History of Seneca Co., New York, with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, palatial residences, public building and important manufactories, Part 4

Author:
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts, Ensign & Everts
Number of Pages: 294


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 4


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Mcknight settled about 1790 in what is now Varick, David Wisner in Romulus, and Ezekiel Crane, of New Jersey, in the town of Tyre in 1794. At this period the privations of settling a forest were very trying. With mortar and pestle Indian corn was broken into a coarse meal and boiled as mush ; venison, fresh or. dried, added to the simple fare, and bear's meat was a luxury. Cattle ranged the woods in droves, grazing or browsing as grass or twigs predominated, and deep- toned bells of different note proclaimed to boys or older ones, who went to bring them home for milking, their whereabouts. About the year 1790, the settlers went to Newtown, now known as Elmira, a distance of forty miles, to buy groceries, seed, and provisions; and could we obtain the incidents of those long and weari- some journeys through the woods on winding roads to tell them here, it would be read with feelings akin to pity and astonishment.


We are disposed in these days to look upon a former generation as wanting in that spirit which projects affairs of moment, and herald the changes of recent date as the only ones werthy of mention. It affords pleasure to be able, in connection with this history, to give brief mention of the Long Bridge over the Cayuga Lake. A company, known as "The Cayuga Bridge Company," consisting of John Harris, Joseph Annin, Thomas Morris, Wilhelmus Mynderse, and Charles Williamson, was incorporated in 1797; their purpose was the construction of a bridge across the northern end of Cayuga Lake, to further and expedite the passage of travelers and emigrants west. The work was commenced in the month of May, 1799, and cempleted September 4, 1800. Its dimensions were as fol- lows : length, one mile and eight rods, and width, twenty-two feet, there being twenty-two feet between trestles, and sufficient space on roadway to allow the movement of three wagons abreast. The time occupied in its construction was eighteen months, and the entire cost is given as one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Eight years it performed good service, and was then destroyed. It was afterwards rebuilt, and for a great many years the Cayuga bridge was generally .regarded as one of the greatest public improvements in the State, and waa taken as the dividing line between the East and West. The bridge was finally aban- doned in 1857, and the lake was crossed by a ferry. Portions of the ruins are yet to be seen, and mark its original site.


Prominent in the history of early settlement appear the erection of mills and the trials of their patrons. The families between the lakea, having no home mill, were accustomed to go with their grists in canoes or boats across Seneca Lake to a mill near Penn Yan. Grain could be floured at Rome and nt the mill just named. Although beyond the limits of Seneca County, it is identified with her history, as for years the pioneers came to it to get their grinding. done. Among the strange characters who made their appearance among the early settle- ments was a woman named Jemima Wilkinson, who rode in style through the streets of Geneva in a coach, on whose panels were the mystical characters " U. F.,"" -translated, we have " Universal Friend.", Some flocked to sce her to satisfy curiosity, and some became her followers. Among these latter was n party of settlers who, leaving Connecticut in 1789, followed the road made by Clinton on his march to join Sullivan, and, reaching Geneva, cut for themselves a road to Crooked Lake outlet, where they settled and erccted the mill above mentioned. Here was ground the first bag of grain milled in Western New York.


A mill in that day was a place of importance ; mill-builders were recognized as persons of prominence, and first roads were cut to the mills, which, as we have shown, were few and distant. Stormy and severe weather, and busy sessons at times, prevented the accustomed journey or voyage to the mill. In this dilemma the pioneers were compelled to resort to the family hand-mill or the hominy block. The hand-mill, described in brief, was a three-foot piece of a log from n beech or a maple, hollewed from one end by free use of chisel and anger into the form of a cone. This hollow, made smooth and hard by a fire of coals kindled therein, was scraped clean, and the mortar prepared. A stick, wrist-thick, split at one end, holding in the cleft an iron wedge, with edge to the split, and kept in place by an iron ring, formed the pestle. Corn was placed in the mortar and besten by the peatle. The fivest, being sifted, waa enrn meal; the balance, minus the bran, was hominy. . Another form of this rude appliance, used in the open air, was simi- lar, as regards the mortar, in make and appearance, only possessing more stability when hollowed in a stump; the pestle was awung over the block from a hori- zontal pole, whose elasticity gave it the effect of a spring and lightened the labor of the operator. It is not for us to say which of two mills built, the one in the northern, the other in the southern part of Seneca, claima priority. So far as can be learned, their construction toek place during 1794. Each built by representative men, the circumstances attending are full of interest. As n measure of justice and a matter of history, the buildera of these mills, together with their work, are spoken of as follows: Silas Halsey, living at Southampton, Long Island, determined to "go West." Accordingly he took passage in a sloop for New York some time in 1792, having with him a hired white man and a colored servant. Frem New York he embarked, with such material as he pur-


PLATE


ST. MARY'S CHURCH, WATERLOO , NEW YORK.


Presbyterian Church Seneca-Falls NY


Residence of Lewis Bodine, Fair View, Ovid


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HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY, NEW YORK.


posed to take with him, on another sloop, and voyaged up the Hudson to Albany. He was necessitated to make a detour around the Cohoes Falls, on the Mohawk River, and transported his baggage and supplies to Schenectady across the inter- vening plains and sand hills. : At this point Halsey bought a "bateau," and began to work his way up stream, employing pole, paddle, and oar, singly or all at once, and in time came to Rome, early known as Fort Stanwix. A portage was then made to Wood Creek, and their bateau, borne on wheels to that stream, was duly launched, and the little party successively navigated the waters of lakes and rivers Oneida and Seneca. Passing southward along the eastern shore of the Seneca Lake, Halsey noted the lands before him, and finally stopped at what has been known in turn as Cooley's, Goff's Point, and Lodi Landing. A desirable location was found on lot No. 37 in Ovid, and the hands set to work. In a short time, with favoring weather, a deadening of half a dozen acres was made, the brush was cleared away, and the ground, unplowed, was sown to wheat. A partial covering was effected by the use of a clumsy harrow with wooden teeth. This agricultural agency was drawn over the field several times from different direc- tions to secure the advantages of cross-harrowing in reaching the immediate vicinity of the girdled trees. A settler's log cabin having been built, Halsey, learning that the apple was very fruitful in this region, obtained a quantity of seeds from an Indian orchard, saw them carefully planted, and, a beginning being made, once more embarked upon his bateau and set out on his return. While engaged in overcoming the natural obstacles to his progress, we temporarily leave him to note the strangeness of finding the apple of civilization in the heart of a far-off wilderness, thriving luxuriously, and furnishing subsistence to the lodges of an ancient tribe of aborigines. Wild fruits were abundant for unknown periods; but when the settlements of Montreal and on the Hudson were visited by the Iroquois, and the apple scen and eaten, these people carried to their towns the fruit and planted out large fields. These orchards yielded heavily, and from their number and size the apple crop was very large. The soldiery of Sullivan, obeying orders, cut down many trees, and when they reached Kendaia so many orchards were found that they gave the place the name of Appletown,-a term often employed by the old settlers to designate the locality. Some few apple- growers escaped notice, and from them the whites continued their propagation. Mr. Halsey had passed the winter cast, and in various conversations with his neighbors had given so favorable a report, that on his return for permanent loca- tion during the spring of 1793 quite a party desired to go with him. A colony embracing besides his own family that of his son and of his son-in-law, eigh- teen in number, followed the same general route as that previously pursued by the energetic founder. Six wecks elapsed before Cooley's Point came in view, and then the gifts of nature, intelligently utilized, made life pleasurable and enlightened the future with hopefulness. The Halsey settlement was welcomed by the few neighbors, so called, although a half-score of miles away. Among those nearest were the cabins and improvements of James Jackson, a settler on lot No. 35, a mile and a half to the west; of Elijah Kinne to the northward four miles, upon the present site of Ovid; Andrew. Dunlap, about the same dis- tance to the northwest ; George Faussett, six miles southwardly ; Philip Tremaine, upon the Cayuga Lake, at Goodwin's Point; some fifteen miles away and nine miles northeast was the home of David Wisner. A dense forest was all this country, broken by these slight openings. Along the higher lands there was no break save where a trail wound its serpentine course amidst the underbrush over- hung by primal forest-trees ; upon the lake shore were met occasional corn-fields, but all was wild, picturesque, and suggestive of patient labor to make it produc- tive. Mr. Halscy soon received an appointment as a Justice of the Peace and took prominent part in public affairs, not the least of which was to cause the erection of a grist-mill, during the summer of 1794, upon the waters of Lodi Creek, above the falls. The millwrights who executed this necessary and pioncer work were three brothers, named respectively Casper, John, and George Yost. It is a pleasure to state in this connection that Judge Halsey lived to sec the transformation of forest to farms completed; he departed this life at the goodly period of ninety years. Turn we now to the rapids of the Seneca River, called in Indian dialect Scanyes, and interpreted " the dancing waters." Thither in the spring of 1793 came the first permanent white settler in what is now called Waterloo. Anticipating the growth of a prosperous community, and foresceing the advantages to be secured from that knowledge, Samuel Bear, of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, set out alone on horseback for this point, located on the western border of the military tract. Streams were forded, provisions were carried along in saddle-bags, and nightly bivouac was made wherever darkness overtook him. He kindled his fire with tinder and flint, wrapped himself in his blanket, and lay down to refreshing slumber while his horse grazed near by. Each morning saw him on his way. Procecding past Newtown, now Elmira, his thoughts were recalled to the dangers he might encounter by the block-honse standing there, and the memories of the battle which broke the Indian power for


all time. Continuing on up the western shore of Cayuga Lake, he pitched his tent in Scauyes. For some reason there was a marked difference in the lands north and south of the ontlet, those on the south being regarded as much the more valuable. A journey was now made to Albany, where Bear purchased three hundred acres of lot No. 4, fifty acres of lot No. 5, and a portion of lot No. 3, all being bounded on the north by Seneca Ontlet. These tracts had been previously surveyed by Simeon De Witt and placed by the Commissioners in the. market. Returning to his old home the pioneer secured a helpmate, and together they set out on horseback on their bridal tour for their western New York home. A miller by trade, Bear at once set about the construction of a grist-mill. It was the first enterprise in Seanyes contemplating the social necessities of the people. Up to this time, 1794, the early inhabitants were obliged to repair to a. mill at the foot of Crooked Lake. The mill was erected of logs, and stood on the site of the later " white mills" of Messrs. Pierson, Becker and Raymor. The race was dug in part by Indians, who also aided in the raising. A part of the building was used by Mr. Bear as a residence. The mill being in running order notice was given to that effect far and near, and the tidings were received gladly. On foot, carrying their grist upon their shoulders, or on horseback with a bsg for a saddle, having one end filled with corn and the other at times with buckwheat, the customers came in along old or breaking new paths. An aged resident speak- ing from personal knowledge evidently regards the old mill in the same light that a passenger upon the Auburn Branch Railroad would a stage running upon the old Albany road,-good, where one cannot do better. Arrived at the mill every man had to take his chance, and sometimes had to wait a whole day or longer for his turn. They usually came with provisions provided for any emergency, using stumps of trees for tables, lodging in the mill when there was no other room, on the bags of grain. Some of the customers came from twenty to thirty miles to get grinding done. The mill soon became a point of settlement, and various persons located near by, so that, as we shall have occasion to mention, another mill was crected, a town plat made, and the foundations of Waterloo laid.


The real power behind the screen to the foreigner, who, fresh from the ob- servance of all the machinery of arbitrary government, first looks around upon the bustle and energy of American every-day life, is unknown and unsuspected. It had its origin and maintains its full vitality in the equality and freedom of the town-meeting. The earliest known assembly of this character was held as in- dicated by the following copy of the proceedings :


" At a Town-Meeting, held in the Town of Ovid, in the County of Onondaga, on Tuesday, the first day of April, 1794, for chusing Town Officers, the Free- holders and Inhabitants of said town being meet, proceeded to their choise, as Follows, viz. : Silas Halsey, Supervisor ; Joshua Wickhoff, Town Clerk ; Elijah Kinne, Abraham Covert, and. George Fassett, Assessors ; Abraham Lebeun, Col- lector ; Elijah Kinne and Andrew Dunlap, Overseers of the Poor; James Jack- son, John Livingston, and John Selah, Commissioners of Highways; Abraham Lebeun, Constable; . Elijah Kinne, Abraham Covert, and George Fassett, Over- seers of Highways ; Henry Scivinton, Daniel Everts, Elijah Kinne, John Selah, James Jackson, and Samuel Chiswell, Fence Viewers; Thomas Covert, Pound- Master; also voted that Hogs run free Commoned for the year Insuing; also voted that cvery fence be 4} feet high to be accounted sufficient.


" The above Town-Meeting, held the first day of April, in presence of me,


" SILAS HALSEY, Justice of the Peace."


It is observed in this document that, while there is a lack of education, there .is an ability to express themselves understandingly. The fewness of numbers has compelled the choice of several persons to fill the same offices. It is also to be noted that the same freeholders voted the sun of six pounds for the support of their poor,-an ample donation, considering their resources. Of the town officers then elected Andrew Dunlap died in 1851, at the age of ninety-one. He died but a short distance from the site of his first log house, and on a farm familiar to sixty-three years of his existence. The last survivor of that meeting was Abra- ham A. Covert, whose vote on every recurring election was invariably cast, with an exception caused by illness, up to well-nigh his hundredth year.


We continue our chapter by the reproduction of an article on the Genesee country, published in the Commercial Agricultural Magazine, in London, Eng- land, August, 1799, both as a curiosity, and showing the explicit terms in which proprietary efforts were expressed and the strong inducements offered to colonists in this vicinity. It is entitled, " An Account of Capt. Williamson's Establish- ment on Lake Ontario, North America."


" This immense undertaking is under the direction and in the name of Captain Williamson, formerly a British officer, but is generally supposed in America to be a joint concern between him and Sir William Patence of London ; in England Patence is believed to be the proprietor, and Williamson his agent. The land in the Genesee country, or that part of it which belongs to the State of Massa- chusetts, was sold to a Mr. Phelps for fivepence an acre; by him, in 1790, to


16


HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY, NEW YORK.


Mr. Morris, at one shilling per acre, being estimated at a million of acres, on condition that the money should be returned provided Captain Williamson, who was to view the lands, should not find them answerable to the description. Captain Williamson was pleased with them, and, on survey, found the tract to contain one hundred and twenty thousand acres more than the estimate, the whole of which was conveyed to him. This district is bounded on one side by Lake Ontario, and on the other by the river Genesee. Williamson also bought some other land of Mr. Morris, so that he is now proprietor of more than a million and a half acres. After surveying the whole he resolved to found at once several large establishmenta rather than one capital colony." He therefore fixed on the most eligible place for building towns, as central spots to his whole system. There were Bath, on the Cohetoon; Williamsburg, on the Genesee; Geneva, on the extremity of Lake Seneca; and Great Sodus, on Lake Ontario. The whole territory he divided into squares of six miles, or so near as local circumstances would permit. Each of these sections he forms into what he calls a district. Sure of finding settlers and purchasers when he had established a good communication between his new tract and Philadelphia, and as the old road was by way of New York and Albany, Williamson opened a road which has shortened the distance near three hundred miles. He has also continued his roads from Bath to Canandaigua, to Geneva, and to Great Sodus, and several other roads of communication. He has already erected ten mills,-three corn and seven sawing,-has built a great many bouses, and begun to clear land. He put himself to the heavy expense of transporting eighty families from Germany to his settlementa; bnt, owing to s bad choice made by his agent at Hamburg, they did little, and after a short time set off for Canada. He succeeded better in the next set, who were mostly Irish. They put the roads into good condition, and gave such a difference to the whole that the land, which he sold at one dollar an acre, was soon worth three; and he has disposed of eight hundred thousand acres in this way, so as to pay the first purchase, the whole expense incurred, and has made a profit of fifty pounds. This rapid increase of property is owing to the money first advanced, but the great advantage is Williamson's constant resi- dence on the settlement, which enables him to conclude any contract or to remove any difficulty which may stand in the way; besides, his land is free from all dispute or question of occupancy, and all his settlement is properly ascertained and marked out. The land, which sold at one, has gradually risen to three dollars an acre; and a proviso is always inserted in the deed of sale, to those who purchase a large quantity, that a certain number of acres shall be cleared and a certain number of families settled within eighteen months. Those who bny from five hundred to one thousand are only obliged to settle one family. These clanses are highly useful, as they draw an increase of population and prevent the purchase of lands on speculation only. Captain Williamson, however, never acts up to the rigor of this clause where any known obstacles impede the execution. The terms of payment are to discharge half the purchase in three years and the remainder in six, which enables the industrions to pay from the produce of the land. The poorer families he supplies with an ox, a cow, or even a home. To all the settlements he establishes he takes care to secure a constant supply of provisions for the settlers or supplies them from his own store. Whenever five or six settlers build together he always builds a honse at his own expense, which soon sells at an advanced price. Every year be visits each settlement, which tends to diffuse a spirit of industry and promote the sale of lands, and he employs every other means he can suggest to be useful to the inhabitants. He keeps stores of medicines, encourages races and amusements, and keeps a set of beautiful stallions. He has nearly finished his great undertaking, and purposes then to take a voyage to England to purchase the best horses, cattle, sheep, implements of agriculture, etc. Captain Williamson has not only the merit of having formed, and that in so judicious a manner, this fine settlement, but he has the happiness to live universally respected, honored, and beloved. Bath is the chief settlement, and it is to be the chief town of a county of the same name. At this town he is building a school, which is to be endowed with some hundred seres of land. The salary of the master Williamson means to pay until the instruction of the children shall be sufficient for his support. He has built a session-house and prison, and one good inn which he has sold for considerable profit, and is now building another which is to contain a ball-room. He has also constructed a bridge, which opens a free and easy communication with the other side of the river. He keeps in his own hands some small farms in the vicinity of Bath, which are under the care of a Scotchman, and which appear to be better ploughed and managed than most in America. In all the settlementa he reserves one estate for himself, the stock on which is remarkably good. These he disposes of occasionally to his friends and on some handsome offers. To the settlements already mentioned he is now adding two others on Lake Ontario, near Aondegut, on the river Genesee, and the other at Braddock, thirty miles farther inland. Great Sodus, on the coast of this district, promises to afford a safe and convenient place for ships, from the


depth of water, and it may be easily fortified. The climate here is much more temperate thao in Pennsylvania. The winter seldom lasts more than four months, and the cattle even in that season graze in the forest without incon- venience. These settlements are, however, rather unhealthy, which Captain Williamson ascribes to nothing but the natural effect of the climate on new settlers, and is confined to a few fits of fever with which strangers are seized the first or second year after their arrival. The inhabitants all agree, however, that the climate is unfavorable, and the marshes and pieces of stagnant water are thickly spread over the country ; but this will be 'drained as the population increases. On the whole, it promises to be one of the most considerable settle- ments in America."


We note here a rise in value which has been far exceeded,-a growth attributable to the generosity of the proprietor and a laudable importation of choice live-stock. It is in evidence that although the frequent arrival of persons seeking homes created a demand for the surplus products of the pioneers up to 1800, from that date the farmers of Seneca began to seek a market for their wheat and corn. Elmira, once known as Newtown, was the market-town to which with extreme difficulty the products of the fields were conveyed. Rafts and floats were used during the floods of spring-time to convey the crops to points on the Susque- hanna, and the producer realized a profit per bushel of half a dollar. William- son evidently performed a great service for the people of this region, but failed in his endeavors to establish here that distinction of rank which, while a permanent feature of the old world, has no place and can have none in the new.


We have said that Sencca formed part of the western portion of the Military Tract: between this tract and the Genesee conntry was run a boundary line whose history is full of interest. 'Massachusetts, under its colonial charter, claimed all lands west of its western border to the Pacific Ocean. The charter of New York did not recognize this claim,-hence controversies arose which were finally ad- jnsted at Hartford, Connecticut, on December 16, 1786, where it was mutually agreed between Commissioners from each State, that Massachusetts cede to New York all her rights in the latter State. New York, in turn, ceded to Massachu- setts her rights to all land in the State west of a line running north from the eighty-second mile-stone, on the north boundary of Pennsylvania to British pos- sessions in Canada, except a tract one mile in width along the Niagara River ! The running of this line, known as the "Old Pre-emption Line," was a matter of much interest, but of mere speculation as to its accuracy so far as regarded the vicinity of Seneca Lake, and there were those who desired that the line should pass west of the promising village of Geneva, leaving quite a body of land between the two tracts. Two Indian traders, Seth Reed and Peter Ryckmsn, made application to the State for the satisfaction of a claim presented for services rendered in negotiating with the Six Nations, and made the proposition that s patent should be given them for a tract whose limits should be defined as extend- ing from a certain tree which stood on the bank of Seneca Lake southward along the bank until a strip of land, in area equal to sixteen thousand acres, should be included between the lake and Massachusetts lands. Their claim was allowed, and a patent given. Massachusetts sold her lands in 1787 to Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, they paying one million dollars for six million acres. The former moving on from Granville, Massachusetts, with a colony and outfit, ex- tinguished the title of the Indians, by a treaty made at Kanadesaga in July, 1788, to the eastern portion of their extensive purchase.




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