History of Chautauqua County, New York, and its people, Volume I, Part 43

Author: Downs, John Phillips, 1853- ed. [from old catalog]; Hedley, Fenwick, Y., joint ed. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Boston, New York [etc.] American historical society, inc.
Number of Pages: 649

USA > New York > Chautauqua County > History of Chautauqua County, New York, and its people, Volume I > Part 43

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).

The officers elected at the first town meet- ing, held at the school house near Alexander Findley's, in April, 1824, were as follows: Su- pervisor, Nathaniel Throop; town clerk, Roger Haskell; assessors, Aaron Whitney, Zina Rickard, Otis Skinner ; collector, Isaac Hazen; overseers of the poor, Alexander Findley, Or- lando Durkee; commissioner of highways, Benjamin Hazen, Jeremiah Knowles, Potter Sullivan; constables, Isaac Hazen, Thomas

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Downey ; commissioners of schools, Zina Rick- ard, Jeremiah Knowles, Alexander Findley ; in- spectors of schools, Daniel Waldo, Jr., Isaac Hazen, Samuel Dickerson.

The first regular religious meetings were hose of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1826, n the barn of Benjamin Hazen, with Rev. Mr. Bradley as the clergyman. Findley Lake Church (United Brethren) was founded in 855 by Rev. J. W. Clark, pastor. The society built a church in 1862. The American Re- ormed Church was formed December 19, 1856, vith forty-four members, by Rev. J. W. Dune- vald. The original members included Lorenzo Buck, Adam Himelein, George Hammer, J. G. Barringer, Adam Merket, their wives, and Mar- aret B. Phifer. In 1859 a church edifice was uilt costing $1,400. The Methodist Episcopal hurch at the Corners was formed May 18, 858. The first members were Thomas R. Coveny, Daniel Fritz and wife, Alexander D. Ioldridge and wife, Daniel Declow and wife, Villiam Baker, Charity Chase, Lucy and Me- ssa Holdridge, Jane Tryon, Lucinda Relf and letsey Baker. The trustees were A. D. Hold- dge, William Baker and Nehum M. Grimes. about the same time, the Methodist Episcopal nurch, West Mina, was formed. Among its rst members were John and Alexander Skel- e, Uriah and Azan Fenton, Henry F. and ames F. Moore. A church was built in 1859 ith capacity for seating three hundred.

From the school offices it is noticeable that le pioneers were very particular about their schools. They desired that their children could have the best opportunities for educa- on possible in such primitive surroundings. considerable attention was paid to the mak- :g of roads, too, and keeping them in passable ondition.

In 1824 the vote in Mina for governor was: young, 44; Dewitt Clinton, 20. From 1841 to 345 the strength of the Whigs and Demo- rats was practically equal. A tie vote oc- urred for supervisor several times. At one section the vote for highway commissioners `as 63 on one side and 64 on the other.

The principal era for the building of saw- fills and gristmills using water power in the 1wn was from 1825 to 1840. The first steam vill was built by Davidson and Greenman in 366, in the northwest part of the town, on lot (. The firms of E. Chesley & Co. and Elmer thesley & Sons owned it afterwards succes- svely. The Chesley family in America is a pry old one, dating back as far as 1633 in lover, New Hampshire. The Chesleys of Iter generations have been prominent in New

England and elsewhere to the present time. A. D. Holdridge, an active citizen, built a saw, shingle and lath mill in Mina in 1872. Samuel Gill owned and operated a sawmill on lot 16, in the north part of the town near Ripley line, on Twenty-mile creek, from 1852 to the time of his death in 1879. The business was con- tinued by his son, Samuel H. Gradually, as the timber was cut away, the fields and hillsides became pasture and meadowlands, the herds increased and dairying came into greater and greater prominence as the industry upon which the people relied.

