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 19
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After the purchase of Phelps and Gorham, of their Western estate, Mr. Phelps selected the site at the foot of Canandaigua Lake as the central local- ity in his purchase, and the village of Canandaigua received its first settler in the spring of 1789. Many others followed during the same season, and in the August ensuing the new village was described as being "full of people residents, surveyors, explorers, adventurers. Houses were going up-it was a busy, thriving place."
In the fall of 1788, Kanadesaga (now Geneva) is described as having become "a pretty brisk place, the focus of speculators, explorers, the Lessee Company and their agents, and the principal seat of the Indian trade for a wide region. Horatio Jones (the Interpreter) was living in a log house covered with bark on the bank of the lake, and had a small stock of goods for the Indian trade. Asa Ramson, (the afterwards Pioneer of Buffalo,) occupied a hut and was manufacturing Indian trinkets. Lark Jennings had a log cabin and trading establishment covered with bark on the lake shore, which was occupied by Dr. Benton. There was a cluster of log houses all along on the low ground near the lake " In 1794, Col. Williamson having assumed the agency of the Pulteney Estate, began improvements at Geneva by 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 enterprise, and such it really was." In the same year Col. W. began his improvements at Sodus. By this time or in a few years later, nearly all the principal towns between Seneca Lake and the Genesee river in the northern district of the purchase, had received their first few settlers.
* Now Geneva Water Cure.
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In the meantime thie valleys of the Susquehanna and its tributaries, had been penetrated by adventurers from the South and East. In the year 1787, Captain Joseplı Leonard moving up the Susquehanna in a canoe with his family from Wyoming, made the first permanent settlement at Binghamton. In the same year Col. Rose, Joshua Whitney, and a few others, settled in the same vicinity. Tlie settlement at Wattles' Ferry, (now Unadilla village.) a well known locality in the early days, had been made sometime previous.
The Indian settlement at Oquago, (now Windsor, ) as lias been stated before, was of long standing. For a few years previous to the Frenchi War of 1756, an Indian mission had been established there, at the instance of the elder President Edwards. A small colony of emigrants made a settlement at this place in 1785. In the same year James Mc Master made the first settlement at Owego. Tioga Point is said to have been settled as early as 1780, but this seems incredible, unless the first residents were Tories. The pioneers of the Chemung Valley were principally Wyoming people, originally from Connec- ticut. Col. John Handy was the pioneer at Elmira, settling there in 1788.
The Chemung Valley enjoyed some fame before the arrival of the pioneers. John Miller, Enoch Warner, John Squires, Abijalı Patterson, Abner Wells, and others, are given as the names of pioneers of the valley at Elmira and its vicinity ; besides Lebbeus Hammond, of Wyoming, renowned for personal prowess above most of the men of the border. A notice of the settlements of Chemung, Canisteo and Conhocton, has been given in the preceding por- tions of this volume.
The brief time allowed for the preparation of this sketch, and the unpar- alleled confusion of the otherwise valuable works from which our facts must be derived, will compel a random notice of the time of commencing the prin- cipal settlements remaining unnoticed. Rev. Andrew Gray and Major Moses Van Campen, with a small colony, settled at Almond, Allegany county, in 1796. Judge Church, of Angelica, not long afterward, began the settlement of Genesee Valley in the same county. William and James Wadsworth, emigrated to their fine estate at Big Tree or Geneseo from Connecticut, in 1790.
It was till about the year 1798, that the State Road from Utica to the Gen- esee River at Avon, by way of Cayuga Ferry and Canandaigua, was com- pleted. In 1799, a stage passed over this road in three days. In 1800, a road was made from Avon to Ganson's, 110w Le Roy. For many years this old Buffalo Road was the centre of settlement. The wide belt of dark, wet forest, which extended along the shore of Lake Ontario front Sodus to Niagara, formed a strong-hold of pestilence, which few dared to venture into. Not even the unmatched hydraulic advantages of the Genesee Falls, could tempt the speculator to encounter the fevers that there unnerved the arm of enter- prise. It is true that as early as 1790, " Indian Allen," a demi-savage ren- egade from New Jersey, resuming a sort of civilization after the Revolution- ary war, erected mills at these falls on a certain "one hundred acre tract" given him for that purpose by Mr. Phelps, but it seems that the enterprise was premature .- Other mills along the line of settlement engrossed the cus-
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tom, and the solitary miller had hardly employment enough to keep his mill in repair. Sometimes it was wholly abandoned, and the chance cus- tomer put the mill in motion, ground his own grist, and departed through the forest. In 1810, however, settlements having been made in the Lake district, a bridge was built across the Genesee at this point, and in the fol- lowing year Col. Nathaniel Rochester, with two associates, Cols. Fitzhugh and Carrol, had become the proprietors of Allen's lot, laid out a village plot and sold several lots. Thus was founded the city of Rochester. In 1817, it was incorporated a village with the name of Rochesterville. In 1834, it re- ceived its city charter.
