History of Cattaraugus County, New York, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 13

Author: Franklin Ellis and Eugene Arns Nash
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But if the sheriff was bitterly denounced by many for the really trifling expense (about seven hundred dollars) caused by his preparations to preserve peace, he was as warmly sustained by others, among whom were many of the best citizens of the county. Below is given an extract from the Cuttaraugus Republican of April 28, 1845, which ably defends his action. The first part has reference to the delay of more than seven months which was allowed to in- tervene between the sheriff's unsuccessful attempt to execute the process in June, 1844, and his final action in the fol- lowing January, which brought about the military demon- stration, viz. :

"Sheriff White from the first outbreak acted with judg- ment and discretion. True, he was unwilling to push headlong into a strife with men who were determined to resist the law without proper time for reflection on their part and sufficient means in his hands to enable him to carry out what he undertook. It is well known, in this community at least, that the course he pursued after the disturbance of last June was at the instance and advice of the circuit judge ; all of our leading men, and even the land- agents themselves, fell in with the proposition that the matter should be delayed in order that the misguided should have time for reflection, and with the hope that the excite- ment would subside. The ordering out of a strong force was sanctioned and approved by all reflecting minds, and, as the result has proved, was not without its good. Human life has been preserved and the law enforced; without which means it could not have been done. We should have regretted beyond measure the loss of even one life, that even one of the inhabitants of Dutch Hill should have been killed, and now that the law has been vindicated with- out bloodshed we consider that the course pursued by the sheriff was the best that could have been adopted. All have acted nobly and manfully, and we rejoice in the assurance afforded by this demonstration of peace and sc- curity under protection of law. We have no doubts that process can now be executed in any portion of the county."

But the above closing prediction was not verified by sub- sequent events, as is shown by an item of news from the same journal, under date of April 28, 1845, being as fol- lows : " We regret to announce that Sheriff White went to Hinsdale on Tuesday last [April 22, 1845], and was again resisted by a force of about one hundred men. We had hoped that the sheriff would not be again molested in the discharge of his official duties; that the settlers would see that their true interests require submission on their part to the law of the land; but it appears they are still determined to adhere to their former position." It does not appear, however, that there was afterwards any serious trouble, and there was certainly none which the sheriff deemed sufficient to demand the assistance of the military to suppress.

Through all the years which have followed the occur-

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HISTORY OF CATTARAUGUS COUNTY, NEW YORK.

rences above narrated, it has been the custom to pour out unrelenting ridicule on the whole matter of the " Dutch Hill War;" and there are now among the people of the county many who were then of mature age, and yet well recollect the events, who, looking back to that time, freely express the belief that the magnitude of the power invoked was largely disproportionate to the danger which menaced; but there were probably few who entertained that view of the case during the two days of alarm which preceded the fruitless excursion of the military to Dutch Hill.

It admits of no doubt that threats had been openly and freely made to burn the court-house and land-offices in case of arrests; and if, with a knowledge of that fact, the sheriff had so far failed in his duty as to render the execution of these threats possible, he might justly have received more censure for his neglect than he did receive for what was stigmatized as unnecessary prudence, because it cost the county of Cattaraugus some seven hundred dollars.

And it should not be forgotten that, in his adoption of precautionary measures, the sheriff had the justification of recent precedent; that only a little more than a month be- fore, the sheriff of the county of Columbia, in the eastern part of the State, had been resisted while in the exercise of his official duty ; that thereupon he had employed force, and had arrested and lodged the insurgent leaders in jail ; that in consequence of this action it had been threatened by the law-breakers that a thousand banditti would descend on the city of Hudson (the county-seat), demolish the prison, rescue the prisoners, and sack and burn the city ; that under these circumstances (which were almost exactly similar to those by which Sheriff Wright found himself surrounded when he invoked the power of the county) that same city was placed in a state of siege; and that at the very time when the forces were mustering at Ellicottville, Hudson was also occupied (as it had been for several weeks) by a defending military force, composed of the Hudson City Guards, the Scotch Plaids, the Albany Burgesses Corps, the Emmett Guards, Van Rensselaer Guards, Washington Riflemen, Capt. Krack's Company of Cavalry from New York, the Albany Republican Artillery, with their four guns, guarding the court-house, a battalion of four com- panies of volunteers belonging to the county, and a force of volunteers from Greene County ; and that the Gov- ernor of the State had furnished five hundred stand of arms from the State arsenal for the equipment of these volunteers.

