather like the figure of some hard-headed Mr. Great Heart, with a view to such bruises as one must expect in a jaunt through the land of Giant-Grim and other unamiable aborigine; and when the seven stalwart young frontiersmen stood forth, girt in like manner for warfare in the wilderness, visions of cannibals and cougars, of bears and alligators, of the bellowing unicorn and the snorting hippopotamus, were vividly paraded before the eyes of the startled pilgrims.
A little way up the creek the Germans commenced work on the new road and took their first lessons in woodcraft. They were not skilled workmen and the stumps of the trees, for years after, looked as if they had been gnawed down by beavers. The heavy frontier axe, called the "nine-pounder," was to them a very tor- ment. They became weary and lame; the discomforts of the woods were beyond endurance and their complaints grew longer and more doleful at the close of each day. In a few days they found them- selves deep in the wilderness. The roaring of torrents, the mur- mur of big trees, the echoes of the glens, the precipices at the feet of which ran the creeks, the forests waving on the mountains
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