History of Cattaraugus County, New York, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 84

Author: Franklin Ellis and Eugene Arns Nash
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" HEADQUARTERS 50TH ILLS. INF. VOLS., NEAR WASHINGTON CITY, D. C., May 31, 1865.

" CAPT. L. H. EVERTS, " Asst. Adjt .- Gen. 4th Div. 15th Army Corps :

"SIR,-To assure you of the high regard in which your services as assistant adjutant-general of the 4th Division, 15th Army Corps, are

* Afterwards 4th Division of the 15th Army Corps.

held, I have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of a petition which has this day been forwarded to the adjutant-general of the army by the field-officers of said division, requesting your appoint- ment as assistant adjutant-general, with the rank of major.

" I am, captain, with respect, your most obedient servant,

(Signed) " WILLIAM HANNA, Lieutenant-Colonel,

" Commanding regiment."

[Copy.]

"CAMP OF 4TH DIVISION, 15TH ARMY CORPS, NEAR WASHINGTON CITY, D. C., May 31, 1865.

" To Adjutant- General United States Army, Washington City, D. C .:

"SIR,-We, the undersigned, field-officers of the 4th Division, 15th Army Corps, hereby most respectfully request that Capt. L. H. Everts, assistant adjutant-general of volunteers, be appointed assistant adju- tant-general of volunteers, with the rank of major.

" We can each and all of us testify to the faithful and efficient man- ner in which Capt. Everts has discharged the arduous and responsible duties of assistant adjutant-general, the majority of us having been officially associated with him since the summer of 1862.

"We are, general, with great respect, your obedient servants, (Signed) " BRIG. GEN. E. W. RICE, Commanding Ist Brigade. " Wx. T. CLARK, " 2d

" " R. ROWETT, 3d

COL. R. N. ADAMS, 81st Ohio Volunteers. WM. HANNA, 50th Illinois Volunteers." [and thirty-two others.]

It was indorsed by his general commanding the division as follows :

" HEADQUARTERS 4TH DIVISION, 15TH ARMY CORPS, NEAR WASHINGTON CITY, D. C., June 3, 1865.

"Respectfully forwarded, and earnestly recommended. An officer able, faithful, and gallant,-in every way deserving the promotion. (Signed) "JOHN M. CORSE, Brevet Maj .- Gen. Commanding."

This application was recommended and approved by corps and army commanders, and his promotion secured. Since the war, Maj. Everts has been successfully and extensively engaged in the publishing business, including local and general works, the wonderful system regulating it, doubt- less, being an outgrowth of his army experience.

James S. Everts resides on a large dairy-farm, near that of his father's, in Geneva, Ill. Edward A., at the age of twenty years, has charge of the business-office of his brother in Philadelphia, and evinces remarkable energy and tact.

JOHN DOW, ESQ.

One of the best known and most respectable residents of the town of East Otto, is the gentleman whose name heads this sketch.

Mr. Dow was born in the State of Connecticut, Feb. 11, 1809. In the year 1815 he came with his father, Daniel Dow, to the State of New York, locating in Dutchess County. His youth was spent there, and in Columbia and Otsego Counties, to which points his father successively re- moved. The early portion of his life was passed upon his father's farm, but on attaining his majority he left home, and for the ensuing three years worked out by the month. He then returned to his father's farm, upon which he la- bored until November of the year 1833, when he took pos- session of the farm he had purchased a few months previous, on lots 26 and 27, then woods, in the town of Otto.

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OSCAR F. BEACH.

MRS. OSCAR F. BEACH.

RESIDENCE OF OSCAR F. BEACH, EAST OTTO. CATTARAUGUS CON. Y.

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In the spring preceding his removal to the West ( April 18, 1833), he married Miss Eliza, daughter of Michael Weber. The issue of this marriage was seven children,- three sons and four daughters,-of whom four still survive. Mr. Dow, after the decease of his first wife, joined his for- tunes with those of Miss Maria A., daughter of John Dud- ley, Esq., the 11th of September, 1855. The issue of this marriage was one daughter, who still survives.

