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 27
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45
The board of supervisors for that year was comprised of Na- thaniel Sill of Buffalo, Otis R. Hopkins of Clarence, Richard Smith of Hamburg and Lemuel Parmely of Eden.
The town-book of Buffalo has been preserved since the war, and this one of its records, in 1816, brings vividly before the reader the then primeval condition of that great city and its suburbs :
"Voted that a reward of $5.00 be paid for the destruction of every wolf killed in said town, to be paid by the town, and that the evidence of their destruction shall be their scalp with the skin and ears on."
Military affairs were not suffered to lag, so far as the appoint- ment of officers was concerned. A new regiment was created
301
MILITARY AND COMMERCIAL.
in the spring of 1816; Colonels Chapin and Cook disappear from the record, and a commission was issued making Sumner Warren of Willink (Aurora), James Cronk of Clarence (New- stead), and Ezra Nott of Concord (Sardinia), lieutenant-colonels commandant ; Joseph Wells of Buffalo, and Luther Colvin of Hamburg (East Hamburg), first majors ; and Calvin Fillmore of Clarence (Lancaster), Frederick Richmond of Concord, and Benjamin I. Clough of Hamburg, second majors.
The commerce of the port of Buffalo continued of a very miscellaneous character, and articles of the same kind frequently went both ways. From a few records of cargoes, taken in their order, I find the articles going up were whisky, dry-goods, house- hold-goods, naval stores, dry-goods, groceries, hardware, salt, fish, spirits, household-goods, mill-irons, salt, tea, whisky, butter, whisky, coffee, soap, medicines, groceries, household-goods, farm utensils.
Coming down, the list comprised furs, fish, cider, furs, paint, dry-goods, furniture, scythes, furs, grindstones, coffee, skins, furs, cider, paint, furs, fish, household-goods, grindstones, skins, scythes, coffee, fish, building-stone, crockery, hardware, pork, scythes, clothing. It is difficult to guess whereabouts up the lake crockery, hardware, dry-goods and coffee came from at that day, but such is the record.
Nearly all the vessels were schooners, a few only being sloops. The lake marine in 1816 was composed, besides a few open boats, of the schooners Dolphin, Diligence, Erie, Pomfret, Wea- sel, Widow's Son, Merry Calvin, Firefly, Paulina, Mink, Mer- chant, Pilot, Rachel, Michigan, Neptune, Hercules, Croghan, Tiger, Aurora, Experiment, Black Snake, Ranger, Fiddler, and Champion ; and the sloops Venus, American Eagle, Persever- ance, Nightingale, and Black-River-Packet.
There certainly did not seem to be much commerce to justify a grand canal from the Hudson to Lake Erie, but the statesmen of the day, looking hopefully toward the future, deemed its con- struction expedient, and they were eagerly seconded by the people. There had been various suggestions put forth from a very early day regarding the importance of a good water-com- munication between the ocean and the lakes. Most of them, how- ever, were directed toward the improvement of the natural
302
THE "GRAND CANAL."
channels, so as to connect the Mohawk with Lake Ontario at Oswego.
The first distinct, public advocacy of a separate canal from the Hudson to Lake Erie was made by Jesse Hawley, of On- tario county, in a series of essays published in the Ontario Mes- senger, in 1807-8. His idea was taken up by others, explora- tions were ordered by the legislature, and just before the war a law was passed authorizing the actual construction of the canal. The war, however, caused its repeal. De Witt Clinton had been foremost in urging forward the work, being strongly seconded by Gouverneur Morris, Joseph Ellicott, Peter B. Por- ter and others. Mr. Ellicott, especially, showed at once great breadth of view, and excellent practical judgment.
Immediately after the war the scheme was revived, Clinton being still its warmest supporter. Public opinion was thor- oughly awakened, and in March, 1816, a bill passed the assembly directing the immediate commencement of the canal. The more conservative senate insisted on further surveys and esti- mates, to which the assembly assented. The same summer a route was surveyed from Buffalo to the Genesee, which was sub- stantially the same as that finally adopted.
