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 35
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 animals of the forest were still often seen, though in de- creasing numbers every year. Along the Cattaraugus the bears lasted longer than the wolves, and were still frequent in 1830. One case, occurring about that year, was especially noted, in which an old Sardinia bear and four cubs were slain in one short cam- paign. She was driven across the creek, and shot in Cattarau- gus, but swam back to her home on this side, where she and all her family were finally slain.
Deer frequently strayed even into the immediate vicinity of Buffalo. Mr. William Hodge mentions killing deer about 1828 and '30 in the vicinity of the Insane Asylum, and as far south as the Normal School.
On the 20th of January, 1830, the renowned orator, Red Jacket, died at his log cabin near the mission church, on the Buffalo reservation. He had sunk very low since the time of his
391
DEATH OF RED JACKET.
great struggle over the question of his rank, even hiring himself to keepers of museums to be exhibited for money. Having returned home, and being satisfied that death was approaching, he rallied his waning powers to give counsel to his people. He visited his friends at their cabins, conversed with them on the wrongs of the Indians, and urged them when he was gone to heed his counsels, to retain their lands and to resist all efforts to convert them to the habits of the white man. According to McKenney's "Indian Biography," he was anxious that his fu- neral should be celebrated in the Indian manner.
"Bury me," he said "by the side of my former wife ; and let " my funeral be according to the customs of our nation. Let " me be dressed and equipped as my fathers were, that their "spirits may rejoice at my coming. Be sure that iny grave be " not made by a white man ; let them not pursue me there."
Nevertheless, while thus earnest, he was not so bitter as he had formerly been. Almost at the last he convened a council of his people, both Christians and pagans, and advised them to live in harmony, leaving every one to choose his religion with- out interference. He was taken mortally sick (with cholera morbus) during the council, but a resolution was adopted in accordance with his wishes, at which he was much pleased.
He said he knew the attack was fatal, and refused all medical aid. One of his last requests was that, when she saw him near- ing his end, his wife should place in his hand a certain vial of water, to keep the devil from taking his soul ! Thus, enveloped in the superstitions of his race, passed away the last of the Iro- quois orators, the renowned Red Jacket. His precise age was unknown, but he was probably about seventy-five. His sons had all died before him, and but one or two daughters remained of a large family, who mostly fell victims to consumption.
Notwithstanding his wishes, as the members of the Wolf clan, to which he belonged, were largely Christian, as well as his wife and her family, he was buried according to the rites of the Christian Church.
The remains of Red Jacket had a strange fate, though one not inconsistent with his own hapless career. For many years his grave remained unmarked. In 1839, however, a subscrip- tion was set on foot under the auspices of the actor, Henry
392
THE ORATOR'S REMAINS.
Placide, and a marble slab with a suitable inscription placed over his grave. Long after the Senecas had removed to the Cat- taraugus reservation, some admirers of the orator, perhaps fear- ing that his grave would be ploughed up, took up his bones and put them in a lead coffin, intending to remove them to Forest Lawn. His Indian friends, however, heard of the project with strong dislike, and immediately came from Cattaraugus, and de- manded and obtained the precious relics. The monument was afterwards transferred to the rooms of the Buffalo Historical So- ciety, where it still remains.
The most singular part of the matter is that the bones were never reburied. When visiting the Cattaraugus reservation, with other parts of the county, last year, I was informed that the mortal remains of the most celebrated orator produced by the aborigines of America are preserved in a bag, under the bed of an old Indian woman who has constituted herself their custodian !
393
" THE YEAR THAT HOLT WAS HUNG."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
1831 TO 1835.
" The Year that Holt was Hung."-An Ugly Captive. - Political. - Newstead Ab- bey and Newstead Town .- The White Woman .- Buffalo Incorporated .- Fillmore in Congress .- The Cholera .- Allen, Haskins and Pierce. - A Mid- night Scene .- Commercial Progress .- Lancaster .- Senators, Assemblymen, etc .- Speculation.
The first year of the new decade passed almost eventless away. The circumstance which most strongly marks it on the memo- ries of old settlers is that it was " the year that Holt was hung." Murders had not yet become so common in the county as to be flung aside with the morning paper. Nearly seven years had passed since the last one, and a still longer time was to elapse before there should be another; so, although the execution of the wretch who slew his wife with a hammer, in their room over his grocery, on Main street, Buffalo, obtained no such celebrity as the awful doom of the three brothers in 1825, still it formed an era to which local events are often referred by the men of that day. The crime was quickly punished; it was committed in October, Holt pleaded guilty the same month, and he was executed on the 22d of November.
It was "the year that Holt was hung" as Mr. Mills Hall, of Wales, relates, that nearly if not quite the last wolf was seen in that town. Having set a trap for the purpose, young Hall, with his brother and another youth, visited it one morning, and found a gigantic sheep-destroyer fast in its embrace. Desiring to ex- hibit their trophy alive, Mills Hall seized the wolf by the head, one of the others supported his shoulders, and the third grasped his hind legs, and thus they bore him home. On the way his wolfship twisted his head around so as to slightly bite his fore- most bearer, but the latter only tightened his grasp, and the struggling animal was carried safely to the little village of Hall's Hollow. There he was exhibited for a few days, and then slain. A bounty of twenty-five dollars rewarded the captors.
26
394
NEWSTEAD ABBEY AND NEWSTEAD TOWN.
The Anti-Masonic-National-Republican opposition to Jack- son's administration still maintained absolute control of the county, and in the fall of 1831 elected to the assembly William Mills, of Clarence, and Horace Clark, of Sardinia. At the same time, Stephen Osborn, of Clarence, was chosen sheriff, and Noah P. Sprague, of Buffalo, county clerk. Edward Paine, of Aurora, was appointed associate-judge.
In April, 1831, the name of the town of Erie was changed to "Newstead." It is said that there was much confusion and dif- ficulty on account of letters going to Erie, Pennsylvania; so it was determined to alter the name of the town, preparatory to changing that of the post-office. But the inhabitants could not agree on a satisfactory appellation, and so sent their petition to Mr. Fillmore, their representative in the assembly, requesting him to have the name changed, and leaving him to select a sub- stitute. This being a matter of taste, he consulted his wife. Mrs. F. happened to be reading Byron at the time, and she rec- ommended the title of the noble poet's ancestral hall, "New- stead Abbey," as a convenient and euphonious designation for the new town. Her husband adopted her suggestion, and in due time the name of Byron's home was transferred to the northeastern town of Erie county. As I understand it, the name of the post-office was also changed to Newstead, and afterwards again changed to Akron.
The supervisors for 1831, so far as known, were T. S. Hop- kins of Amherst, Moses Case of Alden, John Brown of Clar- ence, Ebenezer Walden of Buffalo, Epaphras Steele of Boston, Nathaniel Knight of Collins, Thomas M. Barrett of Concord, Erastus Bingham of Colden, Levi Bunting of Eden, Elisha Smith of Hamburg, Chase Fuller of Holland, John Boyer of Newstead, George S. Collins of Sardinia, and Moses McArthur of Wales.
It was about 1831 or 1832 that the first Germans-that is, na- tive Germans, as distinguished from Pennsylvania Germans-be- gan to settle in the county, outside of Buffalo. They located in and about White's Corners, now Hamburg, and some of them found their way to the high land in the eastern part of Eden. Among minor matters it may be noted that the Congregational church at Griffin's Mills (Aurora) was built in 1831.
395
MARY JEMISON.
In the year 1831, there came to make her home in the county of Erie one whose life had been of the most strange and ro- mantic character-albeit the romance was of such a kind that few would wish to undergo her experience. Born on the At- lantic, in 1743, while her parents were migrating from the old world to the new, the restless billows of Mary Jemison's birth- place well typified the ever-changing vicissitudes of her long career.
At the age of twelve she saw her home on the frontier of Pennsylvania destroyed by a band of savages, and all its in- mates save herself-father, mother, brothers and sisters-all slain by the same ruthless foes. But the caprice so often manifested by the Indians toward their captives induced them to spare her alone, and to take her to Fort Du Quesne. There she was adopted by two Indian sisters, who treated her with the greatest kindness and gave her the name of Dehhewamis.
Ere she had hardly attained to womanhood she was required to wed a young Delaware brave, and, though she became the bride of an Indian with great reluctance, yet, as she always de- clared, his unvarying kindness was such as to gain her affection. "Strange as it may seem," she said, "I loved him." For some unknown reason she went (on foot, with her children on her back) several hundred miles from her home on the Ohio, to take up her residence among the Senecas on the Genesee, where her husband was to join her. He died, however, before doing so. This is the most curious part of her story, and it looks as if there was something hidden about that portion of her life.
She soon married a Sencca, a monster of cruelty toward his enemies, but kind to her. By this time she had become so fully reconciled to her savage surroundings that she declined the op- portunity to return to the whites, afforded by the peace between England and France, and when an old chief sought to take her to Fort Niagara by force, to obtain the reward offered for pris- oners thus delivered up, she used every means to baffle his efforts, and finally succeeded in doing so.
She remained among the Senecas during the Revolution, her cabin being the habitual stopping-place for Butler, Brant and other leaders, while going on or returning from their raids against the wretched inhabitants of the frontier. When Sullivan came on
396
A WILD CAREER.
his mission of vengeance, her cabin and crops were destroyed with the others; I say "her," for she seems to have been the principal personage in the household, as well of her second as of her first husband. With her two youngest children on her back and three others following after, she hunted up a couple of runaway negroes living with the Senecas, whose crop had es- caped destruction, and by husking their corn on shares obtained enough to feed herself and children through the winter.
She remained near her old haunts when most of the Senecas came west, and, when they sold to Phelps and Gorham, she managed to procure for herself a reservation of near thirty square miles. This might have afforded her an ample fortune, and she did draw considerable revenue from it. But she showed little desire for the comforts of civilized life, and retained to a great extent the dress, appearance and habits of a squaw. She was commonly called "The White Woman" by the Indians, and even those of her own race generally adopted this curious appellation.
In time her second husband died, leaving his savage charac- teristics to his eldest son, who developed a nature of the deepest malignity, inflamed by drunkenness, who in different quarrels slew his only two brothers, and who was finally murdered him- self in a drunken brawl. Sad indeed were the latter days of the old "White Woman," and they were made still more so by the progress of settlement, which shut her off from the wild com- panions of so many years.
At length she determined to spend her remaining days with her old friends, and in 1831, at the age of eighty-eight, she dis- posed of her remaining interest on the Genesce and came to make her last home on the Buffalo Creek reservation. There, amid the barbaric customs which had so strangely fascinated her, she survived for two more years ; and then Mary Jemison, Dehhewamis, "The White Woman," found rest in the grave, after nine decades of a tempest-tossed life.
In 1832 Buffalo was incorporated as a city, with five wards, and a population of about ten thousand. Two aldermen were elected in each ward, and they, under the charter, elected the mayor and other executive officers. Dr. Ebenezer Johnson was chosen the first mayor of the infant city. George P. Barker, a
397
MR. FILLMORE IN CONGRESS.
young lawyer admitted to the bar only three years before, was the first city-attorney.
The supervisors chosen in the spring, of which there happens to be a complete list, were Jacob Hershey of Amherst, Jonathan Hoyt of Aurora, Epaphras Stcele of Boston, James L. Barton of Buffalo, John Brown of Clarence, Erastus Bingham of Colden, Nathaniel Knight of Collins, Carlos Emmons of Concord, James Green of Eden, Orange H. Dibble of Evans, Elisha Smith of Hamburg, Chase Fuller of Holland, John Boyer of Newstead, George S. Collins of Sardinia, and Nathan M. Mann of Wales.
In the fall (which, as will be remembered, was the time of Jackson's second election) the two Erie county members of as- sembly, Mills and Clark, were both reelected. At the same time Millard Fillmore was chosen to represent the thirtieth district of New York in Congress.
To achieve such a success at the age of thirty-two is most creditable to the abilities of any man ; and was all the more so in this case, the young congressman having had absolutely no aid from extraneous sources, and having achieved his entrance into the national legislature only nine years after commencing life in a country village, as an attorney in the Common Pleas. What makes this rapid success the more remarkable is that Mr. Fillmore had none of those attributes by which the people are most easily captivated. He was neither a "hail-fellow " nor a brilliant orator. He succeeded, and succeeded rapidly, by virtue of industry, perseverance, clear reason and sound judgment.
It will be understood that the only difficulty was in regard to the nomination ; the election of the anti-administration candi- date was a foregone conclusion. The strength of the feeling is shown by the fact that in this county William L. Marcy, the Democratic candidate for governor, received but 1,743 votes, while 4,356 votes were cast for Francis Granger, the opposition nominee.
Israel T. Hatch, a young lawyer just come to Buffalo, was appointed surrogate in place of Martin Chittenden, deceased. The latter, together with Henry White, a brilliant and much- admired young advocate, had fallen a victim to the cholera; for it was in 1832 that that dreadful scourge made its first visit to the shores of America.
398
THE CHOLERA.
Passing along the main thoroughfares it inflicted a heavy blow upon Buffalo, but it did not spread into the country. Yet nonc knew what track the destroyer might take, and for many weeks every village waited with fear and trembling the appearance of this hitherto unknown scourge. During a few weeks of July and August there were a hundred and eighty-four cases in Buffalo, of which eighty proved fatal. The number was large, for the population of the young city, and the horror was rendered greater by the mysterious character of the disease.
The board of health of the new city had for a time plenty of business. It consisted of Dr. Johnson, as mayor, Lewis F. Al- len and Roswell W. Haskins. Dr. Marshall was city physician, and Loren Pierce was city undertaker. All were vigilant and effective, and spared no sacrifice in their efforts to counteract and circumscribe the disease.
Very likely Mr. Haskins was no more zealous than the others, but his peculiar ways drew particular attention. An energetic and somewhat eccentric man, a printer by trade, and for many years a newspaper proprietor, his character, as described by his contemporaries, reminds one in some respects of that of Horace Greeley. Being a person of nervous quickness of move- ment, and most incisive language, every one noticed what he did, and many still remember him hurrying around the stricken city, removing patients to the hospital, and sometimes carrying one down stairs, from some wretched tenement house, on his own strong shoulders.
Of a far different temperament, Mr. Pierce performed his du- ties in the quietest possible manner, bearing the victims of the mysterious destroyer to their last repose with unfailing prompt- ness and unflinching courage, but as calmly as if nothing un- usual was transpiring. Mr. Allen, who himself served throughout the crisis with unflagging zeal, narrates a curious instance of the sang froid of the worthy undertaker.
One night, in the very height of the cholera season, Mr. A. had retired to rest at his residence on Main street, exhausted with the labors of the day, when a terrific thunder-storm burst forth, extending far into the night. About midnight he was awakened by a rapping at the window. Going to the door he found Loren Pierce. The thunderbolts were resounding contin-
399
A MIDNIGHT SCENE.
uously through the heavens, the lightnings were flashing from side to side of the abyss of darkness, and the rain was falling in torrents. It was an era of dread, and visions of some new form of disease and death rose before the appalled mind of the mem- ber of the board of health.
"For Heaven's sake, Pierce," he exclaimed, "what is the mat- ter? Is there any new trouble?"
"No," quietly replied the undertaker, "nothing new; I have six bodies in the wagon out here, going to the graveyard, and I thought perhaps you would like to know that everything was all right."
"Good heavens," said the astonished Allen, "have you called me up on such a night as this, to tell me that you are taking six corpses to the graveyard in a storm that is almost enough to drown the city? You don't mean to say that you are alone?"
"Oh no," replied Pierce, "Black Tony is with me-he is holding the horses now-I guess we can manage it." Mr. Allen had no directions to give-in fact had nothing to say-and away through the midnight storm and darkness moved the man of death, with his solitary assistant, Black Tony, to dispose of his ghastly burthen. It must have taken nearly all night, yet at eight o'clock the next morning he was at the meeting of the board of health, composed and quiet as ever.
The cholera returned in 1834, when another epoch of death and dismay occurred. It then ceased its visitations for nearly twenty years, and, save by the immediate friends of the dead, it was soon forgotten in the increasing prosperity of the city and county.
The citizens of Aurora had made frequent endeavors to turn Mr. Johnson's private academy into an incorporated institution, and when that gentleman removed to Buffalo, in 1832, they raised, by subscription, the money to erect a building and obtained a charter from the legislature. The building was completed, and the school opened, the next year. In 1834, also, a church-build- ing was erected by the Presbyterians in Springville, and another at "Cayuga Creek," the first, respectively, in the present towns of Concord and Lancaster. About the same time (I cannot learn the exact year) the same denomination built a church at Lodi-now Gowanda.
400
PROSPERITY AND INFLATION.
We have now reached the time when the tide of commerce began to roll steadily through our borders. The fertile lands of Michigan, northern Indiana, northern Illinois and other parts of the West were opened to settlement, and their products began to find their way into the Erie canal. Its boats now went loaded to the sea coast, and brought back crowds of emigrants, most of whom went farther west, but many of whom sought the compan- ionship of their countrymen in and around Buffalo.
Almost at the same time, the closing of the United States Bank caused the chartering of a large number of State banks, which issued an immense amount of paper money. Frequently the guaranties required by the States were wretchedly inade- quate, especially in the West and South, so that the new money had no better foundation than the faith of the people.
From these two causes, the increase of western production, and the increase of money, the one real and the other fictitious, there followed a general inflation of business and advance of prices. This inflation extended throughout the United States, but nowhere else was it quite so balloon-like in its growth and collapse as along the line of the great lakes, where both the causes above mentioned were in their fullest vigor.
The first symptoms of the great "land speculation" began to be seen in 1833, but they were comparatively slight. In 1834 the tide rose considerably higher, and in 1835 there was a de- cided fever, though still the mania had not reached its climax. Before noticing farther the great speculation which holds so im- portant a place in the history of the county, there are some routine matters that need mention.
There had been no new towns formed since the creation of Colden, in 1827. Though Clarence was about seventeen miles long, (besides the part included in the reservation,) the steady- going Pennsylvania Germans who formed a large part of its population were in no haste to create a new set of officers. At length, however, the numbers in the southern part of the town became so large that a division was almost imperative, and on the 20th of March, 1833, a new town was formed, comprising the eleventh township in the sixth range of the Holland Com- pany's survey, and that part of the mile-and-a-half-strip, sold in 1826, which lay opposite that township-besides a nominal
40I
MR. TRACY IN THE SENATE.
jurisdiction over the unsold Indian land, to the center of the reservation.
As Clarence had been named after one English dukedom, that of another was selected for the new town, which received the appellation of Lancaster. The flourishing settlement so long called "Cayuga Creek" was now known by the more con- venient designation of "Lancaster," and not long afterwards the official name of the post-office at that point was similarly changed. This was emphatically the church-building era in Erie county. Every few months a new one was erected. The Methodist church at Clarence Hollow was built in 1834. The same year the Baptists built one at Springville.
In the fall of 1833, Joseph Clary, of Buffalo, and Dr. Carlos Emmons, of Springville, were chosen to represent the county in the assembly, and Albert H. Tracy was reëlected to the State senate. This gentleman had taken very high rank in the senate, especially when that body was sitting as the Court for the Cor- rection of Errors, then the highest judicial tribunal in the State. A large number of the opinions in that court were written and delivered by Mr. Tracy, and the acumen and legal knowledge displayed in them showed that, had he accepted the judgeship tendered him by Governor Clinton, he would have stood in the first rank of the judicial minds of the State. The mayor of Buffalo in 1833 was a gentleman with the peculiar name of Major A. Andrews.
In 1834, William A. Mosely, of Buffalo, and Ralph Plumb, of Lodi, were elected to the assembly, while Lester Brace, of Black Rock, was chosen sheriff, and Horace Clark, of Sardinia, county clerk. In that year, too, Thomas C: Love was elected to Con- gress by the dominant party, in place of Mr. Fillmore. Usually the dropping of a congressman by his own party, after a single term, indicates that he has been "shelved," but such was not the result in Mr. Fillmore's case. Dr. Johnson was again chosen as mayor of Buffalo.
In 1835 the assemblymen elect were George P. Barker, of Buffalo, and Wells Brooks, of Concord-the latter a young lawyer who had established himself, as had C. C. Severance, at Spring- ville, two or three years before. Buffalo's first officer this year was Hiram Pratt, who will be remembered as the young cavalier
402
SUPERVISORS AND NEWSPAPERS.
of the Chapin girls, in their flight from Buffalo on the terrible 30th of December, 1813.
The supervisors for the three last years of the semi-decade in- cluded in this chapter were as follows : Alden, 1833 and '34, Jonathan Larkin ; 1835, Moses Case. Amherst, for the three years, John Hutchinson. Aurora, 1833 and '34, Jonathan Hoyt ; 1835, John C. Pratt. Buffalo, 1833, John G. Camp; 1834, un- known: 1835, James L. Barton. Boston, 1833, Epaphras Steele ; 1834, John C. Twining; 1835, Thomas Twining. Concord, 1833, Carlos Emmons; 1834, unknown; 1835, Oliver Needham. Col- lins, Ralph Plumb, the three years. Colden, Leander J. Roberts, the three years. Clarence, Benjamin O. Bivins, the three years. Eden, 1833 and '34, Harvey Caryl; 1835, Daniel Webster. Evans, Aaron Salisbury, the three years. Hamburg, Elisha Smith, the three years. Holland, 1833 and '34, Moses McArthur ; 1835, Isaac Humphrey. Lancaster, 1833 and '34, John Brown; 1835, Milton McNcal. Newstead, 1833, Wm. Jackson; 1834, un- known; 1835, Cyrus Hopkins. Sardinia, Henry Bowen, the three years. Wales, N. M. Mann, the three years.
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.