USA > New York > Erie County > Elma > History of the town of Elma, Erie County, N.Y. : 1620 to 1901 > Part 18
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A platform committee of one from each state and territory repre- sented was appointed the first day. The committee submitted a report on the evening of the second day, which was immediately and unanimously adopted. The part on the Slavery question was as follows.
RESOLUTION SECOND. "That the principle promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Consti- tution, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the states, and the Union of the states, must and shall be preserved.
THIRD. That to the Union of the states this nation owes its unprecedented increase in population, its surprising development of material resources, its rapid augmentation of wealth, its happi- ness at home and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for dis-union, come from whatever source they may: we denounce those threats of dis-union, in case of a popular overthrow of their ascendency, as denying the vital principles of a free govern- ment, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant people sternly to rebuke and for- ever silence.
FOURTH. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states and especially the right of each state, to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment ex- clusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the per- fection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we de- nounce the lawless invasion by aimed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
SEVENTH. That the new dogma, that the Constitution of its own force, carries slavery into all of the territories of the United States, is a dangerous political heresy, at variance with the ex- plicit provisions of that instrument itself, with contemporaneous exposition, and with legislative and judicial precedent; is revolu- tionary in its tendency, and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country.
EIGHTH. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States, is that of freedom: That as our Republican fath- ers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that "no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due possess of law," it becomes our duty by
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legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary to maintain this provision of the constitution against all attempts to violate it ;and we deny the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislation, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States.
NINTH. That we brand the recent reopening of the African slave trade under the cover of our national flag, aided by perver- sions of judicial power, as a crime against humanity and a burning shame to our country and age; and we call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.
TENTH. That in the recent vetoes by the Federal Governors, of the Acts of the Legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska prohibiting slavery in those territories, we find a practical illustration of the boasted Democratic principle of Non-intervention and Popular Sovereignty embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and a demon- stration of the deception and fraud involved therein.
ELEVENTH. That Kansas, should of right be immediately ad- mitted as a state under the Constitution recently formed, and adopt- ed by the House of Representatives."
The convention then proceeded to ballot for President. On the third ballot Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, having received a ma- jority of all votes cast ; Mr. William M. Evarts of New York, moved that the nomination be made unanimous; seconded by Mr. John A. Andrews of Massachusetts, and Abraham Lincoln was made the choice of the convention. On the second ballot for Vice-president, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, received 367 votes to ninety-nine for all others and was declared duly nominated.
The Douglas, Breckenridge and Lincoln parties were planted on the following principles.
DOUGLAS. - Slavery or no slavery in any territory is entirely the affair of the white inhabitants of such territory. If they choose to have it, it is their right; if they choose not to have it, they have a right to exclude or prohibit it. Neither Congress nor the people of the Union or of any part of it outside of said terri- tory have any right to meddle with or trouble themselves about the matter.
BRECKENRIDGE -The citizen of any state has the right to migrate to any territory, taking with him anything which is prop- erty by the law of his own state, and hold, enjoy, and be protected in the use of such property in said territory. And Congress is bound to render such protection whenever necessary whether with or without the co-operation of the Territorial Legislature.
LINCOLN -Slavery can only exist by virtue of municipal law; and there is no law for it in the territories and no power to enact
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one. Congress can establish or legalize slavery nowhere, but is bound to prohibit it in, or exclude it from any and every Federal Territory whenever and wherever there shall be necessity for such exclusion or prohibition.
The four political parties were now ready for the business of the campaign, and never before this time, had there been a canvass carried through with anything like the force and determination by the leaders of all the parties. Mass meetings and pole raisings were held in every city ,town and village, throughout the whole country, where speakers extolled the good things of their own party. and explained and derided what they called the bad things of the other parties; such great interest and excitement prevailed as had never before been reached.
The election was held November 6th, 1860, with the result as follows: Lincoln 1,857,610 votes; Douglas received 1,365,976, votes; Breckenridge received 847,951 votes; Bell received 590,631. Total 4,662,168.
In the Electoral College, Lincoln received 180 votes; Brecken- ridge received 72 votes; Bell received 39 votes; Douglas received 12 votes. Total 303., which gave Lincoln a majority of 57 over all others.
While Lincoln did not have a majority of all the votes cast at the election, he received a majority of fifty-seven of the Presidential Electors and was elected President.
In the election of 1856, Buchanan received 1,838,169 votes; Fremont received 1,341,264 votes; Fillmore received 874,534 votes. Total 4,053,967.
In the Electoral College, Buchanan had 174 votes; Fremont had 114; Fillmore 0. Total 228.
While Buchanan in 1856 did not have a majority of all the votes cast at the election, he received a majority of sixty of the Presidential Electors and was elected President.
