History of Chautauqua County, New York, Part 54

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

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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.

from which a weary and discouraged family went to the western prairies. Even now, to the children who have become gray-headed men and women, the voices of kindred, and the forms which sat around the old fire-sides, and the solemn grandeur of the old woods come back to memory and warms hearts like the hope of heaven.

The pioneers had their peculiar enjoyments; health rewarded their toil. Nature spread her unwasted charms around them. The latch string of every door hung outside. Mutual dependence formed the strongest ties of friend- ship ever known among men. If a pioneer was sick, his neighbors watched over him and made " bees " to do his work. If one died, he was missed and mourned. What a contrast the pomp and parade of many funerals now pre- sents to these in the wilderness, when the dead was borne tenderly by a few neighbors through forest paths, and laid to rest beneath the great trees.

"Y'et well might they lay beneath the soil Of this lonely spot, that man of toil, And trench the strong hard mould with the spade, Where never before a grave was made. For he hewed the dark old woods away, And gave the virgin forests to the day ; And the gourd and the bean beside his door, Bloomed where that flower ne'er opened before. And the maize stood up, and the bearded rye Bent low in the breath of an unknown sky."

As men congregate in great masses and become independent of each other, the warmth and glow of social feelings and sympathies die out. One man is of but little consequence in the busy throng. Forms are substituted for feel- ings. Money represents everything. It even purchases pompous funerals, and above the veriest scoundrel, at so much a line, writes inscriptions upon marble, which contrast strangely with the record kept by the recording angel. Take an occasion now when the devotees of fashion are whirled with flash- ing equipages through paved streets to marble palaces, which wealth has erected, where laces and silks rustle and diamonds flash from jeweled hands and fair brows, and all climes contribute their luxuries to the feast, and will you find as much rational enjoyment as you could have found here in many a log cabin 50 years ago, where the neighbors had assembled for an evening visit, those near coming on foot, and those more remote upon their sleds ; where the blazing fire in the great fireplace threw its radiance over the room ; where the floor was split by the axe from ash logs; where chairs were only blocks of wood ; where it mattered not how the guests came or how they were dressed ; where the haunch of venison, or the wild turkey, or spare rib, suspended by a string from the rafters, roasted before the blazing fire, and apples, and cider and doughnuts passed around ; where the guests, from their solitary life, had a keen relish for social enjoyments and conversation, and

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talked of the friends and scenes they had left behind, and revealed in all sin- cerity their joys and sorrows ? Now dress meets dress ; then soul met soul.

Such communities as this have not appeared like an exhalation. The germ is in the spirit of Christianity, asserting the divinity, the brotherhood, the equality, the immortality, the infinite worth of man. Consider the revo- Intions, the social convulsions, the scaffolds, the battle-fields of the ages, and the slow development of truth from generation to generation, before such men as the Puritans could be produced ; then the conditions that drove them from their country and left them away from all restraints to make a new departure in human progress. History exhibits a few great names, but the great work of humanity is done by the undistinguished and forgotten dead. A million perish in carrying some banner to victory, and above their mouldering bones and unmarked graves, history inscribes a few inmortal names. They represent the wisdom of the wise, the toil and suffering of all the good, and the blood of all the martyrs. Each pioneer, as he came into the wilderness, was the most perfect embodiment that 6,000 years of progress could furnish of all the elements to lay rightly the foundations of new com- munities. Providence had permitted this continent to remain unchanged until in the fulness of time man should be developed sufficiently to fill and occupy it. We must never forget that the aggregate of human achievements is the work of the average toiling man.

" He wages all battles, and wins them, He builds all towers that soar ;

From the heart and heat of the city, His hand sets the ship from the shore.

Without him, the general is helpless, The earth but a place for a plan ; He moves all, and builds all, and feeds all, This sad, smiling, average man."

