USA > New York > Livingston County > History of Livingston County, New York, from its earliest traditions to the present together with early town sketches > Part 31
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:; The period was one of great pecuniary distress. The war of 1812, but five years closed, had caused a suspension of the banks and com- pletely deranged the business of the country. The debt it had cre-
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
ated, together with the unpaid liabilities of the Revolution, the debt contracted for the purchase of Louisiana and other items of interna- tional obligation, brought the public debt up to over ninety millions of dollars, a sum then deemed so formidable as to raise a doubt of the nation's ability to pay it. At the same time "the whole paper sys- tem, after a vast expansion, suddenly collapsed, spreading desolation over the land, and carrying ruin to debtors. The years 1819 and '20 were a period of gloom and agony. No money, either gold or silver; no paper convertible into specie ; no measure or standard or value left remaining. The local banks (all but those of New England), after a brief resumption of specie payments again sunk into a state of suspen- sion. * * No price for property or produce. No sales but those of the Sheriff and the Marshal. No purchasers at execution sales. No sale for the product of the farm-no sound of the hammer, but that of the auctioneer, knocking down property. Stop laws-property laws-replevin laws-stay laws-loan office laws-the intervention of the Legislature between the creditor and the debtor; this was the busi- ness of the legislation in three-fourths of the States of the Union-of all south and west of New England. No medium of exchange but depreciated paper; no change even, but little bits of foul paper, marked so many cents, and signed by some tradesman, barber or inn- keeper ; exchanges deranged to the extent of fifty or one hundred per- cent. Distress, the universal cry of the people. Relief, the universal demand thundered at the doors of all legislatures, state and federal."1
The people in this section, mainly engaged in agriculture and still largely in debt for their farms, experienced the full weight of these evils. Their lands, as yet but partially cleared, were but measurably productive, and as they had been contracted for in more favorable times at prices ranging from five to ten dollars an acre, the large arrearages of purchase money, now excessive, were bearing heavily, indeed ruinously, upon purchasers. Hence, in many instances they were driven to the alternative of obtaining a reduction or of giving up their "betterments," as their improvements were called, and commenc- ing anew. In Conesus a committee consisting of Elder Hudson and Ruel Blake were sent, with this object in view, to confer with the agents of the Pulteney estate of whom the lands in that town were prin- cipally obtained. They were met in proper spirit by Robert Throup,
1. Benton's "Thirty Years in the U'nited States Senate."
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
the agent of that great property, and such was the influence of these good men and the wisdom of the agent that the contract price on many lots was reduced one half, while at the same time the price of grain in payment of obligations was increased one half.
A few prices of those times will serve to give an idea of the prevail- ing market rates. Wheat delivered at what is now Littleville was sold at thirty one cents a bushel to pay taxes. Oats were worth less than a shilling a bushel, and butter six cents a pound. Instead of trading by the use of money, the people were obliged to resort to bar- ter. Eight bushels of wheat would buy but a barrel of salt or a pair of cowhide boots, while under this mode of exchange a good cow was valued at ten dollars, a yoke of working oxen at thirty dollars, a horse fifty, pork two dollars the hundred, while Indian corn seems to have had no market value whatever. And yet the people were clam- orous for a new county, although it involved a large expense for the erection of county buildings and the salaries of officers. That such, under the circumstances, was their desire is sufficient proof of the necessity of the measure.
The advocates of division were met by an opposition but little in- ferior to themselves in earnestness, which did not stop with remon- strating, but sought to remove the causes of complaint. Every facil- ity was to be afforded by courts and county clerks. An instance may be given in the action of Judge Howell of Ontario county, then recent- ly appointed, who opened his first term by sunrise and continued the sessions day after day until late in the night, giving scarcely time for meals or sleep. "He ran his court by steam." The calendar was exhausted; it could not be otherwise. - The people of Canandaigua were in raptures. They boasted that a week's term was sufficient to dispose of all business before the court, and insisted that the evils complained of were but temporary. The remedy, however, came too late. The people were determined to have a new county, and the only question that now remained was as to the manner of division. Here differences of opinion prevailed. Three plans, zealously urged by their respective friends, were proposed.
The first was the Avon or "long county" project, designed to em- brace in one substantially both Monroe and Livingston, with the county seat at Avon. Its friends are represented in the petition de-
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
posited in the State Library by eight hundred and fifty names, main- ly from Avon, Caledonia and York.
A second plan, strongly urged from the south, proposed two coun- ties, omitting from the southerly one the towns of Sparta, Ossian, Nunda and Portage, giving the whole of Caledonia to Monroe, and embracing Castile, Perry and Covington on the south. This would have brought the then thriving village of Moscow at the centre, with the avowed object of making that the county seat. A prominent citizen of Moscow was sent to Albany for the purpose of urging this view upon the Legislature.
The third and successful plan was to form the two counties, Monroe and Livingston, from territory depending chiefly upon the river for a market, and to make Rochester, then a small village, one of the county seats ; and a majority of those endorsing this plan favored Gen- eseo as the other. The friends of this mode of division were represent- ed at Albany by Colonel Nathaniel Rochester and Judge Carroll, who, as well as their constituents, acted in harmony throughout.
The subject was now transferred to Albany. The numerous peti- tions and remonstrances were referred, on Friday, the 26th of January, 1821, to a select committee of the Senate, of which Senator Charles E. Dudley, a name for all time to be associated with the prog- ress of astronomic science, was chairman. In due time the committee reported "that the convenience and interest of the inhabitants of those portions of the counties of Ontario and Genesee included in the application, will be much advanced by the erection of a new county." Leave being given, Mr. Dudley brought in a bill entitled "An act to erect a new county by the name of Livingston, ont of parts of the counties of Ontario and Genesee, and for other purposes, " and it was read twice by unanimous consent. On the third of February the bill was examined in committee of the whole, Senator Bouck, at a later day Governor, in the chair. It passed the Senate two days afterward, and on the 21st the Assembly concurred without opposition. The bill then went to the Council of Revision, which body on the 23d of Feb- ruary 1821, "resolved that it does not appear improper to the Council that this bill should become a law of the State." To this, in the volume of original laws deposited in the State Department, is affixed the signature of Governor De Witt Clinton. It stands as
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
chapter fifty-eight of the laws of that year, and immediately preced- ing it is the act erecting the county of Monroe.
The county was appropriately named in honor of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, the most useful as he was the most conspicuous of the carly friends of agriculture in this country. Eminent as a jurist and a statesman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the devoted friend and patron of Robert Fulton, a man who faithfully loved and served his country in its period of supreme peril, he was, in a word, a type of that best product of the human race, a patriot statesman of the Revolutionary period.
For more than two hundred years the Livingstons filled the highest offices in Scotland. As is well known, James Livingston was appoint- ed to the Regency of the Kingdom during the minority of King James I. The proud title of Earl was borne by many of the family. The fair and unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots was born in Linlithgow Castle, of which Lord Livingston was hereditary governor, and dur- ing the invasion of that country by Somerset, Mary was again placed under his protetion.
Five days after the erection of the county, the Council of Appoint- ment issued general commissions to Gideon T. Jenkins as Sheriff, James Ganson as Clerk, James Rosebrugh as Surrogate and George Hosmer as District Attorney. A month later Moses Hayden was commissioned as First Judge.
The act designated three commissioners, Dr. Gamaliel H. Barstow, afterwards State Treasurer, Archibald S. Clark, and Nathaniel Gar- row, to designate the place and fix the site for the court,house and jail. They were directed to meet at the public house of James Gan- son, in Avon, thence to proceed to perform the imposed duty.
It is easy to believe that an advantage so tempting to a new town as the county seat was not to be gained without rivalry, and such was the case. Several candidates for the honor now appeared. Williams- burgh, the pioneer settlement, urged its claim. Avon, too, again en- tered the lists, although too far one side. But the latter objection was sought to be counteracted by the prejudice, amounting almost to gross injustice, then existing against the southern part of the county, whose resources, from being settled later than the northern portion, were as yet imperfectly developed and less understood. The people on the line of the great State Road leading from Albany, by way of Can-
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
andaigua, to Buffalo, then the principal thoroughfare for emigrants, affected to regard the south towns as still a wild, even a sterile region, more suitable for hunting than for tillage. At a meeting in Lima, a leading member of the county bar in advocating the claims of Avon urged that although the latter village was not the centre of the terri- tory it was the center of the new county's wealth. Said he: "The county seat should be here, as we shall now be required to pay all the taxes, for the southern towns are so poor that they produce nothing but buckwheat and pine shingles." This sneer was not forgotten ; the name "Buckwheat" clung to the speaker to the end of his days. A Lima gentleman, at the same meeting, said they"might set it down as a settled question that the people of Lima would never agree to go one step south and be compelled to associate with the buckwheat growers and shingle makers of Sparta and Springwater."
Next to Geneseo in point of general favor for the location of the shire town, stood, perhaps, the little hamlet of Lower Lakeville. At a public meeting held there about this time, a majority of the leading men present, representing Lima, Groveland, Conesus and other towns, favored its selection for this purpose. But other influences finally pre- vailed. The Commissioners in due time decided in favor of Geneseo, and not without good reason. The village was situated near the geo- graphical centre of the county and was the place of the largest com- mercial resort. The surplus produce of an extensive district here found an outlet by way of the river. Indeed, this village soon became a point at which more wheat was sold than at any other inland mar- ket in the State, and at prices ranging as high and sometimes even higher than at Rochester. In population it then numbered fully five hundred, and far and near by way of eminence it was usually called "the village," and familiarly spoken of as "Big Tree."
At the time of which we write the teeming mart of Dansville, although an enterprising town, had not attained its present leading relative position; nor had the fair village of Mount Morris then de- veloped to any considerable extent its importance as a commercial centre; neither did Lima, then boasting of but half a dozen houses, give promise of reaching the eminence it has since acquired as a seat of learning. Had any one of these facts been otherwise the manner of territorial division might have been essentially different. Indeed, the weight of influence since, at different times, brought to bear
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
from some of these quarters, and especially from the southerly por- tion of the county, for effecting a removal of the county seat or to establish a half shire, has been very great; and on several occasions one of these objects has nearly been effected.
The law required that before the site became fixed a suitable lot for the court house and jail should be duly conveyed to the supervisors. Prisoners were to be confined at Canandaigua until, in the opinion of the Sheriff, the proposed jail was so far completed as to be safe to receive them, and in the cautious language of the day the act de- clared that when the prisoners should then be brought to Geneseo, "such removal shall not be considered an escape." The supervisors were required to determine at their first annual meeting what sum it was proper to raise for providing a court house.
The act also appointed General William Wadsworth, Daniel H. Fitzhugh, and William Markham, Commissioners to superintend the construction of the public buildings, with ample authority to that end. These gentlemen duly qualified and entered upon their duties with characteristic energy.
Until the court house should be ready, it was provided that the courts should be held in the brick academy building in Geneseo, a two story edifice then standing on the present site of the district school-house on Center street.
The county was entitled to elect one member of Assembly. The privilege of electing two was conferred in 1822. George Smith was the first Member of Assembly.
By a supplemental act, passed also at the session of 1821, the super- visors and county treasurers of the counties of Ontario and Genesee and the supervisors and county clerks of Monroe and Livingston were required to equitably apportion all debts and effects as well as moneys belonging to the former counties among the several counties.
After Geneseo was decided upon as the shire town, two sites were proposed for the county buildings. One of these was the public square or park at the south end of the village; the other, where the buildings now stand. 1 The land, about four acres and a quarter, was given by William and James Wadsworth and duly conveyed to the supervisors
1. Deed in trust from William and James Wadsworth to Supervisors of Livingston County, dated July 14, 1821, recorded July 15th in book I of deeds, at page 61. Consideration, one dollar. Conveys 2 47-100 acres to be used as a public square and promenade; also 1 79-100 acres for a site for court house and jail. See appendix No. 13 for copy of this deed.
Cobblestone District School House in Geneseo, on site of Academy Building where Livingston County Courts were first held.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
to be used as a public square or promenade and for a site for the court house and jail. In this they but carried out a purpose previously formed by them, which was to give a lot for the public buildings whether they should be located in Geneseo or Avon.
The first annual meeting of the Supervisors was held in October, 1821. The board was composed of members who would do honor to any legislative body. They were: From Avon, Thomas Wiard; Cale- donia, Robert Mckay; Freeport, Davenport Alger; Geneseo, William H. Spencer; Groveland, William Fitzhugh; Leicester, Jellis Clute; Lima, Manassah Leach; Livonia, Ichabod A. Holden; Mount Morris, William A. Mills; Sparta, William McCartney; Springwater, Alvah Southworth; York, Titus Goodman.
William Fitzhugh of Groveland was chosen Chairman, and Ogden 31. Willey of Geneseo was made Clerk. 1 Orlando Hastings was elect- ed County Treasurer.
Among the first resolutions adopted was one authorizing a bounty of five dollars a head for the destruction of wolves, and two dollars a head for each wolf's whelp killed during the ensuing year. Leicester, it was voted, should be permitted to pay a bounty of one dollar for the destruction of each wildcat. What would be thought now of the necessity for such resolutions ?
The bill for the personal expenses and services of the Commissioners to locate the site of the county buildings was presented and ordered paid. 2
On the subject of the public buildings, the Board determined that nine thousand dollars should "be raised and levied on the freeholders and inhabitants of the county for the purpose of erecting and finish- ing a court house and jail." Of this sum three thousand dollars was ordered raised the ensuing year. 3
In December the Board formally expressed the opinion that the public buildings "should be of a size calculated for a county whose population was fast increasing, that they should be of the best mate- rial, and be constructed in the most faithful manner, " and as the first
1. This model officer and good citizen held the position of clerk of the Supervisors for thirty years, to the general acceptance of the public.
2. Amounting to $174.00.
3. The valuation of the real and personal estate of the county in 1821 was $2,177,901.25, as ap- pears by a table compiled from assessors' returns that year.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
sum named was found to be insufficient, they resolved to ask the Leg- islature for authority to raise two thousand dollars more the ensuing year. This was accordingly done, the power was granted, the further sum raised and the buildings completed.
In February, 1822, Major Spencer and Orlando Hastings were appointed to examine the accounts opened under the act by the treasurers of Ontario and Genessee with Livingston. and to do what- ever was necessary to effect a settlement. The matter was afterward placed wholly in the hands of Mr. Hastings. The journals of the Board appear to furnish no record of the final adjustment of these accounts. 1.
The court house was ready for the courts in May, 1823.2 In Oc- tober the bonds executed by the Commissioners for superintending the building of the court house and jail were ordered to be delivered up. and "the thanks of the Board were presented to the Commissioners for their faithful services rendered the county in erecting the public buildings."3
It was now formally resolved "that the keys of the court house be delivered to Chauncey Morse, and that he have liberty to open it for public worship and to show the interior to any gentleman who may wish to view it; and that he deliver the keys to the Sheriff to open the house for county purposes." A committee was appointed to deliver the keys and a copy of the foregoing resolution.
1. From the book of supervisor's records of Genesee county, the following transcript has heen obtained:
"1822, January 13.
Resolved, that the moneys now in the hands of the treasurer of the County of Ontario be ap- portioned as follows:
Aggregate valuation.
Aggregate of money divided.
To the County of Monroe,
$1,098.127
$ 345.79
do
Livingston
1.375.469
436.86
do
Ontario
6,304,185
2,002.31
$8,777.781
$2,7$7.95"
2. Homer Sherwood, of Geneseo, had the contract for building the court house.
3. The official record says: "The Board of Supervisors at a meeting held Feb. 19, 1824, adopt- ed the following resolution: Whereas, The Board of Supervisors of Livingston County believe that General Wm. Wadsworth for his gratuitons exertions in superintending the erection and finishing of the public buildings of the County, merits their individual approbation, Therefore,
Resolved, Unanimously, that the thanks of this board, in hehalf of the county, be rendered him for those exertions."
Old Livingston County Court House ; Clerk's Office at right and Jail at left.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
With equal formality was it resolved that the Sheriff be requested to "take charge of the irons belonging to the county and keep the same subject to the order of the Board."
The first Court of General Sessions, indeed the first court of record held in the county, convened at the Brick Academy, a two story build- ing standing exactly on the site of the cobblestone school-house on Centre street, on the last Tuesday of May, 1821. There were present Moses Hayden, First Judge, Matthew Warner, Jeremiah Riggs and Leman Gibbs, Judges. After prayer by the Rev. Mr. Bull, the court was opened by the usual proclamation. The following grand jurors were then sworn: William Janes, foreman, Robert Mckay, James Smith, Asa Nowlen, Josiah Watrous, Francis Stevens, William Warner, Ichabod A. Holden. Ruel Blake, William A. Mills, Ebenezer Damon, P. P. Peck, Joseph A. Lawrence, William Crossett, William Carnahan, James McNair, John Culver, Erastus Wilcox, John Hunt, Daniel H. Fitzhugh, Thomas Sherwood, Ebenezer Rogers and Gad Chamberlin.
The first indictment for trial was the case of The People vs. Mary DeGraw, for assault and battery with intent to murder. On the trial of the case the jury returned a verdict of guilty of an assault and battery, and not guilty of the rest of the charges in the indictment.
The first commitment appears to have been that of May Brown, convicted at this term and sentenced to the Ontario county jail for thirty days.
The first term of the Court of Common Pleas was also held on the last Tuesday of May, 1821. Among the attorneys who presented licenses and were admitted to practice in this court at the time, were Samuel Miles Hopkins, George Hosmer, Felix Tracy, John Dickson, Orlando Hastings, Charles H. Carroll, Willard H. Smith, Augustus A. Bennett, Ogden M. Willey, Hezekiah D. Mason, and Melancthon W. Brown. On motion Mark H. Sibley was also admittted to practice. The first trial held in this court was the case of Alfred Birge, appel- lee, vs. Joel Bardwell, appellant. O. Hastings appeared as attorney for the appellee, and A. A. Bennett as attorney for the appellant. The jury was composed of the following members: James Richmond, LeRoy Buckley, Federal Blakesley, Roger Wattles, T. H. Gilbert, Joseph White, Jehiel Kelsey, John Salmon, Geo. Whitmore, David A. Miller, Riley Scoville, Andrew Stilwell.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
During the Judge's maiden address to the grand jury the door op- posite the bench opened and a distinguished member of the bar, "standing six feet eight and well proportioned," entered the room. Though his bearing would have done credit to a Bayard, yet he could not resist a mischievous wink to the Judge. The latter could not help seeing it, as it was intended for him alone, and it was too much for him under the novel circumstances. He hesitated a moment, broke, and was forced to abruptly descend from the heights of his eloquence. But right keenly did he scold the wicked joker for the prank he had played him, after the ermine was put off for the day.
In 1823 the May term of the Common Pleas, Charles II. Carroll, First Judge presiding, having opened in due form, adjourned to the new court house. 1 Here, after being duly convened, the first term was opened by a court as dignified, surrounded by a bar as able and ac- complished and by jurors as honest and intelligent, as any new coun- ty, scarcely twenty years emerged from the wilderness, ever boasted.
The county was now fully provided with the necessary buiklings and machinery, and it has since fully maintained its standing among the other divisions of the State.
Anecdotes connected with its organization have been preserved. Among these was one in reference to the design for the county seal. As it ran the dominant party at that time was called the "Bucktail." The first county clerk was of that party, and in ordering the seal he chose for the design a buck with large horns and a long, bushy tail, longer than the law of nature justified. This caudal grace was long ago curtailed, however; indeed, the design itself was soon superseded the seal now bearing simply the name of the county between a larger and a smaller circle.
1. On convening in the new court house George Hosmer was appointed District Attorney and Samuel Stevens, Crier, The first trial held in the new building was the snit of Driesbach and Scholl, Executors, Appellees, vs. Samuel Culbertson, Appellant.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
CHAPTER XIV.
T HE GROWING communities with their rapidly increasing bus- iness transactions felt very seriously the want of banking facili- ties, and as early as 1823 an attempt was made to establish a bank at Geneseo. A petition was presented to the Legislature March 4th of that year for the privilege of opening a bank at that place, which was signed by the judges and supervisors of the county. It was referred to the committee on banking of the Assembly and, ap- parently, was never reported by that committee, for in the Living- ston Register of March 2d, 1825, the following notice appears:
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