USA > New York > Steuben County > History of the settlement of Steuben County, N.Y. including notices of the old pioneer settlers and their adventures, 1893 > Part 10
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When I got on shore, I went to a man named Smith, who had a fishery, and a large boat with eighteen oars, and about forty Irishmen in his employ, and offered to hire his boat and hands. He was drunk and, told me with an oath, that I and my arks might "go to the d-1." He would neither let the boat nor his hands go. I went into the shanty of the Irishmen, and putting on an Irish brogue, told them of my distress, "The d-1 take Smith, we will help our countryman, by my shoul boys," said the leader. They manned the boat, and the arks were brought to the shore in double-quick time. They refused to take pay, and I took them to a tavern and ordered them as much as they chose to drink. My friend Edwards and those jolly Irishmen saved
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my arks and cargo. Edwards is yet alive, and resides in Bath .*
The loss I sustained in flour and wheat this year was great, but I did not feel it to be any serious interruption to my business. On my return, I concluded that I must suspend the purchase of wheat while that ruinous measure, the embargo, was in force, and fall upon some other schenie and project. So I opened a large dis- tillery, which opened a market to the farmers for their rye-corn, and even wheat, which I converted into "fire-water," as the Indians very properly call it. Jefferson's embargo did not injure the sale of it, but the contrary, as whiskey was then worth by the barrel from eight to ten shillings per gallon, and all men, women, and children drank of it freely in those days. I con- verted much of my whiskey into gin, brandy and cordials, in order to suit the palates of some of my tippling customers.
I purchased in the fall droves of cattle and sent them to Phila- delphia. I also stall-fed forty head of the best and largest cattle in the winter, which I shipped on arks to Columbia, and drove to Philadelphia, where they sold to good advantage. This mode of sending fat cattle to market astonished the natives as we passed down the river. It proved to be a profitable business.
In the year 1814 I sold my Cold Spring Mills to Henry A. Towsend for $14,000. I erected other mills at Bath. In 1816 I ran down to Baltimore about 1,000,000 feet of pine lumber and 100,000 feet of cherry boards and curled maple. I chartered three brigs and shipped my cherry and curled maple and 500 bar- rels of flour to Boston. I sold my flour at a fair price, but my lumber way a dead weight on my hands. At length, the inventor of a machine for spinning wool by water power, offered to sell me one of his machines for $2,500, and take lumber in payment. I closed a bargain with him, which induced me to embark in woolen manu- facture. I obtained a loan from the state, and was doing well until Congress reduced the tariff for the protection of home in- dustry to a mere nominal tax. The country immediately after was flooded with foreign fabrics, and but few woolen factories survived the shock.
I will now close my narrative, so far as it relates to my own business concerns, with a single remark, that although I have been unfortunate at the close of my business, yet I flatter myself
*He died in March, 1851.
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that all will admit that I have done nothing to retard the growth and prosperity of the village of Bath, or of the inhabitants of Steuben country generally, especially at a time when there were no facilities for the farmers of the county to transport their pro- duce to market other than that which was afforded them by my exertions. And whether the people of Steuben or myself have received the most benefit I leave for them to determine.
It would appear to be of very little consequence for me to state the number of civil offices that I held'during my residence in Steu- ben county. It will only show how far I had the good will of the people. First, I was appointed Justice of the Peace ; next, a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and Surrogate of the county. In 1816 I was appointed High Sheriff of the county, which office I held four years. I held the office of Post Master of the village of Bath, about eight years. The good people of Steuben also elected me three years in succession to represent them in the Legislature of the State of New York .- For all these favors I felt then, and ever shall feel grateful.
This brief narrative is nothing more than a mere synopsis of some of the principal events of my life during the last sixty years. I find that all labor, whether of the hand or head, have become burdensome, which will be sufficient apology for its insufficiencies.
NOTE .- Gen. McClure, at the age of 64 again started "in pursuit of the Far West," which he says "had got a thousand miles ahead of me," and located at Elgin, in Illinois, where he resided until his death in the summer of 1851.
CHAPTER VI.
CAPTAIN WILLIAMSON'S ADMINISTRATION-LIFE AT BATH-
GRAND SIMCOE WAR-RACES-THEATRE-VINDICATION OF
THE ANCIENTS-BATH GAZETTE-COUNTY NEWSPAPERS -- THE BAR-PHYSICIANS.
