USA > New York > Wyoming County > History of Wyoming County, N.Y., with Illustrations, Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Some Pioneers and Prominent Residents > Part 77
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He immediately entered upon his purchase, made a small opening in the forest and built a log house a few rods west from the present site of the Baptist church. He was the only settler, and he must have gone some distance for help to raise his cabin. The nearest settlement was at Wright's
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THE SETTLEMENT OF WARSAW.
Corners, in what is now Middlebury. It is said that the choppers then at work on the " old Buffalo road," which passes east and west through Warsaw, a mile and a half north from the village, assisted. The house was one of the rudest of its kind. As usual the fire place was without jambs, and the aperture for the passage of the smoke was of sufficient capacity to give the house a tolerable lighting from above. The roof was of elm bark, and the floor of split basswood plank, hewn on one side. There was neither board por nail in the whole structure.
Mr. Webster returned to Hampton, and in October re- moved to Warsaw with his family, consisting of a wife and five children. He came with two teams, one a horse team driven by himself, the other, two yoke of oxen driven by Shubael Morris and Amos Keeny who came to seek homes. Lyman Morris, also from Hampton, came at the same time or soon afterwards. They came by way of Le. Roy and Wright's Corners.
During several years the settlers of Warsaw procured their supplies from a distance. The nearest grist-mill was at Le Roy, a journey to and from which required two or three days with an ox team, by way of Wright's Corners over the half opened roads.
Another was at Conesus, six miles east from Geneseo. Many of the settlers had spent all their means on their journey of three hundred miles hither, and were subjected to many privations. The experience of Mr. Keeny, though extraordinarily severe, may be taken as an example.
As already stated, Mr. Keeny came with Judge Webster to Warsaw in October, 1803, and drove one of his teams. He contracted with Mr. Webster for fifty acres of land, which he was to pay for by clearing ten acres for him. The condition of his domestic affairs prevented him from re- maining to build a house, and he traveled back to Hampton on foot with Lyman Morris, who had also bargained for a farm. He returned in March, built his log house, chopped two acres for Mr. Webster, between what is now Main street and the creek north from Buffalo street, in Warsaw village, and started again for Hampton with his provisions in a knapsack. In attempting to ford the Genesee river he came near being drowned. He had but ten shillings in money, and he could not afford to pay the ferriage of a shilling. His brother in Oneida county replenished his knapsack, and he reached Hampton after paying his last sixpence on the morning of the last day for a lodging.
In October he and Lyman Morris came with their families; Mr. Keeny having a wife and three children, and Mr. Morris a wife and two children. They had one wagon, which car- ried the effects of both families, with the women and children. The wagon and team of two yoke of oxen ·belonged to Mr. Morris, who had also three cows and Mr. Keeny one. The king-bolt of the wagon broke when they were ten miles from Warsaw, and they were compelled to pass a night in a camp in the woods. The next morning. after vainly trying a wooden bolt, they started on foot, leaving the wagon with the goods in the woods. Mr. Morris drove the oxen and carried Jonathan, then two years old. Stephen Perkins drove the cows and carried George, then nearly five years of age. Mr. Keeny turned up the bottom of his overcoat'and formed a kind of sack, in which he car- ried his two eldest children, Betsey and Harry, and his wife carried the baby, about six months old. This is probably
the only instance known of ten immigrants entering a town five of them being carried by four of the other five. Mr. Morris arrived first, and made the situation of the others known to Mr. Webster, who met them at the foot of the hill a mile and a half north, on the old Buffalo road, which had just been opened. He relieved Mrs. Keeny of her burden, and escorted the party to his hospitable cabin.
Mr. Keeny's hardships had but just begun. He owed ten dollars or more for the transportation of his goods. His stock of provisions was reduced, on his arrival, to a few pounds of flour and a part of a salt fish. His house was a rude one of its kind. It had no other chimney than a wide opening. The fireplace had not even a stone back wall, the fire being kept at a safe distance from the wooden wall. Their first night's sleep in their new house was disturbed by the howling of the wolves, with which the wilderness abounded.
Scanty as was Mrs. Keeny's wardrobe, a flannel skirt was sold to Sterling Stearns for some wheat or flour, and a chintz dress to Josiah Hovey, sen., for twelve bushels of corn, de- livered at Geneseo, where Mr. Hovey had in the preceding summer raised it. He hired an ox-team and went for his corn. He took it to Bosley's mill, six miles from Geneseo, and had it ground. . He had then a tolerable supply of bread- stuff, and in order to store it he cut from a hollow basswood tree several sections some three feet in length, shaved off the bark and smoothed them inside. Into these he put the meal in layers about two inches deep, separated by clean, flat stones. In this way it was kept, and, with the flour pre- viously purchased, lasted nearly a year. One of these ves- sels is still in use for other purposes, and it will probably descend to " the third and fourth generations " as a memo- rial of pioneer life on the Holland Purchase.
Their meat during the first winter was chiefly venison, fur- nished by Judge Webster, who was skillful in the use of the rifle. He killed the deer and half dressed them, which was done by loosening the skin from the fore part of the animal and taking out the entrails. The carcass was then divided crosswise, and the parts were fastened to a sapling bent down, or to the limb of a tree, which, springing back, would raise them beyond the reach of the wolves. Mr. Keeny, guided by the tracks in the snow, found and brought in the meat, taking the fore-quarters for his share. During part of one or two seasons Judge Webster supplied some of the settlers with pigeons, which he caught in a net, and they re- turned to him the feathers.
In 1804 a number of families and several young men set- tled in the town. Three named Hovey came early in the spring, and they were followed in a few months by their father with five younger sons, most of them minors. Elijah Cut- ting, Josiah Jewett, Nehemiah Fargo, Josiah Boardman, Jonas Cutting, William Knapp, Amos Keeny, Lyman Mor- ris, Sterling Stearns and others settled in the course of the season. Mr. Stearns was one of the first settlers at Wright's Corners, but he came from there in the spring of 1804. He stopped on his way at Mr. Webster's, where one of his children, a son two years of age, died of croup. It was buried by Amos Keeny, Elijah Cutting and William Web- ster, the last a youth of seventeen, living with his brother Elizur. They cut away a few trees on the hill half a mile south from Mr. Webster's, and dug a grave; and as the water was high in the creek they crossed it single file, on a
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HISTORY OF WYOMING COUNTY, NEW YORK.
large log, a short distance north from the hill, one of them carrying under his arm the coffin, which was made of a por- tion of a wagon box-the only boards that could be found. This was the old cemetery. There was no one to conduct any religious service. Mr. Stearns was a Revolutionary soldier, a volunteer in the war of 1812, and was killed in the battle of Queenston. The second death in the town was that of a son of Nehemiah Fargo, who was drowned in the Oatka, in the autumn of 1804.
In 1805 no more than three additional settlers are known to have been added to the list-Giles Parker, Lot Marchant and Hezekiah Wakefield.
In 1806 it appears from the number of recorded land sales that the population more than doubled.
The first marriage in Warsaw was that of Silas C. Fargo to Catharine Whiting, March 2nd, 1806. They were mar. ried by Elizur Webster, Esq., the first magistrate as well as the first settler.
The first saw-mill in the town was built by Judge Web- ster; and it supplied a serious want that had been felt be- fore. French's Gazetteer dates the erection of this mill 1804, which must be a mistake; for a portion of the gearing was made by Mr. Simeon Hovey in his kitchen in the win- ter, and he did not come to Warsaw till the spring of 1804. It could not therefore have been running earlier than 1805. It was built near the point where the Oatka creek is crossed by the first road north from South Warsaw.
The first grist-mill was built near this saw-mill by Joseph Morley, or Manley, as nearly as can be ascertained, in 1806, and sold the same year to Mr. Morris, who completed it in 1807.
According to the Gazetteer the first store was established by Absalom Green and Daniel Shaw, in 1809. It is said that although these men brought some goods with them when they came, they had not a general assortment, and made no purchases afterward. The first regular store was kept by Almon Stevens, agent for John Dixon, a merchant of Rich- mond, Ontario county. He came in 1813, and at first oc- cupied the bar-room of the tavern which Judge Webster built and discontinued when another had been built capable of accommodating the public. At that time, and during many years afterward, goods were, by reason of the expense of transportation, very dear; especially many articles such as groceries, iron, nails, etc. They were brought in wagons from Albany, and a trip required three or four weeks.
The town had no physician previous to the advent of Dr. Chauncey L. Sheldon, in 1808, and people were obliged to go for one to Attica or Geneseo, the nearest places where there were any.
At first the transaction of public business was attended with much inconvenience. It was all done at Batavia, where it was necessary to go to attend town meetings, which the people did not often do. Attendance on the courts as jurors was, however, obligatory, and burdensome to the poor set- tlers. Amos Keeny and Peter W. Harris were the first jurors summoned from Warsaw. They were absent five days, two of which were consumed in going and returning. They tried three causes, received seventy-five cents each in fees, and paid two dollars each for board.
THOROUGHFARES.
The old stage road to Buffalo passes east and west nearly
through the center of the town, and the road which runs along the valley of the Oatka creek passes north and south through almost the exact center of the town in that direc- tion. These roads were formerly the main avenues of travel and transportation, but became comparatively unused on the construction of railroads. Previous to the completion of the Buffalo and Hornellsville Railroad heavy merchandise and produce was transported by way of the Genesee Valley Canal, which was completed to a point opposite to this town, some sixteen miles distant. Two years since the Rochester and State Line Railroad, which also passes through this town, was completed, giving the town facilities for transportation and travel fully equal to those of any other.
The principal road which entered the town from the east -the old Buffalo road-originally crossed the valley and town on the line of lots about a mile north from the present village of Warsaw, which was then the principal settlement in the town. Another road into the valley was opened three-fourths of a mile further south, soon afterward. In accordance with Legislative action, providing for a survey of a road from Canandaigua to Lake Erie, Lemuel Foster made such survey in 1816. The road is the one which now leads from the transit line to the western bounds of the town, through the village of Warsaw. When first established it deflected to the left, near the old residence of Judge Web- ster at the foot of the gulf, where the road now runs; as- cended the hill by a circuitous route, and returned to the present line near the head of the gulf or ravine through which it now passes. This was the route of entrance to and exit from the valley at this point during more than thirty years. In 1834 the present road through the ravine was constructed, and the town record of that year shows that upon the application of Elizur Webster the old road was discontinued.
The contract for the construction bore date June 7th, 1834, and was made by Noah Fisk and Isaac N. Phelps, commissioners of highways, and Samuel Mcwhorter, of Warsaw, contractor. The contract specified a minimum width of sixteen feet, and an average of twenty; and stipu- lated that the road should be completed by January Ist, 1835, and warranted for a term of ten years. For this work Mr. McWhorter was to receive $1,000 in installments, and in addition such highway labor as the overseers of any road districts might see fit to bestow on the road.
The great importance of this improvement was at once seen; and when, some twenty years later, the Buffalo and Hornellsville Railroad was completed, and a depot estab- lished near the head of this ravine, its utility was more than ever before apparent. A plank walk, with. a railing at the side of it, is built quite through the ravine for the accom- modation of foot passengers, and the road is kept in fine condition.
On the 25th of March, 1814, about a month after the town of Gainesville was set off, the commissioners of highways divided the town into thirty-three road districts; there are now more than fifty.
Previous to the formation of Gainesville some twenty sur- veys of roads in what is now Warsaw were made by Solomon Morris, jr., and within the next ten years as many more, most of them by him, but a few by P. F. Kellogg and Thomas F. Palmer.
The wooden bridges over the Oatka creek were often so
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OFFICERS AND ORDINANCES IN WARSAW-COMMON SCHOOLS.
injured by freshets as to require large sums for their repair, and some of them have given place to stone arches.
POLITICAL HISTORY OF WARSAW.
It is said that shortly before the incorporation of this town a list of names was presented to some of the citizens from which to select, and that Warsaw was the one selected.
Warsaw was taken from Batavia, and incorporated on the IIth of March, 1808, and then included the present towns of Middlebury and Gainesville, or a strip six miles in width by eighteen in length along the transit line or eastern bound- ary of the Holland Purchase. It embraced townships 8, 9 and 10 and range I of the purchase. Middlebury, on the north, was set off from it in 1812; and Gainesville, on the south, in 1814, leaving Warsaw in township 9, range 1.
The first town meeting was held at the house of Elizur Webster, April 5th, 1808. The officers chosen at this meet- ing were: Elizur Webster, supervisor; Samuel McWhorter, town clerk; Richard Bristol, Gideon T. Jenkins, Ebenezer Wilson, jr., assessors; Jonathan Curtis, Solomon Morris, poor-masters; Israel M. Dewey, William Knapp, Barzillai Yates, commissioners of highways; George W. Fox, Daniel Knapp, constables; George W. Fox, collector. Resolutions were then passed defining a " good and lawful fence", etc.
Several pages of the early record are devoted to the rec- ords of ear marks, which were quite necessary at a period when cattle and sheep necessarily ran at large in the woods. They were described as slits, half crops, slanting crops, square crops, holes, half pennies, swallow tails, etc., or com- binations of them, in one or both ears.
Several pages also are devoted to records of strays, which of course were common in those days, when a large propor- tion of the town was a wilderness and a common pasture. At the town meeting in 1809 it was "voted that when per- sons belonging to other counties shall drive cattle in this town for the purpose of feeding in our woods they shall, after having been notified of such offence, forfeit the sum of one dollar per head for every week they neglect taking such cattle away."
The practice of suffering animals to go at large in the woods, which was at first necessary, subsequently came to be a source of annoyance, and the people sought protection against it by providing for the impounding of animals. In 1811 it was "voted that the east part of Elizur Webster's barn yard shall serve as a pound ", and other places were afterwards from time to time designated.
In 1821 it was "resolved that it shall not be lawful for swine to run at large in the town of Warsaw, in the highways or commons of said town "; and " that there be hogwards appointed, whose duty it shall be, on finding any swine running at large as aforesaid, to drive or convey them the same to the common pound, the keeper whereof shall re- ceive and impound the same, and to keep and dispose of the same."
In 1810 it was "voted that a bounty of five dollars be raised on wolves' scalps killed in this town. restricted only to the inhabitants of this town, except the inhabitants of such towns as shall raise a bounty of not less than five dollars."
With a wise prevision the following was enacted in 1811: "That a fine of five dollars shall be imposed on any person who shall suffer any Canada thistles to grow on their im- provements."
Warsaw, unlike most of the towns of the county, is see- ing its best days in regard to population, which has been as follows at the State census dates for the last fifty years: 1830, 2,474; 1835, 2,686; 1840, 2,852; 1845, 2,659; 1850, 2,624; 1855, 2,794: 1860, 2,958; 1865, 2,824; 1870, 3,143: 1875, 3,437.
COMMON SCHOOLS IN THE TOWN OF WARSAW.
Mr. Young, in his excellent history of Warsaw, has given facts of interest concerning the early schools in this town. According to him the first school in the town was taught by Samuel McWhorter, about the year 1807, in a log house which Amos Keeny had built in 1804, and which he occu- pied as a dwelling until 1806. This house stood in what is now the south part of the village of Warsaw. With all the fitting up which it could have it was still exceedingly rude, and it would now be considered scarcely comfortable. No subsequent record is given of any of the scholars in this school. Mr. McWhorter, during his residence of more than seventy-five years in Warsaw, held many offices in the town, and was during one term an associate judge of Gen- esee county. He also represented the county in the As- sembly.
In the winter of 1807 and 1808 a school was taught in a vacant log house on the east road, about half a mile north from the junction of the roads from Le Roy and Wyoming, north from Warsaw village. A house was built at the junc- tion of these roads in 1817, on land which was leased gratu- itously for school purposes by Josiah Jewett.
About the year 1807 a log school-house was built at the cross roads directly west from the village, on lot No. 60. A framed school-house was afterward built further east, and subsequently the present house was erected.
At South Warsaw a school was kept about 1808, in a log house on the east side of the road. About 1811 a framed house was built, which was burned during the first term of school in it. Another was erected, which in a few years was burned and was succeeded by the present house.
A log school-house was built in 1811 at the forks of the road a mile and a half east from the village of Warsaw. Ten years later it was burned, and the present house was erected on its site.
In 1816 Amy Martin. afterward Mrs. Clark, taught a school in a log house which had been the residence of Samuel Salisbury, on lot 41, some three miles southeast from Warsaw village. A year or two later a log school- house was built near where the present house stands. About 1824 a framed house succeeded this, and when a few years later that was burned, the present one was erected in its place.
On the 11th of November, 1813, Elizur Webster, John W. Brownson and Samuel McWhorter were appointed com- missioners of common schools, and Russel Noble, Richard Bristol, Chester Warren and Samuel Hough trustees of common schools for the town of Warsaw. The commis- sioners a few days afterward divided the town into school districts, as follows:
No. L. "Beginning at the southeast corner of township No. 9, first range, thence running west two miles, thence north two miles, thence east two miles, thence south two miles."
No. 2. "Beginning at the northeast corner of district No. 1. thence west two miles and a quarter, thence north two miles, thence east two miles and a quarter, thence south to the place of beginning."
No. &. " Beginning at the northeast corner of district No. 2, theace west
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HISTORY OF WYOMING COUNTY, NEW YORK.
two miles, thence north two miles, thence east two miles, thence south two miles."
No. 4. "Beginning at the southwest corner of district No. 1, thence west two miles, thence north two miles and a quarter, thence east two miles, thence south two miles and a quarter."
No. 5. "Beginning at the northwest corner of district No. 4, thence north one hundred and sixty chains, thence cast one mile and three-quarters, thence south one hundred and sixty chains, thence west one mile and three- quarters."
No. 6. "Beginning at the northwest corner of district No. 5, thence north two miles, thence east two miles and a half, thence south two miles, thence west two miles and a half."
No. 7. " Beginning at the southwest corner of district No. 4. thence west two miles, to the town line; thence north, on said line, one hundred and fifty chains; thence east two miles, to the northwest corner of district No. 4; thence south, on the said district, to the place of beginning."
No. 8. " Beginning at the northeast corner of district No. 7. thence west on the north line of that district two miles, to the town line; thence north on said line to the northwest corner of lot No. 61, thence east on the north line of said lot two miles, thence south on the west line of district No. 5, to the place of beginning."
No. 9. "Beginning at the northeast corner of district No. 8, thence west on the north line of said district two miles, to the town line; thence north on said line two miles and a quarter. to the northwest corner of the town; thence east on the north line of the town two miles, thence south two miles and a quarter, to the place of beginning."
At the town meeting in 1814 a resolution was adopted requiring the commissioners of schools to serve without fee or reward. At the same meeting, as well as at that of 1815, six trustees of common schools were chosen, to transact the business that was afterward done by the trustees of each district. In the year 1816, and in several of the following years, six inspectors of common schools were chosen.
" UNDERGROUND RAILROAD " INCIDENT.
In 1851 there occurred an incident worthy of record, as illustrating the fame of Warsaw as an anti-slavery region. It is related in Young's History of Warsaw as follows :
" About the year 1848 there removed to the District of Columbia two brothers from Connecticut, who had previously become acquainted with some of our citizens who had a . perfect hatred ' of the Fugitive Slave Law. They engaged in market gardening, and among their help was one very competent female servant, owned in the district and hired out by ber mas- ter. This slave had two children, one son, whose services were also sold, and a little daughter about seven years of age. She was very intelligent and faithful, and became a favorite with her employers. One day she came to them with tearful eyes, and told them the old story-she was to be sold . down south,' away from her children and friends. Our freedom-loving Yankees, soting on the ' higher law ' some years in advance of Mr. Seward's proclamation of it, resolved to save ber from the fate she so dreaded. One of them caused to be made a large box just the size of the broad market wagon in which they took their vegetables to the city. Putting into this come bedding, a jug of water and a supply of food, and leaving at the sides near the bottom boles for ventilation, be nailed the cover down over the slave woman and her little child, and one fine night drove leisurely by the national capitol, intent on giving practical effect in one more instance to the 'self-evident truth ' proclaimed by its founders : * that all men are endowed by their Creator with the inalienable right to ' life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' The morning found him forty miles away in Maryland. He left his wagon in front of a village tavern to prevent suspicion, and fed and rested his horses. On and on be went. following the Northern star, whose light was guide and compass to many fleeing fugitives in southern swamps and friendly forests. In the solitude of night be would attend to the wants of his passengers, and at stopping places by day evade curious questions, correct answers to which would have brought down upon him a United States marsbal, with the penitentiary for his reward. Across Maryland and Pennsylvania be drove, over the difficult mountain roads of the Allegbanies, into New York. On the evening of the twenty-second day be reached his Journey's end at Warsaw. Driving to the residence of .bis acquaintance Mr. Isaac N. Phelps, an earnest friend of the slave, the box was quietly opened, and for the first time the poor woman was taken out of quarters to cramped that she could scarcely straighten ber form therein. Mother and child were found to be enfeebled, but in good spirits; indeed, nothing but the instinct of liberty would have sustained the courage of the mother, and restrained the betraying prattle of the child through that long, dark ride of three weeks. They wore secreted a few days, a part of the time in Arcade, until it was found that their whereabouts were not known, when. by the assistance of a few citizens, who were privy to their history, the mother began to live on ber own services, and proved valuable belp. In three or four months she gave birth to a son, and in about a year thereafter she died of quick consumption. The little girl was taken and carefully reared in the family of Allen Y. Breck, becoming a skillful worker and ex- emplary young woman. She is now the wife of a well-to-do colored citisen, William Burghardt, and is mistress of a nice house. The babe was taken
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