USA > New York > Wyoming County > Warsaw > History of the town of Warsaw, New York, from its first settlement to the present time; with numerous family sketches and biographical notes > Part 30
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33
360
HISTORY OF WARSAW.
learners. A controlling motive to these labors has been a desire to be in some degree instrumental in preparing Ameri- can citizens for a more intelligent discharge of the duties of citizenship. This end will be secured when political know- ledge in this country of free institutions shall be duly appre- ciated by the people generally, and when those to whom the interests of education are especially committed shall have a proper sense of their official responsibilities. There are other objects to which the subject of this sketch has not been in- different. Impressed with the sentiment that virtne is essen- tial alike to the happiness and well-being of society and the safety of the state, he has given his encouragement and aid to measures for the suppression of immorality and vice, in its various forms, and for the promotion of what the founders of our free institutions deemed of vital importance in a commu- nity-"True religion and good morals."
Hle came to Warsaw with his father and family in 1816, and, with the exception of two brief intervals, resided in this town until 1856, when he removed to Ripley, Chautauqua Co., and in 1868 to Red Wing, Minn.
He married, Oct. 4, 1827, while residing at Wethersfield Springs, Eliza Webster, of Warsaw, who was born June 9, 1804, and was the first child born in this town. They have had five children : David A., Lucy, Elizabeth, William, and Mary E.
DAVID A. was born Ang. 17, 1828; married in Red Wing, May 30, 1861, Ada Augusta McGlashan, and has two chil- dren, Herbert A., and another son.
Lucy was born Nov. S, 1862; married in Ripley, N. Y., Nov., 1866, Emery Purdy, of Red Wing, Minn., where they now reside.
ELIZABETHI was born Oct. 3, 1834; resides in Red Wing. WILLIAM was born March 26, 1841; died July 12, 1842.
MARY E. was born May 14, 1846; married Nov. 26, 1868, E. K. Sparrell, of Red Wing.
ABRAHAM T. YOUNG was born in Carlisle, N. Y., May 10, 1806, and came to Warsaw in 1816. His employ- ment was farming until, in his 25th year, he engaged as clerk in the store of Joshua H. Darling, where he remained about two years. Having decided to prepare himself for the min- istry, he commenced his studies preparatory to entering col- lege at Middlebury Academy, in 1832, and completed them at Geneva in 1835. He graduated at Union College in 1839. He took his first year's course in Theology at Union Theolo- gical Seminary in the city of New York, and the remainder
361
FAMILY SKETCHES AND NOTES.
of it, the two succeeding years, at Princeton, N. J., and grad- uated in May, 1842. He had determined to enter the field of Foreign Missions; but causes unforeseen induced him to change his purpose. He commenced his ministry with the Presbyterian church at East Aurora, Erie Co., in 1842. In 1847, he was invited to Warsaw, where he remained three years. He has since ministered, as stated supply or pastor, to the churches at East Bethany, five years; Charlotte, two years; Sacket's Harbor, five years; and Oaks Corners, the last five years. He was married in July, 1844, to Ann Ho- garth, of Geneva. They had four children: 1. Edward Sey- monr, recently admitted to the practice of Law: 2. 3. Frank H., William P., who both died in infancy; 4. Richard Ho- garth.
362
HISTORY OF WARSAW.
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.
AMONG the families who came to Warsaw from Londonderry, N. H., were the Pattersons and Fishers. Sketches of all the latter have been given on page 261. Of the eleven branches of the Patterson family, eight have resided in this town. William came in 1821, and George W., now of Westfield, the same year or the next. He resided with his brother several years, and gave his first vote in this town. In 1829, Peter and Robert, with their families, made Warsaw their home for a time. Also four sisters have resided in this town : Mrs. Barnett, Mrs. Tay- lor, Mrs. Elizabeth P. Baker, still living, and Mrs. Frank. Presuming that the two following incidents relating to the an- cestors of these families will be read with interest by their numerous descendants and by our readers generally, we insert them in this place :
THE STARVED SHIP.
[From the History of Londonderry.]
