Landmarks of Orleans County, New York, Part 54

Author: Signor, Isaac S., ed
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Syracuse : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1084

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November 20, 1818, 60 acres of lot 43 were sold by article to John W. Tyrrell. This tract was deeded to Lewis J. Bennett January 20, 1834. The north part, 58 acres, of lot 43 was taken up by Roswell E. Hyde October 15, 1818. October 21, 1830, it was arti- cled : 30 acres to Lewis Green and 28 acres to George W. Bowen. December 27, 1833, the whole was articled to Gad Mather, to whom it was deeded September 10, 1835. The middle part, 60 acres, of lot 43 was taken up by Festus Bennett November 20, 1818. The article was renewed to Henry Johnson September 6, 1828, and he received a deed December 3, 1833. The southeast part, 43 acres, of lot 43 was deeded to Ezra E. Wilcox September 14, 1835.

The north part, 100 acres, of lot 44 was sold by article to Noah Brooks April 29, 1816. It was articled to Calvin Russell November 25, 1829, and was deeded to him October 25, 1832. The south part, 116 acres, of lot 44 was taken up by George W. Bowen November 7, 1816, and 66 acres were deeded to him October 19, 1836. No- - vember 20, 1829, 50 acres of this south part were articled to Hiram Bowen, and were deeded to him January 17, 1834.

Alexander Coon took up the west part, 155} acres of lot 45 January 25, 1828. Eighty-nine acres of this were articled to Jedediah Marshall, and 59 acres were deeded to him January 7, 1834. On the same day 30 acres of the same part were deeded to Aaron Camp. Forty-five acres of this west part of lot 45 were transferred from Alex- ander Coon to Thomas Wells January 25, 1828. This parcel was deeded to Oliver Welsh September 26, 1833.

Lot 46, 188 acres, was taken by Samuel Camp, jr., September 7, 1810. It was deeded to John Hagaman August 25, 1820.

Lot 47 was taken up by Joel Stevens November 19, 1811. November 20, 1819, it was articled to David Burroughs. February 19, 1828, 80 acres were transferred to Elijah Bent, and December 14, 1833, they were deeded to Jerome Phillips. February 17, 1828, the south part of lot 47, 79 acres, was transferred to John J. Snell. It was deeded to William Ewings January 9, 1834.

Alexander Coon was the first purchaser of land and the first perma- nent settler in the town of Shelby. His article bore date November 14, 1809, and it is reasonably certain that he settled here at about the same time. In a statement furnished by his son, Alexander Coon, jr., for

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Turner's History of the Holland Purchase, it is said that the "family left the Lewiston road at Walsworth's, west of Royalton Center, and arriving upon their land, four crotches were set in the ground, sticks laid across, and elm bark used for covering. This was a sleeping place, the cooking was done in the open air. A comfortable log house was built in five days, without boards, nails or shingles. Through the first winter their cattle were fed on browse. Our nearest neighbor south was Mr. Walsworth ; there was but one family north on the ridge road ; west there was none nearer than Hartland." Asa Coon, son of Alexander Coon, sr., was born February 14, 1811 ; his was the first white birth in Shelby. Alexander Coon, jr., was supervisor of Shelby in all eleven years.

Mr. Coon's land was on lots 17 and 30, about two miles west from Shel- by Center. Isaac Simens purchased a part of an adjoining lot December 28, 1809, but it is not known when the first settlement was made on his land. From the statement of Alexander Coon, jr., concerning their neighbors, it is evident they came in 1809, for in the summer and autumn of 1810 twelve purchases were made in their vicinity, and some of the purchasers must have settled on their lands in that year, These were Whitfield Rathbun, Andrew Ellicott, Ezekiel Bentley, Salmon Preston, Joseph Hagaman, Samuel B. Wells, Abraham Brewer, Joshua Park, Eleazer Frary, David Demara, Theodorus Delavergne, and Samuel Camp, ir.