The history of Pomfret, and the same can be said of all Western New York, is substantially within the present century. The survey of the Hol- land Purchase was commenced in 1798. The first crop of wheat was raised at Clarence Hollow in 1800. The whole number of taxable inhabitants upon the Holland Purchase was then 12. The first white child was born in 1801, and that year the first offering of land for sale was made. In 1804, the first deed was given by the Holland Land Company. The first settler in the present limits of Pomfret was Thomas Mcclintock in 1803, who sold to Judge Cushing in 1807. David Eason settled upon the western side of the Canadaway in 1804. Judge Cushing removed to Fredonia, with his wife and five children, from Oneida county in 1805. Aside from Mcclintock and Eason, the nearest neighbor he had west was John Dunn, and east was a Mr. Stedman 8 miles away. Judge Cushing moved into a partly-furnished log house built by Low Minegar. There it could be seen

" How rich and restful even, poverty and toil, When beauty, harmony, and love Sit at that humble hearth, as angels sat, At evening in the patriarch's tent !"

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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.

Seth Cole accompanied Judge Cushing, and settled near the mouth of the Canadaway. Later in 1805, Benjamin Barnes, Samuel Gear, Benjamin Bar- rett and Orsamus, Holmes settled near enough to the others to be called neighbors. Hezekiah Barker came to Fredonia in the fall of 1806, and its ample and beautiful common was his gift to the village. Dr. White came in ISOS. He was the first educated physician in the county. He taught the first school in 1808 in a log house on the edge of the present town of Sheri- dan, reserving the right of dismissing the school if he had a call to visit the sick. Elijah Risley came with his parents in 1806, and in 1808 opened at Fredonia the first store in the county. Timothy Goulding settled one mile west of Dunkirk harbor in 1808, and Solomon Chadwick settled upon the site of Dunkirk in 1809. From him Dunkirk derived the name of Chad- wick's Bay, and for many years, in the rivalry between the two places, Fre- donians spoke of the "lonely fishermen of Chadwick's Bay," and they, in turn, talked of " picking blackberries on the common at Pomfret Four Cor- ners."

In 1810 the first vessel was brought into Dunkirk by Samuel Perry. The accessions now become so rapid that I can speak only of the features of social life. In 1807 a Baptist Missionary Society in Connecticut commis- sioned Rev. Joy Handy to preach the gospel to the heathen upon the Hol- land Purchase, and, about the same time, Rev. John Spencer, a Congre- gational preacher, was sent here upon a similar mission. In every log cabin they were welcome guests. They united in marriage, they found their way through forest paths to the bedsides of the sick and dying, and performed the last sacred rites for the dead. They preached sometimes in log cabins, but more frequently beneath the trees. As late as 1820 Judge Cushing's " 40x50 foot barn " was the most commodious place for a religious assembly in all northern Chautauqua. If these reverend fathers could return they would see the changes that have occurred ; the churches strong in wealth and membership, and worshiping in gorgeous temples ; but whether they would find more of the Christian graces than dwelt in the hearts of the fathers and mothers who knelt beside them in log cabins and at rude altars is not for me to judge.

The first white child born in Pomfret was Catharine Putnam Cushing, afterwards Mrs. Philo Hull Stevens. The first death was that of a little girl killed in 1807 by the falling of a tree. Hers was the first burial'in the old burying-ground. There left to sleep alone, it might have been said,

"The youth in life's green spring ; and he, who goes In the full strength of years, matron and maid,

The bowed with age, the infant, in the smiles And beauty of its innocent age cut off,

Shall, one by one, be gathered to their side, By those, who, in their turn, shall follow them."

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The rude structures for the education of the children were reared as soon as the homes. The first schools were entirely sustained by voluntary con- tributions. Children found their way to them for long distances by marked trees. Webster's spelling book, Daboll's arithmetic, Murray's grammar and some simple lessons in geography made the full course of study. The schools did but little in the education of the children of the first pioneers.

The spirit of independence and liberty brooded over the new world, and entered into the development of every life The close contact with nature strengthened and hallowed every soul. The necessity of self-support gave serionsness and direction to life. The sacrifices of the Revolution were fresh in the memory ; some of its actors were in every neighborhood object-lessons in patriotism. Books were not plenty, but every volume that came into a neighborhood went from cabin to cabin. What literature there was was of the best. Of course the Bible was in every house. The writings of Addi- son, Blair, Goldsmith, Cowper, Milton, Pope and Sir Walter Scott were most common. The history of the grand campaigns of Napoleon found their way here. The great debates of England, in which Burke, Pitt and Fox took part, reached here, as well as the debates in our own National Congress full of the inspiration of liberty. Men and women grew up under these hardy conditions who have reclaimed a continent, and can never be equalled by those born to luxury and pampered case. The mass of stuff now called liter- ature will never make men or women fit to live or die. Toil and sorrow and moral purity are the price of good and strength in every life.

The most important event in the history of Pomfret was the founding of the Fredonia Academy in 1823. It was a plain, mupretending structure in the light of the architecture of today, but ample for its purposes and impos- ing, when nine-tenths of the people lived in rude log cabins. " The original subscription is still preserved. Mortgages to the land company with unpaid interests hung like a funeral pall over the whole of western New York. Many mechanics did not receive for work five dollars in cash during the entire year. The subscription was drawn in such a form that every man might aid as he could, in labor, from his mill, his field, or his workshop. The whole cash subscription was $75, barely sufficient to procure glass and nails. To this General Barker contributed $25, Dr. White Sio, and others smaller sums. General Barker and Colonel Abell each contributed in some form $100, and Dr. White the next in amount $60. Every form of material for building is upon the subscription, besides cattle, rye, corn, chairs, cabinet work, shoes, and hay. Solomon Hinckley gaye $30 in pork, 10 bushels of corn, and 10 of rye, and 300 pounds of beef. There were stalwart arms to labor, means, material, but the wheels did not move. Lyman Ross sub- scribed 20 gallons of whiskey. Now, to the music of merry voices, the trees of the forest fell, and the pillars of the temple were reared. The second story

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was reserved perpetually for the Presbyterian church for a place of worship. When this academy was established, it was the " lone star " of the west, 110 other such light glittered in the wide expanse between it and the Pacific, which is now dotted with temples for learning, as the stars dot the sky.

The academy soon exerted an influence beyond the hopes of its founders, who had only looked to the education of their sons and daughters. It not only drew scholars from all of western New York, but, in 1839, the Canadas and the 13 states and territories, and the red men west of the Mississippi mingled in its halls. During its existence it had students from every state except South Carolina. It sent forth 11,000 students to every field of effort, to every form of human experience, strengthened and purified to act their part in the world's history. Now, in the bosom of the deep, in foreign lands, on the green islands of the seas, on the prairies of the west, on the golden shores of the Pacific, beneath a southern sun in soldiers' graves where cities of the dead have been made in a day, they sleep, and awake the resurrection. It was a school where earnest work was done. The tuition was four dollars per term, and there were three terms a year. Board with lights and fuel was $1.25 a week. One aristocratic place charged 12 shillings. A few paid it, and occupied about the same position that McAllister's " 400" do in New York. It was the ambition of every child in all the surrounding towns to attend the academy. From it most of the district schools received their teachers. The business of teaching as late as 1840 was not lucrative. The men received on an average about 12 dollars a month, and for this they were made to take one-half their pay in orders upon the store. Women received about $1.25 per week.

In March 1867 the academy was closed forever. Its alumni at that time had a reunion, which I was privileged to address. I can give no better idea of the academy than by extraets from what I said upon that occasion.

I see gray headed men, members of its earliest classes, who come here with full exper- perience of human life to contrast with their school boy dreams. In the graduates of to-day are the younger children of the family, their faces radiant with the light of hope, but before whom lies the hard struggle of life, and the mixed cup of joy and sorrow which fate proffers to us all. The Academy, which has had more or less to do with all our destinies, to-night ends its active mission forever. We may have other reunions, but no new accessions of joyous youth will ever swell our ranks. Henceforth we move on to fall one by one by the wayside until the last are gone. I want to say to Mr. Gillis, the only living representative present of the founders of the Academy, " Do you not to-night feel proud of your work ? Has not God blessed it beyond your hopes? Has not the little rivulet that you and your neighbors opened in the wilderness to bless your children become a mighty river to flow on forever? "

You have lived in a wonderful period. You have seen such changes as centuries have not witnessed themselves. Your youth was spent in the wilderness. West of you was a sort of dreamland, but the tide of life from many lands has commingled and swept past you, until it has become the home of many millions of men, and still the unwasted wealth of its fields and the gold of its mountains say " Come." I say to the young here, sow good seed for humanity, as did Deacon Gillis and his compeers, and God will give it bloom and beauty, and increase and crown your gray hairs with glory. We are only enjoying the accumulated treasures of the

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past, and such scenes as these, in which several generations clasp hands in holy sympa - remind us of our obligations to the past, our responsibilities to the future, and keep alive the holiest emotions of the heart. It makes a difference whether our hills and valleys are to be trod by men who see in them no beauty, and who value them only for the flocks and herds they can sustain, whether our temples, as they grow venerable from age to age, are to be regarded as only so much brick and mortar having no sacredness, because in them men and women have wor- shipped who have been summoned to a higher commmion, whether our burial places are to be regarded only as so much waste ground, instead of hallowed places where saints are sleeping. The Fredonia Academy will live in the grateful remembrance of its children ; it will live in the ever-widening influence it has sent into the social currents of the republic, and in the direct lessons it has impressed upon 10,000 souls. In the Normal School, which succeeds it, it begins a new and a more complete life. It goes into a nobler temple, graced with a higher beauty, to be sustained through the ages by the strong arm of the Empire State. When this new struc- ture is completed and dedicated to learning, let us in its ample hall have another reunion, and rejoice with a joy kindred to that which saints shall feel at the resurrection.

I well remember the first day I entered the academy when a boy, and the awful reverence I felt for the teachers, who had not only seen, but had actually been all the way through a college. I have seen many such men since, but I do not think my reverence for them has increased.

I give the names of a few of the alumni of the Academy : Reuben E. Fenton, governor and U. S. Senator, whose place is in general history. Gen- eral Schofield, the commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States. General Stoneman, a major general and governor of California. Win. B. Cushing, who, at the age of 20, had won a place among the naval heroes of the world. Capt. Alonzo H. Cushing, of the regular army, killed beside his battery at Gettysburg, of whom the old war-scarred veteran, General Sum- ner said, " He was the bravest man I ever knew." Erastus D. Holt, who enlisted in the regiment of General Butler, the first to go the war, and who fought his way from the ranks to the position of colonel and the command of a brigade. Many times wounded in battle, he was killed in the final fighting around Richmond. He toiled and suffered through the long night of war, but was not permitted to behold the cloudless glory of the morning. Watson, first a student, then a teacher, was the first of the 112th regiment to fall in battle. Grace Greenwood, whose first literary productions were published in the Censor, represents the "Old Academy" in the general literature of the world. Douglas Houghton, who first revealed the mineral treasures of the Lake Superior region, was drowned at an carly age while state geologist of Michigan. A monument at Michigan University hands his name down as the founder of that great school. Samuel Nellis, the able president of Queen's College, Canada. Silas H. Douglas, a learned professor in Michigan University. Nelson Walker, attorney general of Michigan, and one of the ablest judges of her highest court. Madison Burnell, upon whom the mantle of James Mullet seemed to fall. I have seen men who studied the graces of oratory more, but no man with broader sense, or who appealed more earnestly and successfully to the reasons and sympathies and passions of men. His