Captain Williamson having, toward the close of the last century, fairly established himself at Bath, was the greatest man in all the land of the West. His dominion extended from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario ; a province of twelve hundred thousand acres owned him as its lord ; Indian warriors hailed him as a great chief ; set- tlements on the Genesee, by the Seneca, and at the bays of Ontario, acknowledged him as their founder ; and furthermore, by commission from the Governor of the State of New York, he was styled Colonel in the militia of the Commonwealth, and at the head of his bold foresters, stood in a posture of defiance before the Pro-Consul of Canada, who beheld with indignation a rival arising in the Genesee forests, and taking possession of land which he claimed for his own sovereign, with a legend of New Englanders and Pennsylvanians, mighty men with the axe and rifle, and with colonies of Scotch and Irish boys, who cleaved to the rebellious subjects of the King.
His was no idle administration. It did not content him to sit in idle grandeur in his sumptuous log-fortress on the Conhocton, like a Viceroy of the Blackwoods, feasting on the roasted sides of mighty stags, and eating luxurious hominy from huge wooden trenchers, with the captains of his host. Neither did he yield to those temptations which so often beset and overpower governors sent to administer the affairs of distant districts of the wilderness, who, instead of collecting tribute from the refractory aborigines, and keeping them well hanged, are forever scouring the woods with hounds, and beating the thickets for bears, to the great neglect of the Royal finances. He galloped hither and thither with restless activity-from Bath to Big Tree, from Seneca to Sodus, from Canadarque to Gerundigut, managing the concerns
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of his realm with an energy that filled the desert with life and activity. People heard of him afar off-in New England, in Vir- ginia, and in Canada. The bankers of Albany and New York became familiar with his signature, Englishmen and Scotchmen were aroused from their homes and persuaded to cross the ocean for Genesee estates, and hearty young emigrants of the better sort-farmers and mechanics of some substance-were met upon their landing by recommendations to leave the old settlements behind them, and try their fortunes in Williamson's woods. Pioneers from below pushed their canoes and barges up the rivers, and men of the East toiled wearily through the forest with their oxen and sledges. Not a few Virginian planters, with their great household, abandoned their barren estates beyond the Potomac, and performed marches up the Susquehanna valley and over the Laurel Ridge in much the same style (saving the camels) as the ancient Mesopotamian patriarchs, shifted their quarters-young- sters and young ladies making the journey gaily on horseback, while the elderly rode in ponderous chaises, secured against catastrophes by ropes and props, and the shoulders of their negroes. Several such cavalcades came over the Lycoming Road. One is yet remembered with some interest by a few, as containing a pair of distinguished belles, whose fame went before them, and who were met on their descent, half frozen, from the mountains in mid-winter, at the Painted Post Hotel, by a couple of no less distinguished sprouts of Northern gentility, one of whom was afterwards so fortunate as to gain the hand of one of the frost-bitten beauties.
The administration of the affairs of the estate beyond the limits of this county, is not, of course, a matter to be treated of with propriety in this volume. Much of the agent's personal attention was of course required in this, but he made his resi- dence at Bath, and to life and doings at the metropolis, our atten- tion will for the present be directed.
Captain Williamson dwelt in his stronghold on the Conhocton, in high style, like a baron of old. All the expenses necessary to support the state which such a regent should maintain, were borne by the boundless fund which he controlled. Gentlemen from far countries came up to the woods on horseback, and were entertained sumptuously, as the gallant captain's feudal proto-
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types were wont to welcome to their castles straggling crusaders, pilgrims and foreign knights. There was an abundance of gen- tility in the land, both sham antd genuine. Sometimes the ad- miring wood nymphs, who had heretofore seen only ill-favored and bare-backed pagans striding through the forest, beheld a solitary horseman, finely dressed in the most approved fashion of the cities, trotting down the interminable lane of pines, followed at a respectful distance by his servant (a spectacle which this good republican county has not seen for many a year), and sometimes Captain Williamson himself might be seen dashing in gallant style through the woods, with a party of riders from the Hudson or the Roanoke, mounted on full blooded horses, while a func- tionary from the baronial kitchen brought up the rear, with luncheon and a basket of wine. There were, moreover, asses in lions' hides, who came down with a great flourish, and passed themselves off for real Nubians. A few old settlers have occa- sion to remember one of these gentry, a certain captain, "a great big man, and a mighty fine gentleman, with ruffles in his shirt, and rings on his fingers," who contracted to build Captain Wil- liamson's stupendous Marengo barns, and one day went off in a portly and magnificent way, without paying his carpenters.