Eleazer Frary was a native of Massachusetts, born in 1785. About 1800 he removed with his parents to Ontario county, N. Y., and thence in 1811 to Shelby, where he had taken an article for a part of lot 29. He built a log house and kept bachelor's hall five years, and then mar- ried Susan Williams, of Royalton. They resided on the farm which he took up till their deaths. He died in 1848, she in 1843. They reared seven children : Albert, married Mary Timmerman ; Hiram married, first, Rosina Snell, and second, Helen Howard; Sidney removed West ; George W. married Almira Johnson ; James married Elizabeth Shat- tuck ; Arvilla married E. Clark, and Livonia married Uriel Timmer- man.

David Demara, sr., purchased 150 acres of lot 34 in the southwestern part of Shelby in the autumn of 1810. He built thereon, two miles

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from any neighbor, a log house fourteen by sixteen feet, roofed with bark, and moved into it when it had neither door, window nor floor. In 1813 he went away on account of the war, but returned in 1815. David Demara, jr., was born in Albany county, N. Y., in 1808, and came with his father's family to Shelby. His wife, to whom he was married in 1837, was Maria Upham, a native of Massachusetts, born in 1814. He died in 1894.

About thirty purchases of land in the town were made in 1811, but during the War of 1812 settlers did not come in rapidly. That was the period of greatest privation and hardship among the pioneers in this region. Provisions were scarce, money was still scarcer, the nearest post-office was Batavia, and communication with the outside world was difficult and infrequent. Mills for grinding corn were distant, and often the pioneer was compelled to carry his grist on his back a distance requiring two or three days to make the journey. Malarial diseases were prevalent, and when not "shaking " himself, the pioneer was often compelled to do the " housework " and nurse his sick wife and children. Under such circumstances many would have left the country, but they had expended their all in coming here and were not able to get away.

Alexander Coon, jr, said, " When I was collector of taxes in Shelby in 1818 I had a tax of less than a dollar against a man, who, to pay it, made black salts, drew them to Gaines on a hand sled, and sold them for money." But the condition of things gradually changed. Prosper- ity succeeded the period of adversity through which the pioneers passed and in their advanced years their enjoyment was heightened by the recollection of their early privations.

John Timmerman was born in Germany and in early life came to Herkimer county, N. Y. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. His sons were Daniel, Joseph, Christopher, David, and John. His daughters were Betsey (Mrs. Joshua Woodard), Charity (Mrs. Petrie), Nancy (Mrs. Cornelius Ashton), and Delia (Mrs. Henry Vedder). In 1811 John Timmerman, with his family, came to Shelby and settled southwest from Medina, where some of their descendants still reside. The sons were thrifty farmers, and the youngest, John, was a preacher as well as farmer.

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Daniel Fuller was born in Rensselaer county, N. Y., in 1783. In his youth he learned the trade of a carpenter, and in 1811 he took up a portion of lot 37, two miles west from Shelby Center. He did not at once take possession of his land but worked at his trade in De Ruyter, Madison county, N. Y., for several years. He then came to his farm, where he remained till his death in 1864. His wife, also a native of Rensselaer county, was Hannah Godfrey She died in 1837. They had nine children.

Jacob Freeman was born in Saratoga county, and in 1811 took an article for 200 acres of lot 39, in the western part of Shelby. His son Charles inherited a portion of this land, and resided on it till his death, in 1887. One-half of this 200 acres was sold to John F. Freeman, a brother of Jacob who came about 1820. He remained on this place till his death. The farm passed to his son, Jeremiah Freeman, who died in 1887.