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words fell like blows and burned like fire. Silas Seymour, who marked the way for the Erie railroad, was for a long time state engineer and consulting engineer for the great Pacific railroad across the continent. Augustus F. Allen of Jamestown, one of the foremost men of Chautauqua, who died after being elected to Congress before he could take his seat. William H. Hen- derson of Randolph, who has honorably filled the position of justice of the supreme court, and is one of the ablest lawyers at the bar. Benjamin F. Green, one of the justices of the supreme court, summoned before he had reached the fullest development of his powers, from the bench to the grave. Oliver M. and John M. Barbour, as lawyers, authors and judges prominent in the judicial history of the state. Franklin Cushing, the youngest son of Judge Cushing, gifted with wonderful memory, in which was embalmed the choicest gems of the literature of many nations. Hanson A. Risley, for a time solicitor of the U. S. treasury, was born in Pomfret. It has always been a wonder to me how a gentleman so accomplished, whom courtiers might envy, could be the product of the social conditions which existed in the wil- derness, and where the graces came from that clustered round his pen and speech. By profession he was a lawyer, but there was so much sunshine in his nature that litigation could not live in it. Porter Sheldon, lawyer, mem- ber of congress and successful business man. Obed Edson, distinguished in law, literature and science. Samuel B. Jones, among the oldest and ablest of railroad managers. Charles Mark, the able professor of natural science at Harvard. Richard T. Ely, distinguished as a lecturer and author. James M. Cassity, the head of the Buffalo state normal school. I might mention Charles H. Lee, Edward Stevens, Franklin D. Locke, Stephen M. Newton, Henry C. Lake, Julien T. Williams, James A. Allen, Franklin Burritt, Ezra S. Ely, Charles L. Webster, Louis Mckinstry, Frank M. Thorn and William H. Abel among her alumni, all men not unknown to fame. Darwin L. Barker, the founder of the library which bears his name should not be omitted.

The legislation of 1866 was to establish a series of normal schools. The claims of many cities and villages were to be passed upon by the board of state officers. Fredonia was much indebted for success in the competition to Governor Fenton and Hon. Victor M. Rice, state superintendent of schools, both natives of the county. The normal school was opened as soon as the academy closed. Its corner stone was laid August 7th, 1867. The writer delivered an address on that occasion from which he takes the liberty of pre- senting some extracts as showing the purpose of the school :

We have assembled to lay the corner-stone of the Fredonia Normal School. To lay the cor- ner-stone of public edifices with appropriate ceremonies, to deposit beneath them something carefully guarded from decay, by which even from their ruins we may speak to the future, is a custom as old and as extended as civilization. If laying the foundations of any edifice is an occa-

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sion for a common joy and for gratitude to Almighty God, it should be of one to be consecrated to the education and elevation of the children of successive generations. Let it rise in strength. Let grace and beauty crown it, and let it endure to bless humanity until the everlasting hills that stand as sentinels around it shall grow weary of their watch. I am glad that this occasion has been honored by the presence of this vast concourse. We behold here venerable men-the pioneers in this western wilderness,-rejoicing that they have been spared to see and to aid in this splendid contribution to posterity. Manhood is here in its pride of strength. Woman is here to aid this work by a holy sympathy. Childhood is here with its wealth of beauty and promise to behold the foundations of the temple, whose gates to it are to be forever open, and whose walls are to be everlasting light. Here, too, are brave men who have shed their blood upon the battle-field for national unity, and who know that it is not by blood alone, but by intelligence and morality that the Republic is to live. Here all the sister villages and towns of Chautauqua have their representatives to attest their interest in the cause of popular education. Here, gathered from all of Western New York and from other states, are the members of the Masonic fraternity, who have laid the corner-stone with the impressive ceremonies which have in various languages and in all lands been used for centuries in laying the corner-stone of so many temples dedicated to art, science, and humanity. When we review the history of the academy, we can realize something of the magnitude of this enterprise, and of what we may justly hope for it commenced under circumstances more auspicious, upon a plan more compre- hensive, at a time when intelligence acts upon a broader circle, and with the Empire State pledged to its perpetual support. We are establishing a school of a class absolutely needed to perfect our educational system. Its primary object is the thorough preparation, both in theory and in practice, of professional teachers for our common schools. It has always been under- stood that the worker in wood or stone or marble must be prepared for his task by the special practice and discipline of years, and it begins to be realized that the man who does his work upon the souls of children should have some preparation, some knowledge of the divine element upon which he acts. The soul is more complex than the universe. From its depths spring all acts, all history. Immortal joy or immortal sorrow is its destiny, and, more sensitive than the musical instrument, it yields discord or harmony as it is touched. Woe to the man or woman that tampers with it by ignorantly and carelessly assuming the divine task of shaping it for time and eternity ; but

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History of Chautauqua County, New York, Part 54

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