USA > New York > Chautauqua County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York : with a historical sketch of the county > Part 91
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Later in the same year that Judge Cushing became a settler of the county, there came to what is now Pomfret, Eliphalet and Augustus Burnham, Samuel Davis, Samuel Perry, Sam- ucl Green, Benjamin Barrett and Benjamin Barnes, and settled along the Canadaway.
The town of Dunkirk was first settled this year by Seth Cole, of Oneida county, at the mouth of the Canadaway creek. Cole came with his family, accompanying Judge Cushing from the East.
The town of Portland was also first settled in 1805 by Captain James Dean, from near Meadville, Pa. He built his shanty near the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern railroad, ncar the village of Centerville.
This year, for the first time, settlement was made in the region lying south of the ridge.
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SKETCH OF THE EARLY HISTORY
Until the year 1805 that part of the county lying south of the ridge had remained an un- broken wilderness. No white man had taken up his residence there, and it was little ex- plored, except by the surveyors who had run the township lines. The nearest approach of settlement to this region was that made by a few scattered families at Warren, in the State of Pennsylvania, and that made by Dr. McIn- tyre at the head of the lake. A rude woods- road had been cut about the year 1804 from the Pennsylvania line to the shore of Chautau- qua Lake, near the mouth of Goose Creek in Harmony, which was called the Miles road. The pine and other valuable timber that covered a large portion of the lands in the southern part of the county, was brought to the notice of the more hardy pioneers and enterprising men of the more settled regions of the east, by the surveyors and explorers that traversed it. The Allegheny and Conewango, and their tributaries, afforded the facilities of transporting the lumber to Pittsburgh and still more southern markets, and invited a settlement of this region.
Dr. Thomas R. Kennedy, of Meadville, Pa., who had married a niece of Joseph Ellicott, with a view to engaging in the business of manu- facturing and transporting lumber for sale, pur- chased of the Holland Land Company 5000 acres of unsurveyed lands, which included what is now the village of Kennedy, in the town of Poland, commenced the erection of a saw-mill, the material for the erection of which, and pro- visions for the hands, were brought in boats up the Allegheny and Conewango rivers. The mill was raised in October, 1805, by men from Warren, Pennsylvania. This was the first be- ginning of a settlement south of the Ridge, and the first commencement of the lumber business that was so extensively carried on for three- quarters of a century in this county.
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1806 .- The year 1806 witnessed the settle- ment of the county at many new points south
of the Ridge. William Wilson that year built a log-house upon the outlet of Chautauqua Lake, and James Culbertson settled the same year, it is said, at the confluence of the outlet of Chau- tauqua Lake with the Cassadaga Creek. These were the first settlements made in the town of Ellicott.
This year William Prendergast settled on the west side of Chautauqua Lake, in the town of Chautauqua. Of his thirteen sons and daugh- ters nearly all of them became residents of the county. The sons who came, without exception were prominent and influential citizens, holding during many years important official positions. Considering the wealth, number and respecta- bility of this family, and of its descendants, it was perhaps the most important and influential in the county during the early years of its his- tory. The circumstances attending the coming of the Prendergasts to the county are quite in- teresting. He emigrated from Van Rensselaer county in the spring of 1805, with the intention of locating in the State of Tennessee. Mr. Prendergast and his four sons and five daugh- ters, his sons-in-law and grandchildren and slave Tom, in all twenty-nine persons, in four canvas-covered wagons, some drawn by four horses, set out on their journey, and traveled in this way through Pennsylvania as far as Wheel- ing, when they embarked on a flat-boat and de- scended the river to Louisville; they traveled thence to a point near Nashville, the place of their intended location, but were dissatisfied with the country and the people, and at once turned back and traveled in their wagons through Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania, to Erie, where they arrived in the fall of 1805. Here they resolved to settle around Chautauqua Lake, which some of their number had visited a few years before. The father and the most of the party passed the winter in Canada, but re- turned during the year 1806 and settled near Chautauqua, on the west side of the lake, not far from the Chautauqua Assembly Grounds.
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Several of the family took separate tracts of land near each other, which in the aggregate amounted to over 3000 acres.
William Bemus, who was born at Bemus Heights, Saratoga county, New York ; a son- iu-law of William Prendergast, was one of his companions in the journey of the family to Tennessee. He this year, (1806) settled in the town of Ellery, on the east side of Chautauqua Lake at Bemus Point. He, and Jeremiah Griffith, who located further down the lake, were the first settlers of the town of Ellery.