Micah Harrington was of English descent. His ancestors came from the north of England in 1642, and first settled in Massachusetts. Twelve of the descendants of the original immigrants were in the battle of Lexington and three of them were killed. Micah Harrington was born in Vermont, and in 1800 went to Lewis county, N. Y., where he married Hannah Smith. In 1809 he removed to Batavia, and in 1813 to Shelby Center, where he assisted in building the original Ellicott's Mills (the first grist mills built in the State west of Canandaigua except one at Batavia. and possibly one at Buffalo), and during several years he had charge of them. In the War of 1812 he had an active part, and after the burning of Youngstown and Lewiston he raised a company of volun- teers. He was a farmer, surveyor, and conveyancer, and for many years a magistrate. He died at Shelby Center in 1831. His wife died at Albion in 1861. Their children were : Devereaux S., Montraville A., Charles A , Shelby G., and Marcia, who married Charles A. Moore, of Albion. Charles A. resided for thirty years in Albion, and died there. The other sons went west.

One of the sons, M. A. Harrington, who was born in 1805, shortly before his death wrote from his place of residence in Michigan : " I well remember going with an ox team to where Albion now stands after a load of brick. The kiln was where the Catholic Church now stands. I

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got my brick and went south on the Oak Orchard road to where the ' Poor House' road joins it. There was a log house on the corner, where I staid all night. My next trip was to the head of Stillwater, on Oak Orchard creek, to take a load of siding for a store to be built for John B. Ellicott, as that was to be the location of a city. There was no Medina. An old saw mill frame was there, the timber had been cut off, and the underbrush was thick. I saw the engineers lop down the brush when the survey for the canal was made. When the culvert was built the ring stone was cut at Barnegat from bowlder limestone, as it was supposed the Medina stone would not stand the weather. Time and experience have made people wiser. On the completion of the canal, when the waters of the lake and ocean were mingled, the joining was telegraphed along the line by the firing of cannon. I remember the Middleport gun was heard at Knowlesville before the Medina gun was. I was then living at Barnegat, and the Albion gun was heard at the same time as the Medina gun. My father surveyed and cut the road from Ellicott Mills to Benton's ' Four Corners.' I went on horse- back to carry provisions to the men, bread in one end of a bag and pork in the other, and now the whole country is like a garden." M. A. Harrington died in 1893, at the age of eighty-eight.

James Williams, a native of Vermont, was born in 1759. His wife, Anna Allen, was born in 1760. Their sons, all born in Vermont, were Samuel, James, Jesse, Squire. Allyn, Claramond, Ira Orson, Benjamin, and Valentine. Of these, James came to the Holland Purchase about 1815, and settled in Royalton, Niagara county. In 1817 the rest of the family settled, two on lot 41 in the southwest part of Shelby, and the others in Royalton, Niagara county, and in Alabama in Genesee county. The father died in 1825. The sons died afterward at ages varying from seventy to ninety years. The descendants of this family were numerous here for many years, but more recently many have emigrated to the West.

Nathan Sherwood was born in 1738. He removed from Connecticut to Vermont, thence to Saratoga county, and from there, in 1815, to Orleans county, settling on lot 24, about a mile west from Millville, where he died in 1823. His wife was Rosanna Noble, a native of Con- necticut. Their sons were William and John, both born in Connecticut

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William Sherwood was born in 1774. His wife, Jane Johnson, was born in 1773. Their sons were: Walter, born in 1799; William, jr., born in in 1802; Noble, born in 1809; and Homer, born in 1814. Walter Sher- wood resided on Maple Ridge. about two miles from Medina, till about 1870, when he removed to Oak Orchard, where he soon afterward died. William Sherwood, jr., resided in Ridgeway. He had three sons : Gates, Frank, and Henry. Noble Sherwood was killed by an accident in early manhood. Homer Sherwood died in 1891 on the old homestead. Myron, his oldest son, resided in Millville till his death in 1879. Francis is now living and Deming resides in Denver, Colorado. John Sher- wood, second son of Nathan, resided a mile west from Millville till his death. His sons were : Elisha B., Charles, Guy, Norman B., and Wil- lis M. Elisha B. became a Presbyterian clergyman. He preached a few years in Niagara county, then went west where he became a mis- sionary. Charles died in Gaines at the age of about forty years. Guy still resides on a portion of his father's farm, at the age of seventy-nine years. Norman B. remained on his father's homestead till 1873, when he went to Saratoga, where he died in 1891. Willis M. removed to South Carolina, where he practiced medicine, thence he went to St. Joseph. Mo.

