USA > New York > Livingston County > History of Livingston County, New York, from its earliest traditions to the present together with early town sketches > Part 30
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In the spring of 1814 Mr. Horsford resolved to seek his fortune in a new country at the West. With this object in view he gathered his little property, consisting of an old horse and a very cheap lumber wagon and single harness, all worth about $70, and $200 in cash, and on the 20th of March started for the Genesee Valley. Ile located at Mount Morris and commenced farming, a pursuit he followed until late in life. In 1816 he was married to Maria C. Norton, daughter of Ebenezer Norton of Goshen, Connecticut. Soon after settling here he was honored by Governor De Witt Clinton with a lieutenant's com-
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mission in the militia. This was soon followed by a captain's com- mission, which he held for six years, when he was promoted to a colon- elcy. Holding this commission for two years he asked for and obtain- ed an honorable discharge.
In the spring of 1817 Mr. Horsford removed to Moscow, where he opened a public house. This business he followed for twelve years using and dealing in intoxicating liquors, as was the universal custom in those days. Mature reflection upon the subject, however, convinc- ed him that the traffic in alcoholic drinks was immoral in tendency, productive of a vast amount of suffering in the community and, in fact, wrong. He therefore abandoned the liquor business, but kept his house open for a few months until, finding that he could not make any profit except by selling liquor, he took down his sign fully deter- mined never thereafter to engage in business which could not be car- ried on without the aid of intoxicating drinks.
"When I commenced business in Moscow," said Mr. Horsford, "the travel on the east and west road through the place had become very considerable, especially in the winter season when emigrants from the east were in great numbers passing to the west and southwest." At this time there were three public houses in Moscow, each of which was doing a fair business. "In those days it was t the cus- tom, and the practice was almost universal with families that were moving, to take their own beds and provisions along with them, cook and eat at public houses as they could and spread their beds, which were not always any too clean, on the floor at night, when they usually seemed to rest quite soundly. This practice was by no means confined to low life. I will cite one instance of the opposite extreme. At the close of the administration of Hon. Quincy Adams, Peter B. Porter, his Secretary-of-War, on retiring from office at Washington came across the country from Philadelphia on his way home in a heavy lumber wagon, described at that time as a 'Pennsylvania wag- on,' drawn by two heavy horses. Mr. Porter, his wife, children, ser- vant girl and teamster all passed a night at my house. At the usual hour for retiring beds were brought in from the wagon and spread on the floor for Mrs. Porter, the children and domestic. Mrs. Porter, in consequence of her position, was asked and even urged to let the young- er portion of the family occupy the beds on the floor, and herself retire with her husband. This proposition she very respectfully de-
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clined, saying she had slept on the floor every night since leaving Washington and preferred to do so until she should reach her own home at Black Rock. It was not unusual to have four or five beds spread on the floor at the same time, and occupied by families moving."
During the winter of 1814-15 Mr. Horsford taught the district school at Ilunt's Corners, in the town of Groveland; in the summer of 1815 the district school at Mount Morris, and during the winter of 1815-16 he taught an Indian school at Squakie Hill, under an engagement with the Synod of Geneva. At this time the number of Indians young and old residing at this place was about eighty.
The "cold summer" of 1816, before alluded to, was a time of great calamity. Save for the loss of life, Turner says it was as severe in its effects as the war. He says, "June frosts almost entirely destroyed the summer crops; in the forepart of the month pools of water were covered with ice. Upon one occasion, especially, in a forenoon, after the sun had dissipated the frosts, the fields and gardens looked like prairies that have been scorched by fire. Summer crops, other than the hardier grains, were crisped and blackened; the hopes and dependence of the people were destroyed. The wheat harvest was mostly delayed until September, previous to which in all the more re- cently settled towns and neighborhoods there was much suffering for food. Wheat was from $2 to $3 per bushel before harvest, and in the absence of summer crops the price but slightly declined after harvest. The inhabitants of nearly the whole of the Holland Purchase, and all of Allegany, depended upon the older settlements in Ontario for bread. The Indians upon the Genesee river had a small surplus of corn of the crop of 1815, which the white inhabitants bought, paying as high as 82 per bushel. In the new settlements wheat and rye were shelled out while in the milk, and boiled and eaten as a substitute for bread. while in many instances, the occupants of log cabins in the wilderness sub- sisted for weeks and months upon wild roots, herbs and milk. The season of 1816 was the climax of cold seasons; that of 1817 the com- mencement of a series of fruitful ones; of plenty, and would have been of prosperity if there had been remunerating markets for produce.