Supervisors-1824-27, Nath. Throop; 1828, Roger Haskell; 1829, Nath. Throop; 1830-31, Otis Skinner; 1832, Elias E. D. Wood; 1833, Joshua LaDue; 1834-37, Joseph Palmer ; 1838, David Declow; 1839-42, Valorous Lake; 1843, Jesse B. Moore; 1844, David Declow ; 1845, William Putnam; 1846-48, Gideon Barlow ; 1849, Cyrus Underwood; 1850, Luke Grover ; 1851, Edward Buss; 1852, Gideon Barlow ; 1853, Alex. Eddy : 1854, Ora B. Pelton ; 1855, Geo. Ross; 1856-57, Luke Grover ; 1858, Edw. Buss ; 1859, David Declow ; 1860-61, Geo. Relf ; 1862, Thos. R. Coveny ; 1863 ; Edw. Buss ; 1864- 65, Geo. Relf: 1866, Franklin Declow ; 1867, Geo. Relf; 1868, Thos. R. Coveny; 1869-70, Henry Q. Ames; 1871, Franklin Declow ; 1872, Geo. Relf; 1873-75, John E. Ottaway ; 1876-77, Ebenezer Skellie; 1878-82, Dana P. Horton ; 1883, John E. Ottaway ; 1884, Dana P. Horton ; 1885, John E. Ottaway ; 1886, Dana P. Horton ; 1887, Samuel Barringer; 1888-90, William A. Knowlton : 1891, Dana P. Horton ; 1892-93, Alfred M. Douglass ; 1894-97, Dana P. Horton ; 1898-01, John A. Hill; 1902-03-04-20, WV. Lav- erne Nuttall. In 1906-07-18-19, Mr. Nuttall was chairman pro tem., and in 1920, chairman of the board, that being his nineteenth year of continuous service as supervisor.

The full value of the real estate in Mina was placed at $598,110 in 1918, and the assessed value was $469.259.

Mina schools have kept pace with the other improvements of the town and are very effi- cient.

Findley Lake is a charge of the Erie Con- ference of the Methodist Episcopal church, the same pastor also supplying Mina and South Ripley, the three churches having a membership of 110.

The United Brethren Church was estab- lished at Findley Lake in 1855 by a missionary, Rev. E. B. Torrey ; in 1857 Rev. John W. Clark was sent to the mission, and in 1858 a church was organized. A church edifice was completed in 1860, which was succeeded by

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the present edifice in 1894. The original church was also used by the Methodists and by the Baptists.

The Lakeside Assembly, on the west shore of Findley Lake, was founded in 1895 by Rev. C. G. Langdon, a minister in the United Breth- ren Church. Rev. Langdon lived in the par- sonage on the east shore of the lake. He had succeeded in erecting a fine new church in the village, but as he sat in his study and looked out over the lake into the woods on the west side of the lake he thought of the large audi- ences that might be gathered in the shade, to rest and at the same time to learn. A plot of ground was secured of J. A. Hill, and Rev. Langdon taking an axe began to cut and clear away the brush and logs. After a short time Dr. F. E. Lilly, who lived at the foot of the lake, was taken into partnership with him. A large tent was secured, several small build- ings were erected, lots were laid off and the first season announced. About forty lots were sold and preparations made for the erection of many buildings. Feeling the need of a strong company, the two owners of the new Assem- bly organized a stock company and secured a State charter, sold stock and planned for a permanent institution.

Lakeside Assembly is modeled after Chau- tauqua in its system and is doing a good work for the section in which it is located.

Poland-Lying between Carroll and Elling- ton in the eastern tier of towns and directly east of Ellicott, from which town it was set off, April 9, 1832, Poland comprises township 2, range 10, and was originally covered with great forests of immense pines. It was this magnificent timber which first attracted set- tlers to Poland and the conversion of these great forests of pine, hemlock, elm, maple, beech, oak and chestnut into lumber was long the sole town industry. Many of the pines measured five and six feet in diameter and "Poland Quality" in lumber was the standard.

Captain Newell Cheney, in the "Centennial History of Chautauqua County" prepared an article on the town of Poland, from which this chapter is largely drawn. He states that Mr. Cheney, of Kiantone, an early surveyor, used a fallen pine 268 feet in length to stretch his chain upon.

