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 36
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116
One of the most sorrowful events of early days in Oswego happened in 1811. Captain Samuel B. Morrow had a log house near " Baldwin's bay," a long way out of the village, but within the line of the present corporation. While the captain was out on the lake, in command of his vessel, his house caught fire and three young children perished in the flames. This sad episode of peaceful life was not surpassed in tragie interest by aught that occurred during the war of two years and a half, which was declared on the 18th of June, 1812. The main events of that war relating to Oswego County have been narrated in the general county history, and all that remain for mention in this sketch are a few local incidents of comparatively slight importance.
Several citizens of Oswego took a prominent part in the conflict, besides those who from time to time served in the militia. Daniel Ilugunin, Jr., was a lieutenant in the regular army, taking part in the battles on the Niagara frontier.
Robert Hugunin was a pilot through the war, on one of Commodore Chauncey's vessels. Dr. Walter Colton was a surgeon in the army. Peter D. Hugunin was a paymaster.
The fear of Indian invaders handed down from Revolu- tionary times lay heavy on all the inhabitants of the north- ern frontier. Mrs. Grant, then Mary Hugunin, relates that more than once she and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Peter D. Hugunin, who had a pair of twins, sprang up in the night on an alarm being raised ; each seized one of the twins and fled, but returned when the alarm was found to be a false one, as was generally the case. Mary, then a young woman, kept house for her father and younger brothers in Oswego during a part of the war, while the rest of the family were sent away.
Eli Parsons, Jr., a son of the old colonel, owned and navigated a small open boat on the river. On one occasion, when no better means could be found, he undertook to carry a boat-load of cannon-balls from Oswego to Sackett's Harbor. But rough weather assailed him on the way, the boat with its heavy freight went to the bottom, and the remains of the unfortunate man were washed ashore near the mouth of Little Salmon ereek.
In the spring of 1813 there rode on horseback into Oswego a midshipman in the United States navy, bearing dispatches from Sackett's Harbor, which were forwarded to Commodore Chauncey, then at the head of the lake. The bearer, a native of Baltimore, had already reached the age of thirty-five years. He had thrice looked upon the stately form of Washington, had seen him the last time he reviewed a body of troops, had witnessed the laying of the corner-stone of the national capitol, had passed through various financial vicissitudes in early life, had served under Commodore Rodgers and the lamented Lawrence, had con- versed with the gallant Decatur, and having twenty years later become a citizen of Oswego, still survives, a resident here, though in December of this year, 1877, he will reach the age of a hundred years, rounding out a century which began only eighteen months after the birth of the Republic.
Most citizens of Oswego will be aware that we refer to the venerable John M. Jacobs. His business here in 1813 was not important, yet it seemed proper to notice the ap- pearance at this stage of one who maintains his hold upon life with so tenacious a grasp, and the sight of whom carries the mind of the most unimaginative man back to the earliest days of our national existence. .
Among the reminiscences furnished to the Oswego Pal- ladium during the centenary year by a son of Dr. Walter Colton, now resident in Ohio, was one which we insert in almost the language of the writer. Many accidents hap- pened in early times when vessels were passing into or out of the harbor. Lieutenant (afterwards Commodore) Francis H. Gregory, of the navy, frequently scouted along the lake- shore during the war in a light-draught entter called the " Black-Snake." When entering the harbor on one occa- sion a man fell overboard, was swept out by the current, and drowned.
The body was soon after discovered on the east bar, when the gallant young officer dived to the bottom and brought it up. His boat, however, had drifted away, through the mismanagement of the erew, but the lieutenant
-
Paños
RESIDENCE OF ELIAS ROOT, COR. W. SIXTH & ENDDA STS., OSWEGO, N. Y.
145
HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
clung to the body, and finally, by desperate exertions and with great peril, succeeded in carrying it ashore. There was a military hospital on the beach near by, and some of the invalids were outside. They were, or thought they were, too fecble to help the lieutenant, who came very near drowning. The moment he got ashore he laid down the corpse he had rescued and went to throwing stones at the soldiers with all his might, cursing them roundly for sitting idle while he was likely to drown. They soon made their way within the shelter of the hospital. The most remarka- ble circumstance connected with the affair was that one of the sick soldiers in the hospital discovered the drowned man to be his brother, who had left home twenty years before and had never been heard from since.
