USA > New York > Genesee County > History of the Genesee country (western New York) comprising the counties of Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Ontario, Orleans, Schuyler, Steuben, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates, Volume I > Part 39
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and Asa Wilmarth, assessors. Farmington and Mertensia are the only villages in the town.
The town of Geneva is the youngest in Ontario County. On October 11, 1872, the board of supervisors adopted a resolution to the effect that the town of Geneva should consist of "all that part of the town of Seneca lying east of the west line of the the first tier of township lots, next west of the old preemption line." On March 4, 1873, the first town meeting was held at the Franklin House in the village of Geneva. John J. Doolittle was elected supervisor; Charles Kipp, clerk; William H. Gamble and George R. Long, assessors; George W. French and Martin H. Smith, justices of the peace; Edmund S. Spendlove, collector. In 1786, William Ansley came from Pennsylvania and located within the present town limits. He is credited with having been the first permanent settler. Two years later Jerome Loomis, a veteran of the Revolution, located in the northwestern part. Other pioneerss were two Scotchmen named George Wilkie and John Scoon, who came about 1800, and George Bennett, who settled in the northern part of the town. Benjamin Barton settled on the lake shore near the southeast corner of the town and from 1802 to 1806 was sheriff of Ontario County.
When the town of Gorham was established January 27, 1789, it was given the name of Easton and then included the town of Hopewell. On April 17, 1806, the name was changed to Lincoln and on April 6, 1807, the present name was adopted in honor of Nathaniel Gorham, one of the original proprietors. The land comprising the town was originally sold to Caleb Benton by Phelps and Gorham, and Benton, who was a physician of Colum- bia County, parceled out the land by small sales to the early settlers. James Wood, who located in the northwestern part in 1789, was the original pioneer. His earliest neighbors were John McPherson, Silas Reed (for whom Reed Corners was named) and Jeremiah Swart. Other early settlers were Southwick Cole, Chris- tian and John Fisher, Henry Green, Otis Lincoln, Nathan Loomis, Samuel Powers, Elisha and Nathan Pratt, Thomas Ruffs, Samuel Torrey and Richard Washburn. Otis Lincoln had served under Washington in the Revolution and when one of his sons was drafted in 1812 he offered himself as a substitute and was ac- cepted. The first town meeting in Gorham (then Easton) was held April 4, 1797. The name of the supervisor elected is un-
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known, but James Austin was elected clerk; George Brundage, Samuel Day, Frederick Follett and Silas Reed, assessors; and John Warren, collector. The village of Gorham is located in the eastern part of the town on the Flint Creek. The first settler here was Levi Benton, who opened a tavern and built the first mill on the creek. A man named Craft soon afterwards erected a saw- mill and Joseph Palmer established the first store. Mr. Palmer was also the first minister in this part of the town. He was suc- ceeded in the mercantile business by Perry Hollett in 1816. Arm- strong Tompkins was the first blacksmith and Doctor Coffin the first physician. George and Samuel Stewart erected the first business block in 1822. The village was first known as Bethel. Reed Corners, located on the old stage route between Canandaigua and Penn Yan, is one of the oldest settlements in the town. A portion of the incorporated village of Rushville is located in the town of Gorham, most of it, however, being in Yates county.
On March 29, 1822, township 10, range 2, of the Phelps and Gorham survey, was set off from Gorham and given the name of Hopewell. According to one account this name was adopted from Hopewell, New Jersey, where Washington held his council of war on the evening before the battle of Monmouth. Others claim that the name was chosen because the citizens of Gorham "hoped well" for the new town. The first town meeting was held at Murray's inn April 17, 1822. Nathaniel Lewis was then elected supervisor ; John Price, clerk; James Birdseye, George Brundage and Elisha Higby, assessors; Walter Wells, collector; Elisha Higby, Amos Jones, Nathaniel Lewis and John Price, justices of the peace. The settlement of the town began, of course, while the territory was yet a part of Gorham. Among the earliest pioneers were George and Israel Chapin, Jr., Frederick Follett, Daniel Gates, Ezra Platt, Thomas Sawyer, Daniel Warner, Ben- jamin Wells and William Wyckoff. Follett and Sawyer were Revolutionary veterans, the latter having been with the Green Mountain Boys. So rapid was the settlement in this part of the county that in 1830 Hopewell reported over 2,000 inhabitants, a population which McIntosh says "has never been exceeded or equalled at any subsequent enumeration." Soon after the first settlers came in, General Chapin built a grist mill on the Canan- daigua outlet at the foot of the first rapids. Around this mill grew up the little hamlet of Chapinville, now known as Chapin.
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Another mill on the outlet was built by Oliver Phelps in 1791. He employed Samuel Day to operate it and for years it was known as the Day mill. Edward Parker, Stephen Bates and Norman C. Little were later owners. Little opened a store about 1842 and the settlement then became known as Littleville. Here was the old ford, or "stepping stones," which marked the intersection of two old Indian trails. One of the most popular taverns in this section was operated by Samuel House in this town.
The town of Manchester, described on the records as town- ship 12, range 2, of the Phelps and Gorham purchase, was origi- nally included in the town of Farmington. The minutes of the Farmington town meeting for 1816 show that "a vote was taken to divide the Town of Farmington on the center line between the two elevens running north and south, and was negatived." For the next four years the proposition came before the annual town meetings and at a special meeting January 15, 1820. On each of these occasions the majority was against the division. Those who favored the formation of a new town, undismayed by their successive defeats, determined to carry the matter to the legis- lature. Here they met with success, for on March 31, 1821, the act to divide the town of Farmington became a law. This act gave the new town the name of Burt, for a member of the legisla- ture, but not the representative from Ontario County, and pro- vided that the first town meeting should be held at the school house near David Howland's residence. At that meeting Joshua Van Fleet was elected supervisor; Gahazi Granger, clerk; David Howland, Thomas Kingsley and Peter Mitchell, assessors; Wil- liam Popple, collector. The name of Burt was not satisfactory to the citizens and again they appealed to the legislature. By act of April 16, 1822, the name was changed to Manchester.
In 1788 a road was opened from Canandaigua to the head of navigation for flatboats on the Canandaigua outlet, where the village of Manchester now stands. The first settlements were made along this road in 1793 by Joab Gillett, Stephen Jared and Joel Phelps. Jared and Phelps remained only a short time. Other early settlers were Benjamin Barney, Sharon Booth, Bezaliel Coats, Jedediah Dewey, Thomas Harrington, Jeremiah Hart, Gil- bert Howland, John McLouth, William Mitchell, Elihu Osgood, Luke Phelps, Nathan Pierce, Ebenezer Pratt, Peleg Redfield, Hooker and Joseph Sawyer, William Stafford, John Van Fleet,
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Ananias Wells and a few others, all of whom came before 1800. Ruth, daughter of Joab Gillett, became the wife of Sharon Booth in 1794, which was the first marriage solemnized in the town. The first birth was that of Dorris Booth March 26, 1795. The first death was that of Thomas Sawyer, March 12, 1793.
The first settlement developed in time into the village of Man- chester. Nathan Barlow opened the first store in 1801; Doctor James Stewart was the first physician; Achilles Bottsford started a shoe shop and a town library was established in 1814 in the village. As early as 1811, the water power of the Canandaigua outlet was utilized for the purpose of operating the woolen mill of the Ontario Manufacturing Company. The company erected a stone building three stories high and equipped it with the best machinery then in use. Owing to the industrial depression in- cident to the War of 1812, the business was forced to suspend after a brief period. A flour mill erected about the same time was more successful and continued in active operation for many years. Early in the present century the property was purchased by the Ontario Electric Light Company and converted into an electric light plant. In 1892 the Lehigh Valley Railroad, connecting Ge- neva and Buffalo, was completed and Manchester was made a division point. Shops were erected and more than a hundred acres of land bought for the railroad yards. This activity brought new life to the village, which was in that year incorporated. Shortsville, a little way above Manchester on the Canandaigua outlet and the New York Central Railroad, takes its name from Theophilus Short, who built a flour mill and sawmill here in 1804. The place was at first known as Short's Mills. In 1811 William Grimes built a carding mill a few rods below Short's mills. Grimes sold out to Stephen Brewster, who operated the mill for many years. It was then purchased by a stock company and became the Diamond Paper Mill. Case, Abbey & Company established a paper mill in 1817, which later became the property of the Jones Paper Company, by whom the plant was enlarged. In 1822 Short built a larger flour mill, which was burned in the early '40s, but another large flour mill was soon erected on the site. In 1850 Hiram and Calvin Brown established the Empire Drill Works. A distillery was built by a stock company a few years later, but the building was destroyed by fire. After about fifty years of successful operation, the drill works were sold to
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a syndicate and the machinery was removed to Indiana. The buildings and water power then passed into the hands of the Papec Machine Company, manufacturers of ensilage cutters. The Shortsville Wheel Company, a more recent industry, is one of the largest spoke and wheel factories in the country, with a depart- ment for the manufacture of automobile wheels. Shortsville was incorporated in 1889.
Clifton Springs, the largest village in the town, was settled by John Shekels in 1804. He built a large log house and opened a tavern. Two years later a larger building was erected as a dispensary. For a long time the community was known as Sul- phur Springs. Just when and why the name was changed is not known. The medicinal properties of the waters here were early recognized and in February, 1850, a company was organized to build a sanitarium. The institution was opened September 13, 1850. Doctor Henry Foster, the founder of the company, became sole owner in July, 1867, and continued as such until his death, January 15, 1901. The first building, erected in 1850, after being several times enlarged, gave way to a new one in 1865 and this was replaced by a fireproof structure in 1896. A rival insti- tution, called the Air Cure, was established in the spring of 1867 and located in the large hotel formerly owned by Lyman Crain, but it was not a success. On January 2, 1872, the building was burned and was never rebuilt. Doctor Foster afterward pur- chased the property and added it to his sanitarium. On Novem- ber 1, 1881, he and his wife executed a deed of trust conveying the entire property to a self-perpetuating board of thirteen trus- tees, with the provision that the institution should be continued as it had been conducted by the founder for the preceding thirty years. The village was incorporated in 1859.
In addition to the incorporated villages already described, there are three small hamlets, Gypsum, Manchester Center and Port Gibson, in the county. Gypsum, a short distance east of Clifton Springs, was settled by Hollanders and was long known as the Dutch settlement. Manchester Center was at first known as Coonsville, after the pioneer, John Coon, at whose house sev- eral of the early town meetings were held. Valentine Coon built a grist mill here in 1824. Port Gibson, near the Wayne County line, was established as Ontario County's only port on the Erie
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Canal. It was named for Henry B. Gibson, a prominent banker of Canandaigua.
The town of Manchester was the birthplace of Mormonism, or Church of the Latter Day Saints. Many volumes relating to the merits or demerits of this peculiar sect have been written, but it is fitting that a brief account of its beginning should be included in this sketch of the town where it originated. Joseph Smith, the first prophet and founder of the church, was born in Windsor County, Vermont, December 13, 1805. While still in early boy- hood his parents came to Palmyra, New York, where his father opened a small tavern. The father was a man of little worth, but the mother was of stronger character, and both parents were ignorantly imbued with religious fanaticism. Mrs. Smith firmly believed that her son was destined to be a prophet, even during his early boyhood. In 1819 the family moved to a small farm on the road known as Stafford Street, in the northern part of Man- chester. Soon after locating here the Smiths, father and son, were employed by Clark Chase to dig a well. While engaged in this work, a white, glossy pebble, resembling a human foot in shape, was found. The future prophet kept the pebble and soon pretended to have discovered that it possessed supernatural powers. In the pebble he claimed to discern happenings in distant places and to read the course of future events. This pebble be- came known as the "peek stone," although Smith was the only one who could make it do tricks, which was evidence enough to him that he was the destined prophet.
Near the Smith home was a hill and, according to rumor, hid- den treasure was buried therein. This rumor was told to the credulous Smiths by Oliver Cowdery, a school teacher residing on Stafford Street. Young Joseph immediately consulted his peek stone in order to locate the treasure. How many times the father and son spent the midnight hours spading up the hillside is not known, but no treasure was found. Loath to acknowledge defeat, the Smiths maintained that they found a chest, three feet long, covered with a dark stone, in the center of which was a white spot. Upon being exposed to the air, the white spot began to spread and finally exploded loudly, and then the chest vanished.
When Joseph, Jr., was about nineteen years old he attended a Methodist camp meeting and was converted. Having no fur- ther use for his remarkable stone, he now communed directly
35-Vol. I
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with the angels. One of these accommodating spirits directed him to dig in the "Hill of Camorah" for some gold plates con- taining "a record of the ancient inhabitants of this country, en- graved by Mormon, the son of Nephi." Smith "obeyed" and "found" the plates September 21, 1827. With them was a pair of spectacles, the lenses of which were opaque to all except the prophet, and only by wearing these spectacles could the record be translated. Apparently with great reluctance, Smith under- took the task, at the same time announcing that anyone else who gazed upon the plates would be stricken with death. As a busi- ness man, Smith was without a superior in his day. Seated be- hind a curtain, he donned the spectacles and read from the plates, while his words were written down by Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery.
Various stories of the finding and translation of the gold plates have been told. One of these, apparently authentic, is that Smith did not claim for the plates any religious significance, but that they were simply a historical record of the ancient inhabit- ants of America. About the time the translation commenced, Sidney Rigdon, of Ohio, attracted to Smith by the news of the great discovery, appeared on the scene. Rigdon had been a Bap- tist minister, but had fallen into disrepute with that denomina- tion. There seems to be little doubt that it was Rigdon who gave the Book of Mormon, or Gold Bible, its religious color. It has been intimated that the greater part of the "translation" was prepared by Rigdon, then read behind the curtain by the prophet to his secretaries.
Martin Harris mortgaged a good farm in Palmyra to raise the necessary $2,500 to pay for the printing of the first edition of the Book of Mormon. It was printed at Palmyra by E. B. Grandin in 1830. Mrs. Harris, with a woman's intuition, had no faith in the book which had so captivated her husband, and she got hold of about a hundred pages of the manuscript, which she either hid or destroyed. Smith, Cowdery and Harris agreed not to make another translation, because "the evil spirit might get up a story that the second translation differed from the first."
The Mormon Church was founded on the Gold Bible. About 1832 all those who had joined the church gathered at Kirtland, Ohio. Their subsequent wanderings, until they reached the Great Salt Lake Basin in Utah, is not pertinent to this history. The
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Hill of Camorah, where the gold plates were supposedly found, has since been known as Mormon Hill, and parties of Latter Day Saints make regular pilgrimages to the place where their prophet made his astounding discovery. Joseph Smith, Sr., was only a squatter on Stafford Street. He left in 1830 and the land after- ward became the property of the Chapman family. In 1907 William Chapman sold the place to George A. Smith, of Salt Lake City, a grandson of the prophet and one of the twelve apostles of the Mormon Church.
Shortly after Ontario County was created, in 1789, a company was formed at Partridgeville, Massachusetts, for the purpose of buying from Phelps and Gorham a township of land in the Gene- see Country. William Cady, Edward Kibbe and Nathan Watkins were appointed to go there and make a selection. In due time they arrived at Canandaigua and, after looking over the land, decided in favor of what is now the town of Gorham. A specu- lator, learning of their plans, hurried to the land office and pur- chased the township, hoping to dispose of it at a profit. The present town of Richmond was then selected, but through an error on the part of the land office, they were given a deed to Naples. During the summer of 1789 the land was surveyed and divided into 208 lots of 108 acres each. Fifteen of these lots were subdivided into tracts of twenty-seven acres each, called "settling lots," one of which was awarded to each member of the company. That winter Levi, Reuben and Samuel Parrish brought their families. The first house, a small log cabin, was built by Samuel Parrish where the village of Naples now stands. Early the fol- lowing spring the Parrishes were joined by William Clark, John Johnson, Jonathan Lee, Nathan and William Watkins, with a part of their families. The settlement soon became known as Watkinstown. Benjamin Clark built the first sawmill, said to have been the first in the Genesee Country, but for the first year or two the settlers had a hard time getting breadstuffs. The nearest grist mill was about thirty miles distant, so they adopted the Indian method of burning out the top of a stump for a mortar. A grist mill was built by Benjamin Clark in 1796 a short distance below where the Ontario mill was afterwards erected. The stones for this mill were brought from Wyoming, Pennsylvania, byrox team. The whole settlement turned out for the "raising" and
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the bread famine in Naples was broken. The new mill would grind about sixty bushels of grain in a day.
The territory comprising Naples was originally embraced in the town of Middletown, one of the original ten of 1789. The first town meeting in Middletown was held April 5, 1896. William Clark was elected supervisor and Joel Watkins clerk. On April 6, 1808, the name of the town was changed to Naples. Slight changes in the boundaries were made in 1815 and 1816, when por- tions of the town were added to Italy, Yates County, and Spring- water, Livingston County. The first settlement, near the center of the town, developed into the village of Naples, which, before the Civil War, was a trading center for a large section of country. The first merchant was a Hollander named Haselgesser. In the early '50s, Edward A. Mckay procured 160 grapevines of the Isabella variety and started a vineyard. This was the beginning of the grape industry. Mckay's success brought to Naples a number of Germans who understood grape growing and wine making. D. H. Maxfield, Jacob Widmer and a man named Graf soon became the leaders in this line, and their wines won a wide- spread reputation.
Phelps is the most northeastern town of the county. The first settler was John D. Robinson, who arrived with his family at the site of the present village of Phelps May 14, 1789. Others who came that year or the following spring were: Patrick Burnett, Seth Dean, Elias and Augustus Dickinson, Solomon Goodale, Elisha and Pierce Granger, Charles and Oliver Humphrey, Jona- than Oaks, John Patton, Nathaniel Sanborn, Philetus Swift, Jesse Warner, Cornelius Westfall, David Woodward, and a little later, John Baggerly, Lemuel and Theodore Bannister, David Boyd, Erastus Butler, John B. Green, Cephas Hawkes, Samuel and Wil- liam Hildreth, David McNeil, Jonathan Melvin, John Newhall, Nicholas Pullen, Francis and Luther Root, John Salisbury, John Sherman and Harvey Stephenson.
When created, the town was given the name of Phelpsburg. Subsequently the name was changed to Sullivan, in honor of General John Sullivan. On April 4, 1796, the first town meeting was held at the tavern of Jonathan Oaks, who was elected super- visor and Solomon Goodale was chosen clerk. A session of the court of common pleas in the following June changed the name of the town to Phelps. The principal settlement was made on Flint
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Creek, where the village of Phelps now stands. One of the first improvements there was a sawmill built by Seth Dean and Oliver Phelps. A short time after they put up a grist mill. In 1799, Theodore Bannister, Augustus Dickinson and Cephas Hawkes built a grist mill on the Canandaigua outlet. This brought forth a protest from Seth Dean, because the mill erected by him and Phelps was sufficient to meet all the demands of the infant settle- ment. The mill on the outlet was afterward known as Norton's mill and still later as the Exchange mills. The village was at first called Vienna, a name which clung to it for about half a century. Orrin Redfield was the first merchant. Alfred Stow opened the second store. William Hildreth established a distillery at an early date. A woolen mill was built in 1812 by Erastus Butler, Francis and Luther Root. The Vienna postoffice was established the same year, with David McNeil as postmaster. On July 4, 1841, the first railroad train arrived at Vienna, on what is now known as the Auburn division of the New York Central. The railroad gave an impetus to the growth of the village, the name of which two or three years later was changed to Phelps, and in 1865 the village was incorporated. The Lehigh Valley Railroad was completed through the town in 1892.
Oaks Corners, the next station east of Phelps, was settled by Jonathan Oaks, from whom it takes its name. Oaks built the first tavern in the town and many of the early town meetings were held there. The first store in the town was opened at Oaks Corners by John B. Green and for several years the place was a rival of Vienna as a trading center. Orleans, on the Sodus Bay branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, is also an old settlement. One of the pioneers here was Harvey Stephenson, who came from Massachusetts in 1800. His son, Dolphin, afterward became a lawyer and served as postmaster at Phelps.
Richmond is the middle of the towns on the western tier of the county. In the spring of 1787 Asa and Goodwin Simmons, of Dighton, Massachusetts, made a journey to the Genesee Country. Upon their return they organized the Dighton Company, which purchased 46,080 acres from Phelps and Gorham, partly in what is now the town of Richmond. The land was surveyed in 1789 and was divided among the members of the company by lot. Captain Peter Pitts drew 3,000 acres and the first crops were raised in 1790 by Gideon and William Pitts. Among the early settlers
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were : Alden and Isaac Adams, Noah Ashley, David, Heman and Sanford Crooks, William Crooks, Eleazer and John Freny, Elias and Joseph Gilbert, Daniel H. Goodsell, Whitley Marsh, Philip Reed and his five sons, John F., Philip, Silas, Wheeler and Wil- liam, Orsamus Risden, Roderick Steele and Cyrus Wells. At the first town meeting, April 5, 1796, it was voted to name the town Pittstown, in honor of Captain Peter Pitts, who was one of the most prominent of the pioneers. Leonard Chipman was at that time elected supervisor and Gideon Pitts clerk. By the act of April 6, 1808, the name was changed to Honeoye, and on March 10, 1815, another act changed the name to Richmond.
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