USA > New York > Erie County > Centennial history of Erie County, New York : being its annals from the earliest recorded events to the hundredth year of American independence > Part 18
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Failures in business seem to have been quite common in pro- portion to the amount done ; as one paper contains three, and another four notices for insolvent debtors to show cause why they should not be declared bankrupts.
Yet it is plain that business was generally flourishing. There were no advertisements for work, but many for workmen. In the course of a few weeks in the fall of 1811, Tallmadge & Mul- lett advertised for two or three journeymen tailors, John Tower for a journeyman shoemaker, Daniel Lewis for a "Taylor's" ap- prentice and a journeyman "Tailor," Stocking & Bull for three or four journeymen hatters, and Leech & Keep for two or three journeymen blacksmiths, at their shop at Cold Spring, "two miles from the village of Buffalo."
Certainly there would have been no bankruptcies had all creditors adopted the generous policy of Lyman Parsons, who advertised his earthenware at Cold Spring, and added : " He requests all those indebted to him, and whose promises have . become due, to make payment or fresh promises !" No modern doctor of finance could have been more liberal.
The Patent Medicine Man was already an established insti- tution, and M. Daley advertised several unfailing panaceas, their value being attested by certificates as ample, (and as truthful,) as those of the present day.
Among the merchants everybody dealt in everything. Na- thaniel Sill & Co. dispensed " fish and cider" at Black Rock. Peter H. Colt, at the same place, dealt in " whisky, gin, buffalo- robes and feathers." Townsend & Coit advertised "linseed oil and new goods" in Buffalo.
199
AN OFFICIAL IRREGULARITY.
The original name adopted by the Holland Company had not yet been utterly discarded. Notice was given that the "Ecclesi- astical Society " would meet " at the school-house in the village of New Amsterdam," and Grosvenor & Heacock advertised goods "at their store in the village of New Amsterdam."
Even in those good old times, officials were sometimes guilty of "irregularities," and one of the few local items in the Ga- z.ette, under the head, "A delinquent and a villain," gave notice that Joseph Alward, who wore the double honors of constable of Willink and carrier of news, had "cleared out for Canada," taking two horses, eight or ten watches and other property. A news-carrier was an important functionary; he was the sole reli- ance of most of the inhabitants for papers and letters-there being but one post-office in the county out of Buffalo, and none south of the reservation. The next week after the disappear- ance of the "delinquent and villain," David Leroy gave notice that he had taken Alward's route, but he soon gave it up for lack of business. Another notice informed the people that a carrier named Paul Drinkwater had judiciously selected one route down the river and another up the lake.
A. S. Clarke, postmaster at Clarence, (his store it will be re- membered was.in the present town of Newstead,) advertised seven letters detained at his office for Clarence, and fifty for Willink. These latter had to be sent from fifteen to fifty miles by private conveyance.
There was still no regular preaching of the gospel in the county. Some steps were taken to that end, but nothing ac- complished before the war.
In regard to religion and morality, Buffalo seems to have had a very bad reputation abroad-even worse then it deserved. The Gazette published a letter from a clergyman to "a gentle- man in this village," saying :
" From what I had heard, I supposed that the people in gen- eral were so given to dissipation and vice that the preachers of Christianity would find few or no ears to hear : but most agree- ably disappointed was I to find niy audiences not only respecta- ble in point of numbers, but solemn, decent, devout and which seenied gladly to hear the word."
Notwithstanding this readiness to hear the word, some things,
200
THE WAR OF SCALPELS.
such as lotteries, were tolerated, which would now be looked on with general disfavor. A memorial was presented to the legis- lature, signed by many of the principal citizens of Niagara county, asking for $15,000 to build a road from the Genesee river to Buffalo, the State to be reimbursed by a lottery. The project was warmly endorsed by the Gazette. At the present day we should at least have morality enough to call the scheme a gift-enterprise. It does not appear to have been adopted.
The difficulty of deciding when "doctors disagree," has long been a favorite theme of philosophers, but it was more than usually great at the time and in the locality under considera- tion. The two Chapins, Daniel and Cyrenius, were the leaders of two factions, whose warfare was, as usual, made all the more intense by the small number of the contestants.
In November, I811, there appeared a call for a meeting of the Medical Society of Niagara County, signed by Asa Coltrin, (part- ner of Dr. Cyrenius,) as secretary. The last of December, Dr. Daniel Chapin also gave notice of the meeting of the Medical Society of Niagara County. In the next number of the Gazette Dr. Cyrenius came to the front with a notice that Dr. Daniel's call was irregular, and that the Medical Society of Niagara County had met in November and adjourned to February first.
