USA > New York > Wayne County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 30
USA > New York > Cayuga County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 30
USA > New York > Seneca County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 30
USA > New York > Ontario County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 30
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By 1810 the village boasted six frame houses and a hundred inhabitants, with the population doubled in the next twelve years and quadrupled by 1830. About 1818 Jethrow Wood here con- structed the world's first cast iron plow, later moving his shop to nearby Montville. Located on Mill Creek with abundant water power, industries from earliest days have operated in Moravia. The village was incorporated in 1837.
Congregationalists were first to form a church in the village, organizing March 12, 1806. In 1847 the First Methodist Church organized and built a neat chapel. St. Matthews's Episcopal Church was founded July 14, 1823, and the Baptist Church June 22, 1870. St. Patrick's Catholic Church was organized in 1878.
Millard Fillmore, thirteenth president of the United States, and John D. Rockefeller, as boys, were closely identified with Moravia life.
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Sylvan Lodge, No. 41, F. & A. M., held its first communica- tion December 25, 1810, in an attic; St. John the Baptist R. A. Chapter, No. 30, received its charter February 6, 1811; Rising Sun Lodge, No. 29, I. O. G. T., was organized January 20, 1866; Moravia Tent N. O. I. R., No. 47, was formed January 27, 1875, and Moravia Grange, No. 201, was chartered July 9, 1874.
Less than a mile from Moravia is Fillmore Glen. Another point of scenic interest is Parsons Falls, a mile and a half north- east of the village. It is higher than Niagara. Several times the village has suffered from floods.
The Cayuga County Fair, which for years was held at Mo- ravia, was transferred in 1930 to Enna Jettick Park on Owasco Lake, near Auburn, in order to place it in the center of the county as well as in the county's center of population.
MERIDIAN.
Meridian village, of 266 population and formerly known as "Cato Four Corners," was incorporated October 17, 1854. Its original name was changed in 1849. The first settlement in the community was made about 1804 by George Loveless and Abel Pasko. The first merchant, Daniel M. Bristol, opened a store in 1806, and the first postmaster, William Ingham, was appointed in 1819. As early as 1810 the First Baptist Church society was formed. The Presbyterians organized February 2, 1836.
In the old days of fraternal life insurance, Meridian Lodge, No. 142, Ancient Order of United Workingmen, was organized March 26, 1878, with twenty members, as the second lodge of its kind in the county, the first being in Union Springs. Meridian, two miles east of Cato village, is in the northern part of the town of Cato.
PORT BYRON.
Port Byron is one of the most historic villages in Cayuga County. Today its population stands at 890, but in the days of the Erie Canal it was twice that size. Settled in 1798 by Aboliah and Elijah Buck, who purchased lot seventy-three, the commu-
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nity was first known as Buckville, until 1825, just ten years after the building of the Erie Canal through the settlement, when it took its present name. The sunken line of the canal today reflects the ancient prestige of Port Byron as one of the best grain markets along the old waterway in the days of tow ropes and sturdy teams. At Port Byron was a large double lock, with a twelve-foot lift and here the seventy-foot water lane was spanned by four ornate bridges.
The first settlers were soldiers in the Revolution; some of them were with General Sullivan in his expedition against the Iroquois. And in the old cemeteries sleep men who fought in the War of Independence, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War and the World War. In 1861 no less than fifty-four students from the High School enlisted in a company organized by the principal, serving him through the Civil War. The com- munity also furnished a goodly quota of men to the historic One Hundred and Eleventh New York Volunteers which did so much to break Pickett's charge at Gettysburg.
The chief natural advantage found in Port Byron by early settlers was the water power in Owasco River. A grist mill was put up soon after the first settlers came. By 1816 a dam had been built. In 1828 John H. Beach settled in the place, bought the water power rights along the river and built a raceway two miles long, thereby securing a head of twenty feet. He put up a mill with ten run of stone, capable of making 500 barrels of flour a day. This was the largest and best constructed mill in the state for a time, the building being 120 feet long, fifty feet wide, with a storehouse attached, eighty by forty feet and an overshot waterwheel twenty-two feet in diameter. It was on the west side of the river and the south bank of the canal, and had a branch canal under a portion of the storehouse, to facilitate load- ing boats. The structure cost $60,000 and employed from twenty to thirty men. A cooper shop, 200 feet long and built of stone, was connected with the mill and supplied a part of the barrels used.
