USA > New York > Livingston County > History of Livingston County, New York, from its earliest traditions to the present together with early town sketches > Part 26
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In 1798 there was quite an addition to the population of Old Sparta from Pennsylvania, in the persons of James Rosebrugh, William Mc- Nair and his three sons James, Andrew and Robert, three other sons by
1. Williamson's Letters.
258
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
a former wife, John, Hugh and William R., the latter unmarried, and James and Samuel Culbertson and John Niblack. The next year came Jesse Collar and two sons, young men, who settled at Collartown, now Scottsburg. Philip Gilman and a large family of boys also arrived soon after and located near James Henderson's, within one mile of Collar- town and near the head of Conesus lake. The same year Charles Car- roll of Bellevue and his brother Daniel visited the Genesce country, crossing the mountains on horseback, a servant accompanying them with a led pack mule with provisions. They spent several weeks in "reconnoitering the country, but my uncle thought the prospect too dis- couraging," says Judge Carroll, "and they returned without purchas- ing."
A weekly line of stages was established the same year between old Fort Schuyler and Geneva by John House and Thomas Powell. 1
At the election of Governor in May, 1798, Pittstown, 2 Geneseo and other towns, constituting the present county, gave 562 votes for Jay and 79 for Livingston.
At this time the town of Sparta embraced the territory of the present towns of Sparta, West Sparta, Groveland, Conesus and Springwater, and though the population was sparse, there were no less than eight grain distilleries in the town. & The means of transportation would not admit of sending grain to market in its natural condition, and as a barrel of whiskey occupied far less space this mode was resorted to. Rye was principally used for stilling, which was generally done in the winter season when the still slops were fed to stock. It is not to be presumed that with such facilities for imbibing there could be much check upon appetites, and many are the incidents relating to the results of insobriety among the early settlers. A pioneer who lived near the river would now and then take a drop too much, to the great annoyance of his high-spirited wife. She had tried several expedients to break him of the habit but without
I. The geography of the new country was as yet imperfectly understood. The Albany Ga- zette, the best informed of the eastern papers, in referring to an advertisement in its columns, says that "4000 acres of land is offered for sale in township 7, range 6 (in Steuben county) adjoin- ing the settlement of Daniel Faulkner at Dansville, near Williamsburgh."
2. Richmond, Ontario County, from which Livonia was formed in isos, was then known as Pitistown.
3. These distilleries were conducted by Wm. Lemen, Win. Magee, Alexander McDonald, Hector MeKay, Nicholas Beach, John Hyland, James Rodman, and James Scott.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
effect. So one night as he was returning late and much the worse for new whiskey, she stepped suddenly before him in the road wrapped in a white sheet. This brought him to a full halt. "Who are ye, any way?" said he. The spectre gave no answer. "Who are ye?" Still there was no answer. . "If you're a good spirit you'll do me no harm, so no fear on that score. If you're the devil, as I suspect, I've married into your family and as you're too much of a gentleman to injure a relative, I fear no danger from that quarter, so I pass." The ghost retired discomfited, and the bibulous wayfarer trudged home.
The first school house built in Old Sparta was a log hut of small size erected at Ilermitage in the fall of 1798, and opened the following May with a man named Blanchard as teacher, and a dozen or fifteen scholars gathered from a long distance, Samuel Magee, then a lad, coming two and a half miles through a dense wilderness "As there were others who had quite as far to come," said he, "I did not complain. Ditworth's spelling book was then in use. In the winter the school was well attended. I have known many a young man and woman in the winter schools twenty-five years old and up- wards and very poor scholars at that."
The residents of Hermitage did their trading at Geneseo, where the current price of a barrel of salt, all of which was brought by teams from the Onondaga salt works, was five dollars. Tea was so great a rarity that the wife of Judge Rosebrugh, on receiving a small quanti- ty as a present a few months after coming to Sparta, invited several of the settlers to her house to enjoy it with her family. The men left their plows and in their shirt sleeves, their coats on their arms, started on foot while their wives mounted horses and threaded their way over Indian trails to the hospitable roof. The story runs that the guests came near having the opportunity of testing the quality of the novel plant as an article of food rather than of drink. Its prepara- tion having been left to a domestic better skilled in "greens" than in bohea, as "store tea" was then called, Mrs. Rosebrugh by accident overheard one of the children of the household asking the servant "why she put so much bohea into the kettle," and on looking found a good part of her treat ready for stewing.
