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 36
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 36
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 36
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 36
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The original village board laid out the streets, the surveying being done by W. C. Stoddard, civil engineer. It was about that
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time Sault Street was given the name of North State Street, and Water renamed Center Street.
About twenty-five years ago a brick building was constructed near the site of the old woolen mill on State Street, on a portion of the ground adjoining the village park. This building houses the village offices, with a part set aside for the fire fighting equip- ment, and rooms for the firemen, and on the second floor is a large hall.
Manchester is the birthplace of Mary Artemisa Lathbury, a hymn writer, some of whose songs are sung wherever the Chris- tian religion is preserved.
Though up to within six years ago, Manchester was the largest railroad freight transfer in the world, the depression of 1930-32 has thrown more than half the residents out of employ- ment, with railroad shops closing down, operating to only a frac- tion of their previous capacity. But the village is looking hope- fully to better days, with a confidence born of a thrifty, progres- sive past.
NAPLES.
Naples, Ontario County, is truly a worthy holder of that name which is symbolic of beauty. The village of 1,070 inhab- itants, was incorporated in 1894. Perched upon the hills south of Canandaigua Lake, she has a charm all her own. The late William Jennings Bryan once described the place as a "spread of beauty written by the Great Author of the Universe."
Long before the white man came, an Indian village was on the site of Naples, with thirty or forty families, numbering a hundred souls. The streams were abundant with fish and the adjoining hills were full of game. The land itself was productive and easily cultivated, Canandaigua Lake was not far distant and the Indians were sequestered from unfriendly tribes. When the last peace pacts were signed, though the Indians relinquished title to the land, they reserved the right to hunt and fish there for twenty years. As late as 1826 some red men were still linger- ing in the locality.
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The first white settlers came by ox team in the dead of winter up the lake and inlet. The first house was a log cabin of Samuel Parrish. The first summer settlers suffered from want of bread stuff, the nearest mill being thirty miles away. But they adopted the Indian method of grinding grain and erected a mortar by burning out the hollow of an oak stump.
The village, originally called Watkinstown, was founded in 1789 by a company of New England pioneers. It is chiefly an agricultural and fruit center specializing in grapes, canning crops and potatoes. Naples was the first town to introduce the culture of grapes into the Finger Lakes Region.
At the historic Naples Commons, as far back as 1792, Indians and whites met for conferences. In recent years the name of this old square was changed to Kiandaga Commons, at the request of Kiandaga Chapter, D. A. R., because the Seneca Indians called the valley Kiandaga Valley, signifying "Between the Hills." Chief Canesque, who was a tribal leader, was particularly friend- ly and hospitable to the little band of weary pioneers who stumbled into the Indian wigwams, half frozen from their long journey with ox teams through trackless forests in the dead of winter in 1790. Chief Canesque was described as a "tall, ven- erable chief of a hundred winters, firm in step, reserved and re- tiring in manners." In his latter days he went to the Genesee Reservation on Squaguy Hill. When he realized that his end was near, he begged to be brought back to his beloved Kiandaga Valley to die and be buried here. In the dead of winter, 1794, two stalwart Indian braves brought the aged chieftain back home on a sled over forty miles through the wilderness. The settlers cared for him in his illness, and attended his funeral after his death, at the age of 104 years. In 1925, Kiandaga Chapter, D. A. R., erected a bronze tablet on Kiandaga Common, in memory of the venerable chief, near the spot where he is believed to be buried, and in the shadow of the final resting place of many of the pioneers who are buried in Fairview Cemetery.
The bronze tablet bears the inscription, "Memorial-Canes- que, Chief of the Senecas at Nundawaho Village, Who Came From the Genesee Reservation in 1794, to Die and Be Buried in
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His Beloved Kiandaga Valley. Kiandaga Chapter, D. A. R., Naples, N. Y., 1925."
Naples is surrounded by three beautiful glens, each a mile or more in length, with gorges of cathedral grandeur, ranging from 200 to nearly 400 feet in depth. Parrish Glen, two miles north of the village, has a magnificent waterfall of 150 feet. Tannery Glen, near the southern end of the village, boasts two beautiful waterfalls, and Grimes Glen, near the heart of the business sec- tion, hides the singing waters of three falls.