Mr. Dow always took a lively interest in martial affairs, and during many years of his life held official stations in the organized militia of this State. He was elected, in 1828, as first sergeant of a company under command of Capt. James M. Towser, in the 135th Regiment, 2d Brigade, 16th Division, New York State Militia. The following year he was commissioned by Lieut .- Gov. Throop as ensign, and in 1831 as a lieutenaut, in the same regiment. In 1835 he was constituted a captain in the 248th Regiment, and duly commissioned by Gov. William L. Marcy, with rank from March 10, 1835. He was appointed and com- missioned a major, in 1837, in the last named command, of which E. W. Cook was colonel, and comprising a portion of the 54th Brigade and 26th Division of the State militia.

During his residence in this county-a period of forty- five years-he has been actively identified with most of the leading interests of his town. He officiated as overseer of the poor of the town of East Otto for several years. Taking an active interest in educational enterprises, he has not shirked the more arduous duties connected therewith, having served as school commissioner, and as clerk and member of the board of trustees of the district schools of his town.

Mr. Dow is a prominent and influential member of the Congregational Church, of which organization he has served as a deacon since Aug. 7, 1857. He is a man of strict in- tegrity, scrupulously honest and upright in all his dealings. He has always contributed with a liberal hand to the poor and needy, and to various benevolent enterprises. He com- bines in his character the best elements of a man and a citizen.

NATHANIEL NILES TEFFT

was born Aug. 12, 1812, in Richfield, Otsego Co., N. Y. He was a son of Alexander Tefft, and grandson of Oliver Tefft, of Connecticut, and was of English descent. Oliver Tefft married Deborah Dewey, and they reared a family of five sons,-Alexander, Samuel, Oliver, Staunton, and Wil- liam Pitt,-and daughters Deborah and Polly (Donaghue, who is living and in her one hundredth year).

Alexander Tefft was a New Englander, but came to Richfield, and not long thereafter married Deborah, daugh- ter of Nathaniel Niles. When the subject of this sketch was an infant, his parents removed from Richfield to Monti- cello village, Otsego Co., N. Y., where his boyhood was passed, under the thorough teaching of his mother and the indifferent schools of that day, until the age of fourteen years, at which time his parents migrated, with their young family, to the almost entire wilderness of Otto, Cattaraugus

Co., N. Y., and there endured the privations of the settle- ment and clearing up of a new country.

The subject of this biography, with almost indomitable will, pursued his studies as best he could, always cheered by the co-working of his brother, Alexander, Jr.

Mathematics was his delight, and most assuredly his forte, he having quite mastered " Pike's Arithmetic" and was studying surveying when but thirteen years old. His love of study led him to adopt teaching for some years, his success being remarkable. Afterwards he adopted survey- ing as a profession, and immediately commenced his duties as surveyor for the Holland Land Company, which position he occupied until failing health induced him to enter the land-office at Ellicottville, N. Y., which position he filled for many years, but always thereafter surveying for railroad companies or private individuals, as his pleasure inclined.

In the year 1869 Mr. Tefft was selected and appointed by a committee of supervisors to copy the " Holland Land Company's" field-notes for the clerk's office of Cattaraugus Co., also to draw maps of that county for the use of the same office. He fulfilled his contract to the great satisfac- tion of the admirers of the useful and the beautiful. This work will be a lasting monument to his memory when those who knew him shall have passed from earth into the un- known future.

Politically, he was a Republican, being ever, in some manner, identified with the interests of the town, and was always full of life and energy, being a firm supporter of our schools and churches.

He several times represented his town as supervisor, and for twenty years was either justice of the peace or notary public.

Mr. Tefft was married to Martha Nichols in 1840, and left as issue one son, Emory Nathaniel, and two daughters, Emily Amelia (who is a physician) and Anstice J. Tefft.

O. F. BEACH

was born Sept. 23, 1818, in Massachusetts. His father, Henry, came to Cattaraugus County in the year 1825, with his family, and purchased the farm where his son, O. F., now resides. He located a large tract of land in what was then an entire wilderness, but which he and his sons cleared and improved. Henry Beach married Miss Maria Nash, and reared a family of seven children (four sons and three daughters), of whom three sons and two daughters now sur- vive. Mrs. Beach's father, S. B Hinman, was born in Ver_ mont, but removed to New York State with his father when quite young. Mrs. Beach's mother was also a native of Ver- mont. Henry Beach died Feb. 7, 1847. His widow re- sided with the subject of this sketch until her death, which occurred June 14, 1872.

O. F. Beach lived upon his father's farm until his twen- ty-eighth year. After his father's death, he bought out the heirs, since which time he has made the old homestead his residence. Oct. 8, 1846, he married Miss Adaline, daugh- ter of S. B. and Kesiah Hinman. She was born in Catta-

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raugus County, Oct. 8, 1827. Her father and mother both reside in Waverly village, town of Otto, this county, being at this time (1879) aged seventy-nine and seventy-three, respectively.

To Mr. and Mrs. Beach have been born one son and two daughters, all married and comfortably settled,-the former on a farm in the neighborhood of his father's place, the latter in Cattaraugus village. Edson F. married Laura Eddy, of Mansfield, N. Y., Dec. 12, 1877; Cornelia was married, Dec. 8, 1869, to A. B. Rush, a cheese manufac-

turer of East Otto; and Addie A. is the wife of L. H. Northrup, a merchant of Cattaraugus village, having joined " hearts and hands" Oct. 7, 1878.

Mr. Beach has all his life been a farmer. In politics he is a Republican. He has held most of the offices of the town. He has been a member of the Congregational Church for about thirty-five years, while his wife, for an equal length of time, has belonged to the Methodist Episcopal denomination. Both are highly-esteemed residents of the town of East Otto.

FRANKLINVILLE.

THIS is an interior town lying northeast of the centre of the county, and is embraced within the limits of township four in the fifth range, and three tiers of lots on west side of township four in the fourth range; and is bounded on the north by the towns of Machias and Farmersville, on the east by Lyndon, and south by Humphrey and Ischua, with Ellicottville on the west. It is watered by Ischua Creek, which flows southerly through the eastern part of the town, Great Valley Creek passing through the northwest corner, and by the branches of Forks Creek (named Morgan Hol- low and Sugartown Creeks), which take their rise in the centre and western part and flow southerly into Great Val- ley. From the northeast corner of the town broad flats extend down Ischua Creek to below Cadiz, from whence to the south boundary the valley is much narrower, and is bordered by hills, which rise to heights varying from three hundred to five hundred feet. The surface of the western part is undulating and hilly, traversed by narrow valleys along the Morgan Hollow, Sugartown, and Great Valley Creeks, the last named crossing the northwest corner of the town.

It contains 31,008 acres, of which 20,198 are improved, and has a population of 1654, according to the census of 1875

EARLY SETTLEMENTS .*

First among the pioneers of the town of Franklinville stands the name of Joseph McClure. He was born in Belchertown, Worcester Co., Mass., May 14, 1775. Of his early history comparatively little is known, save that he was educated to the medical profession, the practice of which soon became repugnant to him, and was consequently aban- doned for more congenial pursuits. About the period of his majority he married an estimable young lady by the name of Betsy Grice, slightly his junior, from a neighbor- ing town in his native county. Thus the pair set out upon

the journey of life, and after various fortunes not material to this brief sketch, at the age of twenty-nine, early in the year 1804, they found themselves with a family of four small children, in the primitive hamlet of Angelica, in the neighboring county of Allegany. Among the studies of early life, Mr. McClure had acquired a taste for mathematics and geometry, and through these agencies he soon became an adept in the art of surveying.

His reputed skill and accuracy soon became known to Joseph Ellicott, the principal agent of the Holland Land Company ; negotiation culminated in an agreement, and Mr. McClure, with his compass and chain, was sent into the wilderness, accompanied by Solomon Curtis and Ira Pratt as axemen, to survey the subdivisions of the Purchase.

Beginning at the eastern boundary of the Purchase, and progressing westward, they at length reached the broad and beautiful valley of the Ischua. Here Nature had lavished her beauties with a profuse liberality. A broad vale of unbroken symmetry, a soil of almost exhaustless fertility, bearing a burden of succulent herbage, with a dense growth of forest-trees, tall, graceful, and majestic as giant sentinels guarding fairy ground; the pure waters of the Ischua, lightly fringed with nodding alders and dipping wil- lows, washed its western boundaries, while Gates' Creek, a considerable affluent from the east, swept in a general curve across the southeastern corner, separating a romantic ac- clivity from the alluvial delta formed by the convergence of the two streams.

Contemplating this scene in the wild grandeur of its primitive loveliness, under the mellowing influences of a mild Indian summer, the autumn leaves reflecting the many-tinted rays of a September sun, what wonder that a man of cultivated taste and refined sensibilities like Joseph McClure should select lot 39, in the fourth township and fourth range, as his future home. Such was the man and such the home to which he brought his family in March, 1806, cutting and clearing the road as they came, a distance

* The early settlements of Franklinville, Ischua, and Lyndon are contributed by Mr. Marvin Older.