DEA. SAMUEL FISHER, father of Dea. John Fisher, noticed on page 261, was born in the north of Ireland, in the year 1722, and was of Scottish descent. He came to America in 1740, in the nineteenth year of his age. The ship in which he came was usually spoken of as "The starred ship." The vessel was so seantily supplied with provisions, that long before the voyage was completed, one pint of oat-meal for each individual on board, and a proportionate allowance of water, was all that re- mained. Mr. Fisher once went to the mate with a tablespoon to obtain some water, which was refused him, there being but two-thirds of a junk-bottle full on board. Mr. Fisher's cus- tom was to take a tablespoonful of meal daily, and having moistened it with salt water, to eat it raw. The passengers and crew, having subsisted in this manner for fourteen days, were at length reduced to the necessity of eating the bodies of
363
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.
those who died. Even this resource failed them, and at length Mr. Fisher was selected to give up his life to preserve the lives of the rest. Providentially, however, a vessel hove in sight, and their signals of distress being observed, they obtained re- lief and were saved. So deep an impression did the horrors of that passage make upon the mind of Mr. Fisher, that, in after life, he could not see, without pain, the least morsel of food wasted, or a pail of water thrown carelessly on the ground.
A SCOTCH-IRISH FAMILY.
[From an Eastern Paper.]
IN the year 1726, an emigrant ship, laden with a band of Scotch-Irish adventurers, sailed for the American continent. While proceeding on their way across the broad Atlantic, they had the misfortune to fall into the hands of a band of pirates, who boarded the emigrant vessel, placing her unhappy inmates on board their own. Among the emigrants was a Mrs. Wilson, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Fulton, who, excited by the events of their capture, gave birth prematurely to an infant daughter. The Captain of this pirate band, himself being a father, was induced to tender to the unfortunate lady every assistance in his power, allowing her to occupy the cabin of the vessel, granting her every comfort their situation afforded; and the pirates were constrained to release their hold upon the un- fortunate adventurers, and suffered them to proceed on their voyage with all their effects, save a few muskets and some ammunition, which the pirates retained. The Captain gave her several valuable presents and relies, (some of which are now in possession of the family of Mrs. Frank, in this village, ) with the promise from the family that the child should be named for the Captain's wife-Mary. The anniversary of this remark- able deliverance was devoutly commemorated as a day of annual thanksgiving by the early settlers during the whole of that generation.
This little band settled in the good old town of Londonderry; and from this mother and this ocean-born daughter may be traced the genealogy of many of the worthy citizens of that and the neighboring towns, as well as some whose names are among the illustrious of our countrymen. Mary Wilson, the child that was born upon the pirate ship, having survived to grow up, married James Wallace, of Londonderry. They were the parents of a numerous family, remarkable for intelligence and enterprise. Their only daughter, Elizabeth, married Thomas Patterson, of Londonderry, and thus became the mother of the Patterson family, known to most people in
364
HISTORY OF WARSAW.
that vicinity as possessing strong intellect and a large share of native eloquence. In olden time, when the early settlers were grouped together, and spoke of the place of their nativity, some would say it was on this side of the water, and some on that; but Mrs. Wallace would say: "Indeed, I was born neither on this side o' the water nor on that side o' the water, nor any where else on God's earth," to the no small astonish- ment of the younger ones.
AN "UNDERGROUND" ESCAPE.
IN the year 1851, there occurred an incident worthy of record, as illustrating the fame of this town as an antislavery commu- nity. About the year 1848, there removed to the District of Columbia, two brothers from Connecticut, who had previously become acquainted with some of our citizens who had a "per- fect hatred" of the Fugitive Slave Law. They engaged in market-gardening; and among their help was one very compe- tent female servant, owned in the District, and hired out by her master. This slave had two children, one son whose ser- vices were also sold, and a little daughter about seven years of age. She was very intelligent and faithful, and became a favorite with her employers. One day she came to them with tearful eyes, and told them the old story-she was to be sold " down south," away from her children and friends. Our free- dom-loving Yankees, acting on "the higher law" some years in advance of Mr. Seward's proclamation of it, resolved to save her from the fate she so dreaded. One of them caused to be made a large box, just the size of the broad market wagon in which they took their vegetables to the city. Putting into this some bedding, a jug of water, and a supply of food, and leaving at the sides near the bottom holes for ventilation, he nailed the cover down over the slave woman and her little child, and one fine night drove leisurely by the National Capi- tol, intent on giving practical effect, in one more instance, to the "self-evident truth" proclaimed by its founders :- that "all men are endowed by their Creator with the inalienable right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The morning sun found him forty miles away in Maryland. He left his wagon in front of a village tavern, to prevent suspicion, and fed and rested his horses. On and on he went, following the Northern Star whose light was guide and compass to many fleeing fugitives in Southern swamps and friendly forests. In the solitude of night he would attend to the wants of his pas- sengers, and at stopping-places by day evade curious questions, correct answers to which would have brought down upon him a United States Marshal, with the penitentiary for his reward.