Years ago when water power was an important factor in the prosperity of the village, the water was brought from Grimes Glen in a raceway running along Vine and Elizabeth Streets, furnishing motive power for the first sawmill, built in 1792 on the east side of Elizabeth Street by Jabez Metcalf, a former cap- tain in the Revolution, and Benjamin Clark, pioneer.
PHELPS.
Ideally situated along the winding outlet of Canandaigua Lake, the village of Phelps, Ontario County, is a thriving com- munity of 1,395 population. A monument in an ancient village cemetery marks the grave of John Decker Robinson, first white settler in the district, who came with 100 cattle as presents for the Indians. Robinson laid the foundations of the village by erection in 1793 of his famous tavern. This stimulated trade and before long Orin Redfield opened a general merchandise business on the site of the Phelps Hotel. Another pioneer was Seth Dean, who later became associated with Oliver Phelps in the erection of a sawmill on Flint Creek, which crosses the village in an east and west direction.
In 1816 Hotchkiss & McNeil built the first brick block in the village. By 1812 the community, sometimes known for some un- known reason as "Woodpecker City," was made a post station under the name Vienna. Daniel McNiel was first postmaster. About the same time stage mail routes were established between Phelps and Geneva, Palmyra and Pittsford. Weekly mails were at first carried by Francis Root and Lyman Williams.
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The village continued under the name Vienna until 1855, when it was incorporated under its present name.
According to tradition, a school was opened in Phelps before 1800 and it is known that in 1805 a school was maintained, in a double house, one story high, half of the structure being used as a dwelling.
About 1846 the Phelps Union and Classical School was in- corporated and its affairs vested in a Board of Education. It was on a level with the best academic institutions in the county.
The Baptist Church of Phelps was organized January 31, 1843; the Presbyterian Church on May 10, 1831; St. John's Epis- copal in 1832; the First Methodist Episcopal July 19, 1831; St. Francis Roman Catholic in July, 1856.
The present weekly newspaper, the Phelps Citizen, was founded in 1832, going under many names and many ownerships down through a century.
Water in Flint Creek has afforded the power that has made Phelps a manufacturing community from the time the pioneer settler first harnessed its swirling waters to drive his grist mill. And this pioneer, Robinson, was of the shrewd type to place the frontier settlement's trade on a strictly business basis. The cows he brought into the region as presents to the red men were to conciliate them and made settlement easier and securing title to land less difficult. Robinson bought 320 acres for $100 but a recheck showed the tract actually contained more than the speci- fied acreage. It was Robinson who, under contract, built the structure in Canandaigua used as the Phelps & Gorham land sale office.
Robinson built his house in 1789, spending the first winter there alone eight miles from the nearest settlement, Geneva, his family of nine having returned to Connecticut for the winter. The pioneer's son Harry was the first white child born in the town of Phelps.
Memorial Park, established in memory of those from the town of Phelps who served in the World War, is one of the village beauty spots. The striking rustic monument is a memorial spon- sored by the Phelps Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Corporation, one of the few of its kind in the region.
FEL
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SHORTSVILLE.
Shortsville, Ontario County, is a thriving village of 1,329 in- habitants. It was incorporated in 1889 and its nearness to the village of Manchester makes it also a railroad center of promi- nence.
In 1804 Theophilus Short came to the locality and built both flour and sawmills, from which fact the little hamlet became known as Short's Mills. In 1822 Mr. Short built a second flour mill north of the first one but before this and in 1818, William Grimes had a woolen mill in operation, while the year 1818 wit- nessed the founding of a foundry and furnace.
Shortsville's first school was conducted in the dwelling of Asel Kent and the first school house erected in 1807 just outside the village proper. In 1811 the first district school in the village was erected. A Union school building was erected in 1886. The Myron Free Library was established in a memorial building on Main Street.
When the plank road running from Palmyra to Canandaigua was in existence one of the toll gates was situated at what was then known as Crane's Corners, now the four corners, located at the junction of West Main, Canandaigua and Palmyra Streets.
Hiram and Calvin Brown came to Shortsville and established the Empire Drill Works in 1850, continuing the manufacture of drills for fifty years, when the works was sold and the plant dis- mantled and removed to Indiana. The plant was bought by the Paper Machine Company.
Outside the village limits was located one of the largest spoke and wheel factories in the country, the Shortsville Wheel Works. With the coming of the automobile, the company built a factory just north of the main works for the manufacture of automobile wheels, later the main factory, for the manufacture of vehicle wheels was destroyed by fire.