In July, 1816, the first bank in Erie county was organized, and named the Bank of Niagara. The whole capital was the immense sum (for those times) of five hundred thousand dollars, but the amount required to be paid down was modest enough, being only six dollars and twenty-five cents on each share of a hundred dollars. The directors were chosen from a wide range of country-being Augustus Porter, of Niagara Falls ; James Brisbane, of Batavia ; A. S. Clarke, of Clarence ; Jonas Wil- liams and Benjamin Caryl, of Williamsville; Isaac Kibbe, of Hamburg; Martin Prendergast, of Chautauqua county ; Samuel Russell and Chauncey Loomis (exact residence unknown), and Ebenezer F. Norton, Jonas Harrison, Ebenezer Walden and John G. Camp, of Buffalo. Isaac Kibbe was the first president, and Isaac Q. Leake the first cashier.
In those days probably a man might move in the first circles without his name being either Ebenezer, Jonas or Isaac, but those were certainly the fashionable appellations.
Probably it had no perceptible influence on the destiny of
303
RED JACKET ON ETIQUETTE.
Erie county, yet it seems worth mentioning that in November, 1816, Marshal Grouchy and suite, returning from Niagara Falls, came to Buffalo and then visited the Seneca Indian village. It is interesting to pause a moment from chronicling the erection of log-taverns and the election of supervisors, to contemplate the war-worn French marshal, (the hero of a score of battles, yet half-believed a traitor because he failed to intercept the march of Blucher to support Wellington at Waterloo,) soothing his vexed spirit with a visit to the greatest of natural wonders, and then coming to seek wisdom at aboriginal sources, and exchange compliments with Red Jacket and Little Billy.
Doubtless the renowned Sencca orator arrrayed himself in his most becoming apparel, and assumed his stateliest demeanor to welcome the great war-chief from over the sea, and doubtless he felt that it was he, Sagoyewatha, who was conferring honor by the interview. An anecdote related by Stone shows how proudly the sachem was accustomed to maintain his dignity.
A young French count came to Buffalo, and, hearing that Red Jacket was one of the lions of the western world, sent a messenger inviting the sachem to visit him at his hotel. Sa- goyewatha sent back word that if the young stranger wished to see the old chief, he would be welcome at his cabin. The count again sent a message, saying that he was much fatigued with his long journey of four thousand miles; that he had come all that distance to see the celebrated orator, Red Jacket, and he thought it strange that the latter would not come five miles to meet him. But the chief, as wily as he was proud, returned answer that it was still more strange that, after the count had traveled all that immense distance for such a purpose, he should halt only a few miles from the home of the man he had come so far to see. Finally the young nobleman gave up, visited the sachem at his home, and was delighted with the eloquence, wisdom and dig- nity of the savage. Then, the claims of etiquette having been satisfied, the punctilious chieftain accepted an invitation to dine with his titled visitor at his hotel.
The same year, several Senecas were taken to Europe to be shown, by a speculator called Captain Hale. The principal ones were the Chief So-onongise, commonly called by the whites Tommy Jemmy, his son, Little Bear, and a handsome Indian
304
THE COLD SUMMER.
called "I Like You." Jacob A. Barker, son of Judge Zenas Barker, went along as interpreter. The speculation seems not to have been a success, and Hale ran away. An English lady, said to have been of good family and refined manners, fell des- perately in love with "I Like You," and was with difficulty pre- vented from linking her fortunes to his. After his return, the enamored lady sent her portrait across the ocean to her dusky lover. There have been many such cases, and sometimes the woman has actually wedded her copper-colored Othello, and taken up her residence in his wigwam or cabin.
Among the farmers, the peculiar characteristic of 1816 was that it was the year of the "cold summer." Though sixty years have passed away, the memory of the "cold summer" is still vividly impressed on the minds of the surviving pioneers.
Snow fell late in May, there was a heavy frost on the 9th of June, and all through the summer the weather was terribly un- propitious to the crops of the struggling settlers. There had been a large emigration in the spring, just about time enough having elapsed since the war for people to make up their minds to go West. Forty families came into the present town of Hol- land alone, and elsewhere the tide was nearly as great.
An overflowing population and an extremely short crop, with no reserves in the granaries to fall back on, soon made provisions of all kinds extremely high and dear. The fact that there is little or no grain in store always makes a failure of the crop fall with treble severity on a new country, as has been seen in the case of drouth in Kansas and grasshoppers in Nebraska. How closely the reserve was worked up in this section may be seen by the fact that on the 17th of August, 1816, just before the new crop was ground, flour sold in Buffalo for $15.00 a bar- rel, and on the 19th there was not a barrel on sale in the village.
