USA > New York > Livingston County > Nunda > Centennial history of the town of Nunda : with a preliminary recital of the winning of western New York, from the fort builders age to the last conquest by our Revolutionary forefathers > Part 11
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" 'Strange sounds of a forgotten tongue Shall cling to many a crag and cave In wash of falling waters sung Or murmur of the wave. And oft in midmost hush of night Shrill o'er the deep-mouthed cataract's roar Shall ring the war-cry from the height That woke the wilds of yore.
"'Sweet Vale, more peaceful bend the skies, Thy airs be fraught with rarer balm, A people's busy tumult lies Hushed in thy sylvan calm. Deep be thy peace! while fancy frames Soft idyls of thy dwellers fled,- They loved thee, called thee gentle names, In the long summers dead.
" 'Quenched is the fire : the drifting smoke Has vanished in the autumn haze : Gone, too, O Vale, the simple folk Who loved thee in old days. But for their sakes-their lives serene- Their loves, perchance as sweet as ours- O be thy woods for aye more green And fairer bloom thy flowers!
"It was the fitting close to a memorable day. The 'dappled shadows of the afternoon' rested on hill and valley as, one by one, the picturesque figures of those who had that day so strangely linked the present with the past, left
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the old council house, bright colors and feathery plumes mingled with the autumn foliage and the softly dropping leaves until all had vanished. The 'story of the past' had once for all been told, but around those ancient weather-beaten walls which had once more welcomed the children of those whom it had known long ago in the days of its prime, there lingers still the remembrance of their last council fire-a memory that cannot be forgotten."
GENESEE VALLEY CANAL AND THE GORGE AT PORTAGE
John Smith, a half blood Seneca Indian, has for the last ten years lived at or near Nunda. He is treated by the citizens of the town with courtesy as an equal. He is a member of Grace Episcopal Church and is married to a white wife of good family. He has been in the employ of William P. Letchworth but is now settled upon a farin. The only other person who comes to Nunda annually is a middle- aged Tuscarora woman who is skilled in bead work and embroidery. Her name is Emeline Garlow. Though not a full blooded Indian her complexion indicates her Tuscarora origin. She is lighter than most half bloods but has less than half white blood. She makes her home with the family of L. C. Roberts, at his cottage, called "Indian Lodge," whose large collec . EMELINE GARLOW-A TUSCARORA BELLE tion of Indian relies she enjoys viewing. We present her picture as a type of Tuscarora squaw.
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LOWER FALLS OF PORTAGE
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THE PIONEERS
Through deep. tangled forests their sharp axes rung From Autumn's corn harvest till spring work begun, To far Canandaigua each year to a day They hastened, tho' footsore, their interest to pay.
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Time's scythe. unrelenting, has cut them all down, Their graves, oft unmarked, can no longer be found ; Fertile fields are the monuments of the work they begun, While the Angel records, true and faithful, well done.
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BOOK II DEPARTMENT I
PIONEERS
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER TO PIONEER HISTORY THE SUBDIVISION OF NEW YORK COLONY
T HE New Netherlands of the Dutch were never divided and the British who obtained possession in 1664 left the Colony undivided until November I, 1683, when twelve counties were formed which included all of Vermont. the islands along Long Island Sound and even a part of Maine-all of this was transferred to New England a few years afterward, excepting what now forms the State of Vermont. Albany County included all west of it to the Niagara frontier, so the lands of our original township were in Albany County until 1772, when what became Montgomery County was taken off and named Tryon County. In parting with Albany County we pause to note, that the State Capitol was not occupied un- til 1807, and that the great men of the Colony were Major General Phillip Schuy- ler, Robert Livingston, and Jacob S. Glen, a Captain of the French and Indian War. Schuyler became Assemblyman. State Senator. Member of Congress and United States Senator, one of the greatest of the Dutch patriots.