Then Dr. Daniel's society assembled, and its chief made a speech which sounds like a modern statesman's triumphant ex- posure of the wickedness of his political opponents. The rival association was described as making a contemptible display of depravity and weakness, exhibited only to be pitied and de- spised, and as being "a mutilated, ill-starred brat, scotched with the characterestic marks of its empirical accoucheur!"
By and by Dr. Cyrenius issued an address, not quite so viru- lent, but denouncing the other society as a humbug. He did not state the number of physicians in Niagara county at that time, but said that three years before (1809) there were sixteen. In 1812 there were probably about two dozen in the present counties of Eric and Niagara, two thirds of them being in the territory of the former. But they had a big enough war for five hundred.
Finally the Danielites sued the Cyreniusites for taking a let- ter from the post-office directed to "The Medical Society of Ni-
201
THE MECHANICAL SOCIETY.
agara County," and just before the declaration of war the suit was decided in favor of the defendants. Then Dr. Josiah Trow- bridge, secretary of the victorious faction, issued a bulletin of triumph in the Gazette, but the din of scalpels was soon extin- guished in the more terrible conflict rapidly hastening to an outbreak.
The Free Masons already had an organization in the village, and Western Star lodge gave notice that it would install its officers on the 10th of March, 1812.
The first of the many societies organized in Erie county by artisans was called the Mechanical Society, and was formed by the master mechanics of Buffalo on the 26th of March.
Joseph Bull (hatter) was elected president, Henry M. Camp- bell (also a hatter) and John Mullett (tailor), vicc-presidents ; with Robert Kaene, Asa Stanard, David Reese (blacksmith), Daniel Lewis (tailor), and Samuel Edsall (tanner), as standing committee.
This Mr. Edsall advertised his tannery and shoe shop as " on the Black Rock road, near the village of Buffalo." Considering that it stood at the corner of Niagara and Mohawk streets, it would undoubtedly now be considered as tolerably ncar Buffalo.
On the 20th day of March, 1812, the gigantic town of Wil- link was seriously reduced by a law erecting the towns of Ham- burg, Eden and Concord. Hamburg contained the present towns of Hamburg and East Hamburg. Eden was composed of what is now Boston, Eden, Evans, and part of Brant, and Concord comprised the whole tract afterwards divided into Sar- dinia, Concord, Collins and North Collins-leaving Willink only twelve miles square, embracing Aurora, Wales, Holland and Colden. Besides, Willink and Hamburg nominally extended to the middle of the Buffalo reservation, and Collins covered that part of the Cattaraugus reservation situated in Niagara county.
The records of both Hamburg and Eden have been preserved to this day. In the former town the people first met on the 7th of April, 1812, at the house of Jacob Wright. The following officers were elected :
David Eddy, supervisor ; Samuel Hawkins, town clerk ; Isaac Chandler, Richard Smith and Nel. Whitticer, assessors ; Abner
14
202
THREE NEW TOWNS.
Wilson, constable and collector ; Nathan Clark and Thomas Fish, overseers of the poor; James Browning, John Green and Amasa Smith, commissioners of highways; Daniel Smith, Gil- bert Wright and Benjamin Henshaw, constables ; Jotham Bemis and Abner Amsdell, pound-masters.
At the same meeting it was voted that last year's supervisor (of Willink) should "discharge our poor debt" by paying the poor-masters the sum of five dollars. As a specimen of cheap work, performed for the people, I have noted that, for making a map of the division of the town, Cotton Fletcher was voted the sum of one dollar.
The meeting adjourned till the next day when, with the new supervisor acting as "moderator," the people voted "that hogs should remain as the statute law directs." Also that five dollars per head should be paid for wolves and panthers. The record shows that there were twenty-one road districts at the organ- ization of the town.
It does not appear that Eden was organized until the next year. For convenience, however, that organization is given here. Joseph Yaw was "moderator" of the meeting. John C. Twining was elected supervisor ; John March, town clerk ; Amos Smith, David Corbin and John Hill, assessors ; Charles John- son, Calvin Doolittle, and Richard Berry, Jr., commissioners of highways; Lemuel Parmalee, collector; John Conant and Silas Este, constables ; John Welch and Asa Cary, poor-masters. There were thirteen road districts.
It is said that John Hill selected the name of Eden for the new town, on account of the paradisaical look which the country around Eden Center bore to his eye. For some unknown rea- son it was almost universally spelled "Edon" for many years, not only in writing, but when printed in the Gazette.
The records of Concord having been burned, its early organ- ization cannot be given.
During all this time there was a constant and increasing fer- ment regarding war and politics. The growing dissatisfaction of the government and a majority of the people of the United States with the government of Great Britain, on account of her disregard of neutral rights in the contest with Napoleon, had at length reached the verge of war, and the denunciations of that
203
A FEDERAL COMMITTEE.
power in Congress, in State legislatures, in the press and in pub- lic meetings were constantly becoming more bitter. While this was the sentiment of the ruling party (that is the Democratic or Republican, for it went by both names,) the Federalists, who constituted a large and influential minority, opposed a war with England, asked for further negotiation, and met the Democratic denunciations of that country with still more bitter attacks on Napoleon, whom they accused the Republicans of favoring.
In February, Congress passed a law to organize an army of twenty-five thousand men. Shortly after, Daniel D. Tompkins, the republican governor of New York, made a speech to the legislature, advising that the State prepare for the coming contest.
This county up to that time had been decidedly Federal. Ebenezer Walden was the Federal member of assembly for the counties of Niagara, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua. In April, Abel M. Grosvenor was nominated for the assembly by a meeting of the Federalists, or as they termed themselves "Fed- eral Republicans." At the same meeting a large committee was appointed, and, as it is to be presumed that the men selected were somewhat influential members of their party in that day, I transcribe a list of those residing in the present county of Erie :
Town of Buffalo -- Nathaniel Sill, Joshua Gillett, Benjamin Caryl, James Beard, Gilman Folsom, Wm. B. Grant, John Rus- sell, Daniel Lewis, Rowland Cotton, David Reese, Elisha Ensign, S. H. Salisbury, Ransom Harmon, Frederick House, Guy J. Atkins, Samuel Lasuer, John Duer, John Watkins, R. Grosvenor Wheeler, Fred. Buck, Henry Anguish, Nehemiah Seeley, Henry Doney, Solomon Eldridge and Holden Allen.
Clarence-Henry Johnson, Asa Fields, James Powers, James S. Youngs, William Baker, Archibald Black, John Stranahan, Josiah Wheeler, G. Stranahan, Benjamin O. Bivins, John Peck and Jonathan Barrett.
Willink-Abel Fuller, Ebenezer Holmes, John McKeen, San- ford G. Colvin, Levi Blake, Ephraim Woodruff, Daniel Haskell, Samuel Merriam, Dr. John Watson and John Gaylord, Jr.
Hamburg-Seth Abbott, Joseph Browning, William Coltrin, Ebenezer Goodrich, Cotton Fletcher, John Green, Samuel Ab- bott, Benjamin Enos, Pardon Pierce.
204
A REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE.
Eden-Charles Johnson, Luther Hibbard, Dorastus Hatch, Dr. John March, Job Palmer, Samuel Tubbs.
Concord-Joseph Hanchett, Solomon Fields, Samuel Cooper, Stephen Lapham, Gideon Lapham, Gideon Parsons, William S. Sweet.
As a companion to the Federal committee, I insert here the names of the members of a similar one composed of Demo- cratic Republicans, though not appointed till a year or so later. They were Nathaniel Henshaw, Ebenezer Johnson, Pliny A. Field, William Best, Louis Le Couteulx and John Sample of Buffalo ; Otis R. Hopkins, Samuel Hill, Jr., Daniel Rawson, James Baldwin, Daniel MeCleary, Oliver. Standard and Moses Fenno, of Clarence ; David Eddy, Richard Smith, Samuel Haw- kins, Giles Sage, William Warriner, Joseph Albert and Zenas Smith, of Hamburg; Elias Osborn, Israel Phelps, Jr., Daniel Thurston, Jr., William Warren, James M. Stevens, John Car- penter and Joshua Henshaw, of Willink; Christopher Stone, Benjamin Tubbs, Gideon Dudley, Amos Smith and Joseph Thorn, of Eden ; and Rufus Eaton, Frederick Richmond, Allen King, Benjamin Gardner and Isaac Knox, of Concord.
Jonas Williams, the founder of Williamsville, was the Repub- lican candidate for the assembly.
About the same time Asa Ransom was again appointed sheriff ; Joseph Landon, Henry Brothers and Samuel Hill, Jr., coroners ; Samuel Tupper and David Eddy, judges and justices ; and Elias Osborne, then of Willink, justice of the peace. . Shortly afterwards, Samuel Tupper, of Buffalo, was appointed first judge in place of Judge Porter, resigned.
Already there were fears of Indian assault. It was reported that a body of British and Indians were assembled at Newark. to make a descent on the people on this side. A public meet- ing was held at Cook's tavern, in Buffalo, at which the state- ment was declared untrue.
Early in May a lieutenant of the United States army adver- tised for recruits at Buffalo, offering those who enlisted for five years a hundred and sixty acres of land, three months' extra pay, and a bounty of sixteen dollars. The amount of bounty will not appear extravagant to modern readers.
Election was held on the 12th of May, and the approach of
205
MILITIA OFFICERS.
war had evidently caused a great change in the strength of the two parties. The votes for member of assembly show at once the ascendency suddenly gained by the Democrats, and the comparative population of the several towns. For Grosvenor, , Federal, Willink gave 71 votes, Hamburg 47, Eden 41, Concord 33, Clarence 72, Buffalo 123 ; total, 387. For Williams, Repub- lican, Willink gave 114, Hamburg 110, Eden 46, Concord 50, Clarence 177, Buffalo 112 ; total, 609. Archibald S. Clarke was elected State senator, being the first citizen of Erie county to hold that office, as he had been the first assemblyman and first surrogate. The congressmen chosen for this district were both outside of Niagara county.
The militia were being prepared for war, at least to the ex- tent of being amply provided with officers. In Lt .- Col. Chap- man's regiment, Dr. Ebenezer Johnson was appointed “ sur- geon's mate," (assistant surgeon he would now be called ;) Abiel Gardner and Ezekiel Sheldon, lieutenants ; Oziel Smith, pay- master; John Hersey and Samuel Edsall, ensigns.
In Lt .- Col. Warren's reginient, Adoniram Eldridge, Charles Johnson, John Coon, Daniel Haskill, Benjamin Gardner and John Russell were appointed captains ; Innis B. Palmer, Isaac Phelps, Timothy Fuller, Benjamin I. Clough, Gideon Person, Jr., Frederick Richmond and Varnum Kenyon, lieutenants ; William Warriner, surgeon ; Stephen Kinney, paymaster; Elihu Rice, Samuel Cochrane, Benjamin Douglass, Lyman Blackmar and Oliver Blezeo, ensigns.
Scarcely a day passed that rumors of Indian outrages did not startle the inhabitants of Niagara county, who looked with anx- ious eyes on the half-tamed Iroquois in their midst, many of whom had once bathed their hands in American blood. The rumors were all false, but the terror they inspired was none the less real.
Congress passed an act calling out a hundred thousand mili- tia, (thirteen thousand five hundred of whom were from New York,) and the news was followed quickly by an order detailing two hundred and forty men from Hopkins' brigade, for immc- diate service. On the 17th of May, Col. Swift, of Ontario county, arrived at Buffalo to assume command on the frontier. On the 18th, the first detachment of militia marched through
206
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.
that village on their way to Lewiston. They were from the south towns, and were commanded by Major Benj. Whaley.
On the 26th, Superintendent Granger, with the interpreters Jones and Parrish, held a council with the chiefs of the Six Na- tions in the United States. Mr. Granger did not seek to enlist their services, such not being the policy of the government, but urged them to remain neutral. To this they agreed, but said they would send a delegation to consult their brethren in Canada.
Meanwhile, the declaration of war was under earnest discus- sion in Congress.
On the 23d of June, Col. Swift, whose headquarters were at Black Rock, was in command of six hundred militia, besides which there was a small garrison of regulars at Fort Niagara. There was no artillery, except at the fort.
The preparations for war on the other side were somewhat better, there being six or seven hundred British regulars along the Niagara, and a hundred pieces of artillery. The excitement grew more intense every hour. Reckless men on either shore fired across the river "for fun," their shots were returned, and the seething materials almost sprang into flame by spontane- ous combustion.
The morning of the 26th of June came. A small vessel, loaded with salt, which had just left Black Rock, was noticed entering Lake Erie by some of the citizens of Buffalo, and presently a British armed vessel from Ft. Erie was seen making its way toward the American ship. The latter was soon over- taken and boarded, and then both vessels turned their prows toward the British stronghold.
There could be but one explanation of this-the vessel was captured-and the news of war spread with lightning-like rapid- ity among the inhabitants of the little frontier village. All doubt was dispelled a few hours later by an express-rider from the East, bearing the President's proclamation of war. The Can- adians had received the earliest news by reason of John Jacob Astor's sending a fast express to Queenston, twelve hours ahead of the government riders, to warn his agents there.
The War of 1812 had begun.
207
CONFUSION AND DISMAY.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812.
Confusion. - Flight .- The School-mistress and the Officer .- "Silver Greys."-The " Queen Charlotte."-Salisbury's Battle. - " The Charlotte Taken."-Fear of Indians .- Red Jacket's Logic .- Iroquois Declaration of War. - Capture of Two British Vessels .- The First Victim of War .- Black Rock Bombarded. -A Late Breakfast. - The Queenston Failure .- Smyth's Proclamation .- A Gallant Vanguard .- A Vacillating General .- Invasion Relinquished .- An Erie County Duel .- A Riot among the Soldiers .- Political Matters. -- Quiet. 44
The news of the declaration of war was disseminated with almost telegraphic rapidity, flying off from the main roads pur- sued by the express-riders, and speeding from one scattered settlement to another throughout Western New York.
Dire was the confusion created. In almost every locality divers counsels prevailed. Some were organizing as militia or . volunteers ; others, alarmed by the reports of instant invasion and by the ever horrible tale of Indian massacre, made a hasty retreat with their families toward the Genesee. Sometimes the fleeing citizens were met by emigrants who were pressing for- ward to make new homes in the wilderness, unchecked by the dangers of the day.
So great was the dismay that Mr. Ellicott issued an address to the settlers on the Holland Purchase, assuring them that the lines were well guarded and the country safe from invasion. The alarm is said to have been equally great on the other side, and the flight from the lines perhaps greater, as there were more people there to flee.
By the fourth of July three thousand American militia were assembled on the Niagara frontier, General William Wadsworth being in command. This looked like efficient action, and ere long the men who remained at home were working as steadily as usual, many families who had fled returned, and affairs re- sumed their ordinary course, save where along the Niagara, the
208
SCHOOL-MISTRESS AND OFFICER.
raw recruits marched, and countermarched, and panted for the chance to distinguish themselves which came to them all too SOO11.
At first, men of all classes and conditions were generally will- ing to turn out. Occasionally, however, one was found, even wearing the epaulet of an officer, who trembled at the bare idea of exchanging his cozy log house for the unknown terrors of the tented field. It is related of a wide-awake Springville school-mistress that she determined to have a little amusement at the expense of a boastful militia officer, who, not having been detailed for service, was loud in professing his anxiety for the joys of battle.
Borrowing a suit of uniform from a relative, she attired her- self in it, partly concealed her face, went to the house of her victim, and announced herself as an aide-de-camp sent by the commanding general to call him instantly to the field. The sudden summons, coming when he had thought himself secure, utterly overcame his nerves, and he pleaded piteously for exemp- tion from the dread decree. But in vain ; he was ordered to prepare himself immediately, and it was only after he had al- most gone on his knees to the stern official that the latter dis- closed himself, or herself, and left the frightened official to muse on the deceitfulness of appearances.
Besides the ordinary militia, several companies were organ- ized, composed of men too old to be called on for military duty. They were commonly called "Silver Greys." One such com- pany was formed in Willink, of which Phineas Stephens was captain, Ephraim Woodruff lieutenant and Oliver Pattengill ensign. Another was organized in Hamburg under Captain Jotham Bemis.
Immediately on learning of the declaration of war, General Isaac Brock, commander-in-chief of the British forces in Upper Canada, and acting governor, took personal command on the Niagara frontier, and gave his attention to its defenses. Fort Erie was strengthened and a redoubt several rods long was erected opposite the residence of Congressman Porter, now the foot of Breckenridge street. Earthworks were also thrown up at Chippewa, Queenston and other points. The American side was similarly strengthened.
209
SALISBURY'S BATTLE.
There was constant watchfulness for spies on both sides of the line, and many arrests were made.
The superiority of the British on the lake was a source of constant annoyance to the people on this side. At the begin- ning of the war there was not a single armed American vessel afloat, while the British had three-the Queen Charlotte, of twenty-two guns, the Hunter, of twelve guns, and a small schooner lately built.
The Queen Charlotte, in particular, kept the people of Ham- burg and Evans in constant alarm. Riding off the shore, her boats would be sent to land to seize on whatever could be found, especially in the way of eatables and live stock.
At one time a party landed on the coast of Evans, near the farm of Aaron Salisbury, and began their work of plunder. Most of the men of the settlement were absent. Young Salis- bury seized his musket, overtook the marauders as they were going to their boats and opened fire on them from the woods .. They returned it, but without effect on either side. They then embarked on their vessel, which sailed northward. Knowing that the mouth of the Eighteen-Mile was a convenient landing place, Salisbury hurried thither through the woods. When he arrived they had just landed. He again opened a rapid fire from the friendly forest, and the foe thinking the whole country was rising against them, soon retreated to their boats and vessel, without doing any further harm.
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