History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler counties, New York, Part 107

Author: Peirce, H. B. (Henry B.) cn; Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Ensign
Number of Pages: 1112

USA > New York > Chemung County > History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler counties, New York > Part 107
USA > New York > Schuyler County > History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler counties, New York > Part 107
USA > New York > Tioga County > History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler counties, New York > Part 107
USA > New York > Tompkins County > History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler counties, New York > Part 107

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).

135.87

Willard Asylum.

423.23

Interest on railroad bonds

3,605.00

Sinking fund

515.00

$10,311.61

ULYSSES.

State tax.

$4,480.94

County tax.

4,166.15

High ways ...

1,750.00

Town audits.

1,393.35

Willard Asylum

341.51

Superintendents of Poor.

285.80

Return tax.

5.57

Interest on railroad bonds. 5,250.00

Sinking fund.

770.00

$18,443.36

TOWN AND VILLAGE OF ITHACA.

CHAPTER LXVI.

ITHACA.

ITHACA, the central town of Tompkins County, was formed from Ulysses March 16, 1821,* and contains thirty- six square miles of territory, of which 16,488 acres are improved and 2506 acres woodland. The population in 1875 was 10,026, of which number 8878 were native and 1148 foreign born. The number of colored was 294.

Cayuga Lake pushes across the northern boundary nearly to the centre of the town, a distance of about two. miles,

while its deep valley continues two miles farther south- ward, with a rich alluvial bottom one and a half miles broad.

The valley of the Cayuga is the result of excavating forces, and is like a trough cut in the great plateau or " back- bone" of Western New York. From the outer limits of the county, and more conspicuously from the borders of the town, the trend of the surface of this great plain is, with more or less undulating and broken features, low hills and shallow vales, towards this remarkable basin. The incline continues slight until within a mile of the margin of the " Ithaca Flat," when it rapidly descends, precipitating the converging waters with tremendous power and velocity upon the plain, through chasms cut during the long centu- ries in the yielding shales and sandstones. The entire de- scent from the summit of the great table-land to the lake level is from 700 to 900 feet, of which 400 to 600 feet are accomplished within the last mile of distance.

Thus it happens that the hills surrounding Ithaca on the east, south, and west, which from a distance charm the eye with scenes of quiet beauty, verdant slope, and sunny woodland, contain within their bosoms, in form of glen and rock and waterfall, a wealth of wonders which we think cannot be elswhere found within so small a compass.

Upon this flat and the adjacent hill-slopes, in the midst of the scenery just described, the village of Ithaca is built. The earliest accounts suggest that when the first white set- tlers caine, nearly all the territory now west of Cayuga Street, and north and west of Mill and Aurora Streets, was a swamp, covered with a dense growth of trees and vines, with patches of marsh grass. For the dryer ground to the south and east of the limits named (now occupied by the most compactly-built portion of the village, forming the principal business centre), Ithaca is indebted to the trans- porting power of the streams Six-Mile and Cascadilla.

The principal streams, six in number, receive the drain- age of nearly all the county except Ulysses, Lansing, and the west half of Groton. Fall Creek and Cascadilla flow in from the east; Six-Mile from the southeast; Butter- milk, or Ten-Mile Creek, from the south; Cayuga Inlet, whose Indian name is Neguaena, from the southwest ; and Enfield, or Five-Mile Creek, from the west. Six-Mile and Buttermilk Creeks unite with the Inlet at points respect- ively distant one and a half and two and a half miles from the lake, while Five-Mile Creek discharges into the same stream near the southern limit of the town. All these streams finally empty into the lake at its head by two chan- nels, Fall Creek and the Inlet, whose outlets are not more than fifteen rods asunder. The Inlet is remarkable among these dashing streams as being the only one without a rocky bed. Throughout its whole course of fifteen miles, in which it descends nearly 700 feet, it presents not so much as an interesting cascade, but flows swiftly in a tortuous channel of clay and shifting gravel.

Buttermilk Creek has its rise in the flats, near Danby village, 926 feet above Cayuga Lake, and six miles distant from its junction with the Inlet.

The Six-Mile Creek formerly had two branches, one of which pursued a northerly course close to the foot of the hill, until nearly opposite the present residence of Mr. Wil- liam Esty, where it turned to the northwest, and passing

# Ithaca was formed from Ulysses, which was erccted, as one of the original towns of Onondaga Co., March 5, 1794. Its history is traced as Ulysses, Onondaga Co., from March 5, 1794; as Ulysses, Cayuga Co., from March 8, 1799; as Ulysses, Seneca Co., from March 29, 1804; as Ulysses, Tompkins Co., from April 17, 1817 ; and as Ithaca, Tompkins Co., from March 16, 1821.

$24,223.52

RESIDENCE OF J. B.SPRAGUE, ITHACA , NEW YORK

LITH. BY L. H. EVENTS, PHILA.

RESIDENCE OF C. M.TITUS, STATE STREET, ITHACA, N.Y.

LITH BY L. H. EVERTS, PHILADA.

RESIDENCE OF W. W. ESTY, ITHACA, NEW YORK.

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AND SCHUYLER COUNTIES, NEW YORK.

on united with the Cascadilla, first flowing across what is now the northicast corner of Mill and Tioga Streets.

The south branch crossed the bounds of Cayuga Street about twelve rods south of Green Street, thence bearing a little southerly it passed Albany Street a little south from Clinton. Some evidences of this old channel yet remain.

About the year 1824 the two branches were united and confined to what is now the channel, except the part west of Cayuga Street bridge. The course of this was straight to a point near the foot of the " Inclined Planc." This portion was turned into the present channel in the year 1868-69.

The Cascadilla, always a straggling stream, after reach- ing the flat, was made straight in 1836 and " put through the willows" in 1851, where it has since peaceably remained.

Fall Creck, the largest of the streams, is distinguished for the number and grandeur of its cataracts and rapids, aggregating 500 feet of perpendicular fall in the distance of a mile and a half, and affording a vast water-power.

The sweeping away of the forests along the streams has destroyed in large measure that uniformity of flow which once constituted their chief value for purposes of manu- facture. The bulk of rainfall passes off in the form of floods, causing at times great destruction of property and even of life.

Cayuga Lake abounds with fish ; salmon-trout, whitefish, bass, pike, and pickerel being the chief varieties, while its tributaries contain only " small samples" of the beautiful brook trout, with which in the olden time their eddies and rapids swarmed.

Besides the streams we have named, there are several smaller ones whose glens and falls in flood-time contribute much to the volume of waters, and furnish their quota of the beautiful, wild, and picturesque in the scenery about Ithaca.

Springs of cool, clear water burst forth from the hill-sides, and there are few farms withont one or more; but the lake flats seenis to have been their favorite rendezvous from time immemorial. Two, at least, of the latter supply considerable brooks to the inlet, just south of the village limits.

On the " Renwick" property, near the road leading to the lake, what is known as the " Indian Spring" gushes forth from the base of the hill. Another of considerable volume was the occasion of a paper addressed by Mr. Simeon De Witt to the " Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts, and Manufactures."

SOIL.

The soil upon the heights is mainly a gravelly or sandy clay loam, except in the southern portion of the town, where much of it is shallow, derived from the disintegration of the shale or slate immediately underlying it. The soil of the flats we have already described as alluvial. A stratum of clay underlies the low lands at the head of the lake, at a depth of from four to ten feet, giving a sure foundation for roads and buildings, notwithstanding the yielding nature of much of the surface.

Wheat before the appearance of the " midge" was a prominent crop, but because of this pest its culture was almost wholly abandoned for many years. Recently, with

new varieties, it has again been very successfully grown; the crop of 1877 being among the best ever produced.

Grain and grass are alternated upon most of the farmns with good results, and the best of. frnit is grown in abun- dance and in great variety. The slopes fronting the lake and the village of Ithaca are specially prized by the horti- culturist, and thriving vineyards and orchards are among the more prominent and beautiful objects in the landscape. Nearly all the varieties of forest-trees, both " hard" and " soft," that are common to the latitude, were and to a con- siderable extent still are found within the town.

" About Ithaca," writes Governor Clinton, " there is more pine than in any other portion of the western country. Several hundred barrels of tar are made from the pitch pine."

FIRST SETTLEMENTS.

Save the probable visits of the Jesuit Fathers, who as early as 1657 had a mission church at Cayuga, the raiding visit of Colonel Dearborn in 1779 was the first intrusion of the white man into that part of the great wilderness which lay as a crescent about the head of the Lake Tiohero (or Cayuga), and which has since become the political division known as the town of Ithaca. By this incursion of Sulli- van, Cherry Valley and Wyoming had been terribly avenged, the spirit of the red warrior broken, and peace brought to the land so lately the scene of war and massacre.

The apprehension of any further trouble from the Indians having been allayed, it needed but the telling of the returned soldiers' story, embellished only with the truth concerning the physical attractions and great productiveness of the western country, to excite to enthusiasm the spirit of pio- neer emigration.

In regard to the coming of the first settlers into this town we shall follow closely for a time the account given by Mr. Horace King, who thirty-one years ago had access to sources of information which now no longer exist.

In the month of April, 1783, eleven men left Kingston, on the Hudson River, with two Delaware Indians for guides, to explore the country west of the Susquehanna, with the intention of securing a future home. They were a month or more thus employed, but returned without making a location.

In April of the following year, three of their number, related to each other by marriage, Jacob Yaple, Isaac Du- mond, and Peter Hinepaw, revisited the district previously explored and selected four hundred acres on lot No. 94. then in the county of Montgomery, of which the west line of Tioga Street in the village of Ithaca is now the western iimit.

Upon that part which was in the valley were several " Indian clearings," being small patches from which the hazel and thorn bushes had been removed, and which had been cultivated after the manner of the Indians.

It appears that for many years after the first settlement it was the custom for the whole neighborhood, extending several miles around, to avail themselves of these clearings on the Flat. Here they planted corn principally, thinking that it could not be raised upon the higher ground. " Each would build a crib upon the hill-side, into which, after it had matured, the crop was gathered. There were as many

396

HISTORY OF TIOGA, CHEMUNG, TOMPKINS,

as twenty-five of these cribs standing here at the same time." The settlers having planted their corn in these places, left it in the care of John Yaple, a younger brother of Jacob, and returned to bring their families, with whom they came back in September. They brought also a few articles of household furniture, farming utensils, and a number of hogs, sheep, cattle, and horses.

The three families numbered twenty persons : Jacob Yaple, his wife and three children (Philip, Mary, and Peter, and John Yaplc, the brother, who was then twenty-four years of age) ; Isaac Dumond, his wife and three children (Peter, Abram, and Jenny), and John Dumond and his wife, then lately married; Peter Hinepaw, his wife and five children (whose names we cannot give, the eldest of whom was about twelve years of age).

A month was consumed in their journey to Owego, where there was a small settlement, and nineteen days from thence to Ithaca. The route pursued and the diffi- culties necessary to be overcome account for their slow progress. Between Owego and the head of Cayuga Lake was but a well-beaten Indian trail, along which the way had to be cleared through the forest.

Arrived at their new home, they at once set to work to provide appropriate shelters for the several families. Three log cabins were soon erected ; the first on the north side of the Cascadilla Creck, near where now stands the flouring- mill of Howard C. Williams, and was occupied by the family of Mr. Hinepaw. The country about was to a con- siderable extent infested with rattlesnakes ; and the story is told that some thirty were killed on the spot occupied by this cabin on the day of its completion. On entering it at night, several were found on the floor, which were also killed. A large fire was then made, and one person was detailed to watch during the night. In the morning the den was discovered near by, which was then broken up, and a vast number of the dangerous reptiles killed.

The cabins for the Yaple and Dumond families were put up near the spot now covered by the residence of Adam S. Cowdry, on East State Street. No trace of any of these three cabins now remains, not even the chips which we may suppose once lay in great inviting heaps before the door, where often rang the axe to supply the

" Nightly stack Of wood against the chimney-baek, --- The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, And on its top the stout baek-stick."

These families were not without neighbors, though too distant for frequent exchange of calls, favors, or gossip. " At Owego three families had settled the year before ; at Newtown (Elmira) were two or three families, and as many more three or four miles north of Cayuga Lake, on its outlet."

The Indians proved friendly, and gave the new-comers substantial assistance. In summer they occupied the higher ground with their wigwams ; but at the approach of winter, " pitched" them in the gorge of Six-Mile Creek, where was a narrow flat extending up as far as Well Falls. The village, thus compacted, was of considerable size.

There was also a large Indian village some two miles up the inlet to the Cayuga Lake, or Neguaena Creek, as it

was then called, near the residence of the late Thomas Fleming, where was an Indian orchard, of which there are yet some indications .* The second year after the coming of the white people, the greater portion of the Indians removed to their reservation at the north end of the lakc.

The crop of corn was duly gathered by the owners, and this, with twenty-four bushels of wheat procured by one of their number at a settlement upon the Upper Nanticoke, and floured at the nearest mill,-at Wilkesbarre, Pa., -- con- stituted the only supply of grain for the three families for one year.

To provide potatoes for the following season, John Yaple traveled on foot one hundred and sixty miles, to a point on the Delaware, where he obtained three pecks of potato- eyes, or sprouts, and returned, carrying them in a sack upon his shoulders. This would appear to have been an unnecessary task, if the claim be true that the Indians at Taghanie had raised the potato but a few years previous.

Game was abundant in the adjacent forests, affording for the table rare bits of deer and bear ; while the lake and its tributaries sheltered and supported the choicest of the finny tribe.

A stump, whose top had been hollowed by burning and scraping, served as a mortar in which to pound their corn, the wooden pestle being attached to a pole suspended like a well-sweep,-a common method with settlers in a new country. From meal thus prepared were made their cakes and hominy.

In the second year of the settlement, Jacob Yaple built a small mill, near the cabin of Mr. Hinepaw, on the Cas- cadilla, which was capable of grinding twenty or twenty- five bushels of grain per day. All the works were made by Mr. Yaple himself, even the mill-stones, which he suc- ceeded in forming from a large granite bowlder. Some traces of this mill remained until recent years, the stones being the last to disappear. These were carried off by freshet a few years since.

This mill was called the " little pepper-mill," and was resorted to for a long time by inhabitants in the country near by.

William Van Orman, a son of one of the early settlers, says that his father frequently carried a grist of one or two bushels to this mill, and many times stayed all night to get it ground.

For a time the bran was separated from the flour with a sieve, as the mill had no bolting-cloth. The increasing population soon required additional facilities for grinding ; but meantime, distant settlements were resorted to, and many a tedious journey was performed with the grist before this want was supplicd.t

" In the year 1875 the remains of five Indians, together with ket- tles, beads, etc., were exhnmed from the side of the highway, at a point nearly opposite the "Fleming" school-house. Some years earlier, other similar evidenees of an Indian settlement had been nn- earthed at the gravel-bank near the residence of Mr. James Barnes.

¡ An incident of this kind is thus related by Mr. King, p. 51. " Mr. McDowell set out for Owego with a load of grain drawn by an ox-team. For three nights he turned his cattle ont to browse, and himself returned home to sleep; and for two nights after, serving them in the same way, he walked to Owego to procure rest, and with his load arrived there on the sixth day.

397

AND SCHUYLER COUNTIES, NEW YORK.

To properly season the homely fare which she studiously provided for her family, each good housewife found the item of salt a necessity. This, fortunately, was easily obtained ; for somewhere near by there was evidently a salt spring known to the Indians, who, when requested, would furnish the desired quantity after a short absenee.

One of the legends respeeting the salt spring, which has been corroborated by divers like testimonies, runs thus : an old Indian woman would often come to the house of William Van Orman to procure salt, and if there was none, as frequently happened, would borrow a kettle and disappear in the woods to the northward, and after a half-day's ab- sence, return with it full of salt quite warm.

We learn that Mr. Sager also procured salt of the In- dians, who, instead of boiling it in the woods, in this case brought the brine to a convenient place near his house, and there made the salt .*

Robert McDowell, with his family, eame in after the fam- ilies we have already mentioned had become fairly settled in their forest home,-a period of nearly or quite one year.

Although involving a slight confliet of dates, we will fol- low the account of this family, as given by Nieoll Halsey, as it contains something more of incident than that of Mr. King.

In the month of September, 1786, Robert McDowell, Ira Stevens, and Jonathan Woodwortht moved with their families from Kingston, near Wilkesbarre, Pa., to Tioga Point and Chemung. The next summer Robert McDowell, Nehemiah and Charles Woodworth (sons of Jonathan), Abram Smith, Joseph Smith, and Richard Loomis, eame from Chemung by way of Catharine, to the head of Cayuga Lake, and there eut and put up a quantity of marsh hay, and then returned to Chemung. The ensning fall, Abram Smith and the two Woodworths again visited the lake flats, this time bringing eattle, to winter them on the hay already prepared. In the spring of 1788 they went baek to Che- mung, when Mr. McDowell, accompanied by Jane, his eldest daughter, then about seven years of age, and two boys, --- one a negro,-returned to the rude farm at the head of the lake, where Ithaca now stands, and planted a quantity of corn and sowed some spring wheat, and followed up this

# Notwithstanding much carnest inquiry and search for this fabled spring, it has thus far yielded only " tho pleasures of hope" for a

Between 1817 and 1820, Mr. Torry, fathor of Elijah B. Torry, having faith in the traditions concerning salt in this valley, sunk two shafts to a considerable depth, at a spot just south of the present cor- poration, near the Spencer road ; but instead of salt water, he tapped perennial veins of fresh. Portions of tho old curbing are still to be seen. Again, in 1864 an attempt to obtain salt by boring very deep, was made; but the company, formell for the purpose, died of too much management.

As matter of historic interest in this connection, we cannot with- hold this further quotation from the Journal of Do Witt Clinton, da'od Ithaca, Ang. 11, 1810: " It is said that thoro are salt likes (licks ?) in this country, and one near this place, formerly much fre- quented by deer, which were in great plenty when the country was first settled, and on being pursned by dogs, immediately took to the lakes, in which they wero easily shot. . . . This is probably a link in the chain of fossil salt, extending from Salina to Louisiana, like the main range of the Alleghany Mountains."-Campbell's Life of De Witt Clinton, p. 163.

t Father of the late Jonathan P. Woodworth, of Trumansburg.

enterprise in the fall of the same yeart by bringing in his entire family, composed of himself, wife, and five children, -Jane, Hannah, Euphins, John, and Daniel.

Mr. McDowell was the first settler on the Abraham Bloodgood tract of 1400 acres; since known as all that part of the corporation of Ithaca lying west of Tioga Street. He put up his eabin somewhere near what is now the junction of Seneca and Cayuga Streets, about where stands the fine residence of Samuel H. Winton. Upon this spot, until 1874, stood a wooden building erceted by Mr. Henry Ackley (father of Mrs. Winton) in the year 1812 or 1813.

Since the above was written, we have received from Orlo Horton, of Covert, the record of these events, as nar- rated to him by one of the actors .- Nehemiah Woodworth. From this account it appears that in June, 1788, Captain Jonathan Woodworth and his two sons, with five others, followed Sullivan's trail to Peach Orchard, then passed down Halsey's Creek to the Cayuga Lake, and encamped on the north side of Goodwin's Point, and on the following day went up to the head of the lake. In July the same party of six named in Mr. Halsey's aecount (except that David Smith is substituted for Abram) made hay on the lake flats, where they were joined by Peter Hinepaw and Isaac Dumond. The Woodworth party brought provisions and two eows ; and that fall drove in all their stock, about seventy head of eattle and horses. During the winter, Abram Smith and a man named Stevens (Ira ?) had trouble with wolves, one of which they killed. They killed also a large bear on the lake, near Salmon Creek. The account further says that the Woodworth family " moved in, in the spring of 1789, and remained until 1793 ;" that they had a mortar made from a large stump standing " near the present eourt-house," and that Nehemiah assisted in bring- ing in the mill-stones, on an ox-sled.

This is the only reeord we have eoneerning the settle- nient of the Woodworth family at Ithaea. The mill-stones alluded to were probably the first that were brought in,- not the first used.

William Van Orman must have settled in the valley at. an early day, and followed very soon the others already mentioned. The precise date of his settlement is not known, but as his first preparation of corn for food was by means of the sturmup and pestle, we may reasonably infer that the date was prior to the erection of the Yaple mill, which he subsequently patronized so patiently. He was assessor for Ulysses in 1795.

Mr. Van Orman first settled on two hundred acres

Mr. King, in his history, fixes the settlement of the MeDowell family in the fall of 1790, two years later than the date named by Mr. Halsey. The Intter, however, says, "Peter Hindpaugh came with his family in the summer of 1788, und settled al Ithaca ; came from what was then called the Cook House, on the Delaware River. Inanc Dumond, Jacob Yaple, Job Rogers, and Isane Patchen, and Andrew Patchen, n bachelor, came on about the same time Robert MeDowell did."

Thus n discrepancy of two years exists, involving. however, no ques- tion of priority, as The carlier settlement of the three families is ad- mitted. Mr. King alludes to the settlement at Owego of "ihrce families The year preceding" the selllement at Ithaca, thus making the date of the Owego settlement 1788. This is correct.

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HISTORY OF TIOGA, CHEMUNG, TOMPKINS,

which he had bought of a Mr. Hughes, known as part of military lot No. 82, and which he occupied for about twelve years, when by reason of defective title he lost it all. The farm is now known as the "Spencer" or " Wal- bridge" farm. Mr. Walter Wood sueeeeded Mr. Van Orman in the possession and ownership of this farm.

Baffled in his first purchase, Mr. Van Orman took land on lot No. 83, of the same traet, then owned by George Sager, who had purchased it from one Pangborn, his brother-in-law. The latter had received the lot as a reward for his service in the Revolution.

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History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler counties, New York, Part 107

Author: Peirce, H. B. (Henry B.) cn; Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Ensign Number of Pages: 1112

Author: Peirce, H. B. (Henry B.) cn; Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Ensign
Number of Pages: 1112