There are four churches, St. Dominic's Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian and Christian Science.
The Shortsville Enterprise, a weekly paper, was founded in 1882.
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VICTOR.
In the center of the town of Victor, Ontario County, lies the village of the same name, with 1,042 inhabitants and incorpo- rated in 1879. The village site was occupied and owned by Capt. Abner Hawley, whose residence and that of his son, James, were the only buildings standing in 1798. James Hawley kept a tavern, the first in the village, and was succeeded in business by Rufus Dryer, who came in 1792 and became a man of local note. He built and conducted the Victor Hotel. Enos Boughton was the pioneer merchant.
Completion of the Auburn & Rochester Railroad in 1840 added much to village prosperity. The postoffice was established shortly after 1810. In 1892 the Lehigh Valley Railroad com- pleted an extension of its line through the community. In 1816 the first frame schoolhouse was built in the village. This was the start in expansion of educational facilities commensurate with the size of the place.
The history of the village and of the town embracing it are closely related. In June, 1789, Hezekiah Boughton, Jr., and Jacob Lobdell arrived in the vicinity of Boughton Hill, coming from Massachusetts with their cattle and implements for house- hold and farm use. After making improvements and clearings, harvesting the season's crops, all these pioneers except Lobdell returned to the east for the winter. Young Lobdell was eighteen years old when he first came to this locality. He became the owner of a hundred-acre farm purchased from the Boughtons. He also married a daughter of Levi Boughton.
In 1791 Jared Boughton became the father of a son, whom he named Frederick. This boy was the first white child born in Victor.
The first marriage in town was that of Miss Boughton to Zebulous Norton. In 1792 the first frame house was built by Hezekiah Boughton, which he put to use as a tavern. Later, in October, 1812, a meeting was called for the purpose of naming the town of Victor. It was named after Claudius Victor Bough- ton. The town then embraced Mendon and the Bloomfields, and
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on April 6, 1813, the first town meeting was held, at which time Eleazor Boughton was made town clerk.
Modern industries of Victor include a flour mill, a canning factory and an electric insulator plant. It is an extensive pro- duce shipping point. The Victor Herald, a weekly newspaper, has been published since 1881.
EAST BLOOMFIELD.
In the central part of the town bearing the same name is East Bloomfield, Ontario County, a village incorporated in 1916 and having 328 inhabitants in 1930. The locality was one of the first to be settled in the town and its pioneer, Benjamin Keyes, set aside a valuable tract of land for a village park. One of the earliest evidences of the village was the tavern opened by Eph- riam Turner. Jared Boughton of Victor also built a tavern here in 1812, which was run by his son, Frederick.
The Northern Spy apple had its origin in a seedling orchard planted in the town of East Bloomfield in 1800. The orchard was set out by Herman Chapin, but the original tree died before bear- ing. Sprouts were taken, however, and planted by Roswell Humphrey, who produced the first fruit. Chapin and Humphrey came to the locality as early as 1795.
The first church constructed west of Clinton, Oneida County, was built in East Bloomfield in 1801 by the Independent Congre- gational Society, formed September 8, 1795, and organized as the Congregational Church in November, 1796.
Following the organization of this society arrangements were made for the purchase of six acres of land for the sum of $108 by the trustees of said society and this was carried out October 1, 1798.
Upon this land which includes the present church grounds, Elton Park, and the property of the East Bloomfield Grange and a part of the old cemetery, was erected in 1801 what was called in those days a meeting house.
St. Peter's Episcopal Church was established in 1830 and meetings were held in the church which they purchased from the
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Universalist Society and what is now the Methodist Episcopal Church in this village.
The present Episcopal Church is now located in the village of Holcomb, this town.
The First Methodist Church of East Bloomfield was organized on May 12, 1834. This society was reorganized in 1840 and the first church building was erected near Mud Creek but was not used for a very long time, for in July, 1859, the church was again reorganized and at this time the trustees purchased the present property and parsonage from the Episcopal Society.
The first St. Bridget's Church was erected by the Catholic congregation in 1852. The present church was erected during the years 1874-75. The society celebrated the fiftieth anniver- sary of the present church June 13, 1925.
HONEOYE.
At Allen's Hill, a hamlet in the northeastern part of the town of Richmond, the old cobblestone school still stands where Mary Jane Holmes, American novelist, once taught. Here she re- ceived inspiration for some of her works, which are mostly domes- tic in character.
In the same town is the hamlet of Honeoye located, quite near the site of the Indian village whose name it bears, and which was destroyed September 11, 1779, during the Sullivan Expedition. Here Sullivan's army encamped over night and established a post with a garrison of fifty men under Captain Cummings. Upon resuming his westward march the following day, he left here, until his return march, all the heavy stores and one field piece, together with the sick and infirm men about 250 in number.
Upon the return of the Revolutionary soldiers to New Eng- land such glowing accounts were given of the fertility and beauty of the regions through which they had passed that ten years later pioneers from Dighton, Massachusetts, entered the beautiful Honeoye Valley.
In May, 1789, Capt. Peter Pitts, the first settler, became the possessor of 3,000 acres near the foot of Honeoye Lake, upon
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which the first improvement was made in 1790 by his sons Gideon and William.
The log house in which they first lived was soon replaced by a substantial frame dwelling, supposed by many to have been the famous "Long House" in which the redoubtable pioneer enter- tained the distinguished guests Louis Phillipe and Duke de Lian- count. Lafayette and Tallyrand were also entertained here, the former being so charmed with the scenery that he called it the Switzerland of America.
This house was situated on the Indian trail leading from Canandaigua to the Genesee River. The road now is a fine con- crete highway.
The Pitts family were soon joined by other sturdy pioneers, men of equal integrity and ability, some of whose descendants unto the fourth and fifth generations have homes in the vicinity of the Honeoye Valley.
The thriving little village and surrounding community grew and prospered. Three other settlements were formed in the township; Richmond Center, where the first Congregational Church was organized in 1802, Allen Hill three miles north of the lake where the First Episcopal Church was organized in 1813, and Richmond Mills in the western part of the town. Honeoye gradually became the business center and here were in existence several flourishing cabinet works, flour and saw mills.
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CHAPTER XXXI
SCHUYLER COUNTY.
ORGANIZATION OF COUNTY-VILLAGES-TOWNS-COUNTY SEAT CONTROVERSY- SETTLEMENT-POST OFFICES-WATKINS GLEN-BURDETT-MONTOUR FALLS -ODESSA.
Schuyler is the youngest county of the eleven in Central New York, having been formed April 17, 1854, as the sixtieth county in the state. It was made up from parts of Chemung, Steuben and Tompkins. Schuyler also ties with Seneca as the smallest county in the district, with an area of 336 square miles. Of its 215,040 acres of land area, seventy-two and five-tenths per cent or 155,974 acres are in farms. The value of land and buildings on the 1,361 farms is $7,241,413. The population is 12,903, smallest of any county in the district, and the major portion, almost eighty per cent, is rural.
Schuyler has fourteen industrial plants employing 612 peo- ple, whose yearly payroll is $863,007. The plants pay $1,960,102 for materials, fuel and purchased power and the value of their annual products is $5,233,431.
There are 760 miles of road in the county, of which 103 are in the state system. Motor cars owned in the county total 4,063.
Schuyler has no city, but four incorporated villages: Watkins Glen, the county seat, Burdett, Montour Falls and Odessa. The county's eight towns are: Catharine, 1,177; Cayuta, 258; Dix, 3,583; Hector, 2,989; Montour, 1,868; Orange, 812; Reading, 1,257; Tyrone, 1,050.
Catharine was formed from Newtown, now Elmira, Che- mung County, March 15, 1798. Catlin and Veteran (Chemung County) were taken off in 1823. A part of Newfield (Tompkins
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County) was annexed June 4, 1853, and a part was added to Cayuta April 17, 1854.
Cayuta was formed from Spencer (Tioga County) March 20, 1824, and parts of Catharine and Erin (Chemung County) were annexed in 1854. The town was transferred from Tioga to Tompkins County March 22, 1822.
Dix, named for Ex-Senator John A. Dix, was formed from Catlin (Chemung County) April 17, 1835.
Hector was organized from Ovid (Seneca County) March 30, 1802.
Montour was created from Catharine March 23, 1860.
Orange was formed from Wayne (Steuben County) February 12, 1813, as Jersey. Its name was changed February 20, 1836. A part of Hornby (Steuben County ) was annexed April 11, 1842, and a part of Bradford (Steuben County) April 17, 1854.