This year, Thomas Bemus, the son of Wil- liam Bemus above mentioned, became the first settler of the town of Harmony. He settled at the Narrows, on lot 54, opposite his father's possessions at Bemus Point. He built a cabin and commenced clearing. Jonathan Cheney settled iu the northeast part of the town, the next year. The town of Harmony, which is the largest in the county, was before this event a dense wilderness, scarcely visited by white men. Aside from the settlers above mentioned, no others came in, until several years later.
North of the Ridge, during the year 1806, settlement proceeded rapidly. That year Cap- tain John Mack came to Cattaraugus village, and purchased the Sidney claim, including the This year a general election was for the first time held in the county, at which sixty-nine votes were polled for governor, of which Daniel D. Tompkins received forty-one and Morgan Lewis received twenty-eight votes. primitive tavern, and ferry, of the widow Sidney ; the husband having died a short time before. Mack was an enterprisiug man, with some pecuniary means. He constructed a larger, and safer conveyance for the transporta- John McMahan this year represented the town of Chautauqua at Batavia, on the Board of Supervisors of the county of Genesee. tion of teams across the Cattaraugus creek, and provided better conveniences for the accommo- dation of travelers. He kept the property for 1808 .- In 1808 the Legislature divided the many years, and was well-known to the early county of Genesee into the counties of Gencsec, settlers. A large portion of the pioneers of the county had been conducted iuto it over his to the county of Chautauqua its preseut bound- ferry, aud had been first entertained within its limits, at his house. He may be said to have been for many years the gate keeper of the couuty.
in the population of the county. A post route was established between Buffalo Creek and Presque Isle, and a post-office at the Cross Roads, with James McMahan as postmaster, aud another near the present town of Sheridan, with Orsamus Holmes as postmaster. In 1806, for the first time, mails were carried over the route once in two weeks, by John Metcalf, on foot-at first, it is said, in a pocket handker- chief, and afterwards in a hand-bag. John Mc- Mahan this year represented the town of Chau- tauqua, which then comprised the whole county, as its supervisor at the meeting of the Board of Supervisors for Genesee county, at Batavia.
1807 .-- In 1807 a settlement was made in the northeast part of the town of Arkwright, by Abiram Orton, afterwards for several years associate justice of the county, and also by Ben- jamin Perry aud Augustus Burnham.
Settlement was also made of the town of Kiantone, by Joseph Akin, on the Stillwater Creek.
This year Elijah Risley, Sr., settled at Can- adaway. He was a soldier of the Revolutiou. He has many descendants residing in the county ; among them have been many of the most hon- orable and influential of its citizens.
Niagara, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua, giving aries. It was, however, provided by this act that Chautauqua should remain a part of Niag- ara for judicial and municipal purposes uutil it should contain five hundred taxable inhabitauts,
The close of 1806 witnessed a large increase qualified to vote for meiubers of Assembly, to
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SKETCH OF THIE EARLY HISTORY
be determined by the Board of Supervisors of Niagara, from the assessment roll for Chautau- qua. The Legislature at the same time created the new town of Pomfret, which comprised the present towns of Hanover, Villanova, Cherry Creek, Ellington, Poland, Carroll, Kiantone, Gerry, Charlotte, Arkwright, Sheridan, Pomfret, Dunkirk and a part of Busti, and also the cities of Dunkirk and Jamestown. The remaining towns of the county constituted the town of Chautauqua. A town-meeting was held this year, at the house of Elisha Mann, which was opened by prayer by the Rev. John Spencer, the early missionary. Philo Orton was elected supervisor of the new town of Pomfret ; John S. Bellows, town clerk ; Richard Williams, Justin Hinman and John E. Howard, assessors ; Samuel Berry, Abiram Orton and John Mack, commissioners of highways; Zattu Cushing and Orsamus Holmes, overseers of the poor, and George W. Pierce, constable and collector.
Two supervisors from Chantauqua this year met with the board of supervisors of Niagara county, at the village of Buffalo.
Philo Orton, the first supervisor of the town of Pomfret, was born in the town of Tyringham, Massachusetts, September 9, 1778. He settled at Canadaway in 1806. He was a practical surveyor. He was supervisor of Pomfret eleven years, served as county judge many years, and was once chosen presidential elector.