Daniel Griswold gives these figures of the product of six hundred acres on lot 21 in Sala- manca as an evidence of the enormous yield of these early forests: This tract averaged five trees of white pine to the acre and produced over 6,500,000 feet of lumber, while the hem- lock made fully twice that quantity, making

the average product per acre over 33,000 feet E. A. Ross, in his paper on early lumbering says: "When we come to make an estimate of the amount of lumber made on the Cassa. daga and its tributaries, you can form som idea of the vast amount of lumber made on the upper Allegheny. As I make it, about eighteen. mills are putting lumber out of the Cassadaga and allowing two hundred thousand feet fo the smaller, and five million feet for the large mill, would make two hundred seventy-five to three hundred rafts, requiring five hundred fifty or six hundred men to run them to the mouth of the creek and half that number from there t the Allegheny. When all these men were mus tered into service and put on their line c march, or drift, it took about all of the re sources of the inhabitants along the streams t furnish them with food and lodging."

Capt. Cheney, in his article, thus interest ingly describes the geological features of th town :

In the stone quarry at Kennedy is found, sandwiche between the rocks, a wide bed of sea shells sever: inches thick. Above this strata of shells is more tha twenty feet of solid rock. These shells are the earlie evidence of animal life in this region. They belor to the class of sea mollusks called Brachiopods (( branching feet) and their clear imprint in the rocl may properly be called the first foot prints. Her they lived their natural lives for many generations the bottom of the ancient sea that then covered th region, and were then buried under many feet of mi and sand.

After many thousands of years by some spasm nature they were lifted up to their present positio thirteen hundred feet above the sea. This record early life of millions of years ago, so well preserve and so plainly read in the rocks, makes the peric covered by human monuments seem brief, indeed. F. many other thousands of years following this uplift . the land, the region here was rough and rocky, wi high, steep cliffs and deep canyons. The waters this region found their way to the Allegheny Riv which then flowed along a deep channel near the pre. ent location of the Conewango, into a river that flow to the north through Falconer, Cassadaga and Fi donia, and found its way to the sea by way of the : Lawrence.

Along the narrow valley below the Kennedy sto quarry are many fragments of the local rocks, brok and worn, some showing the imprint of the sea shel Scattered about near are pieces of granite, some qu large, and all much worn and rounded. These are t granite boulders, and we are confronted with the que tion-where did these come from, and how did th get here?

This was a question that puzzled geologists for ma years till solved by Professor Agassiz. His soluti is so clear and so sustained by all the evidence, it now universally accepted. These stray pieces granite were broken from the gigantic ledges of Nort ern Canada and brought here by glaciers that extend from the northern regions all over this part of 1 continent during many thousands of years of win climate. These glaciers, hundreds of feet thick, are

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on their under surface with sand and gravel; these same granite boulders we find strewn over the land and through the soil of the whole glaciated area, made the grinding force which cut down the rocky cliffs, filled the deep gorges and covered the whole surface with material for rich and enduring soils. The glaciers stopped the flow of water to the north, blocking the channel at Cassadaga, making a great lake of this region now drained by the Allegheny and its branches until the water cut a channel through the rocky ridge below Irvine and reached the Ohio. The result of all this work of ice and water left this region covered with a rich soil, made from a ground mixture of all the rocks between here and Labrador. The highest lands are mostly covered with a boulder clay, while wide areas of drift lie in terraces, moraines and isolated knolls alongside the alluvial soils of the lower valleys, a most attractive topography for fine landscape effects and for thrifty, industrial communities. Scattered through the gravelly deposits are now found many forms of coral and other fossils of great interest from the Niagara limestone and other rock formations to the north, that were exposed to the carrying force of the glaciers.

Poland has rich farming lands in the wide valleys which border the Conewango and Cassadaga creeks, these winding streams, after traversing the town, uniting near the southern boundary. The Erie railroad crosses the town and maintains a station at Poland Center. The Dunkirk, Allegheny Valley & Pittsburgh railroad touches the southwestern corner of the town. Kennedy in the north- eastern part of the town, is the principal vil- age, although without railroad facilities.