In the latter part of the summer of 1798, the Senecas got the im- pression that the government was not going to pay them the interest on the hundred thousand dollars received from Robert Morris.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
Their chiefs earnestly besought the Indian agent and other leading whites to see to it that their people were not disappointed in obtaining their money. "We expect," said they, "that an annuity of $6,000 will be ready for us at the falling of the leaves." General Chapin wrote the Secretary of War. "I hope, sir, this business may be attend- ed to, and that the money may be sent in dollars, as no other money can be divided among them to their satisfaction. To have it sent in silver dollars may occasion more expense, yet such at the time the agreement was concluded was the understanding of all parties."
The French Revolution caused much alarm among the neighboring governments of Europe, and to none more than to England. In 1797 there was great fear of an invasion, and the British Parliament in that year laid upon every estate the obligation of raising a certain number of fencibles. The Scottish Earl of Broadalbin, in carrying out this requisition, directed that every person on his broad earldom who had two sons must place one of them in the fencibles or leave his estates. The measure was unpopular in Scotland, and availing themselves of the alternative, a number of young men sailed from Greenock in March 1798, and after a passage of six weeks landed at New York. Captain Williamson was apprised of the arrival of so desirable a party of colon- ists of his countrymen, and lost no time in inviting them to locate on his lands. They decided, however, to bave a committee of their number examine the lands; a favorable report was made, and in March 1799 a party of twenty-three of them, one-third of whom were females, set out on foot from Johnstown, Montgomery county, for the present town of Caledonia. After a journey of ten days they reached their destination. The land was laid off into small farms which were assigned by casting lots. 1 The whole party set to work to build a log house for each family, and beyond a trifling expenditure for nails for the doors and for fastening the clapboards upon the ga-
1. In Williamson's Letters he says, "The plan of this settlement occupies about 10,000 acres, distributed in the following manner:
For the Ministry. " Schools about
100 acres.
60
T'en gentlemen, 500 acres each
.5,000
Ten farmers, 100
.1,000
Forty 78
3,120
For the village, 60 lots of 12 acres each,
720
10,000
..
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
bles, their domiciles were completed without the use of money. All about them was wilderness, full of Indians and alive with deer, wolves and rattlesnakes. "A man," said John McVean, "might travel twen- ty miles north or south from the settlement and not see one house except an Indian hut." Fever and ague made its appearance, and one by one it attacked the new comers, but they soon recovered.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
CHAPTER XI.
T HE PREOCCUPIED farmers of the new settlements found little leisure for politics. In the address of a committee of Federal- ists, of which Judge Porter was Secretary, to the people of the old county of Ontario, "It was regretted that the inhabitants of this county have in former elections betrayed so much remissness and neglect in giving their votes, that not more than one-third of the electors have voted," and so modest were candidates here that, says the address, "it is to be remarked that Members of Congress from the Western district (embracing the counties of Onondaga, Cayuga and others) have uniformly been elected from counties east of this."1 A convention followed at Canandaigua in March, which nominated Thomas Morris for Congress and two Federal candidates for the As- sembly, of whom the latter were elected.
In 1800 Charles Carroll, 2 of Bellevue, Maryland, induced his friends and neighbors, Colonel William Fitzhugh and Colonel Nathaniel Roch- ester to join him in a visit to the Genesee country in quest of a town site contiguous to a water power. They came on horseback by way of Bath, over the Williamson road, accompanied by a servant and a led mule. Captain Williamson advised them to go to the Falls, as the present city of Rochester was then called, where they bought of Indian Allen one hundred acres embracing a mill site at the edge of the fall, and also a tract in the center of the present city, on the west side of the river, of the Pulteney estate. Returning up the valley, Carroll and Fitzhugh purchased 12,000 acres in Sparta and Groveland, on which they subsequently resided, and Rochester purchased seven hundred acres in the latter town. Their families had been intimate in Mary- land, and in this new country they proposed to continue this intimacy
