History of Ontario Co., New York, Part 5

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A party of twenty-five Friends met at Schenectady in June, 1787, and pro- ceeded by water to the proposed site of settlement. Reaching Geneva, they found there an unfinished log house, whose occupant was a man named Jennings. Pro- ceeding up the east side of the lake they came to the outlet of Crooked Lake, and began a settlement in Yates County, near Dresden. Arriving in August, ground was prepared and sown in wheat, and in 1789 a number of fields were sown. At somewhat less than two shillings per acre fourteen thousand acres of land, com- prised in eastern Milo and southeastern Starkey, were purchased at a public sale of lands in Albany. Benedict Robinson and Thomas Hathaway soon after pur- chased from Phelps and Gorham the town of Jerusalem, for fifteen and a half pence per acre.

The society erected a mill in the fall of 1789, and flour was ground there during the year. This was the first mill in Western New York.

The Friend arrived in the spring of 1789, and was presented by Benedict Rob- inson with one thousand acres of land, upon which she took up her residence. This society has the honor of making the first improvements in what was at the time a part of Ontario. A framed house was erected as a dwelling for the " Friend." In a log room of an addition to this house the pioneer school was opened by Rachel Malin.

David. Waggener opened the first public house, and Benajah Mallory was the first merchant in the county. The community began in prosperity, but rapidly declined. The rush of emigration surrounded the settlement.' The "Friend" was arrested in 1796 and taken to Canandaigua on a charge of blasphemy ; an indictment was prepared by Judge Howell, then District Attorney, and presented to the grand jury. Governor Lewis, Judge of the Supreme Court, presiding, instructed the jury that blasphemy was not an indictable offense, and no bill was found. This decision was overruled by a full bench of the Supreme Court, and the offense decided to be indictable. In addition to other troubles, the Revs. James Smith and John Broadhead, two Methodist circuit preachers, treading the forests in pursuit of auditors, found this retreat, and, establishing themselves in a log school-house, alienated many of the young people, who chafed at the unreason- able restraints imposed upon them. When Jemima Wilkinson died, in 1819, she appointed Rachel Malin her successor. Meetings were continued, but the sect has become extinct, and little save the printed book is left to inform the people of this and other times of the rise, progress, and decay of this illustration of bold asser- tion and blind credulity of that imposture of the pioneer days.

Among the early women of the Genesee country was Mary Jemison, called by the Indians the " White Woman." When a child, during the summer of 1755, s .band of ten men, six Indians, and four Frenchmen surrounded her father's home on the Western Pennsylvania frontier, plundered its contents, and carried away captives the whole family, consisting of her parents, two brothers, herself, and others who chanced to be present. Hurried into the forest, all were killed and soalped except Mary and a boy, who were brought to Fort Duquesne. Two Indian girls came to the fort to supply, by a captive, the place of a slain brother,

and were presented with Mary, whom they adopted as their sister, and took to their home. The terrible change in her condition had but a temporary effect, and youthful elasticity of spirit accustomed her to the wild life, to which she was becoming reconciled, when the transfer of Fort Duquesne to the British, and the assembly there of Indians who took her with them, brought back hope and desire to return to her people. The Indian girls hurried her away to her home in the forest, where, in time, she married a young Delaware, of whom she often spoke affectionately. Concluding to change her home, she set out, about 1759, on foot, with a little child, to travel a distance of six hundred miles, which lay between her and the Genesee River. The journey was accomplished, and a home found at Little Beard's town, where she was saddened by tidings of her husband's death. A few years passed and she married another Indian. When Sullivan laid waste the country her house and fields met the common fate. On his retreat the Indians returned to their villages, while Mrs. Jemison, taking her two youngest children upon her back, and followed by the remaining three, went around on the west side of Silver Lake, and down to the Gardeau Flata, where she found corn which two negroes had raised. She husked the corn, and thereby earned sufficient to supply her family till the next harvest. Present at the treaty of 1797, the chiefs were disposed to specially provide for her, and she made a speech in her own behalf. It was a custom that when"land sales were considered, if the warriors and women were dissatisfied with the course of the sachems, they had a right to take the subject out of their hands. During the council, Red Jacket covered up the council fire and declared the treaty ended. The warriors and women, assert- ing their prerogative, now informed Mr. Morris that the treaty would be continued by them. Cornplanter became their speaker in the newly-opened council, while Red Jacket withdrew. A reservation, bounded by herself, was set off to this white Indian, who, claiming to have made various improvements, and so being entitled to the land, was found, by actual survey, to have acquired title to thirty thousand acres of valuable land. Mary Jemison lived to an advanced age, and died upon the reservation in 1825.

It was a remarkable fact in the history of Indian captivity that white men in time preferred the savage to the civilised life, and on opportunity chose the former. This circumstance was instrumental in enabling the government to treat under- standingly with the Indians through these persons as agents and interpreters. When John H. Jones came to Seneca Lake in October, 1788, he found there Captain Horatio Jones, his brother, living on the lake bank in a log bark-roofed house, and with a small stock of goods carrying on a trade with the Indians. The history is appropriate here of this man, since his son, William W. Jones, born at Geneva, in December, 1786, was the first white male child born west of Utica, and he himself was recognized as the first white settler west of the Genesee River. 'Horatio Jones was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, November, 1763. His father was a blacksmith, and frequently repaired rifles. The son was daily in the habit of seeing and trying them, and hence, while quite young, he became an expert marksman. Energetic, bold, and skillful, he seemed born with an adventurous disposition, which was stimulated into activity by the passage of soldiers by his home on their way to the Indian country. A boy in years he was a man in spirit, and at the age of fourteen joined the army as fifer in a regiment commanded by Colonel Piper, with which he remained during the ensuing winter. In June, 1781, the desire for more active service led him to enlist in a rifle com- pany known as the Bedford Rangers, recruited by Captain Boyd, of the United States service. The company had been scouting for several days, when one morn- ing at daybreak, during the prevalence of a heavy fog, the troop, thirty-two strong, met a war-party of Indians, numbering about eighty, upon the Ragstown branch of the Juniata River.' The Indians had seen the approach of the whites, and concealed themselves. Suddenly a deadly discharge from unseen rifles struck down nine rangers, and in a brief space eight more were captured and the defeat socom- plished. Jones, seeking to escape, had reached the summit of a hill, where he encountered two Indians, whose rifles were leveled at him and his surrender de- manded, but turning aside he set out at a rapid rate, which bid fair to distance his pursuers, when, unluckily, his moccasin-string untied, caught upon a stick, and threw him to the ground. The Indians in a moment were upon him, and, cap- tured, Jones was brought back to the battle-ground, and with the others marched into the forest. Captain Dunlap, commander of the company, was of those taken prisoner, and, partially disabled by a wound received, faltered in his trend during the ascent of a hill. This was observed by an Indian, who stepped silently behind him, struck deep his hatchet into the disabled soldier's head, drew him over back- wards, took his scalp, and then proceeding, left the poor fellow to die with his face turned upward. Two days passed upon the journey, and the captives had no food; on the third day a bear was killed, and to Jones fell the entrails for his portion. Seasoned by appetite and scantily dressed, they were eagerly consumed. Closely guarded by night, regarded with favor by the Indians, his burden was removed, and he had the pleasure on the march of assisting a fellow-captive to

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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY, NEW YORK.

bear his load. Arrived at an Indian village upon the present site of Nunda, Livingston County, New York, and while ascending Foot Hill, Jones was in- formed that he must run the gauntlet to a hut in the distance, and if successful in reaching it, his adoption into the tribe would follow. Swarming.from their huts, the entire population, armed with a variety of weapons, formed themselves in two parallel lines along the route. Jones dashed off amid a shower of missiles. A chief named Sharpshins struck at him viciously with his hatchet, and then threw the weapon after him; the blow was dodged and the goal reached in safety. A captive who followed was struck by Sharpshins, killed, and scalped. The rest of the party escaped with little injury. During the following winter Jones nar- rowly escaped death from smallpox, and on his recovery became a person of much influence in arbitration of disputes, repairing arms, and, as opportunity offered, interfering to save the lives of prisoners. He had been adopted into a family and given the name of Fa-e-da-o-qua. On one occasion having swam the Tona- wanda, his fame rose to a high pitch, and when a short time after, at Niagara, a British officer offered gold to the family as a ransom, the Indian father replied that the English had not riches sufficient to buy Fa-e-da-o-qua.

A time came when thoughts of a former home impelled him to return. A day's journey was made, and at night reflections of a cold reception and forgetfulness occupied his mind, and the morrow saw him voluntarily return to Indian life, and engage with ardor in the pursuits of a forester. When settlement came to him, he renewed in part former associations. He established a trading-house within the borders of Seneca, thence removed to Geneva, where we have indicated his residence, and where he sold to John Jacob Astor his first lot of fars. He was married in Schenectady by Rev. Mr. Kirkland. In the spring of 1789, the brothers, Horatio and John H. Jones, having secured a yoke of oxen, went to what is now Phelps', and, upon an open spot, plowed and planted a few acres in corn, which they sold on the ground, and removed in August to a tract of land west of the Genesee. Upon this they erected a shanty, meanwhile occupying an Indian cabin in Little Beard's Town. In the spring of 1790 the brothers moved west from Geneva, via Canandaigua and Avon, accompanied by Horatio's wife and three children, some hired men, and with their oxen hitched to a cart loaded with the household furniture. This cart was the first wheeled vehicle to pass over that route, and from Avon had no track, but found a way along ridges and open- ings. Horatio Jones built a good block-house during the year, and is credited with having raised the first wheat west of the Genesee River. Appointed Indian interpreter by President Washington, he held the position and ably discharged its duties for nearly forty years. At a council held by the Iroquois at Genesee River, November, 1798, Captain Jones and Captain Parrish were decreed a present of two square miles of land. A speech by Farmer's Brother illustrates Indian appreciation of service, and in effect asks the Legislature to confirm the grant, which was done, and Captain Jones lived upon his Genesee land till 1836, at which time he died, at the age of seventy-five.

The name of Jasper Parrish stands connected with early treaties and pioneer interests of Ontario at Canandaigua, and has left a history emulating, in essential service to Indian and white, that of his frequent associate Horatio Jones. Originally from Connecticut, the Parrish family were residents upon the sources of the Delaware in New York at the commencement of the Revolution. While in 1778 engaged with his father in moving a frontier family towards the settle- ment, an attack was made upon them by a band of Indians, and all made prisoners. The father, after an experience of two years, was exchanged at Niagara, and re- turned to his family. Jasper was but a boy of eleven years, yet, as he entered the Indian village at Chemung, a shout from the war-party brought out a crowd of the occupants, who pulled the lad from the horse upon which he had been mounted and subjected him to severe usage. . The chief, his master, sold him to a family of Delawares, residents upon the south side of the river, bearing the name of that tribe. His life during 1779 was one of hardship and suffering, from lack of food and want of clothing ; but, being adopted by his owner into the family, kind treatment followed, and a love for hunting and fishing reconciled him to the rude life.

At Newtown, Parrish was placed with the squaws and prisoners in a place of security during the battle with Sullivan, and, on finding themselves defeated, the Indians sent runners to the squaws directing their retreat, and Parrish, after a hurried march, found himself at Niagara. The great body of the Iroquois as- sembled at that place, and there passed the winter. Occasionally tempted to a foray upon the Americans by the British bounty upon scalps, Parrish was sold shortly after reaching Niagara to a Mohawk named David Hill, a relation of Joseph Brandt, for twenty dollars. A general council being held soon after, Parrish was led by Hill into the assembly of chiefs, a belt of wampum placed about his neck, his hand taken by the old chief, who then made a speech with great gravity, which concluded, all shook the boy by the hand, and so he became a Mohawk. Parrish lived from May, 1780, till the close of the War for Inde-

pendence, at a village of Mohawks, founded by Brandt near Lewiston. In 1784 he was surrendered to the Americans at Fort Stanwix, according to the terms of the treaty, and returning to his father's family, then living in Goshen, Orange County, passed a year in school, to recover his knowledge of the English lan- guage, well-nigh forgotten. Employed by Pickering, as interpreter at the treaties of 1790 and '91, a report of his ability and honesty was made to General Knox, Secretary of War, and, as a result, he was engaged to act with General Chapin as his interpreter to the Six Nations, and did much to adjust and reconcile differences. An additional appointment, as local Indian agent, was made in 1803, and both offices were held for many years. His influence was made available in making his Indian friends acquainted with agriculture, education, and Christian religion. The name of Jasper Parrish occurs in connection with the early improvements in and about Canandaigua, where he ultimately died on July 12, 1836, at the age of sixty-eight. Of a family of six children, one, the widow of William W. Gorham, is a present resident of the village of Canandaigua, the others having removed to various localities.

Samuel Coe accompanied Sullivan upon his march of ruin, and, not ten years later, revisited the same localities as a guide through the forests of the Genesee for Oliver Phelps. The fields had been left as the " Town Destroyer" made them, save the renewed growth of sprouts from the old apple-trees. Upon this explora- tion with Phelps, an inducement was a payment of expenses, a sum in hand, and a deed to a lot of two hundred acres wherever he chose to locate.

As a route of travel in 1788, the journey of Coe and Phelps is traced as follows: Meeting them at Whitestown, we see them proceed to the Oneida settlement, thence direct to the Onondagas, thence to the Cayugas, on to the ruins of Seneca Castle. Proceeding west to the farm of Cyrus Gates, in Hopewell, they there rested briefly, and then pursuing the downward course to the gravel knoll east of what was known as the Liberty Day Farm, they reached Canandaigua Lake at Tinker's Point. The lake shore was then followed down to the outlet, which was forded, and the journey dcontinue to the oak ridge, at a point known as the Henry Phelps farm. The oak ridge was followed on to the high ground where stands the Academy. On the west side of Main Street, near the mansion of Mrs. Greig, Coe pointed out the site of Sullivan's camp. Halting for the night, the next day saw the travelers fording streams and pushing on to Big Tree. Here Coe selected his two hundred acres previous to the purchase from the Indians or any survey. Jones, of whom we have written, made a selection of lands adjoining Coe, and the party returned home. The lands chosen by Coe and Jones were found, in 1790, to have been purchased. as the permanent residence of the Wadsworths. Coe called on Phelps, at Canandaigua, and stated this fact, and was offered four hundred acres near Pal- myra, which was refused as too distant from settlement. A like-sized tract was then proffered on the rising ground a mile or so west of Geneva, which was re- jeoted as being poor land. Captain Coe finally located at Virgil, Cortland County, where he later received a commission from the governor as a brigadier-general.

Trace we now the initiatory settlements of 1789. During the winter and spring of this year, a number of purchases were made by individuals and parties, and both at Canandaigua, the central point, and various other localities, actual occu- pation began. We shall find corn planted, wheat sown, houses built, and a mingled government of white and Indian authority established, each responsible for his nation.

In the compromise with Phelps and Gorham, the lessees were seen to have ob- tained four townships, the sixth, seventh, and eighth townships of the first range, and the ninth of the second. A fifth township, No. 9, in the first range, was deeded to Benton and Livingston, prominent lessees. Two Indian traders, Reed and Ryckman, had acquired title to land along the lake, and a village, known as Geneva, began to develop in place of Kanadesaga, at the foot of the lake. In the fall of 1788, the traders named laid out the village and township No. 8 iato village and farm lota, and caused them to be drawn by ballot. The Canada lessees were represented by Benjamin Barton, Sr., and the New Yorkers by Messrs. Benton and Birdsall. To this focus of settlement all classes came, and a cluster of log houses extended along the lake shore. One Lark Jennings was conduct- ing a log-built tavern on the lake bank, while Dr. Benton occupied a frame tavern and traders' depot as agent of the Lessee Company. Early in the year 1789, & party of six Massachusetts men having, aside from another purchase, become owners of No. 10, in the fourth range, now known as East Bloomfield, Ontario County, entered into agreement with Judge Augustus Porter, a native of Con- neoticut, to proceed to their western lands and engage in their survey. To learn the progress of settlement in Ontario, the memoranda of this western pioneer are made available as found in the history of the Holland Purchase. Mr. Porter had arranged to meet one Captain Bacon at Schenectady, and in May, on arriving there, he found that he had collected a drove of cattle and obtained provisions and farming tools for a party of settlers, who were proceeding towards Ontario, in company with John Adams, one of the township proprietors, and family. Deacon

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Adams undertook to drive through the cattle, while the provisions were placed on two boats, having a carrying capacity of a dozen barrels each, manned by a crew of four men, and called Schenectady bateaux. The boats were brought up the Mohawk to Fort Stanwix, where a mile of portage was necessary to reach Wood Creek. At the portage a saw-mill had been built, and connected therewith was a dam capable of holding quite a body of water. The small quantity of water in the creek rendered it necessary at times to permit a flow from the dam, and this tide carried the boats down. The party reached and passed along Oneida Lake and its outlet to the Seneca River, and the outlet of Seneca Lake to Geneva. The rapids at Seneca Falls and Waterloo, then known as Scauyes, were the only hindrances to navigation. The empty boats were taken up the stream at the former place, by the efforts of a double crew, while Job Smith, the first settler on the Military Tract, took their loading to the head of the Falls by the aid of a yoke of oxen hitched to a rude cart, whose wheels were made of sections sawed from a large log. Lees difficulty was experienced at Scauyes, where the boats were impelled up the rapids with half their load, the rest being rolled up to the end of the fall. From Fort Stanwix to Kanadesaga no white residents were found, except one Armstrong, at the mouth of Canada Creek, Bingham, at Three River Point, and Smith, at Seneca Falls. Arrived at Geneva, where were a half-dosen families, among which was that of Roger Noble, of Sheffield, Massachusetts, the boats and their loads were left with Captain Bacon, while a party of four, consisting of Augustus Porter, Joel Steel, Orange Woodruff, and Thaddeus Keyes, placing packs upon their backs, set out along the Indian trail for what was then designated as Kanandarque, situated at the foot of Canandaigua Lake. Here, as elsewhere stated, a street two miles in length had been surveyed, with lots calcu- lated both for a village and farm use, pending the growth of the place. Three or four houses had been built, and were crowded with occupants, quite a party having arrived about two weeks before Porter's visit. Benjamin Gardner had installed his family in a log house near the later Antis' place, and Joseph Smith, the pioneer of the village, had opened a tavern on the rising ground north of the outlet. General Israel Chapin, the Indian agent, Frederick Saxton, a surveyor, Daniel Gates, and a few others, had made a passage by boat up the outlet to the lake, and were busily engaged in preparing for themselves accommodations.

Within a brief time William Walker, agent for the survey and sale of lands, arrived with a party, built a log structure on the site of Mr. Phelps' subsequent residence, and, as the agent of the association, opened the first regular land office for land sales to settlers upon the soil of America. Among others who were later well known to those who had business in Canandaigua, and were residents of the place, was Phineas Bates, while Abner Barlow is credited as having cleared and sown in wheat a part of Lot No. 2, west of Main Street, north of the square, during the fall of 1789, and thereby entered a claim to having put into wheat the first piece of ground in the purchase. Israel Chapin, Jr., Othniel Taylor, Na- thaniel Gorham, Dr. Moses Atwater, Judah Colt, John Call, Amos Hall, General Wells, John Clark, Daniel Brainard, John Fanning, Martin Dudley, Luther Cole, Aaron Hescock, and a few others came to Canandaigua during this year. In January, 1789, Prince Bryant, of Pennsylvania, had bought No. 8, fourth range, and that part of No. 8, third range, which lies west of Canandaigua Lake, and in the following April sold to Gamaliel Wilder, Ephraim Wilder, Timothy Crosby, P. Bates, and Deacon Williams, all of Connecticut. These parties commenced settlement on what is now known as Seneca Point, and sowed during the fall fifty acres which they had cleared of the oak lands in wheat. This was the first wheat sown in South Bristol, then called Wilder's Town. The crop being put in, the Wilders returned East, leaving a man to exercise a superintendence till their re- turn in the following spring.

CHAPTER V.

CONTINUATION OF SETTLEMENT IN 1789-INFLUX OF POPULATION AND EVENTS TILL 1794-TOWN MEETING OF 1791-THE STATE ROAD AND CAYUGA BRIDGE.

HISTORY challenges a precedent in the old world of the like occupation of ter- ritory and the growth of such a civilization as that in the Genesee country. Scythian from the north and Teuton from the east made fiery irruptions upon Rome, the Briton gave way to the Saxon, and he in turn became the serf of the Norman; but New York, humanely forgetful of Indian hostility, bought their for- feited lands, established the tribes in reservations, and opened a wide expanse at nominal prices for peaceful settlement. Not here and there a solitary settler, liv- ing years in the forest surrounding, but simultaneously and in colonies the large families of Massachusetts emigrants came West.

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History of Ontario Co., New York, Part 5

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

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