USA > New York > Seneca County > History of Seneca Co., New York, with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, palatial residences, public building and important manufactories > Part 2
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city, advantageously placed, reveal their presence by the spires of churches and the hum of industry. The panorama of art and nature changes as the combinations of the kaleidoscope, and what this region was and is the future will discover only from the historic page. Ninety-two years ago the first white man established by his rude cabin an outpost of civilization in a vast wilderness west of Albany. Till then and later, individuals and parties of adventurous hunters only had dis- turbed the solemu quiet of the forest, the smoke from the towns of the Six Nations circled lazily upward, and the light birchen canoe sped along the surface of the lakes. Three-quarters of a century have established an unrivaled civilization in those solitudes. Despite privation, danger, and misfortune, farms multiplied and towns grew. The Eric Canal linked Albany with Buffalo, and along this water-way the tide of settlement moved westward. Then came the railways, swift and sure, and progress knew no hindrance. Improvements of the century find here a use in field, workshop, and office, while the speedy trains, proceeding east, west, north, und south, convey the traveler to his destination, bear away the products of the fields, and return laden with the commerce of the seas. Added to a description of the rise and growth of education, religion, trade, and manufacture is the attrac- tive and encouraging biography of the successful. It becomes a memento of triumphant energy, and pledges a like career to corresponding enterprise. The delineations of history pertaining to eminent and worthy men impart pleasure, excite ardor, and illustrate character to the advancement of the capable of this and coming generations. It cannot be unimportant and devoid of interest to trace the outlined progress of Seneca's surprising and gratifying development from erude beginnings to her present ereditahle rank among her sister counties ; hence the following clues to the labyrinths of past existence, lending downward to the arcana of the present.
CHAPTER I.
PRE-COLUMBIAN DISCOVERY-NATIONAL CLAIMS TO TERRITORY OF NEW YORK AND BASES OF CLAIMS.
AGE succeeded age since the world was ushered into being, and America, un- oamed and unknown, a home of nations yet to be, remained, so far as pertained to the Eastern Continent, as though she had ao existence. Then, as now, the noble Hudson swept past the Palisades, the thunders of Niagara reverberated far amid the dim aisles of the forest, our lakes spread out their vast expanse of waters. Brine and oil gathered their stores beneath the surface, while the coal, the iron, and the treasures of the mines awaited the lapse of time. To what people were these grandeurs presented and these resources offered ? What moral changes had occurred while Nature, graud and vital, moved on in her unvarying course ? Tradition is shadowy, legends are fabulous, and history is silent. Standing amid the ruined eities of Yucatan or upon one of the numerous mounds common to the valleys of the Ohio aud Mississippi, the antiquary indulges in vain conjecture. He questions whether mighty nations have ever existed here, whether arts or letters have been cultivated, or did the savage Indian for untold centuries reign sole lord of the New World ? Whence, when, and how came hither the first inhabitants of this Continent? These are questions naturally arising while tracing the historie page, until the Western Continent bursts upon our .vision. Various speculations have from time to time been harbored respecting the proba-
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HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
ble history of America before ita discovery by Columbus, but the subject is shrouded in darkness and obscurity. In 1147, while the fanatics of the Second Crusade were surging towards Palestine, a party of eight persons, sailing to dis- cover the limits of the "Sea of Darkness," the Atlantic, finally reached an island whose inhabitants told of a " denae gloom" beyond, and the terrified explorers hastened to return. In 129I two Gennese mariners set sail westward, and never returned. Discoveries and settlements have been elaimed in behalf of the North- men; but, if made, were transient and ineffectual. In 1492, Columbus, sailing westward, discovered land off the east coast of Florida, and opened a highway over the broad Atlantic to the down-trodden and oppressed of Europe.
Three nations claimed an ownership in the region embraced in part by the State of New York. They founded their title in the rights of discovery and occupation, and severally yielded only to the supremaey acquired by force of arms. Authorized by letters patent from Henry VII., John Cabot, a Venetian, accompanied by his aon Sebastian, set out on a voyage of discovery. He struck the sterile coast of Labrador on June 24, 1497, and was the first to see the Con- tinent of North America. In 1498, Sebastian Cabot, returning, explored the coast from Newfoundland to Florida ; hence arose the English elaim to territory eleven degrees in width, and extending westward to the Pacific. Francis I. of France,.emulating the enterprise of Spain and England, sent upon a voyage of exploration John Verrazzani, a Florentine. This persevering navigator, visit- ing America in 1524, waa the first European whose feet trod the soil of the Empire State. He sailed along the coast a distance of twenty-one hundred miles in frail vessels, and safely returned to report his success and establish for France a claim in the New World. The Dutch East India Company employed Henry Hudson to seek a northern passage to India. In a mere yacht, he ventured among the northern bergs, skirted the coast of America, and, sailing up the noble river which perpetuates his name, cast anchor in the stream and opened up a traffie with the Indians. From them Hudson obtained eorn, beans, pumpkins, grapes, and tobacco,-products indigenous to the elime; and to them he imparted the baneful knowledge of the effects of whisky. Holland laid elaim to territory from Cape Cod to the southern shore of Delaware Bay, basing its right upon these discoveries of' Hudson made in September, 1609. To this thrice-elaimed region the Dutch gave the name New Netherlands. They planted a fort upon Manhattan Island in 1614, and in 1623 made settlements at New Amsterdam and Fort Orange. For a time on amicable terms with the Indians, the colonists lived in security, but the cruelty of Keift, one of the New Netherlands' four Governors, awakened the fires of revenge and threatened the colony with exter- mination. Restricted in rights, and desirons of the privileges accorded the Eng- lish colonista, the Dutch refused to contest supremacy with the fleet of Admiral Nichola, sent out by the Duke of York in 1664; and the warlike Stuyvesant, reluctantly yielding to the English, resigned his command, and the province received the name of New York. The settlement of New Amsterdam was given the name New York, and Fort Orange, Albany, the present State capital. Hail- ing with satisfaction the change of masters, the Dutch and English colonists, whose plantations had been devastated by the Raritans and their allies, and whose lives had been saved by the interposition of the friendly Mohawks, soon found themselves involved in a protracted struggle with the royal Governors. Repeatedly defrauded of their means, they raised revenues under their own officers, and stoutly hattled for their rights.
In October, 1683, the first Colonial Assembly for the Province of New York held session. It consisted of a Governor, Council of Ten, and seventeen members chosen by the people as the House of Representatives. In conflict with their French enemies on the north, the timidity and delays of Governors brought the English into contempt with their fieree allica, the Iroquois, on the west. This misfortune was averted before treaties were annulled by the activity of Schuyler and Fletcher in the winter of 1693. The changes and revolutions in England extended to the royal provinee, and occasioned an event very important upon the subsequent affairs of the State. The circumstance of the hanging of Leisler and Milbourne, so familiar to many, opened a chasmi between a people whose hard- shipa in a new lund entitled them to a voice in their own government, and proprietors of large traets of land and intended aristocrats, who aimed at a complete usurpation of all rights and privileges. The antagonism here fostered kindled to a flame upon the breaking out of the Revolution, and under the appellations of Whig and Tory the people were ranged in nearly equal numbers. During the Revolution, eastern New York was the scene of various severe atruggles. The defeat of the Americana on Long Island was the commencement of a period of gloom and depression, but the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga inspired a hope and resolution which never ceased till the conclusion of the war. With the arrival of peace and freedom from foreign influence, and during a cessation of internal dissension, many soldiers, receiving grants of lands in lieu of bounties, proceeded westward to find and settle upon their traets. Large areas
of lands were bought, and sometimes, after many changes of ownership, the pro- prietors or company, offering liberal terms, invited settlers, and laid the foundation of towna now grown to eities important and populous.
CHAPTER II.
THE INDIANS OF CENTRAL NEW YORK-THEIR TREATIES, WARS, CHARACTER, CIVILIZATION, AND FATE.
As was the Indian when Hudson sailed up the river which bears his name, so is the Indian of the present day. The approach of the white race was the signal for the migration westward of game. The savage, who subsisted by the products of the chase, was compelled to follow, and the Modocs in the Lava Beds and the Sioux of the Black Hills, save the demoralization occasioned by contaet with the pale-faees, are the same as the warriors of the East who disputed domin- ion with the English.
There is reason to believe that central New York contained a large Indian population at a period far in the past. A favorite resort for various tribes, as early as 1535, was the vicinity of Onondaga Lake, then ealled Gannentaha. Knowledge of them begins in their defeat by a party of their Algonquin foes, led on by Champlain during the year 1609, at which time the Iroquois, called by the Dutch the Maquaas, first experienced the terrible effects of fire-arms, and imbibed that lasting resentment which barred their coasta to the French Jesuit, and made them a wall uf defense to the English.
The Confederates, consisting of the Onondagas, Oneidas, Mohawks, Cayugas, and the Senecas, had formed their compact when Enropeans first saw them, and the time of their union is lost in antiquity. Opposed to Indian eustom, these tribes gave their attention to cultivating the soil, and exchanged with other tribes the products of their fields for the fruits of the chase. The Canadian Algon- quins were powerful and inveterate rivals; and, in self-defense, the Confederates learning the arts of war, soon gave ample proof of ability and carried fearful retribution to the villages of their enemies. The territory dominated by the Iroquois extended from Lakes Erie and Ontario along the St. Lawrence around Lake Champlain, and the basin of the Iludson and its tributaries as far south- ward as the Highlands. The principal settlement and the capital of the league was at Onondaga, where conneils were held and movements planned. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, their sagacity was shown by the construction of ex- tended and strong works of defense. These furtifications consisted of a double row of palisades, inclosed by an earthen embankment. Living in a fertile region, the soil returned ample yield of supplies, and, uniting their strength, thousands of warriors set out on distant raids, from which they generally returned successful. Observing the homes of the whites, they abandoned their rude huts for good dwellings, planted orehards, and cultivated large fields of eorn. Their form of government was an approximation to the federal. Separate governments were upheld by each tribe, and the Grand Council settled the affairs of the tribes as one people: In the council, the utmost deeorum prevailed, and speeches of their chiefs evince a high degree of eloquence. In war, they knew no fear; and, if captured, met their death with lofty resulution.
We have earlier spoken of the rival claims of France and Great Britain, and despite the intrigues of the former nation and the treachery toward them of the latter, the Iroquois remained faithful to the British. Three several French armies, commanded respcetively by De La Barre, Denonville, and Count Frontenae, came against them in vain, while a force of twelve hundred warriors moving into Canada swept the country with a severity which threatened with extinction its people. On January 22, 1690, a conneil was held at Onondaga, at which eighty chiefs were present. During the year 1710, Colonel Schuyler took with him to England five sachems, and the treatment received was a step in that loyalty which, later, cost the colonists so dear. During 1725, the Tuscaroras, having met signal defeat from the colonists of North Carolina, eame north, and were received by the Iroquois into the Confederaey, and henceforth the League was known as the Six Nations. The Governor of New York had established a trading-post at Oswego in 1722, and five years later erected a fort at the same place, with the intention of securing the Indian trade. The encroachments upon their territory by the colonists were viewed with dissenting, revengeful mind, and when the war of Independence took place the Confederacy sided with the British. Agents at Oswego and Niagara plied their allies with gifts of blankets, liquors, and finery ; tories flying from the revenge of the patriots added to their strength, and massa- eres like Cherry Valley and Wyoming atain the pages of history. For years renegade white and merciless savage laid waste with knife and torch the settle-
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HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
ments of the frontier and drove their captives to the strongholds, the forts previously mentioned ; but there came a time when stern retribution should be meted out and the power of the Confederacy irretrievably broken. Congress resolved to send an expedition to lay waste the Indian country, and intrusted its command to General Sullivan, who was directed to march northward along the Susquehanna, to Tioga Point; there being joined by a force under General Clinton, he proceeded upon the proposed campaign. On the 26th of August, 1779, the united force, consisting of Continental troops, with fifteen hundred rifle- men, four six-pounder guns, two three-pounders, and a small mortar,-in all a body of five thousand men,-began their mareh with one month'a provisions. Sullivan was ordered to burn the Indian towos, ent down their corn, and do them all the harm possible, and ao avenge the barbarities inflicted upon the frontier settlements. The Indians scouted the idea of a regular army penetrating the wilderness and ruining their homes, but when the danger became real they gathered a large foree, and, fighting bravely at Newtown,* were defeated, fled in ,a panie, and left the route to their village open. Sullivan pressed cautionsly forward; the road taken ia still pointed ont where his pioneers leveled obstructions ; old men tell us of the bridge built at the head of Seneca Lake and a cannon lost in the waters, while on the tables of the Waterloo Historical Society may be seen grape-shot and canister fired from his artillery. Down the eastern shore of Seneca and upward to Geneva they made their way, large corn-fields, vegetable-gardens, and fine orchards being totally ruined, and the smoke of burning dwellings rising from the principal villages of the Seneca. The women and children fled in crowds to Niagara, while the warriors, concealed in anibush, vainly waited an opportunity to rush upon their relentless foe. Here two Oneidas, guides to Sullivan, were captured, and the hatchet of a brother laid one of them dead at his feet. Lieutenant Boyd and a Virginia rifleman named Murphy, with thirty men, advancing seven miles to reconnoitre, were ambuscaded by Brandt and Butler with savages and rangers, five hundred of each, on their return. With brandished weapons and horrid eries the attack was made, yet thrice did that heroic band attempt to force their way. Murphy, by a stroke of his fist, felled an assailant and escaped, while Boyd was taken and ernelly tortured. Sullivan returned from his expedition successful, while the Indians, deprived of their all, sought food and shelter with the British. The campaign of Sullivan destroyed the Confederacy, but many a defenseless family was murdered upon the frontiers between 1783 and 1789. The Senecas looked longingly upon their old homes and hunting grounds, and stipulated by treaty that the burial-grounds of their tribe should be sacred from the plowshare. In- dividuals and parties were occasionally seen hy the white settlers for years later, but rather as pilgrims to a shrine than as natives to the land. The remnants of the Nations were located on the Genesee, the Allegheny, Buffalo Creek, and at Tuscarawas, and received annuities from the Government in lieu of their lands, and a specified sum annually from the State. They tilled farma, raised cattle, and accumulated property of considerable value. In 1809, eight or ten leading Indians resolved to drink Do more strong drink, and within the ycar the whole body had taken the same pledge, and have never broken it. They are peaceable, tender to their families, and devote themselves to agriculture. They raised their first wheat, about thirty bushels, in 1809, and harvested one hundred acres in 1811. Thus briefly we have outlined the history of the Indian and shown his fate.
CHAPTER III.
LAND PURCHASES-CHARACTER OF COUNTRY-TERMS AND MANNER OF DIS- POSAL TO SETTLERS-COURSE OF TRAVEL-COURSE OF MIGRATION-LO- CALITIES FIRST SETTLED-CLASSIC NOMENCLATURE-A BROAD DOMAIN AWAITING OWNERS -- DISSIMILARITY OF ITS PEOPLE TO ALL PREVIOUS PRECEDENT.
AT the elose of the Revolution northern and western New York was a wilder- ness, but the march of armies and the foraya of detachments bad made known the future promise of these erst untrodden regions, and companies, State and Government, took immediate steps, as policy and duty seemed to dietate, to acquire their ownership. It is notable that the seasons seemed to conapire to render the woods untenable to the Indians when the time approached for the first few isolated settlements of adventurous pioneers. The winter of 1779-80 was marked by its unprecedented severity. All western New York lay covered by & blanket of snow full five feet in depth. Wild animals, hitherto numerons, perished by thon- sands. The dissolving snow in spring disclosed the forcats filled with the carcases of the deer, and the warlike Senecas became dependents upoo English bounty and
hoped for British success. The conclusion of that peace by which American Independence was acknowledged secured no terms to England's savage auxiliaries, although their ancient possessions passed by the treaty of 1783 into the handa of the United States. The new government desired to make peace with the Six Nations, and a eession of their rights to the vast territory elaimed by them. By Aet of April 6, 1784, Governor George Clinton, President of a Board of Com- missioners consisting of four persons, was authorized to ally. with them other persons deemed necessary, and proceed to enter into compaet with the Indiana. Fort Stanwix was appointed as the place for assembly. Pending proceedings, Clinton learned by letter that Congress had appointed Arthur Lee and Richard Butler Commissioners to negotiate treaties with the same parties; thus the no- defined powers of the United States opened ground for conflict of interest and authority between State and Confederation. The General Government maintained its prerogatives, and concluded a treaty at Fort Stanwix on October 22, 1784. Its provisions were the terma of & conqueror, as the penalty of opposition. It has been asserted that among the sachems whose speeches on that occasion moved their hearers by their eloquence was the renowned Red Jacket, but the evidence . ia unworthy of eredit. This warrior of the Senecas, promoted to a chieftainey by the influence of his grandmother, became renowned among the whites for oratorieal ability, and stands prominent, rather as the last of a line of natural speakers than as illustrious among them. His death occurred in 1830, at the age of about seventy, and while we find many who had seen him in life, it is a mooted question what immediate locality was honored as his birth-place : per- hapa Seneca has grounds as strong as any, and may with justice present her elaim. The conclusion of the Stanwix treaty threw wide open the doors to sale and oecu- pation of a large extent of territory. Pending State and national negotiation, companies of active and influential men were organized to evade the law and obtain for themselves a lease of land, equivalent to actual ownership : these com- panies were defeated in their schemes, their leases were pronounced void, and their final resort was the purchase from the States of New York and Massachu- setts of such portions of the desired lands as they had the ability to acquire. In the western part of the State the work of settlement was undertaken by the Hol- land Land Company from 1797, prior to which date an immense tract of land, a part of whose eastern bonndary ran through the middle of Seneca Lake, had been sold to Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, and by them disposed of to Robert Morris, an Englishman, who in turn sold a large portion of it to Sir William Pulteney and others, of London, England, and the settlement of Montgomery County in its western portion began. We have remarked that military expe- ditions had attracted thic attention of soldiers to lands, beautiful, fertile, and ex- tensive, and, on their discharge from service, their descriptions of the scenery, soil, and valuable water-power of the Seneca region indneed restless families, princi- pally at first from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and later, Yankees from New England, to set ont upon the line of march of Sullivan's army and locate them- selves along its route. From an elevation where is now the town of Ovid, the immigrant could stand and look upon an extensive and magnificent view. Nine counties are included in the prospect, which has been changed from an un- broken forest to the valuable homes of a great people. In comparison with other localities of the Empire State, eentral New York constitutes one of her moat attractive sections. Upon ridge, bluff, slope, or plain, the settler could fix his habitation, while from the lakes adjacent could be obtained savory and ample food from the choice fish which teemed in shoals amidst their healthful waters.
By Act of May 11, 1784, Land Office Commissioners were created, whose duty it was made to carry into effect the promises made to soldiers of the Revolution by the Legislature of 1780 of bounty lands for reward of services. State lands, on being surveyed and appraised, were advertised for public sale, and any lot un- sold could be taken by any applicant by a one-fourth payment and security for the remainder. By the treaty with the Onondagas made in 1788, all those lands origi- nally composing Onondaga County, and now divided and organized as the Counties of Seneca, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Cortland, with portions of Oswego, Wayne, and Tompkins, were set apart by the Land Commissioners for bounties to soldiers, and became known as the Military Tract. This traet was surveyed into twenty- five townships of sixty thousand aeres each, and each township was then re-surveyed into lots of aix hundred acres each. Three additional townships were subsequently added, to provide for persona in the Hospital Department and others not accom- modated ; and the townshipa of the tract were thus twenty-eight in number. As a matter of enriosity, showing a reference to or knowledge of Roman history for names of these townships, we give the reader the primitive list, as follows : Lysander, Hannibal, Cato, Brutus, Camillus, Cicero, Manlius, Aurelius, Marcel- Ins, Pompey, Romulus, Scipio, Sempronins, Tully, Fabins, Ovid, Milton, Locke, 'Homer, Solon, Hector, Ulysses, Dryden, Virgil, Cincinnatus, Junius, Galen, and Sterling. From those townships the present towns of Seneca are derived in the following order: Jnoius constituted Junius, Tyre, Waterloo, and the north part
ยท Now Elmira.
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HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
of Seneca Falls ; "'Romulus is now known as the west parts of Fayette, Varick, four lots in Seneca Falls, and the town of Romulus; and Ovid as Ovid, Lodi, and Covert.
The original course of travel was hy way of Oneida Lake and River, and from the south upon Cayuga Lake; but when a State road was cut through hy way of Anburn, from Whitestown to Geneva, in 1796, and the famous Cayuga Bridge was built in 1800, this route became the great highway of western emigration. He who rides to-day upon the amooth track, at a fare of two cents per mile, and passes safely and swiftly from one side of New York to the other,-he who per- forms a journey of a thousand miles perusing the news of the day, or slumbering in the luxurious retreat of a palace car,-may find it interesting to learn of journey- ings some eighty years ago. Those emigrants entitled to military lots came chiefly from the eastern part of the State of New York. Others, however, were from Rhode Island and her sister States, while a large proportion of the families settling on the south side of the outlet were from the Keystone State. The road referred to above was, in 1792, but a slightly improved Indian path, along whose sides, at varying intervals of ten to twenty miles, for a hundred miles, a few rude cabins were scattered. The road was little used, the Erie Canal was not projected, the Cayuga and Seneca Canal was not in existence, and even the Seneca Lock Navi- gation Company was yet in the future. The emigrant had still a choice of methods : he could follow the Indian trail on foot or horseback, or use the water-course formed by nature, and which in the far background of history had been traversed
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