James Darling, son of Benjamin Darling, was born in Massachusetts in 1793 and removed, with his father's family, to New Hampshire in 1795. In 1816 he came to Millville, where he resided till 1837, when he removed to Oakfield, Genesee county, in which town he passed the rest of his life. He was an industrious citizen and followed the business of a master builder. He was the architect of sixty buildings in Shelby and adjoining towns.

Henry Bidleman's parents came from Germany to America prior to the Revolution and settled in the valley of the Mohawk river. Their buildings were burned by the Indians during that war, and they nar- rowly escaped death by fright. Henry Bidleman came from Herkimer county, N. Y., to Shelby in 1816, and purchased from John Timmerman an article for 100 acres of land. The next year the rest of his family came and occupied the log house that had been prepared for them. As they came through Batavia they purchased from the arsenal there some " hard tack" or sea biscuit. A wag named Joseph Snell reported

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that a Mr. Simonds, who resided in the vicinity, ate so freely of these biscuit that they swelled in his stomach and burst him, and that he was to be buried at a certain time, several persons, not understanding the hoax, went to attend the funeral. Mr. Bidleman died in 1860, at the age of eighty-two. Abram Bidleman, a son, was born in Manheim, Herkimer county, in 1800, and came with his father's family to Orleans county in 1817. In 1822 he worked on the canal where Medina is now located, and as he said, there he drank his first and last dram of whisky. He married in 1824 Miss Lucinda Michael. For many years the thrifty wife manufactured all the clothing for the family, and wove hundreds of yards for others. Mr. Bidleman died June 8, 1868. In a sketch written in 1866, and published in Thomas's Pioneer History, Abram Bidleman says :

My father's family consisted of my father and mother and ten children. When he moved here he was, to all intents and purposes, poor. I do not think, besides a pair of old ordinary horses and a cow, he could boast he was worth fifty dollars. I worked out to help support the family till I was twenty-one years of age. * *

* I built for myself a log home twenty feet square, into which I moved my family having but one room which he used for a kitchen, parlor, dining room, etc. Our furniture was such as pioneer farmers in this country usually possessed, viz. : A loom, quill wheel, swifts, great wheel and little wheel, necessary for spinning; seven chairs, a table and a cradle, with a few exceedingly plain culinary utensils which were indispensable to our comfort.

Ralph K. Gregory, of Scotch descent, was born in Connecticut in 1765. He married Deborah Hamilton, and they removed to Fairfield, Vt. Thence, in 1816, with his six sons, he came to Orleans county and located in this town near Millville, where he died in 1837. His wife died in 1832. Their sons were Ira, born 1790; Philo, born 1792 ; Amos, born in 1796; Norman, born in 1798; Ralph, born in 1800 ; and Matthew, born in 1803. All were farmers. Ira married Polly Hubbell in Vermont, settled a mile and a half south from Millville, and reared a large family, mostly sons. He died at the age of eighty- three. Philo married Rachael Card, and they settled between Millville and Medina. They reared two children. He died in Kalamazoo, Mich., at the age of ninety two. Amos married Betsey Wyman, and they settled a mile and a half south from Millville, where he died at the age of eighty-three. They reared two sons and two daughters. Nor- man married Filuria Rice, and settled a mile and a half south from

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Millville. They had two sons, Arnold and Sylvester. He married, for his second wife, Sophia Frost, who died in Millville at the age of eighty- five. Ralph married Lois Mason, a daughter of Jesse Mason, and they resided a mile west from Millville, where both died. They reared three sons and three daughters. Matthew married first, Mary Potter, and they reared four children. His second wife was Laura Root, and his third was Mrs. Rev. John Hoyt. He died at the age of eighty-two.