1. See Albany Gazette of Feb. 1800.
2. Mr. Carroll was born at Carrollsburg, Md. (now in the city of Washington), Nov. 7, 1767; he died in Groveland Oct. 28, 1823. His remains lie in the Williamsburgh cemetery.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
and friendship. They returned to Maryland and in 1807 sent out an agent named Begole to take charge of their lands. 1
At the legislative session of 1800 an act was passed for improving the State road from Utica to Geneva and incorporating a turnpike road company. The capital stock was fixed at 2,200 shares at $50 per share. The Commissioners under the act were Charles Williamson, Benjamin Walker, Jedediah Sanger and Israel Chapin. Books were opened for subscriptions to the stock at Geneva, Canandaigua, Utica and Albany. The prospectus estimated that there could annually be drawn from Onondaga, Cayuga, Ontario and Steuben upward of 500,000 bushels of wheat, with a due proportion of other produce, and it concluded as follows: "Travellers all agree that the settlement and improvement of these counties have been more rapid and prosperous than that of any other tract of country of the same surface was ever known to be. Spirit of emigration still in its infancy, owing to the extreme difficulty of passing to and from it, as the present state of the roads for nine months in the year renders it almost impracticable to travel it even on horseback."
At the election for State Senator in 1800 Sparta gave 37 votes for Jedediah Sanger, Hartford (Avon), 71 for the same candidate, Pittstown (Livonia), 69; Charleston (Lima) gave 94 for Nathaniel King and 22 for Jedediah Sanger, and Geneseo gave 75 for Sanger.
The fall of 1801 proved to be quite sickly. The weather was un- commonly wet and bilious fever was very prevalent, though not of a very fatal type. Indeed, agues and other bilious complaints were common prior to 1804. Maple sugar making was common among farmers at this period, many of them making from five hundred to one thousand pounds in a season. The soil produced abundantly and bountiful harvests rewarded the labors of the husbandman.
At the State election in May 1801 the candidates for Governor were Stephen Van Rensselaer and George Clinton, and the vote in the towns embraced in the present limits of Livingston county stood as follows: Charleston gave Van Rensselaer 51 votes and Clinton 63; Sparta, 10 for Van Rensselaer and 29 for Clinton; Geneseo, 22 for Van Rensselaer, 63 for Clinton; Pittstown, 81 for Van Rensselaer, 27 for Clinton; Northampton, 78 for Van Rensselaer, 10 for Clinton; Hart- ford, 41 for Van Rensselaer, 25 for Clinton; giving Stephen Van
1. Begole settled at Hermitage aud became the father of a large family.
264
IHISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
Rensselaer a majority of 66 in the county. Governor Clinton was elected, however, by a majority of 3,965.
The census of Ontario county taken this year showed 1,691 electors possessing a freehold of 100 pounds value, 247 electors possessing a freehold of 20 pounds value and 923 electors who rented tenements of forty shillings annual value. Sixteen hundred and thirty-four free- holders was the ratio to one Senator, and 860 electors to one Member of Assembly.
The Indians, who had now experienced the advantages of machinery, were no longer content to hew the material for their houses with the axe, nor pound their corn and other grains in the mortar. They wanted saw mills and flouring mills. At a council held in May 1801, after deciding to annex the property of Squakie Hill and Little Beardstown reservations to Buffalo Creek, and Big Tree to Tona- wanda, they authorized their head men to negotiate for the disposal of Canawaugus reservation to secure means to erect a grist and saw mill, in case the land would amount to their cost. Soon after this their chiefs began to advise them to dispose of the other reservations along the Genesee, remarking that "our great reason for this exchange is that there are bad Indians living on these lands, and by placing them more compact will be the means of keeping them in better order," and they applied directly to Captain Williamson and Thomas Morris to aid them in exchanging their lands for other property.
The observation of the Indians had advanced them another step toward civilization. At a council held near Geneseo in November 1801, at which the principal chiefs of the Senecas and representatives of the Onondagas, Cayugas and Delawares took part, Red Jacket, speaking for his people, said, "We have assembled at this time to re- ceive our annuities. We have been treated fairly, but we wish next year that fine broadcloths be omitted and coarser woolen cloths be sent in their place, that a small portion may be divided to all, for our old men, women and children are now looking to you for something to screen them from the cold winter blasts and snows. At this season. too, our young men betake themselves to the forest to procure game. They want more powder and lead. We no longer find our game at our doors, but are obliged to go to a great distance for it, and even then find it scarce to what it used to be. The white people are seat - tered so thickly over the country that the deer have almost fled from
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
us, and we find ourselves obliged to pursue some other mode of getting our living. So all our villages have determined to take to husbandry, and we have concluded to accept the proposition of Presi- dent Washington when he told us we must learn the customs of the white people, and he would provide us oxen to plow the ground and relieve our women from digging; with cows which our girls could learn to milk, and to make butter and cheese, and with farming utensils and spinning wheels. He told us we must make use of beef instead of moose and elk meat, swine instead of bears, sheep in place of deer. Brothers! we desire you to make known to the President, who is in the place of General Washington1 that we agree to accept his offer, for we find ourselves in a situation which we believe our fore- fathers never thought of."
A gentleman travelling through this region in June, 1802, writes to the Albany Gazette that "the spirit of improvement which pervades all parts of this State the present season has no example in our history. Turnpike roads are now progressing with spirit in all directions. A chain of them stretch the whole extent of the route from Schenectady to Canandaigua, a distance of 193 miles, which it is expected will be completed by the middle of October." Writing in the latter month on the subject the Gazette says, "On the great turnpike much work has been performed, and although not finished the road in its whole extent has received most valuable repairs." Proposals were also made to the energetic Commissioners to carry the turnpike to Presque Isle, Niagara Falls.
In the same year James Wadsworth offered to set apart one thou- sand acres of land adjoining the river to encourage an English settle- ment, and adds, "I am disposed to offer substantial encouragement to the first English families who remove into this town."
At the Senatorial election in May, 1803, Ontario county gave 808 votes for Hyde, the Democratic candidate, and 1059 for Matthews, the Federal candidate, showing a large increase in the aggregate vote in the county .
In October of this year the Holland Land Company advertised three millions of acres of land for sale. By 1803 there were about thir- ty families settled in Geneseo. In April, of that year James Wadsworth had fixed the price of the bottom lands adjoining the river at $4 to
1. John Adams.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
85 per acre, according to quality and situation, and offered five thousand acres of these lands for sale.
In 1803 Ontario county elected three Federal Members of the Assembly, Nathaniel W. Howell, B. P. Wisner and Amos Hall, over their Democratic competitors. Daniel Chapin, John Swift and E. Patterson, by an average majority of 350. At the State election in May, 1804, Ontario county gave 792 votes for Lewis for Governor, and 1178 for Aaron Burr. The number of votes for Assemblyman in May, 1804, in Hartford (Avon) was 134; Geneseo, 118, Sparta, 95; Leicester, 81; Southampton, 114.
The summer of 1804 proved to be one of great scarcity. James Wadsworth, writing on the 19th of July of that year, says, "So great a scarcity of provisions has never been experienced in this country." The growing crop, however, proved a good one, and in November of that year a wagon load of Genesee wheat was carried to Albany from Bloomfield, 220 miles. The quantity was one hundred bushels and was drawn by four yokes of oxen. It was purchased at Bloomfield for five shillings per bushel, and sold in Albany for seven shillings and three pence, the net proceeds of the load being not less than $100. The journey, notwithstanding the condition of the roads at that season, was performed in twenty days. This was the first venture of the kind yet undertaken of transporting by land grain from so great a distance, and was only justified by the exceptionally high price then ruling in the Eastern market. 1 A team with an ordinary load could make the trip over the turnpike from the Genesee to Albany and return in a fortnight.
The price of unimproved lands in 1804 east of the Genesee ranged from $2 to $4 per acre, and for farms of one hundred acres, of which twenty to thirty were improved, with log house and barn, would sell for from $6 to $20 per acre; west of the river the best unimproved land sold for $1.50 to $2.50 per acre.
Among the annoyances to which the pioneer farmer was subjected, not the least was the depredations of the Indians. The misappropri- ation did not always arise, perhaps, from deliberate intent to commit a larceny, but it required some time for the native to become accus- tomed to the white man's notion of the rights of property. It was not an uncommon thing for a tarmer to find an Indian astride a horse
1. Albany Gazette, Nov. 22, 1804.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
in search for which he had spent days, and the coolness with which the native would listen to the reprimand was often as provoking as the loss of time occasioned by the search. Saddles, hogs, meat and wearing apparel were not infrequently taken. It was no satisfaction to obtain a judgment for costs against an Indian, for the officer could seldom find anything to levy upon. Farmers, therefore, resorted to General Chapin, the Indian agent, who, at the annual payment of an- nuities. would deduct properly authenticated accounts against the In- dians, and thus compel their chiefs to put a check upon the lawlessness of their followers.1 The case, however, had two sides. The policy of the government toward the Indians was not fully defined. Gen- eral Knox, in writing to General Chapin, called it "helter-skelter conduct," and often the wrong doing was traceable to the practice of dealing out whiskey and rum to the Indians, often by direct order of the government agent ;4 and sometimes the misdeeds of the uncivil- ized red men were committed to retaliate for the thieving of the whites upon them. The latter class of petty evils was so serions that the Indian agent was supplied with an annual allowance for paying the Indians for articles taken from them by the whites.
In January, 1805, the weather was exceedingly cold. On the 5th of that month John Kennedy, of Sparta, perished on the road as he was returning from mill. His team was near him when found. Two men were frozen in Livonia and others died from the same cause.
The year 1805 proved to be one of prosperity to this region. James Wadsworth says, "People here are very healthy, and everybody who
1. Below is given specimens of these accounts:
"Received of Ist'l Chapin Thirty Dollars in full of Shirts, vest, etc. stolen from me in June last by the Indians of Squaka Hill. WM. WADSWORTH."
Canandaigua, 3 Ap'1, 1501.
Israel Chapin, Esq., Indian Agent, "Geneseo, 23d September, 1799.
To John Bosley, Dr.
For 650 (six hundred and fifty ) pounds of Pork, being hogs killed by the Indians (of Sqnaka Ilill ) as acknowledged by them in the presence of Mr. Parrish and Capt. Jones.
Dolls. 40 Cents 62,"'
( This bill is receipted by James Bosley for $20. )
2. In the Spring of 1792 Israel Chapin, Indian Agent at Canandaigua, supplied to Farmer's Brother and party, on their return from Philadelphia, 240 pounds of beef, 300 pounds of flour, 100 pounds of pork and 10 gallons of whiskey.
In October of the same year General Chapin delivered 416 gallons of whiskey for the purpose of enabling Red Jacket's family to build a house.
20%
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
minds his business is growing rich." Farmers had come in large numbers, but there was as yet much lack of persons of other occupa- tions. In September of this year James Wadsworth wrote. "There is not a good tanner within twenty-five miles of the Genesee river."
In the month of January, 1805, the same gentleman was interesting himself in the establishment of postal facilities. On the 5th of this month he wrote to Postmaster-General Granger on the subject, and said, there being then no post-office at Geneseo, "We at present some- times send our letters to Canandaigua, distance thirty miles, and some- times to Hartford, distance ten miles. As the postmaster at the latter place-Mr. Hosmer-is not a little careless we are subjected to many inconveniences. By establishing a P. O. at this place you will very much accommodate this and the neighboring towns. - imagine that the receipts of the office will more than pay the expense of transporting and returning the mail once a week from Hartford to this place. " Mr. Wadsworth in early days, was in the habit of offering. to exchange new Genesee lands for old Connecticut and other eastern lands. On the 1st of August, 1805, he writes Samuel Finley. "I am desirous of encouraging the most respectable settlement from Marl- borough to this town. I have determined to offer two important farms, together with a new farm of 100 acres, to three respectable families of Marlborough or the adjoining towns. You are therefore authorized to offer these three farms to three inhabitants of industry and established and approved principles in exchange for their farms. subject to this condition, that their farms shall be appraised by Esq. Joel Foote." Mr. Wadsworth also authorized a friend to advance $15 to each of two good men of Berkshire county, to come and view the Genesee country. He took great pains to diffuse accurate information as to climate, crops and lands, and also worked indefatigably to stim- ulate the growth and prosperity of the settlements. In August, 1805, Mr. Wadsworth writes, "I am resolved on making the experiment this fall of sending mule colts to the Genesee river," and ordered the purchase of one hundred.
A feeling of prosperity was experienced by many of the settlers, Mr. Wadsworth wrote in August of this year, "I feel myself rich in Gen- esee lands, and rich in the faith that in a few years they will command $20 to $30 per acre."
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