The result of the election of 1860 was not at all pleasing to the slave holders, and the southern leaders began at once to carry out their often repeated threat to dissolve the Union. The Legisla- ture of South Carolina on November 10th, 1860, five days after the election issued a call for a State Convention to meet on December 17th, and on December 20th, the Convention by unanimous vote, declared that, "the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States under the name of the United States is hereby dissolved" and gave as the reason that fourteen states had failed to fulfill their Constitutional obligations.
This act of South Carolina was followed by other Southern States which passed Secession Ordinances as follows: Mississippi, January 8th, 1861; Florida, January 11th, 1861; Georgia, January
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19th, 1861; Louisana, January 26th, 1861, Texas, February 1st, 1861; Virginia, April 25th, 1861; Arkansas, May 6th, 1861; North Carolina, May 20th, 1861; Tennessee, June 8th, 1861.
. The reason given by these states was the same as that given by South Carolina with the addition that "these fourteen states had elected a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes were hostile to slavery."
On February 4th, 1861, delegates from the States that had at that date seceded met at Montgomery, Alabama, to form a new government. This Congress, on February 18th, adopted a Consti- tution with the title "Confederate States of America. " elected and inaugurated Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Alabama for President and Vice-president.
The seceded States immediately took action to prepare for the coming contest of arms. The Georgia Legislature passed a bill appropriating $1.000,000 to arm and equip the state. The South had seized forts, arsenals, ships and munitions of war, the United States mint at New Orleans, with $500,000 in money, and other public property there, said to amount to about $4,000,000; and all public property in the seceded states that they could reach.
The members of both houses of Congress from these states gener- ally left soon after their states passed their secession ordinances.
John B. Floyd, President Buchanan's Secretary of War, had sent all the munitions of war that he could well reach in the North to southern forts, most of the regular army being sent to Texas, and the ships of the navy being in the South or absent at foreign stations, everything being ready to their hand; Floyd resigned December 29th, 1860 and left Washington for the South.
During the night of December 26th, 1860, Major Anderson moved his handful of United States troops from Fort Moultrie in Charleston harbor to Fort Sumter.
On January 21st, 1861, most of the Southern members of Con- gress having left, Kansas with a population of 107,000, by a vote in the Senate of 36 to 16, and in the House a few days later by a vote of 119 to 42, was admitted with a Free State Constitution as a member of the Union.
All through the South a secret order known as the "Knights of the Golden Circle, " was being organized and the lodges were extending through the South and into the Free States. All members were sworn to fidelity to southern rights and slavery protection.
Great efforts were made by the leaders of all parties in the North by Conventions and petitions to Congress to amend the Constitution of the United States so as to satisfy the South on the
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slavery question; but no good resulted as the southern leaders absolutely refused to accept any concessions.
President-elect Lincoln arrived in Washington February 24th, 1861, at 6 o'clock a. m., by special train from Philadelphia. He was inaugurated Monday, March 4th, 1861. In his inaugural address he said in part, "That no state upon its own motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence within any state or states against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary according to circumstances.
I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and laws, the Union is unbroken and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union shall be faithfully executed in all the States.
"I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union; that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.
"In doing this there need be no bloodshed nor violence, and there shall be none unless it is forced upon the national authority. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors."
The Confederates took this as a declaration of war, and they hastened their preparations for the coming contest.
The address greatly united the people of the North.
Major Anderson had for fifteen weeks been shut up in Fort Sumter, by the rebels, when on April 12th, 1861, at 4.30 o'clock in the morning, the rebel batteries under command of General Beauregard opened fire on the fort; and this commenced the war of the Slave Holders' Rebellion.
It is an old saying, "that whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad," and it proved true in the slavery issue. The pro-slavery leaders were mad because their purpose to gain and hold political power was going from them. They were mad in their determination for slavery extension and protection; mad in their murderous and treasonable course to compel Kansas to become a Slave State; mad in their nominating conventions and through the campaign of 1860; mad because of the results of the election ; mad in their secession of States, and in forming a Confederacy to destroy the Union; mad in commencing the war; for, by the war which they thus inaugurated, slavery, their pet institution was to be destroyed; and with slavery gone, their power to control the United States Government, by and through that institution was also gone-lost forever.
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CHAPTER XV.
TOWN OF ELMA 1866 TO 1884.
For a statement of officers elected at the town meetings since the town was organized, and for the years for which this history is to continue, see Chapter XXI.
For a table of assessments of personal and real property, the equilized valuation as fixed by the Board of Supervisors, the town expenses for each year as audited by the Town Board, the expense for roads and bridges and taxes of the town for each year since the town was organized and for the years for which this history is to continue, see Chapter XXI.
For alphabetical lists of Marriages and deaths, of some of the residents of the Town of Elma to 1900, see Chapters XVIII and XIX.
For a statement of the postoffices of the town and the dates of their being established, with the names of the persons appointed as postmaster with the year of their appointment, see Chapter XXI.
For a statement of the organizing of the different churches, the erection of their houses of worship, and their Sunday Schools, etc., see Chapter XXI.
For a table of the United States Census, and the State of New York separate statement of the census of the population of the Town of Elma, 1860, to 1900, see Chapter XXI.
1866.
John Kihm came to East Elma and was blacksmith in the shop at the east end of the bridge in 1866.
On January 1st, 1866, Lewis Northrup made a New Year's present to his son, Eli B. Northrup, of the sawmill and millyard on the north side of the Cazenove Creek at Spring Brook; and that year Eli Northrup overhauled and remodeled the mill and put in a large circular saw.
Henry Klehm moved on to the south half of Lot 53, on the west side of the Bowen Road, in the spring of 1866.
The Schultz Steam Sawmill was built on Pond Brook, north of the Jamison Road, and west of the Schultz Road, on Lot 42, in the summer of 1866, and for a few years it was run, was a great
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help to the owners of near-by lands, as it enabled them more readily to get the timber into lumber and into the Buffalo market.
In the summer of this year, Ellery S. Allen and his brothers, David and Anthony, Jr., came to East Elma from Saratoga County, and bought of Z. A. Hemstreet the sawmill and gristmill property at the west end of Lot 10, about twenty acres, besides other lands in the near vicinity. This company, known as "The Allen Brothers operated the sawmill and commenced to alter the gristmill building into a woolen factory, thus adding a new industry to East Elma. The gristmill building had never been finished and the machinery never put in and so had never been used as a gristmill.
Jacob Mohn and Jacob Koch came into the town and with their families settled in Blossom.
Hermon Hesse came from Germany in the spring of 1866, and worked for Samuel Green in the Chair factory on Pond Brook in Elma Village.
Albert Morris, the three-year-old son of William Morris was kill- ed while playing with several other boys on the bridge over the Creek on the Aurora plank road, south of the Mouse Nest tavern, by the team and wagon driven by a Mr. Morey of Holland, who was returning from Buffalo, and who did not see the little boy. The funeral services were conducted by Rev. - Sanford of East Aurora, and the burial in the Spring Brook cemetery.
John Luders bought of Hiram Harris the north half of Lot 40, in the Aurora part of the town and on the west side of the Schultz Road. Deed dated December 12th, 1866, recorded in Liber 261, on page 349.
John Cook bought of John Luders the east part of Lot 45, of the Lancaster part of Elma. Deed dated December 17th, 1866; recorded in Liber 273, page 106.
During the spring and early part of the summer of this year there had been several meetings held in different parts of the town to talk up the project of a railroad across the town and to ascer- tain if the people would subscribe for any of the stock of the said railroad.
Mr. William Wallace, Engineer and Superintendent of the Attica and Buffalo Railroad, when completed in 1843, and who had been the prime mover in the survey and construction of the Buffalo, Brantford and Goderich Railway in 1851 to 1858, was in 1866, working to get a railroad from Buffalo to the coal fields in Pennsyl- vania, the objective point being Emporium in Pennsylvania.
On February 4th, 1865, a company was organized as the Buffalo and Washington Railroad Company and was soon consolidated with the Buffalo and Allegany Valley Railroad Company, and other railroad companies, all to be under the name of the Buffalo
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and Washington Company, which was in a little time changed to Buffalo, New York and Philadelphia, and still later, to Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad.
.It was this proposed road that Mr. Wallace was so much inter- ested in getting built that he went through on the proposed line, holding meetings in all the towns to see what encouragement the people would render towards the building of the road, and some of these meetings were held in this town as above noted. He met with such success in the towns and in Buffalo, that in August 1866, he had the line surveyed from Buffalo to the Transit, the west line of this town. He then engaged Warren Jackman to survey the line from the Transit through the town of Elma and to connect with the survey as made by Buffalo and Allegany Valley Railroad Company on Lot 45, in Aurora part of Elma, where that company had cut down a few trees, indicating the line of their survey, and from that point, on the line of this old survey across the balance of the town of Elma. The directions given by Mr. Wallace to Jackman were "to put in as flat a curve as possible, at the crossing of the Bowen Road, and to keep off the lands of Eron Woodard," as Woodard had absolutely refused to allow the railroad to cross any of his land.
The line as surveyed across the town of Elma was nearly all the way through the unbroken forest, only for a short distance, near the west line of the town, and occasionally through a small chopping was there any cleared land along the line as surveyed by Jackman and his corps of helpers, in October, 1866.
The levels were taken, and profile maps were made that fall, and the road was built on that line the next year from Buffalo to East Aurora.
Isaac Gail's store at East Elma was closed in the fall of 1866.
1867.
February, 1867, opened with two to three feet of snow on the level, and with cold weather which continued until the weather moderated on the 10th, and the thaw continued on 11th and 12th, followed on 13th by a heavy rain which took off most of the remain- ing snow. This caused a great flood and the breaking up of the 12-inch ice in the Big Buffalo and Cazenove Creeks and other streams.
An ice dam was formed in the Big Buffalo Creek, three-quarters of a mile below Elma Village, which caused the water and running ice to set back and form a lake from the ice dam to Hurd & Briggs' milldam, half a mile above Elma Village; and from Hurd & Briggs' sawmill to the high bank south of the creek, the water being from
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two to six feet deep and all filled with ice. In main Street, in Elma Village, the ice was piled four to eight feet high, fences, lumber and small buildings being carried away by the flood.
During the night of the 14th, the ice dam gave away, and in the morning of 15th the water had drained off, and before night a track had been cleared in the road, so that teams could go across the flats between the walls of ice.
The Winspear bridge was carried off by this freshet, and was replaced with a lattice bridge during the summer, at a cost to the town of $925,00.
The Blossom bridge was damaged so that the repairs cost the town $450.
The Northrup bridge was damaged and was repaired at a cost of $342.
Many small bridges, culverts, and sluices, were carried away and destroyed which, with the loss and damage to the large bridges, made a heavy road and bridge account for the town to meet.
Joseph C. Standart bought of Stephen Markham, the house, lot and sawmill, on Lots 58 and 59 in the Lancaster part of Elma, on the east side of the Bowen Road, the deed dated February 13th, 1867, recorded in Liber 288, page 328.
Warren Jackman sold to Wilbor B. Briggs, March 7th, 1867, the house and lot in Elma Village on the west side of Main Street and south of the millrace and on March 21st, Jackman moved to Youngstown, Niagara Co., after residing here sixteen years.
In the spring of this year, John Garby bought and moved on to fifty acres of central part of Lot 60, on the west side of Bowen Road.
Harvey C. Palmer and family moved from Saratoga County in April, 1867, to East Elma, where he worked for Allen Brothers on and in the woolen mill, in altering the gristmill building, and putting in the machinery, the whole being completed and in successful operation before the close of the year. It was called "The Niagara Woolen Mills."
The steam shinglemill at East Elma, owned by Munger and Crane, burned July 4th, 1867, and was immediately rebuilt.
Hattie E. Davis, eleven year old, daughter of Wm. H. Davis, who resided on the Northrup Road on Lot 101 and Nellie E. Wal- lis, the nine year old daughter of Mrs. and Mrs. Wm. D. Wallis, who resided on the Northrup Road southwest from Spring Brook, on Lot 35 of the Mile Strip, were both drowned on the afternoon of July 24th, 1867, in the "Devil's Hole" in the Cazenove Creek. This hole was formed in the bed of the creek by the rapid flow of the water at the bend of the creek and at that time was about forty feet in length, up and down the creek, and about twenty feet wide and about seven feet deep. It was supposed that the girls while
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wading in the shallow water along the shore without knowing of the hole stepped or fell into it and both were drowned.
A private cemetery on the Rice Road and north of Lot 66, known as the Tillou cemetery, had been used for several years when on September 30th, 1867, it was organized under the State cemetery laws as the "Union Cemetery of Spring Brook." It is generally known as the Tillou Cemetery.
Stephen Northrup bought of Geo. H. Bristol the store and tannery lot in Spring Brook ; deed dated October 22d, 1867, recorded in Liber 271, page 440. He put in a stock of new goods; was appointed Postmaster of the Spring Brook Postoffice by President Johnson.
The survey of a line for a railroad from Buffalo to East Aurora, the levels and maps having been completed in the fall of 1866 and the letting of the contract in the spring of 1867, to build the road, this being a part of the proposed Buffalo and Washington Rail- road from Buffalo to Emporium, made the building of the road to the coal fields and lumber region of Pennsylvania a sure thing. This section of eighteen miles from Buffalo to Aurora was built and accepted by the Company, December 22d, and an excursion train between these places, on Wednesday, December 25th, (opening day) was the cause of great rejoicing with all the people along the line of the road.
This part of the road was operated for several years before the road was completed to Emporium, and during these years vast quantities of lumber and wood were sent by the railroad to Buffalo. At this time, 1867, not more than half of the timber had been taken from the land in the Town of Elma, and the prospect of the railroad being soon built to the Pennsylvania lumber and coal region, caused the owners of timber lands in Elma, to rush their wood and lumber into the Buffalo market, before lumber and coal should be brought from Pennsylvania, as then they thought, prices would go down with a crash. So every effort was put forth by the Elma people to get their lands cleared before the road should be com- pleted.
The building of the road beyond Aurora was delayed several years; but was completed to Olean in July, 1872, and opened to Emporium on January 1st, 1873.
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