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of thirty miles, through an unbroken wilderness, camping at night amid the dissolving snows of early spring. Thus was formed the nucleus around which clustered other homes, a radiating point from which have sprung the grow- ing and diversified interests of the Franklinville of to-day.

They erected their log cabin upon the ground now occu- pied by the residence of Mrs. Permilia Campbell. The barn, constructed of the same material, occupied the more pretentious position, viz., the corner lot where now stands the brick store of Ely & Smith. The trials and triumphs, the dangers and escapes, the grievous hardships and patient endurance incidental to a life of isolation, are more easily contemplated by a lively imagination than described by the historian's pen. Suffice it to say that, like Robinson Crusoe in his involuntary seclusion, " by dint and by thrift they managed to shift," until the dawn of an advancing civilization lent its charms to dispel the gloom of solitude, and brought with it the comforts of social, civil, intellectual, and domestic life. After a long and varied experience, he died of heart-disease, Sept. 11, 1833, aged fifty-eight years and four months. His wife survived him eleven years, and was buried by his side in the family burying-ground, a few rods south of their first habitation. During the present summer, 1878, their remains were transferred to Mount Prospect Cemetery, where a humble slab marks the final resting-place of the first pioneer of the Ischua Valley.

The family of Joseph and Betsy McClure consisted of five sons and three daughters, of whom Samuel, Manly, and Joseph, Jr., settled upon the hill road leading from Franklinville to Ellicottville. Samuel married Lucy Car- penter; Manly married Emily Wightman, and Joseph married Patty Long.

Of these, all have paid the debt of nature, except the aged widow of Joseph, who now resides with her brother in the town of Sardinia, Erie Co., N. Y.

Of the girls, Emily, the eldest, married Roswell Warner, and settled upon lot 5, township 4, range 5, and subse- quently upon lot 35, in the same township and range, where she died, about the year 1870. Harriet, the second daughter, was married to Pardon T. Jewell, in 1825, and died in 1857. Caroline, the youngest, was married to John C. Mathewson, in 1826, and settled upon the north part of lot 4, township 4, range 5, and subsequently re- moved to Michigan, where she died several years ago. Roswell Warner and Pardon 'T. Jewell still survive, both of whom are octogenarians, and their lengthened shadows stretch far backward o'er the pathway of life. Mr. Warner, during his prime, was a match for any man in the wrest- ling-ring, or at other athletic sports, and has probably slain more deer, and felled more timber, than any other man in town, while to Mr. Jewell many a man and woman with wrinkled brow and silvered locks looks complacently as the model school-teacher of the olden time. The only surviv- ing members of the original McClure family are David and Freeman, the latter of whom first located on the south part of the old homestead, and subsequently upon the southern part of lot 38, township 4, range 4. He served in the army from November, 1861, to about the commencement of the year 1863, when he was discharged in consequence of ill health, returned to his home, was pensioned by reason

of injuries sustained, which impaired his constitution, sold his patrimony in Franklinville, and now resides somewhere in the interior of the State of Iowa.

David McClure has always resided within a stone's throw of the old primitive log cabin ; he has been a resident of this town nearly seventy-three years, and as a child, boy, and man has numbered more pulsations within the limits of the county than any other human being that ever trod its soil. He early learned to play the violin, at which he soon became an adept, playing sometimes for amusement and sometimes for money. In 1817, when he was thirteen years of age, he drove a team to Ellicottville weekly, laden with flour and other provisions to supply the wants of Baker Leonard, while erecting the first hotel built in that place. Notwithstanding the limited facilities for study, he managed to acquire a fair English education ; he chose the law as a profession, which he has followed with varied suc- cess up to the present time. He has represented the town on the Board of Supervisors, and filled other positions of honor and trust, which are duly noted in other parts of this work. In February, 1825, he married the daughter of Thomas Morris, a neighboring pioneer.

One of their sons, Leonard D. McClure, was the first man that enlisted from this town, and in the spring of 1861 he left the city of Buffalo with the 21st New York Regi- ment for the tented field, which he never left, save on leave of absence, until the final disbanding of the army in the summer of 1865.