MONTGOMERY COUNTY
Immediately after the Revolution the name of Tryon County was changed by the patriots to Montgomery County April 2, 1784. Sir William Johnson whose influence was great alike with the Crown and with the Mohawks-of whom he became Chief. caused the settlements to extend beyond Schenectady. At the beginning of the war, he suicided, rather than prove false to the colonists, his former soldiers, or disloyal to the Monarch who had ennobled him.
Montgomery County had the same western boundary that Albany County once had, and so our future township, was from 1772 until the forming of Ontario County a part of Montgomery County-Whitestown the western most part of the County comprised nearly all of what is now called Western New York. The An- cestors of William M. White of Ossian, were the earliest frontiersmen and most prominent citizens. They were not only honorable men, but could write Hon. legally before their names. James Wadsworth the pioneer of that name was the first path-master and road builder west of Geneva.
ONTARIO COUNTY
Ontario County, because of the great inland sea on the boundary of the In- dian lands was given this name, although it had several others. It comprised the western half of the state, then best known as the Genesee Country, or Indian Lands. It was also nearly co-extensive with the Massachusetts land claim under Colonial grants of about 6,400,000 acres.
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MAJ. GEN. PHILIP SCHUYLER . M. C., U. S. Sen.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON Secretary of the Treasury
Z. JACOBY The Author's maternal grand-father
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The history of the purchase of these lands by Phelps and Gorham for $1,000,- ovo needs no restating. Only a part of this vast section could be obtained by treaty from the Indians, and so the frontier stopped east of the Genesee River.
Northampton a subdivision of the town of Whitestown contained all the lands not already obtained by treaty. The purchase of all the lands by Robert Morris that had reverted to the State of Massachusetts, i. e., all but 2,600,000 acres caused other subdivisions of which the Morris Reserve of 500,000 acres was one part and the Holland Purchase comprised all west of the Morris Reserve.
GENESEE COUNTY
This county was formed entirely from the town of Northampton, Ontario County, March 30, 1802, and divided into five towns. Northampton, Southampton, Batavia ( the largest section ) and Leicester, first called Lester; Southampton be- came when settled by the Scotch, Caledonia.
The town of Leicester was a veritable "long-cabin" as the Senecas would call it for it was 67 miles long and extended to the Pennsylvania State line, it was only twelve miles wide. In this town we find our first citizens of Nunda, but only two families.
The first settlers, other then the White Woman and Ebenezer Allan, a squaw man, tory and bigamist-were Horatio Jones and his kindred and Joseph Smith- botlı Jones and his wife, and Joseph Smith-were members of the Seneca race by adoption, having been taken captives during the war.
Leicester, the present town, is interesting because of its Indian villages, and the tragic fate of Boyd and Parker at Little Beardstown during Sullivan's campaign.
The lands of Nunda remained in the town of Leicester from March 30, 1802, until February 25, 1805, when they became the northern part of the town of Ang- elica, Genesee County.
MRS. MARY A. HUNT Born in the Town of Leicester, 1802. Died in Beloit, Wis., 1908, Aged 106
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ALLEGANY County PROPRIETARY TRACTS into WHICH TERRITORY was divided PRIOR to it's FORMATION 1806
WONING County LIVINGSTON
CottRINGER TRACK
county
CANCAdea
INDIANS
Reservation
JOHN B. CHURCH
CHURCH TRACT 100 COGAS
HARRISON and SteARel
PHELPS Gard GORHAND PURCHASEC
COLSPRING Reservations
cazenove
LeRoy BAYARD.
MSEVERS.
STERRETT FRANSCIS
250 QUAS
34550 AS.
82nd MILE Stone
State of PENNSYLVANIA
ALLEGANY COUNTY
Allegany County was formed April 7, 1806, and the lands of Nunda were for nearly two years a part of the town of Angelica-a much wider town comprising all of Allegany County.
