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 62
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 62
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 62
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 62
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 62
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 62
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 62
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 62
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 62
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 62
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After the pioneer commercial enterprise of Mr. Granger, a con- siderable period elapsed before other vessels were built. The one schooner, with such as dropped in at the mouth of the river for freight, hailing from other ports, was probably found sufficient, pre- vious to 1800. Augustus and Peter B. Porter, built a schooner up- on Irondequoit Bay, and for several years the commerce was divi- ded between the Bay and the River. In 1808 or '9, Erastus Spauld- ing built a schooner at the mouth of the river, and in 1811, Oliver Culver built one upon the Irondequoit Bay. The Lake commerce had commenced with pot and pearl ashes for the Montreal market, to which was soon added small amounts of flour and wheat, salt from the Onondaga salt works ; and at a later period, butt staves. A small commerce, upon the River and Bay, seems almost to have been forcing itself in the earliest years. The navigation of the Susquehannah was fluctuating, tedious and expensive. The boat- ing from Lyons, Geneva and Seneca Falls, had been almost aban- doned ; transportation of produce, overland, upon the Albany road, impracticable to any considerable extent, except when good winter
NOTE. - Something of Charlotte will be found in detached portions of the work ; but any especial notice of one who was early identified with the locality, has been omitted. Andrew M'Nabb, emigrated from Scotland in 1806. Well educated, and unused to the labor of clearing new lands, he spent a considerable time with Alexan- der M'Pherson, of Le Roy, under an arrangement that he should be the teacher of his children, and in turn should be taught himself the rudiments of Pioneer labor. Soon however, he attracted the attention of Mr. Stoddard, and was employed in his land office ; from which he was transferred to the office of James Wadsworth. Under the auspices of Messrs. Troup and Wadsworth, he was established at Charlotte as early as 1809 with a stock of goods, and as a local land agent, where he remained until the occurrence of the war of 1812, when he removed to Geneva, where he died, a bachelor, previous to 1830.
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PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE.
roads occurred ; Lake ports and Lake commerce, began by slow degrees to be the creation of exigency and necessity. In a letter from James Wadsworth to John Murray & Sons, N. Y., dated in June 1807, he observes that Mr. Penfield has been to Upper Can- ada, and while there had became impressed with the commercial advantages of that county ; " a barrel of pot ash can be sent from there to Montreal for $1 00; wheat commands cash, and a much higher price than in this State, from the fact of facility of transpor- tation." " These facts," adds Mr. W., " serve to illustrate the im- portance of 'Fall Town,' (Rochester,) and of the country in its vicinity. Articles can be sent at somewhat less expense from the mouth of Genesee river, than from the west end of Lake Ontario. At present our communication with Kingston and Montreal is attend- ed with unnecessary embarrassment. Montreal must become an immense deposit for agricultural productions seeking an European market. I could now purchase to be delivered at Fall Town, 10,000 bushels of wheat at 50 cents. It could then be ground and sent to Montreal for 75 cents per barrel. Our field ashes which are now wasted, would be an object of considerable consequence. Fifteen tons might be made in the small town of Fairfield this season. The business once started, the example would be followed by many. The ashes which can be scraped off from an acre after a good burn, are worth from $4 to $8. I imagine there will he 200,000 bushels of surplus wheat in this part of the State, west of a line beyond which wheat cannot be sent to Albany, at the price it now com- mands."
In July of the same year, Mr. Wadsworth wrote to Samuel Corp, N. Y. :- Grain here will not command money at any price. The Nortons are sending flour to Albany at a certain loss of $1 50 per barrel. Money hardly circulates among us. Farmers who have four or five hundred bushels of grain on hand, are paying premiums for a few dollars, that would astonish you."
" A tract of country extending from Utica to Lake Erie, and from Lake Ontario forty or fifty miles southward ; (a tract twice as large as the State of Connecticut,) is in a rapid progress to a tolerable state of cultivation. The agricultural products of this district cannot be transported to Albany, except in years of scarcity. They must generally be sent to Baltimore or Montreal. The com- munication to Baltimore is only open from three to four weeks in the spring. This river is undoubtedly a great benefit to the coun- try, especially to the inhabitants on its banks, who can seize the fa- vorable opportunity for pushing off their arks. But in my opinion the St. Lawrence is the natural out-let for the produce of this coun- try. Lake Ontario is navigable in all seasons of the year. Boats may be sent down the St. Lawrence, almost eight months in the year .. Restrictions to trade with Canada, embarrass every thing Free trade would be a mutual advantage." Mr. W., in the same
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PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE.
letter urges Mr. Corp, to " correspond with friends in London upon this subject."
As early as March, 1810, Silas O. Smith emigrated from N. Malborough, Mass., and became a pioneer merchant at Handford's Landing. He is one of the few survivors of that early period ; has lived to witness the primitive start and entire growth of Rochester, and with a physical and mental constitution unimpaired, has but partially retired from the active duties of life. He is the father of L. Ward Smith, late a representative in Assembly from Monroe county, now acting Adjt. General of the State ; of George Hand Smith, M. D. of Rochester; and of E. Meigs Smith, of Rochester. A daughter is the wife of Samuel Stevens, of Albany ; and there are two unmarried daughters.
Mr. Smith has obligingly furnished the author with his recollec- tions of the early times, which are used in the form adopted in other instances.
REMINISCENCES OF SILAS O. SMITH.
When I came to the country, the whole region was but sparsely settled. About the Upper and Lower Landing, the forests were but little broken. Where the city of Rochester now stands, it was a dense forest, save about half an acre of cleared ground, around the old Allan mill. In the spring of 1813, I built the first store in what was then called " Rochesterville." It was a wooden structure, and stood next north of the Rochester Bank, on Exchange street. In 1814, I cleared three or four acres of ground on which the Court House, St. Luke's church, First Presbyterian church, and school house No. 1, now stand. I sowed it to wheat, and had a fine crop; the harvesting cost me nothing, as it was most effectually done by the squirrels, coons, and other wild beasts of the forest. Scarcely three years, however, had elapsed before this ground was mostly occupied with build- ings, through the liberal policy of Col. Rochester, the acting proprietor.
The war of 1812 to '15, checked the growth and enterprise of the young
NOTE. - Such were the embarrassments, such the speculations and anticipations in those early years. By hardy enterprise the forest had been so far cleared away, the soil so far subdued, that a surplus began to be produced ; something to reward toil, to be exchanged for the necessaries and comforts of life, where there had been long years of privation and endurance ; but the isolated condition of the country, the want of avenues to market, forbid the fruition so well earned and so long delayed. What an event was hidden in the womb of speedily coming time ! But a few weeks previous to the date of the first letter of Mr. Wadsworth. a citizen of the Genesee country - (and honored be his memory !)-oppressed by pecuniary misfortune, a refugee from inexorable creditors, in an obscure village in Pennsylvania, had projected, and ready for denoument, the plan for the connection of the waters of Lake Erie and the Hud- son, by means of an OVERLAND CANAL ! That great remedy for the formidable evil that was paralyzing industry in all this fair and fertile region ; that great and diffusive dispenser of the wealth, comfort and luxury that meet us at every hand, whether we are surveying our own Western New York, or travelling through that Empire of the West, where the influence has been scarcely less potent ! 0" See 2d or 3d edition of " Holland Purchase," appendix.
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PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE.
village. The rumors of border warfare, and frequent turn-outs to meet the enemy, interfered much to interrupt its quiet progress. It was not until the peace of 1815 that the village may be said to have fairly commenced its growth; which from half a dozen families, now numbers 40,000 inhabi- tants.
In 1810, when at the Landing with a store of goods, I was often asked by travellers who threaded their way through the narrow paths of the forest, how I found sufficient customers to warrant any business enterprize. But people came there from a distance of even 100 miles with their teams and loads of pot ash to sell and exchange for their supplies.
Charlotte and Handford's Landing had just began to contend for the ascendancy, when the war and fevers settled the contest, and located the village at Rochester; when the great Falls, with their extensive water privileges, together with a fertile and healthy country, opened a field quite worthy of its enterprising Pioneers; and did time, space, and recollections of the past admit, I should like to do justice to the memory of those active and praiseworthy men. For their perseverance and endurance during so many privations; I remember them with the highest esteem and honor.
I would add that Handford's Landing was formerly called King's Land- ing. The earliest settlers there were mostly doomed to a death more ter- rible than the sword. Prostrated by fevers, there were times when there was none left with strength enough to bring water to the parched lips of the dying, or afford a decent interment to their remains. Their graves, more than twenty in number, could be counted in the woods near by.
Very rarely a missionary would pass through this wild and lonely region, administering the consolations of his faith. Sunday was not at all observ- ed. I remember with pleasure, the Rev. Mr. Parmalee, a Prysbeterian, a good old man, who passed through and stopped at my house where he preached and baptised; afterwards continuing on for miles to find another house and repeat the same services. At the time he was suffering so much from ague and fever that he was often obliged to dismount from his horse and lay down under a tree until the ague fit had left him, then arise and continue on his solitary journey.
At that early period we had no great partiality for any particular denom- ination of christians; we were sufficiently glad to have any. Very provi- dentially I had brought with me three books of Common Prayer; and while living at the Landing, fishing and hunting being the usual occupa- tion of many of the new settlers on Sunday; the report of the rifle breaking the otherwise " Sabbath stillness of the day"; I obtained the assistance of John Mastirk, and in a small plank school house we commenced the beautiful ritual of the Episcopal church ; and on each Lord's day read the prayers and a sermon. The plan was perfectly successful, for the services came to be attended from far and wide; and it formed the neucleus afterwards of St. Lukes, the largest church in this diocese. These were the first Prayer Books and Episcopal services used and held in this section of the country. This very small beginning contrasts strangely with the present aspect of the various religious societies, and shows that the early settlers of Rochester, as well as the present inhabitants, were not entirely negligent in these mat- ters which have had such beneficial influence upon the great prosperity of the city.
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PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE.
Charles Harford was an emigrant from England, soon after 1790. Among Mr. Williamson's papers, is a letter from him dated in New York, in 1794, in which he requests Mr. W. to reserve for him 4,000 acres near "the Great Sodus" and some " town lots,"- says he intends to engage "extensively in grazing ; " that he is about to start for England to bring out his family. It is presumed that on his return from England, (or may be previously,) he had purchased an interest in the " 20,000 acre tract," west of the River. The au- thor is not informed where he located previous to 1807. In that year he became the Pioneer on all the site of Rochester west of the river, erecting a block house on what is now State street, near the termination of the Lisle road, and making a small opening in the forest. He had here allotted to him 100 acres of his interest in the 20,000 acre tract; besides back farm lots in Gates, upon which in early years, he settled several branches of his family. In 1808 he had completed a small mill with one run of stones, a little below the Falls, conducting the water in a race. This mill for four years, did the grinding for a wide region of backwoods settlers. A saw mill soon followed, or it may have preceded the erection of the grist mill. Mr. Harford died nearly thirty years since ; of a numerous family, possessing at one period a hundred acres of the city of Rochester, and about one-twelfth of the town of Gates, the author has no information, other than the fact that a son resides in the town of Chili, and that other sons and daughters reside in Western States.
After the advent of Charles Haford on the west side of the Riv- er, the next was that of Enos Stone, the first settler on the east side of the River. DO See page 424. Mr. Stone's advent was in March, 1810. Arriving at the house of his brother Orange with his family and effects, he was helped through the woods by him and some of his neighbors, and established in his log cabin, the solitary occupant of all the present site of Rochester, east of the river. Two years previous, Enos Stone the elder had erected a saw mill on the river, which had been carried off by a freshet. In October follow- ing, needing a little more house room - having occasionally to en- tertain a visiter or traveller, Mr. Stone put up a small frame build- ing, 16 by 20 feet. The cutting of the timber, raising and enclos- ing occupied but three days; - the raising was done by Mr. and Mrs. Stone, and a hired man and hired girl .* Mr. Stone saw and endured the most rugged features of pioneer life. Getting out of provisions, he went out in search of wheat, and passing through Pittsford, Mendon, Victor, Bloomfield and Livonia, found not a bushel for sale, until he had arrived at Judge Chipman's near Allen's Hill, in Pittstown. He remembers with feelings of gratitude, that
* The structure of the first frame building ever erected upon all the broad site of the now city of Rochester, in a tolerable state of preservation, is now occupied as a wood shed, in rear of the dwelling of Win. Adams, on Elm street.
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PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE.
telling the Judge of his wants, and of the destitution of himself and his backwoods neighbors, how readily he gave him a seat at his breakfast table, and went out himself and made a levy upon his neighbors - getting a bushel of wheat of one, and a bushel of an- other ; - and so far as pay was concerned, he would only receive a dollar per bushel, less than the current price. It is with lively recol- lections of other and like kind acts, on the part of this early and wor- thy pioneer, that the author records this reminiscence. On another occasion, being out of meat, Mr. Stone walked out with his rifle, and a fine buck just trotting up the bank from the river, where he had been to drink, was transferred to the shambles ; - and as oppor- tunely it was, as the manna, in another exigency in the world's his- tory.
Isaac W. Stone, who has already been mentioned in connection with the invasion at the mouth of the river, in the war of 1812, had settled in Bloomfield, establishing a cloth dressing establishment on Fish creek, soon after 1800. In 1810 he purchased of Enos Stone five acres, opposite Blossom's Hotel, upon a part of which the Minerva block now stands ; erected a framed house and opened a tavern. There had began to be a little travel on the Ridge Road, though the fording of the river was often difficult and dangerous ; and settlement it will be observed had commenced on the Ridge. His was the only public house in Rochester during the war, was a boarding place for several of the early local adventurers - the head quarters of all military operations, while the enterprising landlord was himself, by virtue of a commission, as well as by patriotic im- pulses, the active and principal leader in measures of defence. Re- turning from the Niagara frontier, in 1813, he was taken ill upon the road, and died at the house of Major Isaac Sutherland, near Batavia ; much regretted, for he had been active and useful in the then trying crisis. An only surviving son became a resident of Lockport, was for one term sheriff of Niagara; died a few years since in Illinois. The eldest daughter, the wife of the Rev. Artemus Bishop, went upon a mission to the Sandwich Islands, in 1827, where she still resides. Another daughter became the wife of Ira West ; another the wife of the Rev. Wm. F. Curry, now a settled minister at Geneva; and another, the wife of John F. Bush, of Rochester. Mrs. Stone, who continued the pioneer tavern for four years after her husband's death, still survives, at the age of 76 years, a resident of Rochester; and with the exception of Enos Stone, the oldest living resident of the city.
The first public improvement upon the Genesee River, below Avon, was the erection of a bridge upon the present site of Roch- ester. In 1809 the Ridge Road began to be regarded prospective-
NOTE. - Mr. Stone adds, that when he arrived at Zebulon Norton's mill, in Mendon, the old gentleman instead of taking toll, added a bushel. ]
37
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PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE.
ly, as an important thoroughfare, and the citizens of what are now the northern towns of Wayne and Monroe, began to make move- ments te secure a better crossing of the River, than that of a dan- gerous fording place. A petition to the Legislature was put in cir- culation, and favored by the presence at Albany, of both the elder and younger Enos Stone, a law was passed for the construction of a bridge, by means of a tax upon the inhabitants of Genesee and Ontario, at the session of 1809, '10. The measure met with severe opposition ; the dwellers along on the Buffalo road, feared the diver- sion of travel from that then main thoroughfare, and the local mem- bers of the Legislature, were all from that road or south of it, ex- cept Judge Rogers, of Palmyra, who gave it his support. Samue Lawrence, of what is now Yates county, then a member from On- tario, opposed the measure, as imposing an oppressive tax upon those who were not to be benefitted by it, as an unnecessary and wild pro- ject. In the course of his speech he assumed that the region sur- rounding the contemplated improvement, was one frowned upon by Providence, and not fit for the residence of man. It is, said he, "in- habited by muskrats, visited only by straggling trappers, through which neither man nor beast could gallop without fear of starvation, or of catching the fever and ague." The bill passed by a close vote ; the bridge was commenced in 1810, and finished just after the com- mencement of the war of 1812. The first company of troops that marched to Lewiston, passed upon the uncovered timbers. The building commissioners were Dr. Zacheus Colby, of Genesee, and Caleb Hopkins, of Ontario; the builder, - Hovey. The bridge soon began to bring travel to the Frontier, upon the northern route, and in the absence of the war would have given an impetus to set- tlement.
Little beyond what has been named, transpired upon the east side of the River, until the close of the war ; but two families were added to those of the Messrs. Stones, and they were not permanent residents.
Though Col. Rochester and his associates, Cols. Fitzhugh and Carrol, had purchased the Hundred Acre Tract in 1802, it lay idle, as it had in long previous years, until the summer of 1811. The delay in the improvement of a site so valuable, is sufficiently ac- counted for in preceding pages ; late as would now seem the com- mencement, it was even premature, as the reader will have observed. Yet there had began to be an anxiety to see a commencement, the Bridge was progressing, public expectation and individual enterprise had began to fix upon the tract - the 100 acres, and the hydraulic
NOTE. - By some means or other the Bridge matter took a party turn, the then democratic members generally voting for it. The next year it was brought into the election canvass, and was the means of defeating the democratic members. That de- termined the complexion of the Legislature ; so the first bridge in Rochester, cost the democratic party the ascendancy in the State.
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PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE.
facilities it embraced - as the eligible spot in which all hitherto projected business localities in its neighborhood, was to become merged. In August 1810, Mr. Wadsworth, although his interests were principally at Charlotte, and Castleton, had probably become convinced that neither was the natural location of the business he saw drawing off to the lower valley of the Genesee, towards the navigable waters of Lake Ontario; and in one of the localities, sickness had began to discourage him as it had others. At this pe- riod, he wrote to Mr. Troup; - "I wish that tract of 100 acres could be purchased of the Maryland gentlemen. The Bridge and Mill seat render it very valuable indeed."
In July, 1810, Col. Rochester came down from his residence at Dansville, and surveyed a few lots on the River, along on either side of Exchange and Buffalo streets. Having before his return home, constituted Enos Stone his local agent, he addressed to him the following letter of instructions : -
DEAR SIR :
DANSVILLE, 14th August, 1811.
Inclosed I send you a plat of the village of Rochester, at the Falls of Genesee River. I have sent on advertisements to the printers at Canandaigua and Geneva, mentioning that I have laid out a village, and that you will shew the lots and make known the terms on which the lots are to be sold.
The terms are for lots No. 2, 3, 4, 5, 16, 17, 18, 30, fifty dollars each ; for lots No. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, thirty dollars. No. 1, two hundred dollars, the rest that are numbered are sold. Persons purchasing must build a dwelling house, or store house, not less than 20 by 16 feet, by the first of October 1812, or the lots will revert to the proprietors, and the advance of five dollars be forfeited. Five dollars are to be advanced on each quarter acre lot, aud twenty dollars on lot No. 1, the resi- due to be paid in two annual payments with interest thereon. If any person wants a lot above the head of the race or the River, tell them that I will be down in October to lay out lots along Mill street up to the river, and these lots can be had for building Ware Houses on the River, at fifty dollars for a quarter acre lot. Bridge street, Buffalo street, Mill street and Carroll street, are six rods wide, the other streets are four rods, and the Alley's twelve feet. You will observe that lots No. 26, 27, are to be but three rods on Bridge street, but extend baek more than ten rods, owing to the angle in the street. When I go down in October, I shall lay out the streets, alleys and lots agreea- ble to the enclosed plat. NATHANIEL ROCHESTER.
Enos Stone became the purchaser of lot 36 at $50. Other sales occurred in the order, and at the prices named, commencing Dec. 29, 1811 : -
Henry Skinner,
Lot No.
1, $200 50
Israel Scrantom, Lot No. 18, 19,
100
Hamlet Scranton,
26,
Luscum Knapp, Hezekiah Noble,
66
45,
60
Isaac W. Stone,
23, 34,
100
5, 60
Abraham Starks,
20,
50
Joseph Hughes,
15, 62,
80
David C. Knapp,
66
200
Ebenezer Kelly,
16,
60
Amasa Marshall,
50
Ira West, "
3,
30
Apolenus Jerry
21, 22, 25, 32,
125
50, 115,
260
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PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE.
Elisha Ely, Lot No. 39, 40, 41, 133, $360
Cook & Brown, 83, 100
Porter P. Peck, Lot No. 154, 100 Harvey Montgomery, " 88, 250
Josiah Bissell, Jr., 7, 13, 31, 260
Roswell Hart, 66
8, 56, 57, 400
50 Stephen Lusk, 6, Chas. D. Farman, 6.
129, 300
Wm. Robb, Lot, 61, 62, 63, 116,
Geo. G. Sill.
154,
90
117,
800
James Stoddart,
130, 100
Michael Cully, Lot No. 79, 100
Fabricus Reynolds,
131, 200
This will give the reader a pretty good idea of the range of pri- ces of primitive locations, and bring pioneer names to mind, though many of the purchasers did not become permanent residents. The author notices but one lot that reverted ; nearly all were paid for by purchasers, or those to whom they transferred their contracts. The list embraces nearly all the sales that were made before the close of the war. The low range of prices will strike the reader, as being almost unprecedented in the early history of villages and cities. The liberal patroons seemed to have been guided by the considera- tion that should govern the founders of towns and settlements, as well as legislation in reference to our public lands : - That, as it is the Pioneers, the settlers, that add real to what was before little more than nominal value, they should be large sharers in what they create.
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