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 8
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 8
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 8
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 8
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
Fr. Stephen de Carheil was sent to the Cayuga Mission in 1668, where he remained until 1684, when the mission was broken up. Father Stephen spoke Huron and Iroqouis as flu- ently as his own tongue and wrote treatises on the language. He early impressed the Cayugas with his courage by acting as a sentinel on a certain occasion when a rumor of attack by foes spread alarm and when he accompanied the warriors to repel the expected attack. The priest reached the advanced age of ninety-three.
When Father de Carheil came to the Cayugas a new chapel was built for him at Choharo, previously named Tichero or St. Stephen, on the present canal opposite Mud Lock.
Indicative of the perils which beset the missionaries to the Cayugas are the written records of Fr. Menard who relates that a warrior, lodging in the same cabin, for three nights in succes- sion, attempted to kill him and was only prevented by the chief of the canton.
Fr. Peter Raffeix also labored among the Cayugas, as did Fr. David LeMoyne, a young priest of thirty, who died on the shore of Cayuga Lake.
As the labor of the French Catholic missionaries continued through the years, English settlers along the Atlantic seaboard became apprehensive lest they exert such political influence in favor of France that British aspirations in the new world might be endangered. In 1700 the Colonial Assembly of New York passed a stringent law providing a penalty of hanging for every Jesuit priest who came voluntarily into the province. British
101
HISTORY OF CENTRAL NEW YORK
fur trade and the safety of their frontier settlements depended upon the good will of the Iroquois, whose allegiance, it was feared, might be won by the Jesuits to the standard of France.
By the treaty of Utrecht, concluded March 31, 1713, the French relinquished all claims to the lake country of the Iro- quois, which thereafter became an appendage of the British crown. This checked the Christianizing work of the Jesuits to an extent.
From 1744 to 1748 the French and English were again at war, settling their dispute by the treaty of Aix La Chapelle April 30, 1748. This contest had been chiefly for possession of the Mississippi Valley. In 1755 the conflict was renewed, lasting for eight years until the treaty of Paris in 1763. In this war the Canadian and Western Indians adhered to the French and the Iroquois to the English. The French were vanquished, never again to challenge English sovereignty in Central New York.
Under the rule of Queen Anne of England, Protestant efforts to Christianize the Iroquois were started about 1700, but they were abortive and in no way compared with the intensive work of the French priests. Not for years were any missionaries of the Protestant faith in the wilderness among the Finger Lakes.
Expeditions of the Moravians into Central New York form an interesting chapter in early Christian efforts, although the records of their endeavor are meagre. These latter day carriers of the gospel escaped the torments visited upon the Jesuits. Bishop John Frederic Christoph Cammerhoff and Rev. Davis Zeisberger, both Moravians, on May 28, 1750, left Wyoming, Pennsylvania, for a missionary tour to the Six Nations. They arrived at the citadel of the Cayuga Nation of Indians on the east shore of Cayuga Lake, between what are now Union Springs and Aurora, in June of that year. After a visit to the Onon- dagas, the missionaries returned June 26, 1750, to the Cayuga village where they remained until the following day.
The two spent June 28 at Kanadesaga and on July 2 reached the Genesee River. After a brief stay with the Senecas, they arrived on their return trip, at the outlet of Seneca Lake on July 6 and had a narrow escape from drowning in fording. On
102
HISTORY OF CENTRAL NEW YORK
horseback and afoot the missionaries traversed many sections of Central New York, but their services were of short duration compared with those of their Jesuit predecessors.
Bishop Cammerhoff, a native of Madgemurgh, Prussia, born July 28, 1721, and who came to America in 1747, died April 28, 1751, before he had reached thirty years of age. His comrade, born in Moravia, Austria, April 11, 1721, and who came to America at an early age, died in Ohio, November 17, 1808, after a missionary career of nearly sixty years among the Indians.
Of all the Protestant missionaries among the Indians just before the Revolutionary war period, none gave more devout, untiring service than Rev. Samuel Kirkland, who later became a chaplain on the staff of General John Sullivan in his Indian campaign of 1779. In that expedition he traversed a wilderness in Central New York with which he had become familiar before the war, when as a Presbyterian missionary he had wandered from long house to long house among the Iroquois. It was Kirk- land who was delegated by the War Department to gather the Indian chiefs together for a conference in Philadelphia.
While a student at Princeton he felt the urge to teach Christ to the Indians. At the age of twenty-four he left Johnstown in January, 1765, and plunged into the wilderness on snow- shoes with two red guides to travel 200 miles, carrying his forty- pound pack. His first work was among the Senecas, particu- larly at the Indian village on the site of Geneva. Despite his later efforts he was unable to keep the Indians of the western part of the Finger Lakes country from alliance with the British against the Colonists in the Revolution. Kirkland, a real lover of the Indians, founded the Oneida Indian Academy, which was later merged into Hamilton College.
From the earliest times Central New York has been an ex- perimental ground for varied, strange and interesting religious efforts. As unique a group of colonists as ever headed toward the chain of lakes penetrated the region in 1788 to found the "New Jerusalem," over which ruled Jemima Wilkinson, the "Public Universal Friend." Two years previously scouts of this unusual woman had entered the wilderness between the lakes
1
103
HISTORY OF CENTRAL NEW YORK
to select a place of settlement. They chose lands near the out- let of Lake Keuka, going back to Pennsylvania and New York City to recruit the band of pioneers.
The first year there were but twenty-five "Friends," and it was not until 1791 that Miss Wilkinson joined her followers in the new land. This strange woman was born in Rhode Island in 1758 and in 1776 experienced a serious illness, during which it was claimed that she died. Life did seem almost extinct for thirty-six hours, at the end of which time the woman arose and walked. Her followers affirmed that she was no longer merely Jemima Wilkinson, but was reanimated by the power of Christ.
In Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Massachu- setts she gained followers, many of whom migrated to Central New York to set up a thrifty colony in what is now Yates County. Their settlement was the first permanent one west of Seneca Lake. The twelve acre wheat field sowed by the Friends their first year was also the first west of the lake. The Friends' grist mill built in 1790 ground the grain for a wide area. The society decreased until the death of its leader in 1819 and then passed out of existence. The Friends wore garb fashioned some- thing after the style of the Quakers, but it was of expensive ma- terial and relatively costly.
As Central New York gave a sanctuary to the Friends of Jemima Wilkinson, so it likewise gave birth a few years later to Mormonism. The Mormon Church was first organized in the home of Peter Whitmer, a Pennsylvania German farmer in the town of Fayette, Seneca County, on April 6, 1830. The founder was Joseph Smith, born in 1805 and who ten years later re- moved to Central New York, settling in the town of Manches- ter, Ontario County. In after years he made known that as early as September 22, 1823, he had discovered certain "Golden Plates" buried in a hill in Manchester, four miles south of Pal- myra. He did not remove them, however, until four years later. He began translating the inscriptions on the plates in September, 1827. In 1829 he removed to the Whitmer home in Fayette, where work of translation progressed. From his translation the
104
HISTORY OF CENTRAL NEW YORK
Book of Mormon or Mormon Bible was issued in 1830, being first printed by Egbert B. Grandin in Palmyra, Wayne County.
The Fayette church organization was perfected by Smith, then known as "The Prophet," and five others, Oliver Cowdrey, David Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, Jr., Hyrum Smith and Samuel H. Smith. As early as June, 1829, David Whitmer and Hyrum Smith were baptized by Joseph Smith in Seneca Lake and John Whitmer by Oliver Cowdrey. The first public meeting of the new organization was at the Whitmer house April 11, 1830. Con- verts were baptized in Seneca Lake, Seneca River, Thomas and Kendig creeks and other streams of the neighborhood. Preach- ing services wehe held in 1830-31 in the Whitmer residence and Whitmer's schoolhouse. The first conference of the Mormon Church was in Fayette June 1, 1830, with thirty attending. In 1831 Smith and some followers removed to Ohio, starting the pilgrimage, ever westward, that resulted in the founding of Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1747.
Today the Fayette farm of Whitmer, four miles south of Waterloo, is owned by the Mormon Church. The 100 acres are operated by Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Stoner, who lease it from W. W. Bean of Palmyra, overseer of the Mormon Church property in Western New York. The picturesque Colonial house, more than a century old, is still a shrine to Mormons.
Before Brigham Young, founder of polygamy in Mormonism, turned to that faith, acquired eighteen regular wives, numerous "spiritual wives" and fifty-eight children, he worked at odd jobs in many communities of Central New York, generally for a dol- lar a day. In those days he never dreamed that he would found Salt Lake City. He'd never thought of polygamy as an insti- tution which he would establish along with the "celestial law of marriage." He was simply a painter and glazier, and in a little shop in the rear of his home in Port Byron, Cayuga County, he mended furniture. He spent a full year in the village in 1832, working for a time for David Smith, a merchant. His backyard shop was sold in 1878 to a Throop resident for ten dollars for use as a summer kitchen.
105
HISTORY OF CENTRAL NEW YORK
But Brigham didn't tarry long anywhere. He sojourned in many towns of the area. In Auburn he stopped off long enough to do considerable work on the mansion of William H. Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state. He was also a resident of Canan- daigua. It was not until he was twenty-nine years old that Young saw the Book of Mormon and it was a year later when he was "converted" by Samuel H. Smith, the "Prophet's" brother. Young Mr. Young had less than a year's schooling then, but Mormonism gave him an education.
Brigham was baptized April 14, 1852, and at once threw away paint brush and saw to start preaching. In the autumn he went to Ohio where he became an intimate of Joseph Smith and that winter was ordained an elder. He started baptizing and establishing missions in Canada. By 1835 he was one of the "twelve apostles" and a year later he became Mormon presi- dent. On Smith's death he rose to "Great Prophet." It was Brigham who led the exiled Mormons across the plains to Utah. His plan for forming an independent state out west was frowned on by Uncle Sam, but a territory was created and he was ap- pointed governor. When the federal government in 1854 ap- pointed a "Gentile" governor, Mr. Young's ire was aroused and it required a force of 2,500 troops to enforce the law.
Brigham hit upon his most famous idea in 1852 when he promulgated the "celestial law of marriage," which he said had been revealed to Joseph Smith nine years before. Though Smith's widow and her son declared the revelation to be a forgery, Young triumphed in his plural marriage campaign and had the Book of Mormon changed to fit his case. Most of Brigham's wives he kept in a building known as the "Lion House." In 1871 he was indicted for polygamy, but not convicted. His fifteenth spouse sued him for divorce in 1875, only two years before his death. But Young held his popularity and at his funeral 30,000 people, exclusive of his children, gathered at his bier. He never lived to see polygamy abolished by the famous manifesto of 1890, nor to return to Central New York again.
In Central New York also, Spiritualism found birth. The modern form of this belief dates from the Fox sisters in 1849.
106
HISTORY OF CENTRAL NEW YORK
On the night of March 31 of that year, Mr. and Mrs. Fox, who lived with their two daughters, Margaret and Leah, at Hydes- ville, a hamlet of the town of Arcadia, Wayne County, were dis- turbed by repeated and inexplicable rappings throughout the house. At length it was accidentally discovered by one of the daughters that the unseen "rapper" was so intelligent as to be able to reply to pertinent questions, and so communicative as to declare that he was the spirit of a murdered peddlar. When this discovery was noised about, there started the belief that intercourse could be obtained with the spirits and numerous "spirit" circles were formed in various parts of America.
The manifestations thus said to be received from the spirits were rappings, table turnings, musical sounds, writings, the un- seen raising of heavy bodies and the like. Out of this Wayne County experience has grown the belief that our existence in this world is but one stage in an endless career; that the whole material world exists simply for the development of spiritual beings, death being but a transition from this existence to the first grade of spirit life; that our thoughts and deeds here will affect our conditions later, and that our happiness and progress depend wholly on the use we make of our opportunities and facilities in this plane.
Hydesville took its name from Dr. Henry Hyde, a pioneer physician who came there from Vermont in 1810. The old Fox home, where rappings first were heard, stood until a few years ago on the hamlet's sole corner. The structure was removed to the Spiritualistic camp grounds at Lily Pond in the western part of the state.
No story of the coming of varied religious sects to Central New York would be complete without reference to the advent of the Friends, a sturdy band of Quaker pioneers, whose settle- ments in Ontario, Cayuga, Wayne, Schuyler and Chemung coun- ties planted a sure foundation for the civilization that was to follow them.
In 1790 the Friends, under the leadership of Nathan Com- stock, Sr., made the first settlement in Farmington, Ontario County. They emigrated from Massachusetts, much against the
107
HISTORY OF CENTRAL NEW YORK
wishes of the society there. As a result of their act they were disavowed by the mother society until 1794, when other Quakers came west to attend the Pickering Treaty parleys at Canandai- gua, and were impressed with the prosperity of the Farmington settlement. Early meetings were held at the home of Abraham Lapham, who later moved to Macedon, Wayne County, spread- ing Friends' settlements there. So it was that in 1796 a double log house was built in Macedon, near the site of the present Orthodox Quaker Church. This church burned in December, 1803, and in January, 1804, the Quaker meeting was held in Palmyra, Wayne County.
As early as 1795, a Friend came to Cayuga County, when Paulina, wife of Judge Walter Wood, arrived with her husband at Aurora, from White Creek, Washington County, whence they had removed from Dartmouth. It was Judge Wood who taught Millard Fillmore, thirteenth president of the United States, the rudiments of law.
The Society of Friends sent immigrants to Central New York from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Long Island, New York City, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Dutchess, Westchester, Saratoga and Washington counties in this state. Dartmouth in Massa- chusetts led the march. Meeting houses sprang up in several counties, but the chief center of the Quaker settlement was in south Cayuga.
The Scipio Quaker meeting at Sempronius, Cayuga County, was instituted in 1808; the Hector meeting, Schuyler County, was allowed in 1813; the Union Springs meeting, Cayuga County, followed in 1814 and the Aurora meeting, Cayuga County, in 1816. North Street preparative, Cayuga County, was instituted in 1817 and the meeting house at Scipioville, Cayuga County, built in 1820. Sempronius, Skaneateles and Elmira were sev- erally granted preparative meetings in 1819.
The Farmington Monthly Meeting, in Ontario County, was the first in the region. It gave permission to the Scipio group to form an "indulged" Scipio meeting. Then in 1808 the Quar- terly meeting at Easton, Pennsylvania, assented to the Scipio
108
HISTORY OF CENTRAL NEW YORK
Friends' request for a monthly separate meeting, aside from Farmington.
In 1798 Benjamin and Mary Howland and their five children, predecessors of the family of Howlands whose name has for gen- erations been linked with Central New York progress, came in sleighs with twenty head of cattle from Massachusetts to settle in a three-acre clearing two miles west of Poplar Ridge, Cayuga County. In the front room of his humble home the first Friends' meeting place in the county took place.
The next arrivals were Jethro and Sylvia Wood who came from Saratoga County, Jethro being the inventor of the first iron plow. His gift to agriculture is mentioned in the section of this history devoted to inventions. Isaac and Ruth Wood gave three acres of ground for a future meeting house and burial ground. It was decided in 1809 to build a house thirty-four by fifty feet, the posts twenty-two feet, at an estimated cost of $1,800. The Yearly Meeting declared that this sum was too much. Then a meeting house to cost $1,700 was planned and when completed in 1810 it had cost $1,728.29. This structure was the first place of Quaker worship in Cayuga County and stood until about twenty years ago one mile west of Poplar Ridge. Some meeting houses built shortly afterward are still, in use.
In 1808, there were twenty-four members added to the Scipio meeting; thirty-five in 1809; fifty-seven in 1810; thirty-two in 1811; thirty in 1812; twenty-seven in 1813; fifty in 1814; forty- five in 1815; sixteen in 1816; twelve in 1817; twelve in 1818; thirty-two in 1819; fifteen in 1820; twenty-three in 1821. Most of these settlers lived within ten or twelve miles of the meeting house.
The venerable John Searing came from Long Island and settled west of Poplar Ridge in 1823, one of his descendants being Leonard H. Searing of Auburn, president of the Cayuga County Historical Society and a past president of the Finger Lakes Association.
Places of worship, whose half buried ruins tell of other days, always have proved the key archaeologists have used to unlock
109
HISTORY OF CENTRAL NEW YORK
the secrets of past civilizations. Every race, civilized and pagan, has left in religious relics a gauge of its character. The places where men prayed have always been the places where the his- torian might reach closest to the heart of a bygone people. In Central New York, numerous century-old churches still in use are emblematic of the sturdy, simple faith of pioneers who bowed humbly to the God of nature.
At first private cabin homes formed the place where prayers were sent heavenward. Then came the cabin meeting place and later more pretentious edifices dedicated to the worship of God. Picturesque villages, complacent in their disregard of time, still house these 100 year old churches. To find them, one needs the adventurous spirit of a Columbus. They are not heralded as relics. Today, in many of them, a faithful flock still worship, mindful perhaps of the spiritual strength of those who went be- fore them and builded well.
If one goes into the churchyards adjoining some of these venerable places of worship, one finds tottering, moldy stones, telling in imperishable fashion the names of soldiers in Washing- ton's army who were buried there.
