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 26
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289
THE PIONEER OF THE VOLUNTEER SYSTEM.
cealed from his staff. He afterwards informed Col. Wm. A. Bird that the secret interviews with General Brown and the en- gineer officers were for the purpose of planning the sortie, and that Brown hesitated and requested Porter to draw a plan in writing, which he did, leaving the paper with Brown.
It is certain that it was Porter's aides who superintended the cutting out of the roads over which the main columns of attack passed, and it was Porter who was chosen to command that force, though composed of both regulars and volunteers, and though there were two or more regular generals under Brown at the fort. There was no probable reason why he should have been charged with the execution of the attack, except because he had planned it. Of course it was sanctioned by Brown, and the latter is fairly entitled to the credit belonging to every commander un- der whose orders a successful movement is carried out, but there is also especial credit due to the originator of a good plan, and I have little doubt that in this case that honor belongs to Peter B. Porter.
But the much higher honor is his of being the first distin- guished leader of American volunteers against a disciplined foc. If he cannot be called the father of the volunteer system, he was certainly its principal pioneer.
The raising of the siege of Fort Erie was substantially the close of the war on the Niagara frontier. A few unimportant skirmishes took place, but nothing that need be recorded here. All the troops except a small guard were withdrawn from Fort Erie to Buffalo. It was known during the winter that commis- sioners were trying to negotiate a peace at Ghent, and there was a universal desire for their success. In this vicinity, at least, the people had had enough of the glories of war.
On the 15th of January, 1815, the news of the victory of New Orleans was announced in an extra of the Buffalo Gazette, but although it occasioned general rejoicing, yet the delight was by no means so great as when, a week later, the people of the ravaged frontier were informed of the signing of the treaty of Ghent. Post-riders as they delivered letters, doctors as they visited their patients, ministers as they journeyed to meet their backwoods congregations, spread everywhere the welcome news of peace.
290
PEACE AND GLADNESS.
Gen. Nott, in his reminiscences, relates that the first sermon in Sardinia was preached at his house by "Father Spencer," early in 1815. There was a large gathering. The people had heard that the good missionary had a newspaper announcing the conclusion of peace, and they were, most of them, probably more anxious to have their hopes in that respect confirmed than for aught else. Father Spencer was not disposed to tantalize them, and imme- diately on rising to begin the services he took the paper from his pocket, saying, "I bring you news of peace." He then read the official announcement, and it may be presumed that the grat- ified congregation afterwards listened all the more earnestly to the news of divine peace which it was the minister's especial province to deliver.
In a very brief time the glad tidings penetrated to the most secluded cabins in the county, and all the people turned with joyful anticipations to the half-suspended pursuits of peaceful life.
291
THE SITUATION.
CHAPTER XXVII.
1815 AND 1816.
The Situation .- Beginnings of Villages .- General Porter .- A. H. Tracy. - Sam- uel Wilkeson. - Dr. Marshall .- Another Newspaper. - New Officials .- First Murder Trial .- Reese and Young King .- An "Angel of Death."-The Moral Society .- Marine Intelligence .- Buffalo Business. - Williamsville. - Alden .- Willink. - An Unpleasant Meeting .- Cheap Money .- Holland Mills. -Basswood Sugar .- Wright's Corners .- Duplicate "Smith's Mills."-Hill's Corners .- " Fiddler's Green."-" The Old Court House."-" The Man who Knows all the World."-Civil and Military Dignitaries .- Lake Cargoes .- " Grand Canal " Preliminaries. - Bank of Niagara .- Marshal Grouchy .- Red Jacket on Etiquette .- " The Cold Summer." -- The Consequences. - A Mighty Hunter .- A Fruitless Sacrifice .- Asa Warren.
It is needless to give a resume of the condition of Erie county at the close of the war of 1812. It was just where it was at the beginning of that contest, except that Buffalo and Black Rock had been burned, and that here and there a pioneer had abandoned his little clearing. No new business had been devel- oped anywhere, hardly a solitary new settler had taken up his abode in the county, and those already there had been so har- rassed by Indian alarms and militia drafts that they had ex- tended but very little the clearings which existed at the begin- ning of the war.
Immediately after the conclusion of peace, however, the long restrained tide again flowed westward, and for a while emigrants poured on to the Holland Purchase more rapidly than ever.