At first Poland's population increased rap- dly, numbering 916 in 1835, 1.539 in 1880, .,608 in 1890, which was the high-water mark.

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The clearing of the forests and the natural rend toward the cities seem to have operated igainst Poland and according to the State cen- us of 1915, the population had fallen to 1,442. In 1798-99-1800 Joseph Ellicott made survey of the lands of the Holland Land Company nto townships, his office being then located in Buffalo. One of his survey parties, under Amzi Atwater, in July, 1798, surveyed the line which now lies between Chautauqua and Cat- araugus counties, beginning at the Pennsyl- 'ania line and running north. This survey arty was probably the first to note the extent nd value of the pine timber in what is now he towns of Carroll and Poland.

Captain Cheney gives the following account f Dr. Kennedy and his connections with Poland :

On November 17, 1794, Dr. Thomas Ruston Kennedy, a young physician of Philadelphia, whose father, Dr. Samuel Kennedy, had served s surgeon-general in the Revolutionary army, nd whose mother was a daughter of Dr. Rus-

ton, an eminent physician of Philadelphia, was appointed surgeon of Captain Drury's com- mand at Fort LeBoeuf. Governor Mifflin wrote to Capt. Drury : "I have appointed Dr. Thomas Ruston Kennedy, a young man of excellent character, surgeon of your battalion ; you will be pleased to receive him as my friend." In 1795 Dr. Kennedy accompanied the troops ordered to Warren to protect the surveyors who under General William Irvine and Andrew Ellicott were surveying the site of that town.

That same year Dr. Kennedy built a sail boat at Presque Isle, and in the autumn went in it to Philadelphia, having it carried around the Falls of Niagara and over the portage be- tween the Oswego and Mohawk rivers. He removed to Meadville in 1795, and was the first physician in Northwestern Pennsylvania. On the organization of Crawford county in 1800 he was appointed prothonotary of the court, which office he held till 1809. At the time of his appointment, Crawford county in- cluded Erie, Venango and Warren. His name appears upon the assessment rolls of 1806-07 as owner of several outlots in Warren. In 1803 Dr. Kennedy married Jane I., daughter of Andrew Ellicott, at that time secretary of the land office of Pennsylvania at Lancaster, which was then the seat of the State govern- ment. This marriage placed Dr. Kennedy on most friendly relations with Joseph Ellicott, the agent of the Holland Land Company, as indicated by letters now found in the library of the Buffalo Historical Society. He and his bride visited Joseph Ellicott, at Batavia, in June, 1803, on their way to Meadville, and on this visit discussed the matter of buying a tract of the fine pine timber and other lands of the Holland Land Company which Ellicott had already surveyed into townships and mapped. The most important event in the early history of Poland, and the first impor- tant commercial enterprise in Southern Chan- tauqua, was the building of the sawmill by Dr. Kennedy. Dr. and Mrs. Kennedy returned to Lancaster that same summer. His letter to Joseph Ellicott, dated "Lancaster, Pennsyl- vania, October 29, 1803," is in part as follows :

Dear Sir: We returned to Meadville in four days, after parting with our friends in Buffalo. Shortly after our return I sent a man to explore the Conewango country, who has returned. His account is such as would induce a number of persons in this country to emigrate thither as soon as a beginning is made. My principal object in sending to that country was to examine for a mill seat. He reports that one may be forced at considerable expense on the Conewango

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Creek about ten miles from its mouth. He believes the site will be near the northeast corner of township number two, tenth range, (Poland). In consequence of his report I will take one thousand acres at this place if you will make the terms easy. The land is not valuable for cultivation. The timber is the only in- ducement added to the seat for a sawmill. If your terms are such as will suit, will erect a sawmill there next summer. I will also take two or three hundred acres at the outlet of Chautauqua Lake, and will erect a gristmill with a sufficient lock in the dam or race as soon as one thousand bushels of grain is raised in the neighborhood. I also want six hundred acres near the middle of the lake on the northeast side of township two, range twelve. This piece of land is intended for a farm for an industrious man who will settle there in the spring.

