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 34
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Stimulated by the prevalent feeling, an anti-masonic newspaper, called the Western Advertiser, was started in Buffalo, but it only lasted about three months. A separate organ was not necessary, as the principles of the anti-masons were vigorously supported by the Buffalo Patriot, while the Journal defended
380
BLACK ROCK, TONAWANDA, ETC.
masonry. It defended it very moderately, however, for the feel- ing in opposition was too strong to be rudely dealt with.
The Black Rock Gazette was moved to Buffalo in 1827, by its proprietor, Smith H. Salisbury, and published for a year as the Buffalo and Black Rock Gazette. The Black Rock Advo- cate, which had maintained a precarious existence for a year, gave up the ghost in 1827. It was evident that the tide of pro- gress was rapidly drifting away from Black Rock.
Tonawanda village had at this time advanced so that it had a bridge, a few houses and two small stores ; Mr. Driggs, before referred to, who located there permanently in 1827, opened the third. The Methodists then had an organization, but there was no church-building.
In fact church-buildings were extremely rare anywhere in the - -county. I cannot learn of one, out of Buffalo, in the beginning of 1827, except the Friends' meeting-house at East Hamburg. In that year the Baptist and Presbyterian churches in Aurora combined, and built a good-sized frame church. The Methodists there erected one about the same time, and thenceforth white spires began to arise in all parts of the county.
At this time, too, the village of Lodi, formerly Aldrich's Mills, had progressed so that it was thought possible to support a paper there, and the Lodi Pioneer was accordingly established. It had but a brief existence.
There were already several steamers on the lake, and a large fleet of sail vessels. Two or three small steamers had also been built to run on the Niagara. A curious exhibition was seen on that river in September, 1827. The schooner Michigan, which was found to be too large to enter the lake harbors, and had be- sides become partially unseaworthy, was purchased by several hotel-owners and others, and public notice given that on a cer- tain day it would be sent over the Falls. The novel exhibition drew immensely. Strangers came for days beforehand, and at the time appointed the number of people on Goat Island and the neighboring shores was estimated all the way from ten to thirty thousand. Five steamers, all there were on both lake and river except the Superior, went down from Buffalo loaded with pas- sengers, besides thousands who took land-conveyance.
The Michigan was towed by one of the steamers to Yale's
381
SHOOTING NIAGARA.
landing, three miles above the Falls, on the Canadian side. In the afternoon it was taken in charge by Captain Rough, the old- est captain on the lake, who with a yawl and five oarsmen un- dertook to pilot the doomed vessel as near the rapids as was possible. The Michigan had been provided with a crew, for that voyage only, consisting of a buffalo, three bears. two foxes, a raccoon, a dog, a cat and four geese. It had also been officered with effigies of General Jackson and other prominent men of the day.
Captain Rough took the schooner to a point within a quarter of a mile of the first rapids, and but little over half a mile from the Horse-shoe Fall. Then it was cut adrift, and the oars- men had to pull for their lives, but succeeded in insuring their · safety. Both shores were lined with immense crowds, eagerly watching this curious proceeding.
With the American ensign flying from her bowsprit, and the British jack at her stern, the Michigan went straight down the center of the stream, keeping the course the best pilot would have pursued, and was soon dashing over the first rapids. Then- there was trouble among the amateur crew. One of the bears was seen climbing a mast. The foxes, the coon, the dog and the cat were scampering up and down, apparently snuffing mis- chief in the air, but not knowing how to avoid it. Two of the bears plunged into the seething rapids and swam to the Cana- dian shore. The poor buffalo was inclosed in a pen, and could do nothing but meet his fate in dignified silence.
Passing the first rapids uninjured, the schooner shipped a sea. but came up and entered the second, still "head on." There its masts both went by the board. Then it swung around. en- tered the third rapid stern foremost, and the next instant plunged over the Horse-shoe Fall. Of course it was shivered into ten thousand pieces. many of the largest timbers being broken into atoms. Two of the geese survived the tremendous plunge and swam ashore, being the only animals, except fish, ever known to have descended alive over that fearful precipice. Their com- paguons de voyage all disappeared ; even the buffalo was never heard of more. Of the effigies, Gen. Jackson's alone passed un- injured over the cataract, and was seen with head, arms and legs complete, riding triumphantly around one of the eddies-which
382
DEPOSITION OF RED JACKET.
was doubtless considered by the friends of the real general as an omen of success at the next Presidential election.
