USA > New York > Allegany County > Gazetteer and business directory of Allegany County, N. Y. for 1875 > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38
33
ALFRED
the farm upon which he still lives. Hamilton, Green, Burdick and the Smiths were from Brookfield, Madison Co. Rod- man Place settled near the central part about 1815. He came from Rensselaer Co. During the cold season of 1816 he, with many others, suffered severely, and barely escaped starva- tion. David Stillman, from Petersburgh, Rensselaer Co., settled near Alfred Center about 1815 or '16. Amos Burdick, Russell Davis and Paris Green came in from Brookfield, Madi- son Co., in 1816. Burdick settled in the southeast part on lot 44, where he died. His son, Welcome B., who was a little over three years old when his father moved in, has lived on the same farm since 1816. Davis also settled in the south-east part, but lived only about two and a half years after he came here. Green settled in the eastern part, on lot 35, in March. Stephen Collins and Isaac Burdick, from Madison Co., and Samuel Thatcher, from Hornellsville, but originally from Vermont, came in 1817. Collins came in the fall, the whole distance on foot, and settled in the western part. His first log house was covered with split hollow basswood logs. Burdick settled a half mile east of Alfred, where he lived most of the remainder of his lite. Thatcher settled near the central part of the town. Amos Crandall and wife, and Samuel Lanphear, with his wife and two children, came in from Rhode Island in 1818, and set- tled in the northern part. They brought their goods in an ox cart, drawn by a yoke of oxen and a horse hitched ahead. Wm. Crandall, from Rensselaer Co., settled in the southern part the same year. Joseph Claire, from Petersburgh, Rensselaer Co., settled in the north-western part in 1819, and lived on the farm he took up the remainder of his life. Abner Allen, from Onondaga Co., settled in the north-eastern part in 1820; and Ebenezer Allen, from Marcellus, in the same county, settled in the north-western part two years later. Elijah Woolworth, from Turin, Lewis Co., but immediately from Brookfield, Madison Co., where he had lived two years, purchased a farm on which some improvements had been made, in the western part of the town, and raised some grain in 1822. He then returned for his family, which he moved here in February of the following year. They came with a lumber wagon, drawn by a span of horses. He spent the re- mainder of his life on the farm he then took up. Isaac Fenner came from Herkimer Co. in 1824, and settled in the western part. He was for a time engaged in the mercantile business, but prior and subsequent to that time has followed agricultural pursuits. He has been instrumental in fostering Alfred Aca- demy and in building several churches. Maxson Stillman and his son, Maxson Jr., came in from Rensselaer Co. in 1825,
34
ALFRED.
and settled on lot 23, one mile south of Alfred Center. Jere- miah Burdick, from Rhode Island, settled in the town in 1825. Hle is in his eighty-eighth year, being the oldest man in Alfred. Thomas J. Burdick, from Westerly, Washington Co., R. I., settled in the north-western part of the town in the fall of 1829. Other carly settlers were the families of Perry Murphy, Charies H. Clark, Maxson Green, Luke Maxson and George Stillman, who settled at Alfred Center very soon after Crandall and the Greens came in. Another, though not among the earliest set- tlers, yet an important one with respect to the moral, spiritual and æsthetic culture of the residents in this vicinity, was Rev. Wm. Colegrove Kenyon, A. M., who was for several years presi- dent of the faculty of Alfred University, and who devoted the last years of his earth life to its fostering care. He was born in Richmond, R. I., Oct. 23, 1812, of poor and humble parentage. At the age of five years he was bound out to a guardian, from whom " he experienced the severity and ungraciousness not un- frequently attaching to the life of a ward." When old enough he was hired out to neighboring farmers during the summer, and in the winter he attended district school, doing chores night and morning, and working one day in the week for his board. At the early age of fourteen he united by baptism with the First Church of Hopkinton, and the three following winters were spent in the families of deacons Daniel Lewis and John Langworthy, whose high social, refining and elevating influ- ences awakened in him noble aspirations. During this time he attended school, and when at work on the farm he kept a book handy, that all odd spells might be improved. His work was driven with a view to gain time for his studies, and he read and studied by fire light when no better was at hand. When he was about nineteen years of age he bought his time of his guardian, giving his note, which he subsequenty paid, principal and interest, with money earned by teaching at the institution with which he was afterward so prominently connected. He learned the trade of a machinist, and while working with the lathe and file did much of his studying, reciting with classes in a school known as the Lyceum. In the summer of 1836 he entered Union College, having gone over only about half the studies usually required for entering, a fact which necessitated very hard work to enable him to keep up with his classes. The winter of 1836-7 he spent at the " Novelty Works" of New York city, and during this time he nearly kept up with his college studies. One vacation and a part of a term he taught district school, and another term was nearly lost by his having the small-pox. Dr. Nott, President of Union College, becoming deeply interested in him, cheered him on and solicited aid for
35
ALFRED.
him from the American Education Society ; but it was refused on the ground that he, being a Seventh-Day Baptist, was not orthodox. The Hopkinton Sewing Society and another local society aided him somewhat, and he paid back the money re- ceived from them after he began teaching, "testifying that their manifestation of confidence in him was worth as much as the money, giving him new inspiration to press forward." In the spring of 1839, Rev. James R. Irish, who was his room-mate while in college, and who was then principal of the school in Alfred Center, procured the appointment of Mr. Kenyon as his successor. The latter entered upon the duties of his office, ex- pecting to remain only two or three years at most; for in pre- paring for the ministry he intended to devote his life to mis- sionary work in foreign fields. But here, in a field compara- tively unoccupied by institutions of learning, he saw a mission worthy of his efforts, and he soon became interested in educa- tional projects, to the success and perpetuation of which his whole future life was devoted. We have not the space to detail the ardnous labors involved in his efforts to awaken that inter- est which was the germ of Alfred University, nor the unflagging energy with which he pushed his beneficent plans through periods of despondency and grave financial embarrassments to so grand a culmination. To-day that institution stands as a monument to his unremitting toil and self-sacrifice, and his memory is enshrined in the hearts of hundreds who have and are yet to reap the benefit of his labors. In addition to the preparation demanded by his daily duties in school, he prose- cuted his college studies, frequently working most of the night, and in due time received the degree of Master of Arts. In the fall of 1841 he was appointed Superintendent of Common Schools for this county. He spent the winter and part of the following summer in the discharge of the duties of his office, Elder Irish taking his place temporarily as Principal of the school.
From a Memorial Address delivered by Prof. Jonathan Allen, by appointment of the Trustees of Alfred University, to which we are indebted for the foregoing particulars relative to Mr. Kenyon, we extract the following description of him :-
" One of those slender, compact, nervous, magnetic men-a man very earnest, very incisive, somewhat radical, even eccentric, if you please, yet very genuine-the first sight of him, on his arrivel here to take charge of the school, stirred one young life to the core. The first address that we heard him deliver roused and thrilled us as no other, and we worked for days in a dream; and his teaching was suggestive, electric, inspir- ing. We students in those early days, in our little gatherings, voted him, save in a few points, the greatest mun living. His whole being appeared to our youthful eyes condensed, intensified, spiritual energy, with strange
36
ALFRED.
facinating power. As the chemists assert that each drop of water contains electricity enough to produce, when set free, a small thunderbolt, so he appeared to our youthful imaginations as possessing in each minutest globule of his blood, life-force sufficient to electrify and stir into action any nature however dormant. The chief excellency of a teacher does not cousist in the number of facts he may store away in the minds of his pu- pils, but in awakening their individual powers to independent action, in dispelling stupidity, drowsiness, quickening them into vitality, fervor, kindling aspiration, spurring on to self-improvement, high endeavor, thus leading on to noble achievement. President Kenyon sometimes said that the noblest inscription which he could have for his tombstone, would be, that he had been good at drill, and secured mental concentration, steady- ness of mental nerve and eye, steadfastness of purpose, leading to an ap- preciation of the infinite importance of life's opportunities and responsi- bilities."
" On the 5th day of August, 1840, he married Miss Melissa B. Ward, whose life thenceforward was inseparably interwoven with the life of the Institution, and who, like her husband, gave all, even to the offering of life itself, for its welfare." In 1857, when the University charter was granted, he was appointed President, an office he held. till 1865, when he spent a few months in Missouri, having married in September of the pre- vious year Mrs. Ida S. Long. He soon resumed his duties in the University, "and though offered one of the most lucrative and tempting educational positions in the gift of the State, he steadfastly held to his purpose to devote a complete life-service to the cause of education in Alfred. Illness, however, soon compelled him to again seek medi- eal aid, rest, and foreign travel." He spent the summer of 1866 at Dr. Taylor's "Swedish Movement Cure," in New York city, and by October he was so far restored as to be able to sail for Europe, where he spent the winter with his wife's friends in Prussia. "In early spring, President and Mrs. Kenyon had started from Forste, in Prussia, for the Orient, intending to take steamer at Trieste direetly for Alexandria; thence, after · traveling through portions of Egypt, to go to Palestine. But soon after starting they were compelled, on occount of his ill health, to turn aside to Geneva, in Switzerland, spending four weeks there; but as he was getting weaker from week to week, they turned their faces homeward, stopping a few weeks at Paris, thence to London on the 2d of May." His health failed rapidly, but such was his intense desire to reach home, that his home passage had been paid, trunks packed, and a man engaged to take him to the ship. He died on the morning of June 7, 1867, and his funeral took place on the 11th, at Abney Park Cemetery, near London.
The first marriage in town was eontraeted by Luke Maxson and Susan Green. The first birth was that of Rebecca Stillman,
37
ALFRED-ALLEN.
Nov. 4, 1808 ; and the first death, that of Charles H. Clark, who accidentally shot himself while wiping his gun after a day's hunt. Ephraim S. and Lodwick Davis built the first saw mill in 1821, and the first grist mill in 1824.
The First Seventh Day Baptist Church of Alfred, at Alfred Center, the first church formed in the town, was organized with about six members, by Elders Win. Satterlee and Henry Clark, in 1816. Their first house of worship was erected in 1831; and the present one, which will seat 700 persons, in 1855, at a cost of $6,000. The first pastors were Elders Daniel Babcock and Richard Hull. The Society numbers 451 members, who are under the pastoral care of Rev. N. V. Hull, our informant. The Church property is valued at $10,000.
The Second Seventh Day Baptist Church of Alfred, at Alfred village, was organized with about thirty-six members, by members from the First Church, in 1831. The first church edifice was erected about 1836; and the present one, which will seat 300 persons, in 1858, at a cost of $3,300, the present value of Church property. The first pastor was Rev. Ray Green; the present one is Rev. L. R. Swinney, our informant. There are 197 members.
ALLEN was formed from Angelica, Jan. 31, 1823. A part of Birdsall was taken off May 4, 1829. The first town meeting was held April 1, 1823, and the following named officers were elected :- James Wilson, Supervisor; Jeremiah Fuller, Town Clerk; Nathan Overton, John Mahan and Henry Cummings, Assessors ; Chester Rotch, Collector ; Chester Rotch, Calvin Cole, Jacob Binss and Freem Scott, Constables ; Jonathan Walker and Damon Bryant, Overseers of the Poor ; Chester Rotch, Calvin Cole and Rial Thompson, Commissioners of Highways ; Ma- nasseh French, Sylvester Rounds and John P. Van Allen, Com- missioners of Common Schools; Levi S. Littlejohn and Silas Littlejohn, Inspectors of Common Schools; Levi Littlejohn and Jeremiah Fuller, Justices of the Peace.
It is an interior town, lying north of the center of the county, and contains 22,764 acres. The surface is a hilly upland, divided into ridges by the valleys of the streams, above which the highest summits rise 500 to 700 feet. It is drained by the head waters of Plumb Creek, which flows to the north, and those of Bakers and Wigwam creeks, which flow to the south. The soil upon the uplands is clay underlaid by hardpan, and in the valleys a gravelly loam and alluvium. It is best adapted to grazing, and dairying is the chief pursuit of the farmers. This is an agricultural town, there being no village in it. There are several churches, but neither hotel nor store, and only one blacksmith shop. There is neither minister, doctor nor lawyer in the town.
The population in 1870 was 794, all of whom, except 91, were native, and all, except seven, white.
38
ALLEN.
ALLEN CENTER, (p. o.) centrally located, contains two churches (M. E. and Lutheran) and eight or ten houses, only half of which are occupied.
ALLEN (p. o.) is situated in the east part.