Arthur Bell, the supervisor of the town of Chautauqua, was born at Paxton, Dauphin county, Pa. He served three years in the war of the Revolution.
In 1808 a store was opened at Canadaway by Elijah Risley, Jr., and another at Cattaraugus village.
1809 .- In 1809 Joel Tyler settled in Carroll, and probably Isaac Walton and Charles Boyles also. This year, or the following, George W. Fenton became a resident of the town. His son, Reuben E. Fenton, was twice elected gov- ernor of the State of New York, and afterwards
chosen United States senator from that State. Governor Fenton was born in the town of Car- roll, July 4, 1819.
Charlotte was settled in the spring of 1809 by John and Daniel Pickett, and Arva O. Aus- tin, in the northwestern part, and a little later in the year by Robert W. Seaven, at Charlotte Center. Major Samuel Sinclair, cousin of Jona- than Cilley, a member of Congress from Maine, killed in a celebrated duel at Bladensburg by Graves, and nephew of Gen. Joseph Cilley, of revolutionary fame, in 1809 erected the body of a log house at Sinclairville, and the next year founded that village. From him it derives its name. Madison Burnell, a distinguished lawyer of western New York, was born in this town.
Stockton was probably settled in 1809, but we have not the record sufficiently accurate to certainly designate the names of its settlers of that year.
In 1809 Thomas Prendergast, a son of Wil- liam Prendergast, represented the town of Chautauqua, and Philo Orton represented the town of Pomfret on the Niagara board of super- visors.
1810 .- The town of Busti was settled by John L. Frank, on lot 61, and Uriah Bently in the north part of the town. Many others came the succeeding year. George Stoneman, a dis- tinguished general in the war of the Rebellion, and afterwards governor of California, was born in this town.
This year the town of Gerry was settled by . Stephen Jones and Amos Atkins. They settled in the northern part of the town, near Sinclair- ville. William Alverson, Hezekiah Myers, Hezekiah Catlin and Porter Phelps, in 1815, made the first settlement near the village of Gerry. Major General John M. Scofield, the commanding officer of the armies of the United States, was born in this town, near the village of Sinclairville.
Villanova was settled in 1810, by David Whipple, John Kent and Eli Arnold.
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
These two cities, Dunkirk and Jamestown, moter of the interests of Dunkirk in its early were also settled during this year.
THE CITY OF DUNKIRK .- The town of Dun- kirk was settled at the mouth of the Canada way creek, by Sethi Cole, in 1805, and Timothy Goulding came a few years later and settled about a mile west of Dunkirk Harbor. But few settlers came to this town for the first twenty years, and no one settled upon the present site of the city of Dunkirk until about four or five years after Cole came there.
The first settlement made in the city of Dun- kirk, it is believed, was in the year 1810, by Solomon Chadwick. He came to Dunkirk Harbor with his family, from Madison county, New York, in February of that year. He was born in Weston, Massachusetts, about the year 1778, and died at Perrysburgh, Cattaraugus county, New York, aged about eighty-seven years. Luther Goulding, Daniel Pier and Wil- liam Gaylord came soon after Chadwick. In 1810 the first vessel was brought into the harbor population and material prosperity. Yet in by Samuel Perry. No town, however, grew up until many years later. It was known as Chad- wiek bay.
In 1816 and 1817 a company composed of Isaiah and John Townsend, De Witt Clinton and William Thorn, bought a large tract of land now included in the present site of the city, and in 1818, at an expense of about $20,- 000, built a wharf and ware-house at the foot of Center street, and erected a hotel and other buildings. It was now given the name Dun- kirk, at the suggestion of Elisha Jenkins, who was interested in this company, and who had previously been the Secretary of State of the State of New York. It was so called from a harbor of that name on the coast of France, which it was supposed to resemble, where Wil- liam Jenkins had onee resided.
In 1825 this company sold out one half of its interest to Walter Smith, one of the most en- terprising and energetie citizens that has ever lived in the county, and the most efficient pro- that men of all pursuits, farmers, mechanics,
years. The village of Dunkirk then had only about fifty inhabitants. In 1827, the first ex- penditure of publie money was made by way of facilitating navigation and improvement of the harbor. The sum of $4,000 was appropri- ated by Congress for the construction of a light- house, and $3,000 the next year for the construction of a breakwater. Dunkirk now rapidly increased in population, and is supposed to have had one thousand inhabitants in 1830.