It will of course be impracticable, henceforth, to give atten- tion to the names of individual settlers, to petty officers and to minor details, as during the pioneer period before the war. My notices will necessarily be confined to men in more or less pub- lic positions, to the general development of the county, to im- portant events occurring in it, and to the origin of the scores of pleasant villages which now dot its surface. Nearly all of these first began to assume village shape during the ten years next succeeding the war of 1812.
202
A PATHETIC FAREWELL.
Williamsville and Clarence Hollow were the only places, out- side of Buffalo and its afterward-absorbed rival. Black Rock. which had advanced far enough to have a grist-mill, saw-mill. tavern and store all at once. The acquisition of the last-named institution, in addition to the other three. might fairly be con- sidered as marking the beginning of a village. Taverns could be started anywhere. A man bought a few gallons of whisky; put up a sign in front of his log house, and forthwith became a hotel-keeper. Saw-mills were not very expensive, and were soon scattered along the numerous streams wherever there was the necessary fall. Grist-mills were more costly, and he was a heavy capitalist who could build one ; still they were so absolutely nec- essary that they were frequently erected very early in the course of settlement, and while residences were still widely scattered.
But a store, a place where a real merchant dispensed calico. tea, nails, molasses, ribbons and salt, marked a decided advance in civilization, and almost always was the nucleus of a hamlet which has since developed into a thriving village.
A considerable body of troops remained at Buffalo during the winter, but all were sent away in the spring.
With one of the officers. Colonel Snelling, Red Jacket had formed a special intimacy. On his being ordered to Governor's Island in the harbor of New York. the sachem made him the following little speech, as published by a relative of the colonel:
" Brother-I hear you are going to a place called Governor's " Island. I hope you will be a governor yourself. I understand "that you white people think children a blessing. I hope you " may have a thousand. And above all, wherever you go. I " hope you may never find whisky above two shillings a quart."
In March, General Porter was appointed Secretary of State of New York by Governor Tompkins, and resigned his seat in Congress. His new position, and the one which he subsequent- ly accepted, of United States commissioner to settle the north- ern boundary, seem to have had an obscuring effect on his tame: for whereas, not only during but before the war he had been one of the foremost men of the State, and almost of the nation. vet immediately afterwards he nearly disappeared from public sight. Nor did he ever regain the preéminent position he occu-
293
TRACY, WILKESON, ETC.
pied at the close of the war, though he afterwards for a brief period held a cabinet office.
A young man, destined in a very brief time to acquire a large part of the influence previously wielded by Porter, opened a law- office in Buffalo in the spring of 1815. This was Albert H. Tracy, then twenty-two years old, a tall, erect, vigorous young man, of brilliant intellect and thorough culture, a clear-headed lawyer and a skillful manager of the political chariot.
Another man, who immediately after the war entered on a career of great success and influence, was Samuel Wilkeson. In fact he had made a beginning in Buffalo a little carlier, building a shanty and opening a small mercantile business among the ruins, while war was still thundering around. He was another of the " big men," physically as well as mentally, who built up the prosperity of the emporium of Western New York. Over six feet high, with strong, resolute features, the index of a vigorous mind, always driving straight at his object, tremendous indeed must have been the difficulties which could divert him from it.
Dr. John E. Marshall was another influential man who set- tled in Buffalo in the spring of 1815. Like Wilkeson he came from Chautauqua county, of which he had been the first county clerk, and soon became prominent in his profession, in business and in political life.
In April, 1815, another newspaper, called the Niagara Jour- nal, was established in Buffalo by David M. Day, who remained its editor and proprietor for many years, and wielded a strong influence in the county. The Gazette had leaned toward Fed- eralism ; the Journal was Democratic.
The assembly district composed of Niagara, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties was now awarded two members, the first ones chosen being Daniel MeCleary, of Buffalo, and Elias Osborn, of Clarence. MeCleary, also, soon after removed to Clarence.
The data are somewhat obscure, but Senator Archibald S. Clarke was elected to fill out Porter's term in Congress, and 1 think it was at a special election in June. 1815. Mr. Clarke was also appointed county clerk in 1815, and Dr. Johnson sur- rogatc.
The supervisors chosen in that year were Jonas Harrison, of
294
FIRST MURDER TRIAL.