About the same time that this singular pageant was attracting a multitude of spectators, the old orator of the Senecas was be- ing metaphorically sent over the Falls, as an unseaworthy hulk, by his countrymen. The school at the Seneca village was then in a forward condition, and many of the most prominent Indians began to profess their belief in Christianity. Red Jacket's oppo- sition became more bitter than ever, while his personal habits were those of a perfect sot.
His wife had lately joined the Christians, whereupon the angry old pagan abandoned her, and lived for several months with an- other woman on the Tonawanda reservation. At the end of that time, however, he returned to his wife, and afterwards man- ifested no opposition to her attending church.
Twenty-five of the chiefs determined to depose him from his sachemship. They accordingly had a written deposition drawn up, which they all signed. The list was headed by "Gayanquia- ton," or Young King, followed by the veteran Captain Pollard, White Seneca, Seneca White, Captain Strong and the rest.
This singular document was directly addressed to him, saying, " You, Sagoyowatha," have committed such and such offenses ; accusing him of sending false stories to the President, of oppos- ing improvement, of discouraging children from attending school, of leaving his wife, of betraying the United States in the war of 1812, of appropriating annuity goods to his own use, and of hid- ing a deer he had killed, while his people were starving. His accusers closed by renouncing him as chief, and forbidding him to act as such.
These charges extended over a long time, and as to many of them there are no means of ascertaining their correctness. Those relating to his opposition to "improvement," etc., were doubtless true, but were hardly proper subjects of impeachment. As to the accusation of betraying the United States in the war, it was generally repudiated by American officers, who doubted Red Jacket's courage, but not his fidelity. He sought, indeed, to keep his people out of the fight entirely, but his right to do this can hardly be questioned. It will be observed that his ac- cusers say nothing about the gross drunkenness which really
383
AN ERIE COUNTY CABINET-OFFICER.
unfitted him for performing any official duties which may have attached to his rank. Probably a good many of them thought it not best, on their own account, to meddle with that subject.
Chiefs were so numerous among the Indians that twenty-five was a minority of those who could claim that dignity ; and the action of that number could not be considered the voice of the nation. Red Jacket, however, was deeply cut by it. He made a visit to Washington in 1827 or '28, and the commissioner of Indian affairs advised him to return and offer his opponents to bury the hatchet. He came back and called a council. Much indignation was unquestionably felt among the Indians that their greatest man should have been treated with such indignity. He exerted his waning powers to the utmost, and made a most eloquent speech. The council agreed to restore him to his rank, and it is reported that it was done by a unanimous vote, his op- ponents being awed into silence by the popular feeling.
But this was the last effort of that brilliant mind. He sank rapidly into comparative imbecility and utter sottishness.
At the spring elections, in 1828, Timothy S. Hopkins was chosen supervisor from Amherst, Moses Case from Alden, Reu- ben B. Heacock from Buffalo, Epaphras Steele from Boston, Nathaniel Knight from Collins, Joshua Agard from Concord, Otis R. Hopkins from Clarence, Levi Bunting from Eden, Jo- seph Foster from Hamburg, Asa Crook from Holland, Horace Clark from Sardinia, Niles Cole from Wales, and Silas Lewis from Colden; the latter being the first from that town.
Judge Walden retired from the bench, and Thomas C. Love was appointed first judge of the Common Pleas. His associates were Charles Townsend, Philander Bennett, Samuel Russell and William Mills.
A little later, a vacancy having occurred in the office of Sec- retary of War, President Adams selected Gen. Peter B. Porter for that position. He was the first cabinet officer from Western New York. Gen. Porter discharged with credit the duties of his office during the remainder of Mr. Adams' term, and then re- tired permanently from public life. Still later he removed to Niagara Falls, where he died in 1844. His only son was the late Col. Peter A. Porter, (a native of Erie county, though long a resident of Niagara,) who inherited the valor of the pioneer
384
MILITARY AND POLITICAL.
volunteer, and fell at the head of his regiment in the war for the Union.