The direct line of the New York Central from Syracuse to Rochester went through the village in 1851 and four years later
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enlargement of the Erie Canal was decided upon. Agitation for shifting the canal location resulted in digging a new channel through the most beautiful part of the village.
The first school was established in 1800. In 1857 a charter was procured for the Port Byron Free School and Academy and in 1859 an acre and a half of land was purchased and a three- story brick building, sixty by fifty feet and accommodating 400 pupils, was erected. This school burned down just before the turn of the century and the present one was constructed about 1900.
The connection of Brigham Young, founder of polygamy in Mormonism, with Port Byron is interesting. Little known facts unearthed by Mayor George H. Perkins, show that Brigham worked as a painter at the Parks Pail factory, one and a half miles south of Port Byron and it was while he was there em- ployed that he met his first wife. She was Miss Miriam Works, who resided about a mile south of Throopsville. They were mar- ried in 1824 and shortly afterward moved to Port Byron.
Brigham worked in a boat yard there for some time. The couple moved in 1829 to Mendon, New York, and Brigham was baptised in the Mormon Church in 1832. The house which he occupied in Port Byron is still standing. More of his career is given in the chapter devoted to religions of the district.
Henry Wells, noted expressman described in another chapter, mended shoes while a resident of Port Byron.
The First Presbyterian Church of Mentz, located in Port Byron, was organized about 1801 as a Congregational Church, but was changed to a Presbyterian ten years later. The First Baptist was organized May 18, 1830; the Methodist, June 10, 1850; St. John's Roman Catholic about 1858; St. Paul's Episcopal about 1863.
The burning of the J. T. and William S. Smith dry goods store May 30, 1870, prompted the village to provide better fire protection through establishing a water supply. A huge reservoir was constructed on a hill west of the village on grounds donated by William A. Halsey. Into it water from Owasco River is pumped. Today the same system is used for fire hydrants. The
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village has never had a community drinking water supply, be- cause the river received sewage from Auburn and is unfit to drink.
Port Byron was incorporated March 2, 1837, and reincorpo- rated in 1848. It is on both the New York Central and West Shore Railroads and was a junction point on the Rochester and Eastern and the Auburn & Northern electric interurban lines until their abandonment within the past ten years. In 1932 a fine new concrete highway from Auburn to Port Byron, following parts of the road bed of the old trolley line, was constructed.
WEEDSPORT.
Weedsport, a village of 1,325 inhabitants, is a natural depot for the produce of a rich dairy farming county in the town of Brutus. From its beginning in 1800 it has been a shipping cen- ter for bulk freight. Between 1800 and 1825 boats were operated on the Seneca River by means of poles and large quantities of merchandise were loaded here and transported to Auburn by team.
When the Erie Canal was opened in 1825 stage coaches were operated between Oswego, Auburn and southward to Owego. Passengers were transferred at Weedsport and Auburn until about 1840 when the Auburn & Rochester steam railroad was opened. Now after more than a century, the big shippers are going back to the water route of the State Barge Canal, which has an oil storage depot and terminal at Weedsport.
Three railroads, the New York Central, the Lehigh Valley and the West Shore, converge in the village, which ships from ten to twenty cars per day of produce in season. Its position as a shipping center was recognized back in the days of the Erie Canal.
Weedsport was incorporated as a village April 26, 1831. The first settlement was made by William Stevens from Massachu- setts in 1800. It was called Masidonia until 1821 when the canal went through. In 1816 this section of the canal was commenced and made navigable as far as Utica by 1821.
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Elihu and Edward Weed settled in the village and made a "basin" for mooring and turning boats on the canal. They also put up a storehouse and the place became known as Weeds' Basin. In 1822 the Weeds advertised their business at Weeds' Basin, adding by way of a postscript:
"A postoffice has lately been established at this place by the name of Weedsport Post Office, of which Elihu Weed is post- master."
The Weedsport Hotel, known originally as the Willard House, was built in 1871 on the site of the first hotel in the com- munity, a hostelry dating back to 1820.
The village has the unusual distinction of having been the home, in their younger days, of two of the world's smallest women of note-Mrs. General "Tom Thumb" and Mrs. "Com- modore Nutt," midget sisters. According to records in the Put- nam family these little midgets were members of the family of John Wood, who made Weedsport his home when not on the road with his midgets or panorama of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Prog- ress. Wood was a promoter of the famous "Cardiff Giant" and also owner of Wood's Museum in Philadelphia. His remains lie in the Weedsport Cemetery.
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHEMUNG COUNTY.
ORGANIZED IN 1836-INDUSTRIES-TOWNS-NAME-BATTLE OF NEWTOWN-SET- TLEMENT-CANALS -FIRST COURT - ELMIRA - ELMIRA HEIGHTS - HORSE- HEADS-MILLPORT-VAN ETTEN-WELLSBURG.
Chemung County is the fifty-seventh in the state, having been erected from Tioga County March 27, 1836. It embraces 407 square miles with a land area of 260,480 acres. Of this total, 180,186 acres, or sixty-two and two-tenths per cent are in farms, which number 1,565. Value of farms and farm buildings totals $9,871,562. Chemung's population under the last 1930 federal census was 74,843.
In the 115 industrial plants of the county, there are employed 7,938 persons, according to the last federal figures compiled in 1929. These workers receive $11,129,674 in wages; the cost of materials, fuel and purchased power in the county factories amounts to $17,071,777 and the value of the county's industrial products is $48,665,433 per year.
There are 895 miles of road in the county, of which 133 are paved state highways. Residents of the county own 19,634 motor cars.
Elmira, Chemung's county seat, is the only city in the county, but there are five incorporated villages: Elmira Heights, Horse- heads, Millport, VanEtten and Wellsburg.
Chemung has eleven towns as follows: Ashland, 948; Bald- win, 483; Big Flats, 1,672; Catlin, 668; Chemung, 1,285; Elmira, 5,085; Erin, 774; Horseheads, 8,618; Southport, 5,420; Van Etten, 1,003; Veteran, 1,515.
Ashland was formed from Elmira and Chemung, April 25, 1867. Baldwin was created from Chemung April 7, 1856. Big
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Flats was erected from Elmira April 16, 1822. Catlin was formed from Catharine, April 16, 1823. Chemung was formed March 22, 1788; Elmira, as Newtown, was taken off April 10, 1792, Erin March 29, 1822, and Baldwin April 7, 1856. Erin was formed from Chemung March 29, 1822. A part of Van Etten was taken off in 1854. Horseheads was formed from Elmira February 18, 1854. Southport was created from Elmira April 16, 1822. Van Etten, named from James B. VanEtten, was formed from Erin and Cayuta April 17, 1854, and Veteran was formed from Catharine April 16, 1823.
The name Chemung was derived from the river which flows through the county from west to east. It signifies "Big Horn" or "Horn in the Water." It was called by the Delawares Con-on- gue, a word of the same significance. Some historians say the name was given the river because Indians discovered the tusk of a mammoth six feet nine inches long and twenty-one inches in circumference in the water. Others say the name was applied to the stream in consequence of numbers of immense deers' horns found there.
In 1779 the forces of Gen. John Sullivan entered the county from the south, fought the battle of Newtown below Newtown Point, now Elmira and later carried back to eastern and south- ern settlements word of the fertility of the Chemung Valley. The story of the battle is given in the chapter devoted to the Sullivan campaign. The first settlements were made from 1787 to 1790 by immigrants from Pennsylvania and Orange County, New York, who had accompanied the Sullivan forces. They located principally in the Chemung Valley at Elmira, Southport and Big Flats. Soon after, settlements were made at Catlin and Veteran by pioneers from Connecticut; at Erin by Dutch and Scotch from New Jersey and Delaware, and at Chemung by im- migrants from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The portion of the county lying south of the Chemung was included in a royal grant made previous to 1775. The remaining parts were included in the Watkins and Flint purchase.
Of particular impetus to the early growth of the county were the canals, described in the chapter devoted to canals. The Che-
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mung Canal opened in 1832 extended south from Seneca Lake through the Catharine Creek to the Chemung River at Elmira, forming a direct connection with the great chain of internal water navigation of the state. A navigable feeder from Gib- son, Steuben County, formed a junction with the canal on the summit level at Horseheads village. Junction Canal extended several miles along the Chemung, affording navigation at points where the river was obstructed by rapids and narrows.
The first court held in Chemung County was a term of the Circuit and Oyer and Terminer, begun May 16, 1836. The Che- mung Common Pleas held its first term in Elmira July 12, 1836. The Chemung County Court was created in 1846 and the first term held October 25, 1847. The first proceedings before the Chemung surrogate were on June 3, 1836. The initial meeting of the Board of Supervisors was April 2, 1836.
Upon the erection of Tioga County, Elmira, then Newtown, was made halfshire; and upon the erection of Chemung County in 1836, it was designated as the county seat and the old county buildings were taken for use of the new county.