Settlement was commenced about 1806, by James Wilson, who emigrated from Ireland in 1804. He lived a short time at Geneva and about a year at Angelica, coming thence to this town. He took up a farm on Bakers Creek, on which he lived till his death. He was the first Supervisor in the town. His son, Col. Wm. Wilson, who was born Jan. 30, 1810, was prob- ably the first child born in town. Robert Barr settled in the sonth part, on Bakers Creek, shortly after Mr. Wilson, and & little later came Archibald Taylor, who located in the south- east part, on lot 54. He came from Ireland, but lived a short time in New York city before coming here. Robert McBride also settled about the same time in the eastern part. Improve- ments progressed but slowly during the early years of settle- ment and few additions were made to the number of settlers. The Peavys (Nehemiah, John, Ichabod, Isaac, Joseph and Joshua,) settled on what is known as the Peavy road, in the south-west part of the town, about 1815; and the families of McCoon and Teller were settlers of an early day. Friend, Hiram, Simon and Wm., and their father Eleazer Scott came from the town of Watertown, Litchfield Co., Conn., and settled in the eastern part of the town in 1816. Erastus Walker, from Vermont, came with a wagon and span of horses the following year and took up a farm in the southern part, on lot 62, where he spent the remainder of his life. Chester Rotch and two others named Otto and Lefever settled at the center about this year (1817 ;) and a widow named Armstrong settled in the southern part about the same time. She came from Angelica, and in 1827 opened the first hotel kept in the town. It was located near the south line. George Glover, from Ontario Co .. settled in the south-west part about 1820. Daniel Baldwin settled on the farm that Otto took up abont 1820 or '21. Joseph Jen- nings, from Bristol Co., Mass., settled in the southern part, on the farm now occupied by his son, in December, 1822, and con- tinued to reside there till his death. Robert, Joseph and Jona- than Walker, from the same State, settled in the east part the same year. Martin Miner, from Norfolk, Connecticut, and Asher Miner settled in 1824, the former a little east of the center, and the latter in the south-west part. Asher Miner built the first saw mill on Wigwam Creek, in 1825; but the first one in the town was erected by Moses Treat, on Bakers Creek, abont 1820. James and Samnel Willison, brothers, and James, John, Robert, George and William Burthwick, with
39
ALLEN.
their mother and three sisters, came from Genca, Cayuga Co., and settled in the western part in 1826. The Willisons located on lot 48. Joshua Smith, also from Cayuga Co., settled in the western part about the same year. He took up a farm upon which he spent the rest of his life. There was then scarcely a road in the western part of the town. Andrew Clark, from Sullivan Co., settled a little north of the center in 1827. About 1827 Abram Post moved in from Angelica, where he had lived from the time he was a year old, and settled in the south-east part, on the farm he still occupies. John and Ruel Hooker, brothers, from the same town, settled about the same year west of the center. Ege Pierson settled north of the center in this
or a previous year. Henry Burt, from Springfield, Mass., Thomas Cole and Robert K. King, from Steuben Co., and Jerred Atwater, Uriah Cook and Solomon Woodworth, from Cato, Cayuga Co., settled in the town in 1828; Burt, near the central part, on lot 35; Cole, in the western part, on lot 33, on the 2d of May ; King, who came from the town of Pultuey, in the western part, on a farm near where he now lives; and the latter three in the western part, Atwater on lot 34, and Wood- worth on lot 18. Austin Manley and Henry Light, from Cayuga C'o., settled in the south-west part about 1828. Conrad Benjamin, from Sandisfield, Berkshire Co., Mass., settled a little east of the center in 1829, and remained there about six months, when he moved to the north-east part and took up the farm on which he now lives. James Crandall, from Trumansburgh, Tompkins Co., settled at the center in 1832. The first store in town was kept by a man named Merrick, at Allen Center. The first school was taught near the south line, in 1820.
The first religious services were conducted by Rev. Robert Hubbard, a Presbyterian, in 1821; and the first Church was formed by the Presby- terians in 1830.
The M. E. Church of Allen, at Allen Center, was organized with about fifteen members, about 1844; and the church edifice, which will seat 300 persons, was erected about 1849, at a cost of about $1500. There are nine members. The pastor is Rev. S. D. Picket. The Church property is valued at about $600. [Information furnished by Mr. Joseph HI. Rutherford.
The First Baptist Church of Allen, in the south-west part of the town, was organized about 1847; and the church edifice, which will seat 250 persons, was erected in 1858. There are about fifty members, but the Church is without a pastor. The estimated value of the Church property is $1,000. [ Information furnished by Mr. Abel Webster.
The Second M. E. Church of Allen, in the south-west part of the town, was organized with about sixteen members, the present number, by Rev. W'm. Bradley, the first pastor, about 1848; and the church edifice, which will seat 200 persons, was erected in 1862, at a cost of about $700. The present pastor is Rev. L. S. Crittenden. The Church property is valued at $900. [Information furnished by Mr. I. L. Fisk.
40
ALLEN-ALMA.
St. Paul's Lutheran Church, at Allen Center, was organized with four- teen members, by Rev. C. Engeler, the first pastor, in 1868. Their house of worship was given them by the Presbyterians the same year. It will seat 100 persons, and cost $500, its present valne. The Society numbers sixteen, and is under the pastoral care of Rev. R. Garan. [Information furnished by Mr. Christian Gallman.
ALMA was formed from Willing, Nov. 23, 1854. The first town meeting was held at the house of Azor Hurlbutt, March 6, 1855, and the following named officers were elected :- John HI. Foland, Supervisor ; Darius C. Judd, Town Clerk ; Arvis Burrows, John C. Rowell, Walton T. Rice and Ambrose Straight, Justices ; Samuel B. Stebbins, A. R. Southmade and Alzina Straight, Assessors ; Solomon Allen, Daniel Shaw and Jasper White, Commissioners of Highways; Ebenezer Sonth- made and Charles C. Fay, Inspectors of Election ; Wm. S. Oliver, Town Superintendent ; John Halbert, Overseer of the Poor ; Samuel Wyval, Collector ; Samuel Wyval, Win. Andrews, Saul G. Green and Solomon Allen, Constables.
The town lies upon the center of the south border of the county, and contains 23,349 acres. The surface is very rough and hilly, the declivities of the hills being mostly too steep for profitable cultivation. At various places outcroppings of sand- stone appear. Near the center and near the highest point in the town is a rough tract of sandstone rock covering 100 to 200 acres. The surface is covered with moss, on which the timber has grown. Near the center of this tract is an elevation of ten to fifteen feet, covering about an acre, and composed mostly of huge blocks of sandstone, which is destitute of vegetation, with the exception of a few shrubs and stunted trees. Honeoye Creek and its branches, flowing in deep, narrow ravines, form the principal drainage. The soil upon the uplands is a clayey and sandy loam, and in the valleys a gravelly loam and allu- vium. Much of the town is yet covered with forests, and lum- bering is the chief pursuit of the people. Agriculture has gained a foothold in the valleys and in a section known as the " Niles Hill district," where some well improved farms are seen. The supply of pine is well nigh exhausted.
The population of the town in 1870 was 766; of whom 665 were native, 101, foreign, 741, white and 25, colored.
SHONGO (Alma p. o.) (formerly known as Honeoye) is situated in the south-west corner of the town, on Honeoye Creek, and contains a hotel, store, blacksmith shop, saw and shingle mill, ten dwellings, and about forty inhabitants.
PIKEVILLE (named from a Mr. Pike, who erected the saw mills there,) was once a thriving lumbering village, but, since
41
ALMA.
the burning of the saw and shingle mills located there, has gone to decay.
Settlement was begun in 1833, by Warren Hough, from Quebec, Canada, who located in the south part. A man named Longcore settled on lot 20, about the same time, or a little later. Azor Hurlbutt was born in Connecticut, Jan. 27, 1804, and removed with his father to Otsego Co., when only three years old. He removed thence to AAlma in 1834, and settled on lot 26. When he came there was only a foot path east toward the Genesee, a sled path toward Honeoye Corners, and a road underbrushed toward Pikeville. He has held the office of Justice of the Peace for about thirty years, the last sixteen in succession. He still lives where he first settled. He built and opened the first hotel in Alma, in 1837. His daughter, Eme- line, who was born Sept. 1, 1836, was the first child born in the town. Samuel B. Stebbins, a native of Otsego Co., removed thence in the fore part of July, 1836, and settled on lot 30. When he came, he says, there were but five others living in the south part of the town. They were, in addition to Hurlbutt and Hough, Wm. Smith and two others named Harding and Hunter. He has since lived in the same place. Mr. Stebbins relates that his daughters, Achsa Ann and Phebe, aged respect- ively twelve and eight years, killed a wolf about the year 1846. While he was away from home the children saw in a clearing back of the house, an animal which they supposed to be a fox, but which proved to be a wolf, young and very poor. They set the dog on him, but he did not run till the latter reached him and worried him some. The dog followed close, snapping at his heels at every opportunity. The wolf soon took refuge under the roots of a fallen tree, but the aperture was too small to fully conceal him or to admit of his turning round in it. The girls followed and saw that they could reach his hind legs, and one of them pulled him out while the other stood ready to despatch him. Myron Allen settled in the north-west part, on lot 1, in 1839. Jared Emerson settled in the town in 1840. Wm. Andrus, from Steuben Co., settled on lot 22 in the spring of 1843, and, with the exception of two years, has since lived on the same place. Joseph Smith moved in from Michigan in 1849, and settled in the north part, on lot 114. Timothy Nobles removed from Urbana, Steuben Co., to the town of Burns, in 1833 ; three years later to Grove ; and thence, in 1856, to his present residence in this town. Captain Elisha Mix .was an early settler in the town, but in what year we are not advised. He came from Potter Co., Pa., and settled on lot 47, where he died in 1859. His step-son, George E. Adams, came with him, and still lives in the town. The first death in the
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.