Buffalo ; Otis R. Hopkins, of Clarence; Lemuel Wasson, of Hamburg ; Lemuel Parmely, of Eden. Concord and Willink unknown. In the latter town Arthur Humphrey and Isaac Phelps, Jr., were supervisors two or three terms each, between its first and second divisions.
These were the days when "general trainings" were occasions of great importance, and we must not neglect the military.
At the close of the war Gen. Hopkins resigned his brigadier- ship, and in May a new military commission was issued by which Lt .- Col. Wm. Warren was made brigadier-general. Wm. W. Chapin (son of Dr. Daniel) became lieutenant-colonel, with James Cronk and Joseph Wells as majors. Ezekiel Cook was made lieutenant-colonel commanding the regiment in the south- ern towns, its majors being Ezra Nott and Sumner Warren.
In June, 1815, there occurred the first murder trial in the present county of Erie, when Charles Thompson and James Peters were convicted of the murder of James Burba. They had both been soldiers in the regular army, and during the war had been sent on a scout with a companion, another soldier, a mile and a half below Scajaquada creek. They had gone three miles below the creek to Burba's residence, committed some depredations, got into a quarrel with the owner, and finally killed him. Their comrade escaped. The case furnishes further evidence of the inattention paid by the journals of that day to local news. To this important trial, at which two men were convicted of a capital crime, the Buffalo Gazette de- voted just seventeen lines! Not a word of the evidence was given. Yet in the same issue that journal gave up a column and a half to the execution of a forger in England.
In August the two men were executed in public, as was the rule in that day. The prisoners and scaffold were guarded by several companies of militia, under General Warren. Glezen Fillmore, the young Methodist minister of Clarence, preached the funeral sermon, and was assisted in the last rites to the con- demned by Rev. Miles P. Squier, who had just settled in Buf- falo as the pastor of the Presbyterian church. On this occasion the Gazette conquered its apparent antipathy to local matters so far as to give a narrative of the crime in forty-six lines, but restricted its description of the execution to sixteen.
295
REESE AND YOUNG KING.
Another event, which at an earlier day would have set all the people wild with fears of Indian massacre, was a conflict be- tween David Reese, the blacksmith, and the Seneca chief, "Young King." The former had had a quarrel with another Indian, and had struck him. Young King rode up and de- nounced him for doing so. Reese told the chief if he would get off his horse he would serve him the same way. At this Young King dismounted and struck the blacksmith with his club. Reese immediately snatched a scythe from a bystander, and inflicted on the chief's arm a blow so severe that it was found necessary to amputate it.
Ten years before this might have brought on a bloody conflict between the Indians and whites, but the latter were now strong enough to protect themselves unless their red neighbors were joined by the English, of which there was at that time no dan- ger. There was, however, some danger to Reese himself from the vengeance of Young King's friends. None of those around Buffalo seem to have made any trouble, but John Jemison, the half-breed son of the celebrated "White Woman," a man of desperate passions, who murdered two of his own brothers, came from the Genesee at the head of a party of Indians, with the avowed intention of killing Reese. Turner, in his " Holland Purchase," mentions having seen Jemison on his way, and de- scribes him as well personifying the ideal Angel of Death. His face was painted a bloody red, long bunches of horsehair, also colored red, hung from his arms, and his appearance betokened a determination to use promptly the war-club and tomahawk which were his only weapons.
Reese's friends, however, either secreted or guarded him, and the danger passed by. The dispute with Young King was prob- ably settled by Reese's paying him a sum of money, though all I can learn is that it was referred by the principals to Judge Por- ter, Joshua Gillett and Jonas Williams, as arbitrators.
The proceedings of a brief-lived institution called the Buffalo Moral Society, organized for the repression of vice in that vil- lage, shows the change of public sentiment on two points. A very guarded temperance resolution was adopted, in which it was recommended to professors of religion and friends of mor- ality "as far as practicable" to refrain from ardent spirits, to
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296
MORALS AND MERCHANDISE.
admit their use cautiously if at all, and to devise means of les- sening if not discontinuing their use among laborers.
As to Sabbath-breaking their ideas were far more positive, as not long after they published a resolution declaring that the laws should be strictly enforced, not only against all who should drive loaded teams into the village, unload goods, keep open stores, etc., but also against all parties of pleasure, riding or walking to Black Rock or elsewhere. Such a society would now speak far more strongly against the use of liquor, but would hardly dream of prohibiting people from walking out on Sunday.