A few hours after Lieutenant Gregory had shown such courage and humanity, the same passionate officer was en- gaged in flogging a sailor, for some breach of discipline, in the loft of Burt's warehouse. Several idle boys of the . village, among whom was young Colton, crowded in to see the "fun." At this Gregory exploded again, and with a storm of curses rushed upon the intruders " cat" in hand. . The boys tumbled head-over-heels down an outside stair- way, while the future commodore shook his " cat" at them in fury, and then returned to finish up the flogging,-a kind of punishment common enough at that time, but long since abolished by law.
When the British attacked Oswego, in 1814, all the families left that could do so. Old Mr. Sheldon, knowing that Captain E. M. Tyler was out on the lake, came down with an ox-sled and took the family out to his own resi- dence. As soon as they arrived he sent his own son and Joel Tyler back to bring some young cattle which were grazing on the open grounds around the fort. Just as the boys had got the steers and heifers started for home the first gun was fired from the fleet, and the ball came scream- ing and plunging close beside them. The cattle stuck up their tails and galloped off towards home, and the boys followed at almost equal speed.
Even the terrors and troubles of war, however, did not prevent the making of an important movement towards the development of Oswego in 1814. A surveyor, named John Randall, was sent on by the surveyor-general to remeasure the State reservation on the east side of the river, and to lay off a hundred acres in streets and village lots.
He was ordered simply to follow the law designating the bounds of the reserve, which directed that the southern boundary should begin a mile from the mouth of the river, and run thence a mile at right angles with the course of the stream. Randall, however, managed to make the dis- tances and angles materially different from those established by Wright, encroaching seriously on the adjoining farm lands previously purchased. Anxiety was caused to the pur- chasers, and delegations were several times sent to Albany to obtain a restoration of the old line. Owing to a friendly feeling towards the aged surveyor-general, whose protegé Randall was, no direct action was taken by the other State authorities, but by general consent Wright's line was al- lowed to pass as the correct one, and everybody conformed to it in making purchases and sales.
In laying off streets on the east side Mr. Randall pur-
sucd the same system that had been adopted on the west side. The streets parallel with the river were named East First, East Second, East Third, etc., while Arics, Gemini, Taurus, and the other celestial avenues were extended across the stream to the cast side of the new tract.
Early the next year peace was declared, and the people at once began to occupy the lately-opened territory. Dr. Coe, T. S. Morgan, and William Dolloway built houses on the east side below Cayuga street. Others purchased lots and began clearing away the trees in preparation for the erection of buildings. By general consent the locality was called East Oswego, though it was legally only a portion of the town of Scriba.
Here, as everywhere on the frontier, there was a heavy immigration immediately after the war, and Oswego rapidly emerged from its chrysalis condition,-so rapidly, in fact, that it will be impracticable henceforth to give the names of individual settlers to the extent we have hitherto done.
In addition to the rapid improvement on the east side, after the war, buildings began to show themselves on the west side, at various points above Cancer (Bridge) street, which had previously been the southern boundary of civilization. One of the Hugunins, in 1815 or 1816, built a house, then considered something palatial, on Mohawk street, near the bank of the river, being the farthest south of any in the village. Immediately after the war, too, Judge Sage moved down from the Wentworth place and built him a residence on the site of the Doolittle House.
Increasing prosperity made Oswego all the more anxious to become the county-seat of the new county which was proposed to be formed out of Oncida and Onondaga. The great difficulty was that the village was very near the west end of the large tract which it was designed to include in the new county boundaries, and which, from the location of counties already formed, could not well be materially changed. There was no doubt but that a large majority of the people of the proposed county were opposed to locating the county-seat so far on one side. Yet the village had the advantage of being the only one of any consequence within the proposed limits, and had naturally more capital and brains to work with than any of its rivals.