In 1833, Mr. Smith sold out his half interest to men in the city of New York, and bought the other half interest of the company. This year, the New York and Erie Railroad company was organized. In 1834 it was sur- veyed and Dunkirk was fixed as the termina- tion of the road upon Lake Erie. Many years of doubt and despondeney passed before the road was completed. In the meantime, Dun- kirk made slow progress in the increase of its
1827, it was incorporated as a village, and the same year the Dunkirk academy was incorpo- rated. Calamities befell Dunkirk, whiel even grew out of the bright prospects that seemed to lie before it. The effect of the land speculations, rife throughout the country, upon Dunkirk, is thus described in the often quoted comments of Judge E. F. Warren, in his Historical Sketches of Chautauqua county :-
"The speculations in real estate, which were at their height during this period, and which have resulted in such incalculable injury to the interests of the whole people, affected the village of Dunkirk more seriously than any other point in the county. The termination of the New York and Erie railroad at this place, pointed it out to those most deeply affected with the con- tagion, as a spot on which operations of the kind might be carried on, for a while at least, with success. The rage for corner lots and eligible sites, was rife, and ran to so high a pitch,
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SKETCH OF THIE EARLY HISTORY
merchants, lawyers, and even ministers of the gospel, embarked upon the wild sea, withont rudder or ballast, with nothing to propel them but a whirlwind, that soon scattered them in broken fragments upon a lee shore.
"The general result has been a stagnation of trade, depreciation in the prices of all kinds of property, the ruin and entire prostration of many families who had been in prosperous cir- cumstances, and on the high road to competence and even independence, and the hopeless bank- ruptcy of thousands of others. Though affected to a greater degree, this village was not alone in its madness. Most of the other villages were more or less influenced by the mania that swept over the land, and suffered in proportion to the extent of their operations."
About fourteen miles of the New York and Erie Railroad had been graded eastward from Dunkirk, and about eight miles of rails had been laid, when the work was abandoned. Years of depression followed, in which Dun- kirk neither increased in wealth, nor in popu- lation. Even many of its buildings weot par- tially into decay. Work was at last resumed, and the great undertaking finally consummated by the opening of the road to Dunkirk, May 14, 1851. This, at the time, was the greatest railroad enterprise that had ever been under- taken. 4453 miles of railroad had been built, then the longest in the world.
J. Crittenden, Attorney-general ; Washington Hunt, Governor of the State of New York ; Ex-Gov. Wm. L. Marcy, Senators W. H. Sew- ard and Hamilton Fish, also Stephen A. Doug- las, Daniel S. Dickenson, Christopher Morgan, Lieut .- Gov. G. W. Patterson, and many other eminent citizens of the country.
The future prosperity of Dunkirk was now assured. Since then it has suffered many ser- ious mishaps. For a period of time it trans- acted much lake business, but the withdrawal of the Erie line of steamers many years ago, and the discontinuance of the freight transfer business of the road, diminislied its importance as a lake port, and the many fires that occurred, in former years, materially injured its pros- pects. It has, however, survived this series of disasters, and has steadily, although at times slowly, increased in wealth and population. The completion of the Buffalo and State Line railroad in 1852, the Dunkirk, Warren and Pittsburgh road in 1871, and the later lines of roads through the city, has made it the princi- pal railroad town of the county. It also sup- ports many thriving and important manufac- turing establishments. Its vitality is evidenced by the energy with which, in the past, it has overcome the many misfortunes that have be- fallen it.
It is the first city to be incorporated in the county. It now has water works, electric lights, and is soon to be connected with the neighboring village of Fredonia by electric cars. Its population by the census of 1890 was 9416.
The completion of the railroad was a subject of general rejoicing by all the people of the county, as well as by the citizens of Dunkirk. Its completion was celebrated at Dunkirk by 15,000 people, a great number to assemble in THE CITY OF JAMESTOWN .- The city of Jamestown is three miles square, and contains nine square miles of territory. It is situated on both sides of the outlet to Chautauqua Lake. It is built upon drift-hills and in the vallies that, then sparsely settled region. It was an event of national importance, and many of the most distinguished men of the country, honored the occasion with their presence, among whom were Millard Fillmore, then President of the between them. The drift-hills are composed United States ; Daniel Webster, Secretary of of masses of debris, piled up by glaciers, which State; William A. Graham, Secretary of Navy ; once moved from the north in a southerly Nathan K. Hall, Postmaster-General ; John direction pushing beneath them the earthy
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OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
matter, loosened and gathered mainly from the hills to the northward. As the glacier moved southward it filled up the channel of the old outlet to Chautauqua Lake, extending on a line north of the cemetery and nearly along the course of Moon's creek towards Falconers. As the glacier moved on southward of this old channel, it bore with it the mass of sand, gravel and stones that compose the hills that form the site of the town, and gradually crowded the outlet southward until at the close of the ice period its course was where we find it now. Its channel bent somewhat in the form of a loop, indicates that it has been taken out of its original course by the glacier. The outlet running in this new channel through long epochs of time, has steadily worn a passage through the drift down to the natural rock beneath it, lowering the waters of the lake as it deepened, until now, it occupies its compara- tively narrow limits.
If James Prendergast, the founder of James- town, had been seeking a fine prospect for a residence or a pleasing situation for a city solely, he certainly would not have chosen this site when lie first visited it. An irregular group of rough unsymmetrical hills, covered with som- bre and ragged pines, a dark and gloomy mo_ rass extending between it and the lake, where the voice of the frog, and the owl, and of the prowling wolf were nightly to be heard, were neither inviting to the eye or pleasing to the ear. These apparent defects have become in fact, however, circumstances of real utility. The irregularity of surface offers facilities for drain- age and contributes to the health of the city, and renders the situation airy and cool in summer time without increasing its winter exposure. In process of time the improving hand of man will turn these heights and depressions into account, and secure artistic effects. The ragged ridges will become sightly prospects. The seeming deformities, objects of beauty, and Jamestown will become an unique and pictur-
esque town far more beautiful and interesting than a city on a plain.
It is possible that La Salle visited the site of Jamestown in 1681 or 1682. His ancient biographer, describes him as going westward from Onondaga in the Spring of one or the other of those years, and finding about fifteen days afterwards "a little lake six or seven miles (liens) south of Lake Erie, the month of which opened to the southeastward."
De Celoron and his companions, we learn from his journal, on the 24th of July, 1749, entered the outlet from the lake; the water be- ing low, in order to lighten his canoes, he was obliged to send the greater part of their loading three-fourths of a French league by land, so that the distance accomplished that day by water, did not exceed a half a French league. He encamped for the night, undoubtedly with- in the northwestern limits of the site of the city. On the morning of the next day, a coun- cil was held to decide what should be done, in view of the evident signs of Indians in the vi- cinity. Lieut. Joucaire was sent with some friendly Indians, bearing belts of wampum to conciliate the enemy and De Celoron resumed his difficult voyage over the rapids of the out- let.
Other evidences exist of the presence of civi- lized men in the region around Jamestown, be- fore the advent of the pioneers of the Holland purchase. In 1822, William Bemus, in at- tempting to deepen the channel of the outlet, discovered a row of piles, averaging four inches in diameter and from two and one-half to three and one-half feet in length, driven firmly in the earth across the bed of the stream. Ax marks were plainly visible on each of the four sides of these piles, the wood of which was sound. The tops of these piles were worn smooth and did not appear, when discovered, to rcachi above the bed of the stream.
James Prendergast was the first person to oc- cupy the present site of Jamestown, after the
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SKETCH OF THE EARLY IIISTORY
county was open to settlement. He was the son of William Prendergast, of whom we have before given some account, and who settled on the west side of Chautauqua lake, in the town of Chautauqua. Late in the summer of 1806, while exploring the forest in search of some horses that had strayed from his father's prem- ises, he visited the site of Jamestown. He re- mained there one or two days examining the locality, encamping at night within the present limits of the city. He was much pleased with the situation, and the advantages offered by the rapid outlet for the feeding of mills, and he re- solved to purchase the land there and found a settlement. It was not until several years later that he was able to consummate his pur- pose. He caused, however, a thousand acres of land to be purchased, for which was paid at the time $2000 in cash. The purchase included land on each side of the outlet ; the steamboat landing at Jamestown being near the center of the tract.
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