History of Ontario Co., New York, Part 6

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Led by report of a fine western country, Jared Boughton had come to the In- dian council at Geneva, where native titles were extinguished, and remaining during the season, returned in the fall. Enos Boughton, brother of Jared, and assistant of William Walker in charge of surveys, purchased of the company No. 11, fourth range, now known as Victor, at twenty cents an acre. The spring of 1789 saw the brothers Jared and Enos Boughton on their way to their possession with wagons, oxen, and cows, and the outfit supposed to be required for their es- tablishment. Axe in hand they cut a road to Canandaigua, and there leaving their teams, set out upon an Indian trail for their land. A pole cabin was built and the township surveyed into lots. Jared Boughton began the work of im- provement in that locality, and prepared ground for crop. Potatoes did not grow, the corn season was past, but two acres in buckwheat were harvested, and eight acres of ground prepared and sown in wheat. Winter approached, and leaving a young man named Jacob Lobdell to take care of the place and feed some thirteen or fourteen head of cattle, the rest returned East. To Bloomfield came Deacon John Adams, its pioneer, accompanied by sons and sons-in-law, his daughters, and with the family some eight others, and erected a log house thirty by forty feet in size and fitted its walls with berths for facilities of lodging. This large and crowded structure was the first dwelling erected west of Canandaigua. Early in the spring of 1787 three men, Gideon Pitts, James Goodwin, and Asa Sim- mons, set out from Dighton, Massachusetts, in search of a home in the wilder- ness. Their first halt was at Newtown, where, with others, they erected the first white man's dwelling upon the site of Elmira, and raised a crop of Indian corn in the vicinity. A favorable account made to the people of Dighton on their re- turn, induced them to form a company to purchase a tract of land from Phelps and Gorham when it should be put into market.

Calvin Jacobs and Gideon Pitts were deputed to select and buy as soon as the treaty was consummated, and following the survey, a purchase of forty-six thousand and eighty acres was made in Township 9, third, fourth, and fifth ranges. In 1789 this tract was resurveyed into lots and divided by lottery. Captain Peter Pitts drew three 'thousand acres upon the flats, at the foot of Honeoye Lake, and in- cluding the site of the Indian village ruined by Sullivan. The first sale made by Phelps and Gorham was of Township, No. 11, range three, to a company composed of a dosen members, five of whom became residents of the town. The deed was given to Nathan Comstock and Benjamin Russel. The former, in company with two sons, Otis and Darius, and Robert Hathaway, came in 1789. Part came by the water route to Geneva with provisions, the rest by land with a horse and some cattle. The first labor was the erection of a cabin, which being done, a small field was cleared and sowed in wheat. The death of their horse was a serious loms. The duty of supplying the party with provisions devolved upon Darius Comstock, who weekly made the journey to Geneva through the woods, a distance of twenty miles, and brought back his purchases upon his back. About the same time with the Comstocks, Nathan Aldrich, another of the purchasers, had come by water to Geneva, and thence carrying upon his back supplies and seed-wheat, came to his land, put in a small piece in wheat, and then, as winter came on, all returned to Massachusetts except Otis Comstock, who occupied the log cabin, took care of the cattle, and knew no neighbors nearer than Canandaigua and Boughton Hill.

Early settlement was made in what is known as Phelps by John D. Robinson and Nathaniel Sanborn. The former having having erected a building in Canan- daigus as the land-office and residence of William Walker, received in payment lot No. 14, Township 11, range 1. Embarking his family upon a bateau at Schenectady, he brought them to their new home, where, pending the building of a log house, they occupied a cloth tent. A few days following their arrival, . party composed of the Grangers, Pierce and Elihu, and Mesers. Sanborn and Gould joined them, and set to work clearing up ground on an adjoining lot and building cabins. All left for the East in the fall except the Robinsons, who had come to stay, and remained through the winter with no neighbor nearer than eight miles. He was rewarded for his enterprise by the advantages of location, and thorough knowl- edge of natural resources, later made available in the erection of a tavern stand and the use of valuable mill seats on the Flint and Canandaigua. The initial settle- ment and preparations above noted were not devoid of incident, more fully related in the various histories of the town, but examples of which are of interest in this connection. The life of the surveyor during the period of his work upon the purchase was rich in pioneer experience, and desirable as a matter of record. In connection with the survey of Township 12, second range, for John Swift and other proprietors, made in the early part of March, 1789, by a party consisting of Major John Jenkins, Solomon Earl, William Ransom, and a Mr. Baker, the following incident is related. The party were surveying near the lakes, and had erected for shelter a pole cabin, at which they were attacked shortly after midnight by four Tuscarora Indians armed with rifles, which were thrust through the cracks of the hut and discharged with deadly effect upon the inmates. Baker was shot dead, and Earl received a ball through the jaw, disabling him. Jenkins and

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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY, NEW YORK.

Ransom awaking, the former seized an axe, and, ably seconded by his comrade, beat back the assailants from the hut and captured two of their guns and a toma- hawk. The Indians fled, and the surveying party proceeded next day to Geneva to give the alarm. The Indians, who had made the attack under the stimulus of hunger, returned, and rifled the hut of its provisions, and then fled towards New- town. They were pursued, and two of them taken on the Chemung River. The nearest jail was at Johnstown, and the attempt to convey the prisoners thither being regarded as impracticable, a summary execution was resolved upon, and effected by use of the tomahawk. The criminals were taken blindfolded to the woods ; one was dispatched at a blow, the other, attempting an escape, was mobbed. This was the first trial and execution in the Genesee country, and the barbarity of the act is excused by the exigencies of the times. Among the witnesses of this capital punishment were Parrish and Jones, before mentioned.

The Indians experienced considerable suffering during the year, and when the stipulated annuities arising from land sales became due assembled to the number of two thousand at Canandaigua to receive their promised presents and provisions. A number of cattle were slaughtered for them, and such were their needs that even the entrails were eaten, and the provisions of the settlers much decreased before their dispersal. The influence of the British, and the ill-concealed fear and dislike to them evinced by the pioneers, made it apparent that open hos- tilities were liable to take place any day; and under this cloud of dread uncertainty the preparations for occupation went steadily forward. Among the latest events connected with 1789 was the labor done in widening the trail and opening a road from Geneva to Canandaigua, the first piece of road so worked west of what is now Oneida County. The area of Ontario in 1790 was expansive as a State, and within that limit was a population of 1075. Diminished by the formation of Steu- ben in 1796, the census of Ontario in 1800 gave a population of 8466. Numerous the journey, varied the lives, and great the hardships experienced during this formative period embraced in a decade of years. A brief summary of events will close the county record of settlement and leave the detail to the towns.

Prominent, as containing the oldest and largest village in Ontario, is the town of Geneva. It was surveyed in the spring of 1789 by David Field, and a score of would-be settlers had arrived ere that work was completed. Here Chapin, draw- ing for lots, obtained No. 21, memorable as the site of the picket fort and a par- tially destroyed orchard. The white clover and the June-grass had vegetated upon the cleared field, and the scions of the apple-tree roots were bearing fruit, but Gen- eral Chapin had business at Canandaigua, and sold to Messrs. Oaks and Whitney at fifty cents per acre. In the spring of 1790, a party, among whom Jonathan Whitney was the leader, after a varied and severe experience, journeying from Schenectady to Geneva, reached the latter place, and sought accommodations at the tavern of Colonel Seth Reed, whose provisions were limited to a loaf of bread and no flour or meal. A timely supply of both the latter arrived during the day from the Susquehanna, and Whitney secured a supply. Game and fish supplied the place of other food, but the decease of the only cow deprived the family of milk. Sickness was general, and but few escaped the fever and ague. Elkanah Watson, on his Western tour, writes under date of September 21, 1791, "Geneva is a small, unhealthy village, containing about fifteen houses, all log except three, and about twenty families. It is built partly on the acclivity of a hill, partly on a flat, with deep marshes north of the town, to the presence of which ill health is attributed. The accommodations by Patterson on the lake margin were decent, but repose was troubled by the presence of gamblers and vermin." On a visit twenty-seven years later, he says, " I find an elegant and salubrious village, dis- tinguished for the refinement and elevated character of its society." At Geneva the pioneer printer, Lucius Carey, established the first newspaper in Ontario County. It was known as the Ontario Gazette and Genesee Advertiser, and the first number was issued in April, 1797. In Geneva and the town of Seneca the earliest survey of roads was made, and a dozen of these, designated as running from house, mill, or farm to lake, line, or bounds, comprised at that time full half the surveyed roads in all the region west of Seneca Lake. The history of Geneva is linked with that of the entire Genesee country, to which it was the early gate- way. Northward, in Phelps, Robinson is joined in 1791 by the Grangers, Hum- phreys, Oaks, Dean, and Dickinson. At what is known as Oaks' Corners, Jona- than Oaks built in 1794 a large framed tavern contemporary with Williamson's Hotel at Geneva. This was the second framed tavern west of Geneva, and its fame was widespread. The founder established a race-track a mile in circuit upon level ground near by, and this became the scene of many a contest of horse speed and human endurance. A church was built at the " Corners" in 1804, and residents of the locality indulged hopes that from this germ at the " Corners" would grow up a thriving village and mayhap a city. Seth Dean was the pioneer of Vienna. The attempted manufacture of the first cheese in the country is attributed to Mrs. Dean, and its fate was indicated one morning by her seeing an empty cheese-curb and tell-tale bear-tracks all about it. Jonathan Melvin was a

settler on Melvin Hill, and became noted not only as a heavy dealer, large land- owner, and mill-builder, but as the planter for public use of one hundred apple- trees along the road by his old farm. The circumstance from which this deed had its origin is thus related : "In passing the Old Castle in an early day he picked up an apple, and was told to lay it down. 'You must be mean,' said he, 'to begrudge a neighbor an apple. I will plant one hundred trees next year for the public;' and he did it."

In the old town of Gorham, once Easton, now Gorham and Hopewell, the road to Canandaigua from Geneva first knew settlement in 1790, by Daniel Gates, Daniel Warren, Samuel Day, Frederick Miller, Frederick Follett, and the Bab- cocks, Lemuel, George, Isaiah, and William. Daniel Gates, Sr., from Connecti- cut, bought land in Gorham at eighteen pence per acre, and was the first collector of taxes in his town: Manchester's first settlers were Stephen Jared, Joel Phelps, and Joab Gillett. Nathan Pierce came in during 1795. His home was in the forest, and the wild beasts his neighbors. The wolves made nightly chorus about his " lodge," and on a return from mill one night, bearing a supply of flour, . pack of them became his escort to the door. Peleg Redfield became a resident in 1800, and late as this was, comparatively, his house and clearing were of the extreme pioneer order. The residents of Farmington in 1790 were twenty-eight in number. Their journey hither had been tedious, and their arrival was during unfavorable weather. Among the number were Nathan Comstock and family, Isaac Hathaway, the Smiths, and Nathan Herendeen. These settlers were mainly known as Friends, and their apparent rashness in going to a wild and savage land caused the society to disown them. They were restored in standing in 1794, and their meeting was long the first one west of Utica. Illustrative of early travel, Jacob Smith and family were thirty-one days on the way from Adams, Massachu- setts, to Farmington, in 1791. Considerable fields of wheat were sown during the fall of 1790, apple-seeds were early planted, and fruit and cider soon enjoyed. In the person of Nathan Comstock was seen the pioneer surveyor of roads. When the settlers found their lots and had built their cabins, Comstock, mounted upon his favorite mare, rode along the routes of needed roads, while behind him the underbrush was cut and the beginning of roads made. Canandaigua is asso- ciated with all matters of general interest in the county. Here was the county seat, here public buildings were erected, treaties held, and projects of public in- terest inaugurated. Hither gathered attorneys unrivaled for ability, here were the initial courts of the county held, and the citizens of this town were prominent in local improvement or works of general utility. Within the period considered, town meetings, county courts, and treaties were held, and to this town localities now sites of cities and villages once were tributary. A hundred honored names would not exhaust the list of prominent and efficient early residents of the town. No. 7, range three, once known as Watkinstown, now Naples, took its name from one of the original proprietors, William Watkins, with whom were associated in settlement, about 1790, Nathan, Joel, and Stephen Watkins, Jabez Metcalf, Wil- liam Clark, Benjamin Clark, Simeon Lyon, Jr., and John Mower. Improve- ments essential to the neighborhood speedily followed, and mill, tavern, and school were soon in operation.

In South Bristol, between 1789 and 1796, after Wilder, were the settlers The- ophilus and Matthew Allen, Joseph Gilbert, Jared Tuttle, Peter Ganiard, Levi Austin, Nathaniel Hatch, and their families. In 1795, Wilder is credited with having built the first saw-mill, grist-mill, and distillery, at Wilbur's Point, and erected the first public house in 1808. The primary settlers of Bristol were William Gooding and George Codding, in 1789; James, George, and Elnathan Gooding, in 1790, and Alden Sears and the Coddings, John, George, Farmer, Burt, and William, in 1792. Stephen Sisson, a settler of 1790, is recorded .as the first to engage in store and tavern keeping at that date.

The colony of the Adams family has been noted. There came to this town in 1791 Benjamin Goes, and in 1794 Moses Sperry ; and besides these were the Hamlins, Philo and Elijah ; the Rues, Lot and Ephraim ; the Parks, Joel and Christopher; Gideon King, Ashbel Beach, Cyprian Collins, Benjamin Chapman, Alexander Emmons, Nathan Waldron, Timothy Buell, and Enos Hawley, fully described and located in town history. Victor's pioneers in 1790 were Ass Hecox, Ezekiel Scudder, and Abraham Boughton. The children of these pio- neers might well grow up with thoughts of the race just vanishing, for here were the historic fields renowned for foreign invasion and heroic defense. Here the French were cowed by the fierce Senecas, and here the plow upturns the relics of their presence. Well may the writer linger upon these evidences of early occu- pation and deeds of arms, and here may he draw the contrast of the Seneca village and the present American,-the trail and the railroad, the hut and the house, the confederacy of the Indian and the republic of the white,-and trust that the later alliance of States may be more permanent than the league of the Five Nations.

The pioneers of West Bloomfield were Robert Taft, Nathan Marvin, Amos Hall, and Ebeneser Curtis, and to this list may be enumerated Samuel Miller, Sylvanus

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PLATE III.

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369

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HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY, NEW YORK.

Thayer, J. P. Sears, P. Gardner, and John Algur. Of Amos Hall it is noted that from the earliest military organization he was a commissioned officer, and rose to the rank of major-general. During the last wur with Great Britain he was at one time chief in command on the frontier, and at all times a prominent and valu- able citizen. He was deputy marshal in 1790, and took the census of Ontario in that year.

Richmond was settled by the Pitts, and the family, consisting of Peter Pitta, his wife, and ten children, for three years were the sole residents of the town. The second party was composed of Drs. Lemuel and Cyrus Chipman and Philip. Reed, with their families. The journey was made in the winter of 1795, with sleighs drawn by horse and ox teams. The men employed to drive the teams, Levi Blackmer, Pierce Chamberlain, Asa Dennison, and Isaac Adams, became residents of the town, and Roswell Turner came in 1796.

In Canadice, the town of ridge and lake, the pioneers were John Wilson, located at the head of Canadice Lake, and John Wheeler, Samuel Spencer, John Richard- son, and Andrew Ward, near Canadice Corners. The citizen of a kingdom or empire finds in America an absence of the representatives of power. Upon the rail-car or the crowded street, or in the public hall, each acts at will, and all moves on in harmony. Contrasting this quiet and simplicity with the obtrusive action and parade of a monarchy, the question rises, Where is the power of American govern- ment, and where do the people learn their sufficient and yet hidden springs of control ? The solution is found in the freedom, equality, and common need of the town meeting. This assemblage is the ground-work of our system and the security of its permanence. No sooner had numbers warranted and local necessities required a division of towns, than the meeting which gave it force followed hard after. The house of a settler was the place of congregating, the scarcity of available men often placed several offices in the hands of one person, and the full machinery of school, road, and justice was set in motion, never, we trust, to stop.

The first town meeting held in Ontario after its set off from Montgomery, re- sulted from the formation of two towns, known respectively as Canandaigua and Big Tree. Two justices were appointed, one for each town: General Israel Chapin for the former, and Moses Atwater, the latter. The meeting in and for Canandaigua was held at the house of Joseph Smith, at the foot of Main Street, near the lake. It was opened and conducted on the first Tuesday of April, 1791, by General Chapin, who was chosen supervisor, and James D. Fish, town clerk.

On the same day Moses Atwater opened a town meeting at the house of Major Thompson, in the town of Big Tree, where John Ganson was chosen supervisor, and Major Thompson, town clerk. The proceedings following the Canandaigua election have reference to the freedom of swine, properly yoked, and a bounty of thirty shillings for every full-grown wolf killed in the town. The oath of office was then administered by the justices to the officers just elected, and a record of ear-marks required to be kept. The notice of this meeting circulating far into the woods was received with pleasure, as offering an opportunity for acquaintance and enjoyment. Dealing with the untamed forces of nature, athletic games were the means of bringing the pioneers together, and the events of the day furnished matter of thought upon the clearings for weeks, nay, for life. The initial town meeting in the village was marked by an event which gives an insight into the character of the backwoodsmen. A few days previous to the meeting a large wolf had been trapped in what is now Farmington, and secured in the bay of Nathan Aldrich's log barn, to be kept for the day of election. Early in the morning a party repaired to the barn, Jonathan Smith and Brice Aldrich entered the bay and secured the wolf, whose feet were tied, and then he, being slung upon a pole, was carried on the shoulders of the men to the village. Voting being done, and the offices de- clared filled, a ring was formed, the wolf let loose, and the dogs allowed to enter and engage in battle. The animal proved victorious in each instance, and was finally dispatched by a rifle-ball, and so ended the first town meeting.

While there are those who see all greatness and achievement in the past and a general degeneracy among the men of to-day, their opposites are found unwilling to concede the merit which early enterprise has won. The construction of the State road and of the Cayuga bridge are events creditable to the originators and all important in their results. He who dreamed of " black soil eighteen feet deep producing one hundred bushels of corn to an acre under Indian tillage for unknown periods," as a preliminary to travel began a study of the route by water. Not till Robert Morris had opened a road did other than New England settlers venture into these regions, and then only to return in disgust at a remote country destitute of roads and ill supplied with provisions. A road over the mountains was begun June 3, 1792, northerly from the mouth of Lycoming Creek ; ten days brought the workmen to Canonisque Creek, and by the course of its waters found them- Belves in the County of Ontario. By August, 1793, a road sufficient to pass wagons was completed to Williamsburg, one hundred and seventy miles from Lycoming Creek. A trail, of which more hereafter, had long led from the home of the Mohawks to the western bounds of the Senecas; along this trace the travelers

made the journey to Cayuga Lake, over which the ferry bore them to continue their weary route.

The necessities of the people and profits from better communications led to State action, and on March 22, 1794, three commissioners, of whom General Israel Chapin of Canandaigua was one, were appointed to survey and lay out a road six rods wide. The route led from Utica as nearly direct as possible to Cayuga Ferry ; thence to Canandaigua, and from that place to a settlement at Canawagus, on the Genesee River, at the point of erection of the first bridge which spanned that stream. Along the road from Canandaigua west towards Centrefield, where, in February, Amos Brunson drove the first team, came the surveyor, Mr. Rose, and with him Chapin, of Ontario, and Elliott, of Onondaga, commissioners to note the work. The heavy timber was felled a width of one hundred feet, and a way into the dense forest was opened up a long view, and so was made a great change in the appearance of the country. The trees were felled, but little else done until by act of the Legislature, 1797, the State took the road from Fort Schuyler to Geneva under their patronage. A lottery was granted for opening and im- proving trunk-roads, among which this was known. All along the line of the road the inhabitants came forward with voluntary offer of services to aid the State Commissioner, and a subscription of four thousand days' labor was worked with willingness and faithfulness. This assistance, with some other, resulted in a road nearly one hundred miles in length, sixty-four feet wide, and corduroyed with logs filled in with gravel through the moist parts of the low country along its course. The improvement of this road gave rise to the transportation of pas- sengers by stages, the conveyance of mails, and an increased and continually in- creasing travel. In 1793 the first mail west of Canajoharie was carried from that point to Whitestown. Pursuant to the rules of the Post-Office Department, mail was carried only where the route was made self-sustaining by the contributions of those along the road, and the system extended rapidly westward. The contract for carrying the mail passed into the hands of Jason Parker, Esq., who became the founder of a great line of stages which traversed the country like a net-work in every direction until the opening of the Erie Canal, and finally the Albany and Rochester Railroad. Westward, preceding the rail-car, went the old stage, till the iron parallels have driven it from main lines, and the hack journeying leisurely from village to hamlet but faintly recalls the old-fashioned coach. Farther we shall learn of the State road as a turnpike, dotted all along its course by taverns of all classes and gates for the collection of tolls. The Pennsylvania wagons, the emigrant teams, the stage lines made the road appear as if occupied by an end- less procession, and when the war of 1812 began the passage of troops and muni- tions of war tasked its capacity to the utmost; but there was one point upon this road of which brief mention may be made,-the Long Bridge over Cayuga Lake. There was incorporated in 1797 "The Cayuga Bridge Company," consisting of John Harris, Joseph Annin, Thomas Morris, Wilhelmus Mynderse, and Charles Williamson. Their organization was made to accomplish the construction of a bridge across the northern end of Cayuga Lake to further and expedite the passage of travelers and emigrants bound West, and also as a means of income. The work was begun May, 1799, and completed September 4, 1800. Its dimensions were as follows: length one mile and eight rods, and width twenty-two feet, there being sufficient roadway to permit the movement of three wagons abreast. . The time occupied in construction was eighteen months, and its entire cost is given as $150,000. But few years' service was had from it ere its destruction by the ele- ments. A second bridge was then built, and became a source of considerable rev- enue, while for years it was regarded as a great public improvement, and taken as a dividing line between the East and the West, The bridge was abandoned in 1857, and aside from the journey by rail the ferry is employed in crossing. Por- tions of the ruins are yet to be seen and mark its original site. A glance at present facilities of travel, an observance of the inventions for farm and domestic convenience, and the perfect security experienced in all localities, placed in con- trast with the journeys by land and by water of pioneers, the apprehensions, far from groundless, of a renewal in the valley of the Genesee of the atrocities of Wyoming, the dense timber marking the richest land to be felled and burned, the roads to be cut out and made passable, and the constant call for physical exertion, sometimes when sickness hung like a miasmatic cloud over the changing soil,- such a contrast is well calculated to answer the thoughtless question, What is all this worth .? why such a formidable array of names of early pioneers ? As in the ranks of war the meanest soldier, whether firing rapidly into the lines of the foe, driving the team laden with supplies, or watching in the hospital over the bunks of sick or wounded comrades, is in all upon his duty and entitled to enrollment in the list of honor, so is the man who felled a forest-tree, erected a log cabin, took part in a town meeting, or labored freely upon the roads, entitled to an honorable mention in the records which especially design the permanent history of the growth and development of a forest to the home of an enlightened and prosperous community.

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History of Ontario Co., New York, Part 6

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

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