Reading was formed from Frederickstown (now Wayne, Steuben County) February 17, 1806.
Tyrone was formed from Wayne (Steuben County) April 16, 1822.
In no county in the state, in all probability was there ever greater controversy than in Schuyler over location of the county seat. For twenty years the battle raged between Havanna (now Montour Falls) and Watkins Glen, the issue being carried to the courts and the populace of entire towns becoming bitter over the matter.
In 1854 commissioners were appointed to locate the county buildings and fixed upon Havanna as the county seat. The Board of Supervisors resisted the action of the commissioners and located the county seat at Watkins Glen. A court house was erected at each village. Subsequently the courts decided against the action of the commissioners. Then, on April 13, 1857, an act was passed by the Legislature confirming the location of the county seat at Havanna.
At their annual meeting in the fall of 1857 and 1858, however, the supervisors passed resolutions changing the location to Wat- kins Glen. Then followed a period of many law suits, refusals to pay county claims, attempts to sell supposed county court house
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properties and numerous other legal tangles. It was not until September, 1874, that in special term at Binghamton the courts finally upheld the supervisors and Watkins Glen was officially designated as the county seat.
Schuyler, named for Gen. Philip Schuyler, saw its first settle- ments made on Catherine's Creek, near the present site of Mon- tour Falls, in 1788, and on the shores of Seneca Lake in 1790. The town of Hector belonged to the Military Tract; the towns of Catharine, Dix and Reading to the Watkins and Flint Purchase and Tyrone and Orange to the Phelps and Gorham Purchase.
The Schuyler County Agricultural Society was formed March 14, 1855, and the Catherine Valley Agricultural Society was in- corporated April 13, 1855, as the Union Agricultural Society of the counties of Schuyler, Chemung, Tompkins, Steuben and Yates, its headquarters being at Havanna.
Post offices in Schuyler County, as given in the July, 1930, official postal guide, are as follows: Alpine, Beaver Dams, Ben- netsburg, Burdett, Cayuta, Hector, Mecklenburg, Montour Falls, Moreland Station, Odessa, Reading Center, Tyrone, Valois, Watkins Glen, and Wayne.
WATKINS GLEN.
Watkins Glen, a village of 2,956 inhabitants and bearing the name of the glen whose fame has been carried by travelers around the world, was once known as Salubria, in token of nature in her fairest mood. Because of the great pageant of waters rising off her main street, the community is said today to be better known than any village of equal size in America. Cloistered be- tween the hills at the head of Seneca Lake, Watkins Glen drew its first pioneers only nine years after the soldiers of Sullivan's expedition had passed through the forests of the region and found the region the most beguiling they had met in their long trek into the Indian wilderness.
The first settlers in what is now Watkins Glen were Messrs. Culver and Smith, who came in 1788. A year later John Dow, a youth of twenty, braved the forest wilds alone on horseback and by 1891 he had on the site of Watkins "raised a good crop
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of corn," as the reward of grinding toil in chopping out a clear- ing. Dow built a log house and boarded the men employed by John W. Watkins, while engaged in building the first Watkins mansion on west hill.
It was this John Watkins who, with Royal Flint and others, negotiated, July 25, 1794, the Watkins and Flint purchase of over 325,000 acres near the head of Seneca Lake. But the pur- chase did not cover 4,000 acres on which Watkins Glen and part of Havanna (now Montour Falls) stand, that little tract having previously been purchased from the state by Ezra L'Hommedieu, a wealthy French Huguenot. A brother, Charles Watkins, built a blacksmith shop and grist mill on the north bank of the great glen, near what is called Omega Falls.
In 1828 there came to Watkins Glen Dr. Samuel Watkins, another brother, who named the community Salubria and later changed it to Jefferson, under which it was incorporated April 11, 1842. An act to change the name to Watkins, in honor of the Watkins pioneers, was passed April 8, 1852, and within the past decade this name was again changed, by vote of villagers, so that the community might capitalize upon the name borne by the great gorge and state park within its borders.
It was Dr. Samuel Watkins who laid out the streets, started new buildings on a considerable scale, presented the community with a public park and had the settlement incorporated. It was he who built the present Jefferson Hotel in 1834 and from its doors rattled the ancient stage which took him and his bride, Miss Cintha Ann Case, on their honeymoon. The Doctor died in 1851 at the age of eighty and the following year the community took his name, instead of Jefferson.
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