The Pine Plains were unable to support such courtly person- ages, and indeed the good stock of working men and farmers who tilled the land, found the soil so ungracious, that they were not a little straightened for the means of supporting life. Captain Williamson transported his first flour from Northumberland, and a quantity of pork from Philadelphia. Afterwards these luxuries were obtained as best they could be. Flour was brought on pack horses from Tioga Point, and a treaty of commerce was entered into with Jemima Wilkinson, the prophetess, who had established her oracle on the outlet of Crooked Lake, where her disciples had a mill and good farms. The first navigators of Crooked Lake carried their cargoes in Durham boats of six or eight tons burden, which they poled along the shore, or when favoring breezes filled their sails, steered through the mid-channel. These primitive gondoliers have lived to see the end of their pro- fession. Notwithstanding these resources, the village of the Plains was sometimes reduced to great straits. The Canisteo boy brought over his bag of wheat on a horse, threw it down at
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the door of the agency house, and was paid five silver dollars the bushel. He drove his bullock across the hills, slaughtered it at the edge of the village, and sold every thing from hoof to horn for a shilling the pound. He led over a pack-horse laden with grain, paid all expenses, treated, and took home eighteen dollars. One old farmer remembers paying two dollars and a quarter for a hog's head, "and it was half hair at that." "Bath was just like San Francisco," says an old settler on the comfortable farms of Pleasant Valley, "straw was a shilling a bunch, and every thing else in proportion. Money was plenty, but they almost starved out. They once adjourned court because there was nothing to eat. If it hadn't been for the Valley, the Pine Plains would have been depopulated. After court had been in session two or three days, you would see a black boy come down here on a horse, and with a big basket, foraging. He would go around to all the farms to get bread, meat, eggs, or anything that would stay life. Bath was the hungriest place in creation. You couldn't trust a leg of mutton to anybody but the land agent."
The citizens of the county made court week a kind of general gathering time, and the larders of Bath were sometimes speedily exhausted. The prudent juryman before setting out from home, slung over his shoulders a bag containing a piece of cold pork, and a huge loaf of bread ; for no one knew to what extremities the ministers of justice might be reduced.
Nevertheless the affairs of the metropolis went on finely. The county prospered. The river was partially relieved of incum- brances ; roads were opened ; bridges were built; farms were cleared. In 1796, or about that time, Captain Williamson resort- ed to sundry bold devices to arouse the backward people of the East, and to spread the fame of his realm throughout the land. Before entering upon those subjects, however, there is a martial affair which must by no means be lightly passed over-the grand Simcoe War of 1794. The memory of this has almost perished. Few of the good people know how a high and mighty potentate of the North once rose up in wrath against Captain Williamson, and threatened to come down upon him with the King's regi- ment, to storm his villages, to plant his artillery, if necessary, under the ramparts of his stronghold on the Conhocton, and to restore the Pine Plains with the rest of Western New York, to
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the Crown of Great Britain. This is really the bloodiest para- graph in the annals of Steuben County, and must be carefully treasured.
In a rather stunning explosion of rhetoric, a certain Fourth of July orator thus sounds the prelude to a kind of epic anthem, in which he indulges, in view of the threatened conflict with the Powers of the Pole. "Hark ! what sounds are those which arise " from the lowering North ! Lo ! the great Unicorn of Albion "begins to moan in the forests of Canada, and that other red " quadruped which rides rampant upon the British shield, begins " to growl in an offensive and impertinent manner from the brist- "ling ramparts of Toronto. War's mighty organ murmurs in " distant caverns, and clouds like black war-elephants, raise their "dusky backs out of the waters of Lake Ontario."
Further quotations from this sonorons document will be refrained from. Humbler imagery will suffice to illustrate the passage of arms between Captain Williamson and the high and mighty Viceroy of upper Canada. It is not generally known to our citizens what an enemy arose against us in our infancy, and the infant settlement, like a sturdy little urchin, squared itself in defiance against the veteran bruiser, who offered to bully it out of its rights.
It is well known that by the treaty of 1783, the British agreed to evacuate forthwith all military posts held by them within the territory of the United States, the forts at Niagara and Oswego were held under various pretexts until the year 1796. Certain claims of sovereignty over certain lands in Western New York, were asserted by British officers, and their presence, their influence over the Indians, and the intrigues of their agents caused much apprehension and annoyance to the settlers. Captain Williamson, as we have seen, was interested in a settlement at Sodns. On the 16th of August, .1794, Lieut. Sheaffe, a British officer, called at that place, "by special commission from the Lieutenant Governor of his Britanic Majesty's province of Upper Canada," and in the absence of Captain Williamson, left a letter for him, demanding "by what authority an establishment has been ordered at this place, and to require that such a design be immediately relin- quished."
The potentate by whom this order was dictated was Colonel
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Simcoe, an officer, who, we believe, served with some distinction at the head of a regiment of loyalists in the Revolution, a gentle- man undoubtedly of ability and discretion, and esteemed a good Governor by the Canadians, but one who felt sore at the late dis- comfiture of the Royal arms, and who appears to have embraced the delusion for a long time entertained by British officers of the old school, of the possibility of marching through America with a brigade of grenadiers. The Duke de la Rochefoucault Lian- court, a French traveller, gives us the key to Col. Simcoe's char- acter and aspirations .- " He discourses with much good sense on " all subjects, but his favorite topics are his projects and war, "which seem to be the objects of his leading passions. He is " acquainted with the military history of all countries. No hillock " catches his eye without exciting in his mind the idea of a fort " which might be constructed on the spot, and with the construc- " tion of this fort he associates the plan of operations for a cam- " paign, especially of that which is to lead him to Philadelphia."
Col. Simcoe, then, had a professional hobby. He looked at banks and bráes with the eye of Major Dalgetty, and believed that hills were made for castles, harbors for forts, and knolls for "sconces." Of Pharsalia and Agincourt, of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, and the flank movements of Gustavus, of the tactics of Gideon and the forays of Shishak, of battering-rams and bomb-shells, of torpedos, catapults, pikes and pistols-of such was the conversation of Col. Simcoe. Of marching from Niagara through the wilderness like a Canadian Hannibal, of routing the back-woodsmen and making captive the audacious Williamson in his stronghold among the mountains, of emerging from the forest with drums, clarinets and feathers, of riding over the stupified farmers of Pennsylvania, and trailing his victorious cannon through the streets of Philadelphia. of hiding the humili- ation of Saratoga in a blaze of glory, and of generally grinding to powder the rebellious enemies of the King-of such were the dreams of Col. Simcoe.
As the first step toward the attainment of these magnificent results, the Viceroy of His Britannic Majesty stole a barrel of flour.
How this exploit was performed,-whether the storehouse was approached after the style of Turenne, and the clerk summoned
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to surrender the key of the padlock, in the words of the Grand Turk at Constantinople ; whether hoops were respected and staves treated considerately, according to the usages of the Black Prince and other mirrors of courtesy, we cannot say, though the Gov- ernor undoubtedly overhauled his library and reviewed Rollin's History before he attempted a manœuvre which was probably without a precedent in the "military history of all nations." The particulars of this fell swoop of the Canadian war-kite do not appear in the few books hastily consulted on that subject, - loftier matters, the evacuation of forts, the movements of emissa- ries, and the correspondence of functionaries, being solely dis- coursed of in those. Old settlers, however, aver that a quantity of flour belonging to Capt. Williamson was seized by the British and carried off.
Capt. Williamson resented the affront in a spirited manner. A sharp correspondence followed between himself and the tres- passing parties. The cabinet at Washington took the matter in hand. The prospect looked, to the men in the forest. decidedlv warlike. The "black war elephants," which the orator saw ris- ing out of the billows of Ontario, it may be believed, shook their bright and glittering tusks with evil purport, while those other surly quadrupeds which displayed themselves in such an ill-tem- pered manner on the "bristling ramparts of Toronto," undoubt- edly indulged in demonstrations equally hostile and alarming. Captain Williamson had reason to believe that in the event of actual hostilities, the vengeance of Col. Simcoe might seek him in his own city. He determined to make ready for the blow, to rally the woodsmen, to picket the public square, and to entertain the Canadian Hannibal and his legions with such a feast of smoke, steel, and sulphur, as those fire-eaters alone could relish.
Gen. McClure in his manuscript says, "The administration at Washington apprised Capt. Williamson of the difficulties that had arisen between this country and Great Britain, and required him to make preparations for defence. He therefore received a Colonel's commission from the Governor of New York, and imme- diately thereafter sent an express to Albany for one thousand stand of arms, several pieces of cannon and munitions of war. He lost no time in making preparations for war. He gave orders to my friend Andrew Smith to prepare timber for picketing
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on a certain part of our village and ordered that I should erect block-houses according to his plan. The work went cheerily on. We could rally, in case of alarm, five or six hundred, most of them single men. Our Colonel organized his forces into com- panies. I had the honor of being appointed Captain of a light infantry company, and had the privilege of selecting one hundred men, non-commissioned officers and privates. In a short time my company appeared in handsome uniform. By the instructions of our Colonel we mounted guard every night, -exterior as well as interior. Most of our own Indians, whom we supposed were friendly, disappeared, which we thought was a very suspicious circumstance."*
The young settlement, like the infant hero of old, seemed likely to be attacked in its cradle by a serpent ; and although the backwoodsmen, even of Canisteo, were too considerate to stran- gle the British Empire aggressively, and without an act of Con- gress authorizing such violence, yet it is quite apparent that had this great power seen fit to assail Col. Williamson's little prov- ince, the consequences would have been disastrous either to the one or the other. Every thing was made ready. Further move- ments of those " black war-elephants" and the rest of the hostile menagerie were awaited with interest. How soon will the snort- ing charger of Simcoe prance upon the banks of the terrified Conhocton, while his gloomy grenadiers stride through the forest with fixed bayonets and frowns. How soon will the flags of St. George flaunt under the Eight-mile Tree, or field pieces roar under our splintering palisades, while all the Six Nations, yell- ing in the under-brush, drive the wolves distracted. The appre- hension of invasion was probably not very alarming, yet sufficiently so to excite patriotism and visions. The lonely settler, sleeping in his cabin far in the forest, the loaded rifle standing at his bed side, the watchful hounds growling without, dreams that his liouseis assailed by seventy or eighty Esquimaux, painted like rainbows, and led on by George the Third in person, while Lord Cornwallis supports his sovereign with a ninety-gun ship and a bomb-ketcli.
* Mr. Henry McElwee, of Mud Creek, was employed by Col. W. to cut white oak saplings eighteen feet long and eighteen inches thick at the butt, to be used for palisades, in enclosing the Pulteney Square. A great many of these were cut and peeled ready for use.
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All stand waiting for the dogs of war. " The solitary express- "rider now gallops through the streets of Northumberland, "clatters along the rocky roads, wheels up the Lycoming, climbs "the Laurel Bridge and urges his stumbling horse over the "rugged German patlı, descends to the Tioga, hurries along the " rivers, and, riding at night into the guarded citadel of the Con- "hocton, declares tidings of peace. The lion, grumbling no "longer on the ramparts of Toronto, lies down in his lair ; the " pacified unicorn ceases to stamp upon the Canadian soil, and "the black war-elephants haul in their horns, and sink behind " the northern horizon." Such is the peroration of the Fourth of July Orator.
In 1796, Col. Williamson, by way of blowing a trumpet in the wilderness, advertised to all North America and the adjacent islands, that grand races would be held at Bath. At the distance of half a mile from the village, a race-course of a mile in circuit was cleared and carefully grubbed, and all the resources of the metropolis were brought forth for the entertainment of as many gentlemen of distinction and miscellaneous strangers as might honor the festival by their presence. But what probability was there that such a festival would be celebrated with success in the midst of " a wilderness of nine hundred thousand acres?" From Niagara to the Mohawk were but a few hundred scattered cabins, and in the south a dozen ragged settlements, contained the great- er part of the civilized population till you reached Wyoming. But Col. Williamson did not mistake the spirit of the times. Those were the days of high thoughts and great deeds. On the day, and at the place appointed for the race and the proclamation, sports- men from New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore were in attend- ance. The high blades of Virginia and Maryland, the fast-boys of Jersey, the wise jockeys of Long Island, men of Ontario, Penn- sylvania and Canada, settlers, choppers, gamesters and hunters, to the number of fifteen hundred or two thousand, met on the Pine Plains to see horses run-a number as great, considering the condition of the region where they met, as now assembles at State Fairs and Mass Meetings. No express-trains then rolled down from Shawangunk-no steamboats plowed the lakes-110 stages rattled along the rocky roads above the Susquehanna. Men of blood and spirit made the journey from the Potomac and
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