H. B. Potter still remained district-attorney. He had also become general of the 47th brigade of infantry, New York mi- litia, and a roster on file in the Historical Society gives the names of his field and staff officers. I do not know the exact year it was made out, but it was not far from 1828. It ran as follows :
Brigadier-general, Heman B. Potter. Colonels, Jonathan Colby of Holland, David Burt of Buffalo, Harry B. Ransom of Clarence, and Uriel Torrey of Boston. Lieutenant-colonels, Na- than M. Mann of Wales, Lyman Rathbun of Buffalo, Alanson Fox of Clarence, and Perry G. Jenks of Boston. Majors, Edward H. Nye of Aurora, Alanson Palmer of Buffalo, Ansel Badger of Alden, and Whitman Stone of Eden. The brigade staff was composed as follows : Hospital surgeon, John E. Marshall ; judge advocate, Philander Bennett ; brigade-quartermaster, James W. Higgins ; aide-de-camp, George Hodge ; brigade major and in- spector, Millard Fillmore. After this time, although generals and colonels continued to abound, yet few notices of their appoint- ment were published, and consequently I shall not, as a rule, be able to give them a place in this history.
Although the feeling against masonry was very strong in this section, and constantly growing more so, yet the lodges at Buf- falo and Black Rock still continued to meet, and in 1828 cele- brated in the usual manner the ancient festival of St. John. As the fall elections approached, the combat grew more intense. Charges of murder and of abetting murder were freely used on the one hand, and were met by accusations that the leading anti-masons were merely stirring up strife for the purpose of obtaining office.
This was also the autumn of the first election of Jackson, and the contest was exceedingly bitter, throughout the country, between his supporters (who by this time were generally recog- nized as the actual Democratic party) and those of the Adams- Clay administration. In Western New York the lines were pretty closely drawn between the Jackson Democrats on the one hand and the anti-masons on the other, the latter having a large majority.
In the 30th district, Ebenezer F. Norton, of Buffalo, was
385
EARLY GERMAN EMIGRATION.
elected to Congress over John G. Camp. In this county Lemuel Wasson, of Hamburg, was chosen sheriff, and Elijah Leech, of Buffalo, county clerk. To represent the county in the assembly the anti-masons elected David Burt, of Buffalo, and the young Aurora lawyer, Millard Flllmore, who then first entered public life. Dr. Johnson was again appointed surrogate, in place of Roswell Chapin.
Notwithstanding the feebleness of the Democracy in this county, a paper was established during the campaign to dis- seminate their principles, which has adhered to that party ever since, and which, after several changes of name, has for thirty years been known as the Buffalo Courier. At its birth it was called the Buffalo Republican.
It was during the semi-decade under consideration in this chapter, that there began to appear in Erie county a few scat- tered families of a nationality which is now represented within our borders by near eighty thousand of our most prosperous citizens. A few Germans had come to Buffalo on the comple- tion of the canal, and from year to year thereafter. One of the number, Mr. E. C. Grey, who came in 1828, says there were not over twenty-five German families in Buffalo when he arrived. There were substantially none in the country towns. From that time forward the number kept steadily increasing, and I shall endeavor as fully as practicable to trace their growth up to its present remarkable development.
The anti-masons continued to hold sway throughout 1829, and the adhering masons gradually decreased in numbers. Then or not long afterwards the Erie county lodges gave up their charters. In the fall of 1829 Albert H. Tracy again entered political life, being elected State senator by the anti-masons, by a majority of over seven thousand in the eighth senatorial dis- trict. At the same time Mr. Fillmore was reëlected to the as- sembly, in which he had taken high rank by his industry and talents. The other member then elected was Edmund Hull, of Clarence.
Thomas C. Love resigned the post of first judge to accept that of district-attorney, from which General Potter retired after ten years of service-the longest time that any one has held that office in the county. Associate-judge Philander Ben-
386
MARILLA, NEWSTEAD, ETC.
nett was made first judge in place of Love, and James Stryker appointed associate.
The supervisors for 1829 and 1830, so far as known, were as follows : Amherst, Timothy S. Hopkins ; Alden, Moses Case ; Buffalo, Ebenezer Walden ; Boston, Epaphras Steele ; Clarence, Benjamin O. Bivins and John Brown ; Collins, Nathaniel Knight ; Colden, Silas Lewis and William Lewis; Eden, Levi Bunting ; Hamburg, Joseph Foster; Holland, Chase Fuller; Sardinia, Horace Clark ; Wales, Niles Cole and Moses McArthur.
Most of the present town of Marilla was included in the tract bought of the Indians. Its excellent soil caused it to be quickly settled as soon as the land was for sale. Jeremiah and G. W. Carpenter opened farms near the site of Marilla village in 1829 and '30. Jesse Bartoo had settled still earlier, near what is now Porterville, but was long called Bartoo's Mills.
The large tract purchased in Erie (Newstead) was also rapidly filling up. The Erie post-office was on the old Buffalo road, but business had already begun to be drawn toward what is now the village of Akron, and in 1828 or'29 Jonathan Russell opened a store there. For some unknown reason the place was ere long called " The Corporation," and for many years went prin- cipally by that name. The interior of the vast limestone ridge, however, was as yet unexplored.
Meanwhile Williamsville, which had remained about the same ever since the close of the war, began to revive. Oziel Smith bought the extensive mill-property, which had been unused for some time, new machinery was set in motion, and the place began to assume the appearance of progress.
In 1829 the Catholics had become so numerous at Buffalo that Bishop Dubois paid them a visit, preached, and administered the sacraments of his Church. He states that he found seven or eight hundred Catholics, instead of the seventy or eighty he had expected. He speaks of hearing the confessions of two hun- dred Swiss, and the same year he sent thither Father Nicholas Merz, the first Catholic priest settled in Buffalo. There were also a few Catholics in Lancaster at that time, but none else- where in the county, except scattered individuals.
Up to this time there had been substantially no means of ed- ucation higher than that of a common school, outside of Buffalo,
387
THE VILLAGE LAWYER.
and very little even in that village. Mr. Theodotus Burwell, afterwards Judge Burwell, was then conducting an academy there.
For several years efforts had been made to have an academy in Springville. At length one was incorporated, and the first election of trustees took place in 1829. Two thousand five hundred .dollars were raised by subscription, in shares of fifteen dollars, and a building was begun.
In the spring of 1829 Mr. George W. Johnson, a young grad- uate of Dartmouth college, opened a classical school, or academy, at Aurora village ; the first of its kind, out of Buffalo, in the county. Mr. J. mentions Joseph Howard, Jr., a leading mer- chant and hotel-keeper of that village, as one of the warmest patrons of both the private academy and the public one which suc- ceeded it. In June, while conducting his school, Mr. Johnson became a law student in the office of Millard Fillmore, who had just returned from his first session in the legislature. The other students were a gentleman named Warren, and Nathan K. Hall, the son of a shoemaker in the adjoining town of Wales.
Mr. Johnson, who after a long professional life in Buffalo is now a resident of Niagara county, has furnished me with some reminiscences of that period, from which I extract a few relating to the future President. Mr. J. speaks of him as being ever the same accessible, genial and obliging gentleman, rarely or never losing his temper, and noted for quiet, persistent industry. These are traits with which all are familiar who know anything of the distinguished gentleman in question ; there were others not so generally known, and which were perhaps overlaid by the cares and dignities of his subsequent life.
His quondam student relates that he had a quick sense of the ridiculous, large imitative powers, and much amusing but inoffen- sive humor, which made him a capital teller of anecdotes and stories ; he not only relating the story, but with voice and gest- ure "acting it out " to the life. While fond of humor, however, he was not given to wit, and in sarcastic wit he never indulged. His student, and subsequent cabinet-officer, Mr. Hall, was some- what like him in both respects, as well as in his other qualities of industry, perseverance and moderation.
Mr. Fillmore, while in Aurora, eked out the slender income of a village lawyer by frequent practice as a land-surveyor, being
388
AMBITIOUS HOPES.
the owner of a compass and other surveying instruments, for which there was more use then than now. Obtaining sufficient exercise in that way, he rarely or never sought recreation in the neighboring forest with rifle or fish-pole, as did almost all young men of the period. One of his few relaxations was to sit before his office of a summer evening, in the midst of a group of vil- lagers, smoking his pipe, and relating and listening to anecdotes and gossip. On one of these occasions, during a lull in the con- versation, Mr. Johnson suddenly accosted him, saying:
"Mr. Fillmore, why don't you get into Congress, and procure by your influence profitable positions for Hall and me?"
The oddity of the question excited a general laugh, for Mr. Fillmore, though a member of the assembly, was still only a village lawyer and country surveyor. Deliberately taking his pipe from his mouth, however, and puffing forth a cloud of smoke, he replied, quite seriously :
"Stranger things than that have happened, Mr. Johnson." And much stranger things than that did happen.
In the summer of 1829 Mr. Fillmore was the orator on the Fourth of July, and young Hall the reader of the declaration. And this brings me to notice that in those times the "glorious Fourth" was celebrated with a regularity now unknown. Every year, in the vicinity of 1830, I find a record of its due commem- oration in Aurora, and I presume the same was the case in other villages of similar size.
By 1830 the opponents of Jackson's administration through- out the country had generally assumed the name of National Republicans, but in Western New York the anti-masons still ab- sorbed nearly all the elements of opposition. In the autumn of that year they elected Bates Cooke, of Niagara county, to rep- resent this district in Congress. Mr. Fillmore, who had mean- while moved to Buffalo and entered into partnership with his old tutor, Joseph Clary, was chosen to the assembly for the third time, and with him Nathaniel Knight, for several years super- visor of Collins. Mr. Knight was the first assemblyman from any town south of Aurora and Hamburg.
The supervisors for the year were Moses Case of Alden, T. S. Hopkins of Amherst, Jonathan Hoyt of Aurora, Ebenezer Walden of Buffalo, Epaphras Steele of Boston, William Lewis
389
POST-OFFICES IN 1830.
of Colden, Oliver Needham of Concord, Nathaniel Knight of Collins, John Brown of Clarence, Jonathan Hascall, Jr., of Evans, Levi Bunting of Eden, Elisha Smith of Hamburg, Chase Fuller of Holland, John Boyer of Erie, Horace Clark of Sardinia, and Moses McArthur of Wales.
By the. census of 1830 the population of the county was 35,719 ; showing an increase of 11,413, or forty-seven per cent., in five years. The population of Buffalo was 8,668.
From a register of that year I find there were then twenty- seven post-offices in the county. I have been able to give the exact year of establishing many of them; the others had all been established between 1825 and 1830. Nine of the sixteen towns had one office each, viz., Alden, Amherst, Boston, Eden, Erie, Colden, Concord, Holland and Sardinia. Each was of the same name as the town, except those in Amherst and Con- cord, which were named respectively Williamsville and Spring- ville. Four towns had two offices each; Aurora having Willink and Griffin's Mills; Clarence having Clarence and Cayuga Creek ; Evans having Evans and East Evans; and Wales hav- ing Wales and South Wales. Two towns had three offices each ; Buffalo, with Buffalo, Black Rock and Tonawanda ; and Hamburg, with Hamburg, East Hamburg and Hamburg-on-the- Lake. Finally, the fertile fields of Collins must have attracted a very large emigration, or else its people were especially given to letters, as that town had four post-offices in 1830-Collins, Angola, Collins Center and Zoar.
It will be seen that two of the offices, discontinued when that of " Hamburg" was located at Abbott's Corners, had been re- established, though one of them took the name of "Hamburg- on-the-Lake," instead of "Barkersville." The office at "Collins" was then kept by Elijah Kerr, and it must have been near that time that the little hanılet there, which had previously been known as Rose's Corners, began to be called Kerr's Corners. The post- master at South Wales was then Nathan M. Mann, but he offi- ciated only a little while, when David S. Warner was appointed, who, with a short interval, has held the place ever since. He is probably the senior postmaster in the county.
In this year (1830) the Springville academy building was fin- ished, and the academy opened in it, under the charge of Hiram
390
CONDITION OF THE COUNTY.
H. Barney, Esq., afterwards principal of Aurora academy, and still later commissioner of schools of the State of Ohio. This was the first incorporated high school, with a building of its own, . in the county, not excluding Buffalo.
It will have been observed that there was in the county, out- side of Buffalo, about thirty thousand people. There are now sixty thousand. But of these about ten thousand are residents of the towns carved out of the Buffalo Creek reservation, and of Grand Island. So that, in the towns then settled, outside of Buffalo, the increase has been but about sixty-six per cent. The country towns had then begun to assume something of their present appearance. Nearly all the villages now existing were then in being-and many of them were nearly as large as now. The buildings in them, however, were by no means as large or expensive as at the present day. There was probably not a three-story building in the county except in Buffalo, and several villages were not yet in existence.
Log houses were frequently seen, even on the main roads, and on the back roads were still in the majority. Few new ones, however, were built. Of the frame houses the common ones re- tained their original wood-color, but the aristocracy covered theirs with a coat of glowing red. The old well-sweep still held its own, or was replaced by a windlass; the pump was still an institution seldom affected by the farmer.
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