WARSAW FALLS.
365
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.
Across Maryland and Pennsylvania he drove, over the difficult mountain roads of the Alleghanies, into New York. On the evening of the twenty-second day he reached his journey's end at Warsaw. Driving to the residence of his acquaintance, Mr. Isaac N. Phelps, an earnest friend of the slave, the box was quietly opened, and for the first time the poor woman was taken out of quarters so cramped that she could scarcely straighten her form therein. Mother and child were found to be enfeebled, but in good spirits ;- indeed, nothing but the instinct of Liberty would have sustained the courage of the mother, and restrained the betraying prattle of the child, through that long, dark ride of three weeks. They were secreted a few days, a part of the time in Arcade, until it was found that their whereabouts were not known, when, by the assistance of a few citizens who were privy to their history, the mother began to live on her own services, and proved valu- able help. In three or four months she gave birth to a son, and in about a year thereafter died of quick consumption. The little girl was taken and carefully reared in the family of Allen Y. Breck, becoming a skillful worker and an exemplary young woman. She is now the wife of a well-to-do colored citizen, Wm. Burghardt, and is mistress of a nice house. The babe was taken and cared for by the family of D. C. Martin, of this town, and has repaid the kindness by growing up an industri- ous, faithful farmer-boy. Many other fugitives from slavery found here a helping hand in their flight to Canada, but few episodes occurred so purely local as the escape and harboring of the woman who was known here by the name of Mrs. Jones.
CRYSTAL BROOK AND ITS CASCADES.
IN our description of the Topography of this town, [p. 25,] we made a brief allusion to the principal cascade on Crystal Brook. Not being sufficiently familiar with the several falls to give them a proper description, the following has been kindly furnished by a citizen of Warsaw :
THE hill-range that bounds the valley of the O-at-ka on the west, in the town of Warsaw, is here and there broken by ra- vines and glens where the gathered waters of the hills make their way into the valley. Some of them are of great pictur- esqueness and beauty. Maple Glen, just south-west of the village, is the equal of them all in the variety and luxuriance of its scenery.
The crystal clearness of a small spring that bubbles from the earth in the north-cast corner of the town of Orangeville,
366
HISTORY OF WARSAW.
has given the name of Crystal Brook to the stream that flows from it. Gathering in volume from the runnels of the mead- ows and the water-courses of the hollows, it enters the town of Warsaw, and there receiving a tributary from the west, bends sharply towards the east. In the earlier days of the town, when the forests were denser than at present, it industri- ously toiled here for the neighborhood in turning the wheels of saw-mills.
As the stream flows onward, it enters the cleft of the hill- side, and grows in attractiveness and beauty. In one charming spot it spreads itself in glassy pools, whose surface mirrors, in shifting photographs, the woods around and the skies above. The dell grows lovelier and deeper. A low cascade, where the waters pitch over a bench of rock, ripples an unceasing hymn, and again and again the brook nestles and lingers in the hollows of the rocks. The banks are fringed with the under- growth of the woods, where, in summer time, the rich emerald of the green enlivens the silveriness of the waters. The rocks around are hoary with the years they have seen. Here is the first of the three sister cascades.
It is a walk of but a moment to reach the second cascade. The rocks that form it are rifted and worn. Where the crumb- ling slate has yielded most readily to the friction of the waters, the brook has grooved its way, and falls into a miniature gorge wet with spray and hung with mosses. The glen has not yet grown rugged and grim, as below. It is all
" So wondrous wild, the whole might seem The scenery of a fairy dream."
This little cascade, scarcely twenty feet in height, is the beau- tiful idyl of the woods.
As the eye looks down stream, it follows the current until a bank of forest bounds the vision, and seems to block the way of the wandering waters. A sudden turn of the glen brings one upon the railway culvert, above which rises the embank- ment, cutting off the view.
Below the culvert, where the glen suddenly deepens, is a sloping precipice, sixty feet in height, over which the brook falls. In summer, when the heats are most fervid, and the drouth yet lingers, it flings itself over the ledge-a long, streaming scarf of snow-white foam, projected against the dark back-ground of the rocks. In winter the congealed mists, slowly gathering from day to day, form an irregular slope from the bottom to the top. Icy columns support icy stair-cases; opaline domes hang on slender shafts, defiant of all principles of gravitation; grotesque images leer out of the icy berg, and white snow-wreaths and steel-blue caverns inter- mingle in vivid contrast. A sheer precipice of a hundred feet on the south, a wooded steep on the north, and a wintry sky overhead, form the massive frame-work of this frost-picture.
367
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.
The hill, for a quarter of a mile to the east, is rifted apart nearly a hundred feet in depth. The boughs of the forest trees interlace luxuriantly overhead; sometimes stooping low, and then lifting themselves upward in gothic archways and great vernal domes. The summer embroiders the floor of the glen with wild roses and flowering grasses. The bed is rough and stony where the brook makes its way, and it winds and loops itself in many a graceful curve as it flows. When it emerges from the glen, it subsides into a very hum-drum, matter-of-fact kind of stream, and steals along the level of the valley to rest its waters at length in the turbid bosom of the O-at-ka.
"INDIAN ALLAN."
IT is generally known that the stream in this valley took its former name from the fact that a man called "Indian Allan " lived a short time near the entrance of the stream into Gene- see river. He was a white man, however, and his true name was Ebenezer Allan. He was, during the Revolutionary war, allied with the British and the Indians, and vied with the latter in deeds of cruelty and bloodshed. Before the close of the war, he sought a home with his war associates at Gardeau, and made the residence of Mary Jemison* his home, whose lands he worked until after the peace of 1783. He then got goods, traded at Mount Morris, and seemed to be disposed to peace. He after- wards displeased his former allies, who determined to punish him. They pursued him, but he escaped. In a second pursuit he was captured, and again escaped, and was again sheltered by Mrs. Jemison. He was again captured, taken to Montreal, for the crime charged, which was his having, by an unauthor- ized presentation of the wampum as a token of peace, induced the Indians to " bury the hatchet." He was acquitted, on the ground, as is supposed, that there was no law making the car- rying of wampum to the enemy a crime.
Allan married several wives. Ilis first was a squaw, named Sally, by whom he had two children. 1Ie married two or three white women, the husband of one of whom he probably mur- dered while he lived near the mouth of the creek. He again removed to Mount Morris, where his wives gave him trouble. The Seneca Indians deeded to him in trust for his two daugh- ters, a tract of four miles square, including the present village of Mount Morris. The deed provided that he should, from the proceeds of the land, cause the girls to be instructed "in read-
*Mrs. Jemison was familiarly called " The White Woman." When a child, she was carried away by Indians, with whom she spent the remainder of her life. She had mar- ried an Indian, and was now living in widowhood on her extensive tract of land at Gardeau. She died at a very advanced age.
368
HISTORY OF WARSAW.
ing and writing, sewing and other useful arts, according to the custom of the white people." Provision was also to be made for Sally while she " remained unjoined to another man." The girls were sent to school at Philadelphia. He removed to Can- ada; and on the breaking out of the war of 1812, he was charged with being friendly to the Americans, arrested, confined in jail, and bailed out. He died in 1814. As there was nothing in his life or character to justify the application of his name to this stream, it is hoped that it may hereafter be designated only by its aboriginal name, O-at-ka.
SKETCH OF INDIAN HISTORY.
A FEW facts relating to Indian history in Western New York, are deemed appropriate, and may be interesting to many readers. Prior to the settlement of this town, few white men had ever set their feet upon its soil, and for many years after the white settlements in this section had been commenced, the territory was a part of the extensive hunting grounds of the Indians. Though they had sold their claims to most of their lands, and though they confined their settlements to their re- served lands, they were not restricted to these reservations in procuring the means of subsistence. Many a deer was slain within the bounds of this and the adjacent towns, by missiles from the hands of Indians, before these animals became marks for Judge Webster's rifle. And although few white men had traversed this valley and these hill ranges, this town was, not only before, but long after its first settlement, a part of the common thoroughfare of the Indians passing between the Buf- falo Reservation and the reservations along the valley of the Genesee river, especially those at and above Mount Morris.
As white settlements sprang up around them, the Indians, who had originally lived chiefly by hunting, began to procure supplies of food and clothing, in part, from the whites, in ex- change for their own products, as venison and other game, baskets, bead-work and various other kinds of trinkets. The main road from Buffalo to Genesee river, passing centrally through this town, before it was ever tracked by the peddler's wagon, was a daily line of travel of Indian peddlers, carrying back-loads of baskets and other wares, exchanging them for products of farm and household labor.
Allusion has been made to Indian alarms during the war of 1812. It may be inferred by some that the Indians were ene- mies of the whites. Such was not the fact. They took no part with Great Britain in the war. If there were any hostile Indians, they were those of Canada. And if there was any ground for the fears of the people here, it was that the British
369
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.
Canadians, with their Indians, might cross the lines and de- vastate our settlements.
In our sketch of the Holland Purchase, mention is made of the fact generally known, that the title of the lands was origin- ally in the Indians, and that purchases made were subject to their claims. And it is stated, (p. 20,) that, in 1797, the In- dian title was extinguished, except to certain reservations there named. The principal of these was the Buffalo Reserva- tion, which embraced a large portion of the present county of Erie, extending east from Buffalo ten to fifteen miles. It will be readily imagined that so large a tract of wild lands around that place must have greatly retarded its growth. For a large part of the year, access to the city with teams was all but impossible. This obstruction to the trade of Buffalo continued to a late period. This reservation was at length sold by the Indians and vacated; and the lands have been settled and brought into a state of cultivation. The Cattaraugus reserva- tion is still peopled by Indians, and has long been missionary ground. A large portion of them have been Christianized, have abandoned their Indian customs, and adopted the habits of civilized life. The Indians of other reservations also have been more or less affected by surrounding civilization. Besides those of the Cattaraugus, there are still some on the Tona- wanda reservation, and along the Genesee valley. But these are said to be gradually diminishing in numbers, and we may reasonably presume that their existence, as nations or tribes, will ere long cease, and the few who may remain will be swal- lowed up in the society of the surrounding white population.
OLD MODES OF TRAVEL.
Is nothing has time wrought more marked changes than in modes of travel. Many remember when it was common for men to perform journeys of hundreds of miles on foot, carry- ing well-filled knapsacks; or on horseback, with their baggage, consisting of a valise with a change or two of underclothes, on a pad fastened to the back end of the saddle. Women rode behind men on horseback " to meeting," and not unfrequently to balls, sitting on a blanket as a substitute for the pillion of a hundred years ago, which we have so often heard of, but have never seen. Occasionally was seen a side-saddle for women's use; but this was a luxury beyond the means of the mass of men, whose wives and daughters were obliged to ride on men's saddles.
Quite as common a mode of conveyance was by the two-horse lumber-wagon, with the ancient " wagon chair," made for two
24
370
HISTORY OF WARSAW.
persons. The comfort of riding thus without springs under either the box or the seat, over long and rough roads, with fre- quent corduroy bridge accompaniments breaking the monotony, can be best appreciated by those who have enjoyed it. Now and then was seen a one horse chaise carrying a fortunate cou- ple envied by the " common people." This was the only one- horse vehicle we ever saw in our childhood, except the old "pung," a plain, one-horse, high-back sleigh, sometimes im- proved in appearance by a coat of paint. Buggies were un- known. Next appeared the one-horse wagon, with a paneled square box set solid on the axletree, but with a wooden spring seat. This vehicle probably exhibited what was then deemed the acme of improvement in wheel carriages. An idea of the use, by so large a portion of the people, of the easy and splen- did carriages of the present day, was not entertained.
Four-horse post-coaches were run on turnpikes and other principal thoroughfares; but the poor man's purse was too lean to bear a draft of twenty-five dollars for stage fare and meals from Buffalo to Albany before the reduction of these high rates by competition. Allusion has elsewhere been made to the first plain, two-horse carriage, the "Moscow Stage," run through this town by Levi Street, and to the improved coaches of our old fellow-citizen yet among us, Gen. MeElwain. Many still remember the sound of the stage horn announcing, from East IIill, the approach of the coaches on their "winding way" down the steep descent, and giving signal to the hotel-keeper and the postmaster to prepare for their reception. Stage horns were heard for many years from all directions. But stage traveling was not always agreeable. A full week was sometimes too short for a passage to Albany. Coaches have stuck in the mud, and have been got out by the help of the passengers; and often have drivers, with all due care, been unable to keep them "right side up." Our canals, in process of time, furnished a cheaper, and at times a more easy and agreeable mode of travel. But even these have been happily superseded by railroads. What improvement remains to be made in the speed and comfort of traveling, awaits the disclosure of time.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.