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 58
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Returning, in our research for the pioneer settlers of lots and subsequent owner- ship, to the shores of Seneca Lake, we find that No. 55 had been purchased by E. Watson, who in 1797 sold one hundred and forty-four acres from the northwest corner to Jacob Louden, from Pennsylvania. .: On his demise, Judge Gordan, of Rhode Island, became owner and resident, who sold to William Curtis, and trans- fers were frequent, through the hands of one Drake, a collier, from New Hampshire, George Olliman, Jonathan Pontins, Mr. Skinner, aud C. Sayre, the present incum- bents of the place. Forty-four acres from the southwest part of the lot were purchased by John Schuyler, a Methodist preacher, who sold his home to Alexander Steele, from whom it descended, through Denton Gurney, A. B. Palmer, and Jabez Fountain, to Messrs. Webber and Arnot. Upon the northeast corner of the lot lived George Markle, from Pennsylvania, in quiet ownership of a quarter-lot. In those days the hum of the spinning-wheel was heard in nearly every log cabin, and Mr. Markle's home was the seat of a pioneer manufacture of these useful but wellnigh obsolete articles of honsewifery. In 1830, Mr. Markle sold fifty acres from the east end of his farm to Ashur Lyon, and the remainder to Jacob
Hathaway. Seventy acres from the southeast corner were purchased by John Baldridge, but upon this no buildings have been erected.
The inevitable tendency to reduce areas of individual ownership are here fully illustrated, since in no instance has a lot descended entire to the present owner, but, in general, from four to six families are found dwelling upon the original purchase or donation lot owned by an individual. This continued division of lands is regarded as the source of general prosperity, as small farms are subjected to better tillage, and the ownership of landed rights is widely extended, serving as a bar to revolution and as a consequent national safeguard. The proof of this proposition is seen in the great number of farmers who filled the ranks of volunteers during the civil war. No. 56 was drawn by John P. Boyer, a soldier of the First New York Regiment. In 1804, the Beaches, Gabriel, Elias, and Jabez, arriving from Pennsylvania, bought and moved upon the south half-lot. The first two were men of family and brought their wives and children with them to new homes, but Jabez was a bachelor and so remained. In time the land passed to Jacob Lyon and Lewis Beach, and later has known various own- ers. The north half was purchased in 1804 by George Markle, of Pennsylvania, who moved upon it with his family and died while its owner ; Jacob Hathaway, the second owner, likewise died there, and Cyrus Baldridge, a third owner, was killed by the running away of a team attached to a reaper, and the land is now held by his heirs. A lot embracing two hundred acres was purchased in 1808 by Daniel Sayre, from Orange County, New York. Sayre is remembered as a prominent citizen, and the incumbent of various town offices. Sayre sold to David Dey, and he to Thomas Mann, who dying, his heirs sold, and one hundred acres were bought and are now owned by Frank Lynn. During 1808, Samuel Ludlum, accompanied hy his family, moved upon one hundred acres in the south part of the lot, but hearing from parties who went on to the present State of Michigan of good homes and better prospects there, he sold out to Samuel Doty and emigrated thither. Timothy Ludlum moved in 1806, upon one hundred acres lying in the southeast corner, and began the work of clearing. He was succeeded later by the present owner, H. C. Lisk, who, moving upon it, erected a frame building, which is still standing. Lieutenant John Stake drew Lot No. 57. He was an officer in the cavalry branch of the service, and, as has been noticed in general, disposed of his right to a fine tract without seeing or caring to see it. Gary V. Sackett, of Seneca Falls, was the second and more nearly local owoer. Timothy Ludlum, a young, wiry man, purchased the south half, conditioned to pay for it in installments, and hoped to raise the means by cutting and selling the timber. His efforts proved futile, and after much hard labor, by which a considerable clearing was effected, he saw the land transferred to Joseph Hunt. Finally, Mr. Hunt died and the land fell to his children, who are pres- ent owners. The northwest two hundred acres were purchased by Tunis Van Brunt, of Brooklyn. Van Brunt engaged in the laborious work of the pioneer, cleared up a portion of his farm, and then, years later, sold one hundred acres to John McKnight, a present occupant. Jesse Ahhott settled the northeast one- hundred acres, which now constitute the home of J. M. Sample.
Lot No. 58 was drawn by Captain Henry VanDeburg, of the Second Regiment. In the year 1805, Jacob Doremus, from the Jerseys, came out to the wilds of .Seneca, and fixed his habitation in the southeast one hundred acres. His trade was that of a shoemaker, and with the simple tools of his craft he manufactured rough shoes for his fellow-settlers from material furnished by them. Eleven years elapsed, and he parted with twenty acres to accommodate Isaac D. Hart, and in 1831 disposed of the remainder to William A. Coc. Upon the east side of the lot lived, in 1809, a carpenter, named Joseph Darrow, whose service proved accept- able in the erection of the old church. A son, at the age of seventy-one, is a resi- dent upon Lot No. 51 of this town. A third one-hundred-acre purchase was made by John VanCourt, of Delaware. The land lay in the northeast part of the lot, and was occupied in 1812 by two sons of VanCourt, who had made the purchase for their benefit. This is the land now comprising the farms of J. Renner and J. Smith. Prior to the arrival of the brothers VanCourt, and as early as the year 1807, John Ayers entered upon the southwest quarter, and was a hard worker, and made a considerable clearing upon his wild land. Slavery was still in force in the State of New York, and the journals of pioneers and their pub- lished recollections incidentally note the occasional presence of persons of color held to service, but there was no bar to the freedman's becoming the owner of lands. As in the last war, where they were enrolled by regiments and did good service in trench or line of battle, and left the ranks free men, so in the days of the Revolution colored meu fought nobly, and, battling for provincial freedom, gained their own, with its benefactions. Two of those freedmen of the Revolution, by name James Ray and Benjamin Widgeon, came out from New Jersey, and, be- coming the owners of fifty acres each from the northwest part of the lot, essayed the role of pioneers. A fifty-acre piece lying in the_northwest corner was early held by James Lyon, by whom it was transferred by sale to Jesse Abbott;
158
HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
thence it passed to Jacob Bristol and others, and is the present farm of J. White.
Lot No. 59 lies south of and near to the "marsh," and embraces a greater part of the north half of School District No. 11. The Revolution Road traverses the eastern side in a west-of-south direction. Upon this road, and in the northeast part of the lot,, Lewis Sharp, of Connecticut, had obtained a hundred aeres. Many years have rolled away since Sharp came into the County of Seneca, and of two, who were children then, one, a resident of Romulus, survives, at the ripe age of fourscore years. Ira Giddings bought of Sharp and sold to G. McCary. who in time sold to Henry VanRiper, who left it to his children. Giddings, of whom we have just spoken, took up one hundred aeres on the road referred to, and sold to John VanDyne, who likewise sold to Joseph Yerkes, in 1822. John Gambee, a succeeding owner, died in possession, and later, S. A. Van Riper, its present owner, bought it. N. Ayers, of New Jersey, bought forty-nine acres of Jephtha Wade, and came out to the lake country as early as 1809. 'He is known to have followed pioneer precedent, and erected his log eabin on his farm. By trade a cooper, he had a shop put np on Lot No. 59, where he could have been found at work during the years succeeding to 1823. The site is the present home of A. P. Miller.
Jephtha Wade, a New Jersey surveyor, was an early occupant of this region, and in 1805 settled upon the southeast quarter, upon which he erected a double log honse, an aristoeratie procedure in those times indulged in by men of means and prominence. The rattlesnake was at home in this locality, and doubtless regarded the family of Wade as obtrusive, more especially as a relentless warfare was carried on against them by which their numbers were rapidly reduced. In- stances of. danger incurred are many, but few, if any, received harm from the reptile's fang. Mr. Wade moved south into Romulus, where he died in 1812, leaving a family of four sons and a like number of daughters, most of whom have migrated to Michigan ; one son, Jephtha Wade, is a prominent business man in Cleveland, Ohio. Benona Ward married the widow, and oeenpied the place for some years ; it was finally divided and sold. A tract of sixty aeres in the north- east, now owned by Mrs. Doekstater, has known a number of proprietors. Isaae Crane was its owner about 1835. Crane bought from Isaac Allen, and he from its first settler, Joseph Brown. Nothing more suggestively indicates the tran- sient and formative character of Western settlement than the ocenpation and speedy abandonment of lands. Descendants of families dwell in the Old World npon lands hereditary with them for centuries, and a hovel is the home of some whose ancestors dwelt in castles now in ruins; but in the West, locating and re- moving at option, following the same isothermal lines westward still, the children of the pioneers of Seneea, and often the pioneers themselves, selling out, have become pioneers in the development of other States, and, schooled by former experience, secured the manifold advantage which inhere to those first on the ground.' The settlers of Varick were in search of homes, and changes are few, considering the lapse of time from first occupation. Lot No. 60 was drawn by Sergeant James Parker, of the First, New York Regiment. A sixth part of the lot on the cast side became the property of Andrew MeKnight, an immigrant to Seneca, in the year 1798, from Pennsylvania. Engaged in the war of 1812 as a soldier, it fell to his fortune to be taken prisoner by the Indians, with whom he made an involuntary residence for a period of seven years; at the expiration of which he was released and returned to his old place, where he died in 1853 at the advanced age of ninety years. A. R. Karr and L. Hodge bought aud held the land which is now owned by J. V. R. Clark and J. Gurney. Some time in 1800, David Dey, of New Jersey, purchased four hundred and eighty-eight acres, which included the greater part of the lot. A tanner by trade, he dropped the business in his new possession, and entered vigorously upon the work of clearing up and bringing under eultivation his large farm. Four years elapsed, and the want of a neighbor and an opportunity to make an advantageous sale indneed Dey to sell one hundred and two acres from the southwest part of his farm to Garrett Jacobus, who died in 1810. . The land fell to his son Isaac, who passed it to Jotham Wilcox, on whose deccase it became the heritage of his son Richard S. Wilcox, present owner. At the same time that Dey sold to Jacobus he also disposed of fifty acres to James Barr, a Pennsylvanian. . Barr was, by trade, a house-carpenter, and his services were frequently requisite in the con- struction of the.primitive log cabins in his neighborhood. Along in 1836, Dey sold a piece of ground from the southeast side to Franeis Gurney, whose nephew, Jacob Gurney, inherited and holds the farm. Mr. Dey, at the age of eighty-eight years, passed away in 1852, having willed the balance of his land to his children, of whom S. V. R. Dey is the only survivor in this locality. Solomon Dey owns and resides upon a sixty-eight-acre farm, near the homestead, which is the present property of Mrs. Richard V. Dey. The widow lives in the old, time-worn dwell- ing, erected in 1802, and standing upon the bluff, with front looking out upon the lake .. Additions have been made to the structure, and it yet affords its in-
mates a comfortable residence .. In 1820, Dey erected a blacksmith-shop upon his lot, aud employed Charles Beaver by the year to. operate it.
Lot No. GI was drawn by Christopher Queen, of the First New York Regi- ment. A settler from Pennsylvania, named William Busenbark, purchased the southeast quarter in 1803, and, moving upon it, raised a family. His death occurred some forty years ago, aud his heirs sold to William Everett, present res- ident. During the same year in which Busenbark settled, one Baehman bought one hundred aeres near the centre of the lot, and the two families came on to- gether. Cornelius VanHorn bought of Bachman, and the plat is now owned by J. F. Dart and J. Updike. The northwest corner, comprising one hundred acres, was settled by Jacob Hathaway, who emigrated from Dover, New Jersey. J. B. Karr purchased of Hathaway, and occupies the farm, where he now resides, at the age of seventy-two. One-sixth of the lot, east side, was owned and occupied in 1810 by John Piekle and wife, from the Jersey peninsula. Pickle sold to Johnson Updike, present owner. In 1818 the southwest quarter was occupied by John Baldridge, of Pennsylvania, who married Miss Agnes Barr and lived in a honse he built upon his land until his death, when the property passed to the heirs, who have recently sold it .. A member of the First New York Regiment, named Ephraim Blanchard, was the original owner from Government of Lot No. 62. The. northwest sixth was carly occupied by a New Jersey weaver, named Samuel Ludlum. A reference to the census of 1810 shows that
HOME MANUFACTURE
was then quite active, and during the war Mr. Ludlum made cloth npon his loom, which was cut into coats and suits by wife, mother, or sister, and also hy the daughter, in the families of the neighborhood, and the settlers and the young men wore these " home-made". garments with comfort and laudable pride .. Lud- lum had a family of five children, one of whom recently died in Michigan at the age of seventy. The farm was divided between the eltildreu on the death of the father in 1824. Stepheu Endium became the owner in 1827, and later the land is owned by R. M. Steele, who acquired title by purchase in 1872. John Stoue, a shoemaker, became owner of sixty acres on the south end of the lot; this he disposed of to J. H. Ogden, who transferred to John G. King, the present owner. A fifty-acre piece in the southwest corner was owned by Joseph Hunt, who built thereon a habitation, in which his son Peter lived for a time. Finally sale was made to Isaac VanTyle, by whom the land was conveyed to G. I. List, the present occupant. Aaron Ely entered upon a sixty-two-acre farm in 1822; a house was put up and elearing begun, but within a year the place was sold to Steele Allen. The latter disposed of this property in 1836 to J. H. Ogden, and removed to Michigan, where, at the age of eighty, he is still living, a healthy, hearty old man. The southeast one hundred aeres was owned by Captain Marion, and the " Vader Lot" was settled in 1822. Lot No. 63, on the north border of the town of Romulus, was originally near the centre of that town, and owing to this favoring eirenmstanec was an early occupied and eligible site for a village now located par- tially in Variek and the remainder in Romulus. The southeast corner of the lot was ocenpied at a very carly date by Henry DePne, whose father was a pioneer in Romulus. The elder DePuc opened a tavern-stand and pursued the calling of a landlord during the immigration period, when land-hunters were traversing the woods intent on the acquisition of land,-choice, if possible, hut landed estate at any eost. . He, in common with others, found the business sufficiently lucra- tive to continue in it for some time. On this lot, in 1803, Anna DePue was boru. This was one of the earliest births which occurred in this part of Variek. On the southeast corner of DePue's farm the pioneers of the locality built a honse of logs for school purposes in the year IS06. Among the old-time teach- ers was Sylvester Tilletstou, whose record comes down to us connected with the enlogy of those who knew him. A schoolmaster by profession, he was well qualified to instruct, and his services were long obtained with profit by the adja- cent schools. A second instructor was Ira Parker, a painstaking and well-liked man, whose remains rest in the Romulus cemetery, his death having transpired in. 1812. A Scotchman named MeCullough was a third of the ancient peda- gognes, whose like we moderns seldom see, and whose ability is held in low esteem by many from the severity of their discipline, but whose instruction was praeti- cal and whose peumanship was excellent. .. The death of H. DePue occurred in 1813. Of seven children left by him, four are living; one, Mrs. S. Mouroe, in Varick, upon a farm a half-mile north of her birthplace, is seventy years of age. DePue's heirs sold, in 1835, to Luther Vail, whose son is the present owner.
A PIONEER PREACHER.
Charles Mosher, with one hundred and twenty-five acres of a farm, taken from the south side of the lot, combined the life of a settler with that of a Presbyterian minister in the long-ago days of 1805. Doubtless the man who earnestly cx- pounded the meaning of the sacred writ, and advised his bearers to flee from the
PLATE LXX
RES. OF GEN. A. D. AYRES, VARICK , N. Y.
RES. OF HON. R.R. STEELE , ROMULUS, N. Y.
RES. AND FARM OF J. & J. LAUTENSCHL
SENECA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
..........
REV. DIEDRICH WILLERS.
159
HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
wrath to come, from the pulpit of his neat church, could have been seen engaged in week-day labor amidst the logs scattered over his clearing. Rev. Mosher sold to the well-known Waterloo merchant, R. Swift, who in turn disposed of the land to Peter Wyckoff, whose son, Squire Wyckoff, aged seventy years, is a resident upon the old place. Michael VanCourt, who had made an early settlement upon the east part of the lot, made a sale, in 1810, of forty acres to Abigail Munson. Four years later VanCourt died, and his farm, bought by John Buys, was sold by him in 1828 to Stephen Monroe, who has continued to reside upon it till the present, and is in his seventy-third year. In casting lots for ownership with M. VanCourt, Rev. Clark, a Presbyterian divine, obtained seventy-three and one- quarter acres from the northeast corner of the lot. These parties, Clark and Van Court, had bought together of H. Howland. The northwest corner was bonght by Zebulon Ayers, of New Jersey, in' 1814. Ayers sold one hundred acres to Wilcox, fifty acres to Elijah Karr, and fifty acres to Gay and King. There was an ashery at an early date upon the Wyckoff farm ; it was run by Dr. Marvin, of Connecticut, who lived in the town of Romulus, where now stands a school-house. Silas Allen, in 1812, was an owner and occupant of a fifty-acre farm on this lot. The settlement of Lot 69 was begun in 1797 by William Stottle, a weaver, who located upon the northeast one hundred acres. Bowman, his father-in-law, was the first man buried in the Romulus grave-yard. The body was carried a mile and a half through the woods, to find its sepulture in a spot where later his dust has much of kindred company. The death of Stottle took place in 1836. The farm was held for a time by the family, and has passed into the ownership of Edward Barton and A. P. Miller. The southwest corner of the lot was an early possession of a Mrs. Earle, who sold to William MeCarty in 1833. A part of the village of Romulusville was laid off from this farm. A second fifty acres was taken by Jacob Vreeland, of New York. Vreeland was a carman in the city ; moved out to Seneca with his family at an early day; sold out in 1831, and emi- grated to Michigan. A hundred acres were held by Silas Allen, a settler as carly as 1806, and the proprietor of an ashery, one of the few sources of revenue, and whose potash had a good export demand. John Buys, from Lot 77 of the " Re- servation," purchased fifty acres from the northwest corner of the lot, and moved upon it in 1804. Here he lived till 1813, when he erected a log tavern stand which became known far and wide, and is still recalled as
"BUYS'S TAVERN."
For a quarter-century the old innkeeper lived upon this place, and at his death, in 1838, the property passed to Ayers Brothers, and it is in present possession of W. S. Sharp. It is related as characteristic of the times, that on the occasion of the marriage at Buys's tavern in 1830, by the Rev. Morris Barton, of William Merrill to the landlord's nicce, that Buys requested a second prayer from the minister, the families on both sides being, as he said, "very wicked." The re- quest was acceded to, and as the bridegroom had paid the usual fee, Bnys ad- vanced a like amount for the second prayer.
THE CAYUGA RESERVATION,
or that portion lying in Varick, is situated on the east side of the town, and con- tains twenty-six lots of the " Reservation," the south line of the town being that of the lots. Though.the lands were fertile and the location beautiful, the settlement was of later date than in other parts of the town, for even the brave, hardy, and ofttimes reckless pioncer did not care to trespass upon the reserved rights of the red man, for whose prowess was entertained a wholesome respect. The early settlers chose rather to fell the heavy forest along the banks of Seneca Lake, and there build them homes where none had excuse to molest or make them trouble. The first settlers are of the past, and scanty material can be gathered of its carliest pioneers. On the northeast part of Lot 77 lives John A. Christopher, at the good old age of eighty-one, and from him we have gleaned much of the informa- tion herein contained. In 1800, John Buy's settled on No. 77, and afterwards moved to No. 69, where he kept tavern, as stated in the history of that lot. Bar- ney and Elias Christopher, as well as nearly all the settlers io this part of the County, came from New Jersey. They arrived in this neighborhood in 1806, and aettled on what is now as handsome a farm as there is on the lake.
At a later day, 1810, Nathan Christopher became its owner, and at his death his son, J. A. Christopher, took charge of it, and is at present its owner. Located on the southwest corner of this lot are the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Oak Hill Cemetery, and the greater part of McDnffectown, This hamlet received its appellation from families of that name who resided in the neighborhood,-mostly on Lot No. 79. James McDuffee had one hundred acres on the east part, where he raised a family, none of whom are now residents of the town. Robert and Joseph McDuffce acttled, in 1808, where the church now stands, and the music of their drums and fifes was nightly heard echoing and re-echoing in the romantic ravines near by, and reaching far out on the bosom of Cayuga Lake, breaking the
even-tide stillness, not else disturbed save by the lightsome stroke of the red man's oar as his hoat glided out for the Cayuga shore. Samuel and Isaac Phillips were residents of this neighborhood as early as 1803, and Thurston King supplied the settlement with shoes of his own manufacture, and although he monopolized the trade of half a town he was not kept busy. Samuel Gordon settled on Lot 80 in 1801, and his name appears as one of the town officers in 1803. Henry Davis, from New Jersey, once owned the place now occupied by Leander Covert on the northeast corner. Daniel Herbert also lived in the vicinity, and was one of those men, found in most neighborhoods, ready at all times to practice a joke, with sufficiency of wit to make it interesting, Upon one occasion, when employed by Mr. Davis to assist in throwing a dead hog into the lake, the latter requested Mr. Herbert to "waltz him off handsomely" with a few appropriate words. His aurprise and indigoation can only be imagined when Herbert, lifting his hat in reverence to the dead, pronounced the following couplet,-
"Oh ! cruel death, thy sad disaster ; Why take the hog and leave its master ?"
On Lot 81 resided Daniel Christopher in the year 1800. Himself, Enoch Ter- hune, and others were in a boat, during the year 1818, upon the lake, and were almost ashore when he was struck by a swing of the boom, knocked off into the water and drowned. John Bryant moved upon the east part of Lot 81 'in the' year 1801, and is recorded as being an Overseer of Highways in 1805. Farther down the lake, on Lot 73, lived Samuel Phillips, as stated above, in 1803. He constructed a frame house which has but recently burned down. It was ocenpied by Thomas Burroughs after Phillips. During 1800, Samuel Volkingburg lived on Lot 72, near the lake, where he had a farm of about two hundred acres.' In 1806 his name is on the record of town officers. John L. Deal bought one hun- dred acres off the lot, while Volkingburg's son Richard, now about seventy-four years of age, occupies the west end. On the east part of No. 69, fronting the lake, was John Williams, a pettifogger, auctioneer, etc., who was elected Constable in 1794. His son, John Williams, was the first white child born on the Reserva- tion, and probably in Varick. He is now eighty years of age, a hale and hearty resident of' Fayette. The old farm is yet owned by the Williams family.
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