These facts are not pertinent to the history of Cattarau- gus County, except as showing, in justification of the course pursued by Sheriff White, that in a similar exigency the sheriff of a sister county had called a much larger force to his aid, and had been sustained in this action by the Gov- ernor of the State of New York.

CHAPTER IX.

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

RIVER AND CANAL NAVIGATION.

FOR many years from the time when the first clearing was made in the woods at the mouth of Olean Creek,

nearly all plans and ideas of internal improvement for this region of country centered upon the Allegany River, and roads leading to it from more populous points lying farther to the cast and north. It was regarded as the great nat- ural highway of this portion of the State, and one with which (as was then believed) no artificial route of travel and traffic could ever hope to compete. It was the one advantage which nature had given to Cattaraugus, and denied to all other counties on the southern border,-a large and navigable stream, along whose smoothly-flowing cur- rent, boats, laden with the products of the fields and forests of New York, might find an easy and rapid passage to the markets of the Southwest.

We have seen how quickly Western-bound emigrants discovered and availed themselves of its advantages; how they came by hundreds, by thousands, each year and em- barked upon its waters with their families and their movable property, each adding something to the wealth of Catta- raugus County in their passage through it; and it is not strange that the diversion of such a remarkable amount of travel to this route so soon after its opening, and even while its eastern approaches remained in a scarcely passable condition, should have created a firm belief in the minds of many that the river highway must always retain the relative rank which it then held.

The transportation of lumber upon the river from this region commenced in 1807, when Jedediah Strong, Bibbins Follett, and Dr. Bradley ran the first raft from Olean Point to Pittsburgh. In the same year the Allegany River was declared a public highway. From this beginning, the run- ning of lumber soon afterwards became the leading business done upon the river,* and caused Pittsburgh to become the mart for the southern part of this county, those en- gaged in the trade upon the river making purchases of goods there, which were brought up from the head of steamboat navigation on keel-boats. These, however, were worked up the stream by so laborious a process that the cost of transporting one hundred pounds of merchandise from Pittsburgh to Olean was usually about one dollar and twenty-five cents, at the same time that produce and freight of various kinds was being transported by arkst and flat-

* In 1834 the lumber rafted down the Allegany from this region was more than 300,000,000 feet.

t The ark was a large, strongly-built, and high-sided flat-boat, formerly in almost universal use on the Allegany and other rivers, but particularly on the Susquehanna and its tributaries, for the transportation of all kinds of produce down the rivers to a market. They were of course never intended to be brought back up the stream, but were sold for building lumber or other purposes at the place where their cargoes were disposed of. An account of the first use of this kind of craft, and the origin of the name, is given by Captain Charles Williamson in his " Description of the Genesee Country," written in the year 1799, as follows :

"Some years ago (about 1792), the high price of flour and lumber induced a Mr. Kryder, a farmer on the Juniata River, in Pennsyl- vania, to try an experiment in the mode of transporting flour from his mills to Baltimore, by the Juniata and Susquehanna rivers. He built a sort of boat he called an ark ; it was long and flat, and constructed of very large timber, such as he supposed would suit the purpose of builders. This vessel, or float, carried three hundred bar- rels of flour. This man had the courage to push through a navigation then unknown, and arrived safe at Baltimore, where he received from the merchants a premium of one dollar above the market price for every barrel. Thus encouraged, the same person has been down every

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HISTORY OF CATTARAUGUS COUNTY, NEW YORK.

boats from Olean down the river to Pittsburgh at one shilling per hundred pounds. Salt, from the Onondaga salt springs, was transported by this carriage down the Alle- gany to Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, at less than one shilling to the first, and but little more than that figure to the last- named point. It seems a little remarkable that this heavy article could be transported a long distance by expensive land carriage, and then by the Allegany and Ohio Rivers to Cincinnati, and there find a profitable market against the vigorous competition of the Kanawha salt companies, who were subjected to no expense of land carriage, and with a river transportation of less than half the distance from Olean to Cincinnati. Probably the superior quality of the Onondaga salt partially explains it; but whatever may have been the cause, it is certain that for a number of years thousands of barrels of Salina salt were floated down the Allegany in this manner to the lower markets.