The new crop relieved the pressure for a while, but this ran low early in the winter, and then came scenes of great suffering for the poorer class of settlers. In many cases the hunter's skill furnished his family with meat, but in a large part of the county there had been just enough settlement to scare away the game. There is no proof that any of the people actually starved to death, but there can be no doubt that the weakening from long privation caused many a premature death.
305
A MIGIITY HUNTER.
Fortunate were the dwellers where the deer were still numer- ous. There were many in the vicinity of the Cattaraugus creek. Josiah Thompson, now of Holland, was a famous hunter of those days, residing in the east part of Concord, now Sardinia. He told me that in the winter after the "cold summer," when many families were almost starving, the men would come to him for the loan of his rifle to kill deer. But, like many hunters, he held his rifle as something sacred. His invariable reply was that he would not loan his rifle, but would willingly kill a deer for the seeker, and did so again and again.
He stated that he had frequently, after killing deer all one day, had a good sled-load to draw in the next day. Not only deer but bears and wolves fell before his unerring rifle. On one oc- casion he met five bears and killed three of them. But his most remarkable feat was when, as he asserted, he went out after supper and killed eighteen deer before quitting for the night. I didn't ask him when he ate supper.
During the cold summer the Indians tried to produce a change by pagan sacrifices. Major Jack Berry, Red Jacket's inter- preter, a fat chief who usually went about in summer with a bunch of flowers in his hat, said that to avert the cold weather his countrymen burnt a white dog and a deer, and held a grand pow-wow under the direction of the medicine men-but the next morning there was a harder frost than ever before.
Notwithstanding the adverse weather, the large emigration produced some progress even in 1816. In the present town of Alden, Amos Bliss opened the first tavern in that year. Seth Estabrooks brought in a cart-load of groceries, etc., and set up as the first merchant, in a one-roomed log-house, a few rods south of the main road, on what is now called the Mercer road.
Gen. Warren built another frame tavern at the east end of Willink village. His younger brother, Asa Warren, moved from Aurora to Eden, settling first at a place now called Kromer's Mills, two or three miles eastward from Eden Center, where he built a grist-mill and saw-mill, becoming one of the leading citi- zens of the town.
About the same time, or a little earlier, Erastus Torrey, with his younger brothers, located at what is now called Boston Cor- ners, but which for many years was known as Torrey's Corners.
306
A WANDERING BALLOT-BOX.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
1817 AND 1818.
Wandering Polls. --- Officers .- Formation of Boston .- First Cargo of Flour. - Furs. -- A Presidential Visitor .- Terrible Roads .- The Four-Mile Woods .- Starv- ing Indians. - Father Spencer .- A Revival .- Beginning the Canal .- Progress Here and There .- Lost and Frozen. - Four New Towns. - Willink Destroyed. -Political Complications .- A Youthful Congressman .-- Wearers of Epau- lets .- The "Walk-in-the-Water."- The "Horn Breeze."- Religious Im- provement .- A Church Building .- Wright's Mills. - Springville .- Wales Emmons. - A Wonderful Battle .- John Turkey's Victory.
The migratory character of the ballot-box, sixty years ago, is well illustrated by the journeyings of that of the town of Buf- falo in 1817. On the 29th day of March, at 9 a. m., the polls were opened at the house of Frederick Miller, at Williamsville. At 5 p. m. they were adjourned to the house of Anna Ad- kins, on Buffalo Plains. They opened there the next morning at nine, and at twelve adjourned to the house of Pliny A. Field, at Black Rock. At 5 p. m. they were adjourned to the house of Elias Ransom, in the village of Buffalo, where they remained during the next day, March 31st.
The assemblymen elected were Isaac Phelps, Jr., of Willink, (Aurora,) and Robt. Fleming, of the present county of Niagara.
The known supervisors for 1817 were Erastus Granger of Buffalo, Otis R. Hopkins of Clarence, Isaac Chandler of Ham- burg, and Silas Estee of Eden.
The town of Boston, with its present boundaries, was formed from Eden on the 5th day of April, 1817. It comprised the whole of township Eight, range Seven, except the western tier of lots, which was left attached to Eden. It was organized the next year, with Samuel Abbott as the first supervisor and young Truman Cary as one of the board of assessors.
