USA > New York > Livingston County > History of Livingston County, New York, from its earliest traditions to the present together with early town sketches > Part 75
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122 | Part 123
774
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
the Erie failed to respond and there was another halt. In the spring of 1880 Dr. Nesbit of Avon bought in Buffalo the steamer Musette and brought it to Conesus lake, which event gave a new impetus to Lakeville and all its enterprises. J. E. Butterfield of this village says that competent engineers in Buffalo told him in the summer of 1888 that the Musette was, at the time Dr. Nesbit bought her, the best built and the fastest steam yacht on the Niagara river. A new char- acter now appears on the scene-Col. J. A. McPherson of Avon-who at once became an important actor in all matters pertaining to the origin and development of several new enterprises, and the principal mover in the railroad project. As an incentive to the Erie company, he proposed not only to give the right of way, but also to grade and furnish the ties, which proposal was informally accepted by the Erie company. Colonel McPherson was ably seconded by L. E. Post of Avon, who was at the time a clerk in the repair shops there. Colonel McPherson's first interests were centered on the lake. He had bought, a year or two before, a sailboat, the "Lulu," the finest of its kind up to that time that had ever been placed on the lake. He at once rented Dr. Nesbit's Musette and ran it as a pleasure boat. He organized the Conesus Lake Transportation Company in 1882. The first meeting of the citizens to devise ways and means to comply with the new conditions on which the Erie company proposed to co-operate was held at the Lakeville Hotel, at which L. P. West, Jerry Bolles and F. M. Acker were appointed a committee, to which was soon added Thomas Armstrong as treasurer. Mr. West and Mr. Bolles circulated the first, and largest subscription. Other subscriptions were circulated. The interest became general, and all pulled together. J. C. Davenport, at that time master of transportation at Avon, and William H. Griffith, in charge of the telegraph de- partment of the Rochester division, also of Avon, took an active in- terest and rendered substantial aid. The necessary amount, about $3,700, to grade and tie the road was raised, and L. E. Post went to New York to confer with the Erie officials, who told him the charter of the Buffalo, and New York, and Erie road from Corning to Attica, which they were operating under a lease, would not allow them to con- struct branch lines. They advised Mr. Post to tell the Lakeville peo- ple to organize a company and build the road; that they would fur- nish the iron and take a mortgage which could be foreclosed, and
.
775
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
produce the same result as though they took the road bed as a gift and furnished the iron. The Erie's suggestion was at once adopted. A meeting was held at Avon, at which L. E. Post was named as pres- ident, J. C. Davenport, treasurer, and W. H. Griffith, secretary, and J. A. McPherson, L. P. West, F. M. Acker and H. J. Rowland directors. Under this organization the Conesus Lake railroad was built. The charter was dated May 10, 1882. For the iron they paid thirty-three dollars per ton -- not steel rails but second hand iron rails. The mortage amounted to $7,777.50. The capital stock was placed at $20,000-or 400 shares at fifty dollars per share. Of this, 375 shares were pledged to the Erie company as collateral security-and twenty- five shares retained for the management. The first excursion train
passed over it to Lakeville, July 13, 1882. At this point a formal offer was made to the Erie company to take and operate it. This they de- clined to do, saying: "Nothing on your mortgage is due; we can't foreclose and we don't want to lease or run your road. " Sure enough, the directors of the Conesus Lake road found that they had been dealing with older and wiser railroad men than they. As the mortgage was
drawn, nothing except the interest was to be paid in several years. The Erie evidently saw that the builders and owners of the short line could develop its resources and capabilities quicker and better than
they could. The Conesus lake folks saw they were in a corner with but one way of exit, namely, to run the road till such time as they could better themselves. April 29, 1882, eleven days before the rail- road charter was issued, the Lake Conesus Ice Company was organized with the same officers and directors as the Conesus Lake railroad. From the first, and always, the transportation of ice from the pure waters of the beautiful lake has been regarded as the greatest source of revenue likely to accrue to the freight receipts. So these men, with the two organizations on their hands, believing that the railroad bus- iness would not pay expenses, and that the ice business would yield a profit. and knowing that each one was indispensable to the other, con- cluded, in order to simplify the accounts and reduce the labor and ex- pense of keeping them, to enter the combined business on the books and in the interest of the ice company. The first necessity was a locomotive engine. The Erie had none to sell or to rent, and they bought one from a road in Pennsylvania, which cost $3,500. The road bed had little or no gravel, and the ties were poor in quality and de-
776
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
ficient in quantity. The joints of the rails were secured by the old- fashioned chairs, making a poor track, very wearing and straining to the one light engine. The balance sheet of the season of 1884, an average of the year's seasons, showed the receipts from all sources to be $1,070.44; total expenses, $1,915.53; leaving a deficit of $844.89. When the salt block got in operation in 1885 the balance sheet showed some improvement, but still had a ruinous balance on the wrong side. The burden of raising the money to keep up appearances and satisfy creditors fell entirely on three men-L. P. West, J. C. Davenport and Colonel McPherson. The latter gentleman had a still more unproduc- tive elephant on his hands. This was the Conesus Lake Transporta- tion Company, which taxed his resources to the utmost, and after building the depot at an expense of $400 and paying $500 on the loco- motive and his share of the first year's interest on the mortgage, he could do no more, leaving Mr. West and Mr. Davenport the entire
burden from that time on. In the winter of 1882-3 the ice company built and filled a moderate sized ice house, which paid a moderate profit and that helped a little. In the winter of 1884-5 the Lake Con- esus Ice Company sold their ice interests to the Silver Lake Ice Com- pany for contracts and large expectations for freight transportation in the future, but little or no money. The season of 1886 was an im- provement on the preceding years. The salt block was in full blast, the great ice house had been built and partly filled, and the business was increasing on the little railroad of one and sixty one-hun- dredths miles. The time had come that the Erie company had looked forward to, and they were ready to make terms for the final transfer of the property to their management and ownership. Accordingly they invited the president, Mr. L. P. West, to a conference in New York, which resulted in their giving, for the old engine, and improvement and betterments to the property, after the date of the mortgage, a sum of money that reimbursed Mr. West, Mr. Davenport and Colonel McPherson about half of their cash advances. Much of their time and arduous labors remain a free gift to the public. Mr. West and Mr. Davenport each lost about $2,500. At the request of the Erie officials, Mr. West again accepted the presidency of the road which position he held after Mr. Post's resignation in 1882. The Conesus Lake rail- road was finally transferred to the N. Y., L. E. & W. R. R. in Febru- ary, 1886.
777
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
THE DISTILLERIES.
The present Valley of Hemlock Lake was in early days known far and wide as Slab City. All that region was then heavily timbered, and one or more saw mills were its first manufacturing industries. It stood at the northern edge of the belt of country that produced the ever beautiful, evergreen family of trees, among which the pine and the hemlock were the leading members. Farmers and all sorts of builders from Livonia, Lima, Avon and all adjoining towns wanted all the good lumber the logs would make at remunerative prices, leav- ing a large surplus of slabs which could be had almost for the asking, and of these the first inhabitants of the saw-mill-ville constructed their temporary buildings to so large an extent, that the settlement took its name from their unique appearance. Of course, one of the indispensable wants of such a community was whiskey, and it would be a wilful suppression of facts if I did not add that some of their descendants have never entirely outgrown the old want.
About 1808 an institution to supply the settlers of this thriving hamlet with the inspiring beverage was built by Levi Van Fossen, and by him operated during his life time, afterwards hy Elizur Sweat- land, then by David Sweatland and by E. and A. Caldwell. The business was discontinued about the year 1850. This distillery was the oldest in the town, and it became so successful that in the year 1827 Ichabod A. Holden built another a mile north of Slab City, at a thriving little settlement containing a grist mill, a fulling mill, a saw mill and a dry goods store; all of which he had created and made so prosperous, chiefly owing to the enterprise and push of their owner, that the place was called Holdenville at first, and later was known as Jacksonville. So much business was done there that it was for many years a formidable rival of its neighboring city of Slabs. It had more than a score of houses, with blacksmith, cooper and shoe shops, and was quite a center of trade, with a good grain market. Many farmers are still living in town, who used to draw Mr. Holden's flour from the mill to Canandaigua and Pittsford for about three shillings per barrel. Today but one house or building of this once busy ville is left. The mills and even the dam are all gone, and like old Jerusalem "not one stone upon another is to be seen."
As early as 1817 a whiskey distillery was built at South Livonia on
778
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
what is now the Slattery farm near where the railroad crosses that farm by Fred Davis's. The establishment was run successfully by Fred Davis and by his brother Asa Davis, until the year 1822, when Alexander McDonald became the proprietor for the next six years. He then sold out to Selah Stedman, who operated it for a short time and then the business at that point ceased. A mill that did grinding was a part of the property.
A whiskey distillery was established at Livonia Centre about 1818 by Talcott Howard, afterwards operated for a time by Cyrus Wood- ruff and then by William R. Waldron, and still later by Tyrannus B. Ripley. There was a small mill attached that ground grain for dis- tilling, and grists for the early settlers. The mill and distillery were partially destroyed by fire in the year 1828.
About the year 1820 Timothy Hyde built a carding machine near the road on what is now the Jerry Bolles farm. The power was derived from the small but never failing stream that rises in the well known elder grove near the top of the hill below Milton VanZandt's. A man by the name of Hart converted the carding machine building into a whiskey distillery, putting in a run of stone for grinding the grain, one or both of which may still be seen on Jerry's premises. Mr. Hart met a sudden death, dropping dead one day while feeding his hogs. Colonel Parks, the father of our old well known citizen H. N. Parks, succeeded Mr. Hart in the distillery business, his son H. N. assisting him, till for some good reason they sold the establishment to George Washington Durkee, who used the water power for wagon making purposes. The writer remembers the old pond and dam as late as 1842, but the building had disappeared. The little stream did its work over a twenty-two foot overshot water wheel.
About the year 1828, William K. Green put appartus for distilling whiskey in a large square log building standing on his farm just east of where Bradish's house now stands, between them and the lake road. It was in a convenient spot in the slight hollow, to receive water from the excellent spring that flows from the very southwest corner of James Armstrong's farm. This distillery was run by his son Frank Green, and then allowed to run down. Mr. Green's farm at that time comprised most of the farm James Armstrong now owns, with the addition of all the land directly west of Armstrong between the lake road and the east shore of the lake. Green sold the farm to
-
Old Mill Wheel at Outlet of Conesus Lake, Lakeville.
779
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
Luther Carter and he sold it in 1834 to Jonathan. Kingsbury. The writer of this well remembers crawling through a tumbled down door in the old distillery and looking at the big copper worm which was still there as late as 1855 or '56.
John Armstrong related to the writer a few days ago his experience in Green's distillery, when he was a young man. I give it in his own words: "Father lived near, and I often helped Mr. Green in the still. Labor was cheap and I did not get much for the many days work I did. Whiskey was so plenty and cheap that any one was welcome to all he could drink. Before I was aware of it I had formed a habit of going every morning and taking a drink before breakfast. After a while Green stopped making whiskey, but my appetite did not stop and I went regularly to Lakeville for my drinks, a mile distant. One morning I was on my way and got to the four corners at the foot of the hill, half way there, when the thought came over me in a flash, 'What does this mean, that I must walk two miles every morning before breakfast to get a drink of whiskey. Am I a slave or am I not? If I keep this thing up I am a slave.' I stood a moment and then said to myself, 'I won't go another step, this morning or any other morning after whiskey.' I turned around and went home. That was the last of my drinking whiskey."
Only sixty years ago there were six whiskey distilleries in active operation in the town of Livonia. At that time every one drank. Ministers and deacons always kept their decanters well filled, and a religious visit was opened with a decorous dram. Twenty years later not a distillery was left and the better part of the community had discarded the drinking habit. To tell the causes that led to this great change, would be an essay on the evolution of the moral sentiment. It seems astonishing that the best people were so long finding out that it was wrong to get drunk.
OSSIAN.
The extreme southern town of the county is Ossian, which lies between Dansville and Nunda, of the southern tier of towns, and extends southward beyond them into Steuben county about three miles. Its area is 25,086 acres, and its population in 1900 was 780. It is bounded north by West Sparta, east by North Dansville and Dansville (the latter in Steuben county), south by Burns (Allegany county), west by Grove (Allegany county) and Nunda.
Ossian was separated from Angelica in 1808, and remained a part of Allegany county until 1857, when it was annexed to Livingston county.
It is a town of irregular hills, some of which rise 600 or 800 feet above the valleys. It was heavily timbered when the first settlers came, has been cleared slowly, and is now more of a lumbering district than any other section of the county. Nearly all the cleared land has been found tillable and more or less productive. The valley soil is a gravelly loam, and the hill soil a sandy loam, with some clay in the eastern part. Sugar creek flows through the town near the center, and Canaseraga creek across the southeast corner.
There are two small villages or hamlets, Ossian Centre and Bisbee. The former is near the center of the town on Sugar creek, so called from the sugar maples that abounded along its banks. The creek's valley is very fertile, and has features of striking beauty. This has been the later lumber manufacturing center for a large territory. Ossian Centre has about forty scattered dwellings, with steam saw- mill, four or five stores and shops and two churches. Bisbee, in the northwestern part, is a smaller hamlet, also with mills, stores and shops, which was started in 1816. It was named from Luther Bisbee, a soldier of the Revolution, who built the first saw-mill there in 1819.
The town of Ossian was one of the first tracts sold by Phelps and Gorham, and the west line is also part of the west line of their immense purchase.
781
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
The first settlers of Ossian were two brothers from New Jersey- Judge Richard W. Porter and James Porter, who arrived in 1804 and located on the present site of Ossian Centre. James Haynes and James Crogham came in 1806, and from 1807 to 1810 -- mostly in the former or the following year-Jacob Clendennin, Frederick Covert, William Boyle, Samuel McCrea, Joshua Carpenter, Elijah Belknap, James Rooker, William Lemen, James Gregory, James Boylan, Orri- son Cleveland, William and John Gould and Heman Orton. Luther Bisbee was an early settler in the northwest corner of the town.
The Ossian tract was sold early to Jeremiah Wadsworth, who sold it to Robert Troup, and from him the town was called Troupton for many years. Mr. Troup included it in the agency of James Wads- worth, and sales to first settlers were made under his auspices. In 1807 Mr. Wadsworth advertised that he would exchange lands in Troupton for improved farms in New England, and in his advertise- ment stated that there was "an excellent wagon road from Geneseo through Sparta to Troupton," and that there was a road from Troup- ton to Angelica.
The first child born was Abraham Porter in 1805; the first marriage that of John Gelson and Betsey Shay, in 1816; the first death that of John Turner, killed by the falling of a tree in 1807. The first school in the town was taught in 1813 and 1814 by a Mr. Weston. In 1817 Oliver Stacey opened the first inn, and Daniel Canfield the first store in 1824. The first saw-mill was built by Nathaniel Porter in 1806 or the following year, and the first grist mill by John Smith in 1826. The first frame house was built by Phineas Howard in 1830. The
first regular physician was Dr. Sholl. The first postmaster was James Porter. The first marriage was that of John Gilson to Betsy Shay in 1816. The first merchant was Samuel Chapin. The first death on record was that of John Turner who was killed while chopping, by the fall of a tree in 1807.
Hon. Isaac Hampton, who for many years was called by his North Dansville neighbors the "King of Ossian," died in 1896, contributed two papers to the Livingston County Historical Society which contain some interesting statements. He came to Ossian with his father's family from Canadice, Ontario county, in 1835 being then fifteen years old. He says that at that time no kind of timber was of any value, and several years afterward he assisted in logging and burning on the
782
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
ground good oak and pine timber simply for the purpose of clearing. Later the timber was sold in the tree for twenty-five cents a thousand feet. It was a relief to get rid of it at any price, as it made the clear- ing lighter. After the Erie canal was finished for several years the pine timber delivered in Dansville was about five dollars per thousand feet, but in the financial crash of 1847 good white pine lumber sold in Dansville for three dollars per thousand feet, half cash and half barter and pine shingles for 75 cents per thousand. Mr. Hampton remem- bered when ten saw-mills were run by water on Sugar creek, and two on Duncan run, and at that time it was not unusual to see ten to twenty teams a day from York, Leicester. Caledonia, Avon and Mt. Morris, there after lumber.
In Mr. Hampton's paper of 1886 he said: "The most notable im- provement is the rapid pulling of pine stumps and putting them into fences. There are about ten stump-pulling machines in the town of Ossian of various kinds, and most of them are kept busy during most of the summer season. Many farms in town have been nearly doubled in value within the last few years by freeing them from their pine stumps. Before pine stumps can be pulled fifteen years must elapse from the time the tree was cut, and the fibres from the roots have rotted. By this time hemlock and hard wood stumps are so rotted that they can be removed without difficulty. Or they will burn as they stand. Freed from these the process of pulling the pine stumps
begins. By a patent lever process, or by a screw machine worked by a horse the stump is removed and left for months to dry. 6 Then the roots on one side are hewed away and the stumps are drawn together to build fences which are impassable to cattle and sheep."
When Mr. Hampton came to Ossian in 1835, the bears and panthers had disappeared, but there were still many wolves in the forest. They came around his father's log barn in the night, and several times killed some of the neighbors' sheep, and they could hear them often in the night howling near the house.
In the earlier years of the first settlers both bears and panthers were occasionally encountered. Indians were then numerous, but friendly. They came on hunting expeditions and once had a winter encamp- inent near Ossian Centre. Among them were Tall Chief, Yankee John and Laughing Molly.
It is a curious historical incident that the Mormon fanaticism got
783
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
hold of the people in and around Bisbee in 1862 to such an extent that twenty-two of them left their homes for the Mormon center in Utah. Among these were Augustus Canfield and his daughter Lucy, and this daughter became one of the wives in Salt Lake City of John Young, the head of the church, and had two children by him. He repudiated her afterward, and she came back east in a repentant frame of mind, and publicly denounced Mormonism and her former polygamous hus- band.
About one hundred Ossian residents enlisted to serve the Union in the war of the Rebellion, and a considerable number of them died in the service. The records of the town's connection with the war are very meagre.
The first church started in Ossian Centre was Presbyterian. Rev. Robert Hubbard of Angelica assisted, by invitation, in organizing it in 1816. The first members were James Haynes, Mary Haynes, Wil- liam Boyles, Esther Boyles, Samuel McCray, Catherine W. Porter. Catherine N. Porter, Nancy Vorhees, John Shay, Jeremiah Flynn, Jonathan Haynes, John Haynes, Jane Haynes, Anna Conkright, John Perine, Polly Perine, Jacob Clendennin, Lucy Hurlbut, Rhoda Clendennin. The first ruling elders, chosen in 1818. were Jacob Clendennin and James Haynes.
A Methodist church was built about 1852, and Revs. Parker and Piersall were the first pastors. There was a Methodist organization at an early date, but the records are lost. A Presbyterian church was started in 1818, but it long ago ceased to have services. The last pas- tor was Rev. L. J. Box.
Isaac Hampton has been mentioned and quoted. For many years he was the leading man of the town. Beginning poor, he became the owner of 5000 acres of Ossian lands, and kept thousands of sheep. He was supervisor fourteen terms, and chairman of the board several terms. Once he was elected member of assembly, and for over twenty years he was postmaster at Ossian Centre.
Corydon Hyde, who came in 1835 to Ossian from Livonia, where he was born, was another large landholder, having a farm of 581 acres.
Other prominent residents of the middle period were Frank J. Bon- ner. Elias H. Geiger and William M. White. Mr. White owned a farm of several hundred acres near Canaseraga, cultivated it many years, and finally moved to Utica, where he became one of the city's
784
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY
leading bankers. He served Ossian as supervisor a few terms. So did Mr. Bonner. Mr. Geiger became a master builder and contractor, and erected large buildings in Dansville and elsewhere. He also erected several steam saw mills for himself and Alonzo Bradner of Dansville, and became one of the largest lumber dealers in Livingston county.
The supervisors of Ossian from 1808 are given below. It should be remembered that the town belonged to Allegany county until 1857 when it was joined to Livingston county :
Richard W. Porter.
1808-09-10-11-12-13-24-25-26-27-28-28
James Vorliees
1861-62
Nathaniel W. Porter. 1814-23
Jacob Clendennin ..... 1815-16-17-18-19-20 Merritt Brown .. IS21-22
Nathaniel P. Covert
1876-77
Andrew Mccurdy. 1879-80
Samuel Chapin. IS26-32-33
I. F. Hampton. ISSI-82
William R. Bennett
IS30-31
James D. McCurdy
1834-35
Isaac H. Consaulus.
1836-37-38-39-41
James B. Hampton.
ISS7-88
Joshua Rathbone.
.1844
F. F. Covert.
890
James Lemen.
1845-46-55
1847-48
Israel Canfield
Isaac B. Knapp.
1894-95-96-97
Isaac Hampton.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.