The first marine intelligence published under the head of " Port of Buffalo" was on the 15th of August, 1815, when the Gazette announced the following for the week previous : Entered -a boat from Detroit, loaded with fish and wool ; sloop Commo- dore Perry, peltries. Cleared-sloop Fiddler, Cuyahoga, salt and pork.
The vessels in use appear to have been all sloops, schooners and open boats, and all but the last named craft landed at Black Rock. Salt was the most common article of merchandise sent up the lake. There were also sent in small quantities, dry goods, groceries, furniture and clothing. There was still less return freight. Nearly half of the few vessels came down the lake in bal- last, but none went up so. When they were loaded on the return trip, it was usually with fish, fur and peltries. Not a bushel of grain, not a pound of flour, came down for many years after the war.
Building went on apace, and in July the Gazette boasted that there were nearly as many houses erected, or in process of erec- tion, as had been burned a year and a half before.
Williamsville, which had become a place of considerable im- portance during the war, did not increase much for a good while after. Isaac F. Bowman was merchant and postmaster there in 1815.
Alden had been hardly as early in settlement as the other towns north of the reservation. The first saw-mill was not erected until 1814, John C. Rogers being the owner and builder. The next year a small log house was fitted up on the east part of the site of Alden village, and used both as school-house and church; Miss Mehitable Estabrooks being the first school-teacher.
297
AURORA AND SOUTH WALES.
To the corners in Willink, a mile cast of Stephens' Mills, (now " East Aurora,") there came in the spring of 1815 a tall, dark, slender young man, about twenty-one years old, who pur- chased a small, unfinished frame and opened a store. This was Robert Person, for fifty years one of the most prominent citizens of Aurora, and this was the beginning of merchandis- ing in Willink, aside from the abortive attempt of 181I.
A little before the close of the war a mail-route had been established through Willink and Hamburg, from east to west, running near the center of the present towns of Wales, Aurora and East Hamburg. There was a post-office called Willink at Blakely's Corners, two miles south of Aurora village, and, I think, one called Hamburg at "John Green's tavern." Simon Crook was the first postmaster of the former. After the war it was moved down to Aurora village, where Elihu Walker was postmaster for nearly twenty years.
Dr. John Watson continued to be the physician for the local- ity around Stephens' Mills. His brother, Dr. Ira G. Watson, located at what was afterwards called South Wales, where he prac- ticed over thirty years, his ride extending over a large part of Wales, Aurora, Holland and Colden. It would appear that country doctors were sometimes short of medicines, for Dr. John Watson took pains to advertise that he had medicines for practice.
Mr. Wm. C. Russell, of South Wales, who came there, a boy, with his father, John Russell, near the close of the war, says there was then a road, which could be traveled by teams, from Buffalo through the reservation to Stephens' Mills. It was suffi- ciently wild, however. He and his oldest sister, a young girl, drove a cow ahead of the team. Near what is now Spring Brook a bear crossed the trail just ahead of them. Seeing the children, he stood up on his hind legs to reconnoitre. Hearing them scream and seeing them pick up clubs, he finally retreated. At this time John McKeen kept the old "Eagle stand " at the west end of the village of East Aurora, and there were a few houses, mostly log, at each end of that village.
In 1816, Aaron Warner opened a tavern at South Wales. His son, D. S. Warner, in describing the scarcity of money then, says he does not believe there was five dollars of current
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298
HOLLAND AND HAMBURG.
money between Aurora and Holland. "Shinplasters," issued by private firms, were in use in many parts of the country, which, as Mr. Warner says, "were good from one turnpike gate to another."
Before the close of the war, Col. Warren and Ephraim Wood- ruff had bought the mill-site at Holland village, and finished a grist-mill already begun-the first in the present town of Hol- land. In the spring of 1815 Warren bought out Woodruff and moved to Holland, where he built a saw-mill, the first in that vicinity. Robert Orr was the mill-wright, and in the autumn of the same year he bought out Warren, who returned from Hol- land to Aurora; that is to say, he returned from the place where Holland was going to be to the place where Aurora was going to be.
Joshua Barron kept the first tavern in Holland, on the site of the village, just after the war, in the only frame house in the township. His sister, Lodisa Barron, since Mrs. Stanton, and still an active woman, kept the first school in that vi- cinity. There had been one in the Humphrey neighborhood before.
James Reynolds opened a store in East Hamburg, near the close of the war, not far from the site of the Friends' meeting- house-afterwards still nearer Potter's Corners. A man named Cromwell also had a store there not long after the war. His clerk was from New York city, and old pioneers still smile aloud as they relate how the young New Yorker attempted a grand speculation in sugar, and began by tapping all the largest white oaks and basswoods he could find.
Jacob Wright still kept the inn at or near Wright's Corners, and there the "townsmen of Hamburg " met in 1815, and, after electing Mr. Wasson supervisor, voted a bounty of five dollars on wolf-scalps. At this time the town was divided into nine school-districts. The "Friends, called Quakers," as the record says, presented a petition, and were set off in a district by themselves.
About this time, too, a Mr. Bennett opened a dry-goods and grocery store at Smith's Mills, (Hamburg,) the first one there. James Husted also had a tannery there. Although that was the principal place known as "Smith's Mills," there was another
299
SMITH'S MILLS AND FIDDLER'S GREEN.
point of the same name not a great ways off, at the mills of Humphrey Smith, in Willink, since called Griffin's Mills.
Mr. Wm. Boies, of the latter place, relates that when he first came into Erie county, in the spring of 1815, he was sent ahead by his brother to find his way, on horseback, to a still older brother who lived at "Staffordshire," in Aurora. He was di- rected to go to Buffalo, then up the beach of the lake, inquiring the way to "Wright's Corners," and there to inquire for " Smith's Mills." He did so, and was surprised to find himself at Smith's Mills only two miles from Wright's Corners. Further inquiry led to his finding that there was another Smith's Mills six or seven miles castward, and thither he made his way.
Soon after the war John Hill's father, William Hill, formerly a surgeon in the Revolution, came to what is now Eden Center, and kept the first tavern there. The place was then called Hill's Corners.
The people of the town of Concord, (which it will be remem- bered comprised Sardinia, Concord, Collins and North Collins,) began to make a kind of business center at the point on Spring creek where Albro and Cochran had first settled, where Rufus Eaton had built a saw-mill before the war, and where he had afterwards erected a grist-mill and distillery.
Settlers had become so numerous around there that, in the winter of 1814, Mr. Eaton's son, Rufus C. Eaton, then nineteen, taught a school with seventy scholars. David Stickney started a tavern, and Capt. Frederick Richmond brought in some grocer- ies shortly after the war-I cannot learn exactly when. There was a small open space, used as a kind of common, where the public square at Springville now is, which soon acquired the name of Fiddler's Green. The reason is a little doubtful, but the best account is that there were several good fiddlers living in the immediate vicinity, and the people for miles around used to assemble there for merry-makings of all kinds. From this the little village received the same name, and for many years " Fiddler's Green " was its universal designation. Notwithstand- ing this godless name, a Presbyterian church was organized there by Father Spencer, in 1816, being the first in the place. A Methodist and a Baptist church were formed not long after, but I have not the exact dates.
300
" THE MAN WHO KNOWS ALL THE WORLD."
In the spring of 1816 a new court-house was begun in Buffalo, and the walls erected during the summer. Instead of being placed in the middle of Onondaga (Washington) street, with a circular plat around it, as before, it was built on the east side of that street, and a small park was laid out in front of it. The building then erected was the one which for the last twenty-five years has been known as the "Old Court House," and which has been torn down during the present season.
In that year Benjamin Ellicott, younger brother of Joseph, was elected to Congress. He was a resident of Williamsville, a surveyor by occupation, and not conspicuous after the expiration of his official term. The Indians called him by a name signify- ing " The Man who Knows all the World." They had observed him draw maps from notes brought him by his subordinates on which he depicted rivers and creeks which they knew he had never seen ; hence the admiring appellation they gave him. He was the last congressman from Erie county residing outside the village or city of Buffalo.
The members of assembly chosen from this district were Richard Smith of Hamburg, and Jediah Prendergast of Chau- tauqua county. Frederick B. Merrill was appointed county clerk in this year, in place of Archibald S. Clarke ; the latter being made a member of the governor's council of appointment. He was also commissioned as a judge of the Common Pleas. I doubt if any other man in the county has ever held so many offices as Judge Clarke.
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