History of Oswego County, New York, with illustrations and Biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 14

Author: Johnson, Crisfield. cn
Publication date: 1877
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & co.
Number of Pages: 798

USA > New York > Oswego County > History of Oswego County, New York, with illustrations and Biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 14

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Still, if a deer should show itself-or, still better, if a bear should obstruct his path-if he should boldly confront the monster (as of course he would), and if, just as it was rising with horrid front to attack him, he should with well- aimed bullet lay it bleeding at his feet-what a fine thing it would be to write back to Mary Ann about. Full of these mingled thoughts the youth strays farther and farther into the forest, and his mind becomes more and more ab- stracted from its surroundings. Suddenly a great noise is heard, a big buek with branching horns springs from his lair and comes bounding directly across the front of the startled young Jonathan. That worthy stands with open eyes and mouth, forgetting his rifle, his Mary Ann, and everything else, in his surprise and astonishment. Just as the tail of the fleeing animal flutters for the last time among the beeches, Jonathan recovers himself and fires an una- vailing shot after the retreating flag.

Great Heavens! Why didn't he shoot before? Oh, if another would only come wouldn't he fix him? But no other comes, and, after reloading his rifle, Jonathan makes his way slowly and sadly back to the family ox-sled. There the young cow-captain, who has heard the shot, soon digs the story out of him, and great is the contempt of that would-be hunter at the recital. Oh, if he had only been there with a gun! Catch him standing still while a deer ran by within twenty steps ! Bah !

Eulivened by adventures like this, the cavalcade (if a yoke of oxen, a sled, and a cow can be so called) makes its tedious way towards the promised land. Passing by the scattered settlements on the bank of Oneida lake, and reach- ing Rotterdam, it turns up the "old Mexico road" and works its way over the high ridge whence the streams run in opposite directions into the two lakes, Oneida and Onta- rio. Then it turns aside into Parish, or Palermo, or Albion, or New Haven, or Richland, or the farther part of Mexico, following a road more execrable cven than before.

If a log of moderate size lies in the way, the oxen step carefully over it, and the sled goes bouncing up and down, the children clinging to the side-boards with little shrieks of mingled aların and pleasure, and the old cat elevating her tail in angry protest against these violent proceedings. If a larger one is encountered, as it frequently is, which can't be driven around, axes are brought out and old Ephraim and young Jonathan sever it in two places, roll the middle seetion out of the way, and lead forward their forces in triumph.

Arriving at length at the selected locality, if no house has been erected in advance the family easily finds shelter with an carlier settler, perhaps a mile or two distant. All are hospitable, not only for hospitality's sake, but because every new-comer is a positive advantage to the country. The first thing is the erection of a log house. Our two grown-up heroes go to work preparing the logs, while young Timothy is kept busy all day taking care of the cattle, run- ning of errands, and helping the women folks, till he wishes twenty times a day that he were back on the stony hill- sides of Vermont.

As our friends belong to the best society, they cut their logs eighteen feet long, intending to have their house nearly sixteen feet square on the inside,-something quite palatial. The logs being ready, the engineer-in-chief prepares his machinery for raising the house. It consists of a gallon of whisky. The " neighbors" for several miles around are invited to the raising, and respond with unanimous alaerity. Four finished architects are selected to carry up the corners. These shape the notches and saddles by means of which the logs are fitted together, their less expert brethren lift the material up to the builders, who rise with their work till they are six or eight feet above the ground. Rough poles furnish the rafters.

Our high-toned friends cannot think of getting along, as some do, without a floor, and so a few ash-logs are split up into "puncheons," and laid on the lowest tier of logs, and even an upper tier is laid so as to furnish a chamber, which, divided by blankets, furnishes sleeping-rooms for the young people. Apertures for a door and window are cut out, and then, after an ample if homely supper, and an annihilating attack on the remnants of the badly-defcated whisky, the neighbors depart to their homes, pouring out their good wishes for the new residents with equal profuseness and sincerity, and the younger men deeply smitten by the grace and beauty of the fair-haired young schoolma'am.

A few days more suffice to put on the ash " shakes," two and a half to three feet long, which do duty as shingles, to build the fire-place of stone and the chimney of poles, and to put in the board-door and glass-window which mark the residence of a gentleman of substance. The women folks begin keeping house, and the men turn their attention to the clearing of land. There being two of them, ambitious and active, they are determined to have a crop this very season. Working early and late, they cut down the trees on three or four acres, trim off and pile the brush, and burn it as soon as the spring sun has made it combustible. The trees are left where they fall. Between them, in the soft woodland soil, the late corn is planted, and a tolerable crop is harvested. But only "right smart" men can do this,

HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.

and even then they rear a late crop, which an early frost would destroy.

Meanwhile more land is cleared to be sown to wheat. About this job there is to be no half-way work. The brush is trimmed and burned, the trees are felled in the right direction, and the logs cut of the proper length. When the August sun is hottest, another supply of whisky is laid in, and again the neighbors are invited,-this time to a " logging-bee."

But the muse who waits on a common county historian can hardly be expected to describe with sufficient accuracy and vividness that remarkable scene. Dante and Virgil both descended into hell, but neither of them ever saw a " logging-bee ;" if they had, they could have added some extra touches to their Plutonian pictures. How the work begins at a moderate pace at first ; how the logs, already blackened by the fire which has consumed the brush, are dragged together by ox-teams and rolled into heaps with handspikes; how clouds of black dust rise from the ground and envelop everybody and everything in one funereal pall ; how the speed increases as time progresses ; how Ephraim and Jonathan, and young Timothy and old Jeremiah, and William and Henry, and James and Thomas, and Buck and Bright, and Broad and Blaze, all catch the spirit of rivalry, and spring to their work like soldiers to the charge; how, regardless of danger, men bound among the whirling logs to relieve some dead-lock with their handspikes; how jest and laugh and shout and cheer go up from the heroes of the day as they see their labors progressing to a success- ful close ; and how, when all is done, and the great heaps are ready for the torch, they retire to their homes covered with soot half an inch thick, more or less, but triumphant in another victory over the wilderness,-all this forms a vivid picture in the mind of an old pioneer, but can hardly be appreciated by a modern city gentleman. But without the tremendous labors of the forest and the " logging-field" the dry-goods box would have yielded no profit to the smiling merchant, and the palatial residence would never have adorned the elegant avenue.

The next day our friends Ephraim and Jonathan and Timothy apply the torch to the log-piles, and for several days have plenty of work watching the fires, dragging to- gether the brands that remain, and burning them again until all are destroyed. A harrow prepares the virgin soil sufficiently to receive the proper allowance of winter wheat, which is soon sown by the skillful hands of the head of the family, and then the harrow again comes into play, cover- ing the grain with enough earth to secure its germination.

As winter approaches, the family mansion is "chinked" all around with pieces of wood between the logs, and fur- thier secured against cold by a liberal coating of clay. Ere long the snow comes down in an avalanche, and lies one, two, or three feet deep throughout the forest. No hay lics piled in stacks or stored in barns; and how are Back and Bright and Betsey to be kept through the winter ? Browse. Each morning Ephraim or Jonathan goes to the forest, chops down a few trecs, and gives the cattle a chance to feed on the succulent twigs. It is hardly equal to first- class hay, but cattle can live on it throughout the winter. Half a ton of hay, procured with great labor from a distant

settlement, keeps the poor beasts in memory of old times, and prevents them from despairing of the future. A rude log shed slightly shields them from the fury of the frequent storms.

Now, at last, young Jonathan has a chance to display his skill with the rifle. Deer roam thick through the woods, and it is not difficult for even a mediocre marksman to supply a family with abundance of venison. Even our boyish friend, Timothy, has the inexpressible delight to discover a fat doe peering in wonder from the edge of the clearing at the strange-looking cabin, to seize the rifle, to steal quietly to a convenient stump, and, after carefully sighting, to bring the unfortunate intruder dying to the earth. That one shot adds four inches and a half to the boy's height.

As the snow becomes deeper the snow-shoe is brought into requisition. The light ashen or hickory frame, twenty- eight to thirty-two inches long, and from fourteen to six- teen wide, braced with bars and plaited with leather thongs, is strapped to either foot, and away gocs the youthful hunter over snow four fect deep, at the rate of three miles or more an hour, scarcely sinking above the top. As the deer had no snow-shoes, the hunter had an immense advantage.

As food becomes scarcer the deer gather in groups (or " yards," as they are called), twelve, fifteen, or twenty to- gether, and dig down through the snow with their feet, to obtain a little scanty nourishment from the shrubbery below. When the hunters find one of these " yards" they can save their powder ; they begin with club and kuife, and slaughter at will. (Mr. Jeremiah Matthewson, of Pulaski, says he has known of three men killing eighteen deer in that way in one day.) If the poor wretches attempt to escape, they instantly sink deep into the snow, and are easily overtaken and dispatched by those woodland Mercuries, whose heels are made light by snow-shoes instead of wings. A fancy sportsman would call this mere butchery, but a man whose pork-barrel is getting low cannot be particular as to the way he supplies his family with meat.

But not much time can be spared for the exciting joys of the hunter. Our friends have come into the wilderness not to play but to work. A large part of the winter is spent in cutting down the great oak- and ash-trees and split- ting them into rails. It may be possible to get along a few years with brush-fences, but Ephraim and Jonathan are resolute Yankees, who look on the brush-fence as a mark of shiftlessness hardly to be tolerated even for the first year.

Meanwhile the female head of the household and her blithe daughter are busy within, being especially necessi- tated to devote a large part of their time to the repair of clothing. Every article must be made to last as long as is humanly possible, for the prospect of obtaining more is poor indeed. How earnestly the matron longs for the time when they shall have sheep, and geese, and all the adjuncts of civilization !

Spring brings new labors and new pleasures. The rails must be laid into the old-fashioned "worm-fence," eight rails high, "staked and ridered," which is now following the log house into the limbo of oblivion. Spring crops must be sowed,-more ground must be cleared. Hand-

HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.

some IIannah retreats to a little older settlement, and ob- tains employment in teaching school through the summer at a dollar a week and " board around."

Timothy is happy, for every little while he gets a chance to fish for salmon. It makes no difference whether they live near Salmon river, Salmon creek, or Oswego river, all the waters which flow into Lake Ontario abound in that delicious fish. Whenever those waters rise and roll their turbid volume out into the lake, the salmon are attracted and rush up the streams. Even in the daytime they can be speared by the score, but night is the chosen time. Then two young men start out in a boat,-one handling the oars, and one armed with a spear,-with a supply of pine- knots for light. As the salmon are dimly revealed in the dark water, the stalwart spearsman transfixes them, one after another, and hauls them into the boat till his arm is almost too weary to lift one. (Mr. Matthewson, to whom we have before referred, declares that he has himself taken out sixty- three salmon in the burning of one "jack-light" of pine- knots, which was calculated to last seventeen minutes. Two hundred and thirty were captured by himself and comrade during the four hours between dark and midnight. A hundred of these, taken at random, weighed fourteen hundred and seventy-five pounds ! This was at a later period, but it shows what fun there was to be had in all those early days.)

Another winter passes more comfortably than the last. Our friends have time to make a few dozen sap-troughs, and, when spring sets the sweet blood of the maple flowing in its veins, a corresponding number of trees are tapped, a big kettle is swung over a fire in the woods, the sap is boiled down into syrup, the syrup is "sugared off," and little Tommy and Johnny and Polly enjoy themselves for a while at the top of their bent. A year or two later a still larger number of trees will be tapped, a shanty will be built in the woods, the sap will be gathered from far and near on a sled, and a grand jubilee of the young folks-up to twenty-five years old-will be held over the operation of sugaring off.

Now the women folks make up their minds that they have carried water long enough from the spring some sixty rods distant, and insist on a well. Ephraim, Jonathan, and Timothy (now a stout youngster of seventeen), all take part in this work. Good water is found some fifteen feet down. Stone for the sides is soon brought from the surrounding fields on that peculiar vehicle called a stone-boat, built of stont plank, five feet by three, with a flat keel to navigate on top of the earth, behind a yoke of cattle, and a rounded prow, to glide past the numerous stumps. The well is at once finished, and ornamented by its lofty " sweep," rising, at an angle of forty-five degrees, twelve or fifteen feet high, supported in the middle by a sturdy crotch, with a slender pole pendent from its topmost end, and the celebrated old oaken bucket hanging from the lower end of the pole.

This year, when the crops are harvested, Jonathan goes back to Vermont after Mary Ann, buys a yoke of steers and a cart, and gives his bride a ride of three hundred miles, while he walks ahead and drives a dozen sheep for his father's use. Carefully he watches them all the way, fastening them at dark in the pens of friendly farmers, until, the night before reaching home, some point is left

unguarded, the wolf comes down on the fold, and in the morning ten of the twelve are found dead, their mangled throats testifying to the cause of their untimely taking off. This is no fancy sketch. Not only in Oswego County, but elsewhere, the writer has been told of little flocks brought from some far distant eastern home only to be slaughtered the first night of their arrival.

Many a tear is shed by the good mother over this de- struction of her hopes, and the little ones join in wailing over the warm flannels of which they have been defrauded. In fact, so dismal is the prospect that resolute Ephraim goes in person, gets more sheep, and sees to it that they come through in safety. Then there is joy in the family. In due time fleeces are obtained, the spinning-wheel is brought out, and Hannah, after finishing her summer school, treads lightly to and fro over the floor,-in which boards have been substituted for puncheons,-twirling the rolls she has carded with deft fingers, until an ample number of skeins of stout yarn lie packed in a rude box, ready for use.

Yes, Hannah can spin,-as sturdy Ben, the son of a neighbor only four or five miles distant, admiringly con- fesses, while he sits on the door-step, with his rifle leaning against the logs, and catches her graceful movements,-but, when it comes to weaving, the old lady's services are in re- quest. She alone can manage the " warp" and the " filling," the "harness" and the "shuttle," so as to produce the soft, warm flannel which so many backs are anxious for. She, too, turns out the stronger cloth to which black sheep and white sheep contribute, and which, after being carried twenty or thirty miles to the nearest fulling-mill, is re- turned as "sheep's-gray," good for coat or trousers for man or boy.

Jonathan and Mary Ann's new home cannot at first be expected to be as stylish as that of the old folks. He has his first payment to make on his land, and after that his in- terest to provide for, and money is searce beyond what any one can now conceive of. What is called "hard times" to- day would have been thought a perfect jubilee of monetary abundance seventy years ago. The first summer a blanket does duty instead of a door, and a piece of greased cotton- cloth instead of a window. The first chairs consist of slabs split out of a log, with four holes bored in the corners, fitted with hickory legs. The first bedstead is made of poles stuck in auger-holes in the logs in the corner of his house. The first baby is rocked in a sap-trough.

Yet even in this humblest of residences the observant visitor sees at once that he is in the home of an intelligent and self-respecting freeman. Two or three books have sur- vived the disasters of poverty and removal. If the head of the young family cannot yet afford a newspaper, some good-natured neighbor has loaned him one, and he has a common-sense idea of the affairs of the nation. The rifle, which hangs over the fire-place, may yet be leveled against the enemies of his country. There may be a nasal tone to his voice, but, as compared with the European peasant, his speech is amazingly accurate and grammatical. If a king were to enter our friend's cabin, Jonathan would offer him a seat on one of the slab chairs, and Mary Ann would bring him a drink of buttermilk, with but little more con- cern than if it were Squire Jones of the neighboring ham-

HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.

let. To be sure our independent, rifle-shooting, news- paper-reading citizen and voter is a trifle conceited; he would be ready to manage the nation by the views he has picked up in the district school; but still a few million such citizens make a very solid foundation for the super- structure of a free government. They are not easily fright- ened nor cajoled, and their hard " horse sense" has more than once carried the republic through long seasons of diffi- culty and danger.

It is needless to say that the young people do not attend high-toned balls in gas-lighted rooms, where, on spring-bot- tomed floors, they waltz away the hours, with an interval for supper, consisting of scolloped oysters, roast beef à la Française, giblets a l'Espagnole, ice-cream, and champagne. Neither does the peripatetic lecturer illuminate the people on the glories of progress and the mysteries of philosophy: All mental instruction comes from the school-master or mis- tress in the log school-house ; all ethical teaching from the itinerant preacher, who has not even a log meeting-house at his command, but who occupies once a month a school- house three miles distant, to which all the settlers around flock with ox-teams or on foot. Equally simple are their amusements. The sugar-party, with its egg-shells filled with the finest product of the maple, and its waxen luxuries cooled upon the snow ; the quilting-bee, where the girls who work all the afternoon are taken home by the young men in the evening; the spelling-school, that primitive athenæum, where rosy-cheeked lasses and sturdy youngsters struggle with the awful mysteries of phthisic, caoutchouc, and Michilimackinac; the more infrequent singing-school, also held in the log school-house, whither the poor bring pine-knots and the rich bring tallow candles ; the jolly husking-bee, where the great pile of corn is soon denuded of its covering by nimble hands of girls and boys, the ra- pidity of whose labors keeps out the cold, and where the finding of a red ear is rewarded by a kiss from every girl in the barn ;- these are the primitive recreations which enliven the hard labors of pioneer life.

Nor is the dance entirely ignored. Though the log taverns furnish very contracted accommodations, yet when a backwoods fiddler can be found to play the part of Apollo, the youth of both sexes are not unwilling to gather for many a mile around in rustic devotion at the shrine of Terpsichore. It is seldom, however, that that devotion is carried as far as in the case which will be related in the his- tory of the town of Volney, when three young men walked twelve miles through the pathless forest from New Haven to Volney Centre, found three girls whom they had never seen before, persuaded them to walk back with them to a " house-warming" in the former locality, running the risk of bears and wolves, and occupied five days in going after their partners, going back with them, dancing, escorting them home, and returning.

The present chapter being confined to the period before the war of 1812, it is needless to give any description of the early frame houses, for, though not absolutely unknown, they were so few as not to form a feature in the landscape. The erection of the first in each town, as well as that of the earliest blacksmith-shop, saw-mill, grist-mill, etc., may safely be left to the town histories.

Leaving our friends Ephraim, Jonathan, Mary Ann, and Hannah to push their fortunes as best they may, we will return to the prosaic record of events. As already stated, settlements had been made previous to the close of the last century in Oswego city, Oswego town, Granby, Volney, Scriba, Schroeppel, Mexico, New Haven, Hastings, Con- stantia, and Redfield. Omitting details for the present, it will sufficiently give a general idea of the progress of settle- ment to say that some one began the pioneer's work in each one of the remaining towns before the war of 1812, in the following order: Richland and Williamstown, in 1801; Hannibal, in 1802; Sandy Creek, in 1803; Parish, in 1804; Amboy, in 1805; Orwell, Palermo, and West Monroe, in 1806; Boylston and Albion, in 1812.

The course of municipal organization during the same period was as follows : In 1802, 1803, and 1804 the towns of Adams, Ellisburg, and Lorraine, in the present county of Jefferson, were taken off from Mexico, bringing it down to the limits of that part of Oswego County west of the river, with Redfield already separate. In 1804, also, Williams- town was taken off, including the present town of that name, Amboy, Albion, Richland, Sandy Creek, Orwell, and Boylston. In 1806 Fredericksburgh was formed on the . other end of the patent, embracing the present towns of Scriba, Volney, Palermo, and Schroeppel. The same year Hannibal was formed from Lysander, embracing the old survey-township of Hannibal and thirty-three lots from Lysander; in other words, all of the present county of Os- wego west of the river. These dimensions it retained until after the war. In 1807 Richland was set off from Wil- liamstown, embracing what is now Richland, Albion, Or- well, Boylston, and Sandy Creek. In the same year the survey-township of Arcadia was annexed to Redfield, en- larging that town to its present size. In 1808 another new town was formed from Mexico. Mr. Scriba's favorite name of Rotterdam was cast aside, and the survey-township of that name, together with Delft and Breda ( West Monroe and Hastings), were organized as a town under the name of Constantia. This reduced Mexico to the territory of the present towns of New Haven, Mexico, and Parish, which it retained until during the war. Finally, in 1811, Scriba was set off from Fredericksburgh, the name of which was at the same time changed to Volney, in honor of the cele- brated French author of that name, who had lately passed down the Oswego on a tour through the country. Thus, at the beginning of the war, the present county of Oswego contained eight towns,-Hannibal, in Onondaga county, and Scriba, Volney, Mexico, Constantia, Williamstown, Richland, and Redfield, in Oneida county.

We have already mentioned the remains of Indian or ante-Indian relics near Oswego Falls and Fort Brewerton. The only other locality especially rich in such relics was discovered by the early settlers of Albion, on Trout brook, in the north part of that town. There was to be seen a mound twenty-eight feet high and sixty or seventy feet in diameter at the bottom, rising in the midst of a piece of level ground. Close beside it large quantities of stone axes, arrow-heads, stone pipes, etc., were often thrown up by the pioneer's plow. Near by, but on the top of a hill, was a circular embankment nearly six feet high, inclosing some two

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History of Oswego County, New York, with illustrations and Biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 14

Author: Johnson, Crisfield. cn Publication date: 1877 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & co. Number of Pages: 798

Author: Johnson, Crisfield. cn
Publication date: 1877
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & co.
Number of Pages: 798