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 II > Part 19
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"East of the Ridge were Orrin Sackett, Elder W. Lake and Jonathan Phillips; and a little to the south Sylvester Richmond. North of the Ridge were Humphrey and Henry D. Hunt, William Williams, Thomas Wisner, George W. Barney and Moses Marvin. The first settler on the river road, north of the town line, was George Wilson. His son Thomas in 1824 built a sawmill on the Genesee River, in the big bend south of St. Helena, which is be- lieved to have been the first mill erected in the town. On the east side of the road, Deacon William L. Lotten was the first settler. He was the father of Thompson, Levi, George, Joseph, Hector and
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Philetus Lotten, all of whom became prominent men in the town. He had a tannery and shoe shop, which were erected previous to 1820. The first farm west, on the northwest corner of the road leading to St. Helena, was settled by William Gay. North of his house the first burial place of that section was laid out, and about fifty persons were buried there. This, however, was soon aban- doned, owing to the establishment in 1839 of the present cemetery of Oak Hill, in which William Mosher was the first person buried.
"Elisha Mosher was the first settler on the road running from Oakland to the river road, north of the town line. Next were Noah and Reuben Roberts, and then William Swan. Thence on the river road Benjamin Shepard, on the west; on the east, Horatio Reed, who was blind, and our first town clerk. His son Charles settled near Princeton, Ill., and was for several terms a member of the legislature of that state. Next north, was William Miller. On the west, Isaac Bovee, Isaac and James Miller, William Bailey, Luke Conway, William Dake and Joseph Thorp. This brings us to the river road forks; Pattie Brown; Ansel Owen, who built and kept a hotel, long known as the Half Way house between Mt. Morris and Portage; Jabez Whitman, who also built and kept a hotel; James Ward; Chauncey Tyler; Deacon Israel Herrick; Samuel Cady; Jonah Craft; William G. Wisner; Barney Criss; Garrett Van Arsdale; O. Thorp; Jacob Van Arsdale; Henry Crane, where he located his son-in-law, Aaron Rosekrans, and next his son James. Next came Joseph Barnes, James Van Sickle and sons, John and Henry; Jesse B. Jones, Lucius Brown and Eben Sturges.
"The first settler on the Picket Line road north of the town line was Samuel Mosher. Then, in their order, Ruslin Hark, Jacob Kilmer, George Bump, Ovid Hemphill, Christopher Haines, and Solomon Wood. Martin Pixley, Jonathan Miller and Peleg Coffin. Next, Alexander Blood, Ashel Thayer, and David White- man.
"The first settler on the Short Tract road, north of the town line, is only remembered by his sudden death from poison sumach, which resulted in the raising of ten dollars, with which to pay Joseph Carter for its complete extermination in the entire neigh- borhood. Next was Benjamin Dake, then William Miller and Otis Denvey. The rest of this land, on this road to Brooksgrove,
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was long retained by General Brooks. These early settlers erected nearly all the buildings between 1835 and 1845. *
* * The first postoffice, established about 1824, in this section, was about a mile south of the Ridge, on the place owned by the late Howdin Covey. Its name was Leona. The next was kept in a log house on the river road and called the River Road postoffice. The post- master was David Lake. The next was established about 1830, and the name was River Road at Forks. The mail was carried by post boys between Mt. Morris and Portage on the river road daily. In 1830 the office Leona was removed by Dr. William D. Munson, then postmaster, to Brooksgrove and the name changed accordingly. About this time the river road postoffice was re- moved and the name changed to Ridge. There were five hotels between Mt. Morris and Nunda, and six between Mt. Mor- ris and Portage."
The town of North Dansville was formed from the town of Sparta in 1846, and in 1849 additional Sparta territory was an- nexed. The first town meeting was held in 1846; the officers then elected were: Sidney Sweet, supervisor, and Lazarus Hammond, clerk. In 1830 and 1853 futile efforts were made to erect a new county from portions of Livingston and other counties, with Dans- ville Village as the county seat. It took its name from Daniel P. Faulkner, one of the early settlers, familiarly known as "Captain Dan."
The first settler of the town was Cornelius McCoy, who came here from Pennsylvania in June, 1795, with his wife, two step- sons and one step-daughter. The McCoy family found shelter at first in an abandoned surveyor's hut, but before winter they had erected a cabin, in which task they were assisted by friendly Indians. At this time the nearest neighbors were William Mc- Cartney and Andrew Smith, of Sparta, three miles distant, where they had settled in 1792. In the year following Amariah Ham- mond, Samuel Faulkner, Captain Daniel P. Faulkner, James Faulkner and William Porter arrived. They were Pennsylvan- ians. Captain Faulkner bought 6,000 acres of land here, induced several other families to settle in the neighborhood and laid out the village. He erected the first sawmill in the town, and his brother, Samuel, built the first frame house, which was of two stories and conducted as a tavern. Captain Faulkner was very
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popular and enterprising. He spent his money very freely. Financial reverses overtook him in 1798; he returned to Pennsyl- vania, but came back to Dansville in 1802 and passed the re- mainder of his life there. Captain Williamson owned a sawmill and started to build a grist mill at the upper end of the village in 1797; the grist mill was burned before completion and rebuilt in 1806. The first tavern keeper in the village was John Vande- venter. He opened for business in 1797. Christopher Vande- venter and his three sons, from New Jersey, were settlers in the year 1796. Thomas Macklen came in 1797, and the next year taught the first school, located about one mile north of the village center. William Perine, from Washington County, Pennsylvania, came to Williamsburgh in 1797, and two years later to Dansville, where he purchased a large amount of land. The visit of Colonel Nathaniel Rochester to Dansville, in 1800, has been described elsewhere, but it is worth while to repeat that he returned there in 1810 and bought land which included most of the water power of the village, and the mills which had been erected; also he built here the first paper mill in western New York. Colonel Rochester was thus a resident of Dansville before he proceeded northward to lay out the "hundred acres" which later became the nucleus of the city of Rochester. Jacob Opp had a group of mills and a tan- nery, as did William and David Porter, and David Sholl. There were a number of other settlers who came prior to 1800, prom- inent among whom were Frederick Barnhart, Jacob Martz, George Shirey, Jacob Welch, James Logan, William Phenix, John Phenix and Jared Irwin. In 1807 business in the village was well under way, and its representatives were John Metcalf and Jared Irwin, merchants; Irwin also tavern keeper; Jonathan Barnhart, tavern keeper; Jonathan Stout, tailor and tavern keeper; Isaac Vandeventer, tanner; Peter Laflesh, cabinetmaker; Daniel Sholl, miller; Gowen Wilkinson, Amariah Hammond, Jacob Welch and James McCurdy, farmers.
The New York Gazetteer of 1813 states: "The village of Dansville is pleasantly situated on a branch of the Caneseraga Creek near the northwest corner of the town, thirty-five miles northwest of Bath. Here is a postoffice, a number of mills, and a handsome street of one and one-half miles in length occupied by farm houses, etc. The valley embracing this settlement contains
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3,000 acres of choice lands, and the soil is warm and productive. There is a road from Bath to Dansville village that leads diag- onally across the center of this town from southeast to northwest, and another between Dansville village and Ontario County leads across the northern part. The population is 666, and there are about 100 taxable inhabitants."
Dansville has had her quota of notable and interesting men. Mention has been made of Colonel Nathaniel Rochester, the founder of the city of Rochester, who was for some years iden- tified with Dansville, and of Captain Williamson, who gave much attention to Dansville soon after the first settlers arrived, selling lands to many comers and building mills. From 1831 to 1848 Dansville was the home of Major Moses Van Campen, whose pioneer experiences were as thrilling as those of Horatio Jones, and not unlike them. Van Campen was well equipped for his part in the rough affairs of border life as he found them; he was a skilled rifleman, master of woodcraft, surveyor and possessed of boundless courage, with an aptitude for military life. He entered the army at the age of twenty and later accompanied Sullivan on his expedition as its quartermaster, in which position he exhibited great efficiency and won recognition on account of his ability as a scout. In 1783 his father and younger brother were killed and scalped by the savages at their home in Pennsylvania and he was taken prisoner. He escaped during the night, with his two com- panions, after having himself slaughtered five redskins in their sleep. He was again captured in an expedition up the Susque- hanna, and was forced to run the gauntlet at Caneadea; having come through this ordeal safely, he was taken to Niagara, where Butler offered him a commission in the British army, threatening, if Van Campen refused to accept, to deliver him to the Indians. Van Campen refused, and Butler was content to keep him a cap- tive until after the war. After the treaty Washington appointed him one of the interpreters for the Six Nations, and he also en- gaged extensively in his work as a surveyor. Van Campen died in the year 1849, and was buried at Angelica, New York.
Captain William Perine, who came to Dansville in 1799, was another Revolutionary officer, having served five years as a cap- tain of cavalry under Marion. He died here at the age of ninety- three. Lester Bradner, who came in 1814, was a prominent mer-
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chant, distiller and miller. "Dansville had now emerged from its primitive state, and numbered among its one hundred inhabitants the Browns, Hartmans, Bradleys, Coverts, Abram Dippy, Justus Hall, the Smiths, Melvin Rowley, who was the model tavern keeper for many years; Hunt, the harnessmaker; Sedgwick, the tailor; Taggart, the hatter, and the famous Pickett, the grocer." Joshua Shepard was a successful merchant who came in 1813. Dr. W. F. Clark, a pioneer of 1814, was not only a practicing physician but a merchant and lumberman. Solomon and Isaac Fenstermacher came in 1805 and constructed a large number of frame houses. Later residents of note included George Hyland, a hatter who came in 1829; Reuben Whiteman, lumberman, who arrived in 1851; Emerson Johnson and Harriett N. Austin, asso- ciated with the health resort; Judge Isaac N. Endress, John A. Vanderlip, lawyers; Sidney Sweet, once a state senator; George Sweet, inventor of agricultural machinery; David Mitchell, Archelaus Stevens, E. C. Daugherty, and Dr. F. M. Perine, editors. Many other men of prominence are described elsewhere in this work. Dansville itself had its period of greatest develop- ment in the years between 1843 and 1853, just before the com- pletion of the Erie Railroad. This was the canal period, when the extensive lumber business of the section invited a great many men into the town. There were within a radius of a few miles from Dansville nearly sixty sawmills in operation then, and a number of steam mills and paper mills. The packet boats on the canal, which operated on frequent and regular schedule, were loaded with freight and well patronized by passengers.
The town of Portage was originally a part of the town of Southampton, Ontario County; in March, 1805, it became part of Leicester, Genesee County. In 1806 it was in the town of Angelica, Allegany County. It was merged in the town of Nunda when the latter was established, and was made a separate town in 1827. In 1846 both Nunda and Portage were taken from Alle- gany and attached to Livingston County. It took its name from the carrying place around the falls of the Genesee River. The first town meeting of which there is any record was held in 1846, and James H. Rawson was elected supervisor. The first perma- nent white settler within the town was Jacob Shaver, who built a cabin in 1810. He was followed by Ephraim Kingsley, Seth
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Sherwood, Prosper and Abijah Adams, Enoch Haliday, Walter Bennett, Russell Messenger, Nathaniel B. Nichols, Asahel Fitch, Elias Hill, Joseph Dixon, Solomon Williams, George Wilmer, Stephen Spencer, Willis Robinson, Allen Miller, Elias Moses, Horace Miller, Thomas Alcott, Joseph and Thomas T. Bennett, Benjamin Fordyce, Horton Fordyce, Reuben Weed, Cyrus Allen, William Dake, Nathaniel and Charles Coe. The land in the town was rapidly sold under the efficient management of Colonel George Williams, sub-agent of the Pulteney estate, whose agency in Portage covered 25,000 acres, known as part of the Cottringer tract, which had been surveyed in 1807 by Elisha Johnson and subdivided into lots of 165 acres each. At the time of his death, in 1874, Colonel Williams owned nearly 3,000 acres on the east side of the Genesee River near Portage Station.
Sandford Hunt, father of Washington Hunt, governor of the State of New York, was a resident of Portage. Doty's history says: "Sanford Hunt emigrated from Green County to Living- ston County in December, 1818, with his wife and seven children. Mrs. Hunt was a native of Coventry, Tolland County, Connecti- cut. Her maiden name was Fanny Rose, and she was a niece of the lamented Nathan Hale of Revolutionary memory, and daugh- ter of a surgeon in the Continental army. The little household had tarried at Sonyea for two or three months, and reached Portage in January, 1819. Of their way to Portage, Samuel R. Hunt (son of Sanford) says: 'In coming in from the direction of Mount Morris, we passed much of the way over corduroy roads, and through the six mile woods between the present river and state roads, across the White Woman's tract. We came out upon an old clearing east, called the Shaver place. Fording the creek twice, we came to anchor as far south as the road was opened. There was not a bridge across the creek from source to mouth, though one was built the following spring. There were but three families south of here, by way of the State road, in eleven miles- that is, to the junction with the Dansville road. These were George Gearhart and a son-in-law, John Growlin and Andrew Smith. Here were also Henry Bennett, Nathaniel B. Nichols and Walter Bennett, his partner (who built a sawmill the year be- fore), Enoch Miller, Henry Devoe, Elder Elijah Bennett and several single men. Deacon William Town and Henry Root lived near, and last, though not least, Elias Alvord, potash boiler."
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Washington Hunt was a self-made man. He finished his edu- cation in the Temple Hill Academy at Geneseo, working his way through, then entered the store of Bissell & Olmsted at Geneseo. Hunt was appointed the first judge of Niagara County in 1836; elected to Congress in 1842, 1844 and 1846; elected state comp- troller in 1849, and governor in 1850, over Horatio Seymour. Sey- mour turned the tables in 1852 and defeated Hunt at the polls, whereupon the latter retired to his farm near Lockport and there died in 1867.
The first tavern keeper in Portage was Prosper Adams, in 1817, and Sanford Hunt was the first merchant two years later. One of the notable houses of Portage in the early days was Hornby Lodge, built in 1840 by Elisha Johnson, afterwards mayor of Rochester, on the east bank of the Genesee, nearly opposite the site of Glen Iris, and occupied by him while he was cutting the tunnel for the Genesee Valley Canal through the side of the gorge below. This was a pretentious log structure of two stories, a famous example of rustic architecture, and stood until demolished in 1849 to make way for the canal cut.
The town of Springwater was at one time a portion of Middle- town, Ontario County. It was formed from parts of Naples and Sparta, then both in the county of Ontario, in April, 1816. The first town meeting was held in a schoolhouse in April, 1817, at which the following officers were elected : Oliver Jennings, super- visor; Hugh Wilson, clerk; Jonathan Lawrence, Solomon Doud and Alexander McCuller, assessors; Samuel Story, Solomon Doud and Josiah Fuller, highway commissioners ;; Stamuel Story, Solo- mon Doud and John Culver, school commissioners; Henry Cole and Samuel Story, overseers of the poor; John W. Barnes, Eph- raim Caulkin and Thomas Grover, school inspectors; Jonathan Lawrence, constable and collector. In 1824 a movement was launched to form a new county from the towns of Springwater, Cohocton and Naples. Springwater citizens opposed it strongly, as they did the proposition to change the name of Springwater to Veri.
Jonas Belknap, a Revolutionary veteran from Massachusetts, was nominally the first settler; his land was located at Hunt's Hollow, in the northeast corner of the town. Belknap built his cabin first in Richmond, Ontario County, in 1795, but his claim
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reached into Springwater, where he planted an orchard in 1796. James and John Garlinghouse were the first actual residents of the town, coming in 1796. Seth Knowles, from Connecticut, located a mile above the lake in 1807. The next settler was Samuel Hines, in 1808; he built the first sawmill, three miles above the lake. Hugh Wilson, a Pennsylvanian, constructed the first grist mill in 1813 at the foot of the hill where the road from Scottsburg enters the valley. By 1815 there were about thirty families in the town and the hamlet of Springwater had three frame struc- tures, a residence, a barn and a store. Samuel Story built the dwelling, a Mr. Watkins of Naples the barn, and Hosea H. Grover built the store, also the first ashery. Three sawmills and a grist mill were operating at this time. Alvah Southworth built the first distillery, with a producing capacity of about twenty gallons a day. The first wool carding and cloth dressing machine was constructed by Edward Walker in 1831. In the village of Spring- water there was but one log house until 1824, when a state road was opened between Livonia and Bath; this stimulated trade and buildings began to appear. Later there came Reuben Gilbert and his family, which included ten children; Phineas Gilbert, David Badgers, David Gelath, Jesse Hyde, Oliver Jennings (the first hotel keeper ), Jonathan Lawrence, John Wiley, Thomas, Andrew, Amos Spafford, David Luther, Alvin Southworth, Zadock Grover, Jared Erwin, and Levi Brockway Jr., Orson Walbridge, Edward Withington, Amos Root, Prentis W. Shepard, Elisha T. Webster, Maurice Brown, the Dyers, Ira Whitlock, Joseph C. Whitehead, Dr. John B. Norton, Dr. Arnold Gray, John Weidman.
The town of West Sparta, originally a part of Sparta, was separated from it in February, 1846. In April following the first town meeting was held and there were elected the following officers: Roswell Wilcox, supervisor; Gideon D. Passage, clerk; Samuel G. Stoner, school superintendent; Jacob Chapman, James F. McCartney and Alexander Henry, assessors; David McNair, James Van Wagner and James Northrop, commissioners of high- ways; Peter Van Nuys, William D. McNair, Jr., and Levi Robin- son, Jr., inspectors of election; Hiram Jencks, Stephen Stephen- son, Samuel Scribner and H. G. Chamberlain, justices of the peace; William Spinning and Aaron Cook, overseers of the poor; B. F. Hyser, collector; Freeman Edwards, B. F. Hyser, A. J.
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Thompson and Nathaniel Hanna, constables; John Stone, Jr., sealer.
The first settlers within West Sparta (also in the southern tier of Livingston County towns) were William McCartney and Andrew Smith, who came in 1792. Both had crossed the ocean from Scotland the previous year. Smith remained in West Sparta but one year, then located permanently at Bath. McCartney afterward settled in Dansville and acted for Captain Williamson in selling Pulteney estate lands. Robert Duncan, from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was an early permanent white settler. After pur- chasing a tract from Williamson in 1793, he began a journey westward, but halted at Painted Post for the winter, and pro- ceeded the next year. Duncan encountered only misfortune in his western adventure. First he suffered an attack of Genesee fever, and in the following autumn an attack of pneumonia proved fatal. His wife carried on his business affairs successfully and was much respected by white men and Indians. With her family she moved to Indiana soon after 1812.
Jeremiah Gregory came about the same time as Duncan, and William Stevens arrived about 1793; Benjamin Wilcox in 1794, John McNair, Jr., and Abel Wilsey in 1797, Samuel McNair in 1802, and John McNair in 1804, were other pioneers of this region. Ebenezer McMaster was another settler noted for his great physical prowess.
The first tavern in West Sparta was opened in 1820 at Kysor- ville, by Ebenezer McMaster. The first store was kept by John Russell at Union Corners in 1823. The first grist mill was con- structed by Samuel Stoner in 1823.
The original area of the town of Nunda was greater than at present, having been twelve by twenty-four miles in extent. It then included the present towns of Pike, Grove, Granger, Center- ville, Eagle, Hume and Genesee of Allegany County, and Portage of Livingston. It was formed from Angelica in 1808 and re- mained as a part of Allegany County until 1846, when it became a part of Livingston. In 1827 the town of Portage was taken from it.
From Doty's history the following extract regarding the early settlement of Nunda is taken: "The Tuscarora tract, which em- braced the town of Nunda and a portion of Mount Morris, was at
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a very early day the property of Luke Tiernan, of Baltimore. It was late in coming into market, and the rich lands were seized by squatters whose only title was that given by possession. They spent their time in hunting, fishing and trapping, paying little attention to the cultivation of the soil. They were of no practical benefit in developing the resources and promoting the growth of the town, and rather hindered than encouraged emigration. Mr. Tiernan sent an agent, one McSweeney, to protect his interests, but not understanding the nature of the men he had to deal with, he was beset with troubles. The squatters had an able and shrewd advocate in Joseph Dixon, who defended them against all suits for trespass, and caused the agent much vexation. On the advent of settlers the squatters removed to other places where the annoy- ances of civilized life would not trouble them.
"In 1806 Phineas Bates and Beela Elderkin located near the present village of Nunda, being the first permanent settlers of the town. Other settlers were David Corey and brother, Reuben Sweet and Peleg, his brother; Gideon Powell, Abner Tuttle, Wil- liam P. Wilcox, John H. Townser, and James Paine.
"In 1806 or 1807 James Scott and two or three other farmers went up the Kashaqua Valley, with a view to locating, but these close observing farmers saw that the hazel bushes had hanging on them dead hazlenuts, and, concluding that it must be frosty there, did not buy any lands. They spent the night in a partly built hut or log house between Brushville and Nunda Village. there was then but one occupied house between these two places, and that was occupied by a squatter named Kingsley. Brushville was covered with low brush, no trees or large growth being found there.
"Azel Fitch, Russell Messenger, Abijah Adams and Zaphen Strong settled in the town in 1816, and in 1817 George W. Mer- rick came. The same spring the families of John and Jacob Passage, Abraham Acker, John White, Schuyler Thompson and Henry Root settled in Nunda, which then embraced a territory as large as a modern county. Mr. Merrick was a native of Wilming- ton, Tolland County, Connecticut, where he was born in February, 1793. He was six times elected supervisor and was for sixteen years justice of the peace. While in Jefferson County, New York, Mr. Merrick read an account in some newspaper that a man
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named Barnard, of Nunda, with five others, went into the woods one Sunday morning, chopped the logs and laid up a log cabin as high as the chamber floor, and one log above, before sunset. On reaching Nunda, Merrick purchased the claim on which the cabin was standing, fifty acres of land and improvements, for forty dollars in gold. The improvements were the log cabin mentioned, which was twelve feet square, and one-half acre of land cleared and sowed to turnips. He at once raised the logs five feet higher, and put on a roof of shingles of his own make, without using a nail. Five hundred feet of boards were all he could procure any- where for finishing purposes."
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