USA > New York > Monroe County > History of Monroe county, New York with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, Palatial residences > Part 80
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
DR. ABDIEL B. CARPENTER.
Among the prominent physicians of Monroe County, Dr. Abdiel B. Carpenter enjoys an enviable reputation, having had a successful practice of thirty-four years in the towns of Greece and Parma. Ile has a wide circle of friends and acquaint- ances, and commands universal respect and esteem.
He was born in the town of Sencea, Ontario county, New York, in 1809, was educated at Geneva Academy, and received his medical degrees at Fairfield Med- ical College. Commenced the study of medicine with Dr. Anthony Gage, at the age of seventeen. At eighteen years of age he removed to the town of Greece. in Monroe County, and continued the study of medicine under the supervision of Dr. M. B. Gage. Soon after he was engaged in assisting Dr. Gage in his prac- tice.
In January, 1831, he purchased the practice of Dr. Gage, and commenced busi- ness for himself. A young man without means, with nothing to rely upon except his own indomitable courage and perseverance, he built up for himself an extensive and lucrative practice. At the age of twenty-one he was united in marriage with Miss Jane L. Rowley, by whom he became the father of seven children,-two sona and five daughters. He lost his wife in 1859. Having enjoyed for so many years the blessings and comforts of a happy union with his first wife, it was no wonder that after two years of dreary loneliness he should seek to fill the void in bis beart and home by choosing another companion, which be did by marrying Miss Caroline E. Sperry, a very fine-looking and accomplished lady of the same down, by whom he has three children-one son and two daughters.
In the year 1864 the doctor resigned his practice to his eldest son, Dr. A. M. Carpenter, who very ably and successfully fills the position so long occupied by his father.
The doctor has a fine, productive farm, which he superintends himself ; a beauti- ful home residence, a fine view of which, accompanied by the portraits of himself and excellent wife, elsewhere grace the pages of this work. The doctor, although Dever a politician, has served io various offices and positions of trust, and now, at the age of sixty-seven years, is in the full enjoyment of the health, wealth, and happiness to which long years of industry and temperate habits so justly entitle bim.
WILLIAM HENCHER.
William Hencher was born at Brookfield, Massachusetts, served as a soldier during the Revolution, waa a partisan of Shay in the State rebellion, a pioneer of Moorve County, and the father of a family of pioneers. He was Harried on May 9, 1771, to Mehitable Moffet, the grand-daughter of a Scottish clergyman. The family resided for seventeen years upon a farm in Brookfield, Worcester county, Massachusetts, and then removed to Gates. then a portion of Outario county. The first settlement was made at Newtown Point, where a year was passed. Ile then moved up the Chemuany river, and, joined by his family, located on Big flata. He contracted for one-eiglith of the second township, short range west of the Genesee, at the mouth of the river. A payment of seventy dollars had beca made when Jackson, the supposed owner, was found to have no clin. A purchase was now made from Joseph Anain of six hundred and twenty-seven acres, at two shillings and sixpence per acre, and in August, 1791, Mr. Teacher, accompanied by his only son William, then a youth uf eleven, came to his land, and, selecting a site, erected a hut on the west side of the river. Father and son then went to Long pond and cut wild grass, in anticipation uf bringing on the stock and making a settlement. Ileturning for his family, he moved in during February. 1792. upon ox-sleds, coming by way of Seneca lake and Catharine's town to Irondequoit, where all semblance of a road ceased. A real was cut to the Geneve above the falls, thenee down the east side of the river to the hut of a renegade named Walker, where the family ruade a temporary sojourn, and, about March 31. crossed the river to occupy the hut above noted. This hut, now inhibited by ten parsons, and roofed with wild grass, was the first rude dwelling of the European race on the shore of Lake Ontario between the Genesee river and Furt Niagara. A few acres were cleared, a comfortable log house was built, and here the family lived
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till 1802, when they moved lower down the river to where the United States light-house now stands. Emigrants, boatmen, and Indians frequented the place, camped near by, and with thein Hencher opened a tratie to which was added trade in fish, purchased acrus> the lake or caught by himself in the creeks. Buy- ing hutter and cheese in the settlements, he sold at large profit in Canada, and not only supported a large fuuily, but paid for his extensive tract of land.
When the family moved west of the Genesee river, and for several years there- after, Peter Shaffer and Christopher Dugan were sole neighbors, and these twenty miles distant.
The futuily consisted of the parents and eight children, seven of whom were daughters. The oldest, Mebitable, born February 22, 1772, married Tholltis Lee, and her marriage with him was the second to take place on the west side of the river.
Polly was born March 10, 1774; Sarah, August 25, 1776; Chloe, June 11. 1778; William. April 17, 1780; Persis, May 3, 1782; Amy, April 16, 1784. and Hannah, September 20, 1786. The youngest child was fifteen months old when the Hencher family sold their eastern farmu and moved to western New York. William Hencher lived to see all his children married and comfortably settled. and died on June 21. 1817, in Charlutte, Gates township, now Greece.
Seven daughters, inured tu frontier life, became wives of as many pioucers, and despite unhealthful climate, umuitigated hardship, and ently privation, survival many years, and witnessed the changes from rude to refined, from semi-savage to enlightened life. It is noted of William Hencher that he wrote of others, and thereby contributed to pioneer history, but of himself said nothing. From the incidents of his life we idealize a mau determined and active, one who shrank from no danger when found in the pathway of duty or self-interest, and who with ready appreciation embraced opportunity tu advantage his family, and rejoiced in having secured for each a competence before his departure. In his renewed effort to secure a farm when the first had proved a failure, his voyages across the lake with produce and for fish to obtain means of payment, and his rapid im- provement of his lands in the face of the dreaded fevers which brooded along the coast, we have a type of a genuine pioneer, one worthy of honorable mention in history, one to whom the present and future uwe a debt for self-denial and signal service.
JOSEPH NORTHRUP
was born at Jefferson, Schoharic county, New York, in the year 1806. His father. Mr. Joseph P. Northrup. was born and reared at Saratoga, and after his marriage removed to Schuharie county, and, about the year 1822, removed to Brighton, Dear Rochester. He was the father of three children by hia first wife-one woon and two daughters-and one daughter by a second wife. He lived to the age of' sixty-four years, and died at the home of his son, in the town of Greece. The two daughters of his first wife are both deceased. The daughter of his second wifi- is still living. the widow of Mr. William Fall. Mr. Joseph Northrup, in his tos- hood, enjoyed the limited advantages of the common schools of that prrienl nutil he was nineteen years of age, when he came west to Rochester, and was for ... v. eral years engaged in teaming and ataging. At the age of twenty-four he was married to Miss Maria Wesley, of East Bloomfield, Ontario county, with whom he lived a peaceful and happy life until 1871, when the nation was severed by the death of his wife. Suon after his marriage he settled on the spot where nuw stands the beautiful home of his son, Mr. George W. Northrup. All his life since his marriage has been spent in the quiet occupation of a farmer, with no other ambition than to be a good citizen and an indu-trions, honorable man ; and the universal respect nad estrem of his neighbors and acquaintances, and the love at.l devotion of his friends and relatives, attest that his life has been a success. Il is the father of six children, -four sons and two daughters,-of whom three sou* and une daughter are now living. George W., the second son, has the old home farm and residence, with whom the old gentleman has a pleasant home for hisold age. We elsewhere in this work present a fine view of the residence, and also pur- traits, of Mr. Joseph Northrup nud his deceased wife.
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IRONDEQUOIT.
THE original town of Boyle was organized on April 6, 1806, and included north- east Monroe. Reduced in extent by the organization of l'enfield and Perrinton, the name of the remainder was changed doring 1812 to Smallwood, and two years later the town of Smallwood was divided into the towns of' Brighton and Pitts- ford. Irondequoit, named from the bay, which also bore the name Neo-da-on-da- quat as given by the Indians, was formed from Brighton on March 27, 1839.
It lies on the north border of the county, east of the centre, with Lake Ontario on the north, Irondequoit bay on the east, and Genesee river on the west. The surface is rolling, with a northward inclination, and towards the deep valley where lies Irondequoit bay io the east. Save the bay eastward and the Gienesee on the west boundary, the streams are small and unimportant which drain the lands to the northeast. The soil in the north is sandy, and southward a clay loam. A radical change followed early settlement of the sandy region, and the time came when cultivation ceased to be productive. Values steadily depreciated till sales were made at less than five dollars an aere. Better plows upturned the subsoil and mingled with the sand, the fertility gradually increasing until those once doubt- ful farins have become of the best in this portion of the State. Varions conjecture wus excited to account for the change, but an analysis of the soil shows the ele- ments of production richly developed in the deeper subsoil. The leading pursuit of the population is agriculture, while horticulture, from the vicinage of Rochester, . is carried on quite extensively. The region about Irondequoit bay was well known in the early day. As the Iroquois had proved implacable to the French, that people determined to subjugate, if uot exterminate, them. Two armies united at the bay on July 10, 1687, and up its watery went a vast fleet of bateaux and canoes, the Marquis de Nouville in chief command. A scene was there presented worthy of an extract. " De Nouville erected a palisade fort upon an elevated site, io which to station a small force for the protection of his water craft and military stores." The array thus congregated nnder the banner of France contained regu- lars, French militia, senti-civilized Indians, and " finally a crowd of all the barbar- ous nations, naked, tattooed, and painted over the body with all sorts of figures," singularly equipped, grotesque in action, varied in language-all animated by motives of plunder and revenge. The march narrowly escaped becoming a rout, and what began as a campaign terminated with an inglorions raid. As late as 1805 flints and leaden balls were found, souvenirs of the French invasion at Irondequoit, and in 1706 a bank caving from a high bluff on the lake shore near the bay disentombed a mass of human bones of unusual size and unknown origin. As late ns 1726, the British established a trading post upon the bay to secure the Indian trade, and to exclude the French from the lower end of the lake. In that day supplies for western ports were shipped to the head of the bay, there loaded upon bateaux, taken down the bay to the lake, and thenee westward. The naviga- tion onee known is now impossible, froto a sand-bar formed at the junction of the bay with the lake. It is said that " on the borders of the bay, and of the creek of the same name which discharges itself there, the surface of the earth presents a most extraordinary and picturesque appearance, a multitude of conical or irregu- lar mounds of sand or light earth, sometimes insulated and sometimes united, rising to an average height of two hundred feet from a perfectly level meadow of the richest alluvial loam,"-a locality attractive to the geologist, strange to the traveler. .
Famed in pioucer days as a resort for wild fowl and fine fish, the hay of later years was a favorite hunting and fishing ground, and a common resort for the sportsmen from Rochester.
Settlement of Irondequoit by isolated individuals, trappers in pursuit of fors, and outcasts of society living in seclusion, was of remote date, but permanent occupation was delayed and rendered recent by the malaria of the swamps and the character of the lands. Concurrent testimony affirms a great amount of sickness to have pervaded the regions bordering upon the lake shore, and indicates a ma- laria as dreaded as the poisonous effluvia which strewed the Panama ronte with the bodies of the laborers upon its canal and railroad.
Unknown, and hence unnoted. settlers had taken up their homes here and entered upon improvement. Suffering without relief from intermittent fever and aque, many were obliged to leave their lands and begin again chewhere. In
the towa of Irondequoit in particular this was the case, and there were frequent changes of ownership for many years. The result influenced valuation, all the best lands in the town were held at five dollars an nere, while the scale of prices ran as low as half a dollar. These statements seem strange to those who, vaive in the memories of the surviving pioneers, see no sign of the local barrier once so formidable.
An early map of the region including Irondequoit, engraved in London, has upon it no sign of human babitation between Oswego and Niagara upon the lake shore, save a picture indicating a solitary log cabin at the mouth and to the vast of Genesee river. Underneath this picture is the word " Walker's." It is to be inferred from this that William Walker, the owner and inhabitant of the cabin. was the first settler in the town of Imudequoit. On Sullivan's raid the Tories of Butler had fled to the mouth of the Genesee, and Walker had been the messenger to provide boats for their transportation to Canada. When the war of the Revolu- tion ceased. the ranger built here his cabin and made the place his home. II .. came from Minisink, took part in the fiendish atrocities of Cherry Valley, settled in the place described. in 1791, and was accompanied by two step-danghtery. Ile found the life of a hunter and fisherman in consonance with his nature, carried on a kind of barter with boatmen and Indians who halted at the place for sume time, but tinally, espressing his malevolent spirit with violence, his life became endangered, and he departed for Canada.
Primitive settlement was confined almost entirely to that portion of the town south of the Ridge, and the northern part long remained in its original unim- proved state. Among the first to inhabit Irondequoit after Walker was a mulatto family by the name of Dnubar, consisting of six persons. They came in from Massachusetts as early as 1795. Dunbar was in character active and energetic, physically a giant, and delighted in hunting, which was far from being uuprofit- able. Fruit was raised by him to considerable extent, shipped up the bay across the lake to Kingston, Canada. Oliver Culver, who came to Irondequoit Landing during the spring of 1796, in company with Samuel Spafford, speaks of Dunbar as the ouly settler there at that tivie. Ile afterwards went to Cavada, and there died.
A body of settlers, on their way to the Connecticut tract in Ohio, came up the lake, and both Colver and Spafford joined them. Initiatory settlement having been made on the site of Cleveland, the party returned to New England : and during the spring of 1797 these young men once more eatue to Irondequoit, where, by hunting, trapping, and trading, time was passed till a second expedition came west, when they at once joined and accompanied them.
In the year 1796, John Parks came in, and gave his attention to hunting. In an encounter with a wounded bear at close quarters he killed the animal with his knife, but was bitten and torn to a dangerous extent, and crawled upon hands and knees a long distance to the house of William Hencher, where his wonud- were dressed by Dr. Ho-ter. Transient and changeable, Parks soon departed elsewhere, to continue his wild, independent life, uncared for and onearing, like many another then and at the present time.
In 1800, Mr. Culver emne out from Vermont to make a settlement, bought a farm, whose title he feared was defective, and therefore after a year's labor alan- doned it, and was for three years employed at the landing in superintendling the primitive ashery of all this section of country. As early as 1903 over a hundred barrels of' pearlash were shipped from this establishment for Montreal, and much relief was furnished the destitute settlers in the way of obtaining a limited amount of store pay. Culver became a prominent citizen as well as exten-ive landhobler, und lived till the commencement of the civil war in 18ft. Ad- vanced in age, he was not behind in patriotism, and at the first war meeting hell at Rochester his venerable form was seen upon the platform ; he died in the town of Brighton. Among other pioneers of the year 1800 were Elijah Seudder, a single man, living alone, and dependent upon the chase for his subsistence ; alm Jesse Case and Jesse Tuinter. The latter, after a sojourn of twenty-five year -. mi- grated to Ohio. Eunner Reynolds and wife, from Maryland, also John, buther to Oliver Culver, from Vermont, settled in the town during 1802. Three years later Ranaford Perrin located near the Brighton and Irondequoit line in Brighton,
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, NEW YORK.
and there resided till 1824, when he moved into and has since lived in the former towa. In 1810, Adonijah Green, an enterprising man, came in, and by energy acquired prominence. Ile removed to Rochester, where he died in 1971. Also, during this year, a person by the undistinguishable name of Joncs settled upon the bay.
Abner Wakcly, from Greene county, in the year 1814 was a resident of the town, and is now a citizen of Rochester. The war with England closed, and emigration received a fresh impetus from the security now offered to settlement. A tide of population poured westward, and the Ridge road became a great thor- onghfare; now and then a family halted and fixed their habitation in Irondequoit, induced thereto by the open laods and oak openings. In 1815, daring the month of April, Abel Densmore settled on lot 43, having migrated from Massachusetts with a family of eight children, of whom three, a daughter and two sons, are now living in towo. Joseph Leggett came in from Saratoga county during the season, and settled near the centre of the town. on the farm whereon he found a bome until his death in 1866. At this time there was but one road in what is Dow the town of Irondequoit ; this connceted Brighton and Charlotte, and was known as the Merchants' road, aod was traveled by Canandaigua merchants in their commercial relations with the lake coast.
Nine families moved to town during 1816. Isaac Waring, accompanied by his son James, settled on lot 48 ; the latter still survives. Henry Case aod Samuel Kniffen, from Putnam county, care in, and the former settled on lot 50, upon the farm where he now resides. Reuben Hickok, Petit Loder, and Patrick Dickinson moved in fruto what now constitutes Ontario county. The latter made a settlement ou the farm now owned and occupied by his son Alfred L. Dickinson. A. M. Goff settled on the lake shore at the mouth of the bay. and on property afterward owned by Captain Woodman. The Carters, Archibald and Jerry, moved in from Hamilton county. The greater part of Irondequoit still remained & wilderness. A number of families, without title to the land, had made alight clearings, and lived on sufferance. Juhn Greig, of Canandaigua, land agent, offered ensy terms, with few sales, and Pittsford had growo old while the farms of the town of Irondequoit awaited their occupants, and the lands once deemed well- nigh worthless lay an unsought. onknown prize. Elisha B. Strong, a native of Connecticut, a law student in the office of Messrs. Howell & Greig, at Canan- daigua, was admitted to practice in 1812. Four years later, in company with Elisha Beach, from Connectiont, he purchased one thousand acres of land, em- bracing what long bore the name of Carthage, and projected the founding uf a rival to Rochester. Oliver Taylor, Captain Spear. a Mr. Rogers, and three brothers named Clark settled in the new village of Carthage. Caleb Simmons, the pioneer blacksmith of froudequoit, arrived from Canada, and the same year (1817) built at Carthage his shop, and there followed his trade for many years and notil his death.
Carthage was situated in the southwest part of Irondequoit, and, ambitious of distinction, has so far achieved it as to become a suburb of the city of Rochester. Led by the hope of founding a city on the Genesee, energetic measures were talen, and in IS24 the place had reached the actue of its glory. It then consisted of a hotel, three stall stores, two warehouses, a grist- and saw-mill, a chair factory. & tannery, an oil-mill, two cooper-shops, and a blacksmith-shop. The prospect was encouraging,-the village had obtained esistence. This progress was due to Mr. Strong, an energetic aud public-spirited man. He built a store, the grist- and mw-mill, and had them in operation two years from his arrival. The wills, in those early days, were considered quite extensive. Each was the first of the kind in the town of Irondequeit. Mr. Strony carried on business in the mills and store until 1828, when, his wife dying. he removed to the west. The mills were operated by different parties until 1846. when they were burned. Elisha B. Strong, Heman Norton, Elisha Beach, and Francis Albright formed a company in 1817, and engaged in the construction of a bridge to span the Genesee, as the con- Decting link on the Ridge road. The bridge was entupleted in February, 1819, and warranted by the builders to stand one year; it stoud a year and a day, aud then, with a fearful crash, fell down to the river far below. The construction of bridges at this point was without permanence, for in 1550 a suspension bridge which was built in the same place stood less time than its bulky and falued predecessor.
The hotel above noted was the first in town, and was built by the village and bridge proprietors, and opened by Captain Ebenezer Spear in 1819. Justin Smith was his sucer sor. The ohl building has been used as a public-house by different parties more or has to the present time. It stands a uremento of the past,-a ilwelling of the ollen time. Its warners and occupants for a half-century have a history whose recital is a synopsis of human life and human effort, varied fortune and frequent disappointment. Ultimately the original site of Carthage, long ased as a farm, sold in lots of one hundred feet front, at trom one hundred to five hundred dollars. Ohver Taylor built here the first tannery. After a time
he sold out and departed to Canada. Juba Graham, accompanied by his sons Joseph and Julin, Jr., are recalled as settlers in 1817, from Madison. The early storekeepers of Carthage were Oliver Strong and Harvey Kimball. Horace Howher was connected with mercantile business in connection with the operation of a distillery. In 1818, Carthage had a lawyer settled there, by name Lavi H. Clark. He was avociared with the well-known Dr. Ward in the purchase of the residuary land interest vested in the State of Connecticut.
In 1815, Lester and Sylvester Evans, from Ontario county, bought land in Imvodequoit, cleared and sowed two acres in wheat, and returned again to Ontario, where they remained till 1818. The neighbors were hired to gather the crop at maturity. Captain Woodman, on the lake shore, Ira Drake, near the centre of the town, and Harvey Culver, were inhabitants of Irondequoit in 1818. Whitney Cummings, from Genesce, originally from Niagara county, Abner Jennings, from Orange county, and two mien known respectively as Russell and Draper, came in during 1820. General Moore and Captain Trowbridge were early settlers. John T. Trowbridge, later a well-known citizen of Racine, Wisconsin, resided at Car- thage, and was closely identified with the commerce of' the lakes.
Jesse Tuinter removed west, having, in 1824, sold his farm to Alexander and Lucy Hauker, who came originally frutu the Eastern States. The property is still in occupation of Mrs. Hooker. A remark made to Hooker by Tuinter shows the light in which the region was regarded, and the inutility of an individual notice of all early land-holders and squatters on these lands. "You will soon get enough of this," said Tainter : " eight families before us have already given up this place on account of sickness."
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