Matthew Gregory, in Thomas's History writes :

When we arrived at our future residence we had no shelter from man or beast. Or- ange Wells and Samuel Wyman had located in that neighborhood in the spring previous and made small improvements and built log houses. Through the hospitality of Mr. Wells we were kindly sheltered for a week, by which time we had built a cabin for our- selves. Our oxen could live very well on browse, but our horses, after standing one night tied to a brush heap, looked so sorry that my father took them back to Batavia. We were all happy when we got into our new house; not a costly edifice like those dwellings of some of our rich neighbors of the present day, but made of rough un- hewn logs, notched down together at the corners, shingled with rough hemlock boards, with joints broken and battened with slabs round side up; the floor made of split bass- wood logs spotted on the sleepers and flattened on the top, leaving an open space at one end for the fire place on the ground, the end of the floor planks affording a con- venient seat for the children around the fire in the absence of chairs and sofas. * * * At one time my father paid Mr. Phelps eleven dollars for as much pork as he could carry away in a peck measure, I don't recollect the number of pounds. At another * * At one time time he paid Elijah Bent twenty-five cents a pound for pork. *

our supplies were completely exhausted. We had been expecting our father home all day with his bushel of grist, perhaps, but he did not come and we went nearly supper- less to bed expecting he would arrive before morning. Morning came but father did not. We hoped he would come soon, and took our axes and went to work, but our axes were unusually heavy. Faint and slow were the blows we struck that morning. While we boys were trying to chop, mother sifted a bag of bran we had and made of the finest a cake which she brought out to us during the forenoon. We ate this, which stayed us up till noon, when father came, and we had plenty to eat, such as it was. Variety was not to be had in those times.

William Martin was born in Orange county, N. Y., in 1807. In 1816 he removed with his father, William Martin, to a farm which they took up two miles southeast from East Shelby. Thence they removed, in 1826, to a farm in the southwest part of Barre. There the father died, and in 1854 the son removed to a farm near East Shelby, where he died in 1893. In 1838 he married Sarah Ross, who was a native of New Hampshire. They had eight children.

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Nicholas Smith was born in Herkimer county. At a very early time he came to Orleans county and located near West Shelby. He soon removed to a farm near Shelby Basin, and afterward to a place a mile and a half east from Shelby Center. There he kept a tavern three years. He sold it to Daniel Timmerman, who carried on the business some time. His next place of residence was a farm half a mile west from Shelby Center. From there he removed to Shelby Center, and thence to Michigan, where he died in 1863. His wife's maiden name was Susan Garter. She died in 1856. Their son, Nicholas Smith, was born in Herkimer county in 1809. He married Katy A. Sleight, who died in 1889.

Joseph, Daniel, and John Ross came from New Hampshire to Shelby about 1817 and settled on lot 20, about a mile from East Shelby. Some of their descendants still reside in this town. Stephen, the son of Joseph, died in 1893 on the farm which these brothers settled ; Moses, a son of Daniel, died on a farm about a mile south of Shelby Center.

William Dunlap was born in Connecticut in 1789. In his youth he removed to Seneca county, N. Y. He was married in 1813 to Eliza- beth Hunt, who was born in New Jersey in 1795. In 1817 they re- moved to Shelby and located on lot 4, about two miles south from Shelby Center, where they passed the remainder of their lives. She died in 1847, he in 1874. They reared to maturity ten children, of whom five are still living. Leslie and Joseph live in the immediate neighborhood of the old homestead. Near the log cabin which he first built stood a sapling on which Mr. Dunlap hung the quarters of the first calf he slaughtered. That sapling is now a comely tree.

Samuel Bostwick and Laura, his wife, were natives of Vermont. They were married in December, 1816, and in January, 1817, started for the Holland Purchase. They came in a wagon drawn by a yoke of three-year old steers, accompanied by another family in a wagon drawn by an ox team. On their arrival in Shelby both families were domi- ciled in a log house with one door and only the chimney and the spaces between the logs for windows. It was then occupied by another fam- ily, acquaintances from Vermont, and soon afterward still another fam- ily of friends from the same State moved in, making twenty-six per-

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sons in all, who remained till other houses could be prepared. They slept on Genesee bedsteads and on the floor, sat on stools, and used chests for tables. As an example of energy on the part of pioneer women, it is related that in the spring after their arrival Mr. Bostwick, by reason of a cut in his foot, received while making sap troughs, was incapacitated for labor ; and that his wife gathered sap, boiled it in the house in a twelve- quart kettle, a six-quart pot, and a small teakettle, and thus made 160 pounds of sugar. She also made the cloth for the clothing of her own family and wove for others. Mr. Bostwick died twelve or fifteen years after they settled here, and his widow, in 1833, married Otis Baker, a farmer in Shelby.

Jacob A. Zimmerman was born in Manheim, N. Y., in 1795. He came to Shelby in 1817, with John B. Snell, from the same town. He married Nancy Snell in 1817, and in 1819 commenced life on the farm where they ever afterward resided. He died in 1864. His children were: Morris, who married Phoebe Bent; Eleanor, Gilbert, who mar- ried Janette Sanderson ; John A., who married Mary Powers ; Arvilla, who married Egbert B. Simonds; and Andrew L., who married Jennie Bartram. Apropos of their pioneer life, Mr. Zimmerman said :

I made a table ; we had no chairs ; I made three stools, two for ourselves and one for company. Our window lights were white paper ; no glass could be had here then. Our cooking utensils were a four-quart kettle and a black earthen tea pot. I gave a dollar for six cast-iron knives and forks and six cups and saucers, which completed our eating tools. Times were very hard. I was eleven months without a six-pence in money ; two months without any shoes. When we saw shoes tied up with bark we called them half worn out. I gave five bushels of wheat for a pair of coarse shoes made of flank leather.

Col. Andrew A. Ellicott was a native of Lancaster, Pa. He came to Batavia in 1803, and in 1817 removed to Shelby Center, where his uncle, Joseph Ellicott, had given him 800 acres of land, and where he had built mills. He was a benevolent, kind hearted man, and his liberality and goodness caused him to be highly esteemed by his fellow citizens. He married Sarah A. Williams, of Elizabeth, N. J. He died in 1839. His wife died in 1850. Their children were: Cornelia D., who married L. A. G. B. Grant ; Sarah B., who married H. N. Hughes ; Charles, who married Harriet Farnham ; Andrew, who mar- ried Mary Fairman ; Benjamin, who married Jane Garter ; and Joseph,

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who married May Clark. Colonel Ellicott was adopted by the Tona- wanda Indians under the name of Kiawana (signifying a good man) in recognition of the many acts of kindness he had shown them. He has been regarded as 'the patron of Shelby village." He was the first postmaster in town.

Ziba Roberts was born in Vermont in 1800. At the age of four he removed with his father's family to Bloomfield, N. Y., and in 1818 they located in Darien, Genesee county, where the father, Daniel Roberts, died in 1827. In 1826 Ziba Roberts took up the north part of lot 10, in the southeast part of Shelby, and built a shanty thereon. Two years later this rude cabin was replaced by a more comfortable log house, and ten years later he built a framed house. He died in 1885 on the farm which he settled. His wife was Susannah Wolcott, born in 1804 in Montgomery county, N.Y. They were married in 1824. She died in 1892. Of their twelve children seven lived to adult age. Horace married Mary F. Eaton ; Henrietta married James Wolcott ; Charles married Hulda A. Loucks, and Ziba married Cynthia Dewey. The latter was a volunteer in the War of the Rebellion. The father of Ziba Roberts, sr., served in the Revolutionary War.

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Landmarks of Orleans County, New York, Part 54

Author: Signor, Isaac S., ed Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Syracuse : D. Mason Number of Pages: 1084

Author: Signor, Isaac S., ed
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Syracuse : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1084