USA > New York > Yates County > History of Yates County, N.Y. : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of the prominent men and pioneers > Part 11
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Further the certificate was signed and acknowledged before a justice of the Supreme Court by each of the corporators heretofore named, and by the filing of the certificate with the proper officer the Yates County Historical Society was brought into existence. On the 4th of February, 1860, a meeting of the citizens friendly to the society was held at the court house in Penn Yan at half past 10 o'clock A. M., at which time the articles of incorporation were duly approved and adopted. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon the society re-assembled and proceeded to elect its first officers, with the following result : President, Samuel G. Gage, of Benton ; vice-presidents, Jonathan Taylor, of Barrington, Eli- sha Doubleday, of Italy, James Brown, of Jerusalem, John Mather, of Middlesex, Samuel S. Ellsworth, of Milo, Baxter Hobart, of Potter, Walter Wolcott, of Starkey, and John A. McLean, of Torrey ; recording and corresponding secretary, John L. Lewis, of Penn Yan; treasurer, William T. Remer, of Penn Yan, now of Benton. Much other business
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HISTORY OF YATES COUNTY.
was at this time transacted by the society, prominent in which was the appointment of committees for each town whose duty it should be to report to the society the names of the pioneer and early settlers in each locality, together with other committees to inquire into and report on various subjects of the county's history.
This much of the society's history found its way into a printed pam- phlet published during the year 1860. The history that followed was. kept in the books of the recording officer of the society, and with his death and the division of his effects the records became scattered, were taken in fact from the county, and are now lost to its people and to the. few surviving members of the corporation. From its first meeting and for fifteen or twenty years thereafter meetings of the society con- tinued to be held, but as the original and controlling members were of older stock they did not appear to acquire much of the younger blood in its membership, as their ways and methods were hardly in ac- cord with the popular younger ideas. The result was that after a lapse of about ten or twelve years the society began to decline, meetings were held less frequently, and the corporation became virtually extinct.
In the year 1887, or about that time, an effort was made to effect a re-organization of the old society under the name of the Pioneer His- torical Society of Yates County. The invitations and publications of the leading spirits in the movement met with general favor and a new organization was the result. Hon. Hanford Struble was elected pres- ident, and a largely attended society picnic and re-union was held in the court-house park. Judge Struble on this occasion delivered one of his most interesting and able addresses, and the meeting was voted a grand success. But even with the young energy infused into the pro- ject the society proved to be short lived, and now with the expiration of but five years no trace of the organization is to be found except in the memory of a few of the once active members.
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GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.
CHAPTER X.
GEOLOGY OF YATES COUNTY.1
T HE surface of Yates County is divided by five great ridges extend- ing in a northwardly direction. These ridges gradually decline from a height of 600 to 1,800 feet above Seneca Lake to a gentle un- dulating region in the towns of Torrey, Benton, Potter, and Middlesex. The first ridge is between West River Hollow and Canandaigua Lake, and ends in an abrupt promontory about 1,000 feet above the valley beneath it and about 1,780 feet above the level of Seneca Lake. The next ridge eastward lies between West River Hollow and Flint Creek or Italy Hollow, ending near Potter Center and in the southern portion of the town of Italy, presenting almost perpendicular sides and rising quite as high as the one west of it. The next is called Italy Hill, and at its highest point, which is very near the middle of the eastern bound- ary of the town, rises nearly as high as those west of it. West Hill Ridge is next in order and joins with Italy Hill in the southern por- tions of Jerusalem and Italy, forming a large area of high land. Cross- ing Larzalier's Hollow, through which the waters of Lake Keuka once flowed into Kashong Creek, we ascend East Hill. This elevation is short, terminating at the north in level lands near the northern boundary of the town of Jerusalem and in Bluff Point at the south. There is a cutting through this ridge at Branchport to Kinney's Corners, which divided Bluff Point from the main land and made an island of it when the level of the lake was seventy-five feet higher than at present. From East Hill we descend into the valley of another former outlet of Lake Keuka, but more recent than the one through Larzalier's Hollow. Be- tween this hollow and Seneca Lake is an elevation which terminates in high lands in the town of Barrington.
The three western ridges are capped with the coarse sandstones and shales of the lower part of the Chemung group. There are no good outcroppings of this rock in the county, but from surface indications it
1 By Berlin H. Wright, of Penn Yan, N. Y.
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HISTORY OF YATES COUNTY.
would appear that some of the strata are highly fossiliferous. The coarse white sandstones have yielded us some fine specimens of Dictyo- phyton tuberosum (Conrad D.), Nodosum (Hall), and Lepidodendron corru- gatum (Dawson). Contrary to statements heretofore made the Che- mung group does not appear in either Starkey or Barrington. The coarse, easily-broken sandstones of the lower Chemung are readily dis- tinguished from the fine-grained and tougher Portage rock, even in the absence of fossil remains; and in Italy Hollow, where the junction of the formations may be seen, the difference is very perceptible.
The greater part of Yates County is occupied by the Portage group. The lower portion of the group contains much iron pyrites and is divided into thick, solid strata of sandstone separated by shaly beds. The sand- stone is quarried in many places and forms a valuable building material. In the southern part of Milo, on the farm of Mr. Valentine, there is a large area of naked rock, or covered in places with a few inches of soil. Here is a fine exhibition of glacial action in the polished and grooved surface. Some of the stric are of considerable depth and all parallel. Deposits of tufa and travertine are found in moist ravines in this group. Concretions of various sizes and shapes are common and often mistaken for petrifactions. Small cubical crystals of iron pyrites (" fool's gold ") are not uncommon in some places.
Fine water-falls occur in several places. In Eggelston's Gully in Bar- rington there is one of 100 feet in one unbroken descent. Some very good examples of ripple-marks or mud-waves may here be seen. In Bruce's Gully in Milo are two falls of sixty and forty feet each. Here in Bruce's Gully, about forty feet from the base of the portage, Dr. S. Hart Wright found a fossil which Dr. J. S. Newberry pronounces the only Devonian representative of Agassiz's genus Pristocanthus he knows of. The fossil remains are not plentiful, and can best be obtained in quar- ries and cuttings. At Whitaker's quarry in Milo we have obtained fine specimens of Orthoceras atreus (Hall) and O. thyestes (Hall). Within the chamber of habitation of a large specimen of the latter, which we collected in this locality, we found two perfect specimens of Orthoceras, each about three inches long and with chamber of habitation one inch n diameter. The shell was broken off of one side in getting out the specimen, thus exposing the interior.
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At a quarry in the town of Milo we obtained some specimens of Lepidodendron, which seem to be L. primævum (Rogers), but present the curious peculiarity of having leaf-bases depressed instead of being prominent. (See remarks on this by Dr. J. W. Dawson in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, May, 1881.) In the same quarry carbonized remains of immense fern petioles five inches broad and sev- eral feet long occur. Fucoides graphica (Hall) abounds in the argil- laceous strata and a magnificent specimen of Spirophyton, sp. ? was found in the upper shales. Lunilicardium ornatum (Hall) occurs sparingly. " Cone- in- cone " and pyritiferous nodules of curious shapes occur in the Big Gully. Cordiopsis robusta (Hall) is met with quite frequently. William Buxton, of Milo Center, has found three fine specimens of Plum- alina plumaria (Hall) in the uppermost shales. One of the specimens is fourteen inches long. We have never found Spirifera lævis (Hall), though ever on the lookout for it. At the Whitaker quarry in the town of Milo we discovered a fern which Dr. Dawson has indicated as a new genus. The following is his description taken from the Quarterly Jour- nal of May, 1881 :
ASTEROPTERIS NOVEBORACENSIS.
" The genus Asteropteris is established for stems of ferns having the axial portion composed of vertical radiating plates of scalariform tissue imbedded in parenchyma, and having the outer cylinder composed of elongated cells traversed by lead-bun- dles of the type of those of Zygopteris. The only species known to me is represented by a stem 2.5 centimetres in diameter, slightly wrinkled and pitted externally, per- haps by traces of aerial roots which have perished. The transverse section shows in the center four vertical plates of scalariform or imperfectly reticulated tissues, placed at right angles to each other, and united in the middle of the stem. At a short distance from the center each of these plates divides into two or three, so as to form an axis of from ten to twelve radiating plates, with remains of cellular tissue filling the angular interspaces. The greatest diameter of this axis is about 1.5 centimetres. Ex- terior to the axis the stem consists of elongated cells, with somewhat thick walls, and more dense toward the circumference. The walls of these cells present a curious reticulated appearance, apparently caused by the cracking of the ligneous lining in consequence of contraction in the process of carbonization. Imbedded in this outer cylinder are about twelve vascular bundles, each with a dumb-bell shaped bundle of scalariform vessels enclosed in a sheath of thick-walled fibers. Each bundle is oppo- site to one of the rays of the central axis. The specimen shows about two inches of the length of the stem, and is somewhat bent, apparently by pressure at one end.
" This stem is evidently that of a small tree-fern of a type, so far as known to me, not heretofore described, and constituting a very complex and symmetrical form of the
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HISTORY OF YATES COUNTY.
group Palæzoic ferns, allied to the genus Zygopteris of Schimper. The central axis alone has a curious resemblance to the peculiar stem described by Unger ('Devonian Flora of Thuringia ') under the name of Cladoxylon mirabile ; and it is just possible that this latter stem may be the axis of some allied plant. The large aerial roots of some modern tree-ferns of the genus Angiopteris have, however, an analogous radi- ating structure. The specimen is from the collection of Berlin H. Wright, of Penn Yan, N. Y., and was found in the Portage group (Upper Erian) of Milo, N. Y., where it was associated with large petioles of ferns and trunks of Lepidodendra, probably L. chemungese and L. primævum.
"In previous communications to the society I have described three species of tree- ferns from the Upper and Lower Devonian of New York and Ohio ; and this species is from an intermediate horizon. All four occur in marine beds, and were, no doubt, drift-trunks from the fern-clad islands of the Devonian Sea. The occurrence of these stems in marine beds has recently been illustrated by the observation of Prof. A. Agassiz, that considerable quantities of vegetable matter can be dredged from great depths of the sea on the leeward side of the Caribbean Islands. The occurrence of these trunks further connects itself with the great abundance of large petioles (Rhachi- opteris) in the same beds, while the rarity of well-preserved fronds is explained by the coarseness of the'beds and also by the probably long maceration of the plant-remains in the sea-water."
Nowhere in the county does the rock change in character sufficiently to warrant the sub-divisions which Professor Hall gives to this group in Livingston and Allegany Counties. The entire thickness of the group in Yates County cannot be less than 1,000 feet.
The next formation in the natural order downward is the Genesee slate. This extends the entire length of the county from north to south, and there are many fine exhibitions of the entire thickness of the dark, fissile, carbonaceous shales, but the fossil remains are but sparingly distributed. In a ravine near Shingle Point on Seneca Lake there is a stratum about two feet thick, and near the middle of the formation, which abounds in fossils, among which are the following : Lepidodendron sp .? very large and fine ; Goniatites, sp .? very large and fine ; Leiorhyn- chus quadricostata (Vanuxem) ; Lingula spatulata (Vanuxem) ; Discina lodensis (Vanuxem) ; Discina truncata (Hall); and a large number of small gasteropods. Septaria of all sizes from a few inches to two feet in diameter and of many curious shapes occur plentifully. The major part of them are over ten inches in diameter and flattened. They usually contain cavities which are lined with crystals. Usually the calcareous filling in the septaria and the body are worn away unequally, producing
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many curious forms, and many of the people along the exposure of these shales possess their " petrified turtles."
This is the first formation encountered in passing down the outlet of Lake Keuka (Crooked Lake). At Randall's mills these shales form an abrupt cliff seventy feet high and intensely black. They extend to the oil-mill, a mile below where the water tumbles over a cascade of four- teen feet, formed by the Tully limestone.
It seems proper at this point to describe what we believe to be a fault which occurs in the strata at the outlet. At the oil-mill the Tully lime- stone and Genesee slate are almost level in an east and west direction, and incline very slightly to the south. This condition maintains throughout the outlet and in the ravines leading thereto wherever they are visible. The Tully may be traced for many rods below the oil-mill, standing out in bold relief, while the shales above and below it crumble away. It disappears, having "run out," and for about one-half mile we find the upper portion of the Hamilton group (the Moscow shale) filled with its characteristic fossil remains. One mile farther down and forty feet lower we again find the Tully with the Genesee slate above it and the fossiliferous blue Moscow shales beneath, almost perfectly level. It is impossible to tell just where the fault occurs and its direction, ow- ing to the superincumbent soil. In Bruce's Gully, a little farther down, it is quite apparent that the break occurs about twenty rods from the entrance, and possibly by removing a few tons of soil the line could be found. We should say that it followed the general direction of the out- let and was, perhaps, its originating cause. Prof. S. G. Williams, of Cornell University, examined the locality with me and fully concurs in the opinion expressed.
This formation varies in thickness from eleven to fourteen feet and is divided into from three to five well defined layers, varying in thickness from one to four feet. The upper stratum is much the thinnest. The upper surface of the third layer at Bellona is covered with pits of many curious and suggestive shapes. Many people believe them to be veri- table tracks, and this belief has been strengthened of late by reason of sensational accounts of the wonderful " tracks of men, children, dogs, cows, mastodons," etc., which have been published by a correspondent of a Rochester paper, who took plaster casts of some of the mastodon and
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HISTORY OF YATES COUNTY.
human (?) tracks and sent them to editors and scientific men. It is evident that the "tracks " are solely the result of the eroding action of the elements. Water has, without doubt, been confined in its course between these layers. It is a fact that these cavities do, in many in- stances, bear a striking resemblance to the tracks of men and animals. We have walked for a rod or more taking natural strides and stepping in well fitted pits each time.
At several places the Tully limestone is much flecked; at Bellona the dip to the north is 4º. In the town of Starkey it is undulatory. The two upper layers have a remarkable growth of corals. At Bellona the following abound : Alveolites goldfussii (Billings), Favosites argus (Hall), Zaphrentes simplex (Hall), Heliophyllum halli (Edward and Haime), and Cystophyllum americanum (Edward and Haime). There is also a form that resembles the last in structure, but is greatly flattened and attains a length of two feet. Where these corals occur the lime- stone is so impure as to be hardly worthy of the name, being dark, loose, and "rotten." No brachiopods or other fossils are found with the corals.
The third layer contains a few fossils; the fourth and fifth many. It is useless to look for Rhynchonella vanustula (Hall) above the lowest layer. They are most frequently found within a foot of the base, ac- companied by a small, circular, flattish species of Atrypa. This seems to be what Mr. Vanuxem named A. lentiformis, and which has been considered by more recent authors as identical with A. reticularis L. Although the two agree perfectly in markings we have never, among thousands of the latter species, found one that agreed with the former in shape. Nor have we ever collected from the Tully a specimen of Atrypa larger than a half-grown A. reticularis, such as are found in the shales below. The A. lentiformis (Vanuxem) is always less ventricose, smaller, and more nearly circular. Orthis tulliensis (Vanuxem) occurs with R. venustula also, but more sparingly than the last, and we have never found either above or below the Tully. Loxonema nexilis (Phill.) is not uncommon. Proetus marginalis (Con.) has been found here.
William Buxton found a very fine specimen at Bellona resembling Nautilus magister (Hall), but it does not enlarge so rapidly ; also a fine Cyrtoceras sp. ? William Coon, of Milo Center, N. Y., found the largest
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GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.
and most perfect Orthoceras we have ever seen from Devonian rocks in the Tully limestoue at Bellona. These are the only cephalopods we have ever seen or known of having been found in the Tully limestone in this county.
There is a cave of considerable size in the gully near the " old Friend House " in the town of Torrey. The entrance is only large enough to admit a small boy, and children have crawled in a distance of fifteen or twenty feet, projecting in front of them a long pole with a torch at the end, thus being enabled to see a considerable distance and to observe side chambers. About a rod from the entrance there is a sudden con- traction of the passage way which prevents further progress, but it en- larges greatly beyond this point. Some fine stalactites have been taken from beneath the limestone.
The formation is finely exposed in Yates County, appearing in Kash- ong Creek in the town of Torrey, formerly the shore line of Seneca Lake, as far south as Shingle Point, and cropping out in the outlet of Lake Keuka. Near Hopeton is an outline which was once an island in Lake Keuka. This is called the " Sugar Loaf." On the west and south sides of Sugar Loaf, which is about sixty feet high, the rock is free from soil and certain fossils may be collected there in abundance. The top is capped with the Tully limestone, which projects several feet beyond the shales beneath. Frequent calcareous layers about two inches thick occur here. These consist wholly of fossil remains. The following are abundant at Sugar Loaf : Athyris spiriferoides (Eaton) ; Athrypa reti- cularis (Linn) ; Chætetes fruticosus (Hall) ; Strombodes distorta (Hall) ; Streptelasma rectum (Hall) ; Amplexus sp. ? Spirifera granulifera (Hall) ; S. medialis (Hall) ; and S. mucronota (Con.). The finest expo- sition of this formation and also of the succeeding Encrinal limestone, Ludlowville and Marcellus shales, is in Kashong Creek in the town of Benton. Here all the fossils found elsewhere in the county (below the Portage) occur, and many not found in other localities. As the re- maining formations of Yates County are best seen in Kashong Creek we invite attention to that locality.
This creek has its source in the swampy lands in the western part of the town of Benton, and has at two different periods been the channel through which the waters of Lake Keuka have reached Seneca Lake.
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HISTORY OF YATES COUNTY.
By the way it will be seen that it has its origin in the Portage group and runs through all the lower formations in the county. A few rods south of Bellona the Genesee slate and Tully limestone appear near an old saw- mill. After leaving this point on the route to Seneca Lake, through Kashong Creek, we first descend through fifty-five feet of nearly horizontal shale, occasionally interrupted by layers of sandstone. In this, and about two-thirds the distance down, we found the spine or a new species of Ctenacanthus. This stratum terminates in a bed of pyritif- erous shales. This is followed by eight feet of coarse shales, which are remarkably rich in Strophodonta, and is succeeded by another layer of pyritiferous nodules twelve feet thick, and this by seven feet of calcar- eous shales, exceedingly rich in well preserved fossil remains, though in a portion of this layer (the argillaceous shales) fossils are abundant ; it is difficult to obtain perfect specimens. In the calcareous layers, which are from two to eight inches thick, fossils are most common and can usually be obtained free from gangue. The following are plentiful : Tropidoleptus carinatus (Conrad), Chronetes mucronata (Hall), Orthus vanuxemi (Hall), O. leucosia (Hall), Spirifera granulifera (Hall), Modio- morpha concentrica (Conrad), M. macilenta (Hall), Atrypa reticularis (Linn), Michelinia stylopora (Eaton), and Mytilarca oviformis (Con.). Several species of undescribed fossils in the genera Peterinea aviculo- pecten, Platyostoma, Loxonema, Fenestella, Fistulipora, and Alveolites.
Fragmentary portions of Pfacops rana (Green) and Dalmanites boothi (Green) are very common also, but perfect specimens of the former are not common and of the latter only three have been found here that we are aware of. The articulations of Homalonotus dekayi (Green) are fre- quently found, but Mrs. B. H. Wright and William Buxton have found the only heads (two) that we know of from this locality. This stratum continues to the brink of the first fall, where the character of the rock changes from a loose, calcareous shale to solid, compact layers of a lighter color. Here occur several pot-holes, one of which is two feet in diam- eter and the same in depth. These are near the brink of a fall of nearly thirty feet. In the lower portion of this layer are some fine Cypricard- ites, with most of the species found above. Then follows a calcareous stratum seven feet thick containing many crinoidal fragments. This rests upon the encrinal limestone, which is about three feet thick and
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GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.
forms the brink of the middle fall of twenty-nine feet. This encrinal limestone is quite hard, takes an excellent polish, and being made up almost wholly of crinoidal stems and rays makes a fine polished slab. There is but one brachiopod which is plentiful in this limestone.
Pentamerella papilionensis (Hall), Eridophyllum verneuilianum (Ed. and H.), and Diphyphyllum gigas (Rominger) are very plentiful also. Among the crinoids are several undescribed species,-see Dolatocrinus liratus (Hall) and Megistocrinus depressus (Hall). Fine gasteropods are plentiful throughout this and the preceding formations, but are best pre- served and obtained in best condition in this limestone. Among the commonest are Pluerotomoria filitexta (Hall), P. itys (Hall), Macrochei- lus hamiltoni@ (Hall), platyostoma lineata (Conrad), Platyceras thetis (Hall), P. symmetricum (Hall), and P. carinatum (Hall). After making a detour around the falls it is at once apparent that we are in a differ- ent formation by the greenish color of the shales. We believe that all the fossils found in this formation, the Ludlowville shale, are found in the higher beds, but the reverse is far from being true. Brachiopods are quite scarce and there is a general thinning out of representatives of all the orders. These shales are succeeded by darker ones, thirty-five feet thick, containing nearly the same fauna. These continue to the lower fall, which marks the beginning of the dark Marcellus shales, which continue to Seneca Lake. The only fossil which is here plentiful in the Marcellus shales is Orthoceras subulatum (Hall).
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