USA > New York > Cayuga County > History of Cayuga County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 78
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 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109
Not a human being, Indian or white man, was then living at Aurora. The Indians, who left at the time of Sullivan's incursion, did not return till after this settlement was made.
The summer of 1789 was one of extraordinary scarcity. Many families in the remote settle- ments of New York and Pennsylvania lived mostly on greens for a considerable time before harvest. The provisions stored the previous fall were found undisturbed and in good condition, and these formed a seasonable supply of food, which it was hoped would supply their wants un- til other provisions, consisting of a quantity of grain, a barrel of pork and another of flour, which had been stored at Tioga Point, could be brought up. As soon as temporary dwellings had been constructed Capt. Franklin's son Roswell and the
latter's brother-in-law, William White, returned for the provisions left at Tioga l'oint ; but on ar- riving there they found the pork and flour had been eaten up or otherwise disposed of, and the grain, together with the mill in which it had been stored, burned.
In this extremity the young men bethought them of a small quantity of rye which had been left on the removal of the family at Wysox. This they procured, thrashed, had ground and brought back to the little colony at Aurora, which, during their absence of five weeks, had been destitute of bread and had subsisted chiefly on the milk of their cows, with the rare addition. sometimes, of a few ground nuts, which they roasted and found very palatable and wholesome. Besides the inconvenience of being pinched for bread, they had to pass the summer in little cramped bits of shanties constructed of bark and boughs. In the fall, however, they were able to erect more comfortable log houses. The log house erected by Roswell Franklin that fall is said to have been the first house raised by a white man west of Rome, and every white man within a radius of fifty miles is said to have been present at the raising. They were sixteen in number. It was sixteen feet square, and stood on lot 145, on the south-west corner of the East Cayuga Reservation, on the place now owned by Col. Ed- win B. Morgan, and occupied by his son Henry A. Morgan. The foundation of this old cabin is still visible, and it is the purpose of Mr. E. B. Morgan to erect an appropriate monument upon the site.
Captain Franklin was a man of more than ordinary ability, and seems to have been the in- spiring genius to the little colony which settled at Aurora. His eventful life and tragic death would make an exceedingly interesting chapter, but the scope of this work does not admit of more than a brief reference thereto. Mr. Frank- lin enlisted in the English army a few years pre- vious to the war of the Revolution, and went with a detachment of it to the West Indies. He was shipwrecked on the voyage and cast upon a desolate island, where for fourteen days he suf- fered intolerably from heat and thirst. He was present at the siege of Havana, Cuba, in 1762. Soon after the surrender of that city he returned to his native place, Woodbury, Connecticut, where he married, and after eight years removed to the
* One authority consulted states that they arrived at their desti- nation early in April; another, the first of June. The former seems most probable.
394
TOWN OF LEDYARD.
Susquehanna and took up land in Pennsylvania, under a presumed title from Connecticut, to which he removed his family in 1770. He was involved in the Pennamite war growing out of conflicting claims of Connecticut and Pennsyl- vania to the lands leased by the Indians to the company of which Franklin was a member. He was taken prisoner and confined in Easton jail with others, while on his way to Connecticut in the spring of 1770, to bring in his family, and was the leader in effecting their escape ; but he alone of the party escaped recapture. He re- moved his family to his new home in the fall. He took part in the sanguinary battle of Wyom- ing, July 3d, 1778. His son Joseph was subse- quently killed by the Indians, who lurked around his home for weeks and months, seeking an oppor- tunity to destroy the family. His son, Roswell, and nephew, Arnold Franklin, were captured by the Indians and carried to Fort Niagara. They were exchanged some months after and returned home to learn that on the 8th of April, 1781, Franklin's wife, two daughters, Olive and Susannah, the former aged thirteen and the lat- ter eleven, and two sons, Stephen and Ichabod, the former aged four years and the latter eighteen months, had been captured by the In- dians, who killed his wife and carried the infant into captivity. The other children were rescued by a pursuing party.
After the close of the Revolutionary war the Pennamite war was renewed, and Franklin, worn out with these contentions, resolved to leave the beautiful valley of the Wyoming, for whose brief occupation he had paid so dearly. He removed to Chokenet, up the Susquehanna, 140 miles above Wilkesbarre, not far from Chenango Point. He proceeded thither with his adopted son, Arnold Franklin, and two other men, and imme- diately returned to bring on by boat provisions necessary to sustain them during the winter. But the early close of the river by frost and the deep snow prevented the accomplishment of that purpose, and also prevented the escape of the three from their perilous situation, for they had no food and no means of procuring it. Their three yoke of oxen, on one of which they ex- pected to subsist through the winter, broke through the ice and were carried down the river. In their extremity one of their three horses was killed and sustained life during the winter of
1784-'5. They escaped from their imprisonment in early spring nearly famished and exhausted. The drowning of his team and the sweeping away of his provisions by the ice freshet of the spring of 1785, compelled him to abandon the projected settlement at Chokenet. He, how- ever, with three other families, commenced a set- tlement a year or two afterwards at Wysox, about sixty miles up the river, whence he came to Aurora.
The measure of his calamities and misfortunes was yet unfilled. He unwittingly encroached upon the reservation, and when the Military Tract was surveyed, his house and half his im- provements were found to be within its limits. Having overcome the extreme rigors incident to their first settlement here, they were beginning to realize bountiful harvests from their lands, and the benefits of a friendly intercourse with the Indians, who returned in the fall succeeding their settlement, and. some of whom brought them fish and game in exchange for such articles as they could spare. The forest supplied them abundantly with berries, and the fruit trees, which escaped the destroying hand of Sullivan's army, with Indian plums, peaches and apples. Peace and prosperity invited and rewarded their industry. Thirteen or fourteen other families had either purposely or unwittingly squatted upon the reservation, and on complaint of the Indians Governor Clinton issued a proclamation directing them to withdraw therefrom. They disregarded the injunction, and in the fall of 1791 Clinton sent the sheriff with a posse of men to eject them. The work was entrusted to Colonel William Colbraith, high sheriff of Herkimer county, which then embraced Cayuga County. It was done thoroughly. Every house, except one, to the number of thirteen, was burned, and the families thrown upon the charity of their friends ; but, as they made no resistance, they were permitted to take off their movable property. Captain Franklin's house being near the line, he prevailed upon the sheriff to allow him to remain until spring, and see if he could not satisfy the Indians.
Elisha Durkee was one of those ejected from the reservation. He settled first "on the west bank of the second brook that crosses the high- way east of Levanna, a short distance north of the road," and remained there till the next Octo-
395
EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
ber, when he removed to the place afterwards known as the Sloat farm, south of Levanna, by the rivulet, not far from the lake shore, where he remained till driven off by the sheriff. He subsequently removed to the present town of Scipio, where he died at an early day.
Ebenezer White settled in Ledyard ; and the Messrs. Atwell, of whom there were three, Joseph, Levi and Hulbert, removed at an early day to the western part of the State.
Captain Franklin naturally was very desirous of securing a title to the lot (No. 34,) joining the reservation, on which a portion of his improve- ments had been made, but unfortunately he did not have the money with which to buy it. It would seem that he had rested secure in the sup- position that the lease obtained from the Indians constituted a valid title. On the apportionment of the Military Tract, lot 34, on which Aurora stands, fell to the share of Peter VanBenscoten, of Fishkill, Dutchess county, who was a lieuten- ant in the Fourth New York Regiment, during the war of the Revolution, for, curious enough, though only two regiments were raised, officers for five were commissioned. Lieut. VanBen- scoten held the title until March 14th, 1794, when Seth Phelps bought it in the joint interest of himself and John Walworth, his brother-in- law, both of whom moved in from Groton, Con- necticut, the former in 1791, and the latter about 1795. The price paid was 2405, not quite $600, and the money was furnished by Mr. Wal- worth at Mr. Phelps' request. Mr. Phelps came in as an insolvent merchant and was the recipi. ent of much kindness from Captain Franklin, who generously opened his house to his family, and supplied him, in his poverty, with a team and utensils. Capt. Franklin, therefore, whether justly or not, viewed the purchase of that lot by Mr. Phelps as an act of ingratitude, and being old and infirm, " met this great misfortune as the climax to a life of sorrow, and believed himself forsaken by God and man. He sank into a for- lorn and pitiable frame of mind, and although closely watched by his friends, shot himself near his dwelling. He had previously attempted to hang himself by fastening a rope to a limb of a tree, and leaping from a bluff. In the last fatal attempt, he placed the muzzle of his gun to his ear, and discharged it by means of a stick."
This sad event occurred two or three weeks 67-2
after Mr. Phelps return from the east, whither he had been to negotiate the purchase of the lot in question. Whatever the effect this act had upon the mind of Mr. Franklin, there is every reason to believe Mr. Phelps entirely guiltless of the ignoble motive imputed to him. He gave Mr. Franklin's widow a deed of two acres adjoining the reservation, including a portion of the im- provements made by her husband. Mr. Frank- lin had married again before coming to the lake country.
The death of Capt. Franklin was a crushing blow to his family. But his son Roswell, who was twenty-one when he came to the lake coun- try, and upon whom the chief burden of the care of the family devolved, was strong, accustomed to hardships, and able to endure them. Stephen, his brother, who was several years younger, had been crippled in his arms by the small-pox, and could not perform heavy manual labor. Roswell hired of the Indians that part of his father's clearing lying on the reservation, and by dint of persevering industry was enabled to support the family. After the Indians surrendered this por- tion of their lands to the State, the Legislature granted to those who had been on the grounds several years the right to buy at the average price of new lands, in preference to new comers. This was called the preemption right, and Roswell availed himself of its benefits. In 1813, he re- moved to Genoa and bought of Ephraim Buel the lands sold to him by Jabez Bradley.
In the division of lot 34, the north half fell to Phelps and the south half to Walworth. It was " divided by an east and west line running through the garden of Nancy Morgan, between her house and the Masonic hall." Phelps took up a farm where Benjamin Gould lives. The year that Phelps settled here (1791) the county of Herki- mer was formed from Montgomery county, and the first town meeting of the town of Peru, one of the towns in the former county, and embracing the western half of the military tract, was direct- ed by law to be held at his house, then in the township of Scipio. On the erection of Onon- daga county, in 1794, Seth Phelps, though not a lawyer, was appointed First fudge of that county (March 14th,) and held the office till the erec- tion of Cayuga County in 1799, when (March 14th,) he was appointed to the same office for the latter county, which he held until February
396
TOWN OF LEDYARD.
26th, 1810, when he was succeeded by Walter Wood. He represented the Western District in the State Senate from 1798 to 1801 and from 1810-'13, and was frequently chosen to honorable and respectable positions in the gift of the people. He served as a captain in the Revolutionary war. He removed to Painesville, Ohio, about 1819, and died at Parkman, Ohio, in February, 1823, in his 78th year. None of his children are living. Jno. Walworth removed in 1800 to Painesville, Ohio, and a few years after to Cleveland, where his daughter, Mrs. Hannah Strickland, now lives. One son, John P., is living in Natchez, Miss. Edward Paine, who had previously been to the country and assisted in the survey for the Little Lessee Company, moved here in the fall of 1790, and settled a little south of Aurora, at the mouth of the creek which bears his name. He removed to Painesville, Ohio, in 1800.
In 1790, Gilbert, Jonathan, Thurston and Perez Brownell came from Little Compton, R. I., and commenced work on the reservation, from which they were driven by the sheriff. They then built a cabin near R. N. Atwater's residence, one and one-half miles north of the south line of the town. Perez brought his family in the spring of 1791, and Jonathan, his wife, in 1792. All, except Jonathan, soon after removed to lot 23 in Milton, (Genoa) which their father, Pardon Brownell, had previously bought. He gave to each of the three, Gilbert, Thurston and Perez, 200 acres on that lot. Jonathan remained in Ledyard till his death. He was a good farmer, a fine, substan- tial man, and an excellent citizen. Two of his daughters are living, Mary B., wife of Charles C. Young, in Brooklyn, and the widow of James Avery, in Ledyard. Thomas Manchester came from West Port, R. I., in May, 1790, and lived with or near Jonathan Brownell till 1802, when he removed to the farm bought in 1798, of Thorne Milliken, now owned by E. P. Shaw, and located in the north-east corner of lot 14 in Genoa. He was a kindly man, but intemperate, and died poor. It is said that, becoming tired of home-made flour-by the mortar and pestle pro- cess-he took a small grist by boat around Sene- ca Lake to a mill owned by the Jemima Wilkin- son community, in Yates county, and was gone six weeks. That was then the nearest mill.
Jonathan Richmond, who was born at West- port, Mass., July 31st, 1774, arrived here from
Dartmouth, Mass., May 15th, 1792, and lived first with his son-in-law, Jonathan Brownell. He was appointed sheriff of Cayuga county, Febru- ary 24th, 1808, and held the office till February IIth, 1812. He was once U. S. collector of customs, and represented the Twentieth District in Congress in 1819-'20. He died at Aurora July 29th, 1853.
Charles Kendall came in 1792, at the age of twenty-four, and settled north-west of Ledyard, on the east line, on one hundred acres bought that fall of Gen. Van Rensselaer, of Albany, at one dollar per acre. The next year a man came from Washington county and cleared the land. Feeling uneasy lest his title should prove defec- tive, Kendall proceeded to Albany to consult Van Rensselaer, who assured him that his title was good. He returned and lived on the tract nine years, when, having cleared sixty acres, he sold it for twelve dollars per acre. The second year after settling here Kendall drove in a yoke of oxen and a cow from Vermont, following the line of lots or Indian trails from Hardenbergh's Corners, (Auburn.) He lost the trail between that place and Aurora, and unexpectedly came upon an Indian clearing in which corn and vines were growing. Two fierce dogs immediately at- tacked the cattle, chasing them through the clear- ing. A squaw appearing in sight he requested her to call the dogs off, and was horrified soon after by seeing two athletic Indians approaching, whooping, hallooing and brandishing large knives. They, however, did him no harm, but directed him toward the lake, from which he was not far distant. Mr. Kendall said that the soldier be- longing to the detachment of Sullivan's army which devastated the Indian settlements in this section of country, and who died in this locality, was buried on lands afterwards owned by Hezekiah Avery, on lot 55, a few rods east of Ledyard. Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, said Kendall, sold to one Samuel Clark, one hundred acres on the site of Ledyard, at six shillings per acre, and gave him one hundred acres for settling it. This was the land afterwards owned by Benjamin Avery, who came from Connecticut in 1795, and settled on the site of the house next north of the church at Ledyard. He died there January 27th, 1816, and was succeeded on the place by his son Ben- jamin, who was born November 25th, 1776, and died there January 31st, 1866, aged ninety.
-
397
EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
Daniel and Hezekiah Avery, with their fami- lies, and several other of their family connections, came in at the same time as Benjamin from the same place .* Daniel first came in 1793,t and settled at the mouth of Paine's Creek, on the farm now owned by Mr. Delafield. He subse- quently removed to Aurora. He represented the Fourteenth District in Congress in 1811-'13, and the Twentieth District in 1813-'15, and 1816-'17, being elected in the latter case to fill a vacancy. He was born at Groton, Connecti- cut, September 18th, 1766, and died at Aurora, January 30th, 1842. Lydia, his wife, was born April 4th, 1773, and died September 14th, 1797. His father, Daniel, also a native of Groton, fell in defense of his country at Fort Griswold, Sep- tember 6th, 1781. His mother, Deborah, died at Aurora, April 11th, 1825, aged 82. Two daugh- ters are living in Aurora, Lydia, widow of Eben- ezer White Arms, a native of Greenfield, Massa- chusetts, who died at Aurora, January 15th, 1877, and Maria, widow of Rev. William H. Howard, D. D., a native of London, England, who died at Aurora, July 1st, 1871. Hezekiah Avery set- tled first at Aurora, and in March, 1815, removed to Ledyard. The house in which he lived is now occupied by his daughter Harriet, wife of Chas. Avery. It is the one in which the post-office is kept at Ledyard. Harriet is the only one of his children living. He kept a tavern till shortly before his death, April 10th, 1854. Dudley and Elias Avery are believed to have come in at the same time, (1795.) The former settled at what is known as " Pumpkin Hill," three miles south of Aurora. He was an inn-keeper, but left the town at an early day. Elias was an early mer- chant at Aurora. He was born April 6th, 1768, and died July 31st, 1837. Two of his children are living, John B., at Farmer, Seneca county, and Noyes L., at Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Joshua Patrick kept the first tavern in 1793. It stood opposite the Catholic Church, on the southerly east and west road leading out of the village. He subsequently kept tavern near Mr. Morgan's store. The building, which was erected previous to 1800, is still standing on the same site, and is used as a tenement house. This old building is one of historic import. In one of its upper rooms the early courts were held, in-
cluding the one, in 1804, which tried the Dela- ware Indian named John, for the murder, the previous year, near Seneca Falls, of Ezekiel Crane, one of the earliest settlers in Seneca county. John was captured after a hard strug- gle, and convicted before Judge Ambrose Spen- cer, who sentenced him to be hung. When the time for the execution arrived, he expressed the wish to be shot like a warrior, with his rifle in his hand. This being denied him, he submitted to his fate with the stoicism characteristic of his race. He was hung in the ravine in rear of the college. Dr. Frederick Delano, who, in com- pany with others, dissected him, preserved the skeleton and kept it till his death, when it passed into the possession of Dr. Morgan, and subse- quently into that of Drs. Alex. Thompson and Baker, the latter of whom had it buried. This was the first case of capital punishment in Cay- uga County.
Gen. Benj. Ledyard came in as agent and clerk for the apportionment of lands in the Mili- tary Tract as early as 1794, March 14th of which year, on the erection of Onondaga county, Gov. John Jay bestowed on him the office of clerk of that county, as a mark of esteem and respect. He held that office till the erection of Cayuga County, in 1799, when he was appointed to the same office in the latter county, holding it until his death in November, 1803. He was a captain in the New York line of the army of the Revo- lution, and was a most excellent man. He was the father of Jonathan Ledyard and Mrs. Linck- laen, of Cazenovia, Samuel Ledyard, of Pultney- ville, and Mrs. Glen F. Cornelius Cuyler, of Au- rora.
Samuel, William and Winter Branch came from Norwich, Conn., in 1794, in which year the former married Ruth, daughter of Augustus Chidsey, at Aurora. Chidsey, who was one of the commissioners who selected Sherwood as the County seat, came in that year with a covered wagon, with which he got stuck in the mud. He was discovered and assisted by Branch, who had previously waited upon his daughter, and who then received the first intimation of their coming to the lake country. Branch proceeded to Aurora with his lady-love and the two were married. Samuel Branch was deputy sheriff and had charge of the jail in 1803 and '4, during the confinement, trial and execution of Indian John.
* See History of Venice.
t See his tombstone in cemetery at Aurora.
398
TOWN OF LEDYARD.
He also had charge of another Indian murderer named Little Key, who killed an Indian named Shady Tar ; but in this case small-pox cheated the gallows of its victim. He was detailed by the colony to go in company with Henry Hewitt to Albany, for their supply of groceries. While returning he was taken sick, and stopped at a log hut with one lone man tenant. Hewitt, sup- posing he was past all possible hope of recovery, came on, and he was given up as dead ; but after a long time he again made his appearance. In 1808 he removed to Genoa, and soon made a permanent residence on lot 29 in that town, suc- ceeding Thomas Hicks, in the fork of the road. He was a tailor by trade and was for many years postmaster at East Genoa. Winter Branch also was a tailor. Henry Hewitt was here as early as 1794.
Salmon Buel came in from. Vermont in 1794. His daughter Belinda, who was born in Castle- ton, Vermont, September 22d, 1785, and married Eleazer Carter, in Ledyard, February 4th, 1801, in her sixteenth year, died November 4th, 1876, at the advanced age of ninety-one years, at Mo- ravia, to which place she and her husband removed in 1863, to spend their declining years with their daughter, Mrs. Dr. Powers. Her husband died May 31st, 1874. They had eleven children, six of whom survive them : Mrs. Gurnsey Jewett, Mrs. Dr. Cyrus Powers and Theodore A. Car- ter, of Moravia ; John Anson Carter, of New- ark, N. J .; Eleazer Carter, of Canandaigua, and Lorenzo Carter, of Long Branch.
Walter Wood was born in Dartmouth, Mass., August 17th, 1765, of Quaker parents. He was a self-educated man. He studied law in White Creek, Washington Co., and removed thence in 1795 to Aurora, where he pursued the practice of the law. He settled a mile east of the village and opened an office in a small frame building, which forms a part of the house until recently occupied by his daughter, the late widow of John E. Williams, standing opposite the Presbyterian church.
On the formation of Cayuga County, Mr. Wood was earnest and persistent in his efforts to secure the location of the new court-house and other County buildings at Aurora, and being strenu- ously opposed by others who favored other locali- ties, he, in order to further his wishes and to in- duce a decision of the controversy in his favor
actually erected a court-house at Aurora, on the site of Alfred J. Le Grand's residence, which, however, instead of affording a theater for legal controversies, became a hotel, for which purpose it was used until about 1815, and subsequently for a Friend's school. The first teacher in this school was Asa Potter, who remained some three or four years, and was followed by Joseph Jones, who kept it but a short time. Miss Susan Mari- ott, an English lady, succeeded Mr. Jones, and under her management during a period of some fifteen years, under the name of Brier Cliff School, it gained a favorable notoriety. Rebecca Bunker next succeeded to its management, but after three or four years it was discontinued.
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.