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 37
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
Lawrence. Some lumber was also earried, but hardly a single bushel of grain had yet found its way from the west to the shore of Lake Ontario. There was a little of one kind of trade which has since disappeared. To save making the portage from the IIudson to Lake Champlain, goods were frequently brought from New York by means of the Inland Navigation company's canal, through Oneida lake to Oswego, and thenee shipped down the St. Lawrence.
Lot No. 6 of the Military tract, now forming the western portion of the city, had been a subject of legal warfare in the courts ever since its being granted by the land-commis- sioners. Martin Van Buren was the counsel for one of the claimants, and Moses J. Cantine, his brother-in-law, was the attorney. In 1822 the contest was at length decided in favor of Mr. Van Buren's client. The tract was not even then very valuable, and the expenses of litigation had been such as to more than equal what the land was worth. The title was accordingly transferred, through Mr. Cantine, to Mr. Van Buren in payment for his services. The land in question has ever since been known as the Van Buren traet, and a portion of it is still owned by the heirs of the ex-president. It is now probably worth more than a thou- sand times what the counselor would have charged for his services in 1822.
As has been mentioned in the general history, Mr. Bron- son was chosen to the State senate in the autumn of the year just mentioned, and continued there the up-hill work of getting an appropriation for a canal from Syracuse, in which he and others had been for several years engaged.
The next year, 1823, the Oswego Canal company was chartered,-not for constructing a commercial canal, how- ever, but a manufacturing one, on the east side of the river. The State soon after built a wing-dam to throw the water of the river into the canal, under an arrangement that the latter was to be used as a part of the State canal. It was so used for a brief period, but the scheme was found inn- practicable, and a separate canal had to be built for boats.
In the year 1823, also, Oswego received the benefit of its first steamboat line, consisting of the primitive "Ontario," the new steamer "Martha Ogden," and a small one called the " Sophia." As in the milling so in the steamboat line, very little improvement was seen thenceforth until 1830.
It was not until 1825, nine years after Oswego had be- come a county-seat, that it could boast of a church edifice. In that year the First Presbyterian society erected a frame in the centre of the public square, on the west side.
The first member of Congress from Oswego, General Daniel Hugunin, Jr., was elected in 1824, awarded his seat after a contest, and held it until March, 1827. Ile devoted himself especially to seenring an appropriation for a pier to protect Oswego harbor. He succeeded in obtain- ing one, and in the spring of 1827 the important work was commenced by the contractors, MeNair & Hatch.
Meanwhile Mr. Bronson in the senate and Colonel Mor- gan in the assembly had been the principal agents in urging through a law for the construction of the Oswego canal, which had been begun in 1826. It was completed in 1828, and then at last the long-neglected village began to feel the first waves of the tide of business which it had been expect- ing for nearly thirty years.
148
HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
Even at that late date there was hardly a thousand pop- ulation in the villages on both sides of the river, and there had never been eveu a village organization. But a law was passed providing for one at the session of the legislature in 1828, and on the 13th of May of that year the first elec- tion of officers was held. Hon. Alvin Bronson was chosen the first president of the village, with Thomas Willett as treasurer and John Howe as collector. The board of trus- tees comprised seven of the most eminent men in the vil- lage,-Daniel Hugunin, Jr., the ex-Congressman ; George Fisher, who had received a certificate as member, and had held the seat for a short time; David P. Brewster, subse- quently a member for two terms; Colonel T. S. Morgan, the ex-assemblyman; Nathaniel Vilas, Jr .; Joseph Turner; and Orlo Steele.
In those still primitive times the inhabitants of the vil- lage settled the amount of their local taxes by a viva voce vote, as is now done at town-meetings. While the whole village voted the amount to be raised for general purposes, each of the two "sides" decreed how much should be de- voted to the special uses of that side. Accordingly, at the first election the whole population voted to raise two hun- dred dollars for the common use of the village. Then the west-siders collected together and voted that three hundred dollars should be levied for local improvements in their dis- trict, and the eastern voters followed suit by devoting the modest sum of one hundred dollars to the same purposes on their side of the river. It is fair to presume, and the presumption is corroborated by the evidence, that these sums corresponded with reasonable closeness to the popula- tion of the two sections, and that the west side, in 1828, contained three-fourths of the inhabitants of the village. The record of the first election was signed by Daniel Hu- gunin, Jr., Joseph Turner, and John Howe, justices of the peace.
At the meeting of the board Edwin W. Clarke was ap- pointed the first village clerk, and John Howe village sur- veyor. In accordance with a vote of the west-side people, the board leased the north third of the market-ground for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. They were also authorized to lease in the same manner the north third of the easterly block of the public square. The price of a grocery-license was fixed at ten dollars.
Henry Eagle, Francis Rood, Thomas Ambler, and Wm. I. Kniffen were appointed fire-wardens, and divers quaint regulations were made to insure the subdual of conflagra- tions. The fire-wardens were provided with badges of office, consisting of staffs seven feet long, painted red, with the words " fire-warden" upon each of them. The fire- wardens were directed to attend every fire with their badges of office, and attend to the forming of lines and other necessary measures. Trustees present at a fire were also directed to wear white bands around their hats. If any contumacious individual should refuse to obey the orders of either fire-warden or a trustee, it was ordered that he should be fined two dollars. As there were eleven war- dens and trustees, there was considerable danger of contra- dictory orders, but no umpire was provided for in such a case. Each citizen was required to have a fire-bucket for every two fireplaces or stoves in his house, to be kept hang-
ing at the front of his building, with his name painted upon them, and in case of fire every man was required to take his buckets thither, under penalty of two dollars fine. Lest, however, these regulations should not produce the desired effect, a fire company was raised, consisting at first of thirty, and afterwards of fifty, members.
This year, 1828, the east side had advanced sufficiently so that a few of its most enterprising inhabitants thought it possible that a school-house might be crected. A school- meeting was called at the store of Milton Harmon. At the appointed time only three persons were present,-Harmon himself, James Sloan, and Joseph Turner. They repre- sented the sovereignty of the people, and they proceeded to enact that a school-house was absolutely necessary, and should be erected at a cost not exceeding one hundred dol- lars. The next morning the conservatives of the east side were shocked to learn that they had been saddled with a tax of one hundred dollars for an article of such doubtful utility as a school-house. They threatened to prevent the resolution from being carried out, to have it rescinded, etc., but finally consented to the proposed movement, strictly on condition that the cost of furniture should be included in the hundred dollars appropriated for the school-house.
Another church edifice (Episcopal) was also begun on the southeast corner of the west-side public square in 1828. There began to be some queries about the propriety of using the square for such purposes, and the next year the council resolved that only four churches should be built on the ground in question. These were to be situated at the four corners, at each of which a piece of land ninety-eight feet front by one hundred and twenty feet back should be set apart for church uses.
These corners refer to the square as now laid out, for in 1829 the board leased the remainder of the eastern block, and by that or some other means acquired a hundred dol- lars with which to improve the remainder of the square. It was intended that the Presbyterian church should be moved from the centre to one of the corners, but it was never done.
At this time the salmon were still running thick in the streams, for the first dams were not so high as to prevent their passage, and at long intervals a deer made his way from the outlying forest on to Oak hill, gazed for an in- stant at the little village below, and then darted back to his leafy retreats. In the night, at salmon time, "jack-lights," composed of blazing pine knots held in the prows of skiffs, went flashing up and down the river, giving a picturesque touch to the usual humdrum of village life. But the board of trustees did not appreciate the picturesque, and either for fear of fire, or because the blazing knots disturbed the sleepy citizens, the village fathers brought down the cx- tinguishing hand of power upon the jack-lights. They enacted that none should be used below Leo (Oneida) street, and that above that point none should be brought within three rods of a dwelling.
The beach on the river and lake north of Aries (Schuy- ler) street was set apart as a public fishing-ground, but was free only for the hook and spear ; no one could draw seine or net there without permission from the board of trustees, who put the privilege up at auction.
RES. of DELOS DEWOLF, COR.OF W. SIXTH & BRIDGE STS., OSWEGO, N.Y.
149
HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
Even before the completion of the Welland canal, its anticipated benefits were so great that a new hotel, erected in 1829, on Gemini (Cayuga) street, between First and Second, was called the Welland House. For a long time this was the grand hotel of the village, where all distin- guished strangers stopped, where all conventions were held, and where everybody met everybody else.
In 1830 the Welland canad was opened, and the same year saw an upward movement of the long-dormant milling business. Two mills with six run of stone each were built: one by Henry Fitzhugh and one by Gerrit Smith and Rich- ard L. De Zeng. Messrs. Smith and Fitzhugh, who were brothers-in-law, both became largely interested in Oswego property ; the latter remaining till his death one of the leading citizens of the place, and Mr. Smith, though not a resident, always manifesting a deep interest in its welfare.
By the census of the last-named year the population of the village was about two thousand two hundred ; having more than doubled within two years. The increase was the most rapid on the east side, which had now risen to about a third of the total population.
These were the times of hot warfare regarding Masonry. Masonry itself had suspended operations in this county, but anti-Masonry had also reached its climax, and was de- clining in power. At the spring election for the town of Oswego, the Democratie party, which was still sometimes called by its old Jeffersonian name of " Republican," had a majority of about sixty over the anti-Masons. Matthew McNair was elected supervisor, and among the five assessors were ex-congressman Rudolph Bunner and ex senator Alvin Bronson. One of the three inspectors of schools was William F. Allen, a young lawyer of twenty-two, who had only the year before been admitted to the bar. Mat- thew McNair, Samuel Carter, and Edward Bronson were the " commissioners of gospel lots,"-officers having charge of the land set apart for religious purposes in each township of the Military tract.
On the 1st of August, 1830, the little schooner " Erie" came down the lake to Oswego. A great erowd greeted its arrival with the most exuberant manifestations of joy, and its officers and passengers were entertained at a grand ban- quet at the Welland House, where the wildest predictions were made regarding the results to flow from the coming of that little schooner. The reason of all this excitement was that the "Erie" was the first-comer from the lake whose name it bore,-the first vessel to pass through the Welland canal.
One of the severest of the early fires in Oswego occurred on the 1st of October, 1830. All the buildings on the west side of West First street, from Gemini (Cayuga) street to Taurus (Seneca) street, and thence along Taurus to the corner of Second street, were reduced to ashes. That locality was then in the heart of the business portion of the village, and the list of losers included the names of F. T Carrington, D. P. Brewster, E. & T. Wentworth, R. L. De Zeng, Bronson & Deming, L. B. Crocker, George Fisher, J. I. Fort, A. Richardson, Dr. W. G. Adkins, and others of the " heavy men" of that era. But the place was then in the full tide of growth, and the scars of fire were quickly .obliterated.
The first church built on the east side was the First Baptist, the society of that name having received permis- sion in March, 1831, to erect an edifice .on the northwest corner of the east square. The desire for higher education than could be afforded by the district schools also began to manifest itself, and in 1831 a number of the leading citi- . zens associated themselves to found an academy. The foundation of the building was laid that year on part of the block originally intended for the east portion of the publie square and leased by the city, but hardly was the new structure erected when jealousies arose on account of its proximity to the district school, which was still the only one in the place. So the trustees sold the new building and purchased another on Taurus (Seneca) street, between Third and Fourth. This was used for school purposes for nearly twenty years.
Another proceeding which indicated the awakening of the literary spirit was the opening of a reading-room by Mr. John Carpenter, the proprietor of the Palladium, where the principal periodicals of the country were kept on file, and were submitted to the perusal of readers at a sub- scription price of four dollars a year.
The loss of the new schooner " Henry Clay," belonging to Mr. Fitzhugh, causing as it did the death of Captain Duncan Campbell and a number of seamen, cast a temporary gloom over the rising village, quickly dissipated by the constantly broadening glow of material prosperity.
Early in 1832, rumors of the hitherto unknown destroyer, cholera, began to alarm the people. In time the mysterious miasma, wafted from the Atlantic coast, approached the frontier village. Meetings of the citizens to devise pro- tective measures against the deadly invader were held, and in a short time the trustees appointed a board of health, consisting of Joel Turrill, Rudolph Bunner, T. S. Morgan, H. N. Walton, John Grant, Jr., G. II. Me Whorter, Elisha Moon, Joseph Grant, and Ambrose Morgan. Dr. W. G. Adkins was appointed health officer.
One event of the cholera period is worthy of especial netice. Money was deemed necessary to drain unhealthy localities and to take other precautions, and the trustees had no power to pledge the village for that purpose. They therefore resolved to raise, and did raise, a thousand dollars by their personal notes, trusting to the legislature to au- thorize the necessary tax. The cholera came and many fell before it, but one ean learn little on the subject by consulting contemporary records. People were very shy of saying much, for fear of increasing the panic. As for the news- papers of 1832, one couldn't learn from them that there had been any cholera within a thousand miles.
At this period the remains of old Fort Oswego were still to be seen at the foot of the hill on the west side. Tra- dition asserted that when the fort was taken by the French (or, as the people generally misunderstood it, when it was taken by the English from the French) a large amount of specie was hidden in the old well within the inclosure, and still remained in concealment. Numerous searches had been made, water-witches and " sorcerers" had been cm- ployed, but the seekers had not been able to find even tl e well, much less the money. But in the latter part of 1832 a man named Scripture, from Sandy Creek, while rummaging
.
150
HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
round within the old wall, and near where the liberty-pole then stood, found the long-abandoned well. If he found any specie he said nothing to any one about it, and the next morning he left the village, his discovery being marked only by the presence of numerous cartridge-boxes, bullets, etc., thrown out by the finder. The well was about sixteen feet. deep and four feet across, and was well walled up. It was a focus of curiosity for a few days, but people were too busy then to devote much time to investigating the relics of the past.
Each succeeding month saw an increase of population and of wealth. The then immense sum of a thousand dollars was raised by general tax, and after the cholera had passed by all sorts of improvements were the order of the day.
The remainder of the eastern third of the public square and of the market ground, on the west side, were disposed of, and the avails applied to improving the western section of the village. The lot on the northeast corner of the market ground was sold for eleven hundred and fifty dollars, subject to a yearly rent of ninety dollars to the village. Mr. Van Buren laid out a portion of Military lot No. 6 into streets and lots, and these streets were soon opened by the author- ities as far as the village bounds extended.
Abraham Varick, a wealthy capitalist, had the Varick canal constructed, for hydraulic purposes, under the man- agement of R. L. De Zeng, on the west bank of the river. The wall between it and the river was built ten feet thick at bottom, about four feet thick at the top, sixteen feet high, and three thousand feet long; the canal being sixty-two feet wide and seven feet deep, with a fall of nineteen feet deep, and costing, when completed two years later, seventy- five thousand dollars.
Politics also were hot. There was a Bronson and a Turrill section of the Democratic party, under the leadership of Hon. Alvin Bronson and Hon. Joch Turrill, and between that party and its opponents, now rapidly taking the name of Whig, the fight was as lively as could well be desired. General Peter Sken Smith, a brother of Gerrit Smith, and a lawyer, residing on the east side of the river, was a leader of the opposition ; the Palladium was the organ of the Democrats, the Free Press and afterwards the Democrat were the champions of the Whigs, and the wordy wars, frequently enlivened with libel suits, were even more fierce than at the present day.
There was but a single school district on the west side of the river up to 1834. In that year a new one was formed, bounded by Gemini (Cayuga), Third, and Scorpio (Albany) streets and the river, being district No. 12 of the town of Oswego. In fact, people hardly had time to attend to such little things as schools. By 1835 everybody was get- ting rich at forty knots an hour. The Oswego bank turned out money in unlimited quantities, and the next year the Commercial bank was equally liberal. The lovers of inflation had everything their own way. A fire which hurned up Fitzhugh's grist-mill, Bronson & Morgan's grist-mill, and fifteen or twenty other large buildings, was hardly noticed. There was plenty of money to build more.
Some reserved lots on the river and outward harbor, be- longing to the State, were sold at auction. Competitors
came from New York, Albany, and other places, anxious to make their fortunes out of Oswego land. One large lot of about three acres sold for a hundred and eight thousand dollars. Twelve small ones brought about forty- eight thousand. No one doubted that all the property then bought would be sold for much larger amounts. It was asserted that the State had then received three hundred thousand dollars for property in Oswego, and had still a large amount left.
The collections at the custom-house felt the astonishing impetus of business. For the third quarter of 1835 they were over twenty-one thousand dollars, and it was announced that the collections for the second and third quarters of that year were thirty times as much as they had been for the corresponding quarters in 1834. A gentleman came from the east and bought the old "Oswego House," occupying somewhat less ground than the present " Fitzhugh," for a hundred thousand dollars. He paid ten thousand dollars down, and that was the end of it.
The year 1836 opened with still more glowing prospects. In March there were thirty-five vessels building at once, averaging a hundred tons each. Property continued to rise. A block between Sixth and Seventh strects, which had been purchased the summer before for two thousand dollars, was now sold for sixteen thousand !
There were at this time on the two hydraulic canals six grist-mills, two cotton-factories, three machine-factories, a stone-polishing mill, a tobacco-factory, three extensive tan- neries, four saw-mills, a cedar-cutting mill, a large foundry, and extensive iron-works.
Besides these, there were in the village a Presbyterian, an Episcopal, a Methodist, a Baptist, a Congregational, and a Catholic church ; an academy, two banks, seven taverns, twenty-one general stores, two weekly newspapers, and about six hundred dwellings, containing in the neighborhood of five thousand inhabitants. Any one who should then have denied that Oswego would soon be one of the first cities on the continent would have been considered a lunatic and a traitor.
But in the latter part of 1836 the trouble began. In- flation had been carried to its utmost possible extent, and when the reaction set in, the vast volume of the practically irredeemable paper-money shriveled up before the hot breath of the panic, involving the whole country in financial dis- aster which has never since been approached.
The Oswego people could not at first believe that their high hopes were so completely blasted, and for a while en- deavored to breast the tide. But all through 1837 prices continued to sink, and money, of late so plentiful, became scarce beyond conception. Both banks broke. Millions of imaginary wealth disappeared. Nearly every business man became bankrupt. The firm of Bronson & Crocker struggled through almost alone. Building ceased, and for years Oswego lay commercially supine under the weight of the terrible " hard times."
On the 1st of March, 1837, a new and complete code of village laws was enacted by the trustees, all previous ordi- nances having been repealed. Regarding the usual provisions regulating the market, forbidding the running at large of animals, etc., little nced be said here, but there were two
LARS
2
MONTCALM PLACE". RES. of EDWIN ALLEN, OSWEGO, N. Y.
151
IHISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
sections regarding the streets which are of much inter- est.
The people had become thoroughly weary of the celestial street-names selected by old Simeon De Witt. The use of these had now been extended as far south as the south line of the old State reservation, near the present Ohio street. To the mind of the ordinary, common-sense citizens, there was something outlandish in such names as Aries, Taurus, Cancer, Scorpio, Capricornus, and Sagittarius; and if he knew enough of Latin to translate those appellations into Ram street, Bull street, Crab street, etc., it did not materi- ally help the matter.
So in 1837 the trustees, responding to the general wish, changed the name of all the old streets in the village run- ning east and west. Auriga street was transformed into De Witt, Aquila to Mitchell, Lyra to Van Buren, Aries to Schuyler, Taurus to Seneca, Gemini to Cayuga, Cancer to Bridge, Leo to Oneida, Virgo to Mohawk, Libra to Utica, Scorpio to Albany, Sagittarius to Erie, Capricornus to Nia- gara, and Aquarius to Ohio street. A street running north and south, which had previously borne the name of Van Buren, was changed to Eighth street.
It was also provided that the curb-stones of the side- walks on all streets from and including Second to the river (and on Bridge street as far as Fourth), on the east side, should be placed nineteen feet from the street-line. In West First, West Second, north of Mohawk, and in West Seneca, east of Second, the eurb-stones were to be twenty feet from the street-lines ; while in all other streets a hun- dred feet wide they were to be twenty-six feet from the line.
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.