The completion and opening of the Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo, in 1825, may be said to have closed the Allegany River as a route for Westward-bound emigration, though that travel continued to pass this way, in dimin- ished degree, for a few years longer. The cause for this diversion of travel was not because the new route by way of the canal and the lakes afforded facilities for the emi- grants to reach the same points which had hitherto been reached by way of the Allegany and Ohio, for such was not the case, but it was because the lake-route opened new re- gions, and this resulted in drawing to Northern Ohio, Mich- igan, and Northern Indiana the emigration which had previ- ously set in the direction of Southern and Southeastern Ohio and Southern Indiana. This was unlooked for, and it was a rude shock to the belief which had been so long entertained that the Allegany River route was superior in advantages to all others. It seems to have been realized then for the first time that if the Allegany water-way were to be made permanently available as a through route of travel and transportation, it must have other castern and northern connections than those afforded by wagon-roads, and par- ticularly such as were for a considerable time in each year virtually impassable.

The original projectors of the Erie Canal had contem- plated its connection not only with Lake Erie, but also with the Allegany, by a southwest branch to Olean Point. Many believed that this branch would prove equal in im- portance to the main stem, having its terminus at Lake Erie; and yet when the canal was completed, and opened through to Buffalo, the southwestern branch remained without a blow having been struck towards its construction. Gov. De Witt Clinton called the attention of the Legisla- ture to the subject, and strongly advised action, in his mes- sages from 1825 to 1828, but this resulted in nothing more than a superficial preliminary survey of the route by the State engineer in 1825, and then for nine years more no action was taken by the State.

Meanwhile the people of Cattaraugus and Allegany

Counties had not lost faith in the superior advantages offered by the Allegany, and they held frequent meetings for the purpose of urging upon the Legislature the neces- sity for the construction of the southwestern branch canal (it had not then been named the Genesce Valley Canal) to Olean. The first of these meetings (notable only as having been the earliest held for the purpose) was convened at Cuba, with the Hon. John Griffin in the chair, and with Gen. C. T. Chamberlain, Daniel Raymond, Samuel Mor- gan, Simcon C. Moore, and others as prominent speakers.

Mr. Griffin, having been elected to the State Senate in 1832, made a successful visit to New York in the following year, in the interest of the projected canal improvement. There he succeeded in awakening the interest of several of the more prominent men, which resulted in the holding of a meeting at the Shakespeare Hotel (Christian Bergh, chairman ; Edwin Williams, secretary), at which resolu- tious were adopted expressive of the opinion of the meeting in favor of the proposed canal, as a most important public work. Forty-five gentlemen were appointed a committee to call public attention to the subject, and under their direc- tion a pamphlet was prepared and published, entitled " An Appeal to the People of the State of New York and their Representatives in the Legislature, in favor of constructing the Genesee and Allegany Canal." Among the names of those composing this committee of forty-five are found those of Gideon Lee, Charles O'Conor, Thaddeus B. Wakeman, Philip Hone, Benjamin Huntington, Smith Ely, Dudley Selden, and others equally well known.

This appeal, aided by petitions signed by more than two thousand five hundred of the inhabitants of the city of New York, and also by resolutions passed by the American Insti- tute and the common councils of New York and Brooklyn, all strongly recommending the project, influenced the Legis- lature to pass the act of 1834, which directed a survey of the route, and estimates of the cost of constructing the canal, to be made. This was done by Frederick C. Mills, C.E., who presented his report to the Legislature March 3, 1845. Upon this a bill authorizing its construction was introduced, but failed to pass the Senate. At the following session the bill "to provide for the construction of the Genesce Valley Canal" was passed, and became a law May 6, 1836. This bill authorized and directed the canal com- missioners to proceed with all reasonable diligence to con- struct and complete a navigable canal from the Eric Canal in Rochester, through the valley of the Genesee River, "to the Allegany River, at or near Olean ; and also a branch canal, to commence at or near Mount Morris and to extend up the valley of Canascraga Creek to the village of Dans- ville." And for these purposes the commissioners were authorized to borrow two millions of dollars on the credit of the State, the estimated cost of the work being $2,002,285. Four years ( April, 1839) later, however, the same engineer, having reviewed his estimates, placed the total cost at $4,900,12276 ; this change of figures being attributed by him to the changes in the general plan, and in the plans of most of the structures, which had been made in the mean time, as the result of later surveys and examinations .*

# The estimate for the cost of the canal, made by the engineer, Mr. Roberts, in the survey of 1825, was only $875,588.

year since, and has made so considerable improvement on this sort of boat that arks are now used which carry five hundred barrels. As they are never intended to be used except for descending in high water, they are navigated by three to five men, and will float down at the rate of eighty miles per day."

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The report of this engineer, made to the Legislature March 3, 1835, placed the whole length of the main line, including navigable feeders, at one hundred and seven miles ; of which, all the distance from Rochester to the upper Genesce falls was to be supplied by water from that river, but from thence to Olean, a distance of thirty-one and a half miles, the sup- ply of water must be procured from other streams. His proposition was to turn the whole of Ischua Creek into a summit reservoir, to which this creek was estimated to be able to supply one thousand one hundred and twenty-two cubic feet of water per minute in the dryest season. To this were to be added, at various points in the thirty-one and a half miles, the waters of Oil Creek (one hundred and eight cubic feet per minute), and Lime Lake, Beaver Lake, Fish, and Mud Lake, all of which were placed at eight hundred and fourteen feet per minute. The dry seasons which followed soon after proved this estimate and plan to be fatally defective, and a new plan was adopted for the construction of three reservoirs, viz. : one of seventy-two acres, to contain 18,223,000 cubic feet of water, and to be fed by Black Creek ; a second, forty-five feet in depth, four hundred and ninety acres area, to contain 390,000,000 feet, fed from Oil Creek ; and a third, fed by Ischua Creek, to be sixty feet deep, five hundred and seventy-five acres in area, and to contain 588,000 fect of water; all of which would give a total estimated to be 256,500,000 cubic feet in excess of the quantity of water required for wastage and lockage during a navigation season of two hundred and forty- four days. The summit level between the Allegany and the falls of the Genesce to be eleven miles and sixty-seven chains in length ; its elevation above the Erie Canal at Rochester nine hundred and eighty-two feet, and above the Allegany at Olean eighty-six feet. Among the mechanical structures embraced in the plan of the canal were one hun- dred and fifteen locks (besides several guard-locks), one tunnel of one thousand and eighty-two feet in length, fifteen aqueducts, eight dams, one hundred and thirty-four culverts, one hundred and three double and single track bridges, four tow-path bridges, one hundred and thirty farm bridges, and several bulk-heads and waste-weirs. The width of the canal to be in general twenty-six feet on the bottom, forty- two feet at the surface of the water, with banks seven feet high, calculated for four feet of water. But during the twenty-two years which intervened between the first survey by Engineer Mills and the completion of the work, the changes which were made from time to time in the general plan, and in almost every detail of it, were so frequent as to be bewildering, and certainly too numerous to be mentioned in detail. Among these changes were material modifications in the system of water-supply to the summit level ; the sub- stitution of composite locks for those of stone as at first con- templated ; and changes of the point of debouchement into the Allegany River .* About thirty miles of the eastern

end of the line was put under contract in the year 1837, fifty miles more in 1838, and the remainder-the part ex- tending from the Cuba summit to the southwestern termi- nus-in October, 1839. The portion of the canal between Rochester and the Genesee River dam-thirty-six miles- was finished in 1840. The canal commissioners, in their report of January 28, 1840, stated that, with the excep- tion of the reservoirs on the summit level (the location and plan of which had not then been fully decided on), and also with the exception of some other work comparatively incon- siderable in amount, the whole of the canal, with its neces- sary structures, was under contract and in course of con- struction. But a long and weary time of waiting was yet in store for the friends of the enterprise before they should see its completion.

The navigation of the Allegany, and its improvement, was still generally considered as of prime importance, and the construction of the canal as being only subsidiary to it. It was expected that the execution of certain con- templated projects for improving the Allegany would, in connection with the putting of the canal in operation, increase the traffic of the river tenfold; and the more sanguine of its advocates believed and asserted that suc- cessful steam navigation upon it could easily be accom- plished, and the terminus of the Genesee Canal be made also the head of the steamboat system of the Ohio and Allegany.

That the river had already been navigated by steamboats to that point was truc. The steamer " Allegany" had ascended as far as Olean Point, in 1830, and in the report made by Maj. George W. Hughes of a survey of the river from Olean to Pittsburgh, made by him under authority of an act of Congress, passed Feb. 16, 1837, is found the statement that " The steamboat ' Newcastle' has ascended without great difficulty, from Pittsburgh to Olean, and could, even under present circumstances, make regular trips between these places whenever there is sufficient depth of water to pass the chutes of the various dams which have been illegally erected across the river by individuals, to the serious injury of the navigation. This fact, then, shows that if we succeed in maintaining a minimum depth of water sufficient to float boats of such burden as may be deemed best adapted to the commerce of this river, our object is effected." Major Hughes also gives in the same document a description of the steamboat mentioned, as follows : " The steamboat ' Newcastle,' which plies on the . Allegany, is in length 100 fect,-115 including stern- wheel; breadth of beam, 16} feet ; depth of hold, 3} feet ; power of engine, two cylinders of 11} inches diameter, boilers, five cylinders, and a double-flue boiler.

" The lock and sluice ought to be constructed to pass a boat at least as large as the ' Newcastle.' This steamboat has carried and towed sixty tons. She has carried eighty

* When the (paper) "City of Allegany" was laid out in 1836, it was proposed to change the route of the Genesee Valley Canal to the extent of making its western terminus at that place instead of the mouth of Olean Creek as first contemplated. The projectors of that "city" endeavored to show-and perhaps did show clearly-that a more favorable route to the river, in the last few miles, could be had by following a lagoon (which may in ancient times have been the bed

of a stream), extending westward from Olean Creek to the waters of Five-Mile Creek, and to strike the river on the "city" plat. If Alle- gany City had become a reality it is not improbable that the plan would have been adhered to; but the baseless fabric dissolved, and the canal followed Olean Creek to its mouth as first intended; but after- wards the plan was again changed so that the canal entered the river at Mill Grove instead of Olean.

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HISTORY OF CATTARAUGUS COUNTY, NEW YORK.

passengers and three hundred and fifty bushels of coal, and drew two and a half feet of water."

To show the extravagance of the expectations indulged by some, at least, of the people of this section, during the time when the canal was in course of construction, and when the improvement of the Allegany was supposed to be near at hand, an extract is given below from a com- munication published in the year 1836, in one of the county newspapers, in reference to the improvements then in contemplation. This writer said, " Either of these im- provements will give this county the carrying trade of the enstern section of the United States, to thirteen of the Southern, Southwestern, and Western States. As goods can be transported much safer, cheaper, and earlier, in the spring, on the river than the lakes, the river would be pre- ferred, and the trade of the rich extensive valley of the Mississippi will be done through this channel. There is now a communication from Olean, in this county, of more than twenty thousand miles on navigable rivers, into thirteen of the United States, which embrace half the population of the Union. The produce of those States can be carried on this river to the Atlantic cities, and the merchandise consumed there can be conveyed either by the way of the Frie and Genesee Canal or Hudson and Erie Railroad down the Allegany, making that river one of the greatest thoroughfares in the world. If the merchandise and produce of the Eastern and Southwestern States are exchanged through this channel, it must create a steamboat conveyance on the Allegany not surpassed by that of the North River.

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History of Cattaraugus County, New York, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 13

Author: Franklin Ellis and Eugene Arns Nash Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Franklin Ellis and Eugene Arns Nash
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: