USA > New York > Seneca County > Fayette > Centennial historical sketch of the town of Fayette, Seneca County, New York > Part 11
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engage in custom grinding in 1794, and for a number of years ground the wheat, and made flour for a large section of surround- ing country.
It is said, that Mr. Bear was assisted in digging the mill race, for his mill, by Indians, with whom he was on friendly terms.
Mr. Bear also engaged in mercantile pursuits, and his mill and store became for a time a center for business.
At the annual town meeting of the Town of Romulus in April, 1797, Mr. Bear was elected an assessor of that town. The first town meeting in Fayette, was directed to be held at his place of business, in the year 1800, and he served as a member of the town election board in that year.
Mr. Bear gave some attention to military affairs, and was on April 5, 1805, commissioned major of a regiment of military, commanded by Col. Wilhelmus Mynderse.
About 1806, Maj. Bear laid out a village upon his South Waterloo farm, which was surveyed, plotted and mapped by David Cook, a prominent civil engineer and surveyor of Geneva, N. Y., and he made generous provision therein for a public vil- lage square. This village has been called Skoiyase, Jefferson, Beartown and South Waterloo.
In the midst of his active career Maj. Bear died, after a brief illness, Sept. 25, 1807, at the early age of 37 years, and was one of the first persons interred in the South Waterloo Cemetery.
His wife survived him many years, with three children, two sons and one daughter. One of his sons, Samuel, born in Fay- ette in 1807, died in Junius, in March, 1885. One of his grand- daughters, Mrs. Louisa Hubbard of South Waterloo, is still liv- ing, upon the village site located by her grandfather, and some of the descendants of Samuel Bear, Jr., are yet living in Junius.
JOHN CHAMBERLAIN, son of Colonel John Chamberlain, was born at Dudley, Worcester County, State of Massachusetts, July 16, 1784. He removed to Seneca County in or about 1806, and located upon a farm in the Town of Fayette, near the village of Skoiyase. In the War of 1812, he volunteered for the defense of the western frontier of this State from British invasion.
He was frequently selected to serve his town as justice of the
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peace, and in other public positions. During the administration of Governor DeWitt Clinton, Mr. Chamberlain was appointed one of the associate judges of the court of common pleas for Seneca County, in which capacity he served a number of years. He was the brother of Hon. Jacob P. Chamberlain, who served Seneca County in the State Legislature and in the Congress of the United States.
Judge Chamberlain became the owner of a considerable tract of land, which he lived to see improved and become valuable.
He died July 26, 1831. Several children survived him.
One of his sons, Edgar W. Chamberlain, born in Fayette and brought up upon his father's farm, received a thorough academic education, studied law, was admitted to practice at the bar in 1857, and located at Belmont, Allegany County, N. Y., where he now resides. He has been prominent in the public affairs of his town and county, and has frequently been appointed to serve in positions of trust and responsibility under the State and United States governments.
Mary A. Chamberlain, a daughter of Judge John Chamber- lain, married in 1855 Hon. Hamilton Ward, a justice of the supreme court of this State, residing at Belmont, in the eighth judicial district. Judge Ward died at his home, Dec. 28, 1898, in the seventieth year of his age. Mrs. Ward is the owner of several farms in the Town of Fayette, including the old hoine- stead.
HENRY MOSES was born in Chester County, State of Pennsyl- vania, Aug. 16, 1784. In his youth he learned the blacksmith's trade. In 1808 he removed to a location near the west end of Cayuga bridge, in the present town of Seneca Falls, then Junius. Here he worked for a time at his trade, and soon purchased a large and productive farm on the shore of Cayuga Lake. In the course of a few years he also opened business as an inn-keeper on the turnpike road at Bridgeport, which pursuit he followed for about twenty years.
Taking a decided interest in public affairs, he was in 1826 elected supervisor of Junius, which then included all of Seneca County lying north of Fayette, and was re-elected in 1827 and
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1828. In 1829 Junius was divided and the present four north towns of the county were erected therefrom. In November, 1831, he was elected sheriff of Seneca County, and served a full term of three years.
In December, 1810, Mr. Moses married Catharine, daughter of Ludwig Stofflet, Esq., a pioneer settler and large landowner and magistrate in Fayette. She died in 1857, and several years after her death Mr. Moses removed to the residence of his son Peter in the Town of Fayette, where he died Dec. 15, 1880.
One of his sons, Franklin Moses, still living upon a part of his father's old farm in Seneca Falls, was elected and served as supervisor of that town in 1885.
Benjamin Moses, a brother of Henry, located upon a farm in Fayette prior to 1808, where he died in 1845, aged 64 years.
REV. DIEDRICH WILLERS, of whose long pastorate at the Reformed Church in Bearytown (and for many years also at Jerusalem Church ), in Fayette, reference has been made else- where-when he removed to Seneca County in April, 1821, first settled in Fayette, where he continued to reside until his mar- riage in 1823. It is therefore appropriate that a brief sketch compiled by another, be inserted here:
" The Rev. Diedrich Willers, D.D., died at his residence, in the Town of Varick, Seneca County, N. Y., on Sunday, May 13th, 1883, in the 86th year of his age.
" He was born at Walle, near Bremen, Germany, February 6, 1798. He entered the army of Hanover, September, 1814, and served in the German division of the allied army for nearly five years ; was an active participant in the memorable battle of Waterloo, Belgium, June 16, 17, and 18, 1815, with the allied army, under the Duke of Wellington.
"In this battle, the company of which he was a member, con- sisting of 120 men, was reduced to 12 privates and two non- commissioned officers, and the battalion of 400 men, to less than 80 survivors.
"He continued with the allied forces, as army of occupation in France, for three years, after the downfall of Bonaparte, when
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he was honorably discharged and awarded a silver medal in recognition of his military services.
"He arrived in the United States in November, 1819, and engaged in school teaching, while preparing for the ministry, and so thorough was his application, that he was ordained to the ministry in 1821.
" He was settled in that year as pastor of the German Reformed Church, at the hamlet of Bearytown, in central Seneca County, and ministered to that people for a consecutive period of sixty years and eight months, and until January Ist, 1882, when his resignation took effect, rendered necessary by growing infirm- ities.
" While ministering to his own people, he served also, at differ- ent periods, at six other preaching points in the county, and at seven or eight other points in Tompkins, Cayuga, Wayne, Liv- ingston and Niagara Counties, performing a large proportion of the travel, incident to so extended a field of labor, on horseback, especially during the first half of his ministry.
"During this ministry he preached about 5, 800 regular Sunday discourses, almost equally divided between the German and English languages, besides many funeral and special discourses, and performed a large amount of ministerial labor, in the solem- nization of marriages, and in the administration of the rites of baptism and confirmation.
"In 1870, he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Franklin-Marshall College, at Lancaster, Pa."-GEORGE S. CONOVER .*
A son, a resident of Varick, bearing his father's name, and two daughters, Mrs. Caroline L. Reed and Mrs. Margaret A. Bachman, both residing in Fayette, still survive him.
" Born far away beyond the ocean's roar, He found his fatherland upon this shore,
And every drop of ardent blood that ran
Through his great heart was true American."
* In General John Sullivan's Indian Expedition, State publication of 1887.
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HUGH MCALLISTER was born in Sherman's Valley, Cumber- land County, Pennsylvania, in the year 1765. His ancestry came to this country from Scotland in 1732. In his early man- hood Mr. McAllister lived for a time at Philadelphia, Pa., then the seat of government of the United States, where he often saw President George Washington.
He married while living in Philadelphia, and in 1804 removed from there with his family to the Town of Fayette, and soon after arriving purchased a large farm on the Reservation road about half way between Bearytown and Seneca Falls, upon which in after years he erected a substantial stone mansion, in which he lived until his death.
As early as 1809 his name appears upon the public records as justice of the peace, then filled by appointment from the Governor. His name often appears also upon the highway rec- ords of the town as surveyor of roads and he frequently surveyed farms and established farm lines.
In or about the year 1819, he established and superintended a Sunday school in the Burgh school house, which was undoubt- edly the first Sunday school organized in Fayette. Mr. Ben- jamin F. Woodruff, of Rockwood, Mich., son of Hon. Benjamin Woodruff, attended this Sunday school, and in a communication published in the Seneca County Courier, Aug. 7, 1879, he states that he received certificates of "Reward of Merit," such as Deacon Hugh McAllister distributed to scholars in his Sunday school, copies of which were deposited with the Waterloo Library and Historical Society.
Mr. McAllister died Jan. 12, 1850. His wife survived him with three sons and five daughters-all since deceased. John McAllister, one of his sons, who died Aug. 25, 1853, was a prominent lawyer, residing at Waterloo. A grandson, Mr. Orrin V. Lytle, a resident of Waterloo, still survives.
GEORGE S. CONOVER was born in the city of Brooklyn, N.Y., Nov. 7, 1824. He received a substantial education, and early in life engaged in mercantile pursuits in his native city.
He removed with his family, in 1850, to a farm situate on the east shore of Seneca Lake in the Town of Varick, where
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he engaged in farming and horticultural pursuits, and served also several years as secretary of the Seneca County Agri- cultural Society. He was elected supervisor of Varick in 1856, and served as chairman of the board of supervisors in the same year.
In 1869 he removed to Geneva, Ontario County, where for a time he devoted attention to horticulture and floriculture and was elected to serve respectively as village trustee, president of the village, and police magistrate.
The last twenty-five years of his life was largely devoted to historical research. He became an eminent authority upon Indian affairs as well as in local history. He was the author of a number of valuable historical publications as well as a frequent contributor to public newspapers, and was chosen an honorary member of a number of historical and literary societies. In his researches he was persevering and untiring, and the author received much information from him in the early stages of prep- aration of this Historical Sketch.
Mr. Conover's first wife died in Varick in June, 1852, and in May, 1854, he married Miss Catharine Elizabeth Gambee of Seneca County.
He died in Geneva, July 5, 1898. His wife, a son by his first marriage and a daughter by his second marriage, now survive him.
Samuel S. Conover, another son, who served a three years' term as superintendent and keeper of the county poor house in Fayette, died also in 1898.
STEPHEN V. HARKNESS, son of Dr. David Harkness, one of the early physicians of the Town of Fayette, was born Nov. 18, 1818, at West Fayette, in that town. His mother, Martha Cook Harkness, was the daughter of Capt. Nathan Cook of that place, a patriot soldier of the Revolutionary War.
He was educated in the district schools of the town, and at the early age of fifteen years, was apprenticed to a harness maker at Waterloo, and completed the usual term of apprenticeship. Upon arriving at his majority he removed to Huron County in the State of Ohio, where he carried on his trade for several years.
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Afterwards he engaged in other business pursuits, and in 1860 opened a private banking office at Monroeville in that State. Removing in 1866, to Cleveland, Ohio, he soon became a partner in the business of refining petroleum, with the firm of which John D. Rockefeller was at the head, and which developed into the great business enterprise, known as the "Standard Oil Com- pany," of which Mr. Harkness became a director. He was also chosen a director in various other extensive lines of business, including a mining company, a railway company, and a national bank. A lover of outdoor pursuits, he owned a fine farm near Cleveland, where he spent a part of each summer, during the several years of his retirement from active business.
Mr. Harkness was a man of great energy and force of charac- ter, emphatically a " self-made man " who arose from an humble beginning, to a position of great prominence in the business world.
He died while absent for the winter in the South, March 6, 1888. Several children survive him.
Dr. David Harkness, father of Stephen V., came to Fayette from Salem, N. Y., soon after the close of the War of 1812. In the year 1818, he was elected inspector of common schools of Fayette. He removed to Milan, Ohio, soon after the death of his wife in July, 1820, at which place he died a few years later.
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PROMINENT FARMERS.
Among the prominent men who settled in Fayette to engage in agricultural pursuits, were several who had been born and reared in cities and who, in their new home, became public spirited farmers and citizens.
JOHN DELAFIELD was born Jan. 22, 1786, in Ravenswood, a part of Long Island City (since Jan. 1, 1898, a part of the "Greater New York " City).
He graduated from Columbia College in 1805, and was at once employed in a large wholesale dry goods store.
In 1808, he was sent by this mercantile firm as super-cargo in a brig bound for the West Indies and other ports.
The captain died at Havana in Cuba, of yellow fever, and the mate also, two days after sailing from that city, when Mr. Dela- field took charge of the brig as master.
A mutiny broke out among the crew several days afterward. It was the design of the mutineers to kill young Delafield, but they were foiled in the attempt and securing their submission, with the aid of a well disposed seaman, he brought the brig safely to Corunna, Portugal.
While here, he witnessed in January, 1809, the "burial of Sir John Moore," a description of which by the Irish Poet, Rev. Chas. Wolfe, is well remembered by school boys of sixty years ago.
After some delay, war then existing between France and England, Mr. Delafield again set sail with the brig under his command, and encountering a violent storm on the coast of France, reached Bristol, England, with the brig in a battered and unseaworthy condition.
At this time, a troublous state of affairs existed between the United States and England, which soon afterward culminated in the War of 1812.
Mr. Delafield was here thrown into prison for some alleged violation of the revenue laws and although soon released he was detained within bounds of thirty miles around Bristol, a stran- ger and without money.
He employed his time, however, in working for a cabinet
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maker, and in a drug store, remaining thus under British sur- veillance until the close of the war with the United States.
While at Bristol, he married his first wife who died in 1820. Embarking in business in 1815, as a commission merchant, Mr. Delafield spent about five years abroad, returning to New York City in 1820. Here he secured employment as teller in the Phoenix Bank, and was soon afterwards appointed cashier of the same bank and in 1830 was advanced to the presidency of the same, and this bank passed in safety through the financial crisis of 1837.
During his residence in New York City, Mr. Delafield became prominently identified in various enterprises and organizations. He was an early promoter of the Hudson River Railroad, a director of the University of New York and an organizer of the Philharmonic Musical Society.
Meeting with heavy financial losses in 1841, on account of the repudiation of their indebtedness by several Western States, Mr. Delafield determined to leave the city, and retired from his connection with the bank.
In 1843, he purchased a farm of 352 acres at Rose Hill, part of the original estate of Dr. Alexander Coventry (afterwards owned by Hon. Robert S. Rose, a large land owner in Fayette), and which country seat and residence, Mr. Delafield called "Oak- lands."
Here he at once bent all his energies to improve his own ยท farm and to better the condition of his fellow farmers.
He early saw the importance of thorough drainage (in which his neighbor John Johnston, was also deeply interested), and a tile making machine was imported by him in 1848, from England and put into successful operation at South Waterloo by B. F. Whartenby.
In 1846, Mr. Delafield was elected president of the Seneca County Agricultural Society, a position which he held consecu- tively with the exception of one year (1851), to the time of his decease.
In 1851, he was elected president of the New York State Agricultural Society and the State Fair at Rochester, in that year, was held with marked success under his management.
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His farm at Oaklands was granted a County premium as the best farm in the County, by the Seneca County Agricultural Society in 1846, and a State premium was granted him upon the same farm, by the State Agricultural Society in 1848.
Mr. Delafield published in the Transactions of the State Agri- cultural Society for 1850, a history and survey of the County of Seneca with map, the most elaborate and accurate history of the county which had up to that time been published and which has been the basis for all histories of the county since published.
The " Transactions of the State Agricultural Society," for a number of years prior to and including 1853, contain able and instructive addresses delivered by him, upon agricultural subjects in different parts of the State, both practical and scientific.
The crowning work of Mr. Delafield's life, however, was his successful effort to inaugurate the establishment of a school for higher agricultural learning in this State.
Largely through his efforts, the Legislature in 1853 passed "An Act to Incorporate the New York State Agricultural Col- lege," with a board of ten trustees, of which board Mr. Dela- field was chosen president.
This board of trustees located the State Agricultural Col- lege at Oaklands, upon the farm of Mr. Delafield, to be put into operation as soon as a State appropriation therefor would be made, or subscriptions were completed sufficient to purchase and equip the same.
While the work of securing such subscriptions was advanc- ing favorably, the progress of the work was arrested by the sud- den death of President Delafield, Oct. 22, 1853. It may here be mentioned to complete the history of this State Institution, that in 1856 the State Agricultural College was located on a large farm near Ovid, purchased largely by contributions from its friends. A college building was erected upon the farm and an agricultural school was opened therein, under the presidency of General Marsena R. Patrick, in December, 1860, but its suc- cessful progress was much interrupted by the Civil War, in which its distinguished president took an active part.
Under an act of the United States Congress passed in 1862, the State of New York became entitled to a munificent grant of
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990,000 acres of public lands in aid of a college established for higher instruction in agriculture and mechanic arts. Upon the passage of this act of Congress, it would seem that the Legisla- ture of this State might, very properly, have set apart this land grant in aid of the Agricultural College at Ovid, upon favor- able conditions and with ample time for compliance therewith. Instead of doing so, however, the Legislature already in 1863 appropriated the land grant of the United States, conditionally, to an institution at Havana, Schuyler County. The influences brought to bear to secure this action will not here be com- mented on.
Deprived of this grant as an endowment fund, its president absent in the army, and suffering with other institutions of learning from the effects of the war, the college at Ovid lan- guished and soon closed its doors.
The institution at Havana receiving the grant failed to com- ply with the conditions imposed by the Legislature, and in 1865 the Legislature appropriated the United States Land Scrip to Cornell University, established at Ithaca in that year, and a College of Agriculture was established in connection therewith, which is still maintained.
The State of New York afterwards utilized the Agricultural College farm and College building near Ovid as a part of the site and grounds for Willard State Hospital for the Insane.
Had President Delafield's life been spared, with his indomi- table energy and perseverance, the fate of the State Agricul- tural College and its permanent location "might have been"quite otherwise.
Mr. Delafield was twice married and was survived by his second wife, whom he married in 1825, also by three sons and two daughters.
One of his daughters (Mary) married Right Reverend Henry A. Neely, Episcopal Bishop of the State of Maine. Bishop Neely died Oct. 31, 1899, aged 69 years. The sons of Mr. Delafield became successful business men in New York City and elsewhere.
Mr Delafield's mortal remains found sepulture in Washington Street Cemetery, at Geneva, N. Y.
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JOHN JOHNSTON, was born in Galloway, Scotland, April 1I, 1791. In 1821, he came to the United States and purchased a farm of 112 acres of land in the Town of Fayette, adjoining on the south the large farm of Hon. Robert S. Rose, on the Seneca Lake shore, and his family joined him at his new home in the following year.
Mr. Johnston added to his farm from time to time until he owned 306 acres of land, which he continued to occupy until 1877, when he removed with his family to Geneva, where he spent the remaining years of his life.
Mr. Johnston was eminently a practical and successful farmer. Already in 1844, he was chosen president of the Seneca County Agricultural Society, in the success of which society he was greatly concerned.
He took a deep interest in the subject of land drainage as early as 1835, and importing a pattern of drain tile from Scotland, caused some to be made by hand labor. Afterwards with his neighbor, Hon. John Delafield, he continued with success, his exertions to procure the manufacture of such tile at a reason- able cost.
In 1852, Mr. Johnston was awarded the first premium of the State Agricultural Society-a silver cup for the best experiments in draining lands. The reputation of Mr. Johnston, as a thor- ough and successful farmer, extended throughout the State, and his experience was often given to his brother farmers through the Agricultural journals.
Robert J. Swan, of New York City, who afterwards attained a distinguished rank as an agriculturist, when a young man resided for some time in the family of Mr. Johnston, and received practical instruction in farming, which afterwards enabled him to successfully manage his large farm, adjoining Mr. Johnston's farm on the north.
Mr. Johnston died in Geneva, Nov. 24, 1880. His wife died very suddenly Aug. 30, 1854. Two of Mr. Johnston's daugh- ters still survive, the Misses Marian and Nancy Johnston, resi- dents of Geneva, N. Y.,
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ROBERT J. SWAN, the son of a successful shipping merchant, was born in the city of New York, August 26, 1826.
In his youth he received liberal scholastic training and after- wards engaged in business in a large mercantile house. His health failing him, he came to Fayette when a young man, and resided for a time in the family of the well known Scotch farmer, John Johnston, where he received practical lessons in farming.
In 1850, Mr. Swan purchased 344 acres of land, part of the estate of the late Hon. Robert S. Rose, adjoining the farm of Mr. Johnston on the north, fronting on Seneca Lake and divided at its north end by the new outlet of Seneca Lake. Soon after purchasing he inaugurated a system of thorough drainage, and already in 1853 was awarded by the State Agricultural Society, the first premium-a silver cup-for land drainage, both on account of laying the largest number of rods of tile upon his farm as well as at the lowest cost per rod.
In 1858, Mr. Swan received for his farm the premium of the N. Y. State Agricultural Society for the best farm in the State. At that time he reported that he had laid sixty and two- thirds miles of tile drain upon his farm, at an average cost of thirty cents per rod.
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