USA > New York > Tioga County > Owego > Early Owego, N.Y.; some account of the early settlement of the village in Tioga County, N.Y., called Ah-wa-ga by the Indians, which name was corrupted by gradual evolution into Owago, Owego, Owegy and finally Owego > Part 29
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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
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KELLEY ENG
THE OLD PIXLEY HOUSE IN GOODRICH SETTLEMENT.
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Humphrey the land in. the rear, on what is now the southwest corner' of Main and Church streets, on which . was a dwelling house and barn. The entire property was sold by Capt. Bates February 17, 1803, to George Stevens, of Canaan, Conn,, .. and Charles Pumpelly for . $3 500.
Capt. Luke Bates was the first set- tler: west of Union, Broome county (then Tioga county.) While living there, in 1791, he represented the town of. Union in the board of super- visors. He had been a sea captain. The exact date of his settlement at Owego is not known. He was one of those to whom James McMaster, the. original owner of all the land now oc- cupied by the village of Owego, sold much of his land. He came here, probably, about the year 1791, as deeds of the village lots given by him in that year are on record in the Tioga clerk's office: After he sold his tavern he removed about two miles east of Owego. and settled . on the ; Little Nanticoke creck, where he lived on the north side of the road and con- ducted a whiskey distillery. . At the time of his coming to Owego he was a prosperous man of business, but ad- dicted to drink. He became very in- 'temperate and died ten years after the sale of his tavern and store.
Capt. Bates was one of the three original trustees of "Owego settle- meat" appointed . by James McMaster in the deed executed in February, 1797, giving to the settlement the land How occupied by the village park, the county jail, and the old Owego acad- emy. Sept. 4, 1813, soon after his death, a meeting of the inhabitants ' was held and Eleazer Dana was elect-
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ed trustee in his place. Pumpelly and Stevens kept the tavern and in con- Hection therewith the store until Jan- nary 30, 1804, when Stevens sold his interest. in the tavern property to .Mr. Pumpelly, together with a village lot in Baek (now Main) street for . $1,200.
The square now bounded by Front, . Lake, Main, and Church streets, com- prised four village lots of equal size. The two lots comprising the western half were owned by James Caldwell, and the eastern half was the tavern property.
At the west end of, the tavern was a ball room, where social functions were decasionally held. This ball room had been the place for holding all. public meetings, and it answered the purpose of a town hall for many years.
. The first town meeting. of the town of Tioga (now Owego) was held at the Bates tavern April 3, 1800. After the court house at . Spencer was burned in 1821 and until a new one was built at Owego in 1823 all sales of real estate at mortgage foreclosure were made at this tavern. While the court house was building the courts wore held in the ball room of the tav- ern.
For many years all business centred around the spot and property in that vicinity until as late as :1830 was worth fully twenty per cent. more than property in any other part of the vilage. But everything was changed in 1850. In 1849, the year when the hotel was burned, the New York and Erie railroad was completed to Owe- go. Previous to that time the great stage thoroughfare was Front street and the Owego hotel was the stage
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depot. The cars of the old Ithaca and Owego horse railroad also ran to the hotel. After the burning of the hotel the business went temporarily to the Central and Tioga houses, which for a time were in the centre of business. The New York and Erie railroad di- verted business from the old thorough- fare. Lake street, Main street, and North avenue were gradually built up with substantial stores as old build- ings were burned or torn down and the business of the village was grad- ually and entirely changed.
Charles Pumpelly conducted the store and kept the Bates tavern until 1815, when he removed to a large and. handsome residence he had built and which occupied the lots on the north side of Front street where the homes of judge Mead and Miss Anna M. Dean now stand. Daniel Churchill then leased the tavern of Mr. Pum- pelly and kept it two years. In 1818, Edward Edwards, of Berkshire, who in 1815 had been landlord of the old Lan- ing tavern, moved in and he also re- mained two years. The next landlord was Erastus S. Marsh, who had been a clerk in John Hollenback's store and who took possession in 1820. Marsh was fond of liquor and did not do a profitable business. ' He failed and Jonathan Platt took possession of the tavern, rather than have it closed.
In May, 1824, Philip Goodman came from Dansville, Pa., and became land- lord. He kept the house until it was burned at sundown in March, 1829. This fire and the one that burned ma- jor Horatio Ross's store in the winter of 1826-7, were the first fires of any account at Owego. People at this tav-
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ern fire became very much excited, and some in their zeal to save prop. erty seized the dishes from the supper table and threw them into the street. One man picked up a handspike and in his excited condition ran about and -broke the tavern windows. A clerk in William Pumpelly's store on the south side of the street; fearing that the store would catch fire, dashed up stairs and began to save the stock of crockery by throwing it out of the window, concluding his work by carry- ing a pair of andirons carefully down stairs and depositing them in safety on the sidewalk.
On the site, of the old tavern Charles : Pumpelly soon . Built a three-story wooden building, painted white, which he called the Owego hotel. It was a large house and was regarded as a. great public .improvement. Mr. Good- man became landlord upon its con- pletion, taking possession Oct. 13, and he kept the house until 1832 when he left it and became landlord of the Laning tavern: Lewi's Manning, who had been keeping the Laning tavern, becaine landlord of the Owego hotel: · The house was in possession of Mr. Manning until 1838, when his son, " Chester J. Manning, became the land- lord. Lafer the two kept it under the firm name of L. Manning & Son, until June, 1813, when Metzgar Edwards, who had been keeping the Eagle tav- ern at Elmira, became landlord and kept the house about two years. In May, 1845, 1 .. Manning & Son again became proprietors and kept it until the spring of 1848. When. it was; burned.in the great fire of September, 1849, Charles Stebbins had been the proprietor about eighteen months.
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While the fire was raging in the street below, wiping out the wooden stores on both sides of Front street and grad- ually approaching the hotel, Mr. Steb- bins served breakfast to a large num- ber of guests of the house. The fire son afterward reached the hotel and it, too, was soon wiped out of existence.
The Deforest Tavern.
One of the earliest taverns at Owe- go was the 'Deforest tavern, which stood at the northeast corner of Front and Paige streets. It was a large building with high steps in front, and all the stages stopped there. It is not. known when this honse was built, but it was about the year 1800. It was kept by lra Deforest, of whom little is known here now. 'He had a daugh- ter, Huldah Deforest, who lived later on a lot on the east side of North avenue, which lot she purchased of Elizur Talcott, Jr., and which extend- ed on that street from Fox to John. R. street .. Several yards back from the avenue she built a small house where she lived several years. She was a seamstress. She removed some- where : in the west, where she mar- ried a man named Douglass. They had two daughters, Ellen and Julia Ann. Douglass. Julia Ann was mar- ried to John W. Merritt, of New York city. Their son, Gen. Wesley Merritt, became one of the most prominent officers in the United States army. The North avenue and Fox street house and lot were sold in August, 1830, by the Merritts to judge John R. Drake for $200.
The Deforest tavern was kept at one time by Ebenezer B. Gregory and was for many years known as the
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Gregory house. One of the early land- lords was Ebenezer Backus, who came from Athens, Pa. Mr. Deforest be- came landlord of the old Laning tavern and died while keeping that house.
Wr. . Backus was a slaveholder and owned two slaves. He held the office .. of clerk of the town of Owego in 1814. He lived here but a few years and re- turned to Athens in 1816. Mes. Louise Welles Murray's . "History of Old Ti- oga Point and Early Athens" gives considerable information concerning Mr. Backus. He came to Athens from Windham, Coun,, about the year 1812. He was a son-in-law of Col. Eleazer Lindley, who was an active officer of the "Jersey Blues"in the revolutionary war and was in the Sullivan expedi- tion. CAr. Backus was travelling agent for the post office department several years. He died at Athens in 1831.
Lewis . Manning . succeeded Mr. Backus as landlord of the Deforest tavern in 1816. . DeWitt Clinton once visited Owego and was a guest at this ' house, It was afterward for many years occupied as a dwelling house. When Arba Campbell built the brick house now owned by Mrs. Gorham on the corner, he removed the old tavern building around the corner on the east side of Paige street, where it stood un- til 1901; when it was torn down and a large double tenement built in. its place, by byman T. Stanbrough.
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The Old Laning Tavern.
The wid Laning tavern, later known as the Franklin house, stood on the north side of Front street, near Court street. At an early day the land at the northeast corner of these two ,
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streets was owned by Amos Draper, who purchased it of James McMaster, the original owner .. June 4, 1792, Mr. Draper sold twelve village lots to Capt. Mason Wattles. Eight of these lots comprised all the land on the north side of Front street between Paige and Church streets. Capt. Wat- tles failed in business and on Feb. 7, 1799, all of his property, including the square bounded by Front, Lake, Main, and Court streets, was seized for a debt of £578. 2s. 4d. and costs by Jacob Conkliue, a New York mer-
chant and sold at sheriff's. sale for $552. The lots on which the sher- iff's residence, the old academy build- ing, and the county clerk's office now stand were not included in this sale, as they had been previously deeded to the trustees of Owego sttlement by James McMaster in February, 1799. Nov. 20, 1802, Mr. Conkline sold the property to Robert Bowne, another New York merchant, for $1,000. Feb, 14; 1804, Mr. Bowne sold to Gen. John Laning the lot at the corner of Front and Court streets for $600,
This lot was just one fourth of the Front, Lake, Main, and Court street square. It was on a part of this ground that the old Laning tavern was built. The house stood close to the walk on Front street and was several feet east from the Court street corner.
At what time the tavern was con -. structed cannot be accurately ascer- tained. The framework of large hewn logs was first erected for a jail and stood partially enclosed and roofed for a long time. The interior was a resort for stray domestic animals, no ordinance providing for the impound- ing of stray quadrupeds being en-
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forced In those days, if any was in ex- istence. This framework Gen. Laning covered with clapboads and converted it into a tavern and store: It was two stories high and had two long stoops in front, the one above the other, ex- tending along its entire front. . Wacthor the building was ever paint- ed or not is uncertain, but in its later. days (it was burned in 1849) it had a dingy; yellow, wood-colored appear- ance.
Gen. Laning kept the house from the time of its construction until 1815, when Edward Edwards, of Berkshire. became the landlord. In 1817 Mr. Ed- wards was succeeded by Abraham Post, of Albany, and he in December of the same year by Ebenezer B. Gregory, who changed the name of the tavern :. to the . "Union Coffee House" Mr. Gregory kept the tavern a portion of a year and moved out while Gen. Laning was down the river. When Gen. Laning returned he was surprised to find that his wife had taken possession of the house and was conducting the business until his return.
Mr. Gregory was . an uncle of Stephen B. Leonard. Hle afterward kept a general country store in Cald- well row. He died at Owego, Feb: 8, 1837, aged about 81 years.
Amos Martin was the landlord in 1819 and remained until 1823 when Lewis Manning took the house and kept it until 1825 when he removed to Greene, Chenango county. Capt. Stephen T. Smith then took posses -- sion. His occupancy of the house was brief, Mr. Manning again taking pos- session in 1826 and keeping it until 1630 when Stephen B .. . Leonard kept
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the house for a year. 'Mr. Manning again became the landlord in 1831. The next year he removed to the Owego hotel and Philip Goodman left the Owego hotel and took the "Coffee House." Mr. Goodman kept the house until his death. He died Aug. 25, 1838, aged 53 years. His widow, Jane Goodman, continued the business until March, 1841, when she -removed to the south side of the river, where she kept a tavern opposite the toll house of the old Owego bridge several years. One of Mr. Goodman's advertisements pub- lished in the Owego Gazette a year previous to his death reads as follows:
"His house is large; and commo- dions, his fare of the best quality, and his faculty, whether Bank or Anti- Bank, Whigs, Conservatives, or Loco Focos, is good as ever: His prices are as reasonable as can be afforded, and : that there may be no. mistake!' he has fixed them as follows: Meals, 25 cents, Lodging 121% cents, Horse- keeping 3s. each, per night, including oats, &c. Everything else in propor- tion. Persons wishing to take the stage will be called up at any hour in the night they may desire."
The Franklin House.
William H. Muzzy, who died at Owe- go Aug. 27, 1879, succeeded Mr. Good- man and changed the name of the tav- ern to the Franklin house. In 1844 he went to Binghamton and took the · Binghamton hotel and Justus Picker- ing and Jacob Dietz came from Una- dilla and became proprietors of the Franklin house. They remained in charge of the tavern but a short time. Mr. Dietz died at Oneonta many years ago. Mr. Pickering removed to Bing- hamton, where he died Sept. 1, 1880, aged 68 years. He was at one time
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the owner of a glue factory, about a mile north of this village.
James D. and John E. Park suc- ceeded Pickering & Dietz and kept the house until Dec. 1, 1844. James Park afterward went to New York and was travelling agent for the New York and Washington telegraph line, a portion of which line the Park brothers constructed.
Ephraim B. Garland, who was killed by the cars at Owego June 10, 1879, succeeded the Park brothers and was landlord of the house until it was burned in the great fire of Septem- ber, 1849.
The Lake Street House
Amos Draper, the Indian agent and trader, was owner, by purchase of James McMaster, of an acre of ground on what is now the southeast corner of Main and Lake streets and which was one-fourth of the square now bounded by Lake, Main, and Church streets and the Susquehanna river. On the corner of this lot now stands the new Owego hotel. .
Draper sold the lot to Capt: Mason Wattles for four pounds sterling ($20) on Aug. 12, 1793. Capt. Wattles sold the lot to Robert Bowne, a New York merchant for $150 on Nov. 20, 1802. Subsequently the corner passed suc- cessively through the hands of James Caldwell, Asa Tryer, and Stephen B. Leonard. Tryer was a blacksmith and uis shop was near the corner. During Mr. Leonard's ownership his stage of- fice was in a small building on the corner.
June 20, 1825, Mr. Leonard sold the lot to James and William A. Ely, who in 1829 erected a tavern thereon, which
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stood where the Owego hotel is now. The tavern cost about $1,200 and was painted white. It was known as the "Lake Street House." The first land- lord was Alanson Dean. In 1831 the tavern was leased to William F. John- son and his brother-in-law, Thomas Jackson, who kept it until 1834, when they bought land in North avenue and. built thereon the Tioga County house.
The Ely brothers sold the tavern stand to Sheldon Osborn Jan. 8, 1833, while it was occupied by. Johnson and Jackson. May 27, 1834, Osborn sold the house to Robert Manning and Rob- ert Brown. He then went into the general mercantile business with Ham- ilton . Ketchum, of Massachusetts. Their place of business was in a store which had been built about the year 1833 by Osborn and which stood just above the bridge in Front street. It was the same store which was after- ward occupied by James Bassett and which was set on fire by Bassett and burned in the night of Feb. 13, 1839, for the purpose of defrauding an in- surance company. Osborn also built the house in east Main street which is now owned and occupied by W. L. Hoskins. This house Osborn after- ward traded for some Pennsylvania land with J. B. Shurtleff, who was the editor of the Owego Gazette. Shurt- leff's title to the land proved not to be good and Osborn lost the land. The firm of Osborn & Ketchum lasted less than a year, owing to business dis- agreement which culminated in blows and a dissolution of partnership. Os- born then went into partnership with William P. Stone, which partnership continued two years. He afterward
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went west, where he lived until his death.
Brown and Manning kept the tavern three years. They then rented it to Seth Mosher two years, selling the property May 7, 1839, to Mosher. Mr. Manning was a carpenter and bridge builder. He died at Owego July 6, 1863, from injuries received in falling from a building, on which he was at work. Mr. Brown also died in Owego April 24, 1869.
Mosher, assisted by his three sons, kept the tavern until 1845, when one of the sons, Sherman Mosher, and his son-in-law, James M. Reed, became landlords of the house. Mr. Reed was a cabinet maker and had worked in Gen. Isaac B. Ogden's cabinet shop on the opposite side of Main street.
The Mosher Tavern.
While under the management of. Moslier & Reed, the tavern, which had been known as the Mosher tavern, was burned. The fire broke out soon after- midnight in the night of April 27, 1846, in a shed attached to the tavern barn. The hotel and barn were burned, to- gether with William Duncan's house and shop, which stood east of the ho- tel, together with a house and barn owned by Charles Pumpelly and occu- pied by George Riley at the southeast corner of Main and Church streets.
Soon after the fire anonymous let- ters were received by various Owego citizens from Cayuga county. . Some were written with a pen, others were clumsily printed from metal. . type. Charles R. Barstow, who was then sheriff of Tioga county, deputized John C. Laning and Caleb J. Chaffee to ap- prehend the supposed writer. They
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went to Genoa, Cayuga county, where they found and arrested a frightened half-witted fellow . named Benjamin Moe and brought him to Owego.
Willard Foster, who then lived about six miles out of this village, was also 'arrested, charged with having set the fire. The ground for his arrest was that he had made . threats against Mosher previous to the fire. His trial began in the court of oyer and termi- ner Aug. 26, 1846.
It appeared on the trial that Moe, who was a fortune teller, was a rela- tive of Foster. Two weeks before the fire Foster went to Moe's house and induced him to copy a letter and send the copies by mail to Owego. These letters were written for the purpose of throwing suspicion of having set a previous fire upon a certain resident of Owego and prevent him from be- coming a witness in a suit against Fos- ter for the alleged burning of a pile of boards, which suit was set down for . trial in the following June. . Foster was tried for burning the tavern and was defended by Daniel S. Dickinson. The jury rendered a verdict of not guilty and he was discharged.
The Central House.
The tavern was immediately rebuilt by Seth Mosher. The new house was larger than the old one and was con- pleted in 1847. It was opened Sept. 3 under the name of the Central house) and it was known as the Central house until it was demolished in. 1906.
It is a little remarkable that the Central house should have so long withstood destruction by fires, which . burned the buildings all about it at : various times, and it was finally torn
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down. The fire of 1849 burned up the entire east side of Lake street to the hotel, where its progress was checked. In 1854 the buildings on the north side of Main street opposite the hotel . were burned, and the same ground was again burned over in 1868. The corner on the west side of Lake street was burned in 1870. . In all these fires the Central house stood unscathed.
Seth Mosher removed from Owego to Barton, where he purchased a farm, on which he lived until his death, July 13, 1852. . His sons removed to Michi- gan.
Some amusing stories were told con- cerning Mosher. Once he attempted to "bull" the market on silver half dimes. The standing price for 'a drink of whiskey was a sixpence. As that coin and the half dimes were of nearly the same size his patrons insisted up- on his receiving the half dime in pay- ment for a drink .. Here was a clear loss of a cent on every glass of liquor. In order to get the obnoxious coin out of circulation, he conceived the idea of locking up every one he received, thinking thereby to remove them all from the channel of trade .. . Whether he eventually succeeded in getting a "corner" on half dimes and securing the circulation of nothing but six- pences or not, is not known, but as it is impossible to bail out the sea with a bowl, it is doubtful if his plan was an eminent success.
' June 20, 1860, Mr. Reed, who had been very successful as a landlord, sold the Central house to Frederick O. Cable. · When -Mr. Cable purchased the hotel it contained but nine sleep- ing rooms. He at once doubled the
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capacity of the house and the stables. Later he built additions to the build- ing on both the Lake and Main street ends, increasing the number of sleep- ing apartments to forty-three.
Mr. Reed removed to Elkland, Pa., in January, 1864, where he became in- terested in an extensive lumber estab- lishment. . He accumulated a hand- some property there, and in May, 1870, he removed to. Big Rapids, Mich., and thence in 1872-to Reed City, Mich., of which he and three Newark Valley men were the first settlers. Mr. Reed and his wife (Albertine Mosher) both died the same day on December 17, 1898, at Reed City, Mich.
April 20, 1869, Capt. Henry Ayers, who had been for many years a pas- senger conductor on the New York and Erie railroad, became landlord of the Central house, but the business proved uncongenial to his tastes and he gave up the house in March, 1870, to Mr. Cable's brother-in-law, Burr J. Davis. Mr. Davis kept the hotel until March, 1879, when he purchased and took pos- session of the Ahwaga house.
The house was subsequently man- aged by various landlords, among whom were C. L. Crandall, Edgar R. Buffum, Wm. G. & Alfred 1. Gardner, D. E. Becker, Daniel J. Brown, Dr. G. W. Simmons, M. W. Brown, S. F. Smith, H. J. Hicks, Cornelius Gleason, Chas. E. Haight, John H. Rease, Isaac 1. LaRue, Léwis H. Comstock, and D. C. Valentine.
In November, 1905, when Benj. F. Birdsall purchased the house of Mr. Cable it was tenantless and in a state of dilapidation. In July, 1906, it was torn down and the same year. the Owego hotel was built on its site.
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The Tioga County House.
Among the lots owned by Amos Draper at the time of the early settle- ment of Owego was a piece containing one acre, which is now the southeast corner of Main street and North avenue, on which stands O. S. Beach's drug store and the brick buildings north and east of it. This piece and an acro of ground at the southwest corner of Lake and Main streets, where the Buckbee block and other brick . buildings west and south of it now stand, were. subsequently the prop- erty of Ebenezer Kimble, a tanner. Sept. 14, 1794, Kimble sold the two pieces of land to Capt. Mason Wattles for £40. The lot at the corner of Main street and North avenue, was sold, after Capt. Wattles's failure in business, together with the old Lan- ing tavern site and other real estate on Sept. 26, 1801, by the sheriff of Tioga : county to Vincent Matthews, who subsequently ( March 1, 1802) re- conveyed it to Jacob Conkline, a. New York merchant. On the 20th of the following November Conkline sold the lots to Robert Bowne, another New York merchant: The acre of land on the Main street and North avenue corner afterward became the property of Eleazer Dana, who December 31, 1832,: sold it to Henry Caldwell and Joseph Kelsey. Mr. Kelsey on April 1, 1834, sold that portion of the lot on which the Tioga County house was subsequently built to William T. Johnson and Thomas Jackson.
On this lot Mr. Jackson the same year built a two-story wooden build- ing, close to the sidewalk, which oc- cupied the ground on which Sporer,
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Carlson & Berry's piano factory and the store north of it now stand. When finished the building was occupied asa residence by Gideon O. Chase. Nearly two years afterward Jackson built an addition to the nort .. end of the house, making the building seventy feet long and covering the ground now occupied by I. W. Smith's grocery store. A double piazza, over which the roof ex- tended, ran along the entire front of the house. At the back of the hotel was a large yard, paved with cobble stones, and back of that were the tav- ern barns and sheds. The tavern was painted white. It was at this time the largest public house in the village.
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