What is said to have been the first church erected in the Em- pire State west of Schenectady was a little log building con- structed in 1797 at Brinkerhoff Point on Owasco Lake, and known as the Dutch Reformed Church. This church society was organized September 23, 1796, at a meeting held at the home of Col. John L. Hardenbergh, founder of Auburn. Services were held for twenty years in the original log structure. The present edifice, two miles east in Owasco village, was completed in 1815 and except for a few minor changes stands today as it was over a century ago. In its 135 years the church has been served by twenty-one pastors, the present being Rev. Richard J. Blocker.
Across the lake, Sand Beach Church, town of Fleming, was built of planks in 1810 and the present little brick edifice re- placed it in 1850. Rev. Dr. Samuel R. Brown was its first pas- tor. In 1859 he went as the first missionary sent by the United States to Japan.
110
HISTORY OF CENTRAL NEW YORK
The First Congregational Church "in the town of Canan- darqua" was incorporated on February 25, 1799, with eighteen original members. This Old Brick Meeting House was the first place of worship in Canandaigua and for four years the only church building in the village. The same meeting house, without exterior change except that resulting from an extension of six- teen feet toward the west, stands today. The original box pews are retained. The only substantial changes have been those in- volved in installation of a modern heating plant to obviate the need of individual foot stoves of early days; electric lights to perform the office once left to tallow dips set in the window sills and at pew intersections, and the organ that gives the sacred melody that aforetime came from bass viol and flute.
Were a sketch of each of the century old church societies of Central New York to be given, an entire volume would be re- quired to tell the story. Each of the eleven counties of the dis- trict has its quota of these venerable groups dedicated to the worship of God. Space limitations prevent even an enumeration of them. Down through the years the churches have constantly been improved until today hundreds of thousands of dollars are invested in church properties. The latest lines of religious edu- cation have been instituted in the church work and modern meth- ods have replaced old, just as the modern organ has supplanted the old pitchpipe. In this recent effort at religious education for the young, a new church house of the Second Presbyterian Church at Auburn, opened in 1932 and representing an expendi- ture of $130,000, is said to be one of the finest equipped of its kind in the state. It is emblematic of the new ideas creeping into organized practice of religion.
No summary of religious activity of the area would be com- plete without reference to the Little Chapel on the Mount, one of the strangest places of worship in the state and one which many believe will become in generations hence a shrine for the pilgrim. This memorial chapel to Charles William Garrett was erected by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Garrett on Bluff Point, which separates the two arms of Lake Keuka and rises 1,200 feet above the water. It was consecrated July 12, 1931, and
111
HISTORY OF CENTRAL NEW YORK
since has been visited weekly by thousands of tourists and resi- dents of all parts of the state. The chapel was deeded to the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York the day it was conse- crated. It has no hours of service but is open continuously for meditation for the wayfarer of every class and creed.
Built for the ages, the stone of the chapel is Pennsylvania seam face granite; the roof and floor of the terrace are Vermont slate; the floor of the chapel is Rembrandt slate from Holland; the marble in the Crypt, where lie the bodies of four Garrett sons, is Xanadu onyx from Algeria; the reception room walls adjoining the crypt are crab orchard marble from Tennessee; the style of architecture is of the sixth century, the transition from Norman to Gothic; the gutters, leadings and flashings are copper, lead covered; the trusses in the roof are steel enclosed with fireproof cement resembling oak. Statuary inside came from various parts of Europe and the stained glass windows are done by artists, who have depicted some of the human activities -the fisher, the sower, the student, the scientist, the mechanic, sports, music, painting-rather than the time worn Biblical sub- jects. The Little Chapel on the Mount breathes the spirit of worship which has come down 150 years from the time settlers bowed humbly in the forest.
CHAPTER VIII
WATERWAYS AND CANALS.
PIONEERS FIRST CAME BY RIVER ROUTES IN 1791-WESTERN INLAND LOCK AND NAVIGATION COMPANY-SENECA LOCK NAVIGATION COMPANY-ERIE CANAL -CAYUGA AND SENECA CANAL-CROOKED LAKE CANAL-CHEMUNG CANAL- BARGE CANAL-ABORTIVE CANAL PROJECTS.
Natural waterways, predecessors of the artificial canals, formed one of the earliest avenues of entry to Central New York. Down through the ages in all lands water travel has been among the earliest modes of transportation. In the heart of New York State, primitive forest roads preceded the canals, but the rivers even before the passages through the woods, had been channels of travel. Possibilities for boat transportation upon the Finger Lakes hastened the building of the canals, which came to rival the highways and spelt the doom of the wayside taverns.
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.