History of Wyoming County, N.Y., with Illustrations, Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Some Pioneers and Prominent Residents, Part 2

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Publication date: 1880
Publisher: F.W. Beers & Co.
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USA > New York > Wyoming County > History of Wyoming County, N.Y., with Illustrations, Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Some Pioneers and Prominent Residents > Part 2

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).

This service of compilation and research, which very few can undertake for themselves, the publishers of this work have endeavored to perform; and though some mistakes may doubtless be found among such a multitude of details in spite of the care exercised, yet the publishers confidently present this result of many months' labor as a true narrative of the events in the history of this county which were of sufficient importance to merit such record.

Events are the offspring of events that have preceded, ----

and the parents of those which follow them. They consti- tute such an intricate net-work that the history of even so limited a region as a county has its ramifications in remote times and distant regions, and cannot be justly written without transcending the county limits for many essential facts; hence the necessity for such an outline as has been presented of the State history.

To avoid circumlocution, present geographical names are often used in the following pages where the events narrated occurred long before these names had an existence.

In addition to original sources of information, the follow- ing works have been consulted in the preparation of this volume : A. W. Young's Histories of Warsaw and of Chautauqua County; Turner's Histories of the Holland Purchase and of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase; Stone's Lives of Brant and Red Jacket; Morgan's League of the Iroquois; Parkman's The Jesuits in North America; Mer- ril's History of the Twenty-fourth Independent Battery; files of the Western New Yorker, etc.

Those possessing desirable information have uniformly been kind and courteous in imparting it, and have thus facilitated the preparation of the work. Especial acknowl- edgments are due to Hon. Augustus Frank and Hon. William P. Letchworth for valuable aid and encouragement; also to Miss Elizabeth Young, for permission to use the works and manuscripts of her father, the late A. W. Young; to David E. E. Mix, of Batavia, for the use of the Holland Land Company's ledgers; to C. A. Hull, clerk of Genesee county, for assistance in his office; and to Charles J. Gardner, clerk of Wyoming county, and his deputy, Mr. Quackenbush, for many acts of kindness. The editors of the various journals in the county have been uniformly courteous and obliging. and to them thanks are due, as well as to the pastors of churches and the secretaries of other organizations.

The following gentlemen are the authors of the histories of their respective towns: Hon. Hugh T. Brooks, Coving- ton; Hon. A. B. Rose and Prof. D. W. Smith, Castile; A. P. Sherrill, Pike; Colonel G. G. Prey, Eagle; B. F. Bristol, Prof. Edson J. Quigley and Augustus Harrington, Gaines- ville; and Hon. Lucius Peck, Arcade.

Acknowledgments for good offices are also due to the Hon. Wolcott J. Humphrey, General Linus W. Thayer, the Hon. Samuel Tewksbury, Captain A. B. Lawrence, Ephraim Brainard, Colonel J. O. McClure, Lloyd A. Hayward, Esq., C. W. Bailey, Esq., Marvin Wood, Anson Elmer, Amos Otis, Mrs. James McElroy, Simeon Hodges, S. N. Naramore, Captain William S. Agett and James 'Tolles. The gentleman last named, one of the most prominent pioneers of the town of Bennington, kept a most full and interesting record of noteworthy events, which fur- nished a large portion of the history of that town in the following pages. We should also mention among those who rendered valuable assistance Ephraim Wheeler, Harvey Merrell (since deceased) and Harvey Stone, of Orangeville; Richard L. Charles, Mrs. Daniel Wolcott and John J. Doolittle, of Wethersfield; and Squire Lockwood, Justus Blakely, Mrs. Moses Twiss and John Eddy, of Java.

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE

STATE OF NEW YORK.

CHAPTER I.

THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES CHARACTERISTICS AND CUS- TOMS OF THE FIVE NATIONS OF NEW YORK.

HE American continent, in its natural features, presents a striking and diversified display of resources and grandeurs. Bounded by oceans; indented with numerous gulfs and bays; inter- sected and drained by large rivers; embracing lakes equal in extent to seas, it affords every facility for commerce; while its fertile valleys and extensive plains are admirably adapted to agricultural pursuits, and its rocks are stored with minerals of inestimable value. The magnificence of mountain scenery, the dashing flood and deafening roar of Niagara, the subterranean labyrinths of Mammoth Cave, are features of nature which fill the be- holder with wonder and amazement. To what people were these resources offered and these grandeurs presented in the dim ages of the past ? With only the shadowy and uncertain light of tradition, little else than speculation can furnish anything like a beginning to the history of the aborigines of America. The ruins of cities and pyramids in Mexico and Central America, and the numerous mounds so common in the valley of the Mississippi, are monuments which point to a people more skilled in arts and farther advanced in civil- ization than the Indian, found in occupancy when the first Europeans landed. Some of these mounds appear to have been erected for burial places, and others for defense. The remains of fortifications present evidence of mechani- cal skill, and no little display of the knowledge of engineer- ing. Metallic implements of ingenious design and superior finish, and finely wrought pottery, glazed and colored, equal to the best specimens of modern manufacture, have been found, showing a higher degree of mechanical skill than the Indian has ever been known to possess. Some of these re. mains have been found twenty feet or more below the sur- face, showing that they must have lain there for centuries. All the investigations of the antiquarian to discover by what people these mounds were erected have ended in uncertainty.

If these are the relics of a lost people, as many believe they are, it seems somewhat probable that they were from Egypt. Their pyramids and skill in the arts, together with the fact that human bodies have been found preserved somewhat similar to Egyptian mummies, support this theory. At an early age the Egyptians, who were noted for their skill in navigation, sailed around Africa, and made inany other voy- ages, in some of which they may have reached America. Aristotle, Plato and other ancient writers appear to have been aware of an extensive body of land in the West, speak- ing of it as an island, greater than Europe or Africa. It is also supposed that the Egyptians may have reached America through Asia. It is related that an Asiatic people emigrated to Egypt and conquered the Mizraimites, who were then in possession; and that they became distinguished for their arts, built cities and erected gigantic pyramids, which still re- main as evidence of their skill and power. The Mizraimites, smarting under their tyranny, rose against them, and after a long struggle succeeded in driving them out of the land. They retreated to the northeast, leaving mounds and walls as far as Siberia as traces of their passage, and, it is thought, crossed Behring's strait, and eventually settled in the Missis- sippi valley and Mexico.

Leaving conjecture, in regard to the earliest inhabitants of this continent, it is enough to say that the pioneer ex- plorers of our State found dwelling on its soil a race of sav- ages whom English speaking people have universally called Indians since the American aborigines were first met with in the West Indies. New York was occupied by five con- federate tribes of these savages, originally named by the English the Five Nations, by the French the Iroquois, and by themselves Konoshioni-the " cabin builders "-and Hen- denosaunee-the "people of the long house." The "long house " formed by the Iroquois confederacy extended east and west through the central portion of the State, having at its eastern portal the Mohawks and at its western the Senecas; while between them dwelt the Oneidas Onondagas and Cayugas, and after 1714 a sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, southeast of Oneida lake.

While we need not share the enthusiasm of some writers, who have competed for the discovery of the most admirable qualities in the Indians of New York, it is yet impossible to regard without interest these primitive inhabitants of our State. It is needless to dwell minutely on their personal ap- pearance, as their muscular forms, reddish brown and beard-

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF STATE OF NEW YORK.

less faces, black eyes and coarse,straight black hair, are more or less familiar to the present generation. The derivation of the race is still matter of speculation among curious scholars, and the origin of the league of the Iroquois is but little better understood. " Research into conflicting tradi- tion " led Mr. Brodhead to adopt 1539 as the date of that event, and to conclude that the ancestors of the Five Na- tions, before settling in New York, were driven from Canada by the Adirondacs. One of their own traditions of their origin represented that in the beginning Tharonhyjagon, the "Holder of the Heavens," evoked them from beneath a mountain near the falls of the Oswego river (which have nothing like a mountain within thirty miles of them); that they journeyed to their final dwelling places by way of that river and its tributary waters; and that they adopted their league at the suggestion of the wise men of the central tribe, the Onondagas, after experiencing the miseries of hostility among themselves and defeat by enemies from abroad.

While such myths but illustrate the ignorance which has always prevailed as to the origin of the Iroquois and their federal compact, the features of their national character and domestic and public polity, some of which made them undeniably superior to the other savages of North America, have been pretty well ascertained. They lived in huts made of bark fastened by withes to a framework of poles, many families usually crowding into one cabin; permanent villages were stockaded with two rows of posts crossed over a log lying between them, and thus fortified were called castles. They clothed themselves scantily in the skins of wild beasts; and fed on the game brought down by the flint-tipped ar- rows of the men, who would do. no servile labor until too old for war and the chase, and on the corn, beans and pumpkins, or squashes, cultivated by the women. Beasts and reptiles indiscriminately were game to them, and their cookery was of the nastiest description. They had a child- ish fondness for gaudy ornaments and fabrics, and for showy ceremonies and formalities. Polygamy existed among them, and the marriage agreement was annulled at pleasure, the household goods being divided between the man and woman, and the children accompanying the latter.

The shadow of government existing among the tribes was administered by their chiefs, some of whom, as among cer- tain civilized people, held their position by inheritance, and others by conspicuous force of character. Their jurisdiction did not extend to the punishment of crime, which was left to private vengeance rather than committed to public au- thority. In the matter of religion these savages believed in a Good Spirit and a happy immortality, but worshiped the devil, with heathenish mummeries and incantations.

One of the most notable of the social arrangements of the Iroquois was the division of each nation into clans, distin- guished by symbolic devices which have been called "totems," which they painted upon their cabins and their persons, and in their later history affixed to the deeds of the lands given up by them to the whites. The totems were the same in each of the Five Nations, and the'bearer of any one of them was entitled to hospitality from those of his totemic division in any other tribe. The chief clans, as distinguished by their symbols, were those of the Tortoise, the Wolf, the Bear and the Beaver; and the devices of the minor ones were the Deer, Potato, Great and Little Plovers and Eagle.

In their universal fondness for war and their methods of conducting it the Iroquois betrayed their essential savagery. They fought with bows, spears and stone hatchets, and shielded themselves with tough leather; but eagerly obtained rifles, knives and steel tomahawks from the Dutch traders on becoming acquainted with such weapons. They attacked by surprise and ambuscade, and whenever possible fought under cover. They took the scalps of their fallen enemies for trophies, and usually put their captives to death with fiendish tortures, in the unflinching endurance of which was displayed the highest degree of the stoicism which was a marked feature of the Indian character. Hostilities might be suspended at the demand of the women without dis- credit to the braves who had been carrying them on.

It was in three respects that the Iroquois chiefly showed their mental superiority over the savage tribes surrounding them, namely: the original organization of their league; the boldness of conception with which they pushed their victor- ious campaigns almost to the eastern and southern limits of the United States and throughout the Mississippi valley; and the cultivation of oratory and its display in their deliberative assemblies. Their confederation united them but loosely and for a few general purposes. There was r.o authoritative central government, and common action was taken only upon a unanimous vote of the tribes represented in the great council, which sat with the Onondagas, in which each tribe must also speak with unanimous voice. The military advantages of the associated action of the Five Nations are obvious. By their united weight they overcame all opposi- tion until confronted by the superior discipline and arm- ament of the white man, and made their common name a terror to the other native tribes throughout the greater por- tion of the United States. Their dominance is thus elo- quently pictured in Street's " Frontenac:"

"The fierce Adirondacs had fled from their wrath, The Hurons been swept from their merciless path; Around, the Ottawas, like leaves, had been strewn, And the lake of the Eries struck silent and lone, The Lenape, lords once of valley and hill. Made women, bent low at their conquerors' will.

By the far Mississippi the Illini shrank When the trail of the TORToise was seen on the bank; On the hills of New England the Pequod turned pale When the howl of the WOLF swelled at night on the gale; And the Cherokee shook in his green, smiling bowers When the foot of the BEAR stamped his carpet of flowers."

The relative superiority of the Mohawks among the Iro- quois, except in point of numbers, is a fact attested ' . abundant historical authority, including the following pas- sage by Mr. Brodhead:

"Of all the confederated nations the Mohawks were the bravest and fiercest. No hunter warriors on the North American continent ever filled a higher measure of heroism and military renown. Their very name was a synonym for blood. From their propinquity to the Dutch settlements, and their superior martial exploits, the name of this nation was frequently applied, by way of eminence, to the whole Iroquois confederation; among all the nations of which the Mohawks were held in the highest veneration. Standing at the eastern door of the 'long house,' the Mohawk war- riors were the chief agents in carrying to the sea the con- quests of the Iroquois. Far across the hills of Massachu- setts, and through the valley of the Connecticut, the dreaded name of Mohawk enforced an absolute submission; and

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TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER-EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS.

their annual envoys collected tribute and dictated laws with all the arbitrary authority of Roman proconsuls."

After the advent of the whites opposing interests among them appealed to the Iroquois with distracting influences which finally ruined their famous league and drove them from their ancient hunting grounds.

Though the Indians are generally credited with taciturn- ity, their deliberations in council were monuments of ver- bosity. It was in their parleys with the whites in early times that they made the long-winded speeches, which, as inter- preted by the civilized reporters, have laid the foundation of their oratorical reputation. Their language was extremely figurative, their speeches often consisting largely of a search for picturesque conceits to express the simplest ideas.

It has been customary with recent writers on the Indians to ascribe to them many and lofty excellencies and abilities, and to begin by deprecating the alleged disposition to do them injustice and to ignore their claims to respect and admiration. If such a disposition ever existed, the tide of opinion has of late certainly been flowing the other way, and it may be time for the ebb. There seems to have been something like statesmanship in the formation of the league of the Iroquois, albeit the expedient was the simplest pos- sible, and the object success in savage warfare; also in the means by which the league was strengthened, including the complicated system of family and tribal relationship; but has not the glory of this barbarian union been exaggerated ? For example, must we believe all we read of Indian oratory ? Not satisfied with the eloquent periods ascribed to the red speech-makers, their eulogists remind us that we have only white men's versions of what the orators said, and assume that the speeches suffered by the interpretation. But it is possible that they gained. The interpreters, it is said, were often illiterate men; but they were in all cases less so than the orators, and in many cases they must be admitted to have been quite adequate to the task. One of the most famous of Indian orations is the address of Garangula, alias La Grande Gueule-Big Mouth, as Mr. Parkman translates it -to De La Barre in the conference at the mouth of Salmon river, in Oswego county; "but this," says Mr. Clinton, in his celebrated eulogy of the Iroquois, "was interpreted by Monsieur Le Moine, a French Jesuit, and recorded on the spot by Baron La Hontan, men of enlightened and culti. vated minds." The man who translated it from the French must have been a scholar, and it is not likely that the speech suffered in his hands. Mr. Parkman makes a very suggest- ive remark on Big Mouth: " Doubtless as he stood in full dress before the governor and the officers, his head plumed, his face painted, his figure draped in a colored blanket and his feet decked with embroidered moccasons, he was a pic- turesque and striking object; he was less so as he squatted almost naked by his lodge fire, with a piece of board laid across his lap, chopping rank tobacco with a scalping knife to fill his pipe, and entertaining the grinning circle with grotesque stories and obscene jests." Fondness for speech- making does not necessarily argue eloquence, and it is not easy to believe in a phenomenal development of true oratory in a race of savages, who were primarily warriors, in a skulking and brutal fashion, and whose home life, if we may use the expression, was, generation after generation alike, contentedly passed in idleness and squalor. On the whole we may say that, questionable as may have been

some of the white man's dealings with the Iroquois, the ex- pulsion from their ancient territory of that people, with their doubtful virtues and indubitable barbarity, was an exceed- ingly good riddance.

CHAPTER II.

EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT ON THE ATLANTIC COAST AND THE HUDSON RIVER.

HE discovery of America was the most important event of modern times. For the honor of this discovery several claims have been presented. Welsh historians have awarded it to Modoc, a prince of Wales, who went to sea in the twelfth century, and discovered land far to the west, to which he made several voyages, but who, with all his crew, was finally lost. This claim is founded on tradition, how- ever, and unsubstantiated.

The Norwegians claim discovery and settlement on stronger evidence. Eric emigrated from Iceland to Green- land in 986 and founded a settlement. Leif, a son of Eric, embarked with a crew of men in the year 1000 on a voy- age of discovery. He sailed to the southwest and discov- ered land; voyaging along the coast he finally entered a bay, where he remained through the winter, calling the region Vinland

In 1007 Thorfinn sailed from Greenland to Vinland. An account of this voyage is still extant. Other voyages were made, and the Antiquarian Society, after a careful exami- nation of all the evidence, including the geography of the country described in these voyages, do not hesitate to locate this Vinland at the head of Narragansett Bay, in Rhode Island.

These discoveries, however, were so ineffectual that noth- ing was known in Europe of land .beyond the ocean until 1492, when Christopher Columbus, believing that India might be reached by sailing westward, was, at his urgent solicitation, dispatched on a voyage of discovery by Ferdi- nand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain He sailed from Palos, and after stopping at.the Canaries struck out upon the hitherto unknown sea, discovering first one of the Bahama islands; then proceeding toward the south he discovered Cuba and Hayti, and returned to Spain, thus opening a highway over the trackless Atlantic. He made other voy- ages, and in 1498 discovered the continent near the mouth of the Orinoco river. The discovery of land in the west promised large profits, and excited maritime enterprise througout Europe. Henry VII. commissioned John Cabot, a Venetian, in 1497, to sail on a voyage of discovery, and take possession of new lands in the name of England. Sailing westward, in company with his son Sebastian, he discovered Newfoundland, and while off the coast of Lab- rador saw the main-land of North America The next year Sebastian set sail to discover a northwest passage to China. The frozen regions at the north compelled him to change his course, and sailing toward the south he visited various points along the coast as far as Albemarle sound, taking

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF STATE OF NEW YORK.

possession of the whole region for the crown of England. John Verazzani, a Florentine in the service of Francis I., of France, arrived on the coast of North Carolina in 1524, and sailed south as far as Georgia. Turning north, he explored the coast to about 41º north latitude, and entered a harbor, which, from his description, is believed to have been New York Bay, where he remained about fifteen days, and it is supposed that his crew were the first Europeans that landed on the soil of New York. He proceeded north as far as Labrador, giving to the whole country the name of New France, which was afterward confined to Canada.

Henry Hudson, an. English navigator, having failed in two expeditions to discover a passage to the East Indies, for a company of London merchants, by sailing westward, offered his services in 1609 to the Dutch East India Com- pany of Holland, which was formed the preceding year for traffic and colonization. He left Amsterdam on the 4th of April with a small ship and a crew of about twenty English and Dutch sailors, and arrived on the American coast near Portland, in Maine, whence he proceeded south along the shore to the entrance of Chesapeake Bay. From this point he returned northward, discovered and entered Delaware Bay, and on the 3d of September anchored at Sandy Hook. From here he proceeded up New York Bay, sending his boats to the Jersey shore and receiving on board the natives, who came in great numbers to traffic. On the 12th he en- tered the river which bears his name, and ascended it to a point a little above where the city of Hudson now stands, having been frequently visited on the way by the Indians, who came to traffic, bringing maize, tobacco and other products native to the country. To them he imparted a knowledge of the effects of rum, to the drinking of which in later years they became greatly addicted. Not considering it safe to proceed further with his ship, he sent a boat with a part of his crew to explore the river higher up. It is sup- posed that they went a little above Albany. On the 23d he commenced to descend the river. When a little below the Highlands, the Indians made several attempts to attack his crew, who, in repulsing their attacks, shot ten or twelve of their number. Descending into the bay he immediately sailed for Europe. The following year he made a voyage for the discovery of a northwest passage to India, and dis- covered and entered the bay which bears his name. Con- tinuing his search too long, he was compelled to remain through the winter. In the spring part of his crew mutinied, put him in a boat, together with his son and seven others, and left them to perish. In 1607 Samuel Champlain, a French navigator, ascended the St. Lawrence river, ex- ploring its tributaries; and on the 4th of July discovered the lake which bears his name. Hence three nations, Holland, France and England, founding their titles upon discovery, claimed ownership in a region a part of which lies within the State of New York.

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History of Wyoming County, N.Y., with Illustrations, Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Some Pioneers and Prominent Residents, Part 2

Author: Publication date: 1880 Publisher: F.W. Beers & Co. Number of Pages:

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: F.W. Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: