USA > New York > A history of the purchase and settlement of western New York : and of the rise, progress and present state of the Presbyterian Church in that section > Part 8
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THAT part of Western New York to which this history relates, and which is situated east and south of the Military Tract, com- prising the counties of Chemung, Tioga, Broome, Chenango, and Madison, has no distinctive name which is common to the whole of it. The Military Tract, so called, is a large territory which has definite limits and known boundaries. The Genesee country is a still larger territory, with boundaries which may be exactly described. Of the remaining part of Western New York, the central part of it was formerly denominated "The Chenango Country ;" or, as it was commonly pronounced, " Shenang." This appellation it received from the Chenango river by which it was watered. The name Chenango, by which this river was called, is of Indian origin, and signifies in their language " pleasant" river. The region of country denominated the " Chenango Country," has no definite limits. It may, however, be described as the valley which is watered by the Chenango river and its tributaries, nearly corresponding with the territory which is now included within the counties of Chenango and Broome. The remainder of this part of Western New York which lies to the north, south, and south- west of the Chenango country, has no distinctive name. This portion of the territory of Western New York, including all which lies east and south of the Military Tract, was by the authority of the State disposed of in comparatively small parcels to different individuals and companies. Mention has already been made of the Massachusetts ten townships, a tract of 230,400 acres ceded to the State of Massachusetts in the settlement of the controversy which had existed between the two States. This was a territory extend- ing from the Chenango river on the east, to Owego creek on the west, and bounded on the south by a line running east and west, and lying a short distance north from the present village of Bing- hampton. In the north-east lay the tract denominated the Govern- or's Purchase, of twenty townships. These townships are supposed to have been six miles square, and the whole Purchase to have included 460,800 acres. Between the Governor's Purchase and the
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WESTERN NEW YORK.
Military Tract, there was a territory about four and a half miles in width, and between thirty and forty miles in length, which, together with Township No. 1 of the Governor's Purchase, comprising about 120,000 acres, was purchased by Col. John Lincklaen, as agent for a company in Holland, of which Peter Stadniski, Esq., of the kingdom of Holland, was President. This purchase was made in 1792, or soon afterwards. It included the present towns of Cazenovia, Nelson, and De Ruyter, in the county of Madison, and Lincklaen, Pitcher, and German, in the county of Chenango. Prior to the settlements in the Chenango valley Col. Hooper was employed, by some indi- viduals wishing to purchase land, to explore the country bordering on the Susquehannah river, from the Great Bend down to Tioga Point. As the result of this survey, the land was purchased on both sides of the river through this whole extent. Thomas' Patent included the Bend, and extended six miles down the river. Bing- ham's Patent commenced where Thomas's terminated, and extended two or three miles west from Binghampton, including a width of two miles nearly equally divided by the river. On the north of this, and bounded by it, was the Massachusetts Ten Townships. On the west of Bingham's Patent and adjoining to it, was Hooper and Wilson's Patent, of similar width, and lying on both sides of the river. This Patent extended west to the line which now divides Broome county from Tioga, and embraced a considerable part of the present towns of Vestal and Union. It was at a subsequent period divided between the two patentees, the line of division running through the centre of the church belonging to the Re- formed Dutch congregation. To this congregation the two pa- tentees, at the division of their property, gave each seventy acres of land. Coxe's Patent lay next on the river, and extended several miles down the river beyond Owego, and including that place. The precise date of these Patents on the river is unknown to the writer ; probably it was after the period in which Col. Hooper explored the country.
All the gentlemen to whom these patents were granted were citizens of Philadelphia. To whom the remaining portion of terri- tory of this part of Western New York was granted is not known to the author of these sheets.
We have stated on a preceding page that the price paid by Samuel Brown and his associates to the State of Massachusetts for the Ten Townships was $3,333, or $1,000 in the currency of the State of Massachusetts. The author of the " Annals of Bing- hampton" says it was $1,500. The Indian title to this territory, it seems, was not extinguished by any of the treaties made by the State of New York with the Indian tribes. But very soon after its purchase of the State of Massachusetts by the company, Elijah Brown, Gen. Oringh Stoddard, Gen. Moses Ashley, Capt. Raymond, and Col. David Pixley, were appointed commissioners to treat with
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TIIE CHENANGO COUNTRY.
the Indians for the purchase of the territory, which was effected at a second meeting with the Indians at the Forks of the Chenango. The nominal price which was paid for the territory is not known ; but one half of it was paid in cash, the other half in goods, consist- ing of rifles, hats, ammunition, blankets, and woollen cloths. The Indians reserved for the period of seven years the right of hunting on the land ; also, one half mile square as a place of habi- tation, near the mouth of Castle Creek. This purchase was proba- bly made in 1787.
The Indian title to a considerable tract lying between the Una- dilla and the Chenango rivers, as has already been stated, was ex- tinguished in the year 1785; and, in 1788, the Oneida tribe sold to the State of New York the remainder of their lands respecting which this history has any concern. The information which the writer has been enabled to glean respecting the early settlement of this part of Western New York is imperfect, and undoubtedly much that would be interesting cannot now be recalled. After the close of the war of the Revolution, and previous to the extinction of the Indian title, it is believed that a few families located them- selves in the valley of the Susquehannah, a name which in the In- dian language signifies long and crooked river. The place called Wattles' Ferry, now Unadilla village, was settled at an early period, and among the first settlers were the family of Wattles. At this place a grist-mill was erected at a very early period. The author of the " Annals of Binghampton," speaking of the hardships endured by the early settlers of Binghampton and its vicinity, observes : "Conveying their grain to mill, which was at first the chief busi- ness that took them from home, was performed through the medium of canoes upon the river. Their nearest place to get grinding done was either at Tioga Point, or rather three miles this side, at Shep- herd's Mills, a distance of forty miles ; or else they must traverse the distance of seventy miles up the Susquehannah to Wattles' Ferry. These jaunts would occupy a week, and sometimes a fort- night." Tioga Point, now the village of Athens, is situated a very little distance to the south of the line which separates New York from Pennsylvania ; but, from its local situation, it seems, in some respects, to be more closely allied to New York than to Pennsyl- vania. The settlement of the place commenced in the year 1780. or about that time. The first settlers were, John Shepherd, Dr. Stephen Hopkins, Col. Satterlee, Elisha Matthewson, David Payne, and Samuel Payne. The settlement of the town of Windsor com- menced in March, 1785. The Indian name of this place was On- onghquaga, or Onaquaga, more recently called Oquago .* It was a part of the original town of Chenango, which at its organization embraced all that part of the present county of Broome which lies
* This name, in the " Life of President Edwards," is spelled Onohquaga.
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WESTERN NEW YORK.
east of the Chenango river. The valley of the Susquehannah at this place was formerly the residence of a considerable tribe of Indians belonging to the Six Nations. An attempt was made, about the middle of the last century, to christianize them, by a society in England. - To this work they were excited by the representations of the venerable President Edwards, then a missionary among the Indians at Stockbridge (Mass.). Mr. Gideon Hawley, in company with Mr. Woodbridge and Mr. and Mrs. Ashley, set out from Stockbridge on the twenty-second of May, 1753, travelling through the wilderness, and arrived at Oquago, the place of their destina- tion, on the fourth of June, to commence missionary labor among the Indians. Mr. Hawley and Mr. Woodbridge had previously been teachers of the Indian school at Stockbridge.
Of Mr. Hawley it is said in the " Life of President Edwards," that he was "a young gentleman of liberal education, and of great prudence, firmness, and integrity." He was educated at Yale Col- lege, and graduated in 1749. He was ordained as a minister of the gospel with reference to missionary employment, July 31st, 1734. Mrs. Ashley appears to have been employed as interpreter during the period of her continuance. Mr. Woodbridge tarried but a short time, and after a season, Mr. and Mrs. Ashley returned to Stockbridge. The Indians expressed much satisfaction at the esta- blishment of a mission among them. Mr. Hawley must have re- turned to the New England States to receive ordination. If so, he speedily returned to his missionary station. It was probably on his return after his ordination that he took with him the son of Presi- dent Edwards, a lad of about nine years of age. He was sent by his father with Mr. Hawley, for the purpose of acquiring in the most perfect manner, the language of the Indians. This lad was afterwards Rev. Jonathan Edwards, D.D., President of Union Col- lege, a man distinguished in his day for profound learning, power- ful intellect, and ardent piety. Young Edwards continued but about a year at Oquago. The war which was denominated the French War, was then raging, and a continuance at Oquago was deemed too hazardous on account of the incursions of the Indians in alliance with the French in Canada. President Edwards, in writ- ing to a friend in Scotland, April 10th, 1756, speaking of the state of this mission, observes, "There is great danger that Mr. Haw- ley's mission and ministry there will be entirely broken up. Mr. Hawley came from there about two months ago, with one of my sons about ten years old, who had been there with him near a twelvemonth, to learn the Mohawk language." It appears from this statement that the period of young Edwards' residence at Oqua- go was the year 1755. Whether Mr. Hawley returned to Oquago after this period is not known to the writer. During the continu- ance of his missionary labors at this place, a measure of success attended them. General Sullivan's expedition into the Indian coun-
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THE CIIENANGO COUNTRY.
try during the war of the Revolution, broke up this settlement of the Indians : nor does it appear that after the war they ever returned permanently to reside.
"It has been already stated that the settlement of Windsor (Oqua- go) by white people, commenced in 1785. In March of that year, Nathan Lane, Esq., John Doolittle, and a Mr. Lamphere lashed two canoes together at Wattles' Ferry, and with their families and goods proceeded down the Susquehannah to Harpur's Flat, then called Scodoret, where they landed for settlement. Soon after these came Abel Doolittle, William Moore, John Springsteen, Jacob Springsteen, Nathaniel Badger, Lemuel Badger, George Harpur, David Hotchkiss, Esq., Elmore Russell, Roswell Higby, John Guernsey, Benjamin Bird, James Knox, Isaac Foot, and Ebenezer Smith. The most of these were from the State of Connecticut. Mrs. Hannah Doolittle, widow of John Doolittle, at the commence- ment of the present year (1846), was still living with one of her sons in Colesville, aged 91 years, and retaining her faculties in a remarkable manner. She is said to have given birth to the first white child born in the region. About the same time with the com- mencement of the settlement of Windsor, commenced the settle- ment of Bainbridge, formerly called Jericho. A correspondent of the village of Ninevah, says, "This immediate vicinity was first settled nearly sixty years ago, by two or three families of the name of Stowell, I think from Connecticut."
The settlement of Owego commenced in 1785. The name of the place is derived from the Owego creek, a name which in the Indian language signifies, swift river. James McMaster was the first settler together with William Taylor, who was a bound boy to McMaster. It is said that these two persons cleared the first season, ten or fifteen acres of land, and raised on it a crop of corn. A year or two previous to this, Mr. McMaster and Amos Draper purchased of the Indians what was denominated a half-township of land, containing 11,500 acres, and including the place where the village of Owego now stands. Their Purchase was bounded on the south by the Susquehannah river, and on the west by Owego creek. Mr. Draper, it seems, did not settle upon this purchase, but located himself where Smithborough now stands. Col. David Pix- ley, who was one of the commissioners of the Massachusetts Com- pany to treat with the Indians, located himself at a very early day about a mile west of Owego. He was from the town of Stock- bridge (Mass.). Mrs. Pixley is said to have been eminently pious, and made her house a home for the early missionaries who occa- sionally labored in the vicinity. She died Feb. 2d, 1808. A me- moir of her is contained in the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine for October, 1808, as given in a sermon preached at her funeral by Rev. Seth Williston.
In the year 1787, Captain Joseph Leonard, who was originally
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from Massachusetts, removed with his wife and two children from Wyoming, in Pennsylvania, in a canoe, up the Susquehannah, and located himself near where the village of Binghamton now stands. This place, at that period and for many years afterwards, was call- ed Chenango Point. Capt. Leonard was the first man who made a permanent settlement in the vicinity. In two or three weeks after the arrival of Capt. Leonard, came Col. William Rose and his brother, from Connecticut, and settled near him, on the Sus- quehannah Flats. In the same year came, also, Joshua Whitney. General William Whitney, and Henry Green, from Columbia county, and settled in the vicinity. The same year and the next, several other families moved in. Among them was John Miller. Esq., originally from New Jersey, but immediately from Wyoming. He was the first magistrate appointed for the settlement ; was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and deemed an eminently pious man. While the settlement was destitute of a stated minis- try, he was in the habit of conducting public worship; and it is said, that he and his daughters practised walking on the Sabbath four miles to the place of worship. One serious difficulty in the formation of these settlements, was the want of roads. The settlers who came from Pennsylvania, uniformly came up the Susquehan- nah in canoes or flat-bottomed boats ; those from Connecticut and other Eastern States came, of course, by land till they reached the Susquehannah river. From Cattskill westward to the Susque- hannah, the whole distance was through a wilderness, or very re- cent settlements, through which the road was very little better than an Indian trail. A few families lived on the road at consider- able distance from each other. . The distance between houses was often a number of miles. The Messrs. Whitney mentioned above, are said to be the first who ever attempted the passage with wag- gons from Harpersfield to Franklin, a distance of thirty-five miles.
The settlement of the present towns of Union and Vestal com- menced the same year, or the next, with the preceding. The town of Union originally embraced a large territory, including in it the present town of Lisle. Major David Barney, who came down the river in a canoe with his family from Cooperstown, was the first, or one of the first settlers in this place. John Harvey and Daniel Harris are mentioned as among the early settlers; but a more prominent character was Gen. Oringh Stoddard, who has been mentioned as one of the Commissioners of the Massachusetts Company, to treat with the Indians. Near the same time came Nehemiah Spalding and Walter Sabins.
At the Great Bend of the Susquehannah, but probably within the border of the State of Pennsylvania, a settlement was commenced in the year 1787, by Major Daniel Buck and his son, Ichabod Buck. Jonathan Newman and Jonathan Dimon were very early settlers here ; also a Mr. Merriman, Ozias Strong, and Jonathan Bennett,
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THE CHENANGO COUNTRY.
afterwards a deacon in the Congregational church. Major Buck was said to have been a gentleman of good natural abilities, of ardent piety, and of ready utterance, having received an education somewhat superior to what was common at the period in which he lived ; and having manifested a strong desire to be intrusted with the ministry of the gospel of Christ, he was ordained to that sa- cred office, and installed pastor of the Congregational church at the Great Bend, by Rev. Joseph Badger, of Massachusetts. The validity of this ordination was by some called in question, as there was but one minister to officiate on the occasion. The church over which he was installed was organized by Rev. Mr. Stephens, of Albany county, in the year 1789. It was the first organized church of that denomination in the region. Mr. Buck deceased in 1814. His ministry, it is believed, was useful to the people of his charge, and to the destitute settlement around him.
Nathaniel Cole was the first settler at Colesville. Judge Harpur and Samuel Badger were early settlers in the place ; but at what time the settlement was made, the writer is not informed. At the place called " The Lower Forks," formed by the junction of the Chenango river and the Tioughnioga creek, as that part of the Onondaga branch is called after its junction with the Otselic, Tho- mas Gallup was the first man who made a settlement. John Barker, from whom the present name of the town is derived, was the next. He purchased the improvement of Mr. Gallup, who soon afterwards left the place. This was about the time of the com- mencement of the settlement at Chenango Point. A man whose name was Lampeer was the first to settle up the Tioughnioga. He located about seven miles up that stream from the Forks. General John Patterson, who had been a brigadier-general in the war of the Revolution, and who was one of the Massachusetts com- pany, located himself at the Upper Forks, or place of junction of the Onondaga and Otselic, the place now known as Whitney's Point. He was probably next in order of time to Mr. Lampeer. General Patterson was a gentleman of liberal education, and of refined man- ners, and much employed in public affairs. Mr. Edward Edwards, a grandson of the venerable President Edwards, and Major David Manning, in 1795, settled somewhat higher up on the Onondaga branch. The settlement of the town of Newark, originally called Brown's Settlement, commenced by emigrants from Stockbridge, Mass., in 1791. The nearest white settlement at that time was at Owego, where a few families resided.
Northward of the present north line of Broome county, the set- tlements were of a somewhat later date. The first person who located himself in the vicinity of the present village of Green, was Conrad Sharpe, of Dutch descent. This was in 1794. He was followed by a number of others of the same origin, and a consider- able neighborhood of Dutch inhabitants was formed. The first
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WESTERN NEW YORK.
white inhabitants who located themselves on the site of the village were emigrants from France and St. Domingo, seeking a refuge from the horrors of the French revolution. The precise period when the settlement commenced is not ascertained. The pioneer of this company was Simon Barnet, a Creole, from the West Indies. M. Dautremont, Charles Felix Boulogne, and Captain Juliand, who soon followed, were men of note among them. In order to form a proper settlement, they purchased of William W. Morris and Ma- lachi Treat, a tract of 30,000 acres of land on the east side of the Chenango river. This settlement, however, was not permanent. M. Dautremont, who was the financier of the company, was drowned on his way to Philadelphia, in the act of fording a river on horseback. The land which they had purchased was not paid for, and reverted back to the original proprietors. The company became discouraged, and its members, with the exception of Cap- tain Juliand, removed to other parts.
Previous to the year 1791, but two white families resided in the western part of the township of Fayette, by which name an exten- sive region including the present town of Oxford was then known. These were of the name of Blackman and Phelps, who located within the bounds of the present village of Oxford. The purchase by General Hovey, of the tract of land denominated " The Gore," and his removal to Oxford in 1791, gave a new and powerful im- pulse to the settlement of the place, and the number of inhabitants rapidly increased. The settlers were mostly from New England, especially from Connecticut. The settlement of the town of Sher- burne commenced in 1793, by a colony originally from the town of Kent, in the State of Connecticut, but immediately from Duanes- burgh, near Albany. Desiring to secure to themselves and their posterity in their new home, the institutions of the gospel, they associated themselves together in the location, purchase, and divi- sion of their lands. Their original purchase was one quarter of the present town of Sherburne, through which flows the beautiful Chenango. Most of these pioneer settlers removed with their families to their new homes in the spring of 1793.
Mention has been made of the purchase of a large territory, comprising 120,000 acres of land, by Col. John Lincklaen for a com- pany in Holland. In the spring of 1793, Col. Lincklaen, with Mr. Samuel S. Forman as his clerk and assistant, three men from New Jersey, and several hired labourers, with teams, proper implements, provisions, and merchandise, set out from Old Fort Schuyler (now Utica) to commence a settlement upon the land which had been purchased the preceding year. On the eighth day of May, they arrived at the south end of Lake Owagehega ( Yellow. Perch), now known as Cazenovia lake. Here they commenced their settlement, to arrive at which they had been constrained to cut a road for their waggons from Chittenango to their place of settlement. This was
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THE CHENANGO COUNTRY.
the first settlement on any part of the territory. The survey of the purchase was immediately commenced, and simultaneously with it the settlement of the lands. To facilitate the settlement, Col. Linck- laen had advertised, that the first ten families that moved on to the purchase, should be entitled to 100 acres of land each, at the price of one dollar per acre, the general price being one dollar and fifty cents. The land was sold on a long credit, only a very small share of the purchase money being paid in hand. The first ten faini- lies, all from the town of Westmoreland, soon moved in, and took their locations. Only four of their names are known to the writer. These are, Benjamin Pierson, Anson Dean, Noah Taylor, and William Gillett. So rapid were the sales of land for a season, that the settlers followed the surveyors, and as soon as two sides of a lot were ascertained, they would take down the number and hasten to the office to have it booked, and sometimes a person had to name several lots before he could get one which had not been engaged a few minutes before him. This whole region at that period consti- tuted a part of the town of Whitestown ; but, in March, 1795, the town of Cazenovia was detached from it, comprising, at its orga- nization, the present towns of Lenox, Sullivan, Cazenovia, De Ruy- ter, Georgetown, Nelson, Fenner, Smithfield, and part of Stock- bridge, in the county of Madison, and German, Lincklaen, Pitcher, and Otselic, in the county of Chenango. The first town meeting was held in April of that year, at the house of Col. Linck- laen, who was elected supervisor of the town.
Simultaneously with the settlement of Cazenovia, two men, Je- didiah Jackson and Joseph Yaw, who were sent by a company in Vermont to explore the country with a view to settlement, pro- ceeded to No. 1 (now the town of Nelson) and, on their return to Vermont, made such a representation of the country, as to encou- rage the company to emigrate, and the next year a large number of families from Vermont moved on to the township. This town- ship was settled mostly by emigrants from Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. The remainder of the tract purchased by Col. Lincklaen, was settled by a more mixed population, but nearly all the settlers were from the New England States. As a specimen of their intelligence, Mr. Forman states, that during the first four years which he continued in the office of clerk, he believes that but one man, among the multitude, who took up land at the office, was unable to write his name.
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