USA > New York > Chautauqua County > History of Chautauqua County, New York > Part 20
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Almost as soon as settlement commenced in western New York the political organization of the scattered inhabitants commenced also. Courts were established and local officers were chosen. March 1, 1803, the first town meeting of the Holland Purchase was held at Peter Vandeventer's log tavern, in the present town of Newstead. Erie county. Town officers were then chosen for the town of Batavia, of which Chautauqua was a part. The whole number of voters then on the Holland Purchase was 153, of whom 144 Were present at this town meeting. Peter Vandeventer the landlord, and Jonathan Bemus, of the settlement at Batavia, candidates for supervisor,
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stood in the middle of the road, side by side, near the tavern. Those voters who favored Bemns formed in a line on his left, and those who favored Van- deventer formed in a line on his right. Bemus had 70 votes, Vandeventer 74 votes, and was duly elected. The other officers were elected by the uplifted hand. It is not known that any voter from Chautauqua was present, and no officer was chosen that was a resident there. In April, 1803, the first election for the town of Batavia was held at Vandeventer's inn, at which Caleb Hyde, the republican candidate for senator, received 146 votes, and Vincent Matthews, the federal candidate, received five votes. In June, the court house at Batavia was so far completed as to admit of holding a court, at which the first grand jury empanelled west of the Genesee river was organized.
The settlement of the county had now fairly commenced. Young men, hardy and strong, skilled in woodcraft, began to come in from the east. With the axe alone they could quickly build a substantial house. Its body they made of logs neatly matched at the corners, chinked with mud and splints of wood, its roof of elin bark or long staves riven from ash or hemlock trees, was held in place by saplings or poles running lengthwise with and withed to the roof, a hearth and fireplace was made of stones gathered near the spot, a chimney of sticks cemented with mnd and straw, a floor of the halves of split logs laid with the flat side up. Without hammer or nails, and with no other implements than an axe and auger, the pioneer could manu- facture all his household furniture, the puncheon table and chairs, the bedstead of poles framed into the log walls of his house, (the bed cords made of strips of bark,) doors of hewed planks, and windows in which was oiled paper instead of glass. With his axe he would scoop out a hollow in the top of a stump, bend to it a neighboring sapling, and fasten to its top with strips of deer- skins a pestle of wood or stone to pound his dried corn into "grits" which he called " meal." This was his flouring mill. Should you commiserate the pioneer upon his privations and hardships he would not understand you. Was not his cabin, protected from the cold blasts of winter by the tall forest trees standing around it, warmed to its thick walls by a roaring fire of great logs, as comfortable as the best ? His " corn-grits," well-cooked, were sweet and nourishing. With now and then some fresh venison, the flesh of the the wild turkey, or delicious brook trout from the cold stream that flowed past his cabin door, what more could he ask ?
L'et contented as was the pioneer, he soon began to look forward to the enjoyments of greater conveniences. His first want was a sawmill to manu- facture lumber for his house-a grist mill to make better meal and flour, and more in quantity, than his primitive mills could do. The nearest points at which the people during the first years of settlement could obtain grinding, was at Erie, Pa., and Black Rock on Niagara river. John McMahan saw the necessity and built the first gristmill in the county. It was constructed of
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hewed logs upon Chautauqua creek, about one-fourth of a mile from its mouth. John McMahan also built a sawmill the same year. The stones used in the mill came from its vicinity. During the war of 1812 Mr. McMahan, apprehending its destruction by the enemy, discontinued its run- ning and sold the stones to be used in the Westfield mill. They were finally placed beside the monument erected upon the site of the old MeHenry tavern to preserve the remembrance of important facts in the history of the county. (See Westfield.) Of the persons whose names are inscribed upon this mon- ument a score or more settled in the vicinity of the Cross Roads. They came from Northumberland, Mifflin, Dauphin and other counties along the Sus- quehanna and Juniata rivers above Harrisburg.
The pleasant climate and fertile soil of the country around the Cross Roads continued to attract immigrants, and made it in early years the most important settlement of the county. When its population had increased and extended to the east side of Chautauqua creek, it laid aside its name of Cross . Roads for Westfield.
In 1804 Charles Avery purchased lot 3 on the lake close to the mouth of the Cattaraugus. This was the first purchase of land at that place. He proba- bly settled there in 1803, possible in 1802, and later kept a small assort- ment of goods for trade with the Indians. William G. Sydnor, who came this year, purchased lots 1 and 2 where the creek empties into the lake. At the June term of court in 1804 at Batavia he was licensed to keep a ferry at the mouth of Cattaraugus creek. This year his daughter Caroline the first white child of Cattaraugus village was born. Mr. Sydnor was the first per- son to die there. At his decease he was keeping the tavern, a small log cabin with a " leanto " attached. His wife continued the business. Papers preserved in Mr. Sydnor's handwriting show that he was possessed of more than ordinary accomplishments, scarcely to be expected of the occupant of a log cabin at the Cattaraugus bottoms.
During this year the first settlement was made at Silver Creek. David Dickinson purchased by a contract dated August 1, 1803, the land now occu- pied by the village, agreeing to build a sawmill upon it by April, 1804, and a gristmill by April, 1805. A misunderstanding that existed between Mr. Dickinson and Abel Cleveland was amicably settled, and the article for the land was made to both of them, and dated Feb. 29, 1805. Those persons and John E. Howard, all from Berkshire county, Mass., built log houses and set- tled here with their families about 1804. Howard's log dwelling was on the south bank of the creek, near where Howard street crosses it. Dickinson and Cleveland erected theirs further down near Newberry street. Dickinson and Cleveland were both there on July 24, 1804, and the place was then known as Silver Creek, as appears by a writing executed by them at that date. They soon completed a sawmill and made a mortar from a short maple
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log by cutting and burning out a cavity in one end in which they would place a grist of corn to be converted into meal by the pounding of a heavy pestle worked up and down by the wheel of the sawmill. The time for the building of the gristmill was extended by Joseph Ellicott to the win- ter of 1805. The mill stones for this mill were made from boulders brought from Oak hill 100 rods away. Dickinson and Cleveland finally sold their property and returned to Massachusetts. Mr. Howard remained and erected the first frame-house in Hanover, on the site of the Eureka Smut-mill works in Silver Creek. In the spring of 1805. Mr. Howard opened this house as a tavern and kept it until 1828. It was one of the most popular stopping places between Buffalo and Erie.
At the beginning of 1804 the settlements made in the county were con- fined to Westfield and Hanover, and were separated by twenty-five miles of woods. This year the Canadaway settlement was commenced in the interven- ing forest and included Fredonia, the country around it, and was understood also to embrace the settled portion of Sheridan. Settlement was commenced in Sheridan by Francis Weber, who came from Massachusetts in 1804. He settled upon the Erie road southwest of Silver Creek on lot 17, about a mile west of the east line of Sheridan. Hazadiah Stebbins also settled upon the same lot the same year. In 1804, Orsamus Holmes, a soldier of the Rev- olution selected land in Sheridan. In the winter of 1804-5 he left Sherburne with his sons, Alanson and Origin, to prepare accommodations for his family here. The next June his wife and seven children came in a covered two- horse spring carriage. They came through Buffalo, (a small settlement con- sisting of Crow's tavern, a blacksmith shop, one or two stores, a bakery, and a few dwellings,) forded Buffalo creek, and followed the lake beach, then the only highway, passing the first night eight miles west of Buffalo, the next night at Eighteen-mile creek and the next on Cattaraugus creek at Capt. Sydnor's, who is described as an "elegant penman and a perfect gen- tleman." At Silver Creek they found Dickinson residing and a few miles further on Francis Webber. The next day they reached the place where Mr. Holmes settled upon the Erie road, two or three miles easterly of Fredonia. Mr. Hohnes was a man of character and an influential citizen. His son Alan- son settled near him the same year. John and Alvah H. Walker, Gerard and William Griswold from New Hampshire, Uriah and Joel Lee also settled the same year in Sheridan along the line of the Erie road, the most of them near the Center. While this settlement was being made, one was commenced at Fredonia, then called Canadaway from the stream upon which it was situ- ated. The Canadaway has its source in the springs among the hills of Char- lotte and Arkwright, flows at first in cascades and rapids through wild gorges, and at last less roughly to Lake Erie. The Indians gave it the beautiful name Ga-na-da-wa-o, "running through the hemlocks," in allusion to the
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evergreens that grew thickly upon its banks and overshadowed the chasis through which it ran.
At Ganadawao or Canadaway, as the white man pronounces it, the settle- ment of Pomfret was commenced by Thomas MeClintock, David Eason, and Low Miniger, all of whom, like the settlers at the Cross Roads, came from east- ern and central Pennsylvania. Thomas Mcclintock in 1804 commenced a clearing and built a cabin upon lands that he had entered on the year before. These lands included lots or parts of lots 8, 14 and 20, and embraced the most thickly settled portion of the village of Fredonia on both sides of the Canadaway. Low Miniger selected land northwest of the village, and partly built a loghouse in 1804 near where David I. Mattison resided at his decease. David Eason passed the summers of 1803 and 1804 at Canadaway. He selected land near and north of MeClintock's afterwards owned by Gen. Elijah Risley. He built a log house upon the bank of the creek near where Gen. Elijah Risley afterward resided ; the floor was of split logs smoothed with . an axe. The doors were made in the same way and fastened together with pins, not a nail being used. This was the first house built in Fredonia. In the spring of 1805 he married Margaret Woodside, and, in April he set out from Northumberland county with Low Miniger and others and their families for Canadaway. They ascended the Susquehanna and the Sinemahoning, journeyed through the wilderness to the Allegany river, and finally reached Olean, having been six weeks on the way, camping out most of the nights. At Olean they found an advance guard of pioneers. There the first perman- ent settlement of Cattarangus county had been made that year by Major Adam Hoops and his brother Robert. At Olean Eason and his companions built canoes, descended the Allegany to Warren, ascended the Conewango and the Cassadaga, passed over Chautauqua lake to Mayville and over the Portage Road to the Cross Roads. He and his wife and Miniger came thence to Canadaway. This strange wedding trip, notwithstanding the dangers and hardships of so long a forest journey, was not without enjoyment to this hardy pioneer, and doubtless not without romance to his bride. Mr. Eason on his arrival at his log house at Canadaway had but Sto which he paid for a barrel of flour brought across the lake from Canada. Upon this with fish and will game he and his wife subsisted until the vegetables that they planted in the spring matured.
About the time that Eason arrived at Canadaway, Zattu Cushing had brought to an end at the same place a like remarkable journey through the forests of western New York. Mr. Cushing was born at Plymouth, Mass., in 1770. He afterwards worked at ship building in Boston harbor. In 1799 he went to Presque Isle to superintend the building of a ship. It was named the " Good Intent " and was lost with all on board in 1805. In his long return journey to the East after the building of the vessel, he passed a night
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in the wilderness on the very spot near the Canadaway where his house was afterwards built. The next morning he passed over the ground where 40 years later he was buried. In February, 1805, he started from castern New York and conveyed his family and his goods by means of two yoke of oxen drawing a sled. He then had five children. They were three weeks in making the journey, and drove four cows. They brought a bushel of salt and half-a-bushel of apple seeds, from which a nursery was commenced and an orchard set ont on the Marsh farin. This was probably the oldest orchard in the county. On Mr. Cushing's arrival at Canadaway, the snow was deep and the weather was cold. He moved into a partly-completed log-cabin built by Low Miniger. It had no doors, no chinking between the logs, and no floor. They covered the ground with hemlock bonghs and remained in this habitation until he had got an article for his land and built a log house. Mr. Cushing was a respected and leading man of the county. For thirteen years he was its first judge. He was the grandfather of the intrepid Alonzo H. Cushing who fell at Gettysburg, and of William B. Cushing, the hero of many exploits, chief of which was the destruction of the "Albemarle," which have placed his name beside the names of Paul Jones and Perry in the role of honor.
It was a singular coincidence the arrival of these two well known pioneers, Eason and Cushing, one from Pennsylvania and the other from New York, near the same time, at almost the same spot in the depths of the forest. The circumstances of their coming are interesting for they show in a striking manner how great must have been the attractions of a new country to them. Messrs. Eason and Cushing were men of character and ability as the honors awarded by their fellow citizens abundantly show. Mr. Eason upon the organization of the county was chosen its first sheriff and Mr. Cushing was then made its first judge. They held other places of importance and trust. They were not only practical but intelligent men who valued the refinement of life. It is difficult for us who live in these later times, when the ways to fortune and preferment are found so often the easiest, to understand why men like these practical pioneers, should with such courage and determination push into the forest taking with them their wives and children, staking all upon the venture, denying themselves the social and educational advantages afforded by an old community for the toil and hardships of life in a new country. How bright must have been their vision of conquered forests, cultivated fields and established prosperity ! How earnest must have been their desire to build their own fortunes and become the founders of settlement ! Later in the season after the arrival of Judge Cushing, Benjamin Barrett, Samuel Geer and Benjamin Barnes came to Canadaway. 'In March, 1805, Eliphalet Burnham, of Paris, Oneida county, settled upon lot 6 near Laona, and became the first settler in that village. He died at Union City, Pa., in 1863.