ELMIRA.
A tale of progress in a community of opportunity is the story of Elmira, for more than a century the financial, industrial and commercial capital of the Chemung Valley. As early as 1615 Etienne Brule was dispatched by Champlain to enlist the aid of Indian tribes in subjugating the Iroquois. A white man then first entered the valley of the Chemung among the red men's villages where Elmira now stands. Seven valleys there radiate to all points of the compass so that Elmira, as in the days of the Indian, is a natural focal point for commerce.
When white settlers first started a community, the hamlet of Newtown Point was at the junction of Newtown Creek and the Tioga (now the Chemung) River on Henry G. Wisner's 400 acres of military grant. Starting from this dim beginning, the growth to the present of Elmira as here given is very largely sketched in material provided by William H. Arnold, Chemung County historian. It was here that the pioneers settled, cleared
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the land and built their rude cabins, near what is now East Water and Sullivan streets. Previous to the coming of the white man, there were many villages of the Iroquois scattered along the banks of the river and neighboring streams.
At the time Chemung County was first settled, there were three Indian villages on land now comprised within the city limits; one on Main street near where is now Wisner Park; another near the foot of Water Cure Hill, on the east side of the creek; and another, the largest of the three, at the foot of Water Street, on land now occupied by the Kennedy Valve plant. The last named village was called by the Indians, "Kanna-wa-lo-hol- la," the name being contracted by the early white settlers to "Canaweola," which meant "heads on a pole." The legend as given by Red Jacket was, "that a council of the Five Nations was held near the spot in the year 1730, at which one of the chiefs was tried for some crime, found guilty and beheaded, and his head placed on a pole." This was near the site of the court- house on Lake Street. The village was known previous to that as "Shi-ne-do-wa," signifying "at the Great Plains."
In about 1788 the settlers began to arrive at Newtown Point. Col. John Hendy was probably the first white man to settle on lands now included within the limits of the city. It is said he was here as early as 1782. He came here from Wyoming, Penn- sylvania, in April, 1788, accompanied by a small boy, named Dan Hill. It was near the junction of the creek and the river that he first set foot and planted corn, the first to be planted by a white man in this locality. During the summer he prospected, up and down the valley, and in the fall, after taking care of his crop of corn, he and the boy went to Tioga Point, where the Colonel had left his family. About Christmas time he returned and built a log cabin, a little west of the present city limits, near the entrance to Roricks' Glen, where, until a few years ago, the remains of the cabin could be seen. There remains now nothing but a heap of stones, which were once used as a fireplace in his cabin, on the farm of Albert H. Gould, on upper Water Street.
Where Colonel Hendy first landed was where the pioneers first settled. In the year 1790, there was quite a cluster of cabins,
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near Matthias Hollenback's trading post, where Newtown Creek enters the river.
* * On April 26, 1790, Moses DeWitt took up Lot No. 195 in the old Town of Chemung, all of which is now within the City of Elmira, upon which was laid out a town plat which was called DeWittsburgh. It extended from the west line of Henry G. Wisner's Military Tract, westward to a line about one hun- dred feet west of Baldwin Street, which is practically the west line of the Rathbun House. The DeWittsburgh plot extended northward to Church or Second Street, and today includes a large portion of the business part of the city.
Moses DeWitt was a skillful engineer, and surveyed a large part of the lands in this immediate section of the state. He was one of the engineers employed to survey the line between the states of New York and Pennsylvania, the work beginning in 1788 and lasting about three years.
To the west of the DeWitt Plot, Lieut. Col. Henry Wisner purchased Lot No. 196, which extended west from DeWitt's line to Davis Street, and from the river northward to about McCann's Boulevard, including what is now Eldridge Lake. On this lot he laid out a town called Wisnerburgh, which reached from about State Street to College Avenue and from the river north to about Second Street. It was through the generosity of Jeffrey Wisner, his son, that the first Baptist Church society came into posses- sion of their plot of land, and the city received the beautiful Wisner Park in the heart of the city, which at one time was the Baptist burying ground. These three settlements were gen- erally known as Newtown.
Tioga County was formed from Montgomery County in 1788. The town of Newtown was taken from the Town of Chemung in 1792, and the name changed to Elmira in 1808. The village, however, continued to use the name, Newtown, until April, 1828, when it was incorporated as Elmira. In April, 1864, it became incorporated as a city.
THE TRADING POST AT NEWTOWN POINT.
When we take into consideration the many mercantile estab- lishments in our city, how many of us give a thought as to what
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the same kind of an enterprise meant to the little, but thriving, village of Newtown Point, away back about the year 1791.
There is no doubt that many of the solitary pioneers of this section came as traders with the Indians. William Miller, who was east of Athens in 1784, was an Indian trader later found at Newtown. Amos Draper, one of the early pioneers of Owego, and who erected the first log house there in 1785, was another. William Harris, a Pennsylvanian, shortly after the Revolutionary War, pushed his way up the Chemung with a cargo of Indian goods to open traffic with the hunting parties of the Six Nations, and built the first habitation of civilized man at "The Painted Post." The Indians showed a great deal of in- terest in the establishment of a trading post at the head of the Chemung, for, previously, they had to go to Tioga Point, nearly fifty miles below, for their powder, knives, belts, beads, liquor and jewsharps. Harris, however, quit business less than a year afterwards.
Matthias Hollenbeck is spoken of as our first merchant. This locality was early spied out as an advantageous situation by far- sighted and enterprising men who had abundant means, and energy to apply them. Chief among these was Col. Matthias Hollenback, of Wilkes-Barre, who did much to start develop- ment of this region. In his establishment of the trading post here at Newtown Point, he laid the foundation of the business structure of the city, at the junction of Spring (now Newtown) Creek and the Tioga (now Chemung) River. There was no Water Street then. A trail led along the river to the west, and the great Ga-nun-da-sa-ga trail from Tioga Point and the south, leading toward Niagara, came through the valley and continued northward through the valley of Catharine Creek, up past Seneca Lake.
Where the post was located was without doubt the location selected by General Sullivan for Fort Reed, the supply depot for the expedition while it was in the Finger Lakes Region. It was probably there that Colonel Hendy first landed and planted corn, which he gathered in the fall of 1788.
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A bill of goods, named Newtown Bill No. 24, dated November, 1783, proves the existence of the trading post at the mouth of Newtown Creek in that year.
Among the clerks who had charge of the trading post for Matthias Hollenback at Newtown Point were Daniel McDowell, John Shepard, Thomas M. Perry, and after Mr. Hollenback moved his store further up the river, Archibald Campbell, George Denison, John Cherry, Matthew McReynolds and Bela B. Hyde. Guy Maxwell, who had been formerly in charge of the post at Tioga Point, with Samuel Hepburn of Milton, Pennsylvania, laid out the village of DeWittsburgh. He opened a store at Newtown Point. Associated with Stephen Tuttle, he put up the first flour mill on Newtown Creek at the foot of Water Street. Stephen Tuttle and Robert Covell began business here in 1807. Among others to engage in the mercantile business may be mentioned Homer Goldsborough, James Erwin, Ephraim Heller, Robert Covell, Miles Covell, Michael Pfautz, Isaac Baldwin, John Cherry, John Hollenback, Thomas Maxwell, Samuel H. Maxwell, Isaac Reynolds and others. John Arnot came to Newtown in 1818, and engaged in trade. His honesty and integrity won him the esteem of the early settlers.
On the books of the old trading post were found numerous names whose descendants may be found scattered throughout the length of Chemung valley. Another merchant who was noted for his uprightness and fair dealing was Horatio Ross.
Lyman Covell came here from Wilkes-Barre, in 1807, and engaged in business. Besides the mill at the foot of Water Street, there was one erected on Newtown Creek, a little above the Diven farm (Willow Brook), by Tuttle, Maxwell & Perry, and, about the same time, one on Seely Creek by a man from Maryland. There were a number of distilleries in operation.
The village of Newtown was the scene of one of the important Indian treaties, "The Treaty of Painted Post," which began July 4, 1791, and continued for about ten days, between the United States, represented by Col. Timothy Pickering and the Senecas. Of it Towner says, "The exact spot where was held the council that framed the treaty of 1791 has long been a matter of dispute,
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some contending that it was near Newtown Creek and not far from its mouth, others claiming that it was farther west, in the neighborhood of what is now Market Street and Madison Avenue. A tree in the latter named locality was long held in more or less reverence by the lovers of local antiquities as the exact spot where the treaty makers sat, smoked their pipes, and made their speeches. The advocates of the claims of these two places were each warm and earnest, and full of evidence as to the exactness of their assertions. They were both right. The meetings were at first held at the Market Street location and were concluded on the land near Newtown Creek."
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