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steuben County
HOLLAND
PURCHASEZ
TRANSIT MERIDIAN
PURCHASED By ALEXANDER HAMILTON
MORRIS RESERVE
ALLEGANY COUNTY SUBDIVIDED
On March 11, 1808, additions were made to the County, and it was divided into five towns. The eight town plots on the north were called Nunda-Ossian and Alfred were in the east, Angelica was central and Cancadea was on the west- ern boundary. The principal settlements at this time were in the present town of Pike, of Mills Mills in Hume, and near Fort Hill in the town of Genesee Falls. Nunda remained in Allegany County until 1846-forty years-with Angelica its County seat. Hence we are intensely interested in its remarkable history and that of its founder, Philip Church.
ANGELICA AND ITS FOUNDER
"'Tis the top of the world from its heights you can see, Its waters flow all ways, on their way to the Sea."
Captain Philip Church, the son of Angelica Schulyer Church, the Grandson of Major General Phillip Schuyler, was born in Boston, educated in France, but whose father, John B. Church, was an English gentleman, and who lived when he chose to, near Windsor Castle, England. Captain Church came to survey the Church Tract of 100,000 acres purchased of Robert Morris through Alexander Hamilton, his uncle by marriage. John B. Church espoused the cause of the colo- nists but having lands in England that would revert to the Crown if he became an American citizen, transacted this transfer of property through his brother-in-law, Alexander Hamilton. This was about 1800, when Captain Philip had reached his majority. He located a future village and named it for his mother. The young man, assisted by Major Van Campen, John Gibson, and one other, surveyed these lands, but sprained his ankle, however, he limped to Niagara Falls, guided by Major Van Campen and from there alone to Geneseo, where James and William Wadsworth furnished him with clothing and loaned him money to carry him to the end of his journey, which did not fully cease till he reached Philadelphia, where there was a magnet, who like himself was a friend of Washingtons. He mar- ried the magnet, Miss Matilda Stewart, daughter of General Stewart, and brought her from Bath to Angelica on horseback, and here at Belvidere overlooking the Genesee they lived. For neighbors he had some refugees from France, who had fled from death to this mountain fortress of safety.
Here was a young man who as Secretary and Adjutant to General Alexander Hamilton had had the unique experience of bearing dispatches from Hamilton to General Washington and bringing back and recording that historic document, "Washington's Farewell Address to the Army."
No wonder the people of Angelica are proud of having had such a founder with such a record. But a man who had hobnobbed with Pitt, Fox and Burke, did not quite fit well in this then backwoods settlement, and they did not let their pride and their votes lift this scion of gentility into the positions he must have been ad- mirably fitted to fill. But now they, and we, who were once a part of his town, feel proud of his having been a fellow citizen of our first settlers in Nunda.
In 1804 came that damnable tragedy that robbed this country of its leading Statesman, and Philip Church of his renowned uncle.
The half-traitor. Aaron Burr, chagrined at his failure in politics, challenged Hamilton to a deadly trial by duel, knowing himself to be a sure shot. Unfortun- ately for the country Hamilton was not and so the traitor lived, and the patriot ‹lied.
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The news of the result of the deadly conflict was brought to Angelica by let- ter carried on horseback from Bath, the nearest postoffice, forty miles away. For years these deadly weapons, used in the duel, were kept at the Church Mansion they are said to be the ones by which not only Alexander Hamilton was killed, but also his son, Philip (in duel), one year before, when Philip Church served as sec- ond to his cousin.
It cost the life of the Nations greatest Finance Statesman to make "Dueling in America" an affair not of honor, but of fool-hardy dishonor. But even yet we mourn, though it was a century ago "The deep damnation of his taking off."
1808
theque
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All the world seems to have heard Of Nunda ; And a vision quite superb Fair as May, Floats around the enchanted mind Till the fancy is inclined
To seek out this realm refined, And there stay ; A century's glow illumines the past And holds our admiration fast, And bids us all revere the past Of old Nunda, But see new glories with each glance That have come to stay.
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"Westward the course of empire takes its way." .