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Judge Cushing was the first permanent settler and the leading citizen of Canadaway. MeClintock and Eason were actual settlers, but they and Min- iger soon sold their claims at Canadaway, removed to the Cross Roads, and made their homes among their old friends. MeClintock for several years kept a log tavern at Westfield, and owned the larger portion of the village. In 1834 he emigrated to Illinois and died in 1838. Canadaway rapidly in- creased in population. Its name was changed to Fredonia. It early became the largest village in the county, and held its importance for many years. It has always been the leading educational village. Here, in 1824, Fredonia Academy, the first institution of learning in the county higher than a com- mon school, was established. This academy was for many years one of the best-known and most important schools of western New York. Many citi- zens remember with gratitude this early institution of learning. Many emi- nent and distinguished men and women have laid the foundations of their knowledge here.
In 1864 settlement was commenced west of the Cross Roads in Ripley. Alexander Cochran, who came from the north of Ireland and belonged to the class known as " Protestant Irish, or Scotch Irish," settled about one mile west of the village formerly known as Quincy, where he resided until his decease. He is said to have been the first person in the county who : received a deed for his farm. Josiah Farnsworth from eastern New York settled at Quincy the same year. Perry G. Ellsworth from Otsego county settled on lot 12 one mile west of Quincy in 1804 or 1805 and kept a tavern.
The town of Chautauqua occupies the watershed of the county, and lies around the head of Chautanqua lake. It joins the northern with the south- ern towns of the county. It was first permanently settled by Dr. Alexander McIntyre in 1804. A log house was built near the steamboat landing for one Sherman, before McIntyre came. Dr. McIntyre was a resident of Mead- ville and the owner of a handsome property there. His attention was directed to the lands of the Holland land company by Dr. Kennedy of Mead- ville, the founder of Kennedy in Poland. McIntyre set out for Chautauqua in August, 1804. He built a log dwelling near the steamboat landing at Mayville around which he erected a stockade as a protection against Indians of whom the other settlers had no fears. His fort was called by the jokers of these days " Fort Deborah " or "Debby " in allusion to his wife by adoption. As late as 1816 the fort was in tolerable good condition. In early life Mc- Intyre was captured by the Indians who cut off veins of his ears. He resided with them many years, claimed to have acquired their knowledge of the medical properties of roots and herbs, and in the estimation of many people he was profoundly skilled in the healing arts. In 1804, a soldier of the Revolution, Peter Barnhart from Somerset county, Pa., settled upon the east side of the lake a short distance north of Chautauqua Point aud Jonathan
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Smith on the west side, on lot 29, near the Chautauqua Assembly Grounds. He is said to have been a man of rare eccentricities, and kept "bachelor's hall" until he died.
April 15, 1804, by an act of the legislature the town of Batavia was divided into four towns, viz : Batavia, Eric, Willink and Chautauqua. Chautauqua included all of the present county of Chautauqua except the tenth range of townships, and was identical with the second "tract described in the deed from Robert Morris and wife to Herman LeRoy and Robert Linklean dated December 24, 1792. The town of Erie lay next east of Chau- tauqua and included all of the territory lying east of it, and west of a line running north from the southwest corner of the present town of Carrollton in Cattaraugus county to the village of Olcott on Lake Ontario; this covered Hanover, all of Villenova, Cherry Creek, Ellington, Poland, Carroll and part of Kiantone. Willink included all the territory lying cast of the town of Erie to a line running north from Pennsylvania between Portville and Olean to Lake Ontario. Batavia included all of the territory included in the Hol- land Purchase lying east of Willink. Previous to this date the voters resid- ing within the present limits of the county of Chautauqua desiring to vote at a general election or at a town meeting were obliged to go to the place of holding elections in Batavia, a distance of 75 or 80 miles from the Cross Roads by forest paths. Whether any availed themselves of this privilege we are not informed. The act above mentioned provided that the first town meeting for the town of Chautauqua should be held at the house of the widow McHenry at the Cross Roads.
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CHAPTER XX.
1 805-1806.
" When the long keen night
Mantles the wilderness in solemn gloom, He sits beside his ruddy hearth, and hears The fierce wolf snarling at the cabin door, Or through the lowly casement sees his eye Gleam like a burning coal."
A PRIL 1805, at the time and place appointed, the people of the county exercised for the first time within its limits the highest privilege of an American citizen. At this town meeting John McMahan was chosen the first supervisor. He was born in Chilisqnaque, Pa., about 1764. . His youth was spent in a fort built to protect the inhabitants against the
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1
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depredations of the Indians. He was the brother of James McMahan, the pioneer of the county. His father, James, was born in Ireland, and came to this country with his parents when young. His mother's name was Murray. John McMahan came by Pittsburgh and Erie to Chautauqua creek and set- tled near its month. He had a taste for military affairs, and upon the organi- zation of the first military company in the county, he was made a captain, and became the colonel of the first regiment formed in the county, and com- manded it at the battle of Black Rock and Buffalo in the war of 1812. He rose to be general of militia. John McMahan purchased a large tract of land of the Holland land company in 1801. After a long struggle to fulfil the terms of his contract, his land was ungenerously wrested from him by the Holland land company, and he died in reduced circumstances at May- ville, September 22, 1831. He was a kind, hospitable and generous man. He had an iron constitution trained and inured to the hardships of life.
James Montgomery was elected the first clerk of the town of Chantauqua. . He was born September 22, 1783, in Mifflin county, Pa. He came to the Cross Roads in 1803 and settled two miles west of the village of Westfield. He boarded with his brother-in-law, Arthur Bell, until June 29, 1805, when he married Sarah Taylor. When the first church organized in the county was formed at the Cross Roads in 1868, Deacon Montgomery and his wife were members. He was one of its ruling elders, and, upon the reorganization . in 1817 was chosen to the same office, and regarded as one of its strongest pillars.
James McMahan, Benjamin Barrett, William Alexander were chosen to be assessors. Thomas MeClintock, James Durand, Arthur Bell for commission- ers of highways. John Lyons constable and collector. Zattu Cushing and Abraham Frederick overseers of the poor, James Perry fence viewer, David Kincaid pound-master, and Peter Kain, Orsamus Holmes and Samuel Harri- son, overseers of the highways. Benjamin Elliot, David McCracken and Asa Ransom, three justices of the peace, living east of Buffalo, afterwards appointed the officers chosen by the people in Chautauqua to the office to which they had been respectively elected, with the exception of Zattu Cosh- ing, in whose place Orsans Holmes was appointed as overseer of the poor. (It was thought prudent to do this in order to obviate some informality in the holding of the town-meeting.) Three justices of the peace were appointed for the town of Chantanqua by the council of appointment at Albany with whom that authority resided. The justices so appointed were Perry G. Ells- worth, David Kincaid and Peter Kane. Ellsworth was a New Englander who settled about one mile west of Quiney (now Ripley) in 1804 or 1805, where he kept a tavern. He afterwards lived east of and near Quincy. He died in Michigan. Kincaid emigrated from Pennsylvania, and settled near to and north of the Cross Roads in 1802. Peter Kane came from the Mohawk valley.
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Hc was a soldier of the Revolution and of the war of 1812. He settled in Portland in 1804, kept a tavern for two years, and died January 7, 1818.
The organization of the town being completed, the officers elected assumed their respective offices, and performed the duties during the first year promptly and efficiently. McMahan met that year with the board of super- visors of Genesee county at Batavia. One of the most important acts was that of the commissioners of highways in directing the survey of an important road through the whole town, which was done in August of that year by James McMahan. This road commenced at the east limits of the town in the county of Genesee, which point is the east line of Sheridan at or near the north east corner of Town 6, Range HI, and thence run in a southwesterly direction thirty three and one-eighth miles to the state line at the Pennsyl- vania boundary, passing through Canadaway and the Cross Roads. This was the first road surveyed and recorded in the town of Chautauqua.
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