Dr. Kennedy's next letters were from Mead- ville. He wrote a long letter under date of March 15, 1804, from that place. On May 10th he wrote a letter of recommendation for James Dunn, "a man of some property and exten- sive connections." Mr. Dunn, who was the first settler of Poland, came from the Susque- hanna, at or near Great Island, August 3, 1804. Dr. Kennedy gave another letter of introduc- tion and recommendation for Alexander Mc- Intyre, who was about to leave Meadville to buy land from Mr. Ellicott. Mr. McIntyre is the one who first settled at the head of Chau- tauqua Lake. Under date September 19, 1804, he wrote that his milldam at the Conewango "would be large and expensive, upwards of twenty rods long and in some parts between nine and ten feet high."

Dr. Kennedy in 1805 began building a mill at Kennedyville to manufacture lumber. This was the first work begun of the settlement of Poland and the southern towns. Dr. Kennedy built a double sawmill at Kennedyville, and subsequently a gristmill, with one run of stone made of common rock.

Under date of November 24. 1805, after men- tioning that a mail was established between Amsterdam (Buffalo) and Erie, he says: "It is my intention to say that boats of twenty- five or thirty tons may be navigated from the State of New York by way of Conewango creek, the Allegheny and the Ohio, and then to New Orleans, where I will find a good market for pine boards at twenty-five and thirty dol- lars per M."

Dr. Kennedy refers in one of his letters to measures contemplated to render the shipping of salt practicable over the Conewango and the outlet of Chautauqua Lake. These are among the earliest suggestions relating to the transportation of salt through the county : "There are two men at this place who are largely engaged in the salt trade. I have men-

tioned to them the route through the Chau- tauqua outlet and the east branch of the Cone- wango. They are anxious to know whether: you will aid in clearing the navigation of one or both of these streams. I was at Chautauqua. last summer and thought that three hundred fifty or four hundred dollars would make the outlet navigable for boats to carry one hun- dred fifty to two hundred barrels of salt to Cassadaga ; from thence there will be no diffi- culty." He says further that he has "ordered driftwood to be cut on the Conewango. A short distance above my dam dead water com. mences and continues for two days' paddle ir the canoes, possible up to the Susquehanna road; from thence to the mouth of the Catta raugus it is said to be but sixteen miles. The price of transportation of a barrel of salt acros: is two dollars and fifty cents." In a lette dated May 12, 1807, Dr. Kennedy says "Should you come to my mill I think you would best procure an Indian to conduct you as you may possible mistake and take the patl to Cassadaga Lake. You will be able to reach the mill in less than a day from the mouth o the Cattaraugus Creek." From Meadville h writes, September 29, 1807: "I have com pleted a handsome bridge at Conewango, on hundred eighty-two feet long, handsomel framed and of the best material, and a bar forty by thirty-two feet. Work has built good house twenty by thirty feet. Lamberto has been surveying. Mr. Work wishes me t inform you that he wishes to commence h location on the northeast side of the outlet, ac joining Wilson, and on the other side as lo down as opposite Culbertson, sixty or one hui dred rods from the mouth of the Cassadag which will probably join the lot on which Fer ton (Governor Fenton's father) lives, and 1 extend up that side six or eight lots." Whi the mills were being built, Edward Shillit' and his family resided there and boarded Ker nedy's hands. He was the first settler Poland having a family. The hands we merely transient workmen. Dr. Kennedy w; never a resident of the town, but lived Meadville until his death in 1813.

Edward Work, between whom and Dr. Ke nedy there existed a strong friendship and in1 mate business relations, superintended the ru ning of much of the lumber manufactured this mill. At Pittsburgh the lumber was place upon flat-bottomed boats, mostly made at Ke nedy's mills, and run to New Orleans. T! sale of the boards the first year was made 1 Mr. Work, who, in 1808, built sawmills on t] outlet of Chautauqua Lake near the easte

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boundary of Poland. When his mill was com- pleted he "run boards from his mill to New Orleans in the manner he had done from Ken- nedy's mills. A change, however, had taken place in the navigation of the Mississippi. When his boats arrived at Natchez he added to his lading bales of cotton, to the extent of the capacity of his boat, receiving a dollar per bale for freight to New Orleans for that car- ried under deck, and seventy-five cents for that on deck. The empty boats were sold at New Orleans for lumber for more than their cost. Work finished boards at his mill for seventy- five cents a hundred feet to finish the log houses of early settlers, and his little gristmill with common rock stones made excellent flour from good grain. When at home he was usually his own miller.

In 1804 Kennedy and Work bought of the Holland Land Company land on both sides of the Cassadaga below Dexterville, also a tract of valuable timber land east of the Cassadaga and Levant along the Kennedy road. In 1808 they opened a road from Kennedy's mills to Work's mills, and building the first bridge across the Cassadaga, about one-fourth of a mile above the present village of Levant. The road extended most of the way north of the present road to Kennedy and over much more milly ground. All of these improvements were nade in Poland before any assault was begun ipon the forest of pines that stood tall and lense upon the site of Jamestown. Upon the livision of the lands owned by Kennedy and Work after their decease, the heirs of Ken- 35 iedy took the lands lying east of the Cassa- laga. The mill property at Kennedy was sold y them in 1831 to Richard P. Marvin, of amestown, and his brother Erastus of Dry- len. Erastus came to Kennedy and soon their ather followed him. In 1832 Erastus and his ather died. R. P. Marvin soon sold the plant o Guy C. Irvine and Robert Falconer, who built a gristmill there. It was subsequently ebuilt by Jones & Stillwell. It next passed ato the hands of Seth W. Chandler, who sold : to Daniel Griswold and William T. Falconer, who rebuilt it in 1886, and sold it January I, 871. to Wellington H. Griffith. It was burned within a year and a new one was erected on the ame site by Mr. Griffith.

Dr. Kennedy's mill on the Conewango stood n the site of the present mill at Kennedy, ater owned by Ira C. Nichols, and the dam rossed the creek against the upper side of the mill. Some of the decaved timbers of the riginal dam are still found in the bank of the tream. Mr. Nichols cleared the channel of

the creek where the dam stood and moved a large log and some spiles which disclosed how the original dam was constructed. This log, about forty feet long, was sunken across the bed of the stream and held in place by stakes. Piles about two inches thick by five to six inches in width and six to seven feet long, were driven at an angle and close together into the bed of the stream so that their upper ends rested against the faced side of this log, which held the stakes in line and in exact position and made a solid and close wall. On top of this bed sill other timbers faced to match were laid and held in place by being framed at their ends into long timbers reaching to the bank on either side. This timber dam was strength- ened and made tight by brush and soil and a waste passage constructed in it for the surplus water. A lock for the passage of boats fifty feet long was built against the left side of the stream at the south end of the dam. When Mr. Nichols rebuilt his mill he found the bed sills and other timbers of the original mill, built seventy-five years before, still quite sound. They all bore the ax marks of hewn timber. The mill irons were brought by boat from Pittsburgh. John Simpson, for many years a resident of Poland, said that in 1831 he worked on the mill for Forbes and Runion. The mill was run night and day through the year, except about a month in the spring. The mill then cut about three million feet each year. In their last year the mill cut 3,660,000 feet, which Mr. Simpson helped to measure. There were two upright saws in the mill that did this work with a full set of hands to each saw. This lumber was then estimated to be worth, in the raft at the mill, six dollars per thousand feet.

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History of Chautauqua County, New York, and its people, Volume I, Part 43

Author: Downs, John Phillips, 1853- ed. [from old catalog]; Hedley, Fenwick, Y., joint ed. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1921 Publisher: Boston, New York [etc.] American historical society, inc. Number of Pages: 649

Author: Downs, John Phillips, 1853- ed. [from old catalog]; Hedley, Fenwick, Y., joint ed. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Boston, New York [etc.] American historical society, inc.
Number of Pages: 649