History of Ontario Co., New York, Part 10

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Canandarque was reached on the morning of. August 8, and Mrs. Morris received her guest, who speaks of her as " elegant, beautiful, and accomplished," with the true spirit of hospitality. The ride from Geneva was along a terrible road, through heavy timber, and rich soil. Mosquitoes swarmed in myriads, and drew blood through a thick riding-glove, while a fly, resembling a drone bee, was fierce in its attack upon the horses. . The last. five miles of the journey were on higher and partly cleared . ground. Near. the lake.was the samp of a large party

of Indians. The road lay along the northern shore of the lake, crossing two outlets, the eastern being artificial and the western natural. The location of the village is criticised, but unjustly, as the centre of the place commands an exten- sive and delightful view. . While in 1792 composed of a few buildings, and equal to Geneva, in 1800 it was one-third larger, and contained ninety fam- ilies. The place had a single street; thirty lots were laid off on each side; each lot had forty acres area and one hundred and twenty-one yards frontage. This gave the village a length of two miles, but the extremes are now but a mile and a half apart. The unimproved lots are valued at from six hundred to a thousand dollars each. As evidence of good land, two and a half tons of hay have been made to an acre. The leading inhabitants are Thomas Morris, Faq., . Oliver Phelps, Nathaniel Gorham, and Judge. Atwater. Indians were found in the town, and Colonel Brandt had just left there for the La Grand River settlement. Many a ride was taken during a stay here. August 14, Indians, were seen in what is now Hopewell, sleeping around a fire in the open air during a morning excursion, and on the following Sunday a meeting was attended at the court-house. The con- gregation were Presbyterian, and consisted of fifty men and thirty women. Horseback riding was a custom, and in the evenings excursions were made for several miles along the lake.

Journeying towards the Genesee on August 18, the traveler passed s.meeting- house in Bloomfield which had only progressed in construction as far as the frame. The journey was continued, and we are left to note the homelike character of Bettler life. There was no rush of train, no clatter of harvester, but the reapers were seen gathering wheat with the sickle, the mowers were heard sharpening their soythes and seen bending to their work, the sultry air was relieved by heavy showers, and the lightning descended to rive the forest-tree or strike. the new- raised barn. Everywhere all was new, fresh, and natural. It is difficult for any who did not see it to realize the condition of this country, pending its occupation by settlers .: Standing upon high vantage ground, the eye rested upon an extended view of forest. Upon the hill and on the flat the trees showed no opening. The settlers were seen briefly at Geneva and Canandaigua, then disappeared into the woods, whence individuals occasionally issued for supplies, or with their first crop, seeking. to exchange for articles of manufacture .. ... Those heavy woods were not untenanted, and as evidence of warfare on the wolf, we see Theophilus Allen come in with five scalps of these animals, killed in 1792, on No. 8, fourth range ; Samuel Millete has a single scalp of one killed in No. 12, third range ; William Stansell, one of a wolf killed at the forks of Mud Creek, No. 12, in the Gore ; William Markham, of one killed in No. 10, fourth range; while Thaddeus Chapin had killed a wolf at Conesus Lake; Elijah Clark, at the head of Canan- daigua lake; and Benjamin Keyes, one killed in the town of Canandaigua. All these scalps were taken to the town clerk, Samuel Gardner, and by him cropped, and for each was paid a bounty of five dollars. Deer were numerous, and saddles of venison sold cheap in the villages, and made much of the pioneer's bill of fare. The silence of the forest once broken by the axe, the change seems almost incredi- ble. Industry was the rule, and each seemed urged on by some necessity to rid their farms of the forest-trees and secure an area for tillage. One may see to-day fringes of timber relieving the open landscape, but the oak, the white-wood, the beach, the sugar-maple, the bass-wood, the white ash, the hickory, and the other species of trees once existing so numerous, and of noble proportion, have fallen, and upon their site orchards grow and wheat-fields wave. Not without a great sorrow, did the Senecas, yielding to necessity, transfer their hunting-grounds to the proprietors of the purchase, It is credited to Red Jacket, that he arranged npon a bench in the old "Star Building," a seat full of Indiana, and one white man upon a small part of the end of the seat; then filled a bench with white men, and placed an Indian on the end, thus to illustrate the changes of time in the ownership of the races. His speech upon the loss of Indian dominion is his masterpiece. " We stand," said he, " as a small island in the midst of the great waters,-we are encircled, we are encompassed. The Evil Spirit rides upon the blast, and the waters are disturbed ; they, rise, they press upon us, and the waves once settled over us, we disappear forever. Who then lives to mourn us? None. What marks our extinction ? Nothing. We are mingled with the common elements." Yearly they came to their old haunta to fish, and hunt, and watch that the whites made, no infraction of the treaty to observe the sacred charao- ter of their burial-grounds ; and not long since a few old squaws were seen in Canandaigua, where hundreds had been wont for many years annually to assemble.

The needs for clothing required sheep-raising, but the wolves proved the means of their destruction so much as to make the business for a time almost impossible. A flock of sheep had with great care been brought on and safely housed ; the owner, going out one morning to exhibit them to a neighbor, found them all killed, and this was not a solitary instance. Pens, sixteen, mails high, were required as a protection. When winter came, a troop of these fierce and cowardly creatures would. collect about the log dwellings of, the settlers, and watch. for

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stock to attack, and if disappointed, would raise such howls as would startle even the stout-hearted backwoodsman. The wolf found no fiercer or more inveterate foe than the Indians. They dug pits along the side hills, covered them with brush and leaves, and bending down small trees, hung upon them, over the pits, the offals of deer. The wolves, springing for the bait, would fall through the brush to the pit bottom, where they were found and killed. A reference to the town records shows that but few years elapsed ere the discontinuance of bounties would indicate that the wolf had ceased to be troublesome.

The amount of labor accomplished by the settlers within the few first years was astonishing. It was soon arranged as a system what should be the ordinary course of procedure for an immigrant. Those who had passed the initial stage of settle- ment, in response to inquiries, gave their ideas of what was required to make a good start in the new country.

A writer, in 1797, thus expresses his opinions : The least any family could do with was "a good log house with two rooms; if made by hired men will cost one hundred dollars. A small log house, twenty feet square, will cost fifty dollars. A number settling together can do with one yoke of oxen, and, of course, one set of farming utensils, for every two families the first year. The price of ozen per yoke was seventy dollars; of a cow, fifteen dollars; farming utensils, neces- mary at first, twenty dollars; and an oz-cart, thirty dollars. It was no difficult matter for a young man to secure farms during the earliest years of settlement; many received a dollar a day wages, and bought lands for twenty-five cents per aore.

The first consideration of the early settler was a home for himself and family, and the furniture was not unfrequently the work of his own hands. The heavy timbered land being reached, some time was necessarily devoted to the building of a log house and stable. Provisions were required for the men, and food for the ozen, and this without roads or near neighbors. The farm house was built some- what in this wise : The walls were of logs, notched and fitted, and the openings between clinked and plastered with mud. The lower part of the chimney was of stone, and the upper of sticks, mud-plastered. The roof may be of bark, the floor of split logs, with flat sides joined at the edge. Blankets form divisions. The door is of hewed plank, hung upon wooden hinges, and the window is of greased paper, to exclude rain and permit the entrance of light. Glass and nails were difficult of purchase. As late as 1805, Peleg Redfield, a Manchester settler of 1800, having engaged in the construction of a frame house, and wanting those essentials, set out with sled and oxen for Utica to buy them, and took with him fifty bushels of wheat. The grain was sold at one dollar and sixty-eight cents per bushel to Watts Sherman, a Utica merchant, from whom wrought nails were bought at eighteen pence per pound, and two boxes of glass for seven dollars and fifty cents. The store bill was made out and signed by Henry B. Gibson, then clerk and book-keeper for Sherman. The sleeping apartment of the log cabins was the loft, reached by a ladder. While reminiscences at times complain.of un- cleanliness and fleas, yet these pioneer abodes, as a rule, were patterns of neatness and good order. Furniture and dishes, old in fashion, clumsy of make, were adapted to use, and in harmony with the surroundings. At the huge fire-place were hooks and trammel, the bake-pan, and the kettle. Elsewhere stood the plain table and the flag-bottomed chairs; perhaps blocks answered for seats, or maybe the easy, high-backed rocker had been brought to this forest home. The shelves supported blue-edged plates, spoons of pewter, cups and saucers much unlike those of to-day, and a black earthen tea-pot. In one corner sooner or later was installed the tall Dutch clock to take the place of the noon mark, and in another was the bedstead with high post, cord bottom, and covered with quilts, a curiosity of patch- work, a relic of much labor, and a souvenir of the enjoyment at a quilting-party. Then, too, there was the spinning-wheel, the pioneer music, and not unfrequently the loom. The picture was not unpleasant of a barefoot daughter competing with her mother at the wheel, and the rival hum of the machines as the hours went by till time to lay them aside to prepare the noonday or evening meal. At social gatherings, light feet kept time to the changes of the fiddle, and often at night the rattling drum and shrill-toned fife attracted the ear, and roused the martial ardor of the former soldier.

To-day the finest establishments rise like Aladdin's palace at the bid of wealth, but in the early day, the most refined, and many of ample resources, formed their establishmenta with extreme difficulty. The first few years of pioneer life was a season of much deprivation. The scarcity of provisions, severely felt in the fall of 1792, was considerably increased in the following spring by the number of families who at that time emigrated into the county of Ontario. Flour and pork were procured from Philadelphia and Northumberland, in Pennsylvania, and by the assistance of this timely supply, settlements were begun in various parts, more especially on Conhocton creek to the south. It is said that so far from the reported abundance of feathers from the vast number of wild fowl frequenting the lakes and marshes, the settlers found use for all the bedding brought with them,

and even the dressed skins of game and the cat-tail from the swamps were of no little use. The men passed much of their time in camps, exploring the navigable streams, removing their obstructions, opening roada, and building mills, and most rapidly was the way opened for the speedy occupation and cultivation of the coun- try. The principle of co-operation was early acknowledged, and attended with satisfactory results.

From 1790 to 1796, neighborhood settlement was most successful. The families constituting a settlement like that of Farmington, hidden within the forest, took advantage of mutual aid and encouragement, and thereby became more closely allied in sympathy and friendship. Again, as at Canandaigua, a body of emi- grants, instead of locating in the woods, fixed themselves in one spot, and bestowed their first labor on the improvement of their village lots, which, to obviate the trouble of fencing, would be worked up in a number of small portions by the settlement under common fence, each lot being the property of the individual. Despite the manifest hardships endured by the pioneers, they were satisfied. In conversation with those who witnessed the clearing up of this section, the almost invariable declaration is that those were happy days. They assert that the people were more united and more willing to give each other aid. There was more equality in condition. People were not accustomed to the distinctions of wealth and store-clothes. The garments worn were generally the same in all seasons. The farmers of that date commonly went clad in clothing made in their own families, as the result of necessity and economy. The matrons and maidens were not averse to labor, and loved the buss of the spinning-wheel and the double shake of the loom. The web was unfurled upon the grass-plat, bleached under careful supervision, and, aided only by the carding- and fulling-mills, the wool from the flock was manufactured into wearing apparel, and, known as home-made, was worn common. Sabbath and holiday were occasions when " boughten clothes" made their appearance. Yet, often, suits made by the female members of the household were worn by child and parent with evident pride. In large towns British goods were in use, and the fashion seems to have been such as to merit the notice and reproof of staid matrons of the time. Where now the silk rustles and the " pull-back" impedes free locomotion, the calico adorned, and was worn with comfort. The girls made their own dresses, and they were not cast aside with the season. The toilet was soon made, whether for the social gathering or the sedate attendance at the meeting-house, miles distant.

If a party for social enjoyment was announced to be held in the neighborhood, none stopped to inquire who were to be there, but each, mounting the horse, sled, or cart, set out for a season of general enjoyment. All strove to give mutual help, and ingratitude was rare. There was a freedom notable as the growth of common estimation, and enjoyment taken with sest was free from censure or scrutiny. Independent feeling and noble sentiment were the fruits of industry, and in them was the dignity of character derived from conscious worth exemplified. Amusements were mingled with labor, and pastimes were more prevalent than at present. There were corn-huskings and apple-parings, quiltings and choppings, knittings for the benefit of the poor, fairs for the exhibition of industrial products, races, and (elections. There were celebrations of memorable occasions, political rallies, and all the ludicrous features of muster-day. There were raisings of barns and bees for logging, these last ending with a huge bonfire, a good time, and the consumption of pumpkin pies, sweet cider, and rye whisky. Visits deserved the name. They were given and received with pleasure. Several went together, and the hum of conversation was unceasing. Cards were not in use, and if the visited was absent, a call was made again, and the experiences of the interval gave fresh subject for converse. Horseback riding was common, since the horse could pass where tree and stump forbade the use of wheeled vehicles.

As a glimpse at the customs of nearly eighty years gone by, the recollections of a quilting party in 1797, at Canandaigua, are given. During the summer of that . year the wife of Captain Dudley, a tavern-keeper of the village, gave general invi- tation to a tes and quilting party. The invitations were made by Sally Dudley and Jane Peters, girls aged about eleven years, the latter-named being known till her recent death as Aunt Jennie Legore. The girls called on every woman and girl in the village. They set out up the east side of Main Street, and down the west side, passing by none. The house standing on the east side of Main, second from the north corner, made by the junction of Phelps with Main, was the place of assembly. The quilting came off next day. A bad swamp extended across Main Street where Bristol opens upon it, and the ladies from above the swamp were obliged to cross it upon horses, riding behind their husbands. In crossing, some of the party were dismounted, but being extricated from the swamp pushed on to the tavern, where clothing was soon dried and all ready for work. Mrs. Dudley had three quilts on in the bar-room, and, with but three exceptions, every woman and girl in the place was present, and there were just enough seats. After finishing the quilts the whole party, joined by the gentlemen, partook of a good supper. The enjoyment was somewhat diminished when it was learned,

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through the ill-timed importunity of some one as to the'materials composing an excellent pot-pie, that Mrs. Dudley had made it from a portion of her old, tame bear. While the tes was being drank Orlander Morse began to tune his fiddle, and supper ended, dancing began. The music was lively, and all had a gay time. A dancing-school had been opened in Captain Dudley's ball-room by Mr. Adjutant, and opportunity was given to his pupils to practice their lessons in French Four, Money Musk, and like dances. There were present on this occasion Judge Howell, Sallie Chapin, Mrs. Sanborn, Jno. Clark and wife, Mr. Saltonstall and wife, Augustus Porter, Dolly and Minerva Taylor, Mrs. Israel Chapin, Mrs. Thaddeus Chapin, H. Chapin, Elihu Younglove and wife, and Peter B. Porter.

The manner of cooking at that time was entirely different from the present, as stoves were then unknown and unimagined. Most now living know nothing of the old style of cooking in front of the huge back-log, or the baking of short- cake in the ashes, nor of the turkey hung upon the spit and properly basted by mother or the girls. Those were home-spun ways of preparing food; but old people insist that victuals thus cooked were more pleasing to the taste than those of to-day. It is comforting to realize that in the concerns of life a general equity prevails, and meagre gifts in one direction are fully atoned by a bountiful bestowal in some other. Only the memories of the past remain. Drees has passed through many forms, travel has known constant advances, society has become classified, work has taken new forms. There is more formality and less enjoy- ment. The fiddle, the dulcimer, the flute, are superseded by melodeon, organ, and piano. The brass or silver band give weekly concerts where then rattled the drum. The thunders of the pipe-organ are heard where the bass viol was known. The aged grandmother may still knit, but machinery has obviated the necessity. The poor may still stitch, but sewing-machines are found in most dwellings. Home-spun clothing is unknown, and with the lack of dependence has grown a feeling of isolation. The spirit of sociality has congregated the religious at their various meetings, the benevolent in different societies. The old warfare with in- intemperance is still in progress, and the farmer has united with his neighbor to cheapen purchase and cultivate fraternal relations. While the generations of to- day unite to honor those of the past, they would not be of them. Each race is fitted for the exigencies of the times, and as the pioneers nobly did their work so we of the present receive it from them, and pass it improved to our successors.

CHAPTER X.

OLEARING LANDS-CROPS-MARKETS-DISTILLERIES-BALT WORKS-CLIMATE IN EARLY DAYS-AN ONTARIO HERMIT.

" His echoing axe the settler swung amid the sea-like solitude, And rashing, thundering down were flung the Titans of the wood."

THE purchaser of lands upon the plains and prairies of the West, plowing with ease the rich sod and employing the improved machinery to cultivate the crop, knows nothing of the ceaseless round of hard labor which was the price of all improvement. And were all that was done so much for the future, the prospect was not so dark ; but however small the price, whatever the time given, a day of judgment ultimately came, and by default the land often reverted to the original owner. Then, when a glimpse of comfort was seen in thicker settlement and better communication, the terrors of warfare, creating a general panic, caused many a house to be deserted to which the builder never again saw fit to return. There is a talk of pioneer privation, as though the language used were cheap of utterance; but when the settler toiled hard and late, saw sickness and death enter the cabin, incurred indebtedness he could not meet, and finally abandoned to some other the place he longed to call home, there was that in it which must be experienced to be felt. True, the soil only required a slight cultivation to yield the most ample returns, but there was no market for a surplus. In preparing new land for the growth of wheat, no plow was used primarily. A settler in the Genesee country bought half a township, twelve thousand acres, and felled the first tree in the spring of 1799. By autumn following he, with the aid of three men and three Joke of ozen, had put in one hundred and eight acres in wheat. The settler him- self was about sixty years of age, and his son was a youth of about fifteen, and these two did a fourth part of the work. To show the industry of these parties it is understood that heavy timber stood upon the ground, and time was taken to build a cabin and a stable. In the preparation of new land for wheat, no plow could be made available and none was used. In this instance, the logs were beaped and burnt, the harrow was passed several times slightly over the field, the grain was then sown and harrowed in. Never did finer wheat reward labor. The average yield of this crop in 1800 was twenty-five bushels an acre. Stems of

Sicily and stalks of Genesee wheat were known to grow to the number of thirty from one seed. Early as was this period of which we write, the fly-the pest of winter wheat-had lodged its larvæ in the stalks and begun its work of injury. It was a matter of surprise whence came the weeds and noxious insects which appeared almost contemporary with tillage.

Connected with the early clearing of lands there were two classes, the heavy purchasers and the squatters. The latter found employment and kind treatment, but few became owners ; their character was that of improvidence and shiftless- nees, and they disappeared with the growth of the country, no one knows whither. Two methods of preparing land for crops were in use; the one not only cleared the brush and cut out the grubs, but swept away the timber, leaving a forest of stumps -the other proceeded on the plan of deadening by girdling each tree, and the spectacle was seen of the tracts covered by their lifeless trunks and producing fine crops. The latter was regarded as a temporary expedient. The choicest timber was held in no esteem; and the trees, cut in logging lengths of about sixteen feet, were hauled together, heaped, and let stand for a time to dry, and then fired. The fragments were raked together and entirely consumed. This gave rise to a new branch of industry. Men from Utica and beyond made purchases of such goods as the settlers would require, and driving to the clearings bought these ashes, and having worked the asheries, took East the pearlash, which was for a number of years an article of ready sale, and enriched those who gave their time to the manufacture.

As an evidence of the fraternal spirit common to the settlers, it is the universal testimony of all survivors, that when, as sometimes happened, a settler became incapacitated from labor by sickness, the neighbors gathered with cattle, if for a logging, or with cradle and rake if in harvest, and, as a half pastime, brought up his work. There was little use for horses, and the employment of ozen was gen- eral. The cart was loaded with wheat for the mill or the market ; it was heaped with the grain to be drawn to the barn or stack, and on occasion served to convey the family to church or on a neighborly visit. There was no period of a farmer's life but that he could find work to do. The days of winter, aside from the care of stock, were employed in fencing and chopping a new lot to put in corn. In spring, when all was dry, the brush was burned and the logs consumed. If the fire in its work swept the field, the ground was all the better prepared for a crop. The combustion of decaying leaf and matted roots of vegetation contributed ma- terial for enriching the already fertile soil. The traveler among the settlements in those spring days found the woods darkened by smoke, and the fires by night conveyed a strong impression of a camp. The men, rude in dress, blackened.with the handling of charred timber, and perspiring at their labor, would deceive a novice as to their character and ability, and it was hard to realize that these men so engaged were well calculated to lead in council, preside at assembly, and con- duet with credit business of moment. There were times when the fires driven by the winds amidst a dry, rank growth, gave a lurid grandeur to the scene. The flames swept over the ground, and now and then communicating with a tree hol- lowed by decay, and ignitible as tinder, crept upward to the top, and for hours became a wooded furnace. Upon the clearing, freshly kindled fires gave a glowing light, while gathered fragments glowed in the heat and then smouldered away. If time did not admit a thorough clearing, corn, turnips, potatoes, and pumpkins were grown among the blackened logs and stumps. The hoe was not needed, but weeds there were which grew up rank and luxuriant and were pulled by hand. It was customary with some to sow wheat and rye after harvesting corn, but com- monly a special piece was cleared, sowed, and barrowed in. Agriculture was in a crude state, and the hoe and harrow were leading utensils in caring for a crop. Whatever could be, was made by the settler himself, because there was no place of purchase, and if there were he had no money. The drag was a rough but serv- iceable article. It was fashioned somewhat after this manner: two round or hewed sticks were joined at one end and braced by a cross-piece, forming an A, one piece extending beyond the other. Seven heavy iron teeth were obtained from the blacksmith and put in,-four on the longer piece, and three on the other. There were instances of harrows with wooden teeth. The plows which came in use were heavy and clumsy. The blacksmith was the manufacturer, and, with wooden mould-board, the work was done in & rade manner.

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History of Ontario Co., New York, Part 10

Author: Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages: 391

Author:
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 391