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 3
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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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after , my father come on. Wm. Taylor came on to live permanently here in three or four years after He had been here before.
Amos Draper's was the first white " family that came to Owego to Je side. permanently .. They . lived in the house which had been put up on the lot about where George Bacon resides. le came from Wyoming.
I heard of an incident connected with his moving into the house Two Indians came as bad been in a quarrel about the time of the Revolutionary war. One had killed the other, and an old squaw; the wife, of the dead Indian, had dug a hole under the floor and put . him under. This was the same house Draper afterward moved into: It had · feen .previously occupied by the In- dian family. Mrs: Draper would not go into the house until the remains . of the Indian so buried had been re- moved.
. James McMaster's house was on the bankoftheriver,near where Chapel street [now Academy street], if con- tinued through to the river, would strike the river: That was called in olden times "the Lake road," from the fact. of its leading toward Caynga lake on the Indian trail. The road on the river bank between my father's house and the river ran until it intersected the Lake road. McMaster's house was nearly in the angle made by the two roads.
Robert McMaster was then a young unmarried man and , boarded with his brother,James. Thomas Mc- Master, another brother, lived in a: house standing near where : Joel Farnham's house new is. He: did not come on as early as the other brothers.
Robert McMaster, after he mar- ried a Miss Bates, a daughter of Benjamin Bates, built his first log house on what is now Draper's Res- eration. It 'stood a few feet from the Mansion house [on the west side of North avenue, between West avenue and Talcott street], a little
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south of it. I Jived with him about a year afterward.
There were three families by the naine of Bates. lived, in . Owego. Among the early settlers Elisha Bates, a son of old Benjamin Bates. was about six feet in height, un- commonly active, could outrun any man. We had games and ran to test agility in those days. Hunting was his business. He was a great marksman.
The. deer ran as plenty as sheep. One might start from the river and go as far up the creek as Turner's and see on the way twenty or twell- ty-five, and perhaps as many as that in. a drove .. We killed them as we. wanted them, We could hear the wolves howl in the night. In the winter season when they had driven the deer into the river they would stand. upon . the banks and . howl. The bears' were plenty back upon the mountains.
We used sometimes to see a dozen Indians; sometimes fifty, and some- times one hundred together, passing from here to Tioga. Point, Chenan- go Point or Cayuga lake. Some- times an interval of two weeks when we would not see any but a few families who still continued to reside in this vicinity in their wig- wains. Some of them were Onon- dagas, some Cayugas, some Senecas. They often used to speak of Brant. fle was their great man. There was a treaty at Tioga Point (the year 1 don't recollect) between the agents of the government and the Indian tribes .*
*Note by Judge Avery -The year was 1790. It was held by Col. Timothy Pickering and Thomas Morris, son of Robt. Morris, the financier of the Revolution. upon whose ability Botta has passed a beautiful etilogy and to whose memory we owe great honor. At that treaty at Tioga Point. Red Jacket. Sa-goye-wat-ha, and Farmers' brother Hon-ne-va-mus. and other distinguished chivf- Were present. The council fire was kept burning one Week. There were more than 1.600 Indians present. representing all the tribes of the con- federacy except the Mohawk, those of that nation having after the war removed to Canada. The object of the treaty on the part of our govern- ment was to conciliate, there being at that time
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The most of the Gidians who, as- sembled there came from the head waters of this [the Susquehannal river. I saw them. coming down in their canoes, saw them first at the the bend in the river above the vil- lage .. There were several hundred canoes, some four to six . Indians in a canoe; a good many squaws and young Indians among them. The canoes Were of bark.
It was a handsome sight as they approached the village; they came in such fine order. They came in as solid body and with great regu- larity and uniform movement, some of them ornamented with feathers. some with jewels. covered .with broaches generally of silver gener- ally with white , woollen blankets with heavy stripes: Some had broad cloth blankets.
The Indian men were generally of pretty good stature. They had their rifles, tomahawks. and scalping knives with them,pipes and their kind . of tobacco. They all landed here and cooked and ate their breakfast. They commenced landing at or near my father's house that is near H. W. Camp's Turnace), and so - along down as far as Jas. Mc Master's house. Between the two houses was on open plain, beautiful and green. They were very good - natured. They were there all for peace, . Their de: vices, were cut in upon their orna- ments, worked into their garments with porcupine quills and . painted on. There appeared to be leaders or chiefs among them.
Leggins, loin, cloths; blankets.
great danger of a war with the natives upon our northwestern frontier. We were taking this method of, inducing the Iroquois not to-throw their weight into the scale against us. We were in the main successful, although Col. Pickering found great difficulty in allaying the hot blood which Red Jacket had aroused by one of his powerful appeals to their bitter memories of wrong. This speech it is said was his maiden effort in eloquence and alike astounding his red as well as white listeners. It almost baffled Col. Pickering's best efforts at conciliation, but he did at length, after great exertion, succeed in touching their sympathies for the young re- public.
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head dress, moccasins, and orna- ments . were their. costume. The women carried all the bundles and did all the work .. Saw their wam- pum belts made of. beads.
The Indian Nicholas and his squaw lived on the other side of the river on the flat by F. H. Pumpelly and Jacobs Hand's mills. He claimed to be the owner of the whole flat. He raised cattle and corn, had quite a stock of cattle, ete. He was a Dela- ware Indian. As soon as the Dela- ware settlers commenced moving in- to the valley he moved off. He was afraid they would take revenge. up- on him for some past occurrence. He. had been a great warrior against the whites on the Delaware. He wasa heavy. man, nearly six feet high. Ifis squaw was fine looking for an Indian woman. She made very Ewert butter. She would not allow herself to speak English. She did so, however, once. There was a man drowning and she , informed a white man on the bank where he had sunk. Squaw island was named from her ..
'The first shad we caught in the river was at Squaw island and taken with a brush net. I. never knew any other name for Nicholas than that. . IIe would authorize his name to be signed .Nicholas."
David Jones was the first lawyer who settled at Owego. He came from New Haven. He was a very fine man and well esteemed (I was pleased to discover, as you doubt- less are, that our pioneer. lawyer bore that good reputation).
One season 1 fitted a couple of acres of corn for an Indian family to plant. It lay between my pres- ent residence and the creek. The name of the Indian was Peter. It was well put in bv him and turned out a crop of forty bushels to the acre. I had one-half. They pre- served their half in tracings, which was done by stripping . the husk to the large end of the ear, braid- ing the husks together. The In-
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dians usually : put about a bushel of ears in one tracing. I found them seed, but when. it ripened I found the Indian had planted seed of his · own, without my knowing it. of large kernels, which we called "flour corn,"better adapted for Indian bread. It was probably the species called "Tuscarora.". The great trouble with the Indians was their appetite for strong drink, as they called it "fire. water.'
The Indians all looked up to Amos Draper as a God. He had more in- fluence with them. than, any other man in, the commitry. The Boston purchasers had a conference at Nan- ticoke with the Hidims to procure from them a cession of the land em- braced in the fenTownships. They could bring the Indians to no terms until Draper came. He was sent for to bring about an arrangment. The Indians called " him "Qua-see" (Big man.)
The treaty had to break up until Draper had mingled with the In- dians for three days. There. was then another treaty and the pur- chase from the Indians was effected. There was a great number of In- dians there. The chiefs of the con- federacy were all there, all the prin- - cipal men of that confederacy. This account | had from Draper. We see by the Resolve of Massachusetts that it was June: 1786.1
There was near that house an Indian wigwam. There was former- ly a mound near where the home- stead property of the late Eleazer
tNote by Judge Avery -- Mr. MeQuigg had the account from Mr. Draper some few years of course after the treaty, which was in June. 1756, and he may not have remembered accurately the place where the treaty was heldl. I have heard from other sources and have read, but where now I cannot recollect, that the council was first opened near . Binghamton. No terms at first agreed upon, then resumed at Chenango Forks, where a treaty of cession was fully concluded. I am however disposed to give credence to Mr. McQuigg's version. ' Binghamton was not within . the Boston purchase. Nanticoke was, and it is not probable that the purchasers would liked . to have foregone the advantage which .a treaty made upon the soil, of which, they were purchas
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Dana [the lot on the north side of Front street where the residence of Lewis . H. Leonard HOW isl
in area some forty by fifty feet, rising gradually to the centre, at which point it must have been ela- vated above the surrounding
. face about some six or eight feet. It was a beautiful spot before it was disturbed. It was smooth and beautiful. I have rolled down it when I was a boy many a time. There were some young pines scat- tered about, not far off.
There might have been fifty or sixty acres in the tower part of the village that had been cleared and tilled; some other portions partially. The scattering. trees which were left growing along the bank were very large oaks, elms, and maples.
The battle between Gen. Poor's brigade and the Indians at the Round Hill at Nanticoke I heard of from the Indians who passed and repassed here. It was a bloody bat- tle, but the Indians were driven off the eastern side of the hill, which is steep, into the river.
It was through the influence of . Amos Draper that Jas. McMaster 1
was enabled to buy the title of the Indians to this . Half Township. Joseph Knox also helped him. Knox was an early settler here.
Jas. MeMaster, Draper, and Knox held their treaty for the cession of the Half Township, but. before the treaty made and spoken of above by the Boston purchasers.
There was one Judian chief of the Oneida tribe I remember well. His
ing the possessory interest, would have given to them .. It was the right of original occupancy. a possessory interest they were seeking to 1Air- chase. The government of New York and Mass- achusetts having. respectively, the one exclusive' right of pre-emption and the other the jurisdic- tion incident to sovereignty. a constructive title ceded to us by England by the treaty of 1753. it having originally vested in her, by discovery. a kind of title considered by the nations of Europe in their practice as no way inferior to the right by conquest.
The purchasers were then extinguishing a possessory right, and it would have been more natural and perhaps safer to have done so on the soil they were then purchasing of the occupants.
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name was Longstring. He remained at this place. some time a month. He had a white boy with him at this place, then upwards of twenty years old, who had been taken a captive, when young and his friends from the North river 'came on here to induce him to leave the Indian chief and return to his relatives,
and were at length successful. He always walked by the side of the chief, dressed in the same mode and with the same kind of medal or brooch upon the breast, and the same or- naments. The Indian chief's Son had not the same privilege; he walked behind. The ' Indian chief appeared once a week in full dress and with considerable parade.
I saw the interview : when the father of the young man came from the North river to reclaim his son. I saw the parting of the young man with his Indian father and mother. They were all bathed in tears,, and it was very affecting. The young man said that they. had been as kind as white parents could have been to him, that he had never even had the burden of carrying a deer skin from the hunting ground. His. arm was around his Indian mother's neck and he wept bitterly.
The parting occurred near the bank of the river where Paige street intersects River street in the upper part of the village .*
*Note by Judge Avery .- The practice of the In- dians was to adopt young captives into some family of the tribes. It was generally done when there had been a death in the family of some favorite child, the foster child being received into the place of the deceased and treated with the utmost kindness and attention. The 10- mantic case of Mary Jamieson and that exceed- ingly romantic and interesting case of Frances Slocum; taken captive from the Susquehanna valley. near Wyoming, are in point Undoubt- edly Queen Esther's was also a similar case. After thus having adopted a child . they con- sidered it displeasing to the. Great Spirit to suf- fer a separation, which will account for the foster parents clinging in this instance with such per- tinacity to the adopted child.
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DR. SAMUEL TINKHAM.
Dr. Samuel Tinkham was the first man educated and graduated from a college to settle in Owego. He was a graduate of Dartmouth. He was born at Middleboro, Mass., July 17, 1769, and came to Owego in 1792. Ile was the first physician to settle' in this vicinity. He settled in the town of Tioga in what was later known as Goodrich settlement. He lived in a house which stood on the hillside north of the highway . which runs parallel with the Erie and Lehigh Val- ley railroads. It was a little above the railroad crossing. He lived there un- til 1804, a short time previous to his death. All of his three children were born there. When he removed to Owego he lived in the house on the south side of Front street, which was built by James Mc- Master, which has already been men- tioned in these papers. Dr. Tinkham built an office on the opposite side of the street, which was after his death occupied as a land office by James Pumpelly.
In addition to practising medicine Dr. Tinkham kept a general country store in a building on the bank of the river, on the second lot west of where the bridge now crosses at the foot of Court street. This store stood on land owned by Col. David Pixley, his father-in-law. In 1803 Dr. Tinkham purchased the property of Col. Pixley. It occupied the ground on which the approach to the bridge now is and extended down the river below Acad- emy street.
Dr. Tinkham purchased other real estate much of which is within the
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present limits of this village, One of the largest pieces was lot No. 2 in the old Owego town plot. . Its north boundary started from about where the brick school building stands in Temple street and extended west in a direct line to the Owego creek striking it at the head of the canal which supplies . the electric light works with water. The south line be- gan on the north bank of the Susque- hanna river, a little below Academy street, and ran parallel with the north line of the lot to the creek. The creek was the west line, and the cast line extended diagonally from the Temple street school house directly south to the northwest corner of the park and thence on to the river be- low Academy street. This land Dr. Tinkham purchased in September, 1792, for about $250 of the loan offi- cers of Tioga county. It contained 100 acres, less 13 acres in the south- east corner which had been sold by Amos Draper to Mason Wattles.
Dr. Tinkham's store and a dwelling house were side by side under: the same roof in a long building fronting. on the public square. While conduc- ting the store Dr. Tinkham lived all the time in the town of Tioga until. 1804.
Dr. Tinkham died twelve years af- ter his coming to this county. . In September, 1804, he went to New York to purchase goods, for his store, and when he returned he found that a malignant and contagious fever had broken out, which other physicians did not understand. He was called to the house of Peter Wilson, two miles above Newark Valley village,. cn a professional visit. On his re-
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turn he was taken ill with the fever and was unable to sit in his saddle, so he stopped at the log house of Bon- jamin Sparrow (the first house below the present north line of the town of Owego, on the west side of the high- way), where he grew rapidly worse and soon died. The date of his death was Sunday, Sept. 30, 1804. He was only 35 years of age.
While living in the town of Tioga he married. Mary Pixley, the only daughter of Col. David Pixley, about the year 1793. 4
At that time in this sparsely settled country. there were few clergymen and no magistrates. It is said that Dr. Tinkham and Miss Pixley rode on horseback down the river to Tioga Point (now Athens, Pa.), where sitting on horseback the marriage ceremony was performed by : a justice of the peace, who stood at the door of his house. On April 7, 1805, six months after Dr. Tinkham's death, his widow was married to James Pumpelly, at Owego.
Dr. Tinkham was a descendant in the fifth generation of Miles Standish, who came to' America in the "May- flower" in 1620.
Miles Standish's son, Alexander Standish,married Sarah Alden, daugh- ter of John Alden, who also came in the "Mayflower."
Their son, Ebenezer Standish, mar- ried Hannah Sturtevant.
Their : son, Moses Standish, of Plympton, Mass., married Rachel Cobb. .
Their daughter, Sarah Standish, of Halifax, Mass., married . Ephraim Tinkham, and their son was Dr. Sam- uel Tinkham. . The children of Ephraim Tinkham were as follows:
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1, Abigail Tinkham, born 20 July, 1758. Married Caleb Leach, of Ply- mouth, Mass., who came to Owego in 1806. She died July 2, 1818.
2. Samuel, died when two years old.
3. Joshua Tinkham.
4. Sarah Tinkham; b 11 Sept., 1763, Married Peter Wood and came to Owego. Their daughter, Patience, married Sylvester Farnham.
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5. : Ephraim Tinkham.
6. Susanna Tinkham.
7. Dr. Samuel Tinkham.
Mrs. Sarah E. Gibson, of this vil- lage, a granddaughter of Dr. Samuel Tinkham, owns her grandmother, Mrs. Mary ( Pixley) Tinkhan's, family bible. It was printed in Edinburg. Scotland, in 1793, and contains the record of her children as follows:
1. Sarah Emily Tinkham, born Jan. 19, 1795 ..
2. Standish George Tinkham, born May 29, 1799.
3. David Tinkham, born Nov. 22. 1803.
Sarah Emily Tinkham was the first wife of William Pumpelly to whom she was married in June; 1814. She died in.Owego March 31, 1822, leav. : ing one child, Emily S. Pumpelly, who became the first wife of , William H. Platt.
Standish George Tinkham was later known as Samuel Standish Tinkham, March 20, 1836, he married Lois Wil- loughby, and died Nov. 18, 1873., He was a merchant and a miller. He left one son, Dr. James H. Tinkham, a surgeon in the United States navy, . who died June. 2, 1879, unmarried.
David' Pixley Tinkham married June 8, 1826, Harriet G. Drake, daugh- ter of Judge John R. Drake . and died in Owego August 10, 1836, leav- ing three children.Sarah. E., who was
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married to . Edward G. Gibson; Ari- anna A., who became the wife of Gen. Win. P. Iunes, and John F. Tinkham. Although a college .graduate he fol- lowed mercantile pursuits. He kept a general country store in a wooden Building which stood at the northwest corner of Front and Lake streets This store was moved to the west side of North avenue, nearly opposite South Depot street, where it was oc- cupied for several years as a dwelling house by Edward W. Raynsford, and a few years ago was converted into a Hotel and called the European house. In its place on the Lake-Front street. corner Rollin block was built, which was burned in the great fire of 1349. Dr. Samuel Tinkham has been de- seribed as a man of upright character cordial and unassuming in his man- ners. In 1803 he was elected treas- urer of Tioga county and held that of- fice at the time of his death.
CALEB LEACH.
Nearly all the earliest settlers of Owego had been soldiers in the revo- · lutionary war, and some of them were commissioned officers. Caleb Leach who came here in 1806, saw service in that war. He was born in 1755 at Plymouth, Mass,, and was the oldest son of Peter Leach, who is sup- posed to have come from England. and who died at Halifax, Mass., in 1744.
In early life Caleb beach, who was possessed of considerable inventive genius, was apprenticed to a watch maker .. July 8, 1775, when twenty years of age, he enlisted from Bridge- water for eight months in Capt. James Keith's company in the 28th
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regiment, commanded by Col. Paul D. Sargent. At the expiration of his term of service he re-enlisted for one year, and marched into Boston in 1776. He was taken ill with small pox and sent to Brooklyn hospital Upon his recovery he marched to Hell Gate, where his company had a skirmish, with the British troops. At White Plains he was taken ill with bilious fever and was sent to Stam- ford hospital, and thence home on a furlough. Sept. 10, 1777, he again en- listed at Halifax in Lieut. Jesse Stur- devant's company, marching to Al- bany, N. Y., to guard military stores, and while there was transferred to Capt. Athos Cogswell's company in Col. James Wesson's Eight Massachu- setts Continental line. They marched to near Trenton, N. J., then to White Marsh, Pa., and thence to .. Valley Forge, where they joined Gen. Wash- ington's army and wintered. He served three years in Col. Wesson's regiment, the last ten months being sergeant in charge of field 'armory, and was discharged Sept. 10, 1780.
Upon leaving the army Mr. Leach returned to Halifax and resumed business as a watch and clock maker. While thus engaged he made the first orrery that was ever made in America. This orrery was presented to: Brown university by Dr. Fobes, who was. pastor of a church at Rayham, Mass., and at the same time a lecturer be- fore the university.
· In 1796, with Joshua Thomas and others, he organized the Plymouth aqueduct company . and constructed the works, which are said to have been the first water-works construct-
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ed in America, and which continued to furnish water to Plymouth until 1855. These works he built under contract, using conduits, bored out to from two to four inches in diameter. For boring these logs he invented the screw auger and the machine for which he received a patent from the United States, dated April 13, 1797, to run fourteen years. The patent was signed by John Adams, president. The first screw auger he invented is preserved' in Plymouth Hall, with the name of the blacksmith who made it for him attached.
In 1799, at the solicitation of Aaron Burr, De Witt Clinton and others, he went to New York city and built the Manhattan water-works, upon whose charter the Manhattan bank was founded. He was superintendent of these water-works until his removal to Owego in. 1806.
One day in the fall of 1906 some laborers were excavating a trench at the intersection of Wall and Water streets when they unearthed a black- . ened log of wood, with a hole bored throught it: There was some specula- tion as to what it had been used for, but finally Guy Duval, of Brooklyn, whose office was near there, inden- tified it as one of the oak pipes of the Manhattan water company. It was as. sound as when laid a century pre- "vious. He had it sawed into sections and each section bound with, brass, one of which he gave to editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, labelled as follows: "Section of one of the first water pipes laid in New York by the Man- hattan company in 1779, dug up at. Wall and Water streets in 1806. Pro-
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. sented to Dr. St. Clair MeKelway by Guy Duval." In James Parton's "Life . of Aaron Burr" may be found an in- teresting account of the bitter. par- tisan fight between the Federalists and Republicans over the establish- ment of the Manhattan bank, to ac- complish which the water-works were built.
In 1800 and 1801 Mr. Leach built the first Fairmount water-works in Philadelphia. . h 3803 he was inter- ested in the Jamaica Pond Aqueduct company of Boston. . In constructing water-works Mr. Leach became pos- sessed. of what was considered in those days a handsome competence.
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