USA > New York > Livingston County > History of Livingston County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 73
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Charles Williamson, the first agent of the Pult- ney estate, was a native of Scotland. He entered the British army in youth, and during the Revolu- tionary war held the commission of captain in the twenty-fifth regiment of foot. His regiment was ordered to America, but on the passage Captain Williamson was captured by a French privateer. He remained a prisoner at Boston till the close of the war. On his return to Europe, he made the acquaintance of the most distinguished public men of England, and was often consulted concerning American affairs. On the or- ganization of the association of Sir William Pultney and others, he was appointed its agent,
and entered zealously into the schemes for colonizing the Genesee forest.
Captain Williamson was a man of talent, hope, energy and versatility, generous and brave of spirit, swift and impetuous in action, of ques- tionable discretion in business, a lover of sport and excitement, and well calculated by his tempera- ment and genius to lead the proposed enterprise. His spirit was so tempered with imagination, that he went up to the wilderness, not with the dry and dogged resolution of one expecting a labor of a lifetime in subduing the savage soil, but in a kind of chivalrous dashing style, to head an onslaught amongst the pines, and to live a " Baron of the Backwoods" in his Conhocton Castle, ruling over forests and rivers, after the manner of the old Norman nobles in England.
Having landed in Baltimore in 1791, and taken the steps required by our naturalization laws, he received in his own name, from Robert Morris, a conveyance of the Pultney estate and began im- mediately his preparations for the colonization of the same. Of these preliminary movements there is but little to be said. It appears that lie corresponded extensively with men whom he sought to engage in his enterprise, that he opened communication with many planters of Virginia and Maryland, proposing a transfer of themselves and their households from the worn-out planta- tions of the South, to the fresh woods of the Genesee ; that he traveled much through the country and made active exertions by personal application and by advertisement to induce farmers and emigrants of the better sort from Great Britain to settle upon his Northern lands. He established his centre of organization and cor- respondence at the village of Northumberland, Pa.
In the winter after his arrival in America, Capt. Williamson made a visit to the Genesee by way of Albany and the Mohawk. In the upper valley of the Mohawk he passed the last of the old settle- ments. From these old German farms the road was but a lane, opened in the woods, passable only on horseback, or in a sledge. A few cabins, surrounded by scanty clearings, were the only in- dications of civilization which met his eye, till he stood amongst a group of cabins at the foot of Seneca Lake. The famed Genesee estate was before him. Surely few city builders of ancient or modern times have gazed upon districts which offered less encouragement to them than did the wild Iroquois forest to the hopeful Scot. A little settlement had been commenced at Canandaigua.
350
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
The Wadsworths were at Big Tree. The disciples of Jemima Wilkinson, the prophetess, had estab- lished their new Jerusalem on the outlet of Crooked Lake, and, scattered through the vast woods, a few hundred pioneers were driving their axes to the hearts of the tall trees, and waging war with the wolves and panthers. Beyond the meadows of the Genesee Flats, was a forest as yet unknown to the ax, which har- bored several tribes of savages wavering be- twixt war and peace. British garrisons, surly from discomfiture, occupied the forts at Oswego and Niagara ; colonies of Tories, including in their numbers, men of infamous renown, dwelt on the frontiers of Canada, on lands allotted to them by the Crown, and there were not wanting those amongst the military and political agents of the provincial government who incited the jealous barbarians to the general slaughter of the back- woodsmen.
In the following summer Captain Williamson determined to open a high road from Northum- berland to the Genesee. The only road leading to the north from the mouth of the West Branch followed the valley of the Susquehanna, which at this point, to one going above, begins a long and unnecessary ramble to the east. A direct road to the Genesee would cross a ridge of the Alleganies. An Indian trail, often trod during the Revolution by parties from the fastnesses of the Six Nations, ran over the mountains; but to open a road through the shattered wilderness, which would be passable for wagons, was deemed impossible. After a laborious exploration, however, by the agent and a party of Pennsylvania hunters, a road was located from " Ross Farm" (now Williams- port) to the mouth of Canaseraga Creek, on the Genèsee, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. This road was opened in the ensuing autumn by a party of German emigrants.
The fortunes of this German colony formed quite a perplexing episode in Captain Williamson's history. The simplicity, the sufferings and the terrors of these Teutonic pioneers were sources of much amusement to the rough backwoodsmen, and their passage through the wilderness and over the wild Laurel Mountains was in early times an event so momentous that although the matter has strictly but little reference to the history of this county, it may nevertheless be permitted to recount their frights and tribulations.
It seems that Mr. Colquhoun, who conducted the business affairs of the association. became ac-
quainted in London with a certain Dr. Berezy, a German of education and address, who engaged to collect a colony of his countrymen, and conduct them to the Genesee lands under the auspices of the association. Capt. Williamson seems not to have favored the, scheme, but while living at Northum- berland in 1782, the colony arrived, and it fell upon him to devise some plan of disposing of this very raw material to the best advantage. There were about two hundred of them, men, women and children. Though stout and healthy enough, they were an ignorant and inexperienced people, accus- tomed to dig with the spade in the little gardens of the Fatherland, and as unfit for forest work and the rough life of the frontiers as babes.
It was determined to send them over the moun- tains to the Tioga, thence by the valleys of that river and of the Conhocton to Williamsburgh on the Genesee. It was necessary to give the emi- grants in charge to some reliable and energetic guide and Benjamin Patterson, the hunter, who was well acquainted with the German language, and in whose judgment and resolution Capt. Wil- liamson had entire confidence, was employed in this capacity. He was abundantly provided with money and means. Seven stout young Pennsyl- vanians, well skilled in the use of the ax and the rifle, were chosen by him as assistant woodsmen, and these and the Germans were to open the road, while the guide, in addition to his duties as com- mander of the column, undertook to supply the camp with game.
It was in the month of September when the emi- grants appeared at the mouth of Lycoming creek, ready for the march to the northern paradise. A little way up the creek they commenced hewing the road. Here the Germans took their first les- sons in woodcraft. They were not ready appren- tices, and never carried the art to great perfection. We hear of them in after years sawing trees down .*
Owing to their extreme ignorance of anything pertaining to woodcraft their march progressed slowly and with great suffering to all. They became mutinous. "I could compare my situation," said the guide, " to nothing but that of Moses with the children of Israel. I would march them along a few miles, and then they would rise up and rebel." Mutiny effected as little with the inflexible coni- mander as grief. He cheered up the down-hearted and frightened the mutinous. They had fairly to
* ** An old gentleman who came over the road in an early day says the trees looked as if they had been gnawed down by the beaver." Turner's Phelps and Gorham's Purchase.
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GROVELAND-EARLY SETTLEMENT OF WILLIAMSBURGH.
be driven. Once, when some of the men were very clamorous, and even offered violence, Patter- son stood with his back to a tree and brandishing his tomahawk furiously said, "If you resist me I will kill you-every one of you." Thereupon discipline was restored.
They worked along slowly enough. At favor- able places for encampment they built block- houses, or Plocks, as the Germans called them, and opened the road for some distance in advance before moving the families further. These block- houses stood for many years landmarks in the wil- derness. September and October passed and it was far in November before they completed the passage of the mountains.
At the place now occupied by the village of Blossburgh they made a camp, which from their baker, who there built an oven, they called "Peter's Camp." Patterson, while hunting in this neigh- borhood, found a few pieces of coal which he cut from the ground with his tomahawk. The Ger- mans pronounced it to be of good quality.
Pushing onward seven miles further they made the "Canoe Camp," a few miles below the present village of Mansfield. When they reached this place their supply of provisions was exhausted. The West Branch youths cleared two acres of ground ; Patterson killed an abundant supply of game, and went down with some of his young men to Painted Post, thirty miles or more below. He ordered provisions to be boated up to this place from Tioga Point, and returned to the camp with several canoes. He found his poor people in utter despair. They lay in their tents bewailing their misfortunes, and said that the Englishman had sent them there to die. He had sent a ship to Hamburgh, he had enticed them away from their home, he had brought them over the ocean on purpose that he might send them out in the wil- derness to starve. They refused to stir and begged Patterson to let them die. But he was even yet merciless. He blustered about without ceremony, cut down the tent poles with his tomahawk, roused the dying to life, and at length drove the whole colony to the river bank.
When the Germans saw the slender canoes they screamed with terror, and loudly refused to entrust themselves to such shells. The woodsmen, however, put the women, the chil- dren and the sick, into the canoes almost by main force, and launched forth into the river while the men followed by land, thus making the journey to l'ainted Post.
It was now December. They had been three months in the wilderness, and were not in a con- dition to move onward to the Genesee. Patter- son with thirty of the most hardy men, kept on, however, and opened the road up the Conhocton to Dansville and the place of destination. The others remained through the winter of 1793 at Painted Post.
The whole colony was conducted to the Genesee in the spring. There was, at this time, a single settler in the valley of the Conhocton above the settlements near Painted Post.
After manifold tribulations, the Germans were at last deposited at the Genesee, with the loss of but one man, who was killed in the mountains by a falling tree. The subsequent fortunes of this ill- starred colony can be told in few words .*
At Williamsburgh they were abundantly pro- vided for. Each family received a house and fifty acres of land, with a stock of provisions for pres- ent use, and farming utensils. Cattle and sheep were distributed amongst them, and nothing re- mained for them to do but fall to work and culti- vate their farms. Hardly a settlement in Western New York had such a munificent endowment as the German settlement on the Genesee. But it soon became apparent that the leader of the colo- ny had failed to regard the instructions of Mr. Col- quhoun. Instead of recruiting his numbers from the sturdy and industrious Saxon population, as directed, he had collected an indiscriminate rabble from the streets of Hamburgh, not a few of whom were vagabonds of the worst kind. They were lazy, shiftless, and of the most appalling stupidity. Breeding cattle were barbacued. Seeds instead of being planted in their fields, vanished in their ket- tles ; and when provisions were exhausted, Captain Williamson was called upon to dispatch a file of pack-horses to their relief. The emigrants were greatly disappointed in the land which received them, and complained with bitterness of the treachery that enticed them from the blessed gutters of Hamburgh, first to starve in frightful mountains, and then to toil in hungry forests.
At length they broke out into open and outra- geous rebellion. Captain Williamson, who was on the ground was assailed by Berezy and the rabble, and as he himself says, "nothing could equal my situation but some of the Parisian scenes. For an hour and a half I was in this situation, (in a corner of a store between two writing desks,) every instant expecting to be torn to pieces." However with the
* Turner's Hist. of Phelps & Gorham's Purchase.
352
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
assistance of a few friends, he kept the mob at bay, till Berezy at length quelled the tumult. The col- onists then drove away or killed all the cattle on the premises, and held a grand carousal. The mutiny lasted several days, till the sheriff of On- tario mustered a posse of sufficient strength, and descended upon them by forced marches, and made prisoner the ringleader. Berezy, in the mean- time, had gone to the east, where he made arrange- ments for the removal of his colonists to Canada. This transfer was at last effected, greatly to the relief of the London Association and their agent, to whom the colony had been, from the beginning, nothing but a source of expense and vexation.
Col. Williamson believed that this was to be a most important point in the future as the com- merce of the country developed, on account of its being located at the junction of two important water-courses, thus affording water communication through two sources to this point, and thence on to Lake Ontario. He little dreamed at that day that the future carrying business was to be done by the railroads or even by the canal to the entire abandonment of the old water channels. Col. Wil- liamson entertained great expectations in regard to the future of this place believing that it was to be the great commercial centre of Western New York. In a letter to a friend he writes :-
"On the Genesee river a great many farms are laying out ; sixty-five miles from its mouth, is a town marked out by the name of Williamsburgh, and will, in all probability be a place of much trade. In the present situation of things, it is remote, when considered in a commercial point of view but should the port of Oswego be given up and the lock navigation be completed, there will not be a carry- ing place between New York and Williamsburgh."
The village of Williamsburgh contained at one time, a good hotel building, a dry-goods store, a distillery, blacksmith and grocery shops, a grain warehouse, and about forty dwellings. Services were occasionally held in a portion of the ware- house by the Rev. Samuel J. Mills, a Presbyterian minister. He was the pioneer minister in the valley south of Avon. He is the grand-father of M. H. Mills, Esq., of Mt. Morris. A more extended account of him can be found on pages 289 and 318.
A post-office was established here in 1792, it being the terminus of a post-route then established ftom Whitestown to this place. In 1798 there were three frame buildings here besides several log- houses.
M. H. Mills, M. D., of Mt. Morris, in an
address before the Livingston County Pioneer Association, in August, 1877, states as follows :-
" The first school taught in the county was at Williamsburgh, in 1793, by Samuel Murphy. The first tavern was kept at this place by Wm. Lemon, in 1797. The first grist-mill was erected on lot 58, in 1797. The first store in the county was at Williamsburgh, and kept by Alexander McDonald, a Scotchman. The first race-course for running horses was made by Col. Williamson, in 1793, and was located on the Genesee flats at, or near, the confluence of Canaseraga creek and Genesee river, at a short distance from Williamsburgh. Here sporting men came from New York, Albany, Phil- adelphia and Baltimore for several years, but the enterprise was abandoned."
The Albany Gasette of July 15, 1793, contains an advertisement of the Williamsburgh Fair and Genesee Races, which states that an annual fair for the sale and purchase of cattle, horses and sheep would be held at Williamsburgh, at the great forks of the Genesee, commencing on Monday, the 23d of September, 1793. These fairs were continued for some years with quite marked suc- cess.
Following the tract of Mr. Williamson when he broke in from Pennsylvania and made a com- mencement at Williamsburgh, settlers soon began to drop into the valley of the Canaseraga. In Groveland, other than at Williamsburgh, John Smith was the pioneer. He was from New Jersey, a surveyor in the employ of Mr. Williamson. He purchased a mile square, upon which he resided until his death in 1817.
Benjamin Parker, a step-son of John Smith, John Harrison, William and Thomas Lemon, Win. Kelley, and James Rosebrugh, were among the earliest. Smith in 1799 built a mill between Hor- nellsville and Arkport, and as early as 1800 took lumber from it to the Baltimore market.
Michael Roup was an early pioneer upon the uplands in Groveland, with his son, Christian Roup. He died during the war of 1812. Michael Roup, of Groveland, is his son.
The early minister that visited the neighborhood was the Rev. Mr. Gray.
Other early settlers were :- Samuel Niblack, (Niblack's Hill,) William Martin, Samuel Stillwell, John Vance, Doty, Ewart, Wm. Magee, Wm. Mc- Nair, Samuel Magee and Darling Havens.
Wm. Magee settled in 1796 where John Hart- man now lives, on the valley road, and came from Sussex county, N. J. He was one of three broth- ers who came from Ireland. William married in New Jersey, and had eight children,-four boys
(Photo. by Betts, Dansville. )
MR. & MRS. CHARLES HENDERSHOTT. 1
CHARLES HENDERSHOTT.
Among the pioneer families of Groveland, may be mentioned the antecedents of our subject, Chas. Hendershott. He was the son of Jacob and Mary (Thomas) Hendershott, and was born in Columbia county, Pa. Oct. 10, 1805, the eleventh child of a family of twelve of whom four are still living. When four years of age he came into this county with his parents who remained in Avon over a year, and settled in Groveland in 1814, purchasing 137 acres of land at twenty shillings per acre. He lived at home assisting his father in improving that land which is now one of the finest farms in Groveland, and at his father's death, which occurred in 1847, at the advanced age of 84 years, this farm was willed to him with a codicit to the effect that he pay the other heirs a consideration. His mother, Mary Hendershott, died in 1834, aged 72 years.
Charles Hendershott is second to none in his town, as a practical farmer, and not only owns the old homestead, with a hundred acres adjoining, but also a farm in Allegany county. He is now in his seventy-third year, but personally attends to his farm and its interest and does not appear more than fifty years of age.
December 21, 1848, he was married to Lois P., daughter of Andrew and Wealthy D. (Hughes) Metcalf, of Cooperstown, Otsego county, N. Y., who was born in Harpersfield, Delaware county, July 29, 1820, and moved to Otsego county, with her parents when four years of age. The result of
this union was four sons, of whom three are still living, viz: Chas. A., born September 11, 1850, is married to Agnes M. Creg, of Belmont, Alle- gany county, and resides near the old homestead in Groveland. Frank M., born Feb. 27, 1852, is married to Hattie E. Buckland, and resides in Buffalo. Chester A. was born Jan. 5, 1854, and resides at home. Edward E., born Feb. 3, 1859, and died Aug. 10, 1862.
Mrs. Hendershott is an exemplary and con- scientious member of the Groveland Presbyterian Church, having united herself with it more than twenty years ago. In sickness or distress she has ever been ready to assist, and is always kind to the poor and needy. Her ancestors are an old family and Mrs. H. is able to trace them back as far as the landing of the Mayflower. Her grandfather and his three brothers and two cousins came from Connecticut to Cooperstown in or about the year 1795, and settled on what is now known as " Met- calf Hill." Mrs. Hendershott says she has heard her father say he has attended school when thirty of the scholars' names were Metcalf. Andrew Met- calf, the father of Mrs. H., was a son of Roger Metcalf, one of the pioneers of Otsego county, and was the oldest of six children. He died September 2d, 1880, at the advanced age of 85 years, having out-lived all his brothers and sisters.
In politics Mr. Hendershott was formerly a Whig, but is now a Republican, having acted with that party since 1856.
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GROVELAND-EARLY SETTLERS.
and four girls-six of whom were born after his arrival in Groveland. His children born in Grove- land are :- Hugh, now in Conesus; Elizabeth, who married Samuel Ewart, (now dead,) of Geneseo, and who is now living in that place ; Charles, who died in Groveland, January 9, 1850; Rebecca, who died in Groveland, April 9, 1857; Julia Ann, who married Darling Havens, (both dead); and John, born July 18, 1812, now living on the old home- stead, which was first occupied by his father about 1806.
William McNair settled at Williamsburgh in 1798. Darling Havens was an early settler, coming pre- vious to 1795, but soon after located where the Havens' now live in Sparta. The Zehner Mills, located on Canaseraga creek were built by Isaac Havens, a son of Darling Havens.
Darling Havens remained but a short time when he removed to Sparta.
Jacob and Mary Hendershott were early set- tlers, coming into the town in 1814. They were formerly from Columbia county, Pa., where Charles Hendershott, who now lives upon the old home- stead, was born. Jacob Hendershott died in 1847 and his wife in 1834.
Michael Johnson emigrated from Ireland and came in 1804 to Geneseo, from whence in 1806, he removed to Groveland. He died in 1835 on the homestead. He had five children : Nancy, married Samuel Culbertson ; Margaret, married V. P. Whitbeck, of Avon, (dead); John, born 1810. died 1827 ; Matilda, married Michael Kelly, of Groveland ; and Richard, born Nov. 25, 1815, married Matilda Ebenriter, of Groveland, was Member of Assembly 1870-'71.
Upon the pages of the town record are the names of Daniel Ross, Levy Dunn, Hugh Mc- Nair, William Harris and William Kelly, in 1797 ; Elias Harrison, William McNair, John Rosebrugh and John Hampton, in 1798; and Thomas Bailey and David Crook, in 1805.
Among the most prominent of the settlers from 1810-'20 may be mentioned William Fitzhugh and Judge Charles Carroll.
William Fitzhugh was of a family, the name and service of which are intimately blended with the history of the stirring events of the Revolution in the colony of Maryland. His father, Col. William Fitzhugh, held the commission of colonel in the British army, retired upon half pay, when the troubles between the colonies and the mother country commenced, and whose son, Col. Peregrine Fitzhugh, was first commissioned in a corps of
light horse, but in a later period of the war was enrolled in the military family of Washington. William, another son, served as a colonel in a division of cavalry, and after the war was a member of the Maryland Legislature. Previous to 1800, Col. Peregrine Fitzhugh had made the acquaintance of Mr. Williamson, and had visited the Genesee country. When Col. William Fitz- hugh first visited the country in 1800 in company with Col. Nathaniel Rochester, Major Charles Carroll, and several others, he brought a letter of introduction to Mr. Williamson from his brother, for himself and Col. Rochester ; Major Carroll as would seem from the reading of the letter, having previously known him. During this visit, in addition to a third interest in the "100 acre tract " at the Falls of the Genesee, purchased in company with Messrs. Rochester and Carroll, he jointly, with Mr. Carroll, purchased on the Can- aseraga, in Groveland and Sparta, 12,000 acres of Mr. Williamson, paying $2.09 per acre. Their tract embraced the old site of Williamsburgh, Mr. Williamson having abandoned his enterprise of forming a town there after the failure with his German colony. Leaving their property in the care of an agent. Messrs. Fitzhugh and Carroll did not emigrate with their families until 1816, when a division of the joint purchase was made.
Col. Fitzhugh died in 1830, aged 78 years ; his wife, who was the daughter of Col. Daniel Hughes, of Washington county, Md., died in 1829, aged 56 years.
Dr. Daniel H. Fitzhugh, a son of Col. William Fitzhugh, was a very prominent citizen of Grove- land. He was born in Maryland in 1794, and came to Groveland in 1816 to superintend the erection of their new home. He died April 23, 1881. He was the last male representative of his father's family. He left a family of four sons and six daughters.
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