The Holland Company purchased their great estate west of the Genesee of Robert Morris, in 1792 and 1793. Mr. Joseph Ellicott, of Maryland, the first agent of this Company, and for many years a prominent citizen, arrived in Western New York, in 1797. In 1801, Batavia was founded under his aus_ pices .- In 1798, there was an insignificant huddle of log houses, not a dozen in all, on the site of the present city of Buffalo. The possession of the lands at the mouth of Buffalo creek, long a favorite place of rendezvous of the Indians, was deemed of importance by Mr. Ellicott, and on purchasing it, plotted there the village of New Amsterdam, with its Schimmelpinninck, Stadtnitski, and Vollenhoven Avenues.
SETTLER-LIFE.
The Editor has had in his possession a manuscript sketch of Settler-life, of much value for its exactness and particularly of detail, prepared several years since by a gentleman of accurate observation and most just sympathies, himself in early life a woodsman and a true lover of nature, and always a hearty friend of the pioneer. It was expected that liberal extracts from this manuscript might have been given, but being unexpectedly curtailed in space, we can present but a passage or two.
A SETTLER'S HOME.
As I was travelling through the county on horseback on a summer day in an early year of settlement I fell in company with two gentlemen, who were going in the same direction. One of them was the land agent from Bath, who was going to the Genesee river, the other was a foreigner on his way from Easton, in Pennsylvania, to Presque Isle (now Erie) on Lake Erie. We had followed in Indian file a mere path through the woods for several miles, passing at long intervals a log house where the occupants had just made a beginning ; when having passed the outskirts of settlement and penetrated deep into the woods, our attention was attracted by the tinkling of a cow bell, and the sound of an axe in chopping. We soon saw a little break in the forest, and a log house. As we approached we heard the loud
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barking of a dog, and as we got near the clearing were met by him with an angry growl as if he would have said, " You can come no further without my master's permission." A shrill whistle from within called off the dog. We proceeded to the house. A short distance from it, standing on the fallen trunk of a large hemlock tree, which he had just chopped once in two, was a fine looking young man four or five and twenty years of age, with an axe in his hand. He was dressed in a tow frock aud trousers, with his head and feet bare. The frock, open at the top, showed that he wore no shirt, and exhibited the muscular shoulders and full chest of a very athletic and power- ful man. When we stopped our horses he stepped off the log, shook hands with the agent, and saluting us frankly, asked us to dismount and rest our- selves, urging that the distance to the next house was six miles, with nothing but marked trees to guide us a part of the way ; that it was nearly noon, and although he could not promise us anything very good to eat, yet he could give us something to prevent us from suffering with hunger. He had no grass growing yet, but he would give the horses some green oats. We con- cluded to accept the invitation and dismounted and went into the house.
Before describing the house I will notice the appearance of things around it, premising that the settler had begun his improvements in the spring be- fore our arrival. A little boy about three years old was playing with the dog, which though so resolute at our approach, now permitted the child to push him over and sit down upon him. A pair of oxen and a cow with a bell on, were lying in the shade of the woods ; two or three hogs were root- ing in the leaves near the cattle, and a few fowls were scratching the soil. There was a clearing, or rather chopping around the house of about four acres, half of which had been cleared off and sowed with oats, which had grown very rank and good. The other half of the chopping had been mere- ly burnt over and then planted with corn and potatoes, a hill being planted wherever there was room between the logs. The corn did not look very well. The chopping was enclosed with a log fence. A short distance from the house a fine spring of water gushed out of the gravel bank, from which a small brook ran down across the clearing, along the borders of which a few geese were feeding.
When we entered the house the young settler said, "Wife, here is the land-agent and two other men," and turning to us said, " This is my wife." She was a pretty looking young woman dressed in a coarse loose dress. and bare footed. When her husband introduced us, she was a good deal embar- rassed, and the flash of her dark eyes and the crimson glow that passed over her countenance, showed that she was vexed at our intrusion. The young settler observed her vexation and said, "Never mind, Sally, the Squire (so he called the agent) knows how people have to live in the woods." She regained her composure in a moment and greeted us hospitably, and with- out any apologies for her house or her costume. After a few minutes con- versation, on the settler's suggesting that he had promised "these mien something to eat to prevent their getting hungry," she began to prepare the frugal meal. When we first entered the house she sat near the door, spin-
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ning flax on a little wheel, and a baby was lying near her in a cradle formed of the bark of a bircli tree, which resting like a trough on rockers, made a very smooth, neat little cradle. While the settler and his other guests were engaged in conversation, I took notice of the house and furniture. The house was about 20 by 26 feet, constructed of round logs chinked with pieces of split logs, and plastered on the outside with clay. The floors were made of split logs with the flat side up; the door, of thin pieces split out of a large log, and the roof of the same. The windows were holes unprotected by glass or saslı ; the fire place was made of stone and the chimney of sticks and clay. On one side of the fire place was a ladder leading to the chamber. There was a bed in one corner of the room, a table and five or six chairs, and on one side a few shelves of split boards, on which were a few articles of crockery and some tin-ware, and on one of them a few books. Behind the door was a large spinning wheel and a reel, and over head on wooden hooks fastened to the beams were a number of things, among which were a nice rifle, powder horn, bullet pouch, tomahawk and hunting knife-the com- plete equipment of the hunter and the frontier settler. Every thing looked nice and tidy, even to the rough stones which had been laid down for a hearth.
In a short time our dinner was ready. It consisted of corn bread and milk, eaten out of tin basins with iron spoons. The settler ate with us, but his wife was employed while we were at dinner in sewing on what appeared to be a child's dress. The settler and the agent talked all the time, generally on the subject of the settlement of the country. After dinner the latter and his companion took their departure, the one making the little boy a present of a half dollar, and the other giving the same sum to the baby.
I have now introduced to the reader one of the best and most intelligent among the first settlers of the county. He was a man of limited informa- tion, except as to what related to his own particular business ; but his judg- ment was good, and he was frank, candid and fearless. He belonged to that class of men who distinguished themselves as soldiers during the Revolu- tionary War, and who were in many instances the descendants of the cele- brated "bold yeomanry of old England," whose praises were commemorated by the English bard when he wrote,
" Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, A breath can make them, as a breath has made ; But a bold yeomanry, their country's pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied."
THE FRIENDLINESS OF THE PIONEERS.
The social relations and neighborly intercourse of the settlers were of the most kind and friendly character, and proved the truth of the common say- ing that "people were much more friendly in new countries than they were in the old settlements." It was no uncommon thing among them to comply literally with the injunction of scripture which requires us "to give to him
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that asketh and from him that would borrow to turn not away." Their kindness and sympathy to and for each other was indeed most extraordinary, and showed a degree of sensibility which we look for in vain in a more cul- tivated and enlightened state of society. At the commencement of the sugar-making perhaps, some one in the settlement would cut his leg badly witlı an axe, making a deep and ghastly wound, which would render him a cripple for weeks and perliaps for months. The neighbors would assemble, that is, make a bee and do all his work as far as it could be done at that time, and then, by arrangement among themselves, one man would go every after- noon and gather tlie sap, carrying it to the house where it could be boiled up by the settler's wife. Again, one would be taken sick in harvest time : his neighbors would make a bee, harvest and secure his crops, when, at the same time, their own grain very likely would be going to waste for want of gathering. In seed time a man's ox would perhaps be killed by the falling of a tree : the neighbors would come with their teams and drag in his wheat when they had not yet sowed their own. A settler's house would be acci- dently burned down-his family would be provided for at the nearest neigh- bors, and all would turn out and build and finish a house in a day or two so that the man could take his family into it. Instances like these, in which the settlers exhibited their kindness and sympathy for each other might be extended indefinitely, but we have referred to a sufficient number to show the kindness and good feeling that existed among them.
A REMINISCENCE,
For the purpose of showing how much time and labor it required in many cases for the first settlers to procure even the most common articles of food, I will state what has been related to nie by one of the inost respectable and intelligent of the first settlers of Dansville .* He stated that when he first settled in that town, it was very difficult to procure provisions of any kind ; and there was no grain to be had anywhere but of the Indians, at Squaky Hill, who had corn, which they would sell for a silver dollar a bushel. In order to get some corn for bread-liis supply having become exhausted-he went several miles to a place where a wealthy man was mak- ing large improvements and employed a good many hands, He chopped for hin four days, for which he received two dollars. He then worked one day for another man to pay for the use of a horse, and on the next day started for the Indian Village, a distance of fifteen or twenty miles, where he got two bushels of corn for his two dollars. The corn had been kept by the Indians tied up in bunches by the husks, and hung around the walls of their cabin, and was very black and dirty, covered with soot and ashes. He took the corn home and his wife washed it clean with a good deal of labor and . dried it so that it could be ground. He then got the horse another day, and carried the corn to mill, twelve or fifteen miles, and was fortunate enough to get it ground and reach home the same day. Here we see that it took seven
* The late Judge Hammond, of Hammondsport.
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days work of the settler to get the meal of two bushels of corn. The old gentleman's eye kindled when he related these circumstances, and he said that the satisfaction and happiness he felt when sitting by the fire and look- ing at the bag full of meal standing in the corner of his log house, far sur- passed what he experienced at any other time in the acquisition of property, although he became in time the owner of a large farm, with a large stock of horses, cattle, and sheep, and all the necessary implements of a substantial and wealthy farmer.
THE VILLAGE OF CORNING .*
Corning owes its existence and prosperity to no original superiority of location over neighboring villages, but has sprung up to a thriving and com- manding position by having become the centre of great public improvements. The history of these is the history of the place.
By the construction of the Chemung Canal this point was made an inland termination of navigable communication with the Hudson river and the ocean. It was consequently the point from which the products of the for- est, the field, and the river, for a vast extent of country were destined to seek a market. The sagacious enterprise of a few capitalists pointed to it as the future centre of an extensive commerce.
The extensive mines of bituminous coal, at Blossburgh, in the state of Pennsylvania, had early attracted attention, and shortly after the completion of the Chemung canal two corporations, one of which liad been created by the state of Pennsylvania, to construct a slack water navigation from Bloss- burgh to the state line, and the other by the State of New York, to continue the same to Elmira, were authorized by their respective states to build rail- roads connecting at the state line, and in this state, extending to a point at or near the termination of the Chemung canal.
The work of constructing these railroads was commenced in 1836, and at the same time an association of gentlemen now known as the Corning Com- pany, having purchased a large tract of land on both sides of the Chemung river, and laying out streets and lots, made a beginning of the future village of Corning by the erection of a large hotel called the "Corning House." The Corning and Blossburgh railroad was completed and put into operation in 1840. About the same time the work of building the New York and Erie railroad which passes through the village was commenced in the vicinity and prosecuted vigorously till the suspension of the work in 1842. The Bank of Corning, with a capital of $104,000, had been organized and put in operation in 1839. So rapid was the growth of the village, that the population · amounted in 1841 to 900.
Here its prosperity was for a time arrested. The commercial revolutions which paralyzed enterprise and industry everywhere were felt with peculiar severity here. The work upon the New York and Erie railroad which had
*Prepared for this volume by a correspondent.
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drawn together a considerable population, was suspended The property of the Corning and Blossburgh railroad was seized by creditors. The price of lumber, the great staple of the country, would hardly pay the cost of manu- facture. Large quantities of coal lay upon the bank of the river and in eastern markets, wanting purchasers. Bankruptcy was almost universal, and the resources of industry were almost entirely cut off.
Notwithstanding these drawbacks to the prosperity of the village, the advantages of its position and the hopeful energies of its citizens did not suffer the relapse to continue long .- After a while the demand for coal increased and the market enlarged Improved prices of lumber stimulated its manufacture, and larger quantities were brought here for shipment. The place became the centre of a heavy trade, and capital sought investment in manufactures. In 1848 the village was incorporated under the general law, containing at the time 1700 inhabitants.
In the meantime the work of building the Erie railroad was resumed, and on the first day of January, 1850, was opened a direct railway communica- tion with the city of New York. The elements of prosperity seemed complete.
But there were elements to contend with of an adverse and direful character. On the eighteenth day of May, 1850, occurred a fire, more extended and disastrous in proportion to the size of the place, than has often, if ever hap- pened elsewhere. The entire business part of the village comprising nearly one hundred buildings, with large quantities of lumber, was in a few hours laid in ashes. Yet the disaster was so common and universal-misfortune had so many companions-there were so many to share the loss that the bur- den seemed to be scarcely felt. The embers had not cooled before shanties of rough boards supplied the place of stores, and for months almost the entire business was carried on in places neither secure from sunimer rains or thieves. In the meantime the work of rebuilding was going on, and in no long time substantial and splendid buildings again occupied the place of the ruins.
In the year 1852 was opened the first section of the Buffalo, Corning and New York railroad, having its eastern terminus at Corning. The remainder of the line to Buffalo, will be in operation in the course of 1853. The Corn- ing and Blossburgh railroad also was relaid with a new and heavy rail and newly equipped throughout.
The annual exports of coal and lumber. are forty thousand tons of the for- mer, and fifty million feet of the latter. In its canal commerce, Corning is the fifth port in the state.
In new villages and settlements, schools and churches are apt to receive but secondary attention. In Corning its Uniou School of four or five hundred scholars has maintained a not inferior rank, and its five Churches give evi- dence of some considerable attention to morals and religion.
The population is now not far from three thousand, and the sanguine pre- dict an increase vastly more rapid in future than it has been in former years.
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THE GREAT WINDFALL.
The first stable in the town of Bath was literally " put up by a whirl- wind." In 1791, or about that time, a destructive hurricane swept over the land. Judge Baker in after years took pains to collect information of the movements of this great " northern fanatic," and was of the opinion that its path from Lake Erie to the Atlantic was about ninety miles in breadth, and that the northern limit of its agitation in this county was at the upr er town line of Urbana. A more violent "agitator " never passed through the land. Thousands of acres of forest were prostrated, and the frightful windfalls, briar-grown and tangled, which settlers afterwards found in this county were the effects of this "inflammatory appeal " to the weak brethren of the wilderness. We have met a veteran farmer who was a child at the time when the tornado passed, and happened on that day to be left by his parents to take care of still younger children, and remembers hiding in a hole in the ground with his little brothers while the forest was filled with the terrific roar of falling pines.
Mr. Jonathan Cook, an early settler at Painted Post, was driving a pack horse laden with provisions to Pleasant Valley where Phelps and Gorham's surveyors were at work, and was near the mouth of Smith's creek, on the Conhocton, when the storm struck him. He took refuge under an oak tree, while the wind, sweeping furiously up the ravine, uprooted the maples, twisted branches from the trees and scattered them in the air like wisps of hay. A whirling gust caught the cluster under which he was standing. The oak beneath which he had taken refuge was prostrated, but he himself fell with his face to the ground and escaped unhurt. His horse however met with a strange catastrophe. The whirlwind tore up several large trees and imprisoned the unfortunate animal in a cage so impregnable that the driver was unable to extricate him, but was obliged to go over to the sur- veyors' camp and get men to return with axes and make a breach in the walls of the stable. This was rather a rough joke, even for a whirlwind, but the horse was but little liurt.
THE SETTLERS OF DANSVILLE.
(The notice of the settlement of the town of Dansville originally prepared for this work was accidentally lost. At this time it is impossible to supply the names of the settlers in the southern part of the town, furnished by Wm. · C. Rogers, Esq., of Rogersville. The village of Dansville falling within the province of the author of the History of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, a brief notice of the settlers of that portion of the old town, formerly a part of Steuben county is condensed from that valuable and copious work.) The first settler upon the site of the village of Dansville, was Neil McCoy. He came from Painted Post and located where his step-son, James McCurdy, who came in with him, now resides. The family was four days making the journey from Painted Post, camping out two nights on the way. To raise
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their log-house, help came from Bath, Geneseo and Mount Morris, with Indians from Squaky Hill and Gardean. During the first season, it is men- tioned that Mrs. McCoy, hearing of the arrival of Judge Hurlburt's family at Arkport, eleven miles distant, resolved as an act of backwoods courtesy to make the first call. Taking her son with her, she made the journey through the woods by marked trees, dined with her new neighbors, and returned in time to do her milking after a walk of twenty-two miles.
Amariah Hammond, Esq., a widely known pioneer of the town who died at a venerable age in the winter of 1850, " coming in to explore, slept two nights under a pine tree on the premises he afterwards purchased. Early in the spring of 1796 he removed his young family from Bath to this place ; his wife and infant child on horseback, his household goods and farming uten- sils on a sled drawn by four oxen, and a hired man driving the cattle."
Captain Daniel P. Faulkner was an early property holder and spirited citizen of the town in the palmy days of Col. Williamson, and from his familiar appellative, "Captain Dan " the village took its name. In 1798 Jacob Welch, Jacob Martz, Conrad Martz, George Shirey and Frederick Barnhart emigrated to Dansville with their families. They came up the Conhocton valley, and were three days on the road from Bath, camping out two nights. At the arrival of this party the names of the settlers already on the ground besides those before named were Mr. Phenix, James Logan, David Scholl, John Vanderwenter, Jared Erwin, William Perine. Col. Nathaniel Rochester became a resident of Dansville in 1810.
The settlement of the southern part of this town was not commenced till about the year 1816. Of the settlers in that district we can only recall the names of Messrs. Wm. C. Rogers and Jonas Bridge. In the year 1816 (or about that time) Mr. Rogers, on arriving in the vicinity of the present village of Rogersville, found the merest handful of settlers in all that quarter. At this day the wilderness has given place to a pleasant village with an acad- emy of substantial worth, surrounded by a thriving farming country.
CONTENTS.
Notice of the Topography and Geology of Steuben County I
CHAPTER I.
Preliminary History : Purchase : Title .... 8
CHAPTER II.
Steuben County immediately previous to its Settlement. A journey sixty- five years ago: the Forest: the Rivers, &c .: Benjamin Patterson the Hunter : Skirmish at Freeland's Fort : Scuffle with the Interpreter : the wild ox of Genesee 19
CHAPTER III.
The settlements made under the purchase by Phelps and Gorham. The old town of Painted Post : origin of the name : the first settlers : the settle- ment of the upper valley of the Canisteo : the Canisteo Flats : life in the Canisteo Valley : a wrestling match : Captain John : old enemies: Van Campen and Mohawk : a discomfited savage : capture of a saw-mill : the lower Canisteo valley : the Tioga valley : Col. Lindley : a Deerslayer immortalized 33
CHAPTER IV.
The great Air-Castle : the London Association : Captain Williamson : North- umberland : the German Colony : the passage of the Germans through the Wilderness : terrors and tribulations : a " Parisian scene." ..... .55
CHAPTER V.
The settlement of Bath: consolatory reflections : Serpents: Narrative of General McClure : character of the Settlers : early citizens, the Camerons, Andrew Smith, &c .: an auto-biography : Emigration : the wilderness : settlers at Mud Creek : Bath: Captain Williamson : a canoe-voyage : Building : Speculation : navigation of the Rivers : business fortunes and misfortunes : Crooked Lake navy : a portly and able bodied gentleman extinguished : Indian traffic : River navigation : conclusion of the Nar- rative .70
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 ·99
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CHAPTER VII.
Settlement of Pleasant Valley : Frederickton, including Wayne, Tyrone and Reading : Prattsburgh : Wheeler : Pulteney : Howard : Hornby : Con- hocton : the towns south of the Canisteo : Orange : Campbell : Avoca :
Wayland II8
CHAPTER VIII.
The Air-Castle vanishing : close of Col. Williamson's career: his char- acter 138
CHAPTER IX.
Steuben County since the period of settlement : disasters : progress : pros- pects : the citizens and the land proprietors. .. 146
CHAPTER OF MISCELLANIES.
The Indians : incidents : Indian names, &c .: game, &c .: deer : wolves : pan- thers: bears: beaver: "snake stories :" anecdotes of the chase: the " Plumping Mill :" Incidents of the War of 1812 : the Militia : the Steuben Company at the battle of Queenston Heights : the fighting Chief Justice : an incident : the "Battle of Dansville " 162
APPENDIX.
·Organization of Steuben County, and statistical tables. 188 Sketch of General History of settlement in Western New York 190 Settler-Life 198 The village of Corning 202
The " Great Windfall " of 1791-The Settlers of Dansville. 204
JAN 30 1911
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