Cattaraugus county was separately organized in the summer of 1817. Shortly afterwards Samuel Tupper, first judge of Ni- agara county, died, and ere long these changes caused a reor-
307
OFFICIAL AND COMMERCIAL.
ganization of the Court of Common Pleas, by which William Hotchkiss, from the present county of Niagara, was named as first judge, with five associates ; of these Oliver Forward, Chas. Townsend, Samuel Wilkeson and Samuel Russell were from the present county of Erie.
I give a list of justices of the peace appointed in 1817, which I have chanced to meet with, though henceforth it will be im- practicable, for lack of room, to include those increasing conserv- ators of the law. They were James Wolcott, Jonathan Bowen, Isaac Wilson, C. Clifford, Seth Abbott, Amos Smith, John Hill, Nathaniel Gray, Salmon W. Beardsley, Gad Pierce, Morton Crosby, Frederick Richmond, Rufus Eaton, Burgoyne Camp, Elijah Doty, James Sheldon, Ezra St. John, Alexander Hitch- cock, Rufus Spaulding, Simeon Fillmore and Luther Barney. When I wrote the first draft of this chapter, I mentioned that of all that list only Alexander Hitchcock, of Cheektowaga, sur- vived. Before the revision for the press took place, he too passed away. One of the number, James Sheldon, father of the pres- ent Judge Sheldon, was a young lawyer who had lately settled in Buffalo, forming a partnership with C. G. Olmsted, who had been there a little longer.
The open boat Troyer, which came into port about the middle of July, 1817, brought the pioneer cargo of breadstuffs from the West, being partly loaded with flour from Cuyahoga. This was the feeble beginning of a trade which now rivals that of many an independent nation.
Yet it was many years after that before the commerce in west- ern breadstuffs became of any considerable consequence. Half the vessels still came down the lake empty. One week six or seven arrivals were in ballast. Furs still constituted the princi- pal shipments, in value, from the West, and in the summer of 1817 a vessel bearing the curious name of "Tigress and Han- nah" brought the largest and most valuable lot ever shipped at once from the West, estimated to be worth over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It comprised five hundred and ninety- four packages of beaver, otter, muskrat, bear and buffalo skins, of which three hundred and twenty-two packages belonged to John Jacob Astor.
A notable event for this frontier county was the first visit of
308
A PRESIDENTIAL VISITOR.
a President of the United States. President Monroe, having spent a day at the Falls, came up the river on the 9th of Au- gust, accompanied by General Jacob Brown, commander-in- chief of the army. He was met below Black Rock by a com- mittee of eminent citizens, and escorted to Landon's hotel. There was an address by the committee, a brief, extemporane- ous reply by the illustrious guest, the usual hand-shake accorded to our patient statesmen, and then the President embarked the same evening for Detroit. It was noticed by the press that the President had then "already been more than two months away from Washington," and his western trip and return must have consumed nearly a month more.
The distinguished visitor was certainly not detained to greet the people of Tonawanda, for that now flourishing burg had then not even made a start in the race for success. Mr. Urial Driggs, who as a boy passed through there in that year, says there was nothing there but an old log-tavern and a rope-ferry. There were, however, two or three log houses on the north side.
Early in 1817 a post-office was established at Black Rock, James L. Barton being the first postmaster.
Even at this period there was only a tri-weekly mail from and to the East, the stage leaving Buffalo Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 5 o'clock a. m. These were the days of terrible roads, in both spring and fall. . In summer the big coaches bowled along easily enough over hill and dale, the closely- packed passengers beguiling the time with many a pleasant tale, until "stage-coach stories " have become famous for their wit and jollity. But woe to the unlucky traveler, doomed to a stage-coach experience in spring or fall. That he should be re- quired to go on foot half the time was the least of his troubles. His services were frequently demanded to pry the coach from some fearful mud-hole, in which it had sunk to the axle, with a rail abstracted from a neighboring fence, and through pieces of wood it was often thought best to take a rail along. "To go on foot and carry a rail," and pay for the privilege besides, was a method of stage-riding as celebrated as it was unpleasant.
Erie county had something more than its full share of such highways, as the reservations in it had no roads that were even tolerable. Frequent were the complaints of the Cayuga Creek
309
ROADS AND INDIANS.
road, the Buffalo road, the Big Tree road, etc., but the climax of despair was only reached at the "Four-Mile Woods," on the lake shore, a little this side of Cattaraugus creek.
Old settlers tell wonderful stories of the Plutonian depths to which the mud reached in that dreadful locality. The historian of Evans insists that it was there and nowhere else that the story originated of the traveler who, while passing over a horrible road, descried a good-looking hat just at the top of the mud. Picking it up, he was surprised at being denounced by some one underneath, for taking a gentleman's hat off his head without leave. On offering to help the submerged individual out, he was still more astonished when the latter declined on the ground that he couldn't leave the horse he was riding, which was travel- ing on hard ground. All agree that this event ought to have happened in the "Four-Mile Woods," whether it did or not.
The Indians on the various reservations had suffered quite as severely as any one from the effects of the "cold summer." Their game had been largely driven away by settlement around them, their own small crops had been destroyed by frost, and even their annuities were reduced in actual value by the high price of provisions. The schoolmaster, Mr. Hyde, made a pub- lic appeal for help, declaring that there was great actual want.
At this time the few Onondagas received about six dollars each, while the Senecas, numbering seven hundred, received about two dollars and a half to each individual. Part of this came from an annuity of five hundred dollars a year, being the principal consideration for Grand Island, their claim to which they had sold to the State a short time previous.
In passing, it may be mentioned that that island was entirely unoccupied except by a few " squatters," who had located there principally for the purpose of cutting staves out of the State's timber. These gradually increased in number, and as it was not yet fully decided whether the island belonged to the United States or Canada, and also because it was very difficult to reach the interlopers, they did about as they pleased.
Some of the Indians cut wood for the Buffalo market, receiv- ing a trifling pay in flour and pork. Some of them obtained credit for provisions, and Mr. Hyde declared that they were honest and punctual in paying their debts. He said that after
310
FATHER SPENCER.
doing so they would have just about enough left of their annu- ities to buy their seed. He got little help from the people, who had slight patience with Indian peculiarities. The Presbyterian synod of Geneva, however, furnished some aid, and some way or other the Indians worried through.
At this time the Presbyterians, including the Congregationalists, with whom they were united for church work, were the leading denomination of the county, so far as any could be said to lead, though the Methodists, led by that enthusiastic young preacher, Glezen Fillmore, were rapidly gaining upon them. I have be- fore spoken of "Father Spencer," who was a Congregational minister acting under the Presbyterian synod. I find his traces everywhere, especially south of the Buffalo reservation. Almost every old settler, whatever his religious proclivities, has a story to tell of Father Spencer, a short, sturdy man, on a big, bob- tailed horse, riding from one scattered neighborhood to another, summer and winter, preaching, praying, organizing churches, burying the dead and marrying the living ; a man full of zeal in his Master's cause, but full also of life and mirth, ready to answer every jest with another, and a universal favorite among the hardy pioneers.
He, himself, would not admit being thoroughly beaten in jest save in a single instance. His big horse was almost as noted as himself. One day, when the roads were terrible, he was resting the animal by going on foot ahead, leading him by the bridle. The little man trudged sturdily along, but the horse, being old and stiff, hung back the full length of the reins. Passing through a little village, a pert young man suddenly called out : "See here, old gentleman, you ought to trade that horse off for a hand-sled ; you could draw it a great deal easier."
Father Spencer thought so too, and made no reply, but he kept the big horse, and used to tell the story on himself with great zest. I heard it from half a dozen informants. This proves that there were some saucy young men in those days, and also that people could get a great deal of enjoyment out of a very moderate joke.
In 1817, I find the first account of anything resembling a revival of religion. On one Sunday eight members were ad- mitted into the Presbyterian church in Buffalo, and a writer con-
311
PROGRESS HERE AND THERE.
gratulates the public that "through this section of this lately heathen country the spirit of the Lord and the spirit of the Gospel are extending far and wide." The same writer is de- lighted with similar results attained in "the towns of Willink, Hamburg and Edon, where lately the spirits of the evil one enchained the hearts of many." The year 1817 was also notable in the history of the State for a measure deeply affecting the interests of Erie county ; viz., the passage of a law actually directing the construction of a canal from the Hudson to Lake Erie. Previously all had been uncertain ; now the work was made as sure as legislative enactment could make it. The first ground was broken near Rome, on the 4th of July of that year.
Among the scattered signs of progress in this year, which I have chanced to meet with, I find that John C. Rogers, the en- terprising builder of the first saw-mill in Alden, in 1817 also crected the first grist-mill. My authority for this and several other statements regarding that town is the "Oddaographic," an odd and graphic little sheet published at Alden village.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.