John, the youngest son, enlisted in Company I, 6th New York Cavalry, Nov. 1, 1861, and fell on the field of battle in the autumn of 1864, and his remains are deposited in Mount Prospect Cemetery, by the side of those of his honored grandfather. In honor to the memory of the " Old Pioneer," who struck the first blow to redeem this " vast wilderness and boundless contiguity of shade" from prowling beasts, and men scarcely less fierce and wild than they, I have been thus explicit in tracing the fortunes of some of his descendants. I might still continue the narra- tive in detailing the self-sacrifice and noble daring of Wil- liam W. and David Phillips, of the 6th Cavalry, the bold riding of young Mathewson, the successful scout attached to the 3d Wisconsin,-these, too, were grandsons of the veteran pioneer,-but I forbear ; want of time and want of space admonish me that I must to other topics and other men.

Contemporaneous with the settlement of McClure upon lot 39, Solomon Curtis, from Chenango Co., N. Y., located a claim upon lot 40, township 4, range 4. He subse- quently sold his interest in the east half to one Mallory, and it eventually passed into the hands of James Cravath. In 1808, Curtis erected his log house on the extreme south bounds of the lot, on the site now occupied by the residence of N. B. Deibler, a few rods west of the centre stake in the village of Franklinville.

Hunting and trapping were his primary, and agriculture his secondary, pursuits. The bounty for a wolf's scalp was then $60, and he was often known to take three in a day. The scalp was taken before some judicial officer, deposition was taken as to the time and place of its captivity and death, the ears were cut off and ceremoniously burned, and

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forthwith the certificate for the legal bounty was issued, which passed as current " upon Change" as the government bond of to-day. Wolves were a grievous pest to the early settlers, as well as a terror to the brute creation ; the hun- ter's dog crouched tremblingly at his master's heels ; sheep and cattle left the uncropped herbage, and fled in terror to their folds in close proximity to the abodes of man.

Large bounties were offered under the mistaken idea that the effect would be their total destruction, or at least a diminution of their numbers, but the reverse proved to be the result of the experiment. Mr. Curtis sold his farm and removed to Erie County about 1825. Of his de- scendants, three sons and three grandsons are now residents of the town. Two grandsons. Azor and James M., served with distinction during the war of the Rebellion, were both promoted for meritorious conduct, both pensioned in consequence of wounds received, and at this time James holds a position of trust and emolument in the Interior Department at Washington. Early in April, 1806, David McClure, from Vermont, a cousin to Joseph McLuer,* selected as his future residence the north part of lot 5 and the south part of lot 6, township 4, range 5. Here, on the 30th day of April, 1806, near the northeast corner of lot 5,-the place still marked by a clump of wild plum-trees,- was born Hiram Warner McClure, the first child of Anglo- Saxon extraction born within the limits of Cattaraugus County. Mr. and Mrs. McClure, after faithfully perform- ing the duties of husband and wife, father and mother, citizen, neighbor, and friend, after a long and eventful career laid down the burden of a wearisome life.

But the child grew and waxed strong, and at length, like Nimrod, became a mighty hunter; and in the autumn suc- ceeding the anniversary of his seventieth birthday, during one of his " still-hunts" in the wilds of Northern Pennsyl- vania, he shot and killed four wild deer inside of two min- utes, watch-time, showing that " his eye was not dim nor his natural strength abated" ; and he is to-day, at the age of seventy-three, hale and erect, with a step as lithe and elastic as modern productions at the age of twenty-five. Such was the stock of the old pioneers.

During the summer of 1806, Moses Warner, with his four sons, Moses, Jr., Parley, John, and Roswell, all from Vermont, settled upon lot 5, township 4, range 5 ; and three of the boys, on attaining their respective majorities, took part and parcel of the same lot. Of the old gentleman comparatively little is known at this date, save that he was a cooper by trade, and supplied the wants of the scattered community as their wants and circumstances suggested. Moses, Jr., adopted the calling of his father, which he fol- lowed with indifferent success until the time of his death, in about 1828. Parley, John, and Roswell became tillers of the soil. Their mother was a woman of uncommon in- tellectual powers, the very soul of sarcasm, wit, and mimicry, and possessing powers of physical endurance equaled by few and surpassed by none. Owing to the absence or incapacity of resident physicians, she was frequently called to the performance of the more delicate duties ordinarily

assigned to the medical profession. No night was too dark or tempestuous for her courage and intrepidity, no forest path too steep, winding, or obscure to be overcome by her energy, traced by her knowledge of woodcraft, or rendered palpable by her keen perceptions.

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History of Cattaraugus County, New York, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 84

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: