USA > New York > Steuben County > History of the settlement of Steuben County, N.Y. including notices of the old pioneer settlers and their adventures, 1853 > Part 12
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The first settlers of Pleasant Valley were William Aulls and Samuel Baker. Mr. Aulls, previous to the year 1793, was living in the Southern part of Penn- sylvania. In the spring of 1793, he made the first clearing and built the first house in the valley. In
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the autumn of the same year he brought up his family. The house which he built stood on the farm now occu- pied by John Powers, Esq. P
Samuel Baker was a native of Bradford County, in Connecticut. When 15 years of age, he was taken prisoner by a party of Burgoyne's Indians, and re- mained with the British army in captivity till relieved by the Surrender at Saratoga. After this event he enlisted in Col. Willett's corps, and was engaged in the pursuit and skirmish at Canada Creek, in which Captain Walter Butler, (a brother to the noted Col. John Butler,) a troublesome leader of the Tories in the border wars of this State, was shot and tomahawked by the Oneidas. In the spring of 1787, he went alone into the West, passed up the Tioga, and built a cabin on the open flat between the Tioga and Cowenisque, at their junction. He was the first settler in the valley of the Tioga. Harris, the trader, was at the Painted Post, and his next neighbor was Col. Handy, on the Chemung, below Big Flats. Of beasts, he had but a cow, of " plunder," the few trifling articles that would suffice for an Arab or an Arapaho; but like a true son of Connecticut, he readily managed to live through the summer, planted with a hoe a patch of corn on the flats, and raised a good crop. Before autumn he was joined by Captain Amos Stone, a kind of Hungarian exile. Captain Stone had been out in "Shay's War," and dreading the vengeance of the government, he ยท sought an asylum under the southern shadow of Steu- ben County, where the wilderness was two hundred miles deep, and where the Marshal would not care to
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venture, even when backed by the great seal of the Republic. On Christmas day of 1786, Mr. Baker leaving Captain Stone in his cabin, went down the Tioga on the ice to Newtown as previously mentioned,* and thence to Hudson, where his family was living. At the opening of the rivers in the spring, he took his family down the Susquehanna to Tioga Point in a canoe. A great freshet prevented him from moving up the Chemung for many days, and leaving his family, he struck across the hills to see how his friend Captain Stone fared. On reaching the bank of the river oppo- site his cabin, not a human being was to be seen, ex- cept an Indian pounding corn in a Samp-mortar. Mr. Baker supposed that his friend had been murdered by the savages, and he lay in the bushes an hour or two to watch the movements of the red miller, who proved, after all, to be only a very good-natured sort of a Man- Friday, for at length the Captain came along driving the cow by the bank of the river. Mr. Baker hailed him, and he sprang into the air with delight. Cap- tain Stone had passed the winter without seeing a white man. His Man-Friday stopped thumping at the Samp-mortar, and the party had a very agreeable re-union.
Mr. Baker brought his family up from Tioga Point, and lived here six years. During that time the pion- eer advance had penetrated the region of which the lower Tioga Valley is a member. A few settlers, had established themselves on the valley below them, and
* Chapter 2.
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around the Painted Post were gathered a few cabins where now are the termini of railroads-the gate of a coal and lumber - trade, bridges, mills and machinery. Elsewhere all was wilderness. The region, however, had been partially explored by surveyors and hunters. Benjamin Patterson, while employed as hunter for a party of surveyors, discovered the deep and beautiful valley which extends from the Crooked Lake to the Conhocton. Seen from the brink of the uplands, there is hardly a more picturesque landscape in the county, or one which partakes more strongly of the character of mountain scenery. The abrupt wooded wall on either side, the ravines occasionally opening the flank of the hills, the curving valley that slopes to the lake on one hand, and meets the blue Conhocton range on the other, form at this day a pleasing picture. But to the hunter, leaning on his rifle above the sudden declivity-before the country had been disfigured with a patchwork of farms and forest-the bed of the val- ley was like a river of trees, and the gulf, from which now rise the deadly vapors of a steam sawmill, seemed like a creek to pour its tributary timber into the broader gorge below .*
In his wanderings the hunter occasionally stopped at the cabins of Tioga, and brought report of this fine valley. Mr. Baker did not hold a satisfactory title to his Pennsylvania farm, and was inclined to emigrate. Capt. Williamson visited his house in 1792, (probably
* This view, and the prospects from the South Hill of Bath, and the summit of the Turnpike between Howard Flatts and Hornells- ville, are among the finest in the county.
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while exploring the Lycoming Road,) and promised him a farm of any shape or size, (land in New York, previous to this, could only be bought by the town- ship,) wherever he should locate it. Mr. Baker ac- cordingly selected a farm of some three hundred acres in Pleasant Valley-built a house upon it in the au- tumn of 1793, and in the following spring removed his family from the Tioga. He resided here till his death in 1842, at the age of 80. He was several years As- sociate and First Judge of the County Court. Judge Baker was a man of a strong practical mind, and of correct and sagacious observation.
Before 1795, the whole valley was occupied. Be- ginning with Judge Baker's farm, the next farm towards the lake was occupied by Capt. Amos Stone, the next by William Aulls, the next by Ephraim Aulls, the next by James Shether. Crossing the val- ley, the first farm (where now is the village of Ham- mondspost,) was occupied by Capt. John Shether, the next by Eli Read, the next by William Barney, the next by Richard Daniels. Nearly all of these had been soldiers of the revolution. Capt. Shether had been an active officer, and was engaged in several bat- tles. Of him, Gen. McClure says :- " He was Cap- tain of Dragoons, and had the reputation of being an excellent officer and a favorite of Gen. Washington. He lived on his farm at the head of Crooked Lake in good style, and fared sumptuously. He was a gener- ous, hospitable man, and a true patriot." The She- thers were from Connecticut.
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Judge William Read was a Rhode Island Quaker. He settled a few years after the revolution on the " Squatter lands " above Owego, and, being ejected, moved westward with his household after the manner of the times. Indians pushed the family up the river in canoes, while the men drove the cattle along the trail on the bank. Judge Read was a man of clear head and strong sense, of orderly and accurate business talent, and was much relied upon by his neighbors to make crooked matters straight.
'The Cold Spring Valley was occupied by Gen. Mc- Clure in 1802, or about that time. He erected mills, and kept them in activity till 1814, when Mr. Henry A. Townsend entered into possession of the valley, and resided in the well known Cold Spring House till his death in 1839. Mr. Townsend removed from Orange County, in this State, to Bath in 1796. He was County Clerk from 1799 to 1814-the longest tenure in the catalogue of county officers.
Mr. Lazarus Hammond removed from Dannsville to Cold Spring in 1810, or about that time, and after- wards resided near Crooked Lake till his death. He was Sheriff of the county in 1814, and, at a recent period, Associate Judge of the County Court.
FREDERICKTON.
At the organization of the county, all that territory which now forms the towns of Tyrone, Wayne, Read- ing, in Steuben County, and the towns of Barrington and Starkey, in Yates, was erected into the town of
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Frederickton. The name was given in honor of Fre- derick Bartles, a German, who emigrated with his family from New Jersey, in 1793, or about that time,. and located himself at the outlet of Mud Lake, at the place known far and wide in early days as Bartles' Hollow. He erected under the patronage of Captain Williamson a flouring and saw mill .* General McClure says of him, " Mr. Bartles was appointed a Justice of the Peace. He was an intelligent, generous and hospitable man. His mill-pond was very large, covering about one thousand acres of land, and was filled with fish, such as pike, suckers, perch and eels, which afforded a great deal of sport for the Bath gen- tlemen in the fishing season. Such parties of pleasure were entertained by Squire Bartles, free of costs or charges, and in the best style. We fared sumptuously, and enjoyed the company of the old gentleman. He possessed an inexhaustible fund of pleasant and inter- esting anecdote. His dialect was a mixture of Dutch and English, and was very amusing."
Bartles' Hollow, in the days of Captain Williamson, was thought a spot of great importance. Mud Creek was then a navigable stream, and it was thought that the commerce of Mud Lake and its outlet would re- quire a town of considerable magnitude at the point
* Benjamin Patterson was employed by Captain W. to supply the workmen with wild meat while the mill was building. He was paid two dollars a day, and allowed the skins of the animalskilled. He kill- ed at this time on " Green Hill" nearly an hundred deer and several bears in three months, and his companion a hunter, named Brocher, destroyed nearly as many.
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where Squire Bartles had established himself. In the speculating summer of 1796 the proprietor was offered enormous prices for his hollow, but he declined to part with it. In 1798 Mr. Bartles rafted one hundred thou- sand feet of boards from his mills to Baltimore. In 1800 he ran two arks from the same place ; of which adventure the following minute was entered by the County Clerk, in Vol. 1, of Records of Deeds :-
" Steuben County .- This fourth day of April, one thousand eight hundred, started from the mills of Frederick Bartles, on the outlet of Mud Lake, (Fred- erickstown,) two arks of the following dimensions :- One built by Col. Charles Williamson, of Bath, 72 feet long and 15 feet wide; the other built by Nathan Harvey, 71 feet long, and 15 feet wide, were conducted down the Conhocton, (after coming through Mud Creek without any accident,) to Painted Post for Baltimore. Those arks are the first built in this county, except one built on the Conhocton at White's saw-mill, five miles below Bath, by a Mr. Patterson, Sweeny and others, from Penna., 70 feet long, and 16 wide, was finished and started about the 20th of March the same year.
This minute is entered to show at a future day the first commencement of embarkation in this (as is hoped) useful invention.
BY HENRY A. TOWNSEND, Clerk of Steuben Co."
The success of Squire Bartles' arks produced as
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great a sensation in the county as the triumph of the "Collins steamships" has created in our day ; but craft of this species have long been abandoned by our lumbermen. Mud Creek has failed since the clearing of the forests, and the produce of the Mud Lake country seeks the eastern market by canals and railroads.
Among the early residents in the town of Bradford were Henry Switzer, Samuel S. Camp, Abram Rosen- bury, Henry Switzer, senior, Thomas Rolls, Michael Scott, Daniel Bartholomew and Captain John N. Hight.
General William Kernan, of County Kavan, in Ire- land, was the first settler in that part of the old town of Fredericktown, which is now the town of Tyrone. He settled in 1800 upon a lot, in a tract of 4000 acres, which had been purchased of Low & Harrison, by Mr .- Thomas O'Connor of the County of Roscommon in Ireland. Mr. O'Connor proposed to settle a colony of his countrymen on this tract. He himself lived for a time in a log-house on the hill by Little Lake, above the farm now occupied by Gen. Kernan. Two chil- dren, a son and daughter, accompanied him in his so- journ in the woods. The former is now Charles O'Con- nor, Esq., the eminent lawyer of New York city. A large number of Irish Emigrants settled on the O'Con- nor tract, but after a few seasons abandoned their im- provements-being discouraged at the labor of clear- ing the land, and discontented at the want of religious advantages according to the practice of the Roman Catholic Church. Gen. Kernan alone remained on the tract.
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Other early settlers of the town of Tyrone were Benjamin Sackett, Abram Fleet, sen., Gersham Ben- nett, Thaddeus Bennett, Abram Bennett, Jonathan Townsend, Capt. John Sebring.
Elder Ephraim Sanford, Josiah Bennett, Solomon Wixon, Josiah Bennett, Joshua Smith, John 'Teeples, Simeon Sackett, John Sackett, sen., and John Wood- ard, were among the early settlers of the town of Wayne, in 1800 or 1803. It seems, however, that this township was settled several years before. Judge Dow, of Reading, says, "I think it was in the fall of 1791, I went to view land in township No. 5, second range, (now Wayne). At that time two families only were there, Henry Mapes and Zebulon Huff. I went to the same place again in 1794, and learned that Solomon Wixon, with a large family, two of the name of Silsbee, two or three Sandfords and others had set- tled there."
Judge Dow settled near the present village of Read- ing Centre, in 1798. David Culver followed him in 1800. Other early settlers of the towns of Reading and Starkey who came from 1800 to 1804, or about that time, were William Eddy, Abner Hurd, Timothy Hurd, Simeon Royce, Matthew Royce, Reuben ' Hen- derson, Andrew Booth, Samuel Gustin, John Bruce, and Samuel Shoemaker. Among others who settled about the year 1806, were John and James Roberts, Daniel Shannon, Caleb Fulkerson, Richard Lanning, George Plumer, and Andrew McDowell.
Judge Dow having been consulted by the writer of this sketch with regard to a supposed inaccuracy in
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the outline of Seneca Lake on an old map, gave him a few notes of the settlement of the country, which are as follows :
" I left Connecticut and came to the head of Seneca Lake in April, 1789, and stayed there, and at the Friends' Settlement until late in the fall, then, after being away a few months, returned to the head of the Seneca Lake in March, 1790, and continued to reside there and at the place where I now reside until the present time. The Friends (Jemima Wilkinson's fol- lowers) made their settlement in 1788 and 1789, but between them and the head of the lake, a distance of 20 miles, it was not settled till the time above men- tioned (1798).
" The map represents the Seneca Lake as extending south to Catharine's Town. This is not correct. There were Indian clearings at the Head and at Catha- rine (as the two places were familiarly called) when white people came there in 1789. There was a marsh but a little higher than the level of the lake extending from the beach of the lake, up south, nearly to Catha- rines, and quite across the valley, excepting a tract of tillable land lying between the northern part of said marsh and the west hill, and extending south from the beach about one-half or three-fourths of a mile to a part of said marsh. This land was called the Flat at the Head on which David Culver and myself resided. This flat was the true locality of the Culverstown of the map and the village of Culver's of the book, any- thing to the contrary notwithstanding.
" The rains and the melting of the snow raised the
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lake some every spring about that time, (1790), and the greatest part of the marsh was covered with water. A stranger might possibly mark down the marsh for part of the lake.
"I saw Caleb Gardner in 1789, who said he lived at Big Flatts, and understood from him that others had settled there. In the spring of 1790 I saw Col. Erwin at Chemung, who with one or two men was driv- ing some cattle to his son's at Painted Post. The lands along each side of Catharine Valley were not set- tled, I think, till 1798 or 1799. People then came and settled, three, four, and five miles southeast of Catharine's. This place was called Johnson's Settle- ment. On the lands west of the valley settlements were made probably about the same time or soon after.
" When I first came to Newtown Point as it was then called (now Elmira) there were but few houses in that place. There were six or seven on the road and at Horse-heads. Further on were two houses, but at that time I think they were not occupied. There was one house within about a mile of Catharine ; there were two or three in Catharine, and two or three on the flat at the head of Seneca Lake. I am pretty sure these were all the houses that had been built at that time (April 1789) at Newtown, at the head of the lake and between the two places."
PRATTSBURGH.
[Most of the facts contained in the following sketch of the settle- ment of the town of . Prattsburgh, are derived from a manuscript bistory of that town prepared by Samuel Hotchkin, Esq., of Fredo-
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nia, (late of the village of Prattsburgh,) and politely furnished by that gentleman to the Editor. The manuscript is in the form of a Report made by the direction of the Prattsburgh Lyceum. It is to be regretted that the limits of this volume do not permit more liberal extracts from Mr. Hotchkin's interesting chronicle.]
The pioneer of Prattsburgh was Captain Joel Pratt. There were actual residents within the boundaries of that town before Captain Pratt, but its settlement and sale were conducted by him; by his care it was peo- pled by citizens who at an early day were reputed by all the county, men of good conscience and steady habits ; and by his sound sense, and his discretion in conducting the settlement of the town, he gained an in- fluence and enjoyed a public confidence at home, which entitle him to be styled the Founder of Prattsburgh.
The first purchase of Township Nunmber Six, in the third range, was made in the year 1797, or about that time, by a surveyor named Preston, from Westerlo, in Albany County. Judge Kersey was admitted to an interest in the purchase by Preston, but a difficulty arose between the two which it is unnecessary to de- tail and the claims of both were ultimately relinquished. The township was first known as Kerseytown.
In 1799, or about that time, Capt. Pratt came into Steuben County. He had previously resided in Spen- certown, Columbia County, and was induced by the promised importance of the Steuben region, under the Williamson administration, to make a purchase among the discouraging mountains of the Five-mile Creek country in preference to settling himself upon lands in the neighborhood of Geneva or Canandaigua, which were
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then held at a lower price than the hemlock hills of Wheeler. Captain Pratt's first purchase was of several thousand acres in Township No. 5, Range 3, being in the present town of Wheeler. Captain Pratt entered the forest with a gang of men, cleared one hundred and ten acres, and sowed it with wheat. On his re- turn to the East, the rough life of the Steuben woods had so reduced and blackened the fair and portly far- mer of Columbia County, that he was not recognized by his family. The following winter Captain Pratt removed his family into the wilderness. In 1802, be- ing not altogether satisfied with his purchase, he was permitted to exchange it for the township above.
William Root, of Albany County, joined with him in the contract for the purchase of Township No. 6, by the terms of which contract, Messrs. Pratt and Root charged themselves with the survey, sale and set- tlement of the Township, two hundred acres being re- served for the support of a resident clergyman. They were to sell no land at a lower price than $2 50 per acre, and were to receive one-half of all monies paid for land, at a rate exceeding $2 00 per acre, after they had paid the sum of $30,000 into the Pulteney Land Office. The connection of Messrs. Pratt & Root was terminated in 1806.
" Mr. Pratt had determined to form a church as well as a town. It appears to have been his intention to have cast his lot with the hardy pioneers of the forest, while Mr. Root, who continued to reside at Al- bany, seemed to regard the whole enterprise in no other light than as a hopeful speculation."
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" Captain Pratt was a member of a Congregational Church in the village of Spencertown. It was his de- termination to settle himself and family in this Town- ship, and establish a religious society in the order to which he had been accustomed. With a view to the accomplishment of this object, he required every per- son to whom he sold land, to give a note to the amount of fifteen dollars on each hundred acres of land pur- chased by him, payable within a given time, with the legal interest annually, till paid to the Trustees of the Religious Society which should be formed.
" The first permanent settler within this township was Mr. Jared Pratt, a nephew of Capt. Pratt, who came here to reside in the spring of 1801. Mr. Pratt had just set out in his career of life, and brought with him a wife to cheer and sweeten the deprivations inci- dent to a pioneer's life. The farm which he selected, and which he continued to occupy as long as he lived, is the same as is now owned by Mr. John Van Housen, and there a row of Lombardy poplars at this day marks the place of the first shelter built for civilized man within this township. Concerning this family, Rev. Mr. Hotchkin, in his history of the Presbyterian Church in Western New York, takes the following notice :- ' They constituted the only family in the township for about two years and a half. Their hardships, were many, and their priva- tions great. No neighbor within several miles, no roads except a mere trail and a dense forest all around them. To obtain flour for their bread, Mr. Pratt would yoke his oxen, fill his bag with grain, lay it
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across the yoke of his oxen, and drive his team eleven miles to Naples, where was the nearest mill to his habi- tation, the road all the way lying in a dense forest without any habitation contiguous to it.' Mr. Pratt continued to reside here till 1840, when, by a fall, he broke his neck, and died instantly in the 63d year of his age. Throughout his long life, he was respected and beloved, and in his death it may with perfect truthfulness be said, 'Tho' many die as sudden, few as well.'
" The next settler, if settler he might be called, was Daniel Buell. He built him a rude shanty on what is now an orchard, and attached to Mr. Isaac Ains- worth farm. Buell was a jolly and most eccentric bachelor. His usual and almost constant employment was hunting. He resided here but a few years, when he sought a deeper solitude, and soon afterwards was murdered by a party of Indians in Ohio."-(MS. Hist. of Prattsburgh.)
Rev. John Niles, a licentiate of a Congregational Association, settled, in 1803, with his family on a lot of eighty acres, being part of the farm occupied by the late Mr. Josiah Allis, upon the east side of the present Bath road, which was given to him by Capt. Pratt as an inducement to settle upon his township. " The Sabbath after Mr. Niles' arrival he held divine service in Jared Pratt's house, and from that day to the pre- sent, these people have never been without these sacred ministrations. About this time, the sons of Capt. Pratt, in advance of their parents, settled upon the 71
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farm which has ever since been held by some one .or more of his immediate descendants.
" Next in order of settlers, and in the winter of 1804, came the families of William P. Curtis, Samuel Tuthill, and Pomroy Hull. At this time, the only road leading to town was the Two Rod Road, (from Bath towards Naples.) Solsbury Burton came like- wise in 1804, and occupied what used to be well known as the Burton farm. About this time came Capt. Pratt himself, with the remainder of his family from the East Hill, in Wheeler, and where he had resided for two or three years previous.
"In the year 1806, we find a goodly array of set- tlers. In addition to those we have named, are the following :- Enoch Niles, Rufus Blodget, Isaac Waldo, Judge Hopkins, John Hopkins, Dea. Ebenezer Rice, Robert Porter, Dea. Gamaliel Loomis, Samuel Hayes, Dea. Abial Lindley, Moses Lyon, Uriel Chapin, Asher Bull, Bohan Hills, Stephen Prentiss, and perhaps others.
" Whoever, at the present day, will walk through our grave-yard, to read there the records of the past generation, will find most of these names upon those rude head-stones, now defaced and nearly obliterated by the hand of time, for most of them have long since gone down to the silent resting place of the dead. The iuscriptions there recorded are homely, but they are truthful." -- (MS. Hist.)
The first extensive clearing in Prattsburgh was one of seventy acres, including the Public Square of the
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Village, made in 1803, under the direction of Captain Pratt. The first framed building was a barn built by Joel Pratt, Jr., in 1804, "and that identical building yet stands by Bishop Smith's orchard, and upon his lot. This building was during the first few years of our annals a sort of "Hotel Dieu." Families there rested until they could arrange the rude appointment of their own homes, sometimes in numbers of half a dozen at once. And till the erection of the first meet- ing-house, it was the usual place of holding public worship. . . . The first merchants of our town were Joel Pratt, jr. and Ira Pratt, two sons of Captain Pratt. The first hotel-keeper was Aaron Bull. His house, which was but a log one, was probably opened in 1806 or 1807, and adjoined Dr. Pratt's office. The buildings of Dr. Hayes now cover the same ground ... . The same burying ground we at pre- sent use for interment, was set apart for this purpose in 1806. ! The first contribution to this now immense multitude, was Harvey Pratt, a young man - of 22 years, and son of Capt. Joel Pratt." . (MS. Hist.)
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