NUNDAWAO (GREAT NUNDA)
Our Name and Its Significance.
There's magic in the word Nunda !
There's weird myths, hazy tradition,
Crude legends and old superstitions
Of the race that peopled Broad Nunda,
That reached to far off Sodus Bay,
Nor stopped till it gained Niagara.
There's History, in blood-bought Nunda ! Successive centuries of strife
That cost three valiant tribes their life-
Andastes, Kah Kwas, Eries brave;
Once conquerors, now passed away,
Your names, your fame, once great, we'll save.
The Hill-Born-Race, from far away,
Ere great Columbus sailed this way,
Won victories that still appall
No greater peril could befall
Than meet this race in deadly fray
The realm they won -- they called "Nunda."
1797-1907.
A hundred years with a decade more,
Since Robert Morris good as great-
Bought from the Sachems at Big Tree At the treaty of the Genesee,
All lands belonging to this nation
Save here and there a Reservation ;
Reserved the best of his estate
A "Twelve Mile Tract," across the State.
1808-1908.
One hundred years-God bless the day ! On March eleven, eighteen-eiglit, The BEST of this Superb Estate Was given a name four centuries old, (In honor of the race most bold) It's future glories to unfold,
Valor is latent, here, they say,
In Ancient-Modern-Great-Nunda.
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DEPARTMENT II THE PIONEERS OF NUNDA, 1808-1818; 1818-1827; 1827-1841 CHAPTER 1.
PECULIARITIES OF PIONEER HISTORY.
H ISTORY differs from Fiction in several particulars. It aims at accu- racy in names, dates and transpired events, and tells only of the great. Fiction is indifferent to the actualities of these, but aims at being true to life. Fiction captivates by the personalities and events it portrays. The ideal good man or woman it tells about represents humanity at its best, and the almost impossible bad man it distorts serves to make the ideal charac- ters resplendent by contrast in some special phase of excellence.
Local History differs from both. Its "dramatis personac" include every class and condition. It resembles fiction in this, that the pioneer life it de- scribes is a type of life with an unusual environment. It is "unique and ex- traordinary" as any the writer of fiction could depict.
To write it true to life demands some personal knowledge of conditions that obtained in that phenomenal era. Town histories are becoming a neces- sity. The mature mind longs for the story of the past in which, not the Wash- ingtons, Hamiltons, Websters, the men of world wide celebrity, are the central figures, for these are to be found in every good library. The history found most interesting, and which charm most those conscious of the changes time has cre- ated in the locality in a narration of events pertaining to familiar spots once calling of names indelibly engraved on our minds in our youth ! Why do men calling of names indelibly engraved on our minds in our youth! Why do men cross the continent after the absence of decades of years, to see the village, the old farm house, the brook. the hill, the people that knew the people, that were a part of their former life? Each house, however changed, has its surroundings, and has its story of the long ago and what is more, tells it to them again. We all know this is so. We like these stories the old scenes and the old houses tell. Why? Because they do not tell them to us, as-we-now-are, but the younger be- ings we-used-to-be. They accomplish the impossible,-impossible only when distance and a changed environment create the impossibility. We sing,
"Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight, Make me a child again, just for to-night."
Not that we want to be children again, but we do want to forget we are growing old. We do want to get back to former scenes and days and feelings, by a sight of once familiar scenes and faces, back to former emotions. when fancy and imagination ruled the citadel of our being, and doubled and quad- rupled reality.
A centennial e. g. multiplies by a hundred at least, what on other occa- sions would be meaningless and commonplace. The chance stranger sees only enthusiasm in all faces he cannot account for, but it is contagious, however, and he soon forgets he is a stranger-throws off his dignity and smiles into the faces beaming with smiles-and everybody thinks he is an old timer.
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The new houses. though perplexing, speak only of the progress of the people, but the old buildings get their full share of attention. Why, this is the old Swain store and this is Jo White's old hattery where he made stove pipe hats. How silly I felt when I donned one of his tall silk hats for the first time! And here is the house I lived in once,-any day but to-day,-I'll tell you how long ago it was-but not to-day .- I have renewed my age. This was palatial to me once, but even in its dilapidated age or changed appearance, it can stir and warm the slower and calmer pulses of mature life, to activity and warmth. I would give-three cents-to skip up the stairs, two steps at a time, and tumble into bed and sleep for an hour as I used to sleep.
Local history, like the old local habitations, however commonplace and deficient in literary skill and adornment, comes to the heart like a letter from home when in a foreign land. or like a father's smile of approval, or a mother's kiss of constancy, after an absence from home, feeds a hunger in the heart. While we read it we renew our age, we are young again ; and so are our mates of former days. A miracle has been wrought,-we are looking and seeing the past as it was when life was a thing of joy.
It is the Nunda, "encircled by hills," that these pioneers revere ; not the "Potato Patch" that misinformed sketch-writers have given to our charming village and landscape.
Cast your eyes, if you doubt it, over the loveliest of the smaller valleys of Western New York and then tell me how the Indian with his inborn love of nature would have described it! We know he called the great village two miles west of our village, Onondao .- "The meeting of the hills." Had he stood in the valley he would have described it. "Encircled with hills." Had he stood in front of Stone-quarry Hill. (and several of the villages or camps were so situated) he would have called it Nundao (a high hill in front). If viewing the whole valley of the Keshequa, he would call it Nundawah. If the succes- sion of small hills about Nunda Junction he would say Nundey (hilly). Of this section forming our village. Nunda (Nundah ).
But we can look on this same scene, encircled by hills, with its sloping, graceful hillsides, now geometrically laid out in squares of verdant meadows, or russet grainfields, or parallelograms of pasture lands diversified here and there with an isosceles triangle of woodlands, cut out by mountain streams ;- we can see the enchantment of this varied landscape that makes the valley and its winding streams so enchanting, and cannot contradict what our eyes see,-and be willing to accept of words that have no connection with this scenery because there was once, one hundred years ago, some Tuscarora Indians who had a potato field in this valley. Does "Nun" mean potato, or hill? Does "da" mean patch or valley? A rose by the name of potato would smell as sweet,-but its attractiveness is gone. Let us cease to claim superiority over these lords of forests and streams if we have less poetry and eloquence than they.
Kenjockety or Tom Jemison, if asked about the Indian Nunda,-if it was where the present village is, would say, no! that was where the Tuscarora village was. The word Tuscarora and potato, strange to say, have the same meaning. The Tuscaroras' "totem" was the potato. They were the potato nation. They brought the potatoes with them when they came into New York
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in 1713. The Tuscaroras were scattered and we had a Potato or Tuscarora village at Nunda. In order to distinguish this village from the great village of Onondao, once their pride. they had to explain this difference by a word familiar to white men.
The national name for the Sixth Nation was Schones-chi-or-onon, the potato race or clan. Potatoes were called Schones by the Indians, and one nice variety, conimon fifty years ago, was the Ma-schon-ic. Nearly half our town and part of Mt. Morris, for some good reason, was called the Tuscarora Tract, and many a potato field could have been found there. The keen old "white woman" had one on the Creek road on the Kendall farm, and she insist- ed that hier reservation should include hier potato patches. Little dreaming that they extended so far. her request was granted, and it was found that she thus became the possessor of nearly 18.000 acres of land.
The last Indian potato field that was in this village was on the McSweeney lands. Some of these lands are now called Elmwood.
Most history sketchers, who have never tried to locate our Indian villages, have given the impression that Onondao. Nundao, Nunda, and Nundey or Nunde, were identical, and all located at Nunda village. There have been three Nunda camps in the village, one west of the village, one north. Onondao was west and Nundey near Nunda Junction. The burial ground, long sought. has been found to be south of the home of Jonathan Miller. Here the "banner stone" that we have had "photoed" for this work was found.
THEN AND NOW
There is very little left to-day but the axe and gun that were essentials in pioneer days. The gun was the only necessity to the Squatter, the axe and gun to the Transient. An unusually large class of men, called Squatters, occu- pied all the richest and best lands in our valley. Only a few of this class have even left their names behind them.
This class of men liked to get back to nature and live like savages. Many of them actually took squaws for housekeepers and to do all the hard work. They hunted for wild game and so moved on when game became scarce.
The next class of settlers were called Transients. They intended to stay until the lands they pre-empted were sold.
Our first two families of settlers have been called Squatters ; they proved to be Transients, but lived from 1802 to 1817 in our town. One of them- Phineas Bates-our very first white settler ( 1802) left his name behind him by hewing out a road still known as the Bates Road-and a School House built upon that road was called the Bates School House. Many of the permanent settlers bought out some of these squatters or transients, paying for the im- provements they found. John H. Townsend paid $100 when he bought the State Road farm for the improvements. George W. Merrick paid forty dol- lars in gold for a small log house and a turnip patch owned by Eleazar Barn- ard. Seth Barker bought out a man named Pepper, and a man named Stork was settled near or on the lands of Ansel Kendrick. Jolin McSweeney, the first land agent, drove a man named Beeda out of a log house in what is now the village of Nunda. A man called Bonfire lived on the Keshiequa trail near the Stillwell place, but whether this was a nickname for a man named Bonfy,
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who became a real settler nearer the Keshequa, is only conjectural. A man nanied Solomon Crowfoot lived for a time on the Jones Homestead until 1823 or 1824, who probably was simply a squatter. He moved to Grove in 1824. Ephraim Kingsley, who lived near the Cooperville mill in 1807 and was the third settler in the present township, was, while living in Nunda. from 1807 to 1810. a squatter, possibly because the lands were not in market. He after- wards became a purchaser of land in the town of Portage, and lived in that town until 1825, when he moved farther south. He was a first-class hunter.
Having disposed. for the present, of our first three Nunda families, an anec- dote or two concerning some of our known squatters will be in order. As local history is mostly names and dates such anecdotes must serve as sugar and spice to make these dates palatable.
OKIE McCORMACK AND THE OWL
The late John Fitch of Oakland was good authority, for his father, Hon. Azel Fitch, one of our first Assemblymen and a pioneer of 1816 or 1817, knew the parties referred to, Mr. Stork and his man Okie, well, though the date of the story was probably 1818 to 1820, yet we are anxious to dispose of some of our known squatters and also to tell a good story, so we insert it here.
Mr. Stork, from Connecticut, a typical squatter-huntsman, had an old gray horse, so well trained that he would allow his owner to rest his rifle on old gray's head, and with this rest he could bring down his game, mostly deer, at any time. He also brought with him for good company and farm work, an Irishman, not long from the Emerald Isle. The Irishman, however interesting and amusing as a companion, was not as well drilled in the control of his nerves as old gray, neither was he as passive and obedient. Spring came and Mr. Stork found it necessary to return to the "Nutmeg State" for needed sup- plies, or a housekeeper. and made Okie McCormack promise to remain and hold possession of his shanty till his return. Okie promised by all that was good to do so. All went well for a week or two, though it was rather lonesome, until one fatal night an owl lighted on a tree that shaded the shanty, and began making inquiries, after the manner of owls,-who-whoo whooo-be you? Okie covered up his head with the blankets and said quietly to himself, "Bedad that's none of your business." Who? whoo? Who-o-o? repeated the owl. Okie quietly slipped out of bed and fastened the door for he began to believe old Clovenfoot himself was his visitor. Who-Whoo-Whoo-o-o? This was too much, he could keep silence no longer. I'm Okie McCormack, bad cess to you, just wait till morning and we'll see who-whoo is the best mon! The owl departed with a great flutter and the next morning Okie, forgetting all his promises, departed also, for Connecticut, where the powers of the air are less inquisitive.
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