USA > New York > Monroe County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 27
USA > New York > Allegany County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming > Part 27
USA > New York > Livingston County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 27
USA > New York > Yates County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 27
USA > New York > Ontario County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 27
USA > New York > Wyoming County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 27
USA > New York > Steuben County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 27
USA > New York > Genesee County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 27
USA > New York > Wayne County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 27
USA > New York > Orleans County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 27
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t Name from the daughter of Sir Wm. Pultney, who was Countess of Bath.
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Two boats with workmen, provisions &c., came up the Susquehan- nah to Tioga Point, where they left one boat and half the load of the other, and reached Bath April 15, 1793. Mr. Williamson ar- rived via Northumberland road, two days after. Some shantees were thrown up, a village plat surveyed, a log land office was built ; and during the season, about twenty other log buildings were erect- ed. As would be said in this later day of refinement in language, the Pioneers had a "distinct view of the elephant." Provisions failed, and they were at one time three days without food ; as they cleared away the forest, the fever and ague, as it was wont to do, walked into the opening, and the new comers were soon freezing, shaking, and then burning with fever, in their hastily constructed cabins. It was Mr. Williamson's introduction into the hardships and privations of the wilderness. "He would lay in his hut, with his feet to the fire, and when the cold chills of ague came on, call for some one to lie close to his back, to keep him warm." To other improvements during the year, at Bath, Mr. Williamson added a log tavern, which was opened and kept by John Metcalf. Bath having been fixed upon as the centre of all the southern portion of the Associates' purchase, farther improvements were commenced. Mr. Williamson built a saw mill and a grist mill ; emigrants from Pennsylvania and Maryland, soon began to be attracted there. It became the permanent residence of Mr. Williamson. The Duke, Liancourt, who visited him in the summer of 1795, says : - " The habitation of the Captain consists of several small houses, formed of trunks of trees and joiners' work, which at present forms a very ir- regular whole, but which he intends soon to improve. His way of living is simple, neat and good ; every day we had a joint of fresh meat, vegetables and wine. We met with no circumstances of pomp or luxury, but found good ease, humor and plenty." Perhaps it is the fairest eulogium I can pass upon his free and easy urbanity to say, that all the time of our stay, he seemed as much at his ease as if we had not been present. He transacted all his business in our presence, and was actively employed the whole day long. We were present at his receiving persons of different ranks and des- criptions, with whom the appartment he allots to business is generally crowded. He received them all with the same attention, civility and good nature. They came to him prepossessed with a certain confidence in him, and they never leave him dissatisfied. He is at
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all times ready to converse with any who have business to transact with him. He will break off a conversation with his friends, or even get up from dinner for the sake of dispatching those who wish to speak to him.
In the spring of 1791, improvements were commenced at Geneva, the first and principal one being the erection of the Geneva Hotel. It was completed in December, and opened with a grand ball, which furnished a memorable epoch in the early history of the Genesee country. The Hotel was talked of far and wide as a wonderful en- terprise ; and such it really was. Even now, after the lapse of fifty- six years, when fine hotels have arisen in all of our cities and prin- cipal villages, the old Williamson Hotel, as it is often called, in its fine location, with its large open park in front, is ranked as one of the first class. Imagine how it was when it had no competitors in all the region west of Utica, save perhaps three or four moderate sized framed taverns ; when log taverns were generally the order of the day. It was an Astor House then; and even this comparison falls short of conveying an idea of its then comparative magnitude. Mr. Williamson wrote to his principals, proposing such a house, and urged that as it would stand in the doorway or entrance to the Genesee country, it should be respectable ; so designed as to make a favorable impression ; and urged beside, that such a house, where all the comforts of a good English inn could be realized, would invite respectable people to the country. And so perhaps it did. How many readers of these carly reminiscences, will remember the house, the landlord, and all belonging to that early halting place, in the long and dreary journies that used to be made. Blended with it in memory, is the old stage coach ; chilled and drowsy with long night rides, over hubs or poached clay roads, there would be the smart crack of the driver's whip, the trundling of the wheels upon a stone pavement, the squaring up to the door, the getting out and stretching of almost torpid limbs ; the ushering in to well warmed and com- fortable apartments, the smell and the taste of smoking steak and hot coffee, and other "creature comforts," that it will not do to speak of now. Your modern travellers know nothing of the ex- tremes of pain and pleasure of the old fashioned way of traveling from Albany to Buffalo. For landlord to his new Hotel, Mr. Wil- liamson selected Thomas Powell, whom he had known in London, connected with the celebrated "Thatched Cottage, the resort of
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statesmen, politicians and wits."* He had previously emigrated to this country, and opened a house at Lansingburg.
Although Mr. Williamson's house was at Bath, a large proportion of his time was spent at Geneva, attending to matters connected with the northern division of the purchase. The company that he drew around him, made a very considerable business for the new hotel; and it was the early home of the young men without fami- lies, who located at Geneva; the principal stopping place for emi- grants, who could afford the comforts of a good inn. Under the auspices of Reed and Ryckman, Joseph Annin and Benjamin Bar- ton had surveyed a small village plat, which was superseded under Mr. Williamson's auspices by a new, enlarged survey, generally as now indicated, except that the new survey, Mr. Williamson's plan, contemplated that the whole town should be built up fronting the Lake; the space between the main street and the Lake, was intended for terraced parks and gardens. In a few words, Geneva is now, though beautiful in all its appointments, more upon the utili- tarian order, than Mr. Williamson intended. He had seen the original in his travels upon the continent, and associating Seneca Lake with " Lake Leman," had in view an imitation, in a wilder- ness of the new world. In reference to this as well as other of his projections, his ardent and sanguine temperament led him to sup- pose that villages and village improvements, to a considerable extent, could precede a general cultivation of the soil. Experience has shown that they must follow by slow steps after it.
The Hotel was but a part of Mr. Williamson's enterprises at Geneva.
Before the State had acknowledged the correctness of the new pre-emption line, as in the case of the site of Geneva, and Reed and Ryckman, patents had been issued, covering nearly the whole of " the Gore," Mr. Williamson, through the agency of Mr. John Johnstone, having purchased all the patents, had so fortified the claim of his principals, that he had ventured upon exercising ownership; though title was yet an open question. In March, 1795, while a bill was pending in the legislature, providing for run- ning a third line, by the Surveyor General, and if the one run by Mr. Ellicott should prove correct, to give the associates other lands
* Mr. Powell became an early stage proprietor. After keeping the Hotel for many years, he removed to Schenectady, and was succeeded by his brother, Win. Powell.
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PHELPS AND GORIIAM'S PURCHASE.
in lieu of those that had been patented upon the Gore ; Phillip Schuyler introduced amendments, which prevailed, making it dis- cretionary with the Surveyor General, allowing him to waive the running of a new line, if he satisfied himself that Mr. Ellicott's line was correct; and leave it to the commissioners of the land office to arrange matters between the holders of patents and the as- sociates, or Mr. Williamson, holding as he did, by purchase, most of the patents, to perfect the title to "the Gore," nearly 84,000 acres. As an equivolent for what he had paid in the purchase of patents, the commissioners of the land office conveyed to him about the same quantity of land embraced in the patents, off from the military tract, in what is now Wolcott and Galen, in Wayne county.
The reader will have seen that the first location of " The Friend" and her followers, was upon "The Gore." Their titles were all confirmed by Mr. Williamson, upon terms generally satisfactory.
Sodus was the next site chosen for the foundation of a settle- ment- or in fact, for the founding of a commercial village, -not to say city. In all Mr. Williamson's plans for settling the coun-
NOTE. - It would seem that, as between the State, the Lessees and Mr. Williamson, the early colonists, for a time, hardly knew whose hands they were to fall into. In January '94, however, they had concluded whose title was to be preferred. They ad- dressed to Mr. Williamson the following letter, or petition :-
"JERUSALEM, 13th of Ist mo., 1794.
"FRIEND WILLIAMSON, - We take this opportunity to let thee know our wishes, who are now on thy land, at The Friend's settlement in Jerusalem, in the county of Ontario, and in the State of New York. We, the subscribers, wish to take deeds from friend Williamson for the land our improvements is on, rather than any other person. Our desires is, that thee would not dispose of the lands to any other person but to us, who are on the land.
Benajah Botsford
Eleazor Ingraham,
Elnathan Botsford, Daniel Ingraham, Philo Ingraham, Elisha Ingraham,
Solomon Ingraham,
Richard Matthews, Samuel Parsons,
Richard Smith,
Elnathan Botsford, jr., Jonathan Davis,
Abel Botsford, Enoch Malin,
Asahel Stone, Elijah Malin,
Samuel Doolittle, Thos. Hathaway, Mary Aldrich."
William Davis, John Briggs,
John Davis, Benedict Robinson,
There are other letters from Benedict Robinson and others of the Friends, to the same purport. " Friend Parker" lets "Captain Williamson " into his family affairs, with- out reserve: - " It is my desire to settle the several branches of my family near me: for that reason, I began where we now are; with the intention to buy of the right owner when I could see him. The 1,000 acres may seem too much for one man , but when it is divided between myself, a son, and three sons-in-laws, it, I think, will not be deemed extravagant; especially, considering I know not how soon I may have two more sons-in-laws. A man like myself, who was one of the first settlers in the coun- try, and began onr settlement, which would have been elsewhere had it not have been for me; and also encouraged many emigrants into this country, may claim to be in- dulged in having the several branches of his family settled near him."
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PHELPS AND GORIIAM'S PURCHASE.
try, and his projections of internal improvements, laid from time to time before his principals, he had looked to the Conhocton, the Caniste, Tioga and Susquehannah rivers, as the avenues to market from the southern district of the Genesee purchase ; and to Balti- more as its commercial mart. With these views, he had founded Bath. * Looking to Lake Ontario, the Oswego river, Oneida Lake. Wood Creek, the Mohawk and the Hudson river, and the St. Law- rence, as avenues to the New York and Montreal markets, for the northern district of the purchase, he selected Sodus Bay as the commercial depot.
Early in the winter of 1793, he determined upon improvements there, and in the spring of '94, he had roads cut out from Palmyra and Phelpstown, to get access to the spot from those points. It was his first appearance in the Lake Ontario region, and his pre- sence there, with his surveyors, road makers, builders, and all the retinue necessary to carry out his plans, created a new era -in- spired new hopes with the scattered backwoods settlers. It had looked before he came, as if for long years, no one would be bold enough to penetrate the dark, heavy forests, that in a wide belt, were stretched along the shores of the Lake. They entertained before no hopes of realizing for years, any better facilities for trans- portation to market, than was afforded by Ganargwa Creek, t the outlet of Canandaigua Lake, and Clyde river. He had preceded the enterprise by a written announcement of the plan of oper- ations : - It contemplated the survey of "a town between Salmon Creek and Great Sodus Bay, and a spacious street, with a large square in the centre, between the Falls on Salmon Creek and the anchorage in the Bay, and mills are to be built at the Falls on Sal- mon Creek." He adds : - " As the harbor of Great Sodus is ac- knowledged to be the finest on Lake Ontario, this town, in the con- venience of the mills and extensive fisheries, will command advan- tages unknown to the country, independent of the navigation of
* It should be observed, that he contemplated the improvement of the navigation of those rivers, and projected a canal to connect the Tioga and Delaware rivers, in order to reach Philadelphia.
t Mud Creek, until recently. The old name was blended with the recollection of stagnant waters, bogs, chills and fevers. When its whole aspect had been changed by the hand of improvement, and it became even picturesque and beautiful in its mean- derings through cultivated fields, and a rural scenery seldom cqualled, the dwellers in its valley were enabled, with the help of Lewis Morgan, Esq , of Rochester, to come at its ancient Seneca name, which they adopted.
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PHELPS AND GORIIAM'S PURCHASE.
the Great Lake, and the St. Lawrence." The town was surveyed by Joseph Colt. The plan was as indicated above. The in-lots contained a quarter of an acre, and the out-lots ten acres. The whole was upon a scale of magnificence illy suited to that primitive period ; and yet, perhaps, justified by then prospective events ; and more than all, by the capacious and beautiful Bay, the best natural harbor upon our whole chain of Lakes, a view of which, even now, excites surprise that it has not, ere this, more than reali- zed the always sanguine expectations of Mr. Williamson.
The in-lots in the new town, were offered for one hundred dol- lars ; the out-lots, for four dollars per acre ; the farming lands in all the neighborhood, at one dollar fifty cents per acre. Thomas Little and --- Moffat, were the local agents. A tavern house was erected at a cost of over $5000, and opened by Moses and Jabez Sill. * Mills were erected at the Falls on Salmon Creck ; a plea- sure boat was placed upon the Bay ; and several other improve- ments made. In roads, surveys, buildings, &c., over $20,000 was expended in the first two years.
The first difficulty encountered was the ague and fever, that early incubus that brooded over all of Pioneer enterprise, upon the Lake shore. When the sickly season came, agents, mechanics and labor- ers, could only work upon "well days. " Mr. Williamson soon be- gan to realize that there was something beside the "romantic and beautiful, " about the " Bay of Naples " he had found hid away in the forests of the Genesee country. And another trouble came. DOP See British invasion of the Genesee country, at Sodus.
Soon after Mr. Williamson had perfected his title to the Gore, the junction of the Canandaigua out-let and Ganargwa creek, the fine flats, hemmed in by hills and gentle swells of upland - the facilities afforded for navigation with light craft, - attracted his at- tention. Fancying the outlet and the creek to be miniature repre- sentations of the Rhone and the Sayonc, and struck with a coinci- dence of landscapes, he bestowed upon the location the name of Lyons. He had been preceded here by some of the earliest Pioneers of the Genesce country. In May, 1789, a small colony consisting
* Moses Sill died in Dansville, in 1849. Jabez Sill died at Wilkesbarre, in 1844. The latter was an early proprietor at Prideaux, "Braddock's Bay." His son, Daniel Sill, is the fortunate California adventurer from Dansville.
For some account of the Sill family. see History of Wyoming, and Mrs. Ellett's " Women of the Revolution."
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PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE.
of twelve persons, were piloted up the Mohawk, and by the usual water route, by Wemple, the Indian trader who has been mentioned in connection with the Rev. Mr. Kirkland. Arriving at what was then the principal head of navigation, especially for batteaux of any considerable size, they located and erected log huts half a mile south of the present village of Lyons, where James Dunn lately resided. The heads of families, were : - Nicholas Stansell, William Stansell, and a brother in-law, John Featherly. They had been inured to hardships, toil and danger, as border settlers upon the Mohawk, and in Otsego county ; Wm. Stansell had been to this region in Sulli- van's expedition. Their nearest neighbors were Decker Robinson and the Oaks family ; the same season, a few families, located at Palmyra. The Stansells and Featherly may be regarded as the Pioneers of all the northern part of Wayne county. They ground their corn in a small hand mill " until a German named Baer put up a log mill where Waterloo now is." Jointly with the Pioneers of Phelps, they opened a woods road to that neighborhood and in the direction of the mill at Waterloo. The father of the Stansells died in the earliest years, and was buried in the absence of any funeral rites ; there being no one to conduct them. A few weeks previous to Wayne's victory, the early Pioneers became alarmed ; made up their minds they must flee, or see a second edition of the scenes that they had passed through upon the Mohawk ; the old hatteaux that brought them into the wilderness was re-corked and pitched to take them out of it ; they were upon the point of starting, when news came that " Mad Anthony " had humbled the western nations, and smothered the flame that had threatened to break out in the Gene- see country. These early adventurers depended much upon the " products of the forest ; " not such as comes under that head in our modern canal statistics ; but upon wild game ; deer principally. Nicholas Stansell was a hunter, and would go out and kill from eight to ten deer in a day. Nicholas Stansell, a surviving son of
NOTE. - This carly colony brought in with them some hogs, and the result, with other similar ones that will be noted, confirms the fact that our domesticated hog will if turned into the forest, to share it with wild animals alone, go back to his primitive condition in one, or two years, at farthest. A boar, of this primitive stock changed in form, became a wild racer, his tusks grew to a frightful length ; he became more than a match for bears and wolves ; and finally a terror to the new settlers, until he was hunted and shot. The first progeny of this primitive stock when caught could not be tamed, and generally had to be hunted like other game.
17
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PIIELPS AND GORIIAM'S PURCHASE.
one of the two Pioneer brothers, who now resides in Arcadia Wayne county, says : - " After our first stock of provisions was exhausted, we saw hard times; got out of corn once; went and bought of Onondaga Indians. For days we were without any pro- visions other than what the forest, the streams, and our cows affor- ded. We eat milk and greens. Venison and fish we could always have in plenty. My father hardly ever missed when he went out after a deer. Salmon, bass, pickerel, speckled trout, ducks and pigeons, were in abundance."
A small patch of corn and potatoes, raised by the Stansells and Featherly, on the old Dorsey farm, in 1799, were the first crops raised in Wayne county.
Nicholas Stansell died in 1817 ; his surviving sons are, William Stansell, of Arcadia, and George Stansell, who lives a mile south of Newark. John Featherly dicd a few years since in the town of Rose, aged 80 years. Nicholas Stansell, changing his residence in 1800, became the proprietor of lands upon which the village of Lockville has grown up.
Mr. Williamson commenced operations at Lyons, in the summer of' 1701. He made Charles Cameron his principal local agent. Reserving nearly a thousand acres, which was afterwards sold to Julge Dorsoy, a house and barn were built for Mr. Cameron; the first framed house in that region .* Mr. Cameron had the village surveyed, and built a store house and distillery. Before the close of 1796, Henry Tower, as Mr. Williamson's agent, had erected and com- pleted what was long known as " Tower's Mills," at Alloway.
The mills must have been of more than ordinary magnitude, for that early period, as the author observes that the cost was over twelve thousand dollars. In addition to other improvements, Mr. Cameron cleared land, and commenced making a farm.
Next to Sodus Bay, Mr. Williamson had regarded Prideaux (Braddock's) Bay as a favorable position upon the Lakc. He made some surveys there for a town, but did little towards starting it. In his correspondence with his principals in London, he often men- tioned the mouth of Genesee River, but not in a way to indicate a high opinion of its locality. His aim was to improve only such spots as were surrounded by the lands he held in charge. Those nearest
* It is now standing in a tolerable state of preservation, on the bank of the outlet.
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PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE.
the mouth of the River and the Falls, had been sold by Phelps and Gorham, before their sale to the London Associates. In 1794 he visited the Falls, Prideaux Bay, and spent a day or two with Wm. Hencher. He soon after purchased of Samuel B. Ogden, the Allan Mill, and the Hundred Acres, with a view to commencing some improvements upon the present site of the city of Rochester. Al- lan had sold the property to Benjamin Barton, senior ; and Barton to Ogden. - DF See deed, or title paper, in Library of Rochester Athenæum and Mechanic's Association. At the time of William- son's purchase, the mill, a frail structure originally, with no cus- tomers to keep it in motion, had got much out of repair. He expended upon it some five or six hundred dollars-put it in tolera- ble repair-but unfortunately there were no customers. It was difficult of access from the older settlements, and mills more con- venient for them, were soon erected. The purchase, repair, and sale of the mill and mill tract, was about the extent of Mr. Wil- liamson's enterprises at the " Falls of the Genesee River," where the aspect of things in that early day, was any thing but encouraging.
In 1798, a party of emigrants from Perthshire, Scotland, emigra- ted to America, landing at New York, and coming west as far as Johnstown, Montgomery county, halted there to determine on some permanent location. Mr. Williamson hearing of the arrival of his countrymen, made a journey to see them. He found them poor in purse- with nothing to pay for lands - and but little even for present subsistence ; but they came from the
Land of the forest and the rock, Of dark blue lake and mighty river, Of mountains reared aloft, to mock The storm's career, the lightning's shock ; -
NOTE .- The following may be presumed to be the first business letter that was ever written from the site of the present city of Rochester. Christopher Dugan married a sister of Ebenezer Allan, and was put in charge of the mill by him :
FALLS OF GENESEE, Ang. 9, 1794.
The mill erected by Ebenezer Allan, which I am informed you have purchased, is in a bad situation, much out of repair, and unless attention is paid to it, it will soon take its voyage to the Lake. I have resided here for several years, aud kept watch and ward, without fee or recompense ; and am pleased to hear that it has fallen into the hands of a gentleman who is able to repair it, and whose character is such that I firmly believe he will not allow an old man to suffer without reward for his exertions. I wish to have you come, or send some one to take care of the mill, as my situation is such as makes it necessary soon to remove. I am sir, with respect, your most
CHARLES WILLIAMSON, Esq.
obedient humble servant, CHRISTOPHER DUGAN.
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PHELPS AND GORILAM'S PURCHASE.
they were rich in courage, in a spirit of perseverence, in habits of industry ; in all the elements that life in the wilderness, and success in it, required. Mr. Williamson became to them not only a patroon, but a benefactor. " A Scot had met a brither Scot." He offered them a favorite location, in the neighborhood of the "Big Springs," (Caledonia) ; - land at three dollars per acre, payable in wheat at six shillings per bushel ; a reasonable pay day ; and besides, to fur- nish them with provisions until they could help themselves. Four of their number were sent out to view the lands; were pleased with the allotment that Mr. Williamson had made ; on their return, met him on his way from Geneva to Canandaigua ; he drew up a writing on the road, and the bargain was thus closed. In March, 1799, while there was yet sleighing, the Scotch adventurers came from Johnstown to the "Big Springs."* Those who first came
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