History of Ontario Co., New York, Part 18

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Canandaigua lake is almost exclusively included in Ontario. Its surface is six hundred and sixty-eight feet above tide. It is about fourteen miles long, and has an average width of about a mile. The towns of Richmond and Cana- dice contain the Canadice and the Honeoye, while on the west of Canadice lies the Hemlock lake,-small bodies of water extending north and south, and lying in valleys surrounded by high hills and bluffs, towering upwards from five hun- dred to seven hundred feet. These lakes, from shape, location, waters, and sur- roundings, present an attractive view, and are popular resorts, for the native and the visitor, during the heated months of summer and fall. Not a little of the celebrity which attaches to central New York is contributed by the presence in Ontario of her beautiful lakes, with pure waters and healthful influences. From the foot of Canandaigua flows the outlet bearing the same name as the lake; its course is northward to Manchester, east to the eastern limits of Phelps, then northward into Wayne county. Mud creek takes its rise among the defiles of South Bristol, flows north through Bristol, East Bloomfield, and Victor, and, with the Canandaigua outlet, forms tributaries of the Clyde. The outlets of Hemlock and Honeoye join in northern Richmond, and then, known by the latter name, flow northward as a tributary of the Genesee. Egypt brook is tributary to Honeoye outlet, while Mud creek receives the waters of Hog Hollow, Fish, and Beaver creeks .. In the northwest corner of Victor are found the head branches of Irondequoit creek, while Keshong creek and Burrall's and Castle creeks find their way to Seneca lake in the southeast. Numerous springs, burst- ing from wild, romantic, rocky defiles, feed the rills which give these creeks their flow. The noted springs of Ontario are named in town history. The principal of these are the sulphur springs on Canandaigua outlet, especially those at Clif- ton Springs, and the gas springs of Bristol, East Bloomfield, and Richmond. The springs at Clifton, before manipulation by the hand of art for medical uses, were described as follows: " The sulphur springs break ground in two or three different places, then almost immediately uniting, expand almost as speedily over a rough pavement of limestone, and pass quickly off to the marsh below, where they become almost stagnated. Between the spring head and the rocky channel was a mass of pure sulphur, some five or six feet deep, and in so soft a state that the incautious have bogged themselves in it breast high." It is said that dis- couraged early settlers, returning east, spoke of the locality as an opening to the infernal regions; loads of sulphur have been drawn from these according to state- ments of residents, and a strong sulphuric odor pervades this stream. It is asserted that on the first discovery of the spring many curious petrifactions were found in the channel, and among them the nests of the wasp and the hornet.

The history of Manchester deals further concerning this interesting locality.

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The waters of the lakes and creeks abounded with fine fish. A settler had brought a seine net west with him, and at one draw in Mud creek, made in July, 1800, he took twenty-two Oswego bass, two suckers, and one perch. A second haul gave seventeen bass, two suckers, and a perch; the bass weighed on an average three pounds each. A bass was taken that weighed eleven pounds, and a settler averred that he had seen one weighing sixteen pounds. A trout was caught in Canandaigua lake in May, 1824, which weighed twenty-nine pounds, and another which weighed twenty-seven pounds .. Salmon used to ascend the Canandaigua outlet as far up as Shortsville before the erection of mill-dams. The efforts to re- stook the lakes proved a success. The lesser game made up in number for their diminutive sise. The quails were flushed from their coverts, the ducks fed in flocks upon the marshes about the lakes, and pigeons built their nests in roosts of miles in length. The squirrel -. the red, the black, and the gray species-early attracted the notice of the tourist. The red and the gray were rare, but the black squirrel was so numerous in 1800 that on one occasion two bands, of five young men each, set out in contrary directions, to return at an appointed hour to a feast to be provided by the party bringing in the fewest squirrels. Three hundred squir- rels were killed-all black but one, and that a gray squirrel. In 1818, these squirrels were so abundant that in a corn-field eighteen or twenty were seen upon a tree, and any tolerable marksman could go out to Fort Hill of a morning and bring in as many as he could conveniently carry, before breakfast. While the destruction of game and wild beasts had made night travel secure and driven out the hunter class, or impelled them to agriculture, yet it is on record that a pan- ther weighing ninety-four pounds was killed in the town of Seneca as late as 1825. There is yet one denizen of the rocky shelves of Naples, and other localities, de- serving mention here. The rattlesnake, once common, is now rarely if ever met. In the early day the hay-makers frequently heard the warning rattle, and killed the reptile with greater alacrity than they would a wasp. It has been asserted that during the summer of 1793 the scarcity of provisions was such that the rat- tlesnake was used for food, and was said to be good eating. The venomous snake is free from the fetid odor so repulsive in the harmless varieties. The hog pre- fers the rattlesnake to all others. In the early day the hogs driven by the set- tiers,-not the choice breeds found now upon the farms, but gaunt, agile creatures, .- sometimes straying to the woods, became wild and dangerous, and when the trail of a snake was crossed, the brute followed on to secure his victim. The rattlesnake has been exterminated, choice stock crop the herbage, and quiet in- dustry enhances the value of the lands which in the memory of many living were seen wild, strange, and forbidding. We close our chapter with extracts of a letter penned by one of Canandaigua's distinguished citizens, advising his father of events and advantages in the Genesee country, so plainly and graphically ex- pressed and of so early a date as to be a valuable contribution to local history :

"CANANDAIGUA, October 10, 1795.

"HONORED SIE,-I am now settled in the seat of litigation for the western- most county of the State of New York, called Ontario. The county town is situ- ated in the midst of a large tract of country, the most fertile I ever beheld, and probably the most fertile yet explored in America. The country is beautifully interspersed with lakes, some of them near a hundred miles in circumference. .Most have outlets leading into Lake Ontario-their ocean. The land rises from the lakes in gentle swells, so that there is not a hill but what is arable. It is a common affair to have thirty bushels of wheat and sixty bushels of corn to the sere. Canandaigua, named from a lake at the bottom of which it stands, con- tains sixty houses, more elegant in their structure than those of any village I know in Connecticut, Litchfield excepted. Acre lots fronting on Main street sell at from one to two hundred dollars; house lots beyond them, from twenty to forty dollars; farm lots within three miles, at ten dollars; and all good land within ten miles, at five dollars. Six years ago the land was bought of Masss- chusetts by Gorham and Phelps, at less than a shilling currency per acre. The whole country is about as large as Connecticut. It is expected to be divided at the next session of the Legislature, so that the southern townships will make a ·new county. I shall remain in the northern part, which has the better soil. The only practicing lawyer here at present is Peter Porter, a classmate and fellow law-student. A son of Robert Morris, who has made a fortune here, is very hos- pitable, and I look for success in this agreeable settlement. . Severe hardships have been borne without ill consequences to health. The northern part of the county is settled by a hardy, enterprising set of New England farmers and specu- lators, and is to be preferred to settlements in northern Pennsylvania. The houses are mostly framed, and improvements are making round them very rapidly. A temporary increase of prosperity will arise from the demands of the settlers on the Connecticut Lake Erie lands for provisions. A canal by the side of Niagara Falls is frequently spoken of as a project to be consummated after the surrender of the western posta. Augustus Porter, chief surveyor of Phelps and Gorham

from the beginning of the settlement, has viewed the level lands along the falls, and told me that by digging a canal eight miles long a very convenient passage could be effected. Mr. Porter has written home to his father at Salisbury, to in- terest himself heavily in the new Connecticut lands, and I, with all deference, yet earnestness, advise you to do the same. A canal being opened between Erie and Ontario, the settlers around Lake Erie will have access to the ocean by the river St. Lawrence, or at least to Montreal or Quebec, if the British will not suf- fer them to go farther. The commerce will be to Albany by Oswego river into Oneida lake; thenoe up Wood creek to the landing, beween which and the head- waters of the Mohawk, a distance of a mile and a half, a canal will be out next summer. A fur-trader, met the other day, told me that apples and peaches were as plenty at Detroit as at Albany. I was lately privy to a sale of wild lands in this country at eight dollars and fifty cents an sere, but it was at the mouth of the Genesee river on Lake Ontario, and promises in time to be a place of trade. Nathaniel Gorham, when he purchased wild lands here, is well known not to have been worth five hundred dollars, and is now a man of immense fortune. Such opportunities still offer. A farm of most excellent land, containing by accurate measurement three hundred and seventy-two acres, lies on the outlet of Canan- darque lake, sixteen miles from this town, known on the map as Canadaguay. The farm was bought by a tavern-keeper of the town, from Phelps and Gorham, at a quarter of a dollar an acre, six years ago. The man's name is Sanburn. He being the first, and for some time the only tavern-keeper here, the proprietors lived with him and allowed him his choice. He is now in want of money to ful- fill contracts, and offers the farm for cash down at thirty shillings per acre. I suppose he will not take less than three dollars and a half per acre. Part of the tract is flat land overflowed annually, and sometimes twice a year, by the outlet. The farm is surrounded by settlements, and will in three years time be worth a half-joe.an sore. This country is no longer a wilderness; here are good inhabit- ants-far better than those of New London-and fine farms, the cleared parts of which are clothed with the most luxuriant herbage. The wild grass on the banks of some of the streams grows so high that a man on horseback cannot see over it without rising on his stirrups. This is not gasconade. Mr. Channing bought a farm three years ago on the Niagara road at four shillings lawful money per sore, for which he may now take four dollars an acre.

" Your dutiful son,

" CAPTAIN DUDLEY SALTONSTALL."

" D. SALTONSTALL.

CHAPTER XVIII.

AGRICULTURE: GRAINS, STOCK, BUILDINGS, AND FARM STATISTICS-FAIRS- AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY-PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY-NURSERIES."

"THE farmer is king" is a laconic verity. The farm has been the basis of all wealth. On the tiller of the soil the massed population of cities depend for food ; upon the cultivator the trade and the profession rest their hopes of advancement. When the crop is abundant there is prosperity, and failure is a calamity. Our chapter reviews the past, notes the present, and anticipates the future. In all references to the earliest settlers, intelligence has been ascribed to them especially in reference to their first clearings. Were the old times returned when the car was not imagined and the canal unplanned, when roads were blazed and plows had wooden mold-boards, the settler would repeat the actions of that time. Entering on his land, the brush was cut and piled in one long row, trees were skillfully felled from either side to rest and commingle their branches and limbs, and twigs dry as tinder, fired with favoring wind, swept in one red conflagration to the end. On the warm, rich earth, among the charred logs, the wheat was scattered and rudely covered; it grew almost spontaneously and gave abundant yield. As years went by, choppers were hired during the season, at low rates, to deaden timber or to cut the trees in logging lengths.

The culture of corn had been carried on by the Senecas for centuries, and the white race supplemented this by grain and vegetables. Between the months of June and October, 1789, the first wheat was sown in Ontario County. It has been generally understood and handed down to the present that Abner Barlow sowed the first wheat west of Cayuga lake, and the place was a lot in the village of Canandaigua. Moses Atwater, in a communication to the Ontario Repository, in 1817, says, " By the request of several gentlemen, and to convince the farmer that the natural soil of this county is composed of fossil substances that are dur- able and prolific in the production of wheat, the subscriber is induced to state the following facts : that in 1789 he cleared and sowed with wheat the front part of

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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY, NEW YORK.

his village lot, No. 2, in Canandaigua, being the first wheat sown in the county ; that since that time the same land has been constantly improved; that part of the premises he prepared and sowed with bearded wheat, in October, 1816, and in August, 1817, after careful processes in gathering, cleaning, and weighing, the crop was found to weigh sixty pounds to the bushel, and to produce sixty-nine and one-third bushels to the acre." Signed, MOSES ATWATER, September 12, 1817.

This village lot fronted Main street, where the new Union school building stands, and extended west to contain ten or more acres. The honor will remain to Mr. Barlow, whose portrait in the court-room of the court-house in Canandaigua is encircled by the golden grain wreath.

The grain is known to have given heavy yield, but there were two great diffi- culties attending the crop : the harvest and the sale. The fields often stood long uncut, and the reapers who went forth early to labor with the thermometer at ninety-five degrees were long in cutting down the crop; when this work was done the flail or the cattle's hoofs threshed it out, the winnowing was done, and it was ready for market. Grain was hauled to Albany and goods brought back ; the cost of transportation deducted from the market price left little to encourage the pro- ducer. The make-shifts of the early farmer will never be fully known. There were periods of privation, when the trap and rifle alone prevented suffering. Rye was grown for the distillation of whisky, which held a known price, and the settler was fain to gather up his ashes for sale at the rude asheries that, with knowledge of the profits, rapidly sprang up in various localities.

That all were not content to do as their fathers had done is evidenced by the action of a Canandaigua farmer of 1806. Deeply interested in agricultural im- provement, he improved seed corn. His practice was to select the best ears for seed, and he found his crop to improve annually. A neighbor ridiculed the plan ; a test was made; adjoining fields of like soil were planted, and tilled alike, and at the same time. The neighbor raised forty bushels per acre, while the progressive farmer received nearly sixty bushels from selected seed. This farmer selected for good, clean seed wheat, sheaves of the best growth in his field; he spread them on the barn floor and drew out the best and heaviest heads, and thereby secured the best kernels free from foul seeds. He plowed deep furrows in break- ing fallow grounds, to secure depth of soil, and thereby obtained heavier grain and longer straw. Such examples as these demonstrate that the famous wheat of the Genesee valley combined in its production intelligence of the farmer and fertility of his fields.

Debt was punished by imprisonment, and grain knew no cash value. In this extremity, various were the endeavors to find new channels of remunerative trade. Sheep were raised by the thousand, till the depreciation in price caused many to leave the business, when it would again revive; cattle were driven to Albany, and the drover was early and long recognized as an auxiliary of the farmer, by whom he was well paid in the scale of price between purchase and sale. The culture of the hop, the vine, and the fruit-tree are a trio of interests, successful in localities and dependent upon patience, skill, and capital. The pro- ducts of the dairy have from early years maintained a prominent place in the resources of the husbandmen.

The lesson taught by the settlers to the present farmer, and a lesson learned with profit, has been that of self-dependence. Step by step needs were met and changes made, until in dwellings, fences, fields, crops, stock, and machinery, the intelligent Ontario farmer stands out as an independent, progressive man.

The prices of various products in 1801 were as follows: Wheat, seventy-five cents; corn, three shillings; rye, fifty cents; hay, six to twelve dollars per ton ; butter and cheese, eleven to sixteen cents a pound; salt pork, eight to ten dollars per cwt .; whisky found ready sale at fifty to seventy-five cents per gallon ; salt was five dollars per barrel ; sheep, two to four dollars per head ; cattle for driving, three to four dollars per cwt, ; milch cows, sixteen to twenty-five dollars a head ; horses, one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five dollars per span; working oxen, from fifty to eighty dollars per yoke; laborers' wages were from ten to fif- teen dollars per month, including board. A home-made suit of clothes brought four to five dollars; and shoes were one dollar and seventy-five cents to two dol- lars and fifty cents per pair.

Prior to the completion of the Erie canal, produce was taken to Albany, at first by sleighs in winter and boats in summer, and later enormous wagons with several spans of horses were used in the carrying trade. Spafford says of farmers of Ontario in 1810, " Agriculture, already very respectable, is rapidly improving under the general and progressive exertions of hardy industry, and the enlight- ened and patriotic exertions of men of wealth, talents, and influence. There are but few portions of this State that display more of agricultural opulence than the country between Canandaigua and Genesee river, a tract of country abounding slike with superior richness and fertility of soil. Great care and attention have marked the efforts of farmers in this county to improve the breeds of domes-

tic stock ; the merino has been introduced, with the choicest breeds of horned cattle. A Mr. Wadsworth, of Honeoye, an extensive and enterprising farmer, has near three thousand sheep of his own flocks."

The price of grain throughout the war, from 1812 to 1815, gave life to trade; but on the declaration of peace prices fell flat, only to recover with the diminished cost of conveyance. In the fall of 1812, Augustus Porter advertised, through his agents, to pay one dollar per bushel for wheat, to be delivered at various mills through the country. In 1813 this grain was worth eleven shillings per bushel; and in 1814 it sold for one dollar and twenty-five cents, and rye brought one dollar. As late as August, 1821, the stagnation in prices is indicated by an offer of James Lyon to pay four shillings per bushel for ten thousand bushels of first quality of wheat, delivered at Chapin's Mills, "in goods or cash debts." The Hessian fly damaged the wheat crop materially in 1824, and the next year the price had recovered to seven shillings per bushel. A change has swept over pro- ducts, prices, machinery, and methods. The utensils of the past-the sickle, hoe, maul, and wedge, the oven and irons, spinning-wheels, and tall clocks-have disappeared from sight, and in their place stand reaper, drill, sower, and buggy rake; in the household, the sewing-machine, the wringer, and washer; and in the pleasant parlor, the organ or piano. The growing of wheat, from the first grains scattered by Barlow down to the present, has been a staple industry of the farmer. To some extent, attention has been given to the raising of spring wheat, but winter wheat is still the preference. The crop of 1864 was six hundred and fifty- nine thousand eight hundred and seventy bushels. It is unfortunate that the Canada thistle has effected a lodgment on the farms of the county.

In 1815, Mr. Wood went to Albany with a load of produce; he there fed his horses hay from the wagon-box. On his return home the hay was thrown out, and up sprang the thistles, which have defied every effort at their extirpation, and proved a pest to the harvester and thresher.

Of oats, there were harvested in 1864, 410,301 bushels. Rye is now raised to . limited extent; while barley, from 190,854 bushels in 1865, has shown a heavy increase. Our statistics date back to 1864, when there was raised, of corn, 874,349 bushels ; potatoes, 359,126 bushels ; apples, 694,512 bushels ; milch cows, 13,411 ; butter, pounds, 1,110,592 ; sheep shorn in that year, 195,450; pounds of wool, 921,568 ; the value of poultry owned was $44,554.30; eggs sold, $27,218.86; trees in fruit, 268,539; hops, 178,164 pounds; hay, tons, 58,182.

In association, society, and fair, the agricultural interests have been considered, and the heavy farmers of Ontario have confirmed the theories of the scientific and generally-diffused individual discoveries. The growth amid the logs, of rye, wheat, and corn, with rank, healthful stalk, led the farmer to forget that ulti- mately his soil would become exhausted. The lesson, early and later, has been generally taught, and with rotation, fallow, and clover has come a use-des- tined to increase-of fertilizers. Farming by hand with rude tools, and permit- ting a growth of weeds to ripen when the crop was harvested, entailed an injury to succeeding harvests and depreciation of fertility. An enumeration of the farmer's foes gives pigeon-weed, chess, wild mustard, cockle, thistle, daisy, dock, mayweed, and bindweed; and besides there are the sorrel, mullein, and burdock.

Observation of the farm dwellings of to-day presents us with individual in- stances of fine residences, and comfortable barns for grain and stock ; but gen- erally simple comfort and commodious homes are seen, while in the hillier regions the log house holds its ancient and permanent seat. While Ontario is old in years, wealthy in lands, and respected for intelligent direction of industry, her farms present evidences of a varied population. The long lists, the choice varie- ties, the frequent competitions, all attest a class of farmers first and foremost in the growth of superior breeds of stock and the practice of advanced modes of cultivation.

All varieties of sheep have been brought on to Ontario, but from the first the merino has had the preference. The war of the Rebellion, requiring woolen uni- forms for a million men, gave a stimulus to production of wool, and the raising of sheep knew a brief revival.

The fair was early projected and made successful by Williamson. It was in 1807 that fairs began to be held in this part of Ontario. A notice appeared in the press of Geneva that there would be exhibited for sale in that village, on the second Tuesday in October, a great number of fat and lean cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, cattle, etc., with samples of wheat and other grains from all parts of the Genesee country. A fair was appointed for the first Tuesday in May, 1808, and the same was to be continued semi-annually as designated from year to year. Efforts having their origin in local enterprise continued to occupy attention, and the desire to improve upon these agricultural assemblages became general.

County agricultural societies began to be established through the New England States about 1807, and a report was submitted to the Legislature of New York on March 5, 1818, advising an appropriation of twenty thousand dollars for the benefit of all counties in the State, for premiums on agriculture and manufacture. One

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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY, NEW YORK.

thousand of this was apportioned to Ontario, on the basis of twenty dollars to each thousand inhabitants.

In January, 1819, the board of supervisors published a call to meet at the court-house, on February 18 following, to consider the project of forming an agricultural society in this county. Agreeable to the notice, a meeting was held, and the county court, then in session, adjourned to accommodate the agricultural meeting. Hon. John Nichols was selected chairman, and Myron Holley was chosen clerk. Earnest resolutions were unanimously adopted, and the first "On- tario County Agricultural Society" was formed. Annual dues of members were fixed at one dollar per member. Hon. John Nichols was elected president; Wil- liam Wadsworth, Darius Comstock, Philetus Swift, Gideon Granger, and Moses Atwater, vice-presidente; John Greig, secretary; and Thomas Beals, treasurer. The town managers selected were, for Canandaigua, Thaddeus Chapin ; Phelps, Thaddeus Oaks; Penfield, Daniel Penfield; Lima, Matthew Warner ; Benton, Truman Spencer; Genesee, William H. Spencer; Victor, Israel Marsh ; Italy, Timothy Burns; Lyons, William Patten ; Farmington, Jonathan Smith; Avon, William S. Homer; Sparta, William McCartney; Palmyra, Daniel White; Grove- land, William Fitzhugh ; Rush, Anthony Case ; Brighton, Oliver Culver; Rich- mond, Gideon Pitts; Perrinton, Simeon Bristol; Milo, Benedict Robinson; Hen- rietta, Jacob Stevens; Naples, Joseph Clark; Livonia, Ruel Blake; Williamson, Jacob W. Hallett ; Middlesex, David Sutherland; Seneca, John Collins ; Sodus, Enos Moore; Bloomfield, Clark Peck ; Gorham, John Price; Mendon, Timothy Barnard; Bristol, George Codding; Pittsford, John Hartwell; Jerusalem, George Brown; Ontario, Jonathan Boyington; Springwater, Alvah Southard.

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History of Ontario Co., New York, Part 18

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

Author:
Publication date:
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Number of Pages: 391