At that period it was customary for the legislature, when it created a new county, to appoint three commissioners from other counties to select a county-seat. It was altogether probable that if an act forming Oswego County should be passed during the ensuing winter, the commis- sioners would select a more central location than Oswego village. Under these circumstances, Oswego and Pulaski -which was also an aspirant for the honors and emolu- ments pertaining to a capital city-joined forces. Dr. Walter Colton drew up a bill containing a provision for two county-seats, and visited Albany to urge its passage. The principal inhabitants at both ends of the proposed county supported him, and the bill became a law on the 16th day of March, 1816. It provided for commissioners to locate the two county-scats, but no one could doubt that Oswego was the proper place at this end of the county, and the selection was soon made.
The tonnage of the vessels belonging to the port at that time was five hundred and four tons. The new county-
.
146
HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
seat had not yet arrived at the dignity of a stage line. The mail was still brought from Onondaga Hollow on horseback. A little later a mail-route was established from Utica to Oswego, the mail being also carried on horse- back, and running onee a week. The post-office could not have been a very profitable institution, which was probably the reason that William Dolloway, who was appointed post- master in January, 1815, gave up his position a year later. Judge Sage was appointed postmaster, and, as he was already collector, he could probably get a living out of the two offices.
The establishment of a county-seat at Oswego was fol- lowed by the advent of several lawyers. One of the very earliest, if not the earliest, of these was John Grant, Jr., a young college graduate, who had been serving as a pay- master in the army during the war and until a year after; he was already a counsellor of the supreme court, when, in the spring of 1816, he located at the promising village, where he resided till his death. Theodore Popple was the only other supreme court counsellor who made his home there that first summer; but at least two students came who were anxious for the honors of admission to the bar.
When the first court of common pleas for Oswego County was held at the old school-house, on the first day of October, 1816, by Judge Peter D. Hugunin (in the absence of First Judge Mooney), assisted by Judge Ed- miund Hawks and " Assistant Justice" Daniel Hawks, Jr., the people began to think that their village was really amounting to something. The supreme court counsellors before mentioned, as well as several outsiders, were ad- mitted to practice on presentation of the credentials they had already, and the students, George Fisher and Henry White, were, after due examination, admitted as attorneys of the common pleas. It may be remarked, for the benefit of those accustomed only to the usages of the present day, that the privilege of practicing in the last-named tribunal only required three years' study, while the august honors of the supreme court then demanded seven years of prepara- tion from their recipient.
But, although Oswego had attained to the dignity of a court, there was no litigation to be disposed of, no criminals to be tried, and Judge Hugunin was obliged to adjourn sine die. There was another young student, James F. Wright, who located in Oswego about this time, but was not admitted till the next term of the common pleas, held at Pulaski the following February. Samuel B. Beach was another lawyer who came nearly as soon as those who have been mentioned.
Another important event of 1816 was the organization of the first church in the village. This was the First Pres- byterian church, which was organized at the ever-useful school-house on the 21st day of November by Rev. Mr. Abeel, with seventeen members. Considering that it was just twenty years since the settlement of Oswego began, and that it had attained a population of five or six hundred before a single religious association was formed, it must, we think, be admitted that the place could not have suffered severely from " early piety."
The next spring witnessed the appearance in Os · ego harbor of the "Ontario," which was not only the pioneer steamboat of the lake whose name it bore, but was the very
first vessel of that kind ever seen on a lake anywhere in the world. The event has been mentioned at some length in the general history. The chapter devoted to the press also contains a notice of another important event of this year (1817),-the establishment of the first newspaper in the village by S. A. Abbey & Brother, under the name of the Oswego Gazette.
By this time the population on the east side had in- creased so it was thought that a school could be supported there. Not a school-house though ; that was an institu- tion only to be obtained for East Oswego in the far future. The first teacher of the few children of that locality was Miss Philomela Robinson. She held forth in a hired room near the river, and for eleven years the school was changed from one rented building to another, occupying five or six different ones in the time mentioned.
On the 20th of April, 1818, the town of Oswego, which included all of the village west of the river, was formed from Hannibal by an act of the legislature. The two parts of the present city were now in the towns of Oswego and Scriba, the inhabitants being frequently designated as Os- wegoites and Scribaites. There was a bitter feud between the boys on the two sides of the river, breaking out in frequent fights, and woe to the unlucky juvenile who found himself alone on the wrong side of the stream.
Then, as previously, a large part of the trade of Oswego consisted of salt, brought down from Salina and shipped westward. It is noted that in that year (1818) thirty-six thousand bushels were brought from Salina, of which twenty-six thousand were shipped westward.
In 1819 the Oswego Gazette, having passed through the hands of Augustus Buckingham, was discontinued for a short time, when John H. Lord and Dorephus Abbey, with the material of the Gazette, began the publication of that veteran of the press, the Oswego Palladium.
In 1820 the first grist-mill that was intended for manu- facturing flour on a large scale was built, by Alvin Bronson and T. S. Morgan.
It contained five run of stone, and was considered a grand institution. It did a successful business ; but for ten years no material advance was made in the work of mill- ing. One of the proprietors, Colonel Morgan, was the first member of the assembly from Oswego village, serving during this same year.
All this time Oswego was making very slow progress. The Erie canal was in process of construction, people had got a notion that trade was sure to flow along its channel, and new settlers nearly all sought their fortunes in the cities and villages growing up on its banks. The numerous stage- coaches, too, which ran along the present line of the Cen- tral railroad, carried the greater part of the passenger- travel which had formerly passed through Oswego. Heavy freight, however, still followed the old route.
Though the increase in numbers was small, however, there was a material improvement in the appearance of the village. Nearly all the old log houses had disappeared, though a few still remained as relics of the pioneer days. Neat frames had taken their places, and occasionally a briek building might be seen, though this was very seldom.
In 1821 a light-house was built by the United States
LEONARD AMES.
AMONG the truly representa- tive men of Oswego County, few, if any, have been more ioti- mately associated with the ma- terial development of that part of the State than Leonard Amea, the well-knowu banker and iron manufacturer. Mr. Ames not only witnessed the transition of a amall village into the largest and most prosperous city in the county, of a thin settlement into a basy and populous com- monity, of asemi-wilderness iato a fertile and highly-productive region,-but in his own person has typified so admirably the agencies which wrought many of these changes, that oo history of Oswegu County would be com- plete without some sketch of his life, labors, and character.
Mr. Ames is of New England ·origin, his parents having re- moved from Litchfield, Connec- ticut, to Mexico township, this conaty, io 1804. The subject of this narrative was born in the town of Mexico, February 8, 1818. He was the seventh child of & family of thirteen. His early life, like that of most of oor successful business men, WAS one of close application, self-reliance, and self-denial. He worked on the farm until he reached his twenty-fourth year, when he married, and soon thereafter embarked in the pork and beef packing business on the Wabash river, in the State of Indiana. At this time that State was quite new, and the present improvemente ia navi- gation and transportation were scarcely dreamed of. But one bridge had been constructed in the State, and thrice Mr. Ames returned east on horseback from Delphi, Indiana, there being no public conveyance of any kind part of the distance. Subse- quently, Mr. Ames returned to this county, and, in connection with James S. Chandler, entered into the private banking busi- ness at Mexico, and afterwards one of the originators of the firm of Ames, Howlett & Co., at Oswego. In 1864 he was the prime mover jo the organization of the Second National Bank of that city, of which he has been presideut from that time to the present. He also became a mem- ber of the firm operating the
Leonare Ames
" Ames Iron Works," which were named la honor of his en- terprise and energy in thelr establishment. These works em- ploy an aggregate of one hun- dred and sixty hands, and aver- age the Dianufacture of 008 locomotive daily. In thia, as in all other of his business under- takings, he has been eminently successful. Honesty and a firm deaire to succeed have been the essential media of his success. He has evinced an excellent judgment in all his transactions, and aterling honesty has been the basis of his operations. This is high testimony, but it is oaly the reflex of the prominent traits of Mr. Ames' character; and what to the strange reader may seem pecullarly the lan- guage of eulogy, will be readily recognized by all who know him as a mere plain, uncolored state- ment of the sallent points of his character, and features of his commercial career.
Mr. Ames has figured quite conspicuously in local, State, and national politica. He was elected supervisor of the towa of Mexico in 1865, a member of the Assembly in 1857, and was a delegate to the Chicago Conven- tion which nominated Abraham Lincoln (of glorious memory) to the presidency. He was the appointee under President Lin- coln for the United States asses- sorship for the twenty-second Congressional district, which position he occupied four years, being removed by Andy John- aon for political reasons. He was an uncompromising abolition- ist; having in him the inherent love of freedom and a natural hatred of oppression, ho osed his time and means in the care and safe transport of fugitive alaves, and that, too, at a time when public sentiment was largely pro-slavery.
Mr. Ames never enjoyed the advantages of education, but being naturally intelligent, and endowed with e large amount of common sense, industry, porse- versace, and ambition, ha has succeeded in building a repnta- tion as wide-eproad as it ja envi- able. Indeed, it may be truly said of him, that his entire career ie one worthy the emulation of the young, and a fitting example for all sorts end conditions of business men to follow.
4
RESIDENCE OF LEONARD AMES, No. 112, COR. 4th & ONEIDA STS., OSWEGO, N. Y.
147
HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
government on the north side of the fort. It was first lighted up the following spring. This was an important " institution" in those days, and was followed by two others the same year (1822). A frame conrt-house was built on the park on the east side of the river, the original court- house block on the west side having been sold by permis- sion of the legislature, and the proceeds applied to the building of the structure just mentioned. When finished it was used as a meeting-house. In fact, so eager were the people to employ it for that purpose that they ocenpied it before the paint was dry on the seats, and many a Sunday suit was badly injured in consequence.
The first bridge, too, was erected in this year at the same point as the present lower bridge. It was bragged about in contemporary publications as a tremendous structure, seven hundred feet long and costing two thousand dollars ! In truth, its erection was no slight task for that era. Wooden boxes (cuissons) were sunk in the river and filled with stone, and on these the bridge was placed. Edwin W. Clark, then just twenty-one, was the first man across the new structure.
Nearly the first use that was made of the bridge was for a battle. The Oswegoite and Seribaite boys, mindful of the warlike traditions of the locality, mustered all their forces on this convenient though narrow field the first night after its completion, and proceeded to test their superiority by a resort to the last arbitrament of kings and of boys. Long the victory hung doubtful in the balance, while the com- batants rivaled the deeds of De Montealm and Mereer, of Bradstreet and De Villiers, of Muleaster and Mitchell, of Pontiac and Warragiyaghey, while many an eye was closed in temporary darkness, while many a nasal organ dripped plenteous gore upon the virgin planks of the new bridge, and while the wild Oswego murmured a subdued accompaniment to many a dismal shriek. But " Providence favors the strongest battalions," and at length the superior numbers of the Oswego army compelled the slow retreat of the gallant Scribaites. They fell back in good order and were not pursued.
The contractor for the bridge, whose name was Church, did not entirely finish his work till the beginning of winter. Being desirous of transporting his chains and tools to the northern part of Jefferson county, he put them on board the schooner " Morning Star," commanded by young Captain Tyler, who, at the age of twenty, then made his first trip as commander of a vessel. The voyage is noticeable for the late time in the season at which it oeenrred. Captain T. left Oswego on the 13th of December, proceeded to Ogdensburgh (leaving the tools as he went on the ice, which had already formed along the shore of the St. Lawrence), eut his own way through the ice near that place, and got baek to Oswego on the 23d. It has been a long time since a vessel has traversed the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario in the latter part of December.
Among the other vessels which Captain Tyler mentions as then running on the lake were the " Henrietta," " Vi- enna," "Gold-Hunter," "Betsey," "Traveler," "Julia," " Hunter," " Niagara," "Oswego," "New Haven," and " Linda." A large business was done in bringing staves from the head of the lake and taking them down the St.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.