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 39
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In June, IS48. after Gen. Taylor had been nominated for the Presidency by the Whig national convention at Philadelphia. Mr. Fillmore was selected for the second place on the ticket. The Democratic national convention nominated Cass and But- ler for President and Vice-President, but the contest was not confined to the two tickets just named. The "Barnburners." or Radical Democrats, had espoused the cause of the Wilmot Proviso, which was intended to exclude slavery from the terri- tory lately acquired from Mexico. The proceedings of the Dem- ocratic convention at Baltimore not having been satisfactory to them. the " Barnburners " met in convention at Utica, and nom- inated Martin Van Buren for President, with a Vice-Presidential candidate from the West, who declined the honor.
457
THE BUFFALO CONVENTION.
As it was desired, however, to anite as many as possible of the Opponents of slavery-extension throughout the country, the cel- ebrated Bufalo convention was called to meet in that city Tams it was that on the ninth day of August idas, the Queen City of the Lakes was crowded with distinguished strangers, and residents of the cinin about to take part in the caly political . ssemblage of national interest which has ever met within its limits.
It was a mass convention, attended by men from every North- em State, and also from Delaware, Marviand and Virginia A great teat had been erected in the court-bouse park, and a: noon the multitude assembled beneath it was called to order. Nathaniel Samver, of Obio, was elected temporary chairman. A committee on perman n: organisation was then appointed. consisting of one from each State represented. Of its members many have since dled, and all have ceased to be known in pout- ical circles, with one exeeptica : Michigan was represented by Isaac P. Christiancy, now senator from that State.
At the beginning of the afternoon session the park was Elled with an eager trong, and large numbers congregated in the ac- jacen: streets. The committe sanitation, through their chairman, Preston King, report name ci Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, as pres.den: was forthwith elected. Theresoda committee of ting escorted to the chair a small, onpretending man, scarcely forty years of age, but looking somewhat Ber from partial balin ess. wootden for the Erst time became prominent before the nation, but who has since been a leader among its statesmen, has filled its diplomatic trasts with consammate ski L ani now remains almost the caly sannivor of the then emin - bers of the convention, over which he presided twenty-eight years
One of the committee who attended bom to the chair was a robust, broad-shouldered man, about thirty-eight years old with a bold, high forehead, a compressed mouth, and a face written all over with the evidence of courage isation. This
was Salmon P. Chase, of Omis tez st entering on his bril- Cant and useful national career.
A committee on resolutions was appointed, of which Benjamin
438
CHASE, BUTLER AND GIDDINGS.
F. Butler was chairman. That gentleman has been obliterated, as it were, by another political luminary bearing the same name, but in his day Benjamin F. Butler, of New York, was a power in the land, being the right-hand man of Mr. Van Buren in his political contests, and attorney-general of the United States during his friend's Presidency.
For the purpose of equalizing the representation a committee of conference, consisting of six conferees-at-large from each State, and three from each congressional district, was appointed by the delegates of the respective States, to whom was referred the nomination of candidates.
While awaiting the action of these committees several gen- tlemen addressed the convention, and members of the celebrated Hutchinson family sang their inspiring songs of freedom. Among the speakers none attracted more attention than a tall, white-haired old man, whose bold and vehement denunciations of slavery were cheered to the echo by the multitude. This was Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio, long known as the Nestor of the anti-slavery contest. There were several other speakers, and seated modestly with the Massachusetts delegation was a young gentleman, since well known to fame as Richard H. Dana, Jr.
The committee of conference met at the court-house in the evening, and appointed Salmon P. Chase chairman, but declined to nominate candidates until the convention should have adopted a platform of principles.
The next morning the proper committee reported a series of resolutions, embodying the creed of the free-soilers, which was substantially the same as that afterwards promulgated by the Republican party. While repudiating all claim on the part of the Federal government to interfere with slavery in the States, they declared that that institution should be prohibited in all the territory subject to the jurisdiction of Congress. "No more slave States and no slave territories," was the summing up of the whole. Of course they were enthusiastically adopted.
On this action being reported to the committee of conference, which had met in the Second Universalist church, they pro- ceeded to the nomination of candidates. The selection was by no means a foregone conclusion. Although they were entering on an utterly hopeless contest, and although Mr. Van Buren had
439
VAN BUREN AND ADAMS.
been nominated by a convention of the Free-Soil Democrats of New York, who constituted the bulk of the new party, yet there was a strong feeling among the thoroughi-going anti-slavery men in favor of selecting Hon. John P. Hale, of New Hampshire.
Mr. Butler was called on by the committee of conference to explain the position of Mr. Van Buren, and did so at consider- able length. When the informal ballot was taken Martin Van Buren had 244 votes and John P'. Hale 181, while 41 were re- ported as scattering. Mr. Van Buren had only 22 majority over all others. However, the vote was at once made unanimous.
On consultation, the feeling in regard to the choice for Vice- President was found to be so strong in one direction that all other names were withdrawn, and Charles Francis Adams was unanimously nominated.
It was not until the evening of that day that the names adopted by the committee were reported to the mass conven- tion. Mr. Adams, being one of the nominces, called Mr. Chase to the chair, who submitted the nominations to the assemblage. The multitude, which filled the great tent to its utmost capacity, responded with tumultuous cheers, and Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams were made the standard-bearers of the "Free Democratic " party in the coming campaign.
David Dudley Field then read a letter from Mr. Van Buren, several short but vigorous specches were made, and it was eleven o'clock ere an adjournment was carried, and the Buffalo Con- vention became a thing of the past. Although its nominees did not carry a single State, yet its action had a strong influence in strengthening the growing opposition to slavery propagandism, which at length resulted in the entire overthrow of the in- stitution.
Its only apparent result that year, however, was to give the State of New York to the Whigs, and cause the election of Gen. Taylor and Mr. Fillmore. At the same time, Elbridge G. Spaulding was chosen as member of Congress from Erie county, the assemblyman elect being Benoni Thompson of Buffalo, Au- gustus Raynor of Clarence, Marcus McNeal of Newstead, and Luther Buxton of Evans. Christian Metz, Jr., was elected county treasurer.
The next spring a citizen of Erie county was installed in the
440
AN ERIE COUNTY PRESIDENT.
second office in the Republic. As Vice-President, Mr. Fillmore's only duty was to preside over the senate, a duty for which his equable temperament and judicial turn of mind peculiarly fitted him.
In the autumn of 1849, George R. Babcock was chosen State senator, while Orlando Allen and Elijah Ford of Buffalo, Ira E. Irish of Hamburg, and Joseph Candee of Sardinia, were elected to the assembly. Le Roy Farnham of Buffalo was chosen sheriff, and Wells Brooks of Concord, county clerk.
On the 9th day of July, 1850, General Taylor died, and Mil- lard Fillmore became President of the United States. He was then fifty years of age; it was twenty-one years since he had entered public life as a member of the assembly, twenty-seven years since he had commenced the practice of law in Aurora, and thirty-one years since he had been a clothier's apprentice.
His first task was of course the formation of his cabinet. In selecting its members, after making Daniel Webster secretary of - state, Thomas Corwin secretary of the treasury, and John J. Crittenden attorney-general, he called his former student and partner, Nathan K. Hall, who had been a member of Congress but a single term, to the office of postmaster-general. The seeming favoritism occasioned some comment, but Mr. Hall's unquestioned integrity, sound judgment and laborious devotion to duty well fitted him for the post to which he was called, and it is doubtful if it has ever been more worthily filled.
Congress was still in session when Mr. Fillmore became Pres- ident, and all through the hot summer months it continued to wrestle with problems caused, and passions aroused, by the same question of slavery which ten years later came to a bloody ar- bitrament. Both houses at length passed the celebrated "Com- promise Measures" embodied in five acts, which provided for the admission of California, the organization of the territories of New Mexico and Utah without any prohibition of slavery, the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and the summary return of fugitive slaves, claimed to have escaped from one State to another. The President signed them all. The last named act, commonly called the Fugitive Slave Law, was strongly denounced by a large portion of the Whig party, as well as by a considerable number of the northern Democrats.
441
LODI AND GOWANDA.
It is not necessary here to discuss the merits or demerits of that law, nor of the compromise measures generally. Notwithstand- ing the opposition just referred to, all those measures were sanc- tioned by a majority of both parties, and for a short time the excitement regarding slavery sank to comparative quict.
Mr. Fillmore's friends were naturally desirous that his own county should be represented by some one who approved his course, and it was probably for that reason that Solomon G. Haven, the third member of the renowned firm of Fillmore, Hall & Haven, was brought forward as a candidate for Congress. There was a very earnest contest for the Whig nomination, but Mr. Haven carried the convention, and was duly elected in No- vember. By the census of 1850 the population of the county was 100,993, an increase of 22,358 in five years, while that of Buffalo was 42,261, an addition of 12,488 to the number in 1845
Near the close of this decade, (about 1848,) the village on the Cattaraugus, first called Aldrich's Mills and then Lodi, suffered' another change of title. The fact that there were a village and a post-office called Lodi, in Seneca county, caused constant con- fusion in regard to letters. There had by this time grown up a thriving place on both sides of the Cattaraugus, the people of which thought themselves numerous enough to be incorporated as a village. They determined to have a name entirely unique, and they succeeded. The village was incorporated as " Go- wanda," and it is safe to say that that name is not mistaken for any other. The village is partly in Erie and partly in Cattar- augus counties, and has, since its incorporation, been steadily growing into one of the most flourishing places in Western New York.
No new town was formed during the semi-decade under con- sideration until October 15th, 1850, when Hamburg, which had stood unchanged since 1812, was divided by the board of super- visors, who were then intrusted with the necessary power. All but the two western tiers of lots in township Nine, range Seven, were included in the new town, which received the name of Elli- cott. It was organized by the election of officers the next spring. The name was soon changed to East Hamburg.
The mayors of Buffalo, during the five years treated of in this
29
442
SUPERVISORS FOR FIVE YEARS.
chapter, were Solomon G. Haven in 1846, Elbridge G. Spaul- ding in 1847, Orlando Allen in 1848, Hiram Barton in 1849, and Henry K. Smith in 1850. The following is a list of the supervisors of the county, so far as known, during the same period :
Alden, 1846, John D. Howe; 1847 and '48, Alexander Kellogg ; 1849, Nathan Willis ; 1850, Ziba Durkee. Amherst, 1846, John Her- shey; 1847, '48 and 49, Jasper B. Youngs ; 1850, unknown. Aurora. 1846, Hezekiah Moshier ; 1847, '48 and , '50, Hiram Harris ; 1846, William Boies. Black Rock, 1846, William A. Bird; 1847, Robert McPherson ; 1848, '49 and '50 Warren Granger.
Buffalo, First ward, 1846 and '47. W. W. Stanard ; 1848, Van Rens- selaer Newell ; 1849, H. W. Millard : 1850. C. S. Pierce. Second ward. 1846, N. H. Gardner ; 1847, '48, 49 and '50, William Ketchum. Third ward. 1846. Moses Bristol ; 1847 and '50, Henry Daw ; 1848 and '49, Jeremiah Staats. Fourth ward, 1846, Dyre Tillinghast ; 1847 and '48, Henry P. Darrow ; 1849, Horatio Warren ; 1850, I. V. Vanderpoel. Fifth ward, 1846, '47 and '48, Peter Curtis ; 1849 and 50, E. J. Baldwin.
Boston, 1846, '47 and '49, Orrin Lockwood; 1848, Allen Griffith : 1850, John Anthony. Brant, 1846, '47, '49 and '50, Jonathan Hascall. Jr .; 1848, Horace Goodrig. Clarence. 1846, and '50, Thomas Dur- boraw ; 1847. Archibald Thompson ; 1848 and '49, Orsamus Warren. Cheektowaga, 1846, '48 and '49. Manly Brown : 1847, Alexander Hitchcock ; 1850, E. P. Adams. Colden, 1846, Benjamin Maltby ; 1847 and 48. Cyrus Cornell ; 1849 and '50, Charles H. Baker. Collins, 1846, '47 and '48, Thomas Russell ; 1849 and '50, Ralph Plumb. Concord, 1849, C. C. Severance : 1850, C. C. Sears. Eden, 1846, Wm. H. Pratt ; 1847 and '49, Pardon Tefft ; 1850, Nelson Welch. Evans. 1847, Joseph Bennett ; 1850, John Borland. Hamburg, 1846, Clark Dart : 1847 and '48. Isaac Deuel; 1849, Jesse Bartoo; 1850, Jacob Potter. Holland, 1846. '47, '49 and '50. Moses McArthur ; 1848. Philip D. Riley. Lancaster, 1846 and '48. Jonathan W. Dodge ; 1847. Milton McNeal ; 1849, Robert Neal; 1850, Henry Atwood. New- stead, 1850, H. S. Hawkins. Sardinia. 1846, B. H. Colegrove ; 1847: and '48, Thomas Hopkins ; 1849, Joseph Candee : 1850, Henry Bowen. Tonawanda, 1846 and '47. James Carney: 1848, 49 and '50. J. H. Phillips. Wales, 1846 and '47, David S. Warner; 1848, 49 and '50, James Wood.
I will now devote a few pages to a brief account of a peculiar society, which settled in the county during the period under con- sideration. Soon after the final sale of the Buffalo Creek reser- vation and the removal of the Indians, a German society began negotiations for the purchase of a large tract near Buffalo. About the year 1845, five thousand acres were conveyed to them, to which they afterwards added five thousand more. Their tract lay at the west end of the reservation, in the present
443
THE EBENEZER SOCIETY.
town of West Seneca, and embraced the old Indian village and the clearings around it.
In 1845 and '46, the purchasers moved to their new home. They were generally known as the Ebenezer Society, and com- prised nearly two thousand Germans-men, women and children -mostly from Rhinish Prussia, and Hesse. All their property was held in common, everything being controlled by a board of managers, or trustees. These were commonly called " el- ders," but were not religious ministers. These managers di- rected what buildings should be built, what lands should be ploughed, what crops should be sown.
They lived in separate families, but the managers allotted to each their allowance of provisions and clothing. A law was passed permitting them to hold their property according to their own regulations, and throughout their residence in the county they had very little communication with the outside world, ex- cept through their agents. Of these the chief, and the principal manager of their outside business, was Charles Meyer, a native of the city of Hamburg, who had been a merchant in Brazil, and was a most excellent business man and financier. Hon. George R. Babcock was their legal adviser.
Their residences, which were large, substantial, frame build- ings, capable of holding two or more families, were grouped in two villages, and two or three smaller clusters. What most struck the eyes of their American neighbors, was their method of work- ing. The sight of great gangs of men and women, fifty to a hun- dred in number, engaged in the ordinary avocations of the farm, was something entirely new to the eyes of Erie county people. Especially striking was it to see, in harvest-time, on the rich flats of the Cazenove, a row, half a mile long, of women, a few yards apart, reaping with sickles the grain of the community.
Another curiosity to Yankee eyes was the shepherd, with his little portable residence and his watchful dogs, pasturing. his sheep by the roadside, and on the grass-bordered paths leading through the grain. By this means every spear of grass was saved, and not a spear of grain was lost.
Their religious creed appears to have been somewhat like that of the Quakers. They depended much on spiritual insight, but did not neglect stated services. Prayers were held every day.
444
GERMAN PROGRESS.
They strenuously avoided all conflicts of every description. At one time, under a law passed by the legislature, a circular was sent out by the secretary of state of New York to all city, town and village authorities, asking for information which might bear on numerous social questions. Each local board was requested to state how many paupers there were within their jurisdiction, how many lawsuits in a given time, how many crimes commit- ted, how many minor offenses, etc., etc. On receiving one of . these circulars, the Ebenezer managers took it to Mr. Babcock, who explained its meaning, and told them to draw up an answer to its queries. In due time they returned with the reply. It was very simple; there were no paupers among them; none of them had ever received any relief from the civil authorities ; none of their number. had ever been convicted of or indicted for any crime; none had ever been punished for any misdemeanor; none of them had ever had a lawsuit, either among themselves ". or with outsiders .. And the report was literally true. In one or two cases of quarrels with outsiders, the managers immediately settled them without allowing them to go to a legal arbitrament.
Meanwhile. the.German element had increased largely.in both city and country. . After the - disturbances in Europe in 1848, a fresh impetus was given to German emigration. Some brought capital ; nearly all brought habits of industry, frugality and order which were certain to bring them at least a moderate ' de- gree of success. Many were added to the German settlements in Collins, Eden, Hamburg; Cheektowaga and Lancaster, and still larger number's filled up Batavia and Genesee streets, and began to spread over all the northeastern part of Buffalo. The German love of music soon began to show itself in their adopted country. In 1847 the Buffalo "Liedertafel " was organized, and has ever since remained a permanent institution of the city.
.In 1850 Mr. George J. Bryan founded a newspaper called the Daily Queen City. Two years later the name was changed to the Buffalo Evening Post, under which name it is still published. The Springville Herald (weekly) was also in that year established in Springville by E. D. Webster. After. divers changes it is now the Journal and Herald. Still another journalistic venture of that year, which has proven permanent, was the Buffalo Chris- tian Advocate, the organ of the Methodist Churcht.
445
GENERAL IMPROVEMENT.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE SIXTH DECADE.
General Improvement .- Stump Fences .- West Seneca .- Enlargement of Buffalo .- North Collins .- Grand Island .-- President Fillmore's Administration. - Coun -. ty Officers and Members of the Legislature .- Supervisors. - Marilla .- Polit- ical Changes .- The American and Republican Parties .- The Contest of 1856. -Mr. Fillmore's Retirement .- His Father. - " The Old Colonel." -- A. Curi- .ous Scene .- Another Official List. - The Panic of 1857 .- Elma .- Removal of the Ebenezer Colony .- Perfect Honesty. - Supervisors after Increase of Buffalo .- 1860 .- The Approaching Storm.
The forepart of this period was likewise a time of great gen- eral prosperity. The farmers, now mostly out of debt, still further improved their property, and even the back roads showed . hundreds of neat, white houses, with outbuildings to correspond. Before their front yards, handsome board or picket fences super- ceded the crooked barrier of rails, which still. did duty around the rest of the farm. As the old well-sweep had been super- ceded by the windlass, so the latter was. now replaced by the still more convenient pump.
It was about this time that the farmers in the pine districts began to rid themselves of their veteran stumps. The hard- wood stumps rotted down in a few years after the trees were cut, but the pines remained intact after twenty, thirty, or even forty years of lifelessness, and seemed likely to defy the attacks of centuries. Machines of various kinds were invented, and ere long the business of pulling stumps became . an important part of the industry of the piney regions. These, when pulled, were generally placed in the road-fence, the bottoms of their roots facing outward, forming one of the most durable, though also one of the homeliest enclosures ever known. Notwithstanding the general improvement in the rural. districts, the amount of grain raised did not increase, as the farmers engaged more and more in the dairy business, and in raising hay, potatoes, etc., for the Buffalo market. As a rule, the villages remained nearly
.
446
BUFFALO ENLARGED.
dormant, though exceptions were seen in Akron, Lancaster, Marilla, White's Corners, Angola and Gowanda. Tonawanda, too, for a while did considerable grain business, but in 1854 or '55 its elevator was burned, and trade again suffered a depression. On the 16th of October, 1851, a new town was formed, called "Seneca." It was entirely a part of the Buffalo Creek reserva- tion, and comprised almost all that part of it previously em- braced in the towns of Black Rock, Cheektowaga, Hamburg and East Hamburg. The Ebenezer colony comprised the greater part of its inhabitants. As its name clashed with one some- where else in the State, it was changed the next spring to "West Seneca." There had been an attempt, two years before, by the board of supervisors, to organize a town with substantially the same boundaries, by the appropriate name of Red Jacket, but I believe it failed through lack of confirmation by the legislature.
Buffalo continued to engulf the business of the county ; its streets pushing out in every direction, and its houses overflow- ing the old city line into the town of Black Rock. At length it was determined to extend the municipal boundaries, and, as the population was then rapidly increasing, it was thought best to make the city large enough for all exigencies. Accordingly, by a new charter, granted in April, 1853, the whole town of Black Rock was included in the city of Buffalo. The new metropolis . was nine miles long, north and south, by from three to six miles wide, with an area of about forty square miles. This magnifi- cent municipal domain was divided into thirteen wards, which still remains the number. The mayors, up to this time, were James Wadsworth in 1851, Hiram Barton in 1852, and Eli Cook in 1853.
Ever since the division of Amherst, Collins had been the largest town in the county. On the 24th of November, 1852, that part of it north of the line between townships Seven and Eight (except the southernmost tier of lots) was formed into a . new town called Shirley, the name being derived from a little hamlet and post-office two miles southwest of Kerr's Corners. But, as in the case of East Hamburg, the inhabitants soon be- came tired of any name which did not remind them of the old town in which they had so long resided, and the next spring "Shirley" was changed to "North Collins."
447
PRESIDENT FILLMORE'S ADMINISTRATION.
That same autumn, on the 19th of October, Grand Island was organized as a town. Thus, at length, the locality which had been the seat of "Governor" Clark's independent national- ity, and of Major Noah's Hebrew-judge government, was sup- plied with the more humble, but more appropriate, organization of an American town. The population was still sparse, and most- ly distributed along the shores of the Island, but their isolated position made a separation seem desirable.
President Fillmore's course, after the passage of the compro- mise acts, was in harmony with his party, and his administra- tion of the government was creditable both to his ability and integrity. He was, however, considered the leader of the con- servative portion of the party, and when the Whig national con- vention assembled, in 1852, he was opposed by all those who considered themselves more progressive, especially in regard to slavery. The convention nominated Gen. Scott, over both Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Webster. Though his selection was looked on as a defeat of the conservatives, yet the "platform " was as decidedly in favor of the compromise measures as Mr. Fillmore himself could have desired. As it turned out, it made but little difference who received the nomination, since the Whig party was overwhelmingly defeated, and probably would have been with any candidate it could have selected.
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