The condition of Western New York in 1817 is well described by Franklin Cowdery, in the Cuylerville Telegraph of March 18, 1848, of which journal he was then the publisher, in an article entitled "Forty Years a Typo." He says: "Western New York, in 1817, was
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verdant and woody, and roads and bridges not much for accommoda- tion. The ice in the winter and a rope ferry in the summer were the substitutes for a bridge over the Genesee river between Moscow and Geneseo. The only paper mill was Dr. James Faulkner's at Dans- ville, a place of hardly tenements enough to entitle it to the name of a village. Mount Morris had a tavern, a few mechanics, and a small store kept by Allen Ayrault. Hon. John H. Jones, of Leicester, kept an inn and was first Judge of Genesee County.
"Moscow square, covered with bushes, had been just laid out and a few small frame erections put up, and two or three tenements re- moved there from Leicester about a mile, standing. An academy, in a rough looking cabin of two rooms, male and female departments, with perhaps a dozen or fifteen students in all, was kept by Ogden MI. Willey and Miss Sarah H. Raymond, of Connecticut. A low brick school room, at the east end of the square, was the meeting house on Sundays. A blacksmith shop, a tavern, a store, and a printing office, made up the rest of the village. Deputy Sheriff Jenkins kept the inn, N. Ayrault, P. M., the store, and Richard Stevens was the blacksmith. There was a Dr. Palmer, lawyer Baldwin, and a justice who had been a minister, Rev. Silas Hubbard; and there was a hatter, Homer Sher- wood, and a tanner and shoemaker, Abijah Warren." In a subsqenent article Mr. Cowdery adds: "There were other inhabitants at the be- ginning of Moscow, not in mind at the setting up of our preceding chapter, namely, Benjamin Ferry, tanner and shoemaker, successor to A. Warren; Moses Ball, cabinet maker; Theodore Thompson, grocer ; Levi Street, stage proprietor and eventually inn-keeper ; Peter Palmer, Sen., a cooper and natural poet, and Widow Dutton, one of whose daughters is the lady of Dr. Bissell, Canal Commissioner. "1
The printing office referred to by Mr. Cowdery, belonged to Heze- kiah Ripley, who had in January, 1817, established the first paper pub-
1. Colonel Lyman gave the following as the prevailing prices for farm products and mann- factured articles in 1817:
Wheat, per bu., 31 cents. Corn, per bu., 18 cents Oats, per bu., 121g.
Butter, per pound, 6 cents.
Eggs, per dozen, 6 cents.
Horses and cattle were very cheap. Satinet, per yard, 28 shillings. Cotton Shirting, per yard, 18 cents. Nails, per pound, IS cents.
Molasses, per gallon, 10 shillings
Whiskey, per gallon, I shilling.
Wedding suits for men were made of the hest satinet, and the usual marriage fee was one dollar, payable in cash, produce or deer's tallow.
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lished in the county, and two or three weeks later employed Cowdery as a "typo." It seems incredible now that the thinly settled Genesee country at that time could have had any need of a public journal, or the ability to support one, yet this newspaper venture in the wilder- ness seems to have at least maintained its existence, though subscrib- ers must have been few and far between, and advertisers even more rare phenomena.
On the 15th of July. 1819, William Burbank advertised in the "Moscow Advertiser" that he had taken the stand at the river, be- tween Geneseo and Moscow, "which he is fitting up for the accommo- dation of travellers. * * He also assures travellers that no exer- * tions shall be wanting to give them a safe and expeditious conveyance across the river. A new boat will be immediately built, when he will be able to ferry any teams that shall travel our roads. "1
In the same paper as the above, in the issue of March 11, 1819, under the head of "Assembly Proceedings, " it is stated that "the bill to di- vide the towns ot Livonia and Groveland, in the county of Ontario, was rejected in committee of the whole, for want of sufficient notice of the application."
Another notice in the same number of this pioneer journal serves to show where the early settlers found their most remunerative mar- ket. William H. Spencer announces that "any person living the west side of the Genesee river, who contemplates sending pork, flour or ashes, to the Montreal market the present or ensuing season, can be ac- commodated with storage, and have their property forwarded if de- sired. Warehouse Point is about four miles below Moscow. The advantages of the place for storing property is, that it saves 12 or 15 miles boating, that would be required, was the landing to be at the Ferryplace, between Geneseo and Moscow."
A large share of the advertising patronage of this paper was from those who offered "one cent reward and no charges paid, " for run- away indentured apprentices, and those who advertised thefts and tres- passes on their wood lands.
In August, 1819, the "Advertiser" announced that a new post-office had been established at York, and Moses Hayden, Esq., appointed post-
1. At a term of Court held at Batavia in November 1805, a license was granted to James Barnes to ferry across the Genesee river at Leicester.
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master. "This office is on the new mail-route from this village to Rochester."
At an early day the staple product of the Genesee valley was wheat and the principal income was that derived from its sale for shipment to Baltimore or Montreal. In 1820 eight or ten boats were employed on the river in transporting the crops of the county purchased at Gen- eseo, Mount Morris and Canawaugus. A portion of the crops of the valley was sent to Arkport, and thence in arks or flat boats to Balti- more, which afforded a good market. Produce intended for the Mon- treal market was sent down the river to Rochester. The large farm- ers sometimes marketed their own wheat, a course not unattended with expense. One of them relates that his wheat was ground at Wadsworth's mill near Geneseo; he then drew it to Avon; paid stor- age there; paid freight down the river and storage above the falls at Rochester; freight to Carthage (below Rochester) and storage there; freight to Ogdensburg and storage there; freight to Montreal and storage there; commission for selling, and "cooperage everywhere" on the line. After paying for a draft on New York, he had eigh- teen pence per bushel left for his wheat, without counting the cost and labor of transportation to Wadsworth's mill and thence to Avon bridge. 1
Such were some of the difficulties which the early settlers had to meet, but after years brought the canals, the network of railroads and shipping facilities such as these pioneers never imagined possible. Time has worked wonders, and the busy, wealthy and prosperous county bears little resemblance to the sparsely settled and isolated Genesee country of eighty years ago.
I. On the ist day of November, 1803, the following notice was published in relation to the bridge mentioned in the text :
"Genesee bridge proposals will be received by Commissioners Asher Sexton and Benjamin Elli- cott for building a bridge over the Genesee between the towns of Hartford and Southampton in the counties of Ontario and Genesee."
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CHAPTER XIII.
T 1IE COUNTY of Livingston was erected from parts of the counties of Ontario and Genesee, by act of the Legislature, on the 23d of February, 1821. It is now divided into seventeen towns, Avon, Caledonia, Conesus, Geneseo, Groveland, Leicester, Lima, Livonia, Mount Morris, North Dansville, Nunda, Ossian, Portage, Sparta, Springwater, West Sparta and York.
It is situated between the parallels of-42º 33' and 43º 0' north lati- tude; and 0° 37' and 1º 8' of longitude west of Washington. Gene- seo, its capital town located near the center, is two hundred and ten miles in a direct line west of Albany, and sixty-one miles east of Buffalo, twenty-eight miles south of Rochester, and sixty-three miles north of the Pennsylvania border. It is the third county in the inid- dle range east of Lake Erie. Its extreme length from north to south is thirty-seven miles; and its greatest width east and west is thirty miles. It is bounded on the north by the county of Monroe, on the east by Ontario and Steuben. on the south by Steuben and Allegany. and on the west by Genesee and Wyoming. Its general form is that of an imperfect square. Its area is 655 square miles, or +19,200 acres. Its population at the census of 1900 was 37,059; when organized in 1821 it had a population of about 19,800. Its greatest popula- tion according to the census was in 1840, at which time by including the town of Ossian since then annexed, it numbered 43,436 inhabi- tants.
When erected the county contained twelve towns. Of these eight, Avon, Freeport (Conesus), Geneseo, Groveland, Lima, Livonia, Sparta and Springwater, embracing about two-thirds of the territory and a like share of the population, were taken from Ontario; and four, Caledonia, Leicester, Mount Morris and York, embracing the remaining third of the area and population, were taken from Gene- see. In February, 1822. the northwest part of the town of Dansville, in Steuben county, was annexed to Sparta. In March, 1825, Freeport
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was changed in name to Bowersville, and in April of the same year the latter was changed to Conesus, which it still retains. In May, 1846, the towns of Nunda and Portage were added from Allegany ; and in March, 1857, Ossian was annexed from the same county. In February, 1846, Sparta was divided, and three towns, Sparta, West Sparta and North Dansville, erected therefrom.
The county originated in the conviction that such a change would essentially forward the administration of justice and otherwise pro- mote the convenience of the body of the people. The boundaries of the counties of Ontario and Genesee at the time of the division em- braced an area of not less than thirty-seven hundred square miles, an extent of country nearly three times as great as the whole state of Rhode Island. The same territory now forms the counties of Ontario, Genesee, Monroe, Livingston, Yates, Orleans, Wyoming and part of Wayne. Nor were the two old counties unimportant in point of popu- lation or wealth. One hundred and sixty thousand souls, or more than a tenth of the whole population of the State at that time, had already made their homes there, and immigration was daily adding to their numbers; while the valuation of their real and personal estate was fifteen and one-half millions of dollars, or one seventieth.of the aggre- gate valuation of the Commonwealth.
The movement for division was sharply contested from the outset, for, though the active opposition to the measure was in a minority, it was a minority of no little strength. Favoring division, however, was a party of more than equal zeal, who appealed to the daily experience of the pioneers, and cited the benefits that had resulted from subdi- viding the original counties. Indeed, there were those among the population, men by no means advanced in years, who could remember all the subdivisions that had occurred. The original counties of the province of New York were formed, as it will be remembered, in 1683, and for nearly a century the old county of Albany embraced all the vast territory of the present State lying north of Ulster county and west of the Hudson river, including of course the whole of the Gene- see country. But the progress of settlement at length broke in on those long established boundaries, and in 1772 Tryon county, named after one of the British governors, was taken from Albany. It in- cluded all of the then province of New York lying west of the Scho- harie creek. In 1784 Tryon was changed in name to Montgomery,
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in honor of the heroic general who fell at Quebec. Montgomery had five subdivisions, one of which, Kingsland, covered most of the west- ern settlements. Ontario was taken from Montgomery in 1789, and included the whole area to which the pre-emptive right had been ceded to Massachusetts, and most of which, being afterwards sold by that State to Phelps and Gorham, passed into the possession of the Holland Land Company and the Pulteney estate. Hence, Ontario county, when organized, covered the whole territory em- braced within the bounds of the State west of the pre-emptive line, 1 and which now forms twelve counties and part of a thirteenth. 2 Thus at successive periods, as will be observed, the county of Livingston has been a part of Albany. Tryon, Montgomery, Ontario and Gene- see, and portions of it of Steuben and Allegany counties.
The large territory of the two counties of Ontario and Genesee im- posed unequal burthens on the towns. The more distant ones were put to an undue share of expense and loss of time in the transaction of business at the respective county seats. The rapid growth of the Genesee country, then regarded as next to incredible, rendered fre- quent transfers of land necessary, and a more ready access to the county records became each day a matter of greater moment. Liti- gation, of which all new countries have their full share, compelled the frequent attendance of jurors and witnesses as well as suitors. These were drawn from their distant fields and workshops and compelled to submit to the tedious delays attending over-crowded courts, at serious cost of time and money.
We of this age of turnpikes and railroads. of daily mails and prox- imity of records of land titles, and especially of adequate court facili- ties, are little likely to realize the extent of the evils experienced half a century ago. Then highways newly laid out and indifferent at best,
1. The pre-emptive line was situated a mile east of Geneva.
2. The territory then forming Ontario County was commonly known as the "Genesce Coun- try." From Ontario have been formed the following counties: Steuben (1796); Genesee (1502); Allegany (1806); Cattaraugus (1808); Chautauqua ( ISO8); Niagara (SOS); Erie (1821); Monroe (1821) ; Livingston (1821); Yates (1823); Orleans (1824); Wyoming ( 1841); Wayne, ju part ( 1823); in all, thir- teen counties, excepting a part of one. Oliver P'helps was appointed First Judge, on the organi- zation of the county in 1789, and General Vincent Matthews was the first lawyer admitted in the court which then held jurisdiction over that vast region. The Genesee river became the boundary line between Ontario and Genesee on the erection of the latter county, and so continued until the erection of Monroe aud Livingston counties. The ground now covered by the city of Roches- ter, lying on both sides of the river, was then divided between two counties until the erection of Monroe.
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were next to impassable in seasons of mud and ruts; 1 the temporary bridges, and indeed there were few others, were often carried away by floods, while the snows frequently laid an embargo on winter travel. Instead of thirty-nine post-offices within the bounds of this county, there were then but ten. The mails, infrequent, for even Avon boasted of but three a week and transported principally in sulkies and on horseback, were tardy and irregular. Where at pres- ent a business visit to the county seat is the work of part of a day, then from portions of the old counties it was the labor of three or four days. Now, as the population has become fixed and suitably pro- vided with courts, the transaction of legal business is a matter of some certainty; then, as court facilities did not keep pace with the fast increasing causes, business fell into arrears and all was involved in uncertainty, save the certainty of heavy expenses and constant de- lays; and further, as Canandaigua and Batavia, the shire-towns, were not the natural centres of business of the territory embraced within this county, the people were not attracted thither for trade, nor did the principal avenues of traffic always lead toward those towns, hence they were forced away from the points where they were in the habit of transacting business.
Although the subject of a division of the county had been much dis- cussed, it was not until 1820 that it came formally before the Legisla- ture. At the session of that year the standing committee on the erec- tion of towns and counties in the Assembly, to whom a large number of petitions for the new county were referred, advised, since "the various interests should be better understood and the opinions of the inhabitants be more definitely expressed before the Legislature could act intelligently upon the subject, and as little injury could be produced thereby, that the question be postponed until a future session," add- ing, "we are sensible that some of the towns are at an inconvenient distance from the seat of justice, and have claims upon the Legisla- ture for better accommodations." To this the Assembly agreed.
Through the summer of 1820 the matter was much canvassed. Meetings were held and petitions were circulated by the multitude, increasing, it is said, "with fearful rapidity." In December, 1820, a
1. Col. I.yman said that he once had a team gone three months to Alhany, and at oue place the teamster said he did his best to get on for three days, staying three nights at the same place. "Indeed between Canandaigua and Geneva, I have seen forty horses to one heavy wagon, who did their best but could not move it hut a few rods at a pull."
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notice appeared in the Moscow Advertiser, and also in the Albany Argus, stating that the subscribers, Charles Colt, William Finley, John Pierce, David Warner and their associates, intended to apply to. the Legislature at its next session for the erection of a new county, to comprise the towns subsequently erected into Livingston. The friends of the proposed county of Monroe were also moving.
The majority of the people along the river and those residing in towns contiguous to it favored this division, while the northern part of Livonia, East Avon and Lima objected, and the more distant sec- tions vehemently opposed any change. A remonstrance from LeRoy, Batavia and the western parts of Genesee, signed by six hundred and fifty persons, opposed division on the ground that "no county ought to be erected composed of territory lying on both sides of the Genesce river, as it would subject half the inhabitants to great inconvenience and expense; and that the division would only promote the interests of a few lawyers, merchants and tavern keepers residing at the new county seats." Three hundred remonstrants, inhabitants of Canan- daigua, Gorham and Naples, objected to any division of Ontario county, alleging that the "arguments advanced by the advocates of the several petitions, being, in our opinion, alike fanciful and falla- cious, it is equal matter of surprise that there should be one as that there are seven applications for new counties," as was really the case. Division, they held, would destroy the symmetry of the old county and uselessly multiply offices and expenses. "At present." say they, "county charges fall lightly on individuals and the times, financially, are unpropitious. " More than this, they insisted that the effects of the Erie canal were "yet to be experienced, and the results of this great work might easily render a division unwise." They also urged that the extensive range from which to select men of integrity and talents, which division would circumseribe, secured able men on the bench, in the Legislature and for other public stations. This argu- ment was most pertinent just then, for John C. Spencer, the distin- guished statesman, and Myron Holly, scarcely less honored, as well as other men of no little note, were at that time members of the Assem- bly from that county or occupying other places of trust.
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