History of Chautauqua County, New York, Part 24

Author: Edson, Obed, 1832-; Merrill, Georgia Drew, editor
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Boston, Mass. : W.A. Fergusson
Number of Pages: 1068

USA > New York > Chautauqua County > History of Chautauqua County, New York > Part 24

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201

1809-1810.

Jobn Russell of Mahoney, Pa., explored the county along the lower Cone- wango in 1800. He returned home with a good report of the county. The same year he and his family, accompanied by a considerable party of emi- grants, among them Hugh Frew and family, set out for the Conewango. Russell built a boat in which the goods were carried np the Sincmahoning. Russell and Frew had a yoke of cattle and some cows which were driven thironghi the woods. The journey was slow and tedious by water and land to the portage between the Sinemahoning and the Allegany. There the boats were taken apart and transported upon wagon wheels to a canoe place on the Allegany where they were put together again and caulked and pitched. They then descended the Allegany to the Conewango, which they ascended to a point a little above Russellburgh. They then journeyed to Beechwood, now Sugar Grove, Pa., close to the sonth boundary of Chautauqua, where they settled. They found John Marsh, Robert Miles, and Jolin and Stephen Ross had preceded them. At this time there was no building at Warren except the Holland company's storehouse in which a family resided. No white settler was living in Chautauqua county at that time. These settlers endured great hardships during the first years of their residence in Warren county.

John Frew, a native of Killyleale, Ireland, a son of Hugh Frew above named, and Robert Russell, both young men, having explored the land along the Conewango in Carroll and Kiantone in the spring of 1809, set out from their home in Warren county, each with a pack on his back, on foot over the Indian trail to Kennedy's mill, and over the highlands to the falls of the Cattaraugus. Thence they followed the Indian trail to the oak openings east of Buffalo ; from this place they journeyed to Batavia. They camped out nights, and subsisted on jerked meat, dry bread and young leeks. At Batavia they entered their lands. Robert Russell bought on Kiantone creek in Kiantone. Jolin Frew entered lands for himself and Thomas Russell at the mouth of Frew's Run in Carroll. Frew and Russell soon built a loghouse, and later completed a sawmill there. The village that grew up near the mill was called Frewsburg after Jolin Frew. This place became a leading point for the manufacture of lumber, and for many years great quantities were run from there down the river to Pittsburgh, and to points below. George W. Fenton, the father of Gov. Reuben E. Fenton, settled in Carroll the same year.

In 1809 the first settlement was made at Forestville by Capt. Jehial. Moore. He was born at Salisbury, Conn., in 1774. After a residence with his father at Butternuts and Salmon Creek in New York, he came to Chau- tauqua county. In 1803 he opened a woods-road from the Erie road to Wal- nut creek, where Forestville then known as the "Falls," is now situated. Below the falls, he built a sawmill which was ready to run late in December

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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.

of that year. The millwright, Weller, from Massachusetts, afterwards settled in Hanover and died there. Isaac Roe, James Crowl, Horatio Kelsey, James Ackley, John Tyler, Samuel Hopping and others assisted in building the mill. In 1809 Mr. Moore brought his family there. The sawmill enabled him to build his house and that of others who immediately settled in the vicinity. In ISog he commenced a gristmill which was completed in the spring of 1810. Moore commanded a company of Chautauqua county troops during the war of 1812, and distinguished himself by bravery at Queenstown.

ISIo was a memorable year in the settlement. Many circumstances trans- pired denoting a rapid advance from a pioneer condition. Many new log houses were built in the older parts. During the summer the woods that extended along the watershed and over the middle portion of the county were swarming with land hunters. Many went away without purchasing, others booked lands and never returned, yet many became actual settlers.

Gerry, one of the central towns, was settled this year. Amos Atkins . came to Chautauqua lake near William Bemus in ISO8. Being connected with a surveying party in 1809, he selected two lots in Gerry, one for himself and one for his brother-in-law, Stephen Jones. Jones, in 1810, settled on lot 47, upon what is now the farm of Benjamin L. Harrison, about a mile south of Sinclairville, where he built a log house, the first habitation erected in the town. The first birth occurred in his family. Atkins, afterwards, in the same year, built a log house upon his farm in the northeast part of lot 55, a few rods from Jones' log dwelling upon the farm owned by B. F. Dennison. Later in the year William and James Gilmore from Madison county took up land on lot 56, and built a log house on the farm now owned by Fordyce Sylvester near the Sinclairville railroad depot. Melzer Sylvester, brother-in- law of the Gilmores, came in ISHI, and settled between Sinclairville and the depot. John Love settled in the north part near Sinclairville in 1812. In the spring of 1812, William Alverson, who was born in Vermont, came on horseback from his home in Chenango county to Sinclairville. He selected land on lot 44, about one mile north of Gerry, formerly known as " Vermont Station." In 1815 he returned, purchased, and settled upon the same land. Porter Phelps, Hezekiah Myers, and Hezekiah Catlin, all Vermonters, came at the same time, and settled near him in the dense pine forest. Other Ver- monters followed. This constituted the first colony in the south part of the town, and for a half-a-century it was known as " Vermont settlement."

Villenova was also first settled in 1810. Daniel Whipple, a native of Deerfield, Mass., came that year to Chautauqua from Herkimer county, and settled upon lot 3 in the southeast part of the town. John Kent settled near Whipple the same year. Eli Arnold also settled in Villenova in 1810, at or near the village. John Arnold came about the same time. These settle- ments were all made on or near the south branch of the Conewango. Wil-

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1809-1810.

liam and Benjamin Barrass and Roderick Wells came to Villenova a little later."

Stockton, another Ridge town, was first settled in 1810. In the summer of 1809, Jonathan Alverson, of Vermont, entered lands on lot 6, in the north- east part of the town, and it is said, did some work upon it. No actual set- tlement was made, however, until 1810 when Shadrack Scofield, David Waterbury and Henry Walker, settled upon the old Chautauqua road in the southwest part. The same year John West, Bela Todd, and Joseph Green commenced clearings, and settled in the same part and east of the former settlers. Benjamin Miller from Oneida county was the pioneer of Bear Creek valley. He settled three-fourths of a mile north of Delanti. He came in 1811 with two ox teams and one or two hired men, and the day of his arrival built a shanty of poles and hemlock boughs which sheltered them for the night. Abel Brunson was the first settler at South Stockton, Othello Church at Cassadaga, and Jonathan Bugbee at Centralia.

Busti was also settled in ISIo by John L. Frank on lot 61, and Uriah Bentley in the north part of the town. Heman Bush, Michael Frank, Theron Plumb, Lawrence Frank and John Frank, were early settlers. John and Lawrence Frank, Eve and Mary Frank, while residing in Herkimer, N. Y., were captured in the " Old French War" by the French and Indians on the Mohawk, and taken as prisoners to Canada, where they were kept several years before they were ransomed. (One of the girls was so long a captive that she had forgotten hier mother tongue, and was taken from the Indians against her will.) Jolin Frank was again taken prisoner in the Revolution by the British and tories. At Oneida lake, the first night after his capture, he escaped, and by the aid of friendly Indians among the Oneidas, safely reached his home at German Flats.

Jamestown, although now the most populous and wealthy city in the county, was not settled until 1810. James Prendergast from whom it derives its name was the first person to occupy its site. The city is three miles square, and contains nine square miles of territory. It is situated on both sides of the outlet to Chautauqua lake. It is built upon drift-hills and in the valleys between them. The drift-hills are composed of masses of debris, piled up by glaciers, which once moved from the north in a southerly direc- tion pusliing beneath them the earthy matter, loosened and gathered mainly from the hills to the northward. As the glacier moved southward it filled up the channel of the old outlet to Chautauqua lake, extending on a line north of the cemetery and nearly- along the course of Moon's creek towards Falconer. As the glacier moved on south of this old channel, it bore with it the mass of sand, gravel and stones that compose the hills that form the .. site of the town, and gradually crowded the outlet southward until at the close of the ice period its course was where we find it now. The channel, bent somewhat in the form of a loop, indicates that it has been taken out of

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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.

its original course by the glacier. The outlet, running in this new channel through long epochs of time, has steadily worn a passage through the drift down to the natural rock beneath it, lowering the waters of the lake as it deepened, until now it occupies its comparatively narrow limits.

If James Prendergast, the founder of Jamestown, had been seeking a fine prospect for a residence or a pleasing situation for a city solely, he certainly would not have chosen this one. An irregular group of rough unsymmetrical hills, covered with somber and ragged pines, a dark and gloomy morass extending between it and the lake, where the voice of the frog, and the owl, and of the prowling wolf were nightly heard, were neither inviting to the eye nor pleasing to the ear. These apparent defects have become however circumstances of real utility. The irregularity of surface offers facilities for drainage, contributes to the health of the city, and renders the situation airy and cool in summer, without increasing its winter exposure. In process of time the improving hand of man will turn these heights and depressions into account, and secure artistic effects. The ragged ridges will become slightly prospects, the seeming deformities objects of beauty, and Jamestown will become a unique and picturesque town, far more beautiful and interesting than a city on a plain.

It is possible that LaSalle visited the site of Jamestown in 1681 or 1682. His ancient biographer describes him as going westward from Onondaga in the spring of one or the other of those years, and finding about 15 days after- wards " a little lake six or seven miles (lines) south of Lake Erie, the mouth of which opened to the southeastward." DeCeloron and his companions, we learn from this journal, on the 24th of July, 1749, entered the outlet from the lake; the water being low, in order to lighten his canoes, he was obliged to send the greater part of their loading three-fourths of a French league by land, so that the distance accomplished that day by water did not exceed half a French league. He encamped for the night undoubtedly within the north- western limits of the city. On the morning of the next day a council was held to decide what should be done in view of evident signs of Indians in the vicinity. Lieutenant Joncaire was sent with some friendly Indians bearing belts of wampum to conciliate the enemy, and DeCeloron resumed his diffi- cult voyage over the rapids of the ontlet.

Other evidence exist of the presence of civilized men in the region around Jamestown before the advent of the pioneers of the Holland Purchase. In 1822, William Bemus, in attempting to deepen the channel of the outlet, discovered a row of piles, averaging four inches in diameter, and from 21% to 312 feet in length, driven firmly in the earth across the bed of the stream. Axe marks were plainly visible on each of the four sides of these piles, the wood of which was sound ; the tops were worn smooth, and did not appear, when discovered, to reach above the bed of the stream.

205

1809-1810.

James Prendergast was the son of William Prendergast who settled on the west side of Chautauqua lake in the town of Chautauqua. Late in the summer of 1806, while exploring the forest in search of some horses that had strayed from his father's premises, he visited the site of Jamestown. He remained there one or two days examining the locality, encamping at night within its present limits. He was much pleased with the situation and the advantages offered by the rapid outlet for the feeding of mills, and he resolved to purchase the land and found a settlement. It was not until several years later that he was able to consummate his purpose. He caused however, 1,000 acres of land to be purchased, for which was paid $2,000 in cash. The purchase included land on each side of the outlet ; the steamboat landing at Jamestown being near the center of the tract.

In the fall of 1810 he caused John Blowers, who was in his employ, to build a log house to be occupied by Blowers and his family. The house was completed, and Blowers moved into it before Christmas of that year. This was the first building erected in Jamestown, and Blowers became its first inhabitant late in 1810.

In the spring of 1811 a large 172 story log house was erected upon the border of the outlet within the city limits, for Mr. Prendergast and his family. That year a dam was built by Prendergast across the outlet, a gristmill was commenced, and a sawmill completed, but it did not commence operations until about the first of February, 1812.

At the court of sessions held in June, 1812, an indictment was found against Mr. Prendergast for overflowing lands adjacent to Chautauqua lake by the erection of his dam ; the indictment was pressed to trial, and he was fined $15, notwithstanding he had removed his dam. Besides being obliged to remove his dam and pay damages occasioned by the overflowing of lands and the expense occasioned by the rebuilding of the dam and mills, he lost his house and the most of its valuable contents by fire. The next year he erected another house into which he and Captain Forbes moved their families in December, 1812. These families, and that of Blowers were the only resi- dents, and the house last mentioned, and that built by Blowers in 1810, were the only houses at the close of the year 1812 in Jamestown.

In 1813 Blowers opened the first tavern in Jamestown, which he kept in his loghouse. Mr. Prendergast purchased about 550 acres more of land in Jamestown, and completed a sawmill, consisting of two single saws and a gang of sixteen saws. The first bridge over the outlet was commenced in 1813, and completed in 1814. During the last war with England but little improvement was made at "The Rapids," as it was then called, but in 1814 several families besides those above mentioned were residing in Jamestown, and a considerable number of new buildings were erected. The gristmill was finished this year. Mr. Prendergast, however, was the owner of all the

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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.

real estate at the Rapids, which the assessors valued at $2,976. His tax for that year was $38.98.

In 1815 Judge Prendergast erected an academic building of two stories on the west side of Main street near Fifth. That year a large tavern was also erected in Jamestown, at the southeast corner of Main and Third streets, which was afterwards owned and kept for many years by Elisha Allen, the father of Colonel A. F. Allen ; other buiklings were erected that year, and some new residents came in, among them Dr. Laban Hazeltine and Dr. Elial T. Foote, both of whom were afterwards prominent physicians and distinguished . citizens of Jamestown, and also Abner Hazeltine, who became an eminent lawyer and much-respected citizen of the county. The Chautauqua Manu- facturing Company was incorporated this year, with Judge Prendergast as its agent and executive officer. The village now began to be called James- town in honor of its founder, Judge James Prendergast, although the titles of " Ellicott's " and " The Rapids " were sometimes used.

With the close of 1810 the last of the three most important centers of the county were settled-Westfield, Fredonia and Jamestown. Dunkirk took rank as an important place of the county many years later. The population, wealth and influence that the three first-named towns have held until the present time vindicate the foresight and good judgment of their founders. The progress of Jamestown is not due wholly to the enterprise of its citizens. Its growth has been a natural one, the logical result of the advantages of its situation. Judge James Prendergast, Col. James McMahan and Judge Zattu Cushing, three leading pioneers of these different and distinct parts of the county, besides having broader and more comprehensive views as to the direc- tion in which the development of the county would tend, were possessed also of more means than most of the early settlers, and could therefore proceed with more deliberation and care in choosing the spot at which to stake their fortunes. Col. McMahan was a surveyor quite familiar with this western wilderness. He had traversed the county from its southern limits to Lake Erie as early as 1795 with a view to a location, and finally chose the beauti- ful farming lands adjacent to Westfield as presenting the most favorable pros- pect. Undoubtedly visions of commerce upon the great lake not far from the scene of his venture influenced him in his choice. Judge Cushing also passed through the county in 1798 or 1799 on his way to Presque Isle to superintend the building of the ship " Good Intent," and again on his return cast. He selected his home on the Canadaway, in the fine lands around Fre- donia, as offering the greatest promise to one who would choose a home on the frontier. He was no doubt influenced in his choice by similar considera- tions to those that governed Col. McMahan. Judge Prendergast, who as early as 1794 or 1795 traveled extensively in the southwest, having visited the Spanish country of northern Louisiana, and again in 1805 journeyed

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1809-1810.

through Pennsylvania to Tennessee, with a view to settlement in that state, had at last explored the region around Chautauqua lake and along the Con- ewango, saw in the magnificent forests of southern Chantanqna a source of wealth. He saw also a prospect of its immediate realization in the Allegany and its tributaries, which offered the facilities for the transportation of the lumber manufactured at their sources to the great market, which he per- ceived was destined to grow up in the valley of the Mississippi.

He undoubtedly was also influenced in his choice of a location by the facilities for manufacturing offered by the excellent water power at the foot of the lake, which seemed then even better than now. For the forests, which then covered all the region that supplied the lake with water, shielded the surface from evaporation, rendering the discharge more copious and constant than in late years. The result of his venture justified his choice. Lumber- ing was in early years the leading industry of Jamestown, as it was of all the sontheastern part of the county. Although the prices obtained were exceed- ingly small for the excellent quality of pine which was rafted from this region down the rivers, for much of it brought " not more than it cost to cut the logs, manufacture the Inmber, and run it to market," yet it brought all the cash that came to the settlers. The only resource of most of the pioneers in other parts of the county for many years was from the sale of blacksalts, made from ashes gathered in the fallow where the timber was burned. It was the only product in many of the towns that could be sold for cash, or even exchanged for goods and groceries. Lumbering then, as grape culture now, was what brought money to the county. It early called attention to Jamestown, and established the foundations for its prosperity. As the devel- opment of its other manufacturing industries which have been the chief cause of the later growth and present importance of Jamestown, came after the pine forests had been swept away, its history does not belong to the pioneer period, but to that of later years. No attempt therefore will be made in the limited space allotted to this general sketch to trace the progress of these industries from the time the first tannery was started, and the little wool carding machine erected in 1815, down to the extensive alpaca mills of the present time.

The effect of the extensive manufacturing interests to promote the growth of Jamestown may be briefly shown by a few comprehensive statistics. March 6, 1827, Jamestown was incorporated as a village, being, the first village incorporated in the county. The steamer Chautauqua was built at James- town, and was the first steamboat launched upon the lake. She made her trial trip July 4, 1828. This was the beginning of a substantial navigation of the lake.

The population of Jamestown by the census of 1840 was 1212 ; 30 years later, 1870, it has increased to 5,337, in 1880 it was 9,357, and in 1890, 16,038,

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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.

maintaining about the same rate of increase during the last ten years as in the previous decade. It was incorporated as a city in 1886. It has now electric street cars, and lights ; gas and water-works, and all things belong- ing to a modern city.

When only the first rude log house had been erected by Blowers at James- town in ISIo, there had been built at the Cross Roads or Westfield, two tav- erns, two stores, one at the house of James McMahan, two shoe shops, two cooper shops, one blacksmith shop and one ashery and many dwellings. A new bridge had been constructed over the Chautanqua creek, 20 feet high ; a sawmill was in operation near it, and another was being built.

The first enumeration of inhabitants of the county was made in 1810, under the authority of the United States. The population was found to be 2,381, including 303 electors qualified by law to vote for senator. 1,039 of the inhabitants including 90 electors were residents of the town of Chautau- qua and 1,342 inhabitants, including 213 senatorial electors resided in the town of Pomfret. By this census it will be seen that the town of Pomfret . (as then constituted substantially indentical with the eastern assembly dis- trict of the county as it has long existed,) contained a greater number of inhabitants than Chautauqua which was identical with the western district. This superiority of population has since been maintained by the eastern assembly district, notwithstanding its territorial limits are much less than the western. It seems that there was relatively a much greater number of freeholders possesed of an estate of $250 or over in Pomfret than in Chautan- qua, as indicated by the number of senatorial electors in each of those towns. By the same census, the adjacent county of Niagara, which included the present counties of Erie and Niagara, contained a population of 6, 132 and Cattaraugus but 45%, compared with these countries and other parts of the Holland Purchase, the settlement of Chautauqua, although it then contained a population much less than that of the present town of Chautauqua, had been as rapid as any.

Its population had so increased that it was found at the meeting of the board of supervisors of Niagara county held in the fall of 1810 by an exam- ination of the assessment rolls of Chautauqua that it contained 500 taxable inhabitants qualified to vote for member of assembly, and thereby became entitled to be fully organized as a county under the provisions of the statute heretofore mentioned. Philo Orton and Matthew Prendergast, supervisors of Pomfret and Chantanqua represented those towns at this meeting of the board of supervisors which was the last in which the supervisors from this county participated. Anticipating the complete organization of the county with authority to register deeds, which had up to this time been recorded in the clerk's office at Batavia, and also to make searches, the Holland Land Company during the summer of 1810, caused a land office to be built in

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ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY.

Mayville. It was opened on December 3, 1810, in charge of Mr. Peacock, the company's agent. On December 8, 1810, Peacock wrote to Joseph Elli- cott that " the day on which the office was for the first time opened to tran- salt business, that the people thronged there for about three days succes- sively, as if there was something wonderful to be seen and heard."

Mr. Peacock was born Feb. 22, 1780. He was early engaged as a sur- veyor for Joseph Ellicott, agent of the Holland Land Company. He surveyed a tract of 40,000 acres on the Genesee river, the site of the present city of Buffalo, also of Mayville, Ellicottville and other places. He was agent for the Holland Land Company at Mayville from 1810 to 1836. He married Alice Evans, a niece of Joseph Ellicott. He was an early associate judge of Chautauqua county.

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History of Chautauqua County, New York, Part 24

Author: Edson, Obed, 1832-; Merrill, Georgia Drew, editor Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Boston, Mass. : W.A. Fergusson Number of Pages: 1068

Author: Edson, Obed, 1832-; Merrill, Georgia Drew, editor
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Boston, Mass